Yume Nikki dream I had yesterday

	I’m in the Wendy’s drive thru, half because I’m hungry and also since I’m interested in what happened here. Recently there’s been talk about a murder, and based on some internet posts this event is intimately connected to Yume Nikki somehow. While in the drive-thru I notice some commotion, dudes in ski masks are darting around the drive thru line and into the store. I’m worried it’s the murderer again and get scared, but at the same time I’m not really bothered too much by this – I live in Atlanta and I’ve had run ins with the local ‘water boys’ before, this is probably just some more nonsense they’re up to honestly. Generally they leave you alone if you ignore them or you’re speeding away too quickly, so I pull out of the line and drive off. I can’t remember if I got my food or not.

	I decide to figure out why all this is connected to Yume Nikki, so I pull out my phone. I notice it’s mainly the fandom that cares about this and not anyone else, go figure. Eventually I scroll to a certain clip and see a random case lawyer discussing the murder, talking about how the culprit attacked with a knife and that “it’s really similar to what that girl Yume Nikki did in the game”. The other lawyers in the video find this comment confusing and hilarious, along with the online fandom who are shitposting about “the girl named Yume Nikki” and enjoying some newfound exposure. At some point I drive to a place resembling a school and go inside, attempting to talk with people about what’s going on. However, nobody is paying any attention, since everyone is playing some type of hide and seek game – I decide to stop thinking about it all for a bit and mess around with them. While playing I take note that I’m currently in a very wide backrooms-esque space, a massive basement-level hall resembling an impossibly large cafeteria. Among the odd shadows cast about are people hiding in what look to be small tents? I continue wandering around, losing context for why I was even here as things become hazy…

	When I start paying attention to my surroundings again I notice I’m in what looks to be a strange 3D version of an RPGmaker world, heavily resembling the FC Caverns from Yume Nikki. Imagine the crude elementary graphics of Star Fox with highly reflective and colorful polygons, except the colors are the browns, purples and reds of the FC Cavern and the environment resembles a rocky cave, almost like a more primitive and psychedelic version of King’s Field. Pre-rendered backgrounds make themselves visible above cave walls, which move around as I turn my view in a stacked parallax effect. I think to myself that the FC Caverns must have been upgraded to the SNES. While walking around to the repeating chiptune track, I notice polygons warping occasionally like on the PSX and decide that I should find the effect here and leave – the environment makes me uncomfortable, like I might get a form of motion sickness if I stay too long. Eventually I find what I was looking for, some sort of black polygon rock and wake up.

	I’m in a small room now, with windows on both sides of me. Soft green light is pouring in from the plant life outside, illuminating a bookshelf across from the bed I’ve just woken from. My first instinct is to get up and leave the room immediately, but upon trying the door I can’t open it – right, this is still Yume Nikki. Looking to my side I see a mirror, quickly I realize that in place of the typical genderless dream protagonist I see a brown haired girl... I guess it’d only makes sense that I’d be Madotsuki now. I don’t particularly want to go back to bed yet and so I try to find some way to leave the room. On the bookshelf is a TV with some sort of puzzle, I don’t remember the specifics but I manage to solve it and unlock the door. Upon opening it I quickly realize it’s not ‘real life’ I just stepped into. The area I’m in now is the top floor of a large American-style home with white walls, and looking over the hallway railing I can see an inky black substance melting parts of the house. Clearly this must still be part of Madotsuki’s dream, the mechanics of it all reminded me of the false bedroom accessible from the Nexus in Yume 2kki. My eyes catch a small black thing moving around.

	When my brain determines what I’m seeing I realize that I need to kill it as soon as possible. For some reason I know implicitly that this blob thing (resembling Monoe/Monoke) has infinite ability to expand itself, and by the logic of mathematical game theory it will grow until it has assimilated me and everything else – that is, if I don’t kill it first. My mind gives me a single objective: prove game theory wrong. Running down the stairs, I lunge towards the thing, feeling a pang of anxiety as I see it dart right by my left eye away from me. Already it’s bigger than it used to be. I throw a punch, hearing shoes sliding as my body rights itself and this time it connects, yet the damage isn’t enough. Somehow it escapes my vision completely and I’m unable to find it at all, only after minutes of frantic searching do I suddenly hear things shattering behind me. I look and it’s towering over me now, no amount of damage I could do at this point would even have an effect against its exponentially growing body. I run to the basement desperately trying to escape it, and as I’m flying down the stairs I see it taking root in the walls. I exit into a wide circular room – there’s nowhere left to go, it’s a dead end. As I begin to see bright psychedelic patterns emanating from the ground I realize it’s too late for me, and I accept my fate as time slows down. Feeling myself raising into the air, at once I am assimilated.