Jay stood in the middle of the academy courtyard, eyes fixed on the blue sky that... pulsed.
Yes, pulsed, like a heartbeat.
The clouds didn’t drift. They jittered. Repeated. Looped. Froze.
Students walked past him like background NPCs—faces cheerful, expressions blank, some walking through trees as if the collision detection had been turned off.
And the grass turned to stone tiles.
> [Warning: Anchor Sync Failing]
[Rei Kazuma has exited Dream Layer -2 prematurely.]
[Reality Coherence Dropping: 76% ➜ 63%]
Jay sighed, rubbing his temples.
"Of course he’d mess with the layering," he muttered, tone drier than dust. "Can’t let me enjoy a single lazy afternoon without turning the world into a glitchy indie horror game."
The System HUD flickered, struggling to remain stable.
[Sleep Debuff: Permanent]
[Causality Load: 92% - UNSTABLE]
He shuffled toward the library tower, or at least where it should have been.
Instead, a giant floating clock stood in its place, ticking backward, bleeding sand from its minute hand like it was melting time.
People walked in and out of it, unaware.
Jay narrowed his eyes.
"Someone’s trying to overwrite the anchor code," he whispered.
Inside the clock tower, the air was... heavy.
Like dreams were congealing.
Rows of monitors blinked with fragments of Rei’s memories—flashes of a girl holding his hand, an explosion in reverse, a sword planted in ash, someone calling out a name Jay didn’t remember having.
At the center stood a chair, cracked and glowing. Empty.
But beside it was a data fragment floating mid-air.
Jay stepped forward. The System warned:
[Fragment Origin: Rei. Type: Memory. Status: Glitched]
His hand passed through the memory—
And suddenly he was underwater.
He floated in a sphere of cascading logic, voices whispering from all sides.
> "He shouldn’t have woken up."
"This system wasn’t designed for two anchors."
"Terminate the Lazy Variable."
Jay clenched his jaw.
"So that’s how it is, huh?"
The Lazy Genius... wasn’t lazy by chance.
It was intentional stasis. A lock. A failsafe. He wasn’t supposed to move, because if he moved—
The whole thing began to unravel.
> [New Thread Unlocked: USER-ZERO]
[Would you like to access your original purpose?]
Jay stared at the screen.
"No thanks. I’m having fun now."
He turned away, only to freeze—
Because Alicia was standing in the doorway.
Or rather... a version of her.
Floating two inches off the ground.
"Jay," she whispered. "You’re still dreaming."
> [ALERT: SLEEP CONTAMINATION LEVEL 91%]
[PRIMARY SYSTEM ANCHOR THREAT DETECTED]
The tower shook. Voices screamed inside the walls. The grass outside was now white static. Rei’s awakening had broken something foundational.
> "Guess I’ve got no choice," he said.