Within the university, a youth walked with his companion in tranquility while carrying his heavy satchel, encumbered in the shoulders; it was not manifest whether his neck was bowed due to the gravity of the bag or the burdens of existence

  ?In the serene streets that were not swarmed by many people, as it was yet morning, only a few students were present before ten o'clock in the forenoon

  ?That youth appeared so utterly preoccupied in thought that he could not even attend to the vehicle speeding toward him, which was poised to strike him

  "Watch out!"

  ?Directly, his companion hauled him away from the vehicle’s trajectory, fraught with anxiety

  "My God, I told you, Eli, that you should walk in the direction of the pedestrian path

  Look, I have afflicted you with my curse "

  The youth named Elian laughed and responded to him

  " I fear that if I walked in the direction distant from the vehicles and left you exposed, O magnet of accidents, an ambulance would arrive to trample us like the last time "

  ?His companion, Cairn, smiled like one suppressing his laughter; then, after a few seconds of both laughing, Cairn asked him calmly

  " So, what is amiss? Why do you appear so deeply preoccupied, usually you converse much

  I am the one who typically desires silence, not you "

  ?Elian frowned somewhat and felt indeed within himself a sense of perturbation, so he replied in a bewildered tone

  "Nothing, it was merely a nightmare "

  Cairn asked him in a confident tone, wherein it did not seem the speaker was merely inquiring

  " Is it a nightmare, or has your family quarreled with you once more "

  ?Elian laughed with a half-smile, reflecting the finest degrees of black comedy that he possesses most of the time

  ?While it might naturally appear that he is enjoying himself if the other person did not know him well, he is now before his childhood friend, thus he has no need to conceal his suffering

  " Both, you know how my life appears "

  ?It might seem that the speaker of this phrase suffers from familial tribulations, and so he does

  But the life of the one called Elian was not always of such wretchedness, in fact, previously his life could be considered a luxurious life where his father inherited a noble title and was a successful businessman in the era of the economic transition

  ?But all that has become of the past now

  With the difficult economic situation currently in their country, if you are not affluent, you are in one way or another indigent

  ?In fact, none of this matters, for poverty is not necessarily a cause for misery, nor can the university student be described as being in such a wretched state due to poverty

  ?If we merely attempted to use soft phrases, what might we say?

  We could only say that the matter pertains to a lack of harmony

  ?" Hah " Cairn sighed and continued his speech in a sarcastic tone with some curiosity

  " I always tell you that your family is mad, you should merely ignore them, but anyway, what is this dream?

  This is the first time you have a dream and do not recount it to me directly when we meet "

  ?" Ahhh-umm.... " Elian hesitated a little, seemingly attempting to gather his scattered thoughts before he spoke

  ?" I simply do not know how to describe it, nor do I truly remember that dream with clarity "

  While he was speaking, his body began to tremble slightly as if a cold shiver had passed over his back, and he began to speak with a vacant gaze

  ?" I-I believe it was a nightmare

  It was extremely terrifying

  The entire world ended, everyone became deceased, you died, my mother died, my brother died, my sister di- "

  ?"Calm down!"

  Cairn interrupted him suddenly

  While he was just speaking, the velocity of his speech was initially hesitant and slow, but gradually the speed of his speech shifted into a radical transformation hysterically, where you might struggle to comprehend his words if you were not sufficiently attentive

  ?Therefore, his friend interrupted him when he noticed his anomalous state, departing from the norm

  And he waited until clarity returned to the eyes of Elian, then posed a question to him

  " So, is it another one of those apocalypse dreams? Do you remember anything or a distinctive sign? "

  ?Composure had already returned to Elian’s mind, so the dialogue returned to its natural form between the two

  ?" I believe indeed that it was a dream signifying Judgment Day or the like,

  I do not truly remember the details of the dream, I only remember that there was a very colossal eye in the sky staring toward the earth where I was

  And afterward, the heads of everyone around me began detonating "

  ?" You say an eye, hmmm, " Cairn hummed, then continued his speech

  " Truly interesting

  Regardless, you must remain calm now, it is merely a dream, do not let it affect your life, what your family does is enough "

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  ?" Ugh, do not even remind me

  Today, because of them, I was compelled to go to the hospital "

  ?" Hospital! Are you okay?? "

  ?Elian replied at length to his anxious friend

  " Yes, it is just that while I was sleeping, Asser grabbed the fire extinguisher to play with it again, and I had previously warned him a thousand times not to do so

  So today he decided to discharge it in my face !

  ?I was already within the nightmare, with everyone’s heads detonating, and the eye that eclipsed the sun looked at me, then everything turned black before my face and I began to feel suffocated, then I could not breathe at all

  ?I thought I was dying in the dream at the hands of the eye until I realized amidst my suffocation that I was dying at the hands of my brother in reality !

  I did not realize this until after I heard the voice of my mother screaming and removing him from me, then they took me to the emergency hospital "

  ?Cairn’s footsteps ceased, and he stood in his place shocked, staring at Elian and asked him

  "Are you alright?...

  My God, I know that your younger brother is like a demon, but this truly exceeds the boundaries ! "

  ?" Yes, fret not, I am fine, only some issues with respiration persist until now, but I am fine

  Anyway, we have already reached my university, what do you think about attending with me tod-"

  ?Elian tried to drag his friend to attend the university with him, but Cairn interrupted him directly

  ?" I shall refuse, you know that I barely tolerate the university and seldom come,

  I shall hardly attend my lectures and return home after the afternoon or before, depending on the mood of the doctors today "

  ?" Fine, will you go out today? "

  ?" I don't know, I'm still engrossed in the last novel I'm reading, and I haven't completed all my exercises for today yet

  So most likely I won't go out, but if I do, I'll tell you anyway, but for now, goodbye so I can catch my lectures "

  ?After a simple farewell between the two friends, Elian headed to the "Artificial Intelligence" department for fourth-year students, and the doctor began delivering his lecture on Interactive Design

  The lecture was relatively enjoyable for him; Elian learned from the doctor about how to program codes that determine the interaction of the user interface with the individual's usage, whether from touch or flipping the screen

  ?The matter is relatively easy, but when looking at the quantity of slides he needs to memorize, he felt a wretchedness greater than that caused by Asser in the morning

  Or so he thought within the depths of himself, it being unclear whether this was due to his habituation to his brother's catastrophes or if he

  was attempting to dismiss them from his mind

  ?'At least had I died this morning, I would have been relieved of this malaise '

  He sighed inwardly, unclear as to what malaise he meant, but he continued focusing on his lectures for the remainder of the day, which persisted until five o'clock, near sunset; and while he was returning home, he dialed his sister's number

  After the phone rang a little, the other party answered in a colloquial tongue

  [ Yeah? ]

  [ Ugh, Asser, why are you the one answering? ]

  ?[ Don't matter. Whatcha want? ]

  ?[ Ask your mother if you all need anything for the house ]

  The other party vanished from the phone for a while, then returned to reply

  [ Yeah, she says bring two kilos of rice on your way from the spice shop, there's a discount on rice there

  And bring me a bag of kebab chips ]

  ?[ Fine, ask Ela if she also needs anything from outside ]

  Asser replied directly

  [ She says bring her a bag of kebab chips too ]

  ?[ Fine ]

  ?After this, Elian closed the phone and headed to purchase the goods

  It was not sufficient for him to buy the rice only; for as the current man of the house, he took care alone of purchasing various household necessities of food and the like

  ?So he passed by the market on his way back to buy some potatoes suitable for frying in oil

  And he bought additional bread for the house, and with some shopping, his hand became indeed encumbered with the many requests he purchased for the home

  ?He took out his phone again and called Cairn, as he was walking near his place of work, so he called to see if he was present to drop by him, but he answered that he was currently immersed in reading a horror novel and did not intend to go out for a period before he finished the current events

  ?After hearing that, Elian had nothing to do but return home while immersed in his thoughts

  Of course, he did not get sufficient opportunity to delve deep into his thoughts, as many of the shop and vegetable stall owners were greeting their regular customer

  And while walking back home, he met two of his university friends, so he stopped to greet them, then returned home

  ?Elian resided in a somewhat ancient building whose walls were permeated from the inside by a faint trace of a fire, while from the outside, the exterior paint appeared clearly dilapidated

  ?Well, you cannot truly describe the type of house he lives in as poverty, as the rent of this house is already high

  ?Rather, it is in a vital city like the city of Alfaron, where every piece of land is extremely expensive

  For real estate here possesses exaggerated prices that might be more costly than the prices of the capital

  But there is no other way

  ?Elian pushed the metal gate and entered the dark building, as the lamps were broken and he did not truly have many neighbors in this building

  For with the exception of his family,

  There was truly no one who was active in this building

  ?And his family did not go out much, so they did not need a light to illuminate for them the darknesses of this staircase

  As for Elian himself, although he went out daily to the university and to buy house necessities, his eyes had already become accustomed to the darkness surrounding the stairs and their locations

  So he did not fear ascending the dark stairs

  ?Soon he began to ascend the stairs

  Tock....Tock....Tock.... with the succession of his feet's movement, he could hear the sound of his footsteps' fall on the stairs

  Usually, he could not hear the sound of his footsteps from the external noise from the street

  But today the atmosphere seemed quiet in an eerie manner

  ?Tock....Tock.....Tock.....Elian continued ascending the stairs while an uncanny sensation haunted him, and when his foot trod upon the floor of the second story, the feeling of anxiety soon intensified in his heart

  ?Tick....Tick....Tick....his heart began to beat with a more rapid pace while he felt some pain in his chest resulting from the constriction of respiration

  The pain appeared similar to the pain he felt early in the morning when he woke from sleep unable to breathe

  ?But the pain was much weaker than then, otherwise, he would not have been able to continue moving until he passed by the only door of the house on the second story

  Fshhhhh.........

  The cold air passed through Elian, making the shivers haunt him, but he continued his steps until he ascended the third story where his house door is located

  Shuck...Shuck...

  ?The metal keys produced a clear sound amidst the silence of the night, and while he was attempting to open the door, he became able to hear the sound of heavy footsteps accompanied by a thud rushing toward the house door

  ?' This must be my brother,

  For only this ridiculous one walks—rather jumps—strutting with his steps like this '

  ?Ignoring his belief and stifling the feeling of annoyance in his heart from the presence of his brother, soon

  Elian pushed the key into the door lock and turned it to open the door, announcing the arrival of the house light to the gripping darkness of the stairs

  ?And while he was about to enter the house, his steps were cut by a loud scream coming from above

  "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"