That night, Eugene staggered up the narrow stairs of the inn, swaying with each step.

“Who would've thought the tea actually helps with sleep…” he mumbled. “Maybe I’m just... too tired.”

He fumbled the door open and collapsed onto the bed without even removing his boots. Within moments, sleep overtook him.

The wind whispered through the open window.

Eugene lay on his back, one hand resting on his chest, the other drooping off the side of the bed.

From the shadows, a black figure slipped silently inside.

Elric knelt beside the bed, studying Eugene’s face with a predator’s calm. A slow, malicious grin curled across his lips as he leaned in. Close enough to feel Eugene’s breath.

“You have been cursed,” he whispered. The words were slow. Deliberate. Repeated.

“You have been cursed.”

Eugene twitched. A bead of sweat formed on his brow.

Elric tilted his head, watching intently.

“Perfecto,” he whispered to himself.

He remained still, silent watching the rise and fall of Eugene’s chest.

“The mind never really sleeps,” he thought. “Not all of it, anyway.”

His eyes scanned Eugene’s face.

“Most people think sleep is like flipping a switch. It’s not. The conscious mind goes quiet, but the unconscious keeps listening, processing. That’s how a mother wakes at her baby’s cry, or someone stirs during a storm. The ears stay open... just enough.”

Eugene’s eyes flickered beneath closed lids. REM sleep.

“This is the dream factory,” Elric thought. “The perfect time to hijack the narrative.”

He kept mumbling on his own, voice barely a breath.

“Auditory stimuli, especially emotional phrases, slip past the thalamic filters. Straight to the limbic system. Say something neutral, and the brain ignores it. But say something dangerous… it remembers.” And thus, he said it.

“You have been cursed,” he repeated.

Eugene’s jaw clenched. His breathing hitched.

“Fear bypasses logic,” Elric mused. “The neocortex sleeps, but the amygdala, the fear center. It’s always on duty. Fear gets in where reason can’t.”

He watched every twitch, every breath, like a scientist watching a specimen.

“Right now, the words are just seeds. But dreams are the mind’s echo chamber. Soon, his brain will spin them into something bigger, something darker. By the next REM cycle, they’ll become hallucinations of the shadows, figures, and feelings. The nightmare writes itself.”

He stood, his eyes still locked on Eugene.

“And the beauty of it? He won’t remember this. Just the unease. The dread.”

Elric paused at the window, gloved hand resting on the sill.

“By morning, he’ll brush it off. By the second night, he’ll dread sleep. And by the third…”

A slow smile spread across his masked face.

“By the third, the fear will arrive on its own. No more whispers. Just anticipation. That’s real manipulation, make them do it to themselves.”

He slipped into the night, leaving only the wind to whisper in his place.

As he vanished, his mind wandered... remembering the time when he tried to uncover how hypnosis works.

***

[Flashback – Earth | Kim Jiwon's Room, 2:11 AM]

The city outside was asleep, but Kim Jiwon wasn’t. His tiny room was a mess of notebooks, highlighters, open psychology texts, a worn notebook titled “Unveil The Trick,” scribbles with a lot of theory. But he only had eyes for the book in his lap.

A secondhand paperback with cracked corners and a faded title:
"Control Your Dream: The Science Behind Sleep"

He leaned forward in the dim desk lamp glow, flipping to a bookmarked chapter.

"REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement) is the dream-heavy stage of sleep. Paradoxically, the brain is almost as active as when awake, while the body remains paralyzed by a mechanism called atonia."

He tapped his pen on the phrase.
So, high brain activity. But the body stays locked in." He rubbed his smooth chin and kept reading:

“REM is when the brain replays memory fragments, suppressed emotions, and stray thoughts. These elements combine to form dreams. The emotional tone is regulated by deep brain structures, especially the amygdala.”

Elric scribbled in his notebook:
“Amygdala equals to emotional filter. Fear is a stronger dream imprint.” His other hand was already flipping to another page of the book he was reading.

“The amygdala, part of the limbic system, stays active during REM. It’s the brain’s threat detector. It is responsible for fear, anxiety, and survival instincts. Because the prefrontal cortex (which handles logic and self-awareness) is largely inactive during REM, dreams lack critical thinking.”

He paused to reflect.

"That’s why people believe anything in a dream, even absurd things, it's all because the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s fact checker, is asleep."

"Emotions stay. Logic shuts off." he jotted a short line on his notebook. And he kept on reading.

“The neocortex, which includes both the prefrontal cortex and sensory areas, is typically dominant during wakefulness. It's where reasoning, language, and planning live. But during REM, emotional centers overrule it.” Flipping to the next page.

“In early sleep stages, especially during the hypnagogic state (the transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep). The brain becomes highly suggestible. Sounds, whispers, and emotional words can bypass filters and be planted directly into the subconscious.”

That made Jiwon grin.

"Hypnagogic suggestibility. The sleeper doesn’t know they’re listening, but the brain does."

A long paragraph can be seen written in his notebook.

“This is due in part to the thalamus, the brain’s sensory relay center. Normally, the thalamic filters block unimportant input from reaching consciousness. But in light sleep, those filters weaken, allowing emotional or threatening stimuli through.”

He nodded slowly, as if mentally assembling a lockpick from these words.

"So basically, in hypnagogia, thalamic filters open. Emotional input slips in. Then during REM, the amygdala grabs it, exaggerates it. The neocortex is offline, so there’s no resistance. It mutates into a dream or nightmare."

The next day, Eugene wandered the estate in a groggy daze. He barely remembered falling asleep the night before and had woken feeling like something was... off. His eyes darted to every shadow, every flicker of movement.

He dismissed it as fatigue. The work, the new environment. Nothing more.

Then the festival began. 

The plaza was alive with laughter, music, merchants shouting, and children waving between stalls. Noise was Elric’s ally.

Elric blended with the crowd. “Now, where is he…”

He spotted Eugene near the fountain. Squinting, muttering to himself, counting some money he just got this morning. The man had clearly not slept well.

Elric had prepared the con weeks in advance.

He became someone else, dressed in a neat black suit with white gloves, and wore a smiling white mask that covered his whole face. He approached Eugene at an angle. Not directly, never. From the side, blending with a group of street performers. He joined the applause. Close now. Six feet. Three.

First distraction. He flicked a bronze coin high into the air with his left hand and whistled sharply, drawing Eugene’s eye.

The coin hit the ground and rolled.

Second distraction. His right hand brushed against Eugene’s arm as if jostled by a crowd. He laughed and bowed in apology. “Forgive me, good sir,” he said, his voice changed by the ventriloquism skill he once mastered.

His left hand had already brushed the knot of the guy’s coin pouch, but not untying it, not yet. It was just to feel the tension, memorizing it.

The lift came with the third beat. A troupe of dancers burst through with ribbons and bells, perfectly timed, well, it was more like Elric had paid them a silver for this. Their music masked the click of a modified card blade slicing the string.

The pouch dropped into his right hand. With the same motion, he passed it beneath his coat’s hem where a hidden pouch waited. Fluid. Invisible.

He bowed again. “You, sir, seem to be lucky today.”

Elric passed on a discount coupon to Eugene. Laughing while vanishing into the crowd, as he notices how confused Eugene looks after he realizes it. But Elric was already gone, just another face in the flooded market of the people.

Later that evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Eugene sat alone on a bench by the lake, trying to find a moment of peace in his restless mind.

“Darling… have you ever heard of a curse before?” Elric and Helina sat on the nearby benches, watching the golden sky ripple across the lake’s surface.

“Curses don’t really exist, my dear. You don’t have to worry. I’ll always be by your side,” Elric said, barely holding in his laughter as he spoke the line.

“Hey, did you know one of my relatives was cursed before?” Helina chimed in, acting like a clingy girlfriend.

The two were disguised, their faces hidden in the glow of the setting sun reflecting off the water. Loose aprons, slightly messy festival outfits, and different hairstyles ensured their cover—just a couple flirting during a romantic evening by the lake.

“Really? Then what happened to your relative?” Elric replied with a loud, curious tone, faking excitement to make sure the person nearby would hear them.

Helina, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, stole a glance toward Eugene to see if the bait had landed. Then, she continued the story.

“She kept having nightmares. She was worried… Her daughter had died recently, and she feared she’d never have another child again.”

Their disguises held strong. To Eugene—if he so much as looked their way—they were nothing more than a young couple caught in a flirtatious evening.

“He took the bait…” Elric murmured under his breath, giving Helina a subtle signal.

Immediately, Helina’s tone shifted—playful and suggestive.

“…Hey, how about we try it? I heard the hot spring nearby is good for more than just sleep…” she said with a teasing lilt.

That was enough. Eugene stood abruptly and shuffled away, face red, ears burning.

As soon as he was out of sight, the two burst into uncontrollable laughter.

At the shrine outdoor hot spring where steam can be seen dancing around.

A young blonde guy dipping his body into it. A long sigh can be heard as he dips in.

After the warm soak, Eugene’s mood had lightened like steam rising off his skin. He

felt… almost human again.

“Thank god, I got a free discount coupon from the festival this morning.” Eugene stretched his arm to stretch away the fatigue he had. Didn’t realize Elric was there. Elric approached him with a grin hidden in the thick steam

“Hey, you alright? You don’t look so well.” Elric tries to act concerned as a friendly guy.

Eugene at first jumped a little as he was shocked, or maybe still on edge from the ‘curse’ that

had haunted him.

“It’s a long story…” As Eugene opens up, he keeps talking about all the things he has faced so far.

“Hey, how about this…” As they finished changing, Elric guided him through the quiet shrine grounds, where lanterns bobbed gently in the breeze. Just ahead, a small booth glowed with soft lantern light.

“Come on,” Elric said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Behind the booth stood a young woman tending to a shelf of neatly arranged charms.

Her dark brown hair caught the dim moonlight, revealing soft chestnut undertones

that shimmered with warmth.

Her hairstyle was short and edgy, with textured layers and a distinct braid woven along

one side, adding a flair of elegance to her otherwise sly demeanor. The asymmetrical

bob frames her face, one side trimmed just below the cheek while the other falls to her

collarbone, with a soft inward curl. It whispers both rebellion and refinement. Her

dark brown hair carries faint chestnut and plum undertones that shimmer under

lantern.

Her bangs are uneven, artfully messy, with strands that sweep just above her intense

golden-brown eyes.

“This is Helina, my friend,” Elric introduced casually.

Eugene stopped in time while his mind kept on going

“What… is this what a goddess looks like? Is this the hot spring goddess, mumbling on his own?

 “Wh…what did you just say?” Elric squinted, not catching the soft words.

“N…nothing!” Eugene’s voice cracked.

Helina gave him a small, polite smile, the kind that could melt glaciers.

“Hi. I’m Helina,” she said simply.

And that was all it took.

A surge of emotion, like a desert finally feeling rain hitting Eugene’s face full force.

His cheeks went red. His breath hitched. His brain fried.

“Is this... is this what being alive feels like?”

“Anyway,” Helina continued, her tone sliding into that familiar mischievous lilt,

“Here’s a charm for curse removal. Just keep it near you. It’s especially helpful when you sleep. Elric already told me the details. It only 2 won.” She handed over the charm.

With a grin that could only be described as witch like, a mix of teasing sweetness and

something vaguely predatory.

Eugene blinked. “O-Oh! Wow. That’s… uh… Thank you. Really. I mean, thank you.”

He was stuttering.

Meanwhile, Elric stood off to the side, watching the interaction unfold like and

accidental romance novella.

“What the hell is happening here? Helina… well, she always looks like that. Looks like a hungry wolf whenever money is involved.” glancing at Helina and then turning to Eugene, “But this guy… I think he stayed in the bath too long?”

The three of them walked out of the shrine, laughter bubbling between them. Helina teasing, Eugene fumbling, and Elric dragging them both toward some semblance of sanity.

The moon, which that still not the highest, bathed the Waisz estate in soft silver.

But… under the same moonlight…

…Somewhere along the outskirts of the estate, the forest twisted in shadows.

A man on horseback burst from the trail, cloak torn, sweat clinging to his brow. The horse’s hooves thundered against the dirt path, panicked and uneven.

“Damn it… Please hold on…” the man gritted his teeth, urging the horse forward.

Moonlight streaked through the canopy, illuminating the desperation on his face.

“Please… just a little longer.” The sound of the horse's step echoed through the forest.

END ~