— Chapter 60: Six Lanterns, One City

 

The city no longer followed rules.

Not time.

Not gravity.

Not even identity.

Since the Lantern Children arrived, everything bent around them.

1:00 AM – Clocktower District

A merchant boiled ink instead of tea.

He drank it, laughed, and melted into pages that fluttered away, screaming poems.

No one questioned it.

No one remembered it.

Except Hiragi.

He stood atop the broken overpass, eyes scanning the unstable city.

Red threads ran across buildings like veins.

Billboards blinked with faces he recognized but couldn't name.

Beside him, Ishigami reviewed his findings.

"The six children are not human," he said calmly.

"They're fragments. Living parts of a dream-god the city is trying to recreate."

"So the city itself is... dreaming them?"

"Yes. And if they finish their cycle, this city becomes the new Mask."

Meanwhile, Airi followed one of the children into the Glass Museum.

Inside, everything reflected a future that hadn't happened.

In one mirror, she saw Hiragi—older, wearing a blindfold, standing alone.

In another, she saw herself—bleeding out, trying to write Hiragi's name.

The child turned.

"Do you like our dreams, big sister?"

"No," she whispered. "They're not dreams. They're graves."

3:00 AM – The Wake Begins

Each of the six lanterns now hovered over key districts:

One at the school. One at the hospital. One above the river. One above the market. One at the graveyard. One... inside Hiragi's house.

Hiragi's eyes narrowed.

He could feel it now.

The city's breath.

It was sleeping... and its dream was starting to override reality.

"Ishigami," Hiragi said. "What happens if we destroy the children?"

"They are anchors. Remove one, the city glitches. Remove all... the dream collapses."

"And the people trapped in it?"

"They burn."

Silence.

Airi: "There has to be another way."

Hiragi: "Then we find it before sunrise. Because after that... we all stop being real."

As they prepared to move out, Hiragi clenched his blade.

"This is no longer about cults or gods," he said.

"This is about which version of the world wins."

End of Chapter 60

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