Nightmare System

Man of Cursed Spirit

[Impossible Nightmare System – Stage 1-Level 1]

*Man of Cursed Spirit becomes a player*

*The player will participate, or fail*

*The punishment wheel will be spun for failure*

The voice echoed in Hell's brain. "Participate?" Hell murmured.. "What?"

*The player chose to participate*

The voice was heard again. "Who is it?!" He yelled into the void as he realized this didn't seem to be his room anymore. He then remembered.

"Ah, that's right. I went to sleep. Such a weird dream again." He thought to himself. He lucid dreamt a lot, so he was always semi-conscious in his dreams. Well, nightmares. He had a lot of them.

*Man of Cursed Spirit joins the session*

"Again? Is it there?" Hell said, picking a direction and trying to move ahead, however failing as he stood suspended in the air. He imagined himself the ability to fly and suddenly he could. The void seemed endless.

*Enemy is being chosen, defeat the boss and clear the level.*

*Enemy is chosen, prepare to face the Child of The Djinn of Manipulation*

"Damn it, where are-" Hell was thrown to somewhere all a sudden as he failed to complete his sentence. His surroundings changed as his mind was filled with the scenario of the dream, just as it happened in his dreams every single time. It was usually the best to go with the flow, but this one felt odd, more realistic.

"Hello Captain, eh, Pirate?" a tall, blonde girl said as she approached Hell.

"I told you I was a pirate captain, but not just any pirate. I am the unknown, the mysterious one." Hell joked and added without a pause. "Well," he continued. "I'll go and look around a bit, talk to you later, though."

"Alright then." The girl said, joining her other friends.

Hell wore a bicorne hat as well as a wooden sword and a plastic gun, accompanied by the toy parrot on his shoulder and an eye-patch, he also had a weirdly small gun in his pockets. It looked to be shooting some odd chips when he examined it. He also found a phone in his pocket with a similar claw-like design on it. He shot the gun into a glass and suddenly the phone started showing the glass from a third-person angle. "Alrighty," Hell said.

"I feel, more conscious this time around. Shouldn't be so even in a fully lucid dream. Odd." He said as he continued partying, giving up on leaving the flat he was in as he still was in somewhat of a daze, it was harder to gather your thoughts properly in dreams. The place had a blueish tint all around with no windows around. It was a large underground apartment complex. Hell realized he wasn't living here, originally, and although some people did, he was here to host the party.

"Hey, dude!" He heard someone exclaim. "Matt, I knew you'd come to the party." Someone else commented.

Matt entered the room and started drinking, joked around with people. "Are these people retarded? f*****g scripted assholes." Hell thought, seeing the gun on Matt's belt. He was obviously bad news, but this dream seemed more pleasant than his usual ones for sure, so he thought he would try to reason with the baddie this time. Hell approached him.

"Hey, Matt." He said. "Can I borrow you for a second?"

"Sure bud, I'm here for your party anyway." Matt immediately replied. He was an Asian man with a medium build, fringed up hair and no facial hair. He was a handsome man who wore an innocent smile on his face.

They proceeded to the outside of the flat and Hell also noticed on the way out that some scars seemingly caused by 3 fangs in a triangle shape at the back of Matt's neck. Hell truly didn't know what creature he was facing against.

"Alright, Mate. I want to be quick here, I know you are some weird creature controlling Matt."

"That is hilarious," Matt said after a moment of pause, adding "should we go back inside now?"

"Dude, this really isn't my first rodeo, I see the bite markings or whatever on his neck, as well as the gun on your belt. Where the f**k did you even find a-" Hell was saying as Matt interjected with a serious face.

"Hell, I think you have had too much to drink. Let me take you to my room so you can rest, huh?"

"So what, are you planning on having Matt kill me? Let's just be friends and party here, we have plenty of drink as well. Do we have to really fight?" Hell said with a friendly manner. "Look, I don't even care if you are controlling him, I am just passing time here."

Matt wore a frown on his face. He nodded and said he'd leave here. Achieving his goal, Hell returned to the party and chatted with people, messed around and had fun. After a few hours, he saw Matt again with a furious face. "I have to do this!" he yelled as he rushed through the door with a gun on his hand.

Hell was both the host and the trusted friends of all these people. He was annoyed with these developments, but he still realized he had no choice and acted swiftly. "He has a gun! Stop him!"

Matt tried to shoot Hell, but he was the furthest from the door with all these people around, he missed the first shot, and was quickly overwhelmed by some of the jocks around.

Hell got closer to have a look, and a slug-like creature suddenly left from the wound at the back of his neck as he lost his gun and got into a rat he found on the corridor.

"f**k!" Hell said. He couldn't react soon enough and people were busy trying to reach out to Matt to understand what was happening, who was unconscious as soon as the slug left.

The rat started running away in speed and Hell shot a chip at him. He missed the first one and it stuck to the floor, the second one barely hit, but was soon no longer visible.

He had a limited number of these chips, only around 10 or so being left, he didn't shoot anymore and hoped he could see the rat now. Taking out the phone, he saw a rat from a close third-person view, running.

He didn't want to fight an enemy that could enter others' bodies and control them. He then heard a scream and some noise in the flat again. He was thinking about waking himself up, but the scream suddenly made him forget about his plans, he slowly walked in.

The scene was horrifying to Hell, that was a thorough and thorough zombie, having bitten someone's ear off and trying to attack people. He immediately took the gun people left on the table and wanted to shot him in the head, missed and one of the glasses on another table ahead exploded, Matt's attention now drawn to him.

Hell remembered his nightmares with zombies in them. He remembered the horror of getting bitten to death and how much it hurt. He didn't usually mind dying in dreams, but dying like that had caused him to almost breakdown and cry the first time it happened.

He fired the gun three more times, even though his second shot had reached his brain and killed him. "Can never be too careful." He talked to himself, looking at the guy who was bitten, already showing symptoms of turning into a zombie.

"So that's his game, huh?" Hell murmured. He wanted to get the attention of everyone.

"Listen up!" he yelled. "Did you know what Matt turned into?" looking at the crowd of people, he had around 25 people in the large room. "He was a zombie, one of the things in those movies!" he added, after not getting a rapid response.

"What the hell is that?" Some people asked. Hell understood this world didn't have the zombie movies and such.

"It's a living dead person and if you are bitten you will soon show symptoms like fatigue, paleness and turn into one of them, killing and turning everyone else you see!"

He pointed at one of the jocks holding his ear and sitting down, looking sick. "That is bullshit!" The jock yelled with some strength. "This is because I lost some blood, call the ambulance!"

Hell ignored him and continued: "There is a chance cutting the infected body part will save you, but unfortunately, that is not currently an option. We can wait and see what happens if you'd like, but if you leave here on your own there is a chance you will be one of those after being preyed on.

I suggest we bar the door with everything we have here and call for help." He was shaking as he finished his speech. He wasn't scared of crowds, but this was the first time he spoke in front of a crowd in such an important situation.

Hell slowly recovered and asked for people who wanted to survive to gather around him, 6 jocks including the one bitten left the party as they cursed at Hell. The remaining 20 including himself was there with him, so he told them to bring the body outside and bar the door with all the furniture here.

He took out the phone again but saw the rat just lying down, it seemed animals or at least rats didn't turn into anything special or supernatural. He saw a man take the rat with his hands and toss it into the trash.

"Come, my baby." Hell heard the man say followed by a baby's cheerful sound.

"f**k,” Hell whispered. He didn't want to kill any babies, zombie or not. But at least now he knew the parasite already had a new host. After around 15 minutes or so, two of the jocks returned with blood all over them and tried to get inside.

"Please open the door, we now know you are right, Hell. Please, open it quickly!"

"Are you guys bitten?" Hell asked. He would rather have well-built people on his side than as nigh-unkillable zombies.

"No! Quick! The stairs and elevator to the surface were both barred by the piling debris, I think there was a quake! Please!" One of the jocks got the words out in a pitiful state. Hell knew the bitten jock had turned and perhaps even took three of them out somehow. This was already a big problem. Zombies were stronger in numbers.

"Be quick! Open the door!" Hell yelled as he also helped get the furniture out the way. Getting the furniture out of the way was relatively easier as in a minute or two, they cleared out the path.

"Wait in the corner," Hell said as he told everyone to bar the door again, he had knives and even some billiard cues around.

As long as it was not a direct confrontation, he was confident they could handle some zombies. He knew this was not a particularly large complex, there shouldn't be too many people. So he would definitely check jocks for any sort of bite marks, he had only two bullets left in the gun.

The jocks waited in the bathroom, washing up the blood off themselves. As Hell stood there and said they would have to be checked for any bite marks right after this. Nodding, they quickly washed up. While checking one of the jocks, however, Hell saw a small scar.

"What is this?"

"I fell down while running, that's not a bite, I swear!" the jock said, perspiring. Hell tried the contain his anger as best as he could, he suspected the slug probably got into this guy since he didn't look pale like his friend earlier, however it was also true that jock had lost too much blood.

"He became a monster soon after like you said. He bit down on Jack's neck as the blood sprayed us both. Lewis and Ben were trying to hold him down but we-"

"Ran away." Hell said, "Right? Good choice, zombies aren't things you can fight barehanded. Show me the back of your neck. And Hugh?" he pointed at the other jock. "Hold him down if he tries anything funny."

Hugh nodded his head and he checked his neck, not failing to look at Hugh's neck in the meantime either. There were no scars. He told them to stay in the corner just in case as he went back to the others. "This is all too surreal." He thought. "I can't wake myself up or control this shitty dream at all."

He then saw people just gathered around the door, not barring it. He saw the man with a baby pleading to the people and they were slowly subconsciously letting him in, against his orders.

"Some tipsy bastards won't be as good as soldiers obviously, but damn," Hell said, remembering the voice of the baby. The man who came was talking about people who look like monsters who ate people and that he could only save his baby.

Hell aimed the gun to the man and talked as if he was being cautious as he got closer. "We have to check you for bite marks first, give me the baby," Hell said.

"Hell, come on, this is just a father who is afraid, don't be ridiculous." One of the men said. Backed by a few of the girls as well.

"You have just learned undead are real and this is your reaction? Drunk assholes," he yelled at them, waving the gun around. "We have to check every single person if we are to let anyone in!" Scared and confused, some people murmured under their breaths, but they were scared beyond words, so they shut up soon after.

"Give me the baby and take off your shirt." He then pointed to two of the people closest to the man. "Check for anything resembling a bite mark or just a new injury."

The guys did so and when one of them casually told the man to turn around, he seemed to not think much of it and did so, revealing the same odd scars on his neck. Hell aimed at the neck wound this time and shot the man from the point-blank distance without any hesitation, while also having an eye out for any slug-like creature.

Everyone was horrified, people didn't know why he shot the man out of nowhere, everything was going well. "It is done. I won!" Hell said, after seeing nothing came out of the man's corpse.

"Dumbass." He suddenly heard a high-pitched sound close to his arms. The baby had a scary grin on his face as something came out of his mouth instead of a wound from the neck. The man was a trap, and he did just as the creature wished.

The slug was fast, and the only thing he could do was drop the baby and take a step back as the creature rushed at his mouth, now slightly open because of his momentary shock.

He tried to close his mouth as soon as Hell saw the creature was aiming there. He barely got the creature with its teeth and bit down hard. It was unexpected and the creature was incredibly chewy. It was hard to completely bite down. Hell immediately grabbed it as the creature started biting and destroying the inside of his mouth.

Hell didn't let go, either, and bit down harder as the pain became worse. The creature squirmed in pain and he took the creature out of his mouth, spitting out the creature’s fluids and flesh.

He felt like vomiting because of the taste in his mouth, but he did the only thing he could think of and started biting the creature's head as the creature was also still in his iron grip. The creature was crying out, its scream was like the shattering of glass, hurting his ears immensely.

It was in a completely disfigured state as it was no longer screaming. "Doesn't matter," Hell heard the voice in his mind, it was a sinister and old voice. "My undead will soon be here." After speaking, the creature's limp body fell to a lifeless state.

"Hell, are you okay?" one of the girls approached.

"I am fine." Hell wanted to say, but his words were completely incomprehensible as his tongue was almost in pieces, barely staying in his mouth. The pain felt surreal.

He hoped he wouldn't become a zombie because of the damage and brought the creature with him. He turned on the stove and started burning the creature. The creature once again squirmed in pain, this time with less strength and died.

He then heard another voice in his head.

[Stage 1-Level 1 of the Nightmare System Has Been Cleared]

*Congratulations on defeating the Child of The Djinn of Manipulation*