“Thank you. Now tell me. Please.”

“That dude — the giant one — called me ‘Dream Eater.’” Her voice is soft, dreamy. She yawns. “But I don’t know what he meant. I just eat whatever tastes good …”

He sets his hands on her shoulders. Piercing silver glares back at him in the reflection of the Yokai’s dark eyes. “Please. Tell me what you are. Are you a baku? Can you really eat his nightmares?” As he speaks, he realizes his questions are rhetorical. He already knows the answers.

“I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying.” The Yokai shakes her head slowly. “What’s a baku? And what nightmares? What are we talking about here?”

Zaniel wanders off again. He is still searching the woods, expecting Akki to pounce at him from the shadows, from behind a tree, descend from the blood-red sky above.

“You don’t get it,” he mutters. He runs nervous hands through his longish hair. “If you’re not what they say you are … we’re dead.” It will only be a matter of time before Akki catches up with them, and then what? Perhaps he can feign ignorance, placate to what little benevolence the demon possessed, the benevolence that spurred him to look after Zaniel for all these years. After all, Zaniel is a mere human. He is in no position to challenge the yokai that may come at him; that is what Akki’s protection is and has always been for. No. It is too late for any of that.

“What they say I am? Who’s ‘they’? You say weird things.” She pulls the hood of her kimono over her head. “And all I did was get us out of there. It’s not like anyone else was going to come to the rescue.”

The direness of the situation grows heavier and heavier in Zaniel’s heart. He understands now, why she did it. She thought she was rescuing me. Why did she do that? What made her think she could?

“I guess the party wasn’t that bad,” the Yokai says now to cut the awkward silence. “It just wasn’t the same as the other place.”

Zaniel thinks. “You mean Jibun Jishin?”

“Yeah. They had everything I could possibly think of. Now that place was a dream come true.” She looks away, shy. “Kinda like you.”

The answer hits Zaniel like lightning. It is simple. There was never a moment she thought she could not do that. She had not stopped to think about it because there is nothing for her to contemplate. No consequences to weigh in her mind. This is a dream. It is all a dream to her. None of it is real for her. She was going through the motions of someone dreaming impossible things. What would any normal person do in her place?

“Too cheesy? Yeah, sorry. I’m not really good at … Dude, why are you looking at me like that?”