The mist seeped through the ordinary masks, its faint, sickly-sweet scent still finding its way into Eve's nose.
She instinctively slowed her breathing, but it made little difference.
Eve and Vera continued along the worn stone road. The doors and windows of the wooden houses on either side were tightly shut, faded banners hanging limp beneath the eaves.
There was no wind.
No light.
The entire town was unnaturally quiet.
At first, they passed only one or two figures slumped by the roadside.
The farther they walked, the more Sleepers they found.
Some sagged against wall corners, heads hanging. Some were curled up beneath the eaves. Others lay sprawled right across the stone path.
They varied in age, in dress, but none of them showed any obvious wounds — as though they'd simply, accidentally, fallen asleep in the street.
Vera stopped near a middle-aged man, keeping her distance as she studied him.
He lay on his side against a wall, his chest still rising and falling faintly.
"He's still alive," Vera whispered.
Eve could see it too.
His breathing was slow, but it hadn't stopped. Aside from the fact that he wouldn't wake up, there seemed to be nothing wrong with him.
She was about to step closer when Udon's warning suddenly echoed in her mind.
Don't touch the Sleepers in Everslumber Town unless you have to.
Eve stopped.
Vera stared at the man's face, her expression changing.
"Look at his eyes."
The man's eyes were shut, but something small and black peeked out from the corner of one.
At first, it looked like a single fine hair stuck to his skin. Looking closer, it turned out to be a black feather, no bigger than a fingernail.
The feather seemed to grow directly out of his flesh, its edge pressed tight against the corner of his eye, trembling faintly with each breath.
A chill crept through Eve's chest.
"Don't touch him."
Vera nodded.
They walked around the man and kept moving.
The mist clung to them the whole way.
The pale white fog wasn't especially thick, but it blurred the houses in the distance. That faint sweetness in the air was relaxing at first — but as time went on, a heavy drowsiness began seeping into her body, bit by bit.
Eve blinked.
Her eyelids felt heavier than they had a moment ago.
The exhaustion she'd built up the night before seemed to stir awake again beneath the mist, rising up from somewhere deep in her bones. Her steps slowed, her thoughts began to blur.
It was far too quiet around them.
No wind. No voices. Only their own footsteps landing on the stone, one after another.
Eve spotted an eave up ahead.
Dry, sheltered from the wind, with a bench set against the wall beside it.
Just sitting for a moment couldn't hurt.
They could rest for a few minutes, recover some energy, then keep going.
By the time that thought entered her mind, Eve had already drifted half a step toward the bench without realizing it.
A hand suddenly closed around her wrist.
"Eve."
Vera's voice snapped her sharply awake.
Eve stopped, only now realizing she'd been staring straight at that bench.
Right beside the empty one, on another bench, a sleeping woman lay slumped, her head tilted to one side, a small black feather sprouting from the corner of her eye as well.
Cold sweat broke out down Eve's back.
"Where were you about to go?" Vera asked.
"I just felt a little tired. I thought I'd sit down on that bench for a bit."
The moment the words left her mouth, Eve realized how wrong they sounded.
In a place littered with Sleepers, in a place she'd been explicitly warned not to fall asleep in, some part of her had genuinely thought stopping to rest was a perfectly reasonable idea.
Vera didn't let go of her wrist.
"Don't stop."
"I know."
"You look even more tired than I am."
Eve rubbed between her brows.
She'd already been running on chronic sleep deprivation from work, and last night she'd gotten less than three hours of sleep. The mist seemed to have found every ounce of exhaustion already built up inside her, and it kept coaxing her toward closing her eyes.
"Keep talking to me," Vera said. "Anything. It doesn't matter."
They picked up their pace.
"Vera, have you ever been somewhere like this before?" Eve asked.
"No."
"You seem pretty calm."
Vera was silent for a few seconds.
"Being scared won't make the mist disappear."
"Fair point."
"Besides, if I panic too, who's going to remind you to stay awake?"
Eve let out a tired huff of a laugh.
"Guess I owe you one, then."
They kept talking as they crossed the deserted street. The Sleepers on the ground grew more and more frequent, and occasionally they had to angle themselves sideways just to avoid stepping on a hand or leg sprawled across their path.
No one knew how long these people had been asleep.
No one knew if they'd ever wake up again.
Eve had no idea how long they'd been walking when a muffled sound reached them from somewhere far off.
Thump, thump, thump
Like a wooden stick striking the surface of a drum.
Right after it, faint music and voices drifted through the mist, cutting through the deathly silence.
Eve raised her head.
"There are people ahead."
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They followed the sound.
At first, there were only scattered beats. Then came bells, unfamiliar instruments, and the cries of street vendors.
The sounds grew clearer.
Lights began appearing behind the closed windows around them.
After passing through one final stretch of deserted stone road, the view ahead suddenly opened up.
An old wooden sign hung above the entrance to the street, swaying faintly in the mist.
[Everslumber Street]
Beyond the sign stretched a brightly lit commercial street.
Shops lined both sides, lanterns of every color hanging beneath the eaves. Someone was striking a gong, someone else plucking at an unfamiliar stringed instrument, and a teahouse had a large drum set up right outside its door, struck loudly at intervals.
Vendors called out from behind their stalls.
"Fresh-baked wake-cakes! Eat one, stay alert a full hour!"
"Clean water! Only three jugs left for today!"
"Alertness bells, mist-warding incense — don't walk on by!"
Locals moved through the crowd, every one of them wearing a strange mask covering nose and mouth, shaped unlike anything ordinary — a round filter attached to its surface, nothing like the plain masks Eve and Vera wore.
The street was almost overwhelmingly loud.
Even behind their masks, everyone kept talking, kept striking things, as though refusing, deliberately, to let silence settle in.
And yet, scattered among the moving crowd, plenty of Sleepers still lay.
Some slumped beside stalls. Some sprawled across stone steps. Some lay stretched flat across the middle of the street.
Passersby simply stepped over them, practiced, without breaking stride.
No one stopped.
No one bent down to check whether they were still alive.
One vendor stepped over a Sleeper lying beside his stall and continued shouting his wares. His booming voice sounded muffled through his mask, but his tone remained cheerful.
As though the person on the ground wasn't a human being at all.
Just something carelessly discarded in the street.
Vera stared at the scene.
"Can they not see them?"
"They can see them."
Eve had noticed that everyone deliberately avoided the Sleepers as they passed.
They weren't ignoring them because they couldn't see them.
They were afraid to get involved.
Just then, a stifled sound of crying carried over from somewhere across the crowd.
"Grandpa..."
"Grandpa, wake up..."
The crying was painfully out of place among the vendors' calls.
Eve turned toward the sound.
A little girl, perhaps nine years old, was kneeling beside the street. She wore one of the same specialized masks as the townspeople, and both hands were wrapped tightly around an old man's arm.
The old man lay on his back, eyes closed, his face ashen.
A bamboo basket had fallen beside him, spilling food across the stone pavement.
The girl kept shaking his arm.
"Grandpa, wake up..."
"You promised me you'd wake up before eight..."
The old man didn't respond.
A small black feather sprouted from the corner of his eye.
But there was something even stranger.
A massive creature stood directly in front of the girl and the old man.
And yet, no one nearby dared to give it more than a passing glance.
Pedestrians made wide detours around them. Some lowered their heads. Others quickened their pace.
Not one person stepped forward.
Someone in the crowd had clearly recognized the old man.
"Isn't that old Chow?"
One resident took half a step forward without thinking — only to be yanked back immediately by the person beside them.
"Don't go over there."
"But old Chow, he—"
"You can't save him. Get close now, and you'll drag yourself down with him."
The man looked at Edmund Chow, lying on the ground, something like a struggle crossing his face — but in the end, he let himself be pulled back into the crowd.
Eve's breath caught slightly.
The creature was two meters tall.
Its body was thin and elongated, almost human in shape, and completely covered in black feathers that reflected no light at all.
Two long arms hung below its knees, ending in fingers curved like talons.
Its head had none of the features that belonged on a human face.
There was only a long, pointed beak.
Above it, two bottomless black hollows stared silently down at the old man.
The thing stood right in the middle of the bustling street, its shape unmistakable, and yet the vendors kept calling their wares, the music kept playing.
As though pretending not to see it would keep it from noticing them at all.
The girl shook the old man again, harder.
"Grandpa, wake up!"
The black creature's head turned, slightly.
Its gaze, which had rested on the old man, drifted slowly toward the girl.
It didn't attack right away.
It simply watched her, silent, as though weighing something.
Eve walked up to a nearby stall and stopped a middle-aged man who was just turning to leave.
"What happened to that old man?"
The middle-aged man's expression changed.
He immediately put more distance between himself and Eve.
"Don't drag me into this."
His eyes deliberately avoided the old man and the girl nearby. He clearly wanted nothing to do with what was happening.
"He fell asleep when he shouldn't have."
"What's that thing?"
"Dreamgrave Raven."
The man's voice dropped low as he said the name, his face full of dread.
"It picks out people who fall asleep during the Grey Day and takes their dreams. Here in town, they call it 'dream-reaping.'"
"Once a dream's been fully taken, that person never wakes up again. In the end, they just die in their sleep."
He glanced once at the old man on the ground.
"It's already chosen old Chow. Waking him up now wouldn't do any good."
Eve looked at the little girl, still crying.
"What about her? Why hasn't anyone taken her away?"
"Who'd dare go near her?"
Sweat beaded at the man's temples.
"It's still deciding whether she's an interferer. Once it decides she is, she'll be eliminated too."
"Trying to wake up her own grandfather counts as interfering?"
"Waking, moving, or protecting someone who's already been chosen — any of it can be read as trying to stop the reaping."
The man took a step back, his warning sharp and urgent.
"You're outsiders. Don't get involved."
"As long as you don't interfere with a reaping, it won't attack you. But the moment you act, it won't need to weigh anything anymore."
With that, he hurried off, clearly terrified that Eve really might do something, and that he'd get dragged into the mess with her.
Eve stood rooted to the spot, her fingers curling tight without her meaning to.
Vera stepped beside her and caught her wrist.
"Don't do anything reckless."
Eve didn't answer.
"We don't know what that thing is, and we don't know whether ordinary weapons can even hurt it," Vera whispered. "If we attack now, we might die here before we've even completed the commission."
Her voice was calm.
But her grip on Eve's wrist was tight.
It wasn't that Vera didn't want to help.
She simply didn't want to watch Eve throw her life away without knowing what she was facing.
And Eve knew Vera was right.
They knew nothing about Everslumber Town. The only weapon between them was a single retractable baton. That Dreamgrave Raven stood two meters tall, its claws easily capable of tearing a person apart.
And Vera's voucher had only two nights left.
They'd come here to complete the commission — to find a sustainable food source and recover the restaurant's missing power core, in exchange for a new voucher.
If Eve provoked that monster now, she might not only get herself killed.
She could also destroy Vera's only chance of survival.
Eve's feet felt nailed to the ground.
She should leave.
At the very least, learn the Dreamgrave Raven's weakness first, then figure out what to do.
The girl's crying rose again.
"Grandpa..."
She'd thrown herself entirely across the old man, her small shoulders shaking without pause.
"Don't leave me..."
The Dreamgrave Raven slowly raised one hand.
Its curved claws caught the light, gleaming with a cold, dark sheen.
It seemed to have finished deciding.
The girl noticed nothing, still clinging tightly to the old man.
Eve watched the Raven's claw angle toward her back.
If it came down, that child would have no chance at all.
"Eve."
Vera, sensing her move, tightened her grip again.
Eve's heart was pounding.
She was afraid.
Last night, when she'd faced the Name-Taker, she'd at least known the corrosive liquid could hurt it.
Now, she didn't even know whether the baton in her hand could leave a mark on the Dreamgrave Raven.
She could pretend she hadn't seen anything.
Just like everyone else on the street.
Walk around them.
Continue the mission.
That was the rational choice.
The Dreamgrave Raven's claw began to descend.
Eve wrenched her hand free from Vera's.
She pulled the baton from her belt and snapped it open with a sharp flick.
Click!
The metal rod telescoped out to full length in an instant.
Eve shoved through the crowd, circling behind the Dreamgrave Raven before its claw could fall, and swung the baton with both hands, straight into its skull.
Bang!
The dull impact drowned out every call from the vendors around them.
The Raven's skull caved inward where the blow landed.
The metal baton shuddered violently in her hands, the recoil numbing her palms, nearly wrenching the weapon out of her grip.
Ignoring the pain, Eve moved instantly in front of the girl, baton raised toward the Raven, shielding the child firmly behind her.
The entire street fell silent in an instant.
The gong stopped.
The music stopped.
Even the vendors, mid-call, snapped their mouths shut.
Countless terrified eyes turned toward Eve.
The Dreamgrave Raven didn't retaliate right away.
It held the same position it had been struck in, its caved-in skull tilted to one side. No blood seeped from beneath the black feathers. Its body showed no sign at all of going down.
A moment later, it slowly turned its head.
Two bottomless black hollows fixed directly on Eve.
She didn't need anyone to explain what she'd just done.
She'd attacked the Dreamgrave Raven, of her own will.
From this moment on, she was no longer an outsider.
The Dreamgrave Raven straightened to its full height.
Its black form, two meters tall, swallowed Eve entirely, its enormous shadow spreading across the stone path, engulfing both her and the girl behind her.
It opened its long, pointed beak.
Several voices, each belonging to a different dead person, pushed out from deep in its throat at once, overlapping — an old man's, a woman's, a young child's.
"Interferer in a reaping—"
At the sound of its voice, the townspeople recoiled as one before fleeing in panic.
"Shall share the grave."
A chill shot up Eve's spine, from the soles of her feet.
She looked down.
Under the pale grey light, her shadow lay stretched across the stone.
But it no longer held only her own outline.
Deep within her shadow, a raven had appeared, its wings spread wide — she had no idea when. A long, pointed beak jutted out from her shoulder, a pair of jet-black wings unfurled completely, as though fastened permanently to her body.
No matter how Eve moved, the raven's shadow refused to disappear.
The little girl behind her saw the shape on the ground, and the color drained instantly from her face.
"Miss..."
Her voice trembled so badly that Eve could barely hear her.
"It remembers you now."
On a rooftop across the street, an ordinary-sized black raven perched quietly at the edge of the eaves.
Its feathers were entirely black, nearly melting into the shadow beneath the roof, save for a pair of dark silver eyes, sharply, unmistakably clear.
Those eyes held none of the dullness or confusion of an ordinary bird's. Instead, they carried something close to human calm — and human intelligence.
From the moment Eve had set foot on Everslumber Street, to the instant her baton had struck the Dreamgrave Raven, it had stood there the entire time.
Watching everything.