There was no time to think. William Clark's face twisted with ferocity as he summoned all his strength and yanked the blanket off.

　　Puff!!

　　With a dull thud, William Clark sprang up and reached for the person at the foot of the bed.

　　Ah!!!!!!

　　A piercing scream rang out.

　　William Clark's vision blurred, the world spinning wildly before his eyes, and he could no longer see anything.

　　Bang.

　　He seemed to have crashed into something, yet it also felt like he hadn’t grabbed anything at all.

　　Huff... huff... huff...

　　He didn’t know how much time had passed before William Clark slowly caught his breath, and his vision gradually returned.

　　At some point, he had gotten out of bed and was now standing in front of the desk, his right hand firmly gripping the right shoulder of the woman in the white dress.

　　Puff.

　　In an instant, the woman in the white dress, her back to him, deflated like a punctured balloon, collapsing in a flash until only her clothes remained, falling onto the chair.

　　William Clark's hand grasped at nothing, and he froze, stunned on the spot.

　　He lowered his head, wanting to examine the clothes more closely, but they seemed to melt like white wax, dissolving and evaporating in just a few seconds, vanishing without a trace.

　　"Did I... did I succeed?" A strange sense of relief welled up in William Clark's heart.

　　He gasped for air, glancing around the room.

　　He was still in the bedroom, but something was off.

　　Some corners were blurry, but the desk, bed, floor, ceiling, chandelier, and most other places were all clear and detailed.

　　William Clark reached out and touched the chair, but felt nothing, as if his hand was wrapped in a thick glove. He tried touching other things—same result.

　　"Am I still dreaming?" he suddenly realized.

　　According to what he’d read before, one way to tell if you’re dreaming is to observe the details.

　　He thought for a moment, then bent down to carefully examine the patterns on the wooden chair.

　　On the black wooden chair, the curved patterns didn’t look like wood grain at all, but more like some kind of strange, stylized animal drawing.

　　The pattern belonged to an animal that William Clark felt familiar with, but couldn’t name.

　　"Looks like I really am in a dream..." William Clark felt a surge of inexplicable excitement.

　　The fear from earlier had completely vanished.

　　He tried moving around—he was able to act freely.

　　The bedroom was exactly the same as in real life.

　　A bookshelf, a bed, a desk, and a wooden chair.

　　Only some corners remained blurry, as if pixelated, impossible to see clearly.

　　William Clark steadied himself and slowly looked toward the foot of the bed.

　　That was where the footsteps should have come from, but now it was empty.

　　The bedroom door was half open, and through the gap he could see a narrow corridor bathed in a dark red glow.

　　William Clark paused, then slowly moved over, opened the door, and stepped out one step at a time.

　　He felt as if every step was on cotton—heavy, with no sensation.

　　Leaving the bedroom, William Clark slowly stepped into the corridor.

　　It was clearly the hallway of his own home, yet it felt like he was walking on a soft carpet.

　　He turned his head and looked out the glass window on the left side of the corridor.

　　Outside the window was a flowing dark red.

　　It was like some kind of thick liquid, silent and slow.

　　He reached out to touch it—still no sensation.

　　"This must be a feature of dreams. I remember that when I touched things in dreams before, I couldn’t feel anything either."

　　The thought flashed through William Clark's mind. But he didn’t stop, withdrawing his hand and continuing down the corridor.

　　The house in the dream was exactly the same as in real life, with the same layout.

　　The corridor was only a dozen meters long; at the end, the kitchen was on the left, the living room on the right.

　　William Clark walked step by step to the space between the living room and kitchen, peering left and right.

　　"Which way should I go?" In the dream, his consciousness was hazy, as if shrouded in mist.

　　He also had the feeling that he had to concentrate to stay in the dream; if he relaxed, he might wake up instantly—leave completely.

　　After hesitating for a few seconds, William Clark headed left, toward the kitchen.

　　He wanted to see if there were still leftovers, dishes, and so on from earlier in the day.

　　In their house, leftovers were just left on the table with a fly cover.

　　Reaching out, he gently pushed open the kitchen door, and William Clark's eyes widened slightly.

　　In the kitchen, the sink, dining table, and countertop were all neatly in place. The white tiles on the wall were perfectly aligned, and the floor was covered with black-and-white checkered tiles. In one corner, there were vegetables bought today.

　　A few bright red carrots poked out of a bag, a bundle of crisp green cabbage still beaded with water droplets, and two round tomatoes as plump as apples. Supposedly, these were a new variety of tomato, even more nutritious.

　　"Everything is just like in real life... but what is that?" William Clark stared past these things, his gaze landing on a crack in the right wall of the kitchen.

　　There shouldn’t have been a crack there.

　　But now, on the right wall of the kitchen, there was a dark fissure over a meter high and half a meter wide.

　　Black mist seemed to swirl within the crack, deep and shadowy. It looked like a passageway.

Chapter 6