My mortal injuries disappeared as the brightness settled down, and I found myself in an empty room. It is inhabited only by a chair and a table. The rest of it was completely bare, but I nonetheless recognised it as the basement of my familial home, and as I did so, the memories flooded back.

  …How long have I been lost in this delusion? What the hell happened?!

  Now I remembered the full story. I had been on the verge of being destroyed by SHLAD-01 when I was suddenly informed by system panels that I had completed the requirements to unlock the first part of the ‘Nightmare Form’ or something along those lines, and then… It had told me that I still needed to do something else to gain it and had just thrown me into this false reality without my memories.

  An A.R.DL, it had called it? What in damnation does ‘A.R.DL’ even mean? Can you hear me, Nara?

  My little sister did not respond. It seemed like I was still in a space between this false reality and the real world. Nara couldn’t hear me… Or perhaps she could, and I was the one who couldn’t hear her responses.

  Regardless of what the truth was here, I sat down on the chair as it was the only thing I could do, which prompted a large system panel to pop out of thin air within my vision.

  Congratulations on completing a trial of your own, Mara Maeve Maya Nebulo. You have successfully acquired the first stage of the ‘Nightmare Form’

  Nightmare Form - Acquired from completing several conditions and successfully completing the requirements within an A.R.DL

  Dream Walker: When near slumbering people or creatures, transforming into this form will allow you to invade their dreams and nightmares. Within, you will have minor control over your form and the ability to turn the dream into a nightmare of your own

  The Cauchemar Beast: When within a nightmare trial, or when performing an invasion, you can assume the nightmarish form of the beast that trial takers are faced with during the initial trials

  Our Little Horror Story: When within the A.R.DL, you designed your own Wonderland, and more importantly, mechanical daughters. Now, victims of your nightmare trials will have to endure another trial that will result in their death if they fail to achieve victory. A trial based on the game you've forced the night watcher to go through...

  Huh… First stage… All of this nonsense was just for the first stage? I don’t want to know what you’ll want me to do for the second one. This was already terrible… But informative, nonetheless.

  I was soon booted out of whatever space this was supposed to be and found myself somewhere dark.

  Hold on, I am buried, that’s why I can’t see crap.

  Mara…?

  Nara! My little cutie pie! I am so sorry I was gone for so long!

  Huh… I think I was gone too. I blanked out

  Did you? Well, I guess that’s better than you having to wait for me to come back. Check out my memories, I got launched into an A.R.DL–Whatever that means–And had to live another life for months on end. I don’t even know for sure what the requirements were to escape it… Do you think the same amount of time passed here as I spent inside this other place?

  Nara was silent for a few moments as she gathered herself and reviewed my memories of the A.R.DL…

  I had no idea that there would be such a thing required to unlock the ‘Nightmare Form’... Though it might not be that bad of a thing, it means that I am allowed to speak more freely than before about certain things

  How so?

  To put it simply, what you experienced wasn’t nonsense. It isn’t a scenario that was invented… It is something that could have happened. It could have been your life if things had gone differently–In this instance, it seems like you and your brother decided to start a business together at some point, leading you on a completely different path… A path where you weren’t crushed inside an automaton suit

  Listen, I wasn’t allowed to speak of it at all previously, but you being killed and reborn in that backroom wasn’t just a random stroke of fate. I don’t like to say ‘destined’ because it gives the wrong idea, but for simplicity's sake, we could say that you are destined to something because you’ve always had a special ability

  Me, a special ability?

  Indeed, negative energy and negative emotions… You’ve always had… ‘Something’ relating to them within you. However, the way this ‘something’ expressed itself was not intended to be the way it did. Not that fate was broken or anything–Not like fate matters anyway–But you need to understand that this ‘something’ was going to express itself in some way eventually

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Here, in reality, you met an unfortunate end in the backroom of Harvey’s Diner, triggering this special ability and making you into what you are now, and also creating me to assist you as the ability decided to manifest partly through a system

  In the A.RDL–Which stands for Alternate Reality Dreamland, by the way–You experienced another scenario. Instead of being killed, you lived as a human woman… And the special ability only began to manifest when the Leton of this other reality passed away

  Rather than transforming you or having anything to do with a system, the ability did its thing by focusing on your own negative emotions and how they influenced the world around you

  I could tell that Nara was actually quite enjoying speaking about this, so I kept quiet and let her ramble–Gods know she loves to do this.

  For example, it allowed you to project your negative emotions and the intents associated with them onto automatons, even those that shouldn’t be capable of moving were given life to act in your stead, and ultimately, all of the accumulated negative emotions became so heavy that they dropped down into your shadow, manifesting a being at your service

  It is quite the interesting turn of events–In terms of abilities at least, it frightens me a bit to imagine a world where we wouldn’t have ever met, to be honest… But anyway! You probably noticed how you were a genius of machines in there, right? Well, that’s something else I’ve always wanted to tell you about, but wasn’t allowed to until now!

  You see, on top of this connection to negative energy and negative emotions, you also possess an innate connection to machines and such. This is why, in both this reality and the alternate one, your life was intertwined with mechanical matters

  However, as you noticed, even while you didn’t have your past memories, this uncanny talent only manifested after Leton’s death. This is because, as twins, the gifts are sort of split between you two, but ultimately, the gifts were intended to go to you alone, so Leton’s passing caused his side of the gift to transfer back to you

  That’s actually quite interesting… So, all my life, I’ve actually had an incredible, hidden talent, and it only triggered when I got squeezed like a lemon, or when I was at the bottom of the pits of sorrow? Why is my own ability such a piece of shit? Can’t it show up like normal and make people call me a genius as a kid?

  Well… I guess it makes sense that it requires me to experience something negative, considering what it is about… But still!

  Also, if all of the gifts are meant to belong to me, then doesn’t it mean that Leton existing is a bit of a weird thing? It makes it sound like he wasn’t meant to be born at all, or that he was meant to die young. Which is a little bit odd, in my opinion.

  Regardless… There were a few more odd things about the alternate reality, firstly…

  Nara.

  Yes, Big Sis?

  Let’s not speak about the Mari stuff, alright?

  Sure… But I mean… Mari exists in this reality, too. We’ve met her, so…

  What might you be trying to say, Nara?

  I mean, you seemed to quite like her in this alternate reality, so… Huh… I just want you to be happy, and it seems like you are cursed to never find a man you like, so you might as well find someone you like on the other side of the aisle, right? I mean… You eat, kill, and torment people, so kissing a girl isn’t exactly crazy for you, even if you actually like men, right?

  Mmh…

  And, huh… You can’t really get married or have babies anymore now that you’ve transformed into a Vengeful Spirit and Steel-Bound Curse hybrid, so most of the stuff you were looking forward to with a man isn’t really possible anymore–I am just giving my opinion, though!

  I wanted to sigh, unfortunately, I didn’t have any lungs in this reality. Nara was making a whole lot of sense, I guess… But I am still fairly certain that I’m only attracted to men. What happened in this alternate reality might have felt nice, but it was just me using this alternate Mari to feel good about myself because she was cute, I had authority over her, and I knew she loved me enough that she could be easily manipulated.

  It wasn’t love at all. Honestly, I hadn’t realised that I was capable of doing such a thing to feel a little better about myself. This alternate me really went for it without hesitation. Was that how I would have ended up in this world as well had I not died and never found myself a man? Quite off-putting to think about…

  Putting aside the fact that I had found out that I was a worse person than I already realised, there was also the matter of the dark spectre.

  For a moment, I thought that he had followed me into the A.R.DL, but no. The spectre of each reality wasn’t the exact same. The appearance of the mask was different, and the one in that other reality had seemed to be observing and overly wary. Had it been the same one as here, he would have realised that I was way more vulnerable there than here, and attacked.

  This meant that the dark spectre existed differently in both realities, which then implied that the differences in my actions were to be blamed for the differences, which then strongly implied that the dark spectre was indeed a thing because of me somehow.

  I really have no clue who this thing was, but apparently, I had managed to attract their ire while I was still a human… Any ideas, Nara?

  Not really, no. I can’t glean much information about this ghost, but it does seem that he is linked to your life prior to your death in the backroom. Did you do anything noteworthy to someone to warrant the creation of such a powerful spirit?

  Not that I can think of.

  Since I couldn’t figure out much about the dark spectre, I instead directed my attention to my new and shiny form.

  The ‘Nightmare Form’! I had poured a lot of effort into unlocking this thing–I had taken part in a conspiracy with a kingdom to get there! All that to only acquire the first stage of it… Just how powerful was it considered to warrant being sliced up into several pieces that needed to be individually unlocked? I bet the second stage will have me thrown into another A.R.DL…

  In any case, the partial ‘Nightmare Form’ offered three distinct abilities, and although not mentioned directly, I would assume that it also provided a flat boost to my nightmare trials in general… Before I dug myself out, I was going to be taking a closer look at this stuff.

  Not like I was on a schedule, I had all the time in the world.

  Alright. Let’s see the good stuff…