A middle-aged man and a woman in glasses were standing side by side, both dressed in pristine white lab gowns. Papers were spread out between them, and judging by their stiff expressions and hushed voices, they were discussing something important.

"…Subject Epsilon's rejection rate is accelerating—"

"If that continues, we'll have to restructure the entire mana conduit—"

Yeah. Definitely something about chimera experiments.

Epsilon.

That had to be one of the test subjects.

They sounded troubled—maybe even desperate—but the moment their conversation shifted deeper into dense technical jargon, I lost them completely.

Mana synaptic resonance?

Biological arcane backlash?

What?

Even if I strained my ears, it was pointless.

It wasn't information I could use, and honestly, it slipped through my mind as soon as I heard it.

I wasn't here to decode complicated research terms anyway.

I was here for one thing.

A key.

So, leaving the two researchers to their intense debate, I moved quietly along the edge of the room, searching every cabinet, every wall hook, every desk drawer—anywhere a key might logically be placed.

Minutes passed.

Then—

"…Found it."

On the far wall of what looked like a management office, hanging neatly beside several ledger boards, was a single key.

A large one.

Old-fashioned but sturdy.

Exactly the size that would fit the heavy metal door I had encountered.

I stepped closer and examined it carefully.

Every curve of the handle.

Every notch of the metal teeth.

Even the faint scratches along the stem.

I burned its shape into my memory with absolute precision.

This should be it.

And if somehow it wasn't—

Well, this was a memory after all.

I could always return and search again.

Time to try it.

As I focused on the shape of the key in my mind, ready to withdraw from the memory and return to reality—

"…!"

A chill scraped down my spine.

Instinct—pure, primal instinct—forced my head to snap to the side.

And there, in the far corner of the memory…

In a place that should've been nothing but a recorded image of the past…

Two eyes were staring at me.

Black.

Deep.

Unblinking.

They floated in the darkness like they didn't belong to a person—just darkness itself given sight.

"…It's looking at me?"

That made no sense.

This place wasn't a dream.

It wasn't a spirit world.

It was a memory—an unchangeable fragment of the past.

Nothing here should have been able to see me.

Nothing here should have been able to react to me.

Then what was that thing?

The moment I questioned it, the darkness around those eyes began to swell—like thick ink spreading in water.

A viscous, suffocating black energy crept forward, almost slithering.

It moved with a slow, deliberate hunger, inching toward me from the depths of the memory.

My whole body broke out in goosebumps.

Every nerve screamed—run, hide, don't touch that.

That darkness…

It wasn't just eerie.

It was wrong.

So wrong my instincts recoiled from it.

And in the space of a single heartbeat—

It was right in front of me.

"…!"

The instant that clinging black mass was about to reach me, I severed my magic connection with the memory.

Everything shattered into darkness.

…

…

…

"Huh—!"

Air rushed back into my lungs as I jerked upright in reality.

My heart hammered violently, beating against my ribs like it wanted to escape.

My breathing came out in harsh, uneven gasps.

What the hell was that?

Those eyes.

That suffocating black energy, coiling like a snake preparing to strike.

Even now, the sensation lingered—cold, crawling, invasive—like the memory had followed me back into the real world.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with a trembling hand.

"I've… never felt anything like that."

An emotion I hadn't felt even when standing before opponents far stronger than myself washed over me—slowly at first, then all at once.

I didn't know what to call it.

It wasn't panic.

It wasn't shock.

It wasn't even the instinctive dread of facing someone dangerous.

No, this was something different—deeper.

Older.

If I had to describe it, even vaguely…

'Fear.'

A heavy, suffocating fear—

The kind born not from danger, but from standing before something so vast, so incomprehensible, that the human mind simply refuses to process it.

That presence...

That black gaze I had glimpsed earlier…

It wasn't just strong.

It existed on a level beyond anything I could measure—an existence humans weren't meant to look at directly.

Facing it made me feel like a speck of dust drifting in an endless void, crushing me with the realization of how small I truly was.

I exhaled slowly, forcing my pulse to settle.

I tightened my grip around the key crafted from the Dream Orb.

Its familiar weight grounded me, kept my thoughts from spiraling.

Was it really the right decision to open this door?

What if something like that… something beyond reason, beyond this world… was waiting inside?

My hand trembled.

But only for a moment.

"…No."

I shook my head.

That thing I had seen—the owner of those pitch-black eyes—it wasn't related to this place. I could feel it.

It was something that dwelled far deeper, far lower than anything here—something not of this world or the dream world, but a place far beneath both.

Ever since I obtained the Dream Orb, my senses had sharpened in ways I couldn't fully explain. Lines between dreams and reality blurred, and somehow, because of that, I could distinguish between them more clearly than ever.

And right now, those sharpened senses were telling me one truth:

What I saw earlier had nothing to do with what lay beyond this door.

The fear lingering in my chest…

It wasn't a warning.

Just a memory.

Even just now—

If this had been the old me, I would've been swallowed by that darkness without ever understanding how or why.

But I felt it.

That split second of killing intent—so sharp, so thin, it could've been mistaken for a passing breeze.

My senses caught it, yanked me back, and I returned to reality before it could consume me.

These senses…

They've grown sharper than I ever realized.

And now they're telling me something very clearly:

Those unidentified eyes—the ones that watched me from the darkness—

They aren't connected to this place.

Not these halls.

Not the ladder.

Not the hidden passage.

If anything…

"They're related to the Dream Orb itself," I murmured.

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