View source for Five Nightmares: A note in the shed

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2025/02/05
|Location=A Note left in the Shed
|Synopsis=An injured Emi under threat by Hinoiri leaves a message in the shed for the Mahou who will have to confront the threats she usually faces.
|Tinyplot=The Five Nightmares
}}
A little (very long) computer printed note is attached to the bulletin board by Hinoiri. It has a little hand-drawn spider logo on the top of it, a cute lil' anime lady spider with big eyes and  who is waving a forelimb towards the reader. A speech bubble above it says 'Hello!'. The note contains the following text, which reading will show was clearly dictated.

Hi everyone! Emi here.

So like I'm being ordered to slow down by Hinoiri, who says if I do not, she will end me before any Nightmare gets the chance. I'm going to do what she says since she's kind of weirdly terrifying and so I am gonna be down for a little while. That's kind of a big problem not just for me but for some of the things I've been working on and now am under strict supervision to not work on them or I will, again, be terminated before any monster can get their claws on me. She's watching me dictate this right now. The look in her eyes is kind of worrying.

I know most of you don't know me but much as it pains me to lay my responsibilities down on you, Hinoiri threatens even greater suffering, so I guess what I'm saying is I need your help -- yes you -- and that of your friends. 

There are a handful of people and places that I've been working on that could be host to or manifest an associated Nightmare in some way. Nightmare energy frequently attaches to a person's fears and is given form and purpose by them. Places people are scared of can have the same kind of energy, and if it gets strong enough some of those nightmares can generate enough power to force themselves into the real world. I need some people to keep an eye on these areas and people for me so these things can like be dealt with if it happens? This is not an exhaustive list and there might (most definitely) be surprises in the next few weeks but these are the most likely candidates by far, and were my targets for further investigation next week. Stop giving me that look, Hinoiri!

Kenny Nakamura: 

Kenny's one of my fellow delinquents. He's a wannabe graffiti artist. Fortunately, CCTV and public safety laws are like way too much for him so he mostly just kind of poses about it and the damage he can actually do is pretty limited. Thing is, I've seen his art and some of the stuff he draws strikes a familiar chord in me from stuff I've seen in the dreamscape, blank-faced monochrome figures and the like. I think he's started sneaking out at night mostly as a means to avoid sleeping. I was going to check out his dreamscape but obviously I can't do that right now. He attends Adachi Municipal Juuban Junior High School and lives at Hoshizora Heights – 3-12-7 Juuban.

Hakubutsukan-Dōbutsuen Station

Most of you are probably aware of Hakubutsukan-Dōbutsuen Station, you can see the abandoned station when you're riding on the subway line to Ueno. It's pretty creepy if you haven't and it's got plenty of urban legends associated with it. I noticed like some I guess Americans call it creepy pasta which I never understood because like what's so creepy about pasta, associated with it on like social media. Anyway, I checked out a dream version of it and I did suspect some nightmare energy there and was gonna check out the real side too. Something is up there and I don't know what it could be. The stories are all generic don't go there at night and if you feel someone behind you or hear footsteps, for the love of everything don't look at them or you'll die like my friends cousin's uncle or whatever. Still, something bad could manifest there from the dream realm.

The Neon Labyrinth

Hinoiri is letting me know not to use that term because it has something to do with witches and then she went on an extended streak of cursing about 'Kyubeh', but it's what it's called! Anyway this is another creepy pasta that caught my eye. They say if you go in at midnight, the neon lights shining down on it will bend into a twisting trail and the alley will be like suddenly too long? And if you follow it, distorted geography is like really a common feature of dreamscapes just like Guy Who Is Too Long is a common feature of nightmares, it'll lead you to a door that you're sure wasn't there a moment ago be opened by a lady with shimmering black hair and a voice sweet as a mother's lullaby. She asks you if you're coming inside, but she and the door disappear the moment you blink and then your phone rings and her voice is on the other line saying 'I'll see you soon'. Like, seriously, I'd dismiss this as just Ringu shit if a few different accounts hadn't seemingly posted it separately, accounts which say they saw her, and that they'd started having dreams about her. I tried to like DM them and they didn't respond and hadn't posted in a while. Could just be throwaways, but I got worried so I spent entirely too long trying to find the alley in the photos and video people doing the 'challenge' had uploaded and eventually did, I'm pretty sure, and I had penciled in a night to go check it out. Maybe this isn't even a nightmare and is something else, if it's anything at all? 

Reiko Fujiwara

Boy is she hard to run down. She used to be a promising singer on the local circuits, all up and coming. One day, she dropped out of sight and nobody knew what happened. I met her when she was busking on a street corner, and I definitely noticed she seemed troubled, right? But I didn't think it was like nightmares and stuff until I saw her having a mental health episode being egged on by some youtubers. She was crying, saying something was stealing her voice and her words at night while she slept, something she called 'the Flickering Man'. I suppose it could all be mental health related but I really didn't like the sound of it, or how haunted she looked when she was describing it, and especially no thanks to the jerks harassing her. Youtube 'busker break down Tokyo' and it should pop up if you want to get a look at her. The kids who posted it ate a lot of backlash from the public and some kind soul started raising money to get her off the street. At the very least she deserves to know that, but apparently no one can find her just yet. Don't like that.

It's possible that none of these are going to pan out as something that has like a real world component, and it might be that nothing actually happens on any given night or at all. I just need people to keep an eye on them, and remember that these are just the ones that seem most likely to me. Please remember that Nightmares are very dangerous and don't engage one on your own if you don't have to -- leave being that stupid to me. Get friends. If one does show up and you beat it, get a hold of me and I can bring KenKen down to deal with it for good and recycle its energy back into the dreamscape. Stay sharp out there. I got to wrap this up, I'm being threatened with my bat. 

— Your friendly (but currently intimidated) Oneiric Guardian

OOC Addendum: Roughly once a week for the next month or so I plan on running scenes related to some of these while Emi is convalescing after being injured. The assumption is that anyone who wants to be involved in looking for/keeping an eye on these can if they've read this notice. That being said, nothing will actually happen with any of them until I run the scene in question and reveal which of these, or if any of these, are actual problems. If people want to ask Emi questions or meet her to discuss them, I'll try to make myself available for them.