Chapter 546: Chapter 150: Dream Stealing Space?_2
As I adjusted my running posture, I reflected on the past few weeks’ experiences.
Turns out, there isn’t much to recall.
What the hell had I been up to these past couple of weeks? Apart from attending classes, there was nothing else.
Among eating, drinking, defecating, and sleeping, the only thing I truly did was sleep.
And heaps of it, too.
Often, Elise and I would suddenly fall asleep in the middle of a conversation, our heads hitting the table.
Scenes of class periods seemed blurry, as if they were pixelated.
The classroom content and the teachers who taught it had all become distorted.
One moment they looked like humans, the next, anything but.
First, they sound real, then like a buzzing electrical current.
Strange things were going on, and I had no clue what.
Elise’s running speed kept increasing, the wind howling in my ears.
Sensing something was off, I looked down only to find myself running in the sky.
No longer on a tiled pavement, I was stepping on fluffy white clouds.
No wonder it felt as if I were stepping on cotton, making no impact.
“Aren’t you surprised?”
Turning around to me, her eyebrows knitted tightly, Elise first voiced her question, then sighed, “I should have known. You’re not surprised.”
“Surprised?”
Confused, I asked, “Surprised about what?”
“Surprised that I can fly.”
Elise cocked an eyebrow as she spoke.
“Oh.”
I stared in astonishment, not knowing how to respond.
I recalled that I, too, could fly – even higher and faster than her.
Elise spoke again: “In the days since I came here, having attended so many classes and interacted with so many teachers and students, I’ve come to think that you’re the only one who’s human.”
She paused, stressed her point, “You and I are alike in the sense that we have to sleep. Everyone else never does.”
Suddenly, I burst into a laugh.
Laughing till tears formed, I couldn’t help but blurt out.
“So you also think they’re not human. I thought I was the only one who felt like that.”
“Really?”
Elise forced out a word from her nostrils, and then asked thoughtfully, “Do you ever feel… special, like you don’t fit into this world?”
“Really?”
I pondered in silence.
The more I considered it, the more her words made sense.
My recent experiences were eerily similar to Truman’s life in “The Truman Show”, except I was the real person, and my life was the fake one.
Wait, fake?
The moment this thought surfaced, it was like a bolt of lightning splitting the night sky.
It was like the big bang of the universe.
Suddenly, the world before my eyes felt like a mist-covered glass that’s wiped clean, suddenly gaining clarity.
Where was the sky? The white clouds? The school?
All I saw were streams of zeros and ones.
Only Elise in front of me was real, her forehead’s rainbow mark flickering.
Five thick chains made of data flow were wrapped tightly around her wrists, ankles, and waist, restricting her.
Though she appeared to be running, Elise was actually jogging in place.
I didn’t know when I had let go of Elise’s hand.
I was lifted by some unknown force, levitating further and further away.
Until I was expelled from the world constructed by countless sequences of zeros and ones, turning into an “Observer” that was irrelevant to the data world, an uninvolved bystander unable to intervene.
This process felt as though a bug couldn’t be killed and could only be kicked away.
Elise, the one who inspired me and snapped me out of my confused state, was still stuck in the data world.
Looking at Elise, utterly lost as if she had completely forgotten about me, and forgotten why she came to the clouds, heading back to the classroom in low spirits to continue her routine life, I suddenly understood something.
I got it, I was just a side character, an audience.
Elise is the protagonist of this game.
Only when she wakes up from her confusion, breaking the five data flow chains bound to her, will this game truly end.
I was only an unintentional passerby.
This game didn’t involve me, so when it was detected that I might obscure the game’s progress, I was straightaway booted out.
“Master, Master, where are you?”
Franda’s voice echoed in my mind.
“What happened, Franda?”
While keeping an eye on Elise, I responded to Franda.
“Sob… I’m so glad you finally answered me. Franda thought… thought you would abandon her like that person, abandoning Franda.”
Hearing Franda’s accusation, I was speechless…
Quickly, I focused my attention into the “Small World”, gently patting Franda’s head to comfort her, “Master has always been here. Franda is so cute, how could I leave her behind?”
“Master is a liar!”
With tears in her eyes, Franda put her hands on her hips and defiantly proclaimed, “Master is a big liar! Franda couldn’t find Master just now, and couldn’t pull Master into the ‘Small World’ either.”
“An accident! It was an accident!”
I tried to appease her, apologized, and reassured her: “It won’t happen next time. There won’t be a next time!”
“Hmph!”
Franda puckered her lips and angrily turned away.
I patiently stroked Franda’s head until she calmed down, then asked: “Franda, what happened just now? Can you tell Master about it?”
“Hmph!”
Frowning, Franda snorted coldly, but eventually gave her account,