Succumania

A hollow and unfamiliar place. A city he had only ever visited as a tourist.

Tokyo—14 million people, yet not a single soul in sight.

Of course, it was a dream. But this time, something was different. No cicadas droned in the distance. No rustling leaves whispered in the wind. Just an eerie, ceaseless howl, weaving through the towering buildings like a phantom's lament.

He had been walking for—how long? Minutes? Hours? Time didn't exist here.

Dreaming wasn't unusual for him. But these kinds of dreams—where the line between reality and the surreal blurred to nothing—those were rare.

And he knew them too well.

Nothing could be felt at his fingertips. The sound in his ears felt hollow.

Like looking through a lens, his vision was hazy. His mouth was dry.

What was it? A lucid dream? No, it was a part of him. 

Then, he became someone. 

A young Japanese woman, in her thirties, going back home after a long day of work. Dressed in a formal suit, she was definitely a salarywoman, working in a random office somewhere in Tokyo, nothing too special.

An ordinary woman, part of this giant anthill of a city.

She carried herself with the weary grace of routine, her heels clicking against the pavement as she walked. The weight of the day pressed against her shoulders, but she barely noticed it anymore—it was part of the rhythm, part of the life she lived without question.

A nameless woman in a city full of nameless people.

Except now, there were no people. 

The streets were deserted, the neon lights of storefronts flickering without any purpose. Office towers stood tall and lifeless, their windows reflecting themselves. It should have been comforting—silence, after all, was a rare thing in Tokyo.

But this wasn't silence.

It was absence.

A missing piece of something fundamental, something essential.

He/She knew where He/She had to go. A small apartment, situated in the suburbs, far away from the center of the city. 

She entered the subway, and after checking her card on the nearby barrier, she waited for her train. As usual, it came right on time, but with no one aboard.

The doors slid open with a soft chime, inviting her in. The interior was pristine, untouched—no scuff marks on the floor, no stray advertisements littering the seats. 

She stepped inside, heels clicking against the metal floor. The doors shut behind her with a gentle hiss, and almost immediately, the train lurched forward.

She didn't need to check the route. She knew exactly where it was taking her.

The hum of the train filled the silence, a constant drone that pressed against her thoughts. Outside the windows, the tunnels stretched endlessly, more void than space. No stations passed. No other passengers boarded.

Something about it gnawed at the edge of his/her consciousness.

He/She had done this before.

The train swayed gently, and she risked a glance at the window beside her. In the dark tunnel, her reflection stared back—her own tired eyes, her own face. Though, in between lights, it flickered to someone else, a young boy. 

A chill crept up her spine.

The flickering was brief—so brief she might have dismissed it as a trick of the dim, passing lights. She kept her gaze fixed on the reflection, waiting. The train rattled along, cutting through the void of the tunnels, the overhead lights casting a steady artificial glow.

A distorted voice whispered through the speakers.

"Next stop…"

Static swallowed the rest.

She knew where she was. There were no next stops. 

The train doors slid open with a soft hiss, but there was no welcoming light from the outside, only the same cold, empty darkness. The suburbs stretched out in front of her, a blank canvas of concrete and silence.

She stepped off the train, her feet sinking slightly into the familiar terrain of the station platform. She paused, before going back to her routine. 

There was no sign of life. No cars passing on the roads. No lights in the windows of the nearby houses. The residential area was empty, just like the rest.

Her instincts told her to keep moving. She didn't know why, but she felt an unshakable pull toward something ahead. She had been here before, many, many times. Yet, she couldn't remember when or how. 

She stopped at a crossing, the alarm beeping until the light turned green. She waited, even if no cars were to cross it.

The light turned green, and as usual, she crossed it. It was normal to wait for it to turn green to cross, after all. 

She passed by an abandoned park. A slide, a swing—empty.

Just like everything else.

No memories surfaced upon seeing it, no lingering emotions. But a small, inexplicable sense 

of regret pressed down on her chest.

Why was it like this? Why did the park feel… wrong? She asked herself.

But the answer was always the same.

Something was missing.

Her feet kept moving, carrying her forward, but it was becoming harder to ignore the feeling of emptiness. The world around her—empty houses, silent streets, vacant parks—was all too still.

She approached a familiar intersection, her gaze locking onto the house in the distance.

A modest structure, framed by a metal gate. The sight of it stirred something, but it was distant, like a forgotten dream. Without thinking, she rummaged through her pocket and retrieved her key, the cold metal cool against her fingertips. With a soft beep, the lock clicked open. She stepped inside the garden, and walked in front of the house.

There was no sound.

After twirling the keys with her finger, she inserted one of them into the lock. However, it was already open. 

Strange. She didn't remember leaving it open, and there was no one waiting for her at home, was it?

She gently pushed the door.

She hesitated at the threshold, her hand still gripping the door. The scene before her was so ordinary, so achingly familiar, yet it felt like a fragment of a life she couldn't quite grasp. The soft glow of the living room lights spilled into the genkan, illuminating the child sitting cross-legged at the low table, pencil in hand, focused on his homework. In the kitchen, a man stood with his back to her, the rhythmic sound of a knife against a cutting board filling the air. The scent of miso soup and simmering vegetables wafted through the doorway, warm and inviting.

Her breath caught in her throat. This was her home. Wasn't it? The child, the man—they were hers. Weren't they? But the harder she tried to remember, the more the details slipped away, like water through her fingers. She stepped inside, her heels clicking softly against the wooden floor, and the door closed behind her with a quiet click.

The child didn't look up. The man didn't turn around.

"I'm home," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. The words felt strange on her tongue, as though she hadn't spoken them in years.

No one responded.

She reached out to touch the child's shoulder, but her hand passed through him like smoke. She turned to the man, her voice trembling as she called out.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

Still, no response.

Instead, the father spoke to the child. 

"Hey, are you done with your homework? Food is almost ready."

"Yes! I'm almost finished." the child answered, scribbling even harder than before. 

While setting up the table, the man tilted his head to the sideboard right next to it. On there, a few papers, a plant, and—

"Huh?" His hand reached out to grab a photo frame. It was a simple family photo, but something was off. He was there, with his child, but… "Why is there so much space on the left?" he asked himself. Either the one who took the photo was very bad at framing, or…

No, he had no other explanation. Still, something was off.

The woman watched, her chest tightening as the man stared at the photo, his brow furrowed in confusion. She stepped closer, her eyes scanning the image. The man and the child stood close together, smiling, but the left side of the photo was eerily empty, as though someone had been erased from the frame. A faint outline lingered there, a ghostly silhouette that seemed to mock her.

"Who…?" the man muttered, his voice trailing off. He shook his head, as if trying to dispel the thought, and set the photo back on the sideboard. "Must've been a mistake," he said, more to himself than to the child.

The child closed his notebook and slid it into his backpack, then turned to the man. "Dad, can I help set the table?"

"Sure," the man replied, his voice warm but distant. He handed the child a stack of plates, and together they began arranging the dishes. The woman stood there, invisible and unheard, her heart aching as she watched the simple, mundane act of a family preparing for dinner.

She wanted to scream, to grab their shoulders and shake them until they saw her. But she couldn't.

After all, she never existed.

Her form faded, and he found himself back in Akihabara.

Still, Tokyo was silent. 

He stood there, disoriented, his mind still clinging to the fragments of what he just saw. The photo, the child, the man, the empty space where she should have been. It felt so real, so vivid, yet it was slipping away from every passing second. 

Like a nightmare that no one could remember.

"What a sad state." A flowery voice came through, reaching his ears. "So many like her, denied of the pleasures of life."

He turned sharply, his eyes scanning the empty street. The voice was soft, almost melodic, but it carried an edge—a kind of sorrow that seemed to seep into the air around him. There was no one in sight, just the flickering neon signs and the faint hum of electricity in the air.

He wanted to call out, but no sound came out of his throat. 

Then, from the shadows of a nearby alley, a figure emerged. She was unlike anyone he had ever seen. Her presence was ethereal, her movements graceful, as though she were gliding rather than walking. Her hair cascaded down her back in waves of purple, and her eyes—golden and piercing—seemed to hold the weight of time itself.

She wore a deep purple leotard with cutout sections, long gloves with fur trim at the ends, and thigh-high boots of the same color. Her whole outfit incorporated heart motifs, as though she were an envoy of love itself made manifest—if it weren't for the horns curling elegantly from her head,

He had already met her, in the Land of Night. 

"You see them, don't you?" she said, her voice soft like a whisper. "The ones who were. The ones who linger in the space between."

Right. Her name was Est. To him she was just a succubus who helped him during an important fight during the portal crisis, he never truly had the time to meet her. 

She tilted her head, her golden eyes studying him with an intensity that made him feel exposed, naked in both body and mind. "I wasn't the one who called you here. I merely followed you."

For a fleeting being like herself, having a frown filled with sadness only made this situation unsettling. Her expression was uncharacteristically somber, her usual air of playful allure replaced by something deeper, more melancholic.

Dreams were important, both in concept and in practice. They could fill us with something new, a horizon never reached or that couldn't be reached. She embodied both—a fleeting dream that could swallow you whole, make you wish for more, or leave you with a memory you would never forget. A dream that could forge your path onward or trap you in its endless labyrinth.

"This place…" she continued, her eyes closed as if to feel the ambient area. "It is tied to you, isn't it? How are you able to be this conscious here? Even I have a hard time manifesting."

Indeed, he could see her flicker, ready to disappear at any moment. Yet, he didn't have a single answer to her question. Instead, he had more questions than ever. 

Why Tokyo? Why this woman? Who is behind this?

A sinking feeling took over him as he stepped forward.

And then, under the neon lights of the alley, he saw it.

A single clue—a strand of purple fox fur, delicate and shimmering, lying on the concrete. It glowed faintly, as if imbued with some otherworldly energy, and seemed to pulse in rhythm with the flickering lights above. He knelt down, his fingers trembling as he reached out to touch it.

Like a single leaf of a tree. 

The single cause of this singular dream.

Causing him to wake up.