After school and returning to his flat before sunset, Luke immediately tore the other four golden strings out from his body and tied them into a complicated knot in the air.
Shortly after regaining control, he instantly dropped to his knees, breathless. The day had shaken him deeply, and the fever he thought had gone returned.
He felt utterly drained and sleepy. All he wanted was to lie down and rest. But he forced himself to stand and swallowed some medicine. He couldn't just rest, not after everything that had happened.Luke drank a glass of water and let out a long sigh, trying to gather his thoughts. His mind kept returning to what had happened at noon.'Good thing my control over my body was limited earlier. If I had been like that man, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from shaking and would have instantly given myself away to that monster.'
Luke's face twisted in frustration.
'No, no. That monster obviously knows I'm conscious too. But why didn't it attack me like it did that man?'
Luke recalled that after the monster attacked the man, it acted as though it was controlling him with its own set of numerous thin golden strings. He thought that maybe the monster had limitations too. It could only control one being at a time, so it ultimately left him alone.
Luke trembled as he realized that the entity controlling all the strings from above might be a similar monster... but far larger and more godlike.
The monster he had seen earlier could have been one of its minions, hunting people like him.
'If that's true, and if the monster really knows I'm conscious, then I'm in serious danger.'
Luke's body tensed. He couldn't shake the feeling that countless invisible monsters were lurking in his house, watching him with eerie intent.
However, after careful consideration, he felt that he was only scaring himself as he hadn't heard any sound of metallic clanking on the ground.
Luke walked around in contemplation, trying to recall every detail of what had transpired earlier.
'One thing that's very odd is why the world stopped at noon. Hmmm... the monster seems only visible at that time. Maybe it can only attack at that time too, which is why it ultimately left.'
With this thought, Luke finally felt slightly calmer. Perhaps his situation wasn't as perilous as he had initially believed.
'And one other thing... that wooden insignia on the monster's face.' Luke's eyes narrowed as he hurried to the bedroom of his deceased parents.
His parents had been gone for a long time, and their bedroom had been converted into a storage room filled with their belongings, as well as some of Luke's.
Despite the time that had passed, he still remembered a peculiar item he had found in his childhood, which he had carried with him until it was taken over by his mother.
Opening the drawers and cabinets one by one, he eventually found a circular wooden object on the bedside cabinet.
It had a carved figure of a man with one foot on a stone with his gaze directed forward. His smile and eyes were full of enthusiasm, as if confidence radiated from him.
Below the figure, a word was carved into the wood.
"Protagonist…" Luke murmured.
He had always found this item strangely similar to the insignia on the monster's face. While the shapes and carvings were different, the mystical feeling they exuded was too similar to ignore.
As he recalled, the shape on the monster's face resembled that of a crystal, but its top and bottom were rounded rather than pointed.
Carved within it was a doll with a creepy smile, one of its button-like eyes missing, and two of its arms raised at a 90-degree angle. There were also two strings attached to its elbows.
Below it, he remembered, was the word "Puppeteer."
Luke tapped his foot repeatedly on the floor as he examined the circular wooden emblem in his hand.
'Could the reason behind my parents' death be because they encountered a monster like the one I saw earlier?'
'Did they also gain awareness and see the golden strings before they died? Is that why my mother took it from me and kept it hidden?'
Luke formulated numerous vague speculations. He could only rely on his past memories to determine what was viable and correct.
'From what I can remember, I found this emblem while playing on the playground when I was four years old. I had been wearing it as a necklace until I entered primary school, specifically the time when my mother took it from me.'
'But why did my younger self carry it around and even turn it into a necklace? Is there also a monster called 'Protagonist'?'
Luke scratched his head in irritation. He lacked information, and his memories before the age of four were hazy. He couldn't recall many details.
After sighing deeply, Luke turned the emblem into a necklace and wore it around his neck. He decided to carry it with him, just like when he was a child.
"Ugh..." Luke groaned in pain, unconsciously collapsing onto his parents' dusty bed. His head throbbed painfully from the fever.
Luke felt the soft touch of the bedding and was tempted to lie down, but he quickly regained his rationality when he saw the golden strings he had tangled earlier approaching him again.
With a deep breath, Luke stood up and retied the strings in the air. Shortly after, he went to have dinner.
***
"Ugh..." Luke groaned.
However, when he realized where he was, his eyes bulged in an instant. Yet, it was too late as the five golden strings were faster and immediately attached themselves to his skin.
'Why am I in my bed?' Luke wondered. He was confused and shocked to find himself there when he had been eating dinner just moments ago.
Then, a series of memories flooded his mind. In truth, after he ate his dinner, his body had grown heavy, and his mind had become too muddled. Somehow, he had forgotten about the tangled strings and subconsciously gone to his bed to sleep.
'Damn, I'm such an idiot!' Luke cursed inwardly. The thing he feared the most had finally happened, a moment when he finally lost control over his body.
After waking up groggily, his body froze for a moment before slipping back into sleep. Although his eyelids were closed, Luke could still see his surroundings. It felt like sleep paralysis. He was aware of everything around him, yet his body wouldn't move.
No matter how hard Luke tried to move, he couldn't. At this hour, he was supposed to be asleep, and that's exactly what the strings were making him do.
"What should I do?" Luke quickly recalled his previous memories. As they replayed in his mind, he noted two important moments.
The first was yesterday, when he suddenly became aware of the golden strings. The second was when he had woken up just earlier.
A few seconds after he woke up, he noticed that the golden strings weren't with him. It only took a couple of seconds for them to make contact again.
This suggested that while he was asleep, he might be free from their control.
'I could have gained control if I had reacted faster. It's because I was so muddled that I failed to respond quickly. This is my fault,' Luke thought. But then he stopped blaming himself, realizing there was some good news in his mistake.
He still had a chance to break free from the strings' control! As long as he truly went back to sleep, the strings might detach. And if he was quick enough, he could escape them when he woke up in the morning.
Suddenly, while Luke was pondering about this, the fan above him stopped rotating, and the curtains ceased swaying. It was eerily similar to what had happened at noon, when time had seemed to freeze.
'Why is this happening again?' Luke wondered, surprised.
Then, he sensed something appear on the wall. It was illusory as though it was like a ghost.
The said entity passed through the wall and exited through another. More of these ghostly entities followed and they emerged from every direction. Their numbers were very overwhelming.
Luke was once again stunned and instinctively tried to close his eyelids so the monsters wouldn't realize he was awake. But his eyelids had long been closed, as his body was already asleep.
Unlike with the puppeteer monster before, his situation was relatively safer now. As he was now under the direct control of the strings, his abnormality wouldn't be obvious to them,
This realization gave Luke some relief as he observed them secretly. The creatures were made of white cloth that floated in the air, with a seemingly circular head forming the structure.
Embedded in the center of their heads was a circular wooden emblem. Carved within it was the image of a mountain with a small man traversing a grassy field. Below it was the word, "Traveler."
Their disturbance continued for a few minutes until the entities vanished like a mirage and the fan began to rotate again.
The world filled with noise and movement once more, leaving Luke confused about what had just occurred.
After taking a moment to calm himself, Luke temporarily pushed the creatures out of his mind. His priority now was to regain control of his body.
'To do that, I have to actually be asleep first.'
Ultimately, Luke decided to stop struggling and let his mind relax. By doing so, he would truly fall asleep.
As he did, he recited a mantra in his mind: 'Evade the strings first. Evade the strings first. Don't let them touch me first. Don't…'
When he willed himself to sleep, the darkness engulfed him, and he could no longer see his bedroom. The strings finally detached themselves from him, floating a few feet away from his sleeping body.