Chương 184: Chapter 184
The melon sat on the table. Its pale yellow rind was cracked, as if some immense force had already tried to tear it apart. The flesh inside was an unsettling shade of green, not the pleasant sweetness of a ripe melon but something off, something wrong. Ethan stood frozen, staring at it, the last gift of a dead man.
The story had been passed around like a joke at first. A fruit, a curse, an impossible thing that sounded like it belonged in some twisted myth. Whoever ate it would have their greatest dream come true. But there was always a catch. The catch wasn't just that the melon had to be eaten. It was what came after. The dream would come true, yes. But so would something else. Someone close to them would die. But not just die. The death would play out over and over, in their sleep, like a movie they could never turn off.
Ethan had heard the tale for years. He didn't believe it. It was ridiculous. And then one night, there it was—sitting on his kitchen counter, sent by someone who had claimed it was his turn.
He had told himself not to touch it. Not to be weak, not to let it control him. But it had been there for days, mocking him. Its presence weighed on him like an invisible hand pushing against his chest.
The first bite had been almost accidental. His hunger, his need for something, had driven him to it. Just a bite. Just one. No one would know. The taste had been strange. Too sweet, but with something sour beneath. The texture was off, too. It wasn't like anything he had ever eaten. He'd pushed the plate aside, sickened, but his mind had begun to turn. The promise. The dream. He'd thought nothing of it. Dreams didn't come true.
Except that night, he had dreamed.
It was a place he knew, but not a place he remembered. The house was the same, but everything was wrong. The colors, the smells, the silence. He knew the people there. His mother, his brother, his sister. But it was different somehow. They didn't look like themselves, but he couldn't figure out why. They were distant. Cold. And as the dream moved on, the distance grew.
He stood in a room, the door shut behind him, when the floor began to tremble. The walls cracked open, a sound like a thousand nails being scraped against metal. And from the crack, from the endless space beyond, something crawled. Long, thin limbs reaching through, pulling itself into the room with a sound like wet fabric tearing.
It was his brother. But it wasn't. His face had twisted into something hideous. His eyes were wide, vacant, bloodshot. His mouth stretched open impossibly wide, a black void in the center. He crawled toward Ethan, the sound of his limbs scraping against the floor with each movement. His fingers were broken, bent at odd angles. His body moved unnaturally, like it was being dragged by invisible strings.
Ethan tried to move, to scream, but his mouth wouldn't work. The walls closed in on him, and his brother came closer, closer, closer. Then there was a scream. A terrible, guttural scream.
The dream ended.
Ethan woke up, sweating, heart pounding in his chest. It had been just a dream. Just a nightmare. But it felt real. Too real. The pain in his chest, the suffocating heat, it all felt like it was still there. He rolled out of bed, stood up, and found himself in the kitchen. The melon was still there, sitting on the counter, like it was waiting for him.
The next few days were a blur. He couldn't stop thinking about the dream. About his brother. About how it felt like his brother had been reaching for him, pulling him into that nightmare.
And then it happened.
It was a normal afternoon. Ethan had just returned home from work when he saw his brother standing outside the house. His brother, Daniel, looked different. The smile was gone, replaced with something darker. His eyes were sunken, hollow, and his face was pale, almost sickly. He hadn't seen Daniel like this before. They had talked just a few days ago, laughed about some old joke. But now, standing on the porch, Daniel looked...wrong.
The moment Daniel spoke, Ethan's heart stopped.
"I need to tell you something," Daniel said, voice cracked and raspy.
"What is it?" Ethan asked, trying to ignore the tightness in his throat, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong.
"I—" Daniel's voice cut off as he staggered back, one hand clutching his chest. His face twisted in pain. "I—I... Ethan, I don't know what's happening to me."
Ethan rushed forward. "What's wrong? What's going on?"
But as he reached out, Daniel collapsed in front of him. His body hit the ground with a sickening thud. Ethan screamed for him to get up, but Daniel didn't move. The blood pooling around his body stained the earth, seeping into the grass.
The pain, the terror, was too much. Ethan could hardly breathe as he knelt beside his brother's lifeless body. His hands shook as he tried to stop the blood, but there was nothing. Nothing at all.
And then, just as suddenly, Ethan was standing in the dream again. His brother was lying on the floor, contorted, face twisted in agony. The nightmare he had seen replayed before his eyes in brutal clarity. The limbs cracking, the scream.
And that was when Ethan realized.
The curse wasn't a game. It wasn't a lie. It was real. But it was worse than he could have imagined. The melon had given him his greatest dream, but it had also given him this.
Ethan spent the next days trapped in that nightmare. Every time he closed his eyes, his brother's body, his brother's face, the blood—it played out again and again, like an endless loop he couldn't escape from. No matter how hard he tried to shake it off, to forget it, it was there.
The dream. The death. The suffering.
He didn't tell anyone. He couldn't. They wouldn't believe him. And even if they did, it wouldn't change anything. He had done this. He had eaten the melon. He had made the choice. He had brought the curse upon his brother.
Days passed, and each night, the nightmare returned, stronger, more vivid, more brutal. It started to bleed into his waking hours. He couldn't escape. He couldn't breathe.
And then came the final night.
Ethan couldn't remember what had happened after that. He woke up in the hospital. There were people around him. Doctors, nurses, but none of them seemed to care. His eyes were bloodshot, his mind a haze. He couldn't focus on anything but one thing: the melon. The curse. The death.
He reached for his phone, hands trembling, and looked at the messages from his family. They had told him about the accident. How Daniel had died. But it wasn't an accident. It was the curse.
His brother's death had been his fault. He knew it now. Every time he closed his eyes, it came back. The nightmare. His brother's body. The blood.
It wasn't a dream anymore. It was reality. It was his life. And it would never end.
He cried. Not for his brother, but for himself.
And as the days dragged on, and the nights pulled him under, Ethan realized that the curse didn't end. It never did. There was no escape. The death, the suffering, it would always be there.
And it would always be his fault.
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