I'm not sure how long it's been chasing me. It feels like days, weeks. But objectively, when I line my memories of desperate hobbling and hiding in chronological order, it’s only been an hour at best.

The creature entered the locker room, murmuring and twitching as it ripped the doors off the hinges with its dozen arms. Its mass of flesh sloshed over the floor with toilet water and tears, and its hundred mouths screeched with anger with a thousand voices.

“Ugly bitch!”, it squealed as a mass of darkened flesh whipped out of its body, smashing into a locker and completely caving it in. It did the same for the next, shouting curses, and on and on.

It seems to be intent on destroying everything in here, which was a shame, as I was hiding in a locker on the far wall, clutching my side and breathing as slowly as I could. Which was very, very slow, as it turns out.

I thought desperately, trying to think of a way out of this situation, but I couldn’t think of any clever schemes. Running wouldn’t work, as I need two legs to do so, and there was nowhere to hide, no route out of the room. I couldn’t so much as open the locker door without the obnoxiously loud hinges giving away my position.

My eyes couldn’t pick up anything useful nor decipherable. The energy in the air and environment was in flux, constantly moving and swirling in a kaleidoscope of grey and black. I gathered that the creature was growing stronger, as the energy around it only grew thicker, but I didn’t know how.

What was its energy source? That was the million-dollar question. Would I suddenly have a spontaneous answer within the next 30 seconds or so? Probably not.

So instead, facing death in its many eyes I found myself introspective.

I’m terrified. Or at least, I think I am. I’m not particularly struggling to stay calm, think rationally, or control my breathing. So, while it’s hard to gauge the definition of terror - as I can’t feel someone else- something tells me what I’m feeling is ‘fear’, not ‘terror’.

My mostly dead body might have something to do with it, but I think I’ve been like this for a long time. In fact, I might very well be able to pinpoint the very date, though that's not relevant.

No, what is relevant is a certain idea.

I should be dead. I’ve seen it move very quickly, and it always seems to find its way to the room I’m in, so how the hell hasn’t it gotten me yet? I‘ve been reduced to crawling and hopping to get anywhere, I’m not exactly a slippery target.

It slinked to the other side of the locker room, yelling and screaming as the smashing continued, but I zoned it out.

It’s playing with me, like a cat with a mouse. Why? Is it sadistic? Having fun torturing its prey before killing it? Maybe. But I suspect it’s more mechanical than that. More functional.

I think its feeding off-

“Found you~”

A particularly toothy grin appeared in the narrow locker slit as the light was shadowed by something massive.

The locker door was ripped off its hinges, and I was unceremoniously thrown out of my hiding spot, smashing into the opposing line of lockers hard enough to dent them. I fell to the floor, landing in the rapidly rising disgusting liquid.

As I looked up at the laughing amalgamation of limbs, I came to a realization.

I can absolutely feel terror. I was getting worried about that.

”Why are you still here?!” It asked in anger and hatred, mouths swirling into one gaping, toothy maw. It formed gnarled lips, to better accentuate its meaningless taunting. ”Oh, I’m sorry, was that yours?”

As I was saying before, I think it’s feeding off fear. That would explain the behavior and the nature of the dungeon as itself. It would make sense, coming from what I know from Yukiko. The simple answer, then, is to stop being afraid.

So I tried to steel my jaw, and not flinch as it opened its mouth in preparation to swallow me whole. I tried to deaden my fear and disassociate.

I failed. It lunged for me, and I screamed like a little girl.

Then I fell through the floor for the second time today.

This time was different. It wasn’t a collapsing floor, more like a...portal, if you will. An inky black rift simply opened in the floor, and I dropped straight through it...right back onto the roof.

The scenery was exactly the same, and the concrete wasn’t so much as cracked. Akiko loomed over me, staring upwards towards the hole.

“Thanks for that,” I said, evenly, as if I wasn’t just screaming. Must have been the other guy. Scared? Me? Nonsense. Let’s talk about powers instead.

”That...wasn’t me,” she murmured.

”I doubt that,” I countered.

”No...” she continued. “I can’t control any of this...I don't understand any of this.”

”It is a bit much,” I agreed. “But I’m sure it was you that saved me, subconscious or not.”

”How...can you tell?”

Because the rift I fell through, that was still floating in the air, was made entirely of her power. It was interesting how they were black visually, but white when I viewed them through my special eye. My brand!

”I just know a lot of things,” I said. “The new world requires new knowledge.”

She huddled to herself tighter. “But if I did it... does that mean that I led it here?”

Oh shit. “What? No. That’s one hell of a leap of-“

But it was too late. The crack bent and pulsed, and I could hear a voice coming from the other side. Yukiko whimpered in fear. “I knew it...I messed up again!”

It was abundantly clear that this dungeon reflected her mental state. Or at least, the creature did. This likely means that the only way to destroy it is to convince her to do it.

My life depends entirely on my ability to convince an overgrown teenager to have some self-esteem.

I miss the orcs already.

”Are you scared?” I asked, calmly.

Yukiko nodded.

”Why?”

”Why wouldn’t I be?” she snapped. “I’m in some mystical realm, chased by my own nightmares, trapped in the body of a monster.”

I hummed. Risk time. “Have you seen what it looks like outside?”

She shook her head.

I sat there, still lying on the ground below the rift, watching it bulge and squirm, and wove her a story. “As of two days ago, the world effectively ended. The entire surface of the earth was scrambled, and its people misplaced. Gates have sprouted up around the world, and monsters have crawled forth, causing mass slaughter amongst the survivors.”

I looked at her still form. “Hard to believe, huh?”

Another shake. “No. The end of the world sounds about right.”

I continued. “But Goro and I closed the nearest gate, killing the monster sustaining it. We’ve created a pocket of safety, and have hundreds of people in a tower, with hopefully many more on the way. We very well could be the last bastion of humanity, though I sincerely doubt it.”

She finally looked at me, and I could catch a glimpse of her eyes from behind her hair. “Are we in a gate?”

”No. A dungeon. A sort of...pocket dimension formed by the...magic of a single person. In this case, it would be you. The creatures and locale is a reflection of yourself.”

Her voice was quiet now. Maybe she caught a whiff of what I was getting at. “Why are you telling me this.”

This was the make-or-break moment. For her. I’m about to take a lot of leaps of faith.

“Where do you think this dungeon is located?” I asked.

She said nothing, but her eyes showed understanding.

”The second floor of the tower.”

The sky darkened, and the murmuring got louder. A single hand punched through the rift, fingers curled to claws and blackened like char.

”What do you think will happen if this dungeon continues growing?” I questioned, voice still neutral. “Creatures of your own making will tear through the survivors, kill hundred in terrifying, awful ways, and ruin the chances of survival for maybe thousands more.”

The sakura trees began to wither, and the concrete aged visibly. The murmuring was louder now, thousands of doubts and regrets on the wind. Dozens more hands punched through, and it began to slowly pull the rift open. A familiar maw was visible on the other side, yelling taunts.

”All your fault!”

”Still useless!”

”Waste of space!”

”Should never have been born.”

Akiko was crying now, sobbing into her knees. “I’m sorry...”

”But it doesn’t have to be this way,” I said, voice taking on a more soothing tone despite my surroundings. “The simple answer is to stop being afraid.”

Lightning struck in the distance. “DO YOU THINK ITS THAT EASY?!” she screamed, and I caught a glimpse of something awful behind the hair. But I put that aside for now.

”You’re strong, you know. You may not have done it intentionally, but that barrier you made is the sole reason this place is still standing. It can save many more in the future. For someone so strong, what are nightmares?”

But those words seemed to have no affect. The sky only got darker, and the whispering got louder. The rift opened wider.

”Freak of nature!”

”Cheating bitch!”

”Hasshakusama!”

Okay, positive reinforcement is a no-go. God, I hope this works.

I crawled over next to her, feeling the energy pulse off her, feeding into the dungeon itself. How bottomless was her core that it could still go, even now?

”Do you wish this Midori girl was dead?” I asked, almost casually.