The wind seeped through the window cracks.
It felt less like a breeze and more like an invisible tentacle, slowly burrowing beneath my skin.
I awoke in that abandoned psychiatric ward.
Or rather—I had never truly left.
The second hand of the wall clock froze at 3:15. I remembered this hour—the moment the "Ghost Loop" had last manifested.
Yet now, the entire ward had become an inverted labyrinth. Every door led to a place that felt like a memory from my dreams.
Breathing in the icy air, I looked up.
A bare bulb hung from the ceiling. Between the flickers of its filament, a shadowy form loomed. That shadow breathed almost in sync with me.
I could hear its voice.
> "Evelyn... you're not awake yet."
The voice was faint, as if seeping from the depths of my mind.
I dared scarcely believe it. It was Lucas's voice.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
After this "cycle" ended, I had thought he truly vanished—his soul dissolving into the light, never to return.
Yet now, his voice had come back, hovering between my consciousness and my dreams.
---
[Side Quest: Fragments of a Ghost]
The iron door at the ward's end stood ajar. A tattered label clung to it—
「Project LUCID: Patient ID-07」.
Stepping inside, I found several sheets scattered across the floor, like torn pages from files.
Each contained distinct experimental logs:
> "Subject can enter others' dreams but cannot distinguish reality from illusion."
"Upon triggering the Lucid Threshold, consciousness will undergo infinite collapse."
"Target Subject: L.Y."
I froze.
L.Y.—Lucas Yuan.
In that instant, the lights abruptly extinguished. The ward fell into deathly silence.
Footsteps echoed through the darkness—neither hurried nor slow, yet landing precisely between the beats of my own heart.
I retreated, only to collide with a cold wall. My fingers touched something damp—like blood, yet like condensed mist.
The footsteps halted. A blurred silhouette appeared before me.
He wore the grey shirt from our first meeting.
Only, his eyes no longer held the colour of the living.
> "Evelyn... can you see me?"
I reached out, only to pass right through him.
The air rippled like waves, distorting the entire room. Walls melted, floors cracked, fragments floated upwards—I knew I had entered the Lucid Realm.
This was no longer physical space, but the remnant consciousness we shared with Lucas.
---
[Main Storyline: Collapse of Consciousness]
"What are you doing here?" I whispered, barely audible.
Lucas smiled, his voice ethereal: "I never left. I was merely... trapped outside the loop. The Ghost Loop isn't the end. It's merely the entrance."
"The entrance? To what?"
"To the truth."
He paused, as if searching for words.
"Or rather—to the part we shouldn't have seen."
The surrounding scenes began to overlap: the hospital ward, the interrogation room, and that ancient building I'd investigated. All locations flashed by like slides.
My consciousness was forcibly pulled into a cascade of images.
I saw—
The recording of that **'Vision Sense Experiment'**.
I saw the doctors documenting my reactions.
I saw myself strapped to a chair, my head connected to some kind of sensory apparatus.
"That wasn't a dream," Lucas's voice echoed in my ear.
"That was the first time they activated your Vision Sense."
I froze.
"What do you mean? Are you saying—I was experimented on?"
He didn't answer, merely raised his hand. A speck of light appeared in his palm, resembling a shattered memory chip.
> "Find the remaining fragments... only then will you see the complete truth."
The speck drifted slowly towards me.
As I reached out to touch it—
The entire ward instantly collapsed into countless shards of glass. I was swept into a torrent of light.
---
[Layers of Dreams]
I plummeted down an endless corridor.
Mirrors lined the walls, each reflecting a different version of myself:
weeping, enraged, bloodied.
Yet the central mirror held nothing—
a blank void.
I approached that mirror.
The moment my fingertips touched the glass, a stranger girl appeared within.
Her face was almost identical to mine, yet her eyes were hollow.
She spoke:
> "You still think you're Evelyn Song?"
I froze.
"Who are you?"
> "I am the one who was created. The prototype of Vision Sense. You are merely my continuation."
My mind buzzed. For that instant, I nearly forgot to breathe.
Memory fragments surged: laboratories, codenames, data…
E.S-Prototype 2.0.
"I… am not the original me?"
I murmured, my voice faint enough to be swallowed by the dreamscape.
The figure in the mirror smiled, her eyes glowing with an eerie light.
> "To know the truth, pass through me."
Her hand extended through the glass, lightly touching my forehead.
In that instant, I heard the sound of shattering glass.
---
[Side Story: Lucas's Choice]
Meanwhile, deep within the spirit realm, Lucas's form began to blur.
He knew his existence in this layer of the dream depended solely on Evelyn's consciousness pulling him there.
Once she crossed the Lucid Threshold, he would vanish completely.
> "Is it time she knew?"
A deep voice echoed in the darkness—the Ghost Loop system's "Master Consciousness".
Lucas clenched his jaw and looked up at the orb of light: "She has the right to know. She isn't your test subject."
The light remained silent for several seconds. Then it replied:
> "Are you prepared, then? To dissolve into her reality?"
He smiled faintly: "I've been ready for a long time."
In that moment, he poured his final remnant of consciousness into that point of light—
the memory of the experiment's true nature.
He knew that when Evelyn awoke, everything would be different.
---
[Lucid Threshold]
I passed through the mirror, and the world froze in an instant.
All sound, colour, and temperature vanished.
I stood in a pure white space, casting no shadow beneath my feet.
A voice echoed in my mind—
the system's alert tone:
> "Lucid Threshold reached. Subject awakening initiated."
At last I understood—
This was no ghostly curse, but an experiment called LUCID PROJECT.
Ghost Loop, Vision Sense, Dream Interface—all were devices to manipulate consciousness.
And I? Merely an "observer" they had manufactured.
A wrenching pain seized my chest. I knelt.
Tears fell, weightless.
Then I heard his final words.
> "Evelyn... do not fear. What you see may not be false."
I turned back, yet his figure was nowhere to be seen.
In its place, a single point of light drifted slowly into my open palm.
I closed my hand, and a blinding white light filled my vision.
---