Wee woo, wee woo.
Police sirens came from the house next door.
Player Cute Love Star lay on her bed looking sleepy. She wore short-sleeve pajamas and pink shorts. Her short legs were tilted to the side as she lay on her side.
Upon hearing the police sirens coming from next door, she, who had a round face, had her spirit lifted. She got off the bed immediately and ran to the balcony, checking out the balcony next door.
The balcony next door was over ten meters away from her; it was pretty far away. However, she saw a self-flying police plane hovering by the balcony.
“I didn’t do anything illegal. I won’t yield. I was just posting what I saw in the dream. I wasn’t trying to scare anyone!”
A hot-headed man who looked mediocre had both hands held by a robot. He was being pushed into the police plane in the manner of arrest.
Cute Love Star watched the police plane door close. Subsequently, a blue gleam appeared at the back where the engine port was. A blue ion current charged at the back of the police plane, and it left the residential building immediately.
She rubbed her eyes. She was sleepy as it had been a day since she last slept. She dared not sleep.
She had never thought her neighbor two doors away would be arrested for posting about the dream.
On Orange Planet, the officials were loose on the people’s freedom of speech.
The entire planet had been unified, while technology had entered the interstellar era. Spacecrafts were flying back and forth on Orange Planet’s own galaxy. There was a powerful military presence on the planet. No matter what the internet trolls said on the internet, it could not shake the planet’s military technology’s power. No matter what the trolls said, the technology’s development advanced forward.
However, it seemed to be really different this time. The outbreak of the condition made all Orange Planet citizens panic. Nobody dared to sleep.
Cute Love Star saw the official notice posted by the Orange Planet Research Institute a day ago. They claimed an unclear nightmare condition was breaking out globally. They advised people not to sleep or reduce their deep sleep time. The incident’s cause was still being investigated.
The lesser the words in the announcement, the more severe the incident was.
The research institute did not explain the situation in detail, mainly because they had little knowledge about the condition at the moment.
Cute Love Star lifted her right arm and checked her wristband. She tapped on the screen, and light projected onto the wall.
She tapped with her finger to log onto the research institute’s official website. She then clicked into the news section.
The news ‘VR Game ‘World’ Causes Nightmare, the Company is Rectifying the Mistake’ that was published 18 hours ago in the news section was gone without a trace.
Meanwhile, ‘Cases of the Nightmare Condition Infection Outside of Gaming Pods Have Surfaced, The Situation Has Worsened’ that was published ten hours ago disappeared.
The news ‘The Country Declared State of Emergency’ published eight hours ago was gone too.
‘Don’t Sleep! Don’t sleep’ posted four hours ago vanished as well.
It seemed like everything that was related to the condition had been deleted by the officials.
‘Has it been solved? Or has it gone even more out of control now?’
It had been a day since Cute Love Star last slept. She was very sleepy, but her instinct told her not to sleep.
The neighbor two doors down, had just been arrested. It proved the country was using an unprecedented, strict measure to control the condition from spreading.
She tried logging into the forum of the VR game ‘World’. It was the place where the condition was discussed most, as it was related to ‘World’.
Many people on the internet did not believe they would get nightmares from playing a game.
That was how many people began following ‘World’, where many players checked out the forum to ask those people who had the nightmare.
Any thread that was related to the nightmare would gain over 1,000 views as soon as it was posted.
A nightmare thread would grow more than 100,000 views after it was posted for a few hours. One could tell how popular such a post was.
“‘**’ game forum is under modification. We’re sorry for the inconvenience!”
Cute Love Star clicked the refresh button, but she still failed to log in.
“Even the game’s name has been blocked, it must be serious?” She raised her cute eyebrows.
The nightmare incident was even more serious than she imagined. She browsed the game’s official company but to no avail. The officials had blocked it.
She browsed through the internet—the forums that had heated discussions on the nightmare had no threads on the condition at all.
She was in disbelief, so she posted a thread on the internet. “What’s happening? How come everything is gone? What is the development of the incident like right now?”
Cute Love Star thought her thread would not be deleted as she did not mention any words that were related to the condition.
However, she was dumbstruck two seconds later.
The thread showed that the admin had deleted it.
She posted another thread. There were no words in it, but three question marks.
“???”
This time, her thread was not deleted. It was still visible.
A couple of seconds later, there were over a hundred replies to her thread, and the views hit 1,000.
“The threads are gone. The officials are blocking what we post!”
“The strictest control in history!”
“Stop talking about this, guys. The internet police warned my friend because of this. Those who disobeyed have been arrested and detained for seven days.”
“I’m in Omnic City. I’ve just woken up and surfed the internet, what happened lately?”
“What are you guys talking about? I don’t understand.”
“Stop asking. You’ll be blocked as soon as you ask!”
The thread did not last for long. Someone mentioned ‘nightmare’ in the 100th reply, and the thread was deleted immediately.
Cute Love Star scratched her head, not understanding that. Why did they make it so strict, whereby they could not even mention the condition?
Theoretically, it would not harm anyone to mention it. It would be bad for the people to not be informed, while the people who had no idea how it spread would still be out and about. In that case, the people who were safe would contract the condition instead.
Perhaps the research institute figured what they did might worsen the situation toward the other side, so they published a post to explain half an hour later.
“We’ve decided that blocking of contents is required after running many studies. We encourage everyone to work with us. Quarantine yourselves, do not visit your friends and family. Report to us as soon as you’re feeling ill. There’s no solution at the moment.”
At the Orange Planet Research Institute’s conference hall on Orange Planet, the red number sent by various places globally was still rising. Those were the ordinary people who had read about the condition online a couple of hours ago. The statistic had just been reported to the institute.
The content had been blocked on the internet, but the communications among humans went on.
For instance, families could discuss the condition face to face. That was something that they could not stop.
At the moment, the Orange Planet researchers still assumed that the condition was spread through the internet. They had yet to realize how the condition was really spread.
On the other side, deep in the ocean in the City of R’lyeh, Ke Meng was sensing a player’s dream. Suddenly, he heard blurry worship in his ears. Although the worship was far away, it was passionate.
“Oh, the almighty Cthulhu… The Sleeper of R’lyeh… The Great Old One!”
“Is someone summoning me?” Ke Meng heard the choppy voice. He immediately realized that someone was organizing a sacrificial ceremony.
‘Who would it be this time?’
Ke Meng stopped sensing the player’s dream. Instead, he was trying to capture the ethereal summoning voice.