Piling on a variety of interpretations, trying to understand.
What envelopes your dreams is a sense of isolation, of alienation, an image of death. From there, expressed in simple tales, is something resembling depression. In reality, you’re a girl with no place to belong. Unloved by your parents, not fitting in at places like school, you avoid reality and escape into your dreams...
Scolded by your parents, bullied by classmates, backed into a corner.
You sob in pain, locking yourself away in that little room in an attempt to avoid everything. Only during those times where you dream in your bed can you forget about your painful reality.
It’s easy to imagine. After all, dreams are a mirror that reflects the heart and mind. These dreams do not contain happy things or things so fun that they make your heart dance, but rather they drip with decay. Your mind and heart are ill. They’re exhausted, warped, and stagnant.
However, I have no positive proof. There’s no guarantee that my conjecture is correct.
I get the feeling that I’m overlooking something fundamental.
After all, if this were a dream to help you escape reality, then it should be more fascinating to you, it should heal you, should be a dream full of joy that stimulates you and allows you to lose yourself. But this place isn’t that. There’s no salvation or endpoint, it’s merely tedious and uncomfortable.
And then, that’s right. There’s me. That thought doesn’t include me. Those monochromatic, sister-like girls and that girl with the hat and scarf all spoke to me, not you. Why me? What am I? I’m supposed to be an Effect, something just picked up along the way — something unimportant, so what significance do I have?
“I don’t get it,” I groan, but I am given no time to think.
I hear footsteps.
They reverberate with loudly through the cramped, blood-colored passage.
It’s that particular sound of shoes — so familiar that it makes me feel some sense of nostalgia.
It’s you, walking along.
You’re somewhere in this long, narrow, and maze-like passage, perhaps close by.
While I’ve been tearing myself apart, drowning in useless thought, you’ve been wandering about at your own pace.
It’s like a dolphin’s brain — half of the brain is just waking up while the other half has been up and moving the whole time — so while “I” have been standing in place, “you” have likely been on the move.
Consciousness and unconsciousness switch out, as we live in a constant exchange of the two. You and I have that sort of relationship. You and I are separate people, so even as I go one way or the other, you move along on your own. It’s rare for the conscious and unconscious to face each other. That might be why you cannot see me. And it might be why I cannot catch you.
It seems like what the monochromatic girls were talking about hints at that......
Agh, I’m thinking too much and losing my ability to make sense of anything.
At any rate, I want to find you.
I want to see you.
Like the heads or tails of a coin, we may never be able to meet face-to-face, and that might be fine. I want to be with you, and yet the fact that you get farther away is so unnatural. The back cannot cling to the abdomen, so as the two get farther apart, they’re torn to pieces, and the person dies.
I begin walking, following the sound of your footsteps.
The sound seems to suggest that you’ve hit several dead ends.
Each time you do, I change direction, fretting. Humans cannot think about that which they do not know. I have no choice but to walk along this lengthy road known as knowledge. Fumbling. Digging my way through with a pickaxe of books or other peoples’ words.
Finally, at the end of the passage, I find you.
You’re moving along at an unchanging pace.
Those swaying braids.
I let out a sigh of relief, feeling like I might sink to the ground.
There you are.
You’re right here.
I am euphoric at that fact alone.
But right at the moment that I’m about to breathe another sigh of relief, a shudder runs through my entire body.
There’s something moving right next to you.
It’s a woman, one I’ve seen several times throughout the dreams. An incredibly slender woman. With almost venomous, vivid-colored skin. A tapered nose, like a witch’s. And those huge, goggling eyes......
That woman gives me a bad feeling, but she’s always been harmless. She just wanders aimlessly about. However, it’s different this time. Those eyes are tinged a threatening purple color, and they leap to and fro at a dizzying pace. Her movements are also more suspicious than usual, as she flails and kicks her arms and legs about like she’s struggling.
It’s like she’s lost her sanity.
She’s like malice itself.
You’re completely unaware of the woman walking right behind you.
She’s closing in on you, like she might do something awful, incite some violence.
I won’t let her.
The thought seizes my mind.
I won’t let anyone harm you. I won’t let anyone steal you away.
Not even God himself.
I run desperately along, dripping blood, my body in shambles.
I reach out my hand, reaching the body of the woman with the wide, bloodshot eyes and clamping down.
You turn around, like you noticed the sound.
And then, you take a step back. You’re so slow. I cry out to you.
“Run!”
Though my voice is unlikely to reach you.
Because you likely can’t see me.
“Survive—”
These are my true, raw feelings.
I want to do something for you. I wanted to give you everything that was within my power. However, I can’t. I regret it. I want to atone for my sins. I would be fine with sacrificing myself for you, without any reward.
Even if that meant that I would lose my place within your dream.
No matter what I do within your dreams, it has no meaning.
It probably has no effect on reality.
And then, I—
In that instant, the woman with the purple eyes grabs me by the neck in aggravation. She begins to strangle me. Her lips emit a shrill sound. She’s so close with those ominous eyes of hers. I spit at her and let out a cry, and she tightens her hold. She pushes me up against the wall, and I struggle frantically.
Strangulation is not a matter of one dying because they stop breathing. With the neck constricted, the blood flow stops, which means that it can’t reach the brain. Without any oxygen, from whatever the cause, the brain cannot do its job. You lose the ability to dream.
My vision begins to fade. The dream collapses in on itself, the area within my grasp disappears.
You run ahead without looking back.
I feel like I finally remember what those swaying braids are a symbol of.