Selim dipped her finger in water and drew several little stick figures on the table—one for Sharn, one for Bart, one for herself, and three more representing two boys and a girl, all unknown children.
This Dream World bore Sharn’s longing for an ordinary life.
In her sweet dream, she had a loving, handsome husband and three healthy, lively children… no, now it was four.
If she wanted to turn this sweet dream into a nightmare, the goal was simple—start with Sharn’s family, making her believe she herself was the cause of their misfortune.
So the first targets, of course, had to be those fake children.
Selim’s hand lightly brushed the head of one of the boys, beginning to extract the Soul Energy that made up his existence.
The boy, like a deflating ball, shriveled up rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, turned into a thin sheet of human skin before vanishing completely.
Mimicking his appearance, Selim used her own Soul Energy as stuffing and recreated an identical boy.
“Hello, Big Sister Selim.” The boy was no longer stiff and mechanical like before; he could now act entirely at Selim’s will.
It was like controlling a Puppet in a puppet show.
“Good boy.” Selim’s voice took on a trace of wicked amusement. “Soon, you’ll be the first to die. Are you afraid?”
“No, it’s my honor to give my life for you, Big Sister Selim.” The boy’s eyes were empty, but he obediently spoke whatever Selim wished him to say.
Following the same method, Selim turned Bart and the other two children into her Puppets as well.
Her power spread like a Plague, using Sharn’s family as the center, infecting the entire Small Town, turning all the insignificant NPCs into her own Puppets.
From Sharn’s perspective, this was nothing short of a horrifying ghost story.
A daughter, mistaken in her own mind as her child, had hollowed out the essence of her ‘family’ and replaced them.
But the ghost story Selim wished to present was far more than that.
Selim wanted to create a nightmare that would plunge Sharn into utter despair, crushing her sweet dream completely.
“You’ve waited long enough, come try the Borscht Soup I just made.” Sharn carried a steaming pot of soup out from the kitchen.
“Little Selim, eat more so you’ll grow up into a beautiful lady.” She smiled, ladling a spoonful of thick soup into the plate in front of Selim.
Selim tried a spoonful. The taste was indeed quite good, and she couldn’t help but take a few more sips.
Watching Selim eat with such relish, Sharn smiled and asked eagerly, “Is it good?”
“It’s delicious.” Selim licked the corner of her mouth, then innocently pointed at the boy across from her. “But it seems brother doesn’t like it. Why do you say he’s going to die? What does death mean?”
“What did you say?” For a moment, Sharn didn’t understand what Selim was talking about.
Crash!
The plate clattered to the floor. Under Selim’s forced manipulation, the boy sitting across from her closed his eyes, went limp, and fell to the ground.
Under Sharn’s observation, Selim couldn’t directly erase him in any unnatural way—she could only limit and control his actions.
But that wasn’t a problem for Selim.
She certainly had other means of erasing him, since in that dark void, there was a hungry Beast.
Why not feed these dream-creations to it? It could help build its own grave.
“Vikas!!”
Sharn screamed in agony, throwing herself at the boy’s side.
“Vikas! What’s wrong? Look at Mommy! Please, look at Mommy!”
No matter how Sharn cried and shook him, Vikas on the ground did not respond; she could not wake her fallen son.
“Mom, what happened to Vikas?” Selim wiped the Borscht Soup from her mouth, jumped down from the table, and tugged at Sharn’s clothes. “Is brother sick?”
“Yes, he must be sick. Let’s find a doctor.” Sharn snapped back to herself, holding Vikas as she staggered toward the door. “Bart! Quickly! We need to find a doctor!”
Bart, now under Selim’s control, followed along blankly.
“Hungry, aren’t you, little one?” Selim trailed after them at an easy pace, deepening her connection with the Beast in the void.
“Hunger…”
“Don’t rush, don’t rush…” Selim soothed the Beast as she opened the door to a house. “You’ll get your share.”
“Please, I beg you! Save my child!” Sharn stood at the bedside in desperation, pleading to a High Goth woman inside the room.
“I’m sorry… I—I can’t help.” Under Selim’s control, the High Goth woman could only shake her head with a sigh. “But his vital signs are still stable, maybe… maybe he’ll recover after a while?”
Inside the room, the surrounding townspeople all chimed in with words of comfort.
Though Sharn’s heart was torn apart, seeing Selim had followed, she forced a smile and said, “Selim, are you worried about your brother Vikas too? Don’t worry, he’ll get better soon.”
What Sharn said was not entirely wrong. Under her observation, Vikas would indeed recover and might even break free from Selim’s control, returning to the logic of the sweet dream.
But would Selim ever allow that?
The nightmare was just beginning.
Ignoring Sharn’s attempts at comfort, Selim walked over to Vikas, gently injecting more Soul Energy into him to lure the ravenous Beast.
“But Mom, wasn’t he supposed to die?” Selim asked with childlike innocence, all the while calling out to the Beast in her mind.
“Eat, little one. This is my gift to you.”
The Beast in the void responded to Selim’s “kindness” and pounced.
Vikas’s body lifted eerily off the bed, as if an invisible maw was tearing at him. In seconds, he was utterly gone, like a fragile gingerbread man, vanishing without a trace.
Sharn stared blankly at the spot where Vikas had been.
Empty. Nothing left.
The Beast had devoured everything.
Her legs gave out, and she collapsed bonelessly to the floor. No one came to help her.
Under Selim’s command, all the townspeople shrank away in terror, distancing themselves from Selim.
“Eh? Where did brother go?” Selim tilted her head in curiosity. “Is he dead?”
She walked over to another High Goth person lying on a sickbed, poked them with her finger, and asked, “Since you’re going to die too, could you help me look for my brother?”
Before she finished speaking, at Selim’s urging, that High Goth was also torn apart and devoured by the Beast in an instant.
The nearby Small Town residents pointed trembling fingers at Selim.
“Beast! You’re a Beast!”
“Sharn’s daughter is a Beast!”