15: Searching for a Key of Dream

It was in a summer vacation of the second-year in the university.

A senior who was an occult mania told me "Come to my place so I'll show you something fascinating."

It couldn't be optional as he was the person I looked up to as my master.

I headed to his apartment as he told.

Master's room was on the first floor of an old apartment. Having knocked on the door which was unlocked as always and entered the room, I saw him playing with something while sitting on the tatami.

It was a toilet roll sized cylindrical object. It seemed to be a metal container. I could see rust forming on its surface.

"Is it something fascinating?"

"I hear this box kills the person who opens."

I thought this man wouldn't understand how crazy he was until he dies.

"Do you intend to open it?"

"I'm trying. But still can't."

As I looked at it, I found lots of projections which looked like tiny buttons stuck out of the entire surface of the cylinder, also there was a hole looked like a key hole on top of it.

"It seems it never opens unless I push all the buttons in the correct order."

Master said and kept struggling with the box, being absorbed. 

"Why do you die when it opens?"

"Don't know."

"Where did you get it?"

"An antique shop in XX city." 

"Do you wanna open it?"

"I do. But it doesn't open."

I kinda wanna see him dead.
Because I liked solving puzzles, I wanted to try but I was patient.

"There're 50 buttons here. I don't know how many I have to push correctly in a raw, though, I can feel I'm close to the goal by the sound."

"What's the keyhole?"

"That's the thing."

Master sighed.

As the box had a double lock, it seemed to be unable to open without a key eventually.

"And you don't have it?"

"Yes. I bought it with this box," He said, "But I've dropped it," sadly added Master.

"At where?"

"This room."

Should he look for it. This room's ridiculously tiny. But Master shook his head.

"I've picked it up."

"Huh?"

I didn't get what he meant.

"Listen, I dropped the key that had been in my pocket at somewhere in this room. But I went to futon, thinking I would find it tomorrow. At the night, I found the key left on the floor of the entrance so I picked it up. In my dream."

He's idiot or something else.

"Then I woke up in the morning and thought if the dream came true, you know. So, I tried to find it at the entrance but there weren't. I was like hmmmm....? and searched entire　room. But it couldn't be found. I was bothered. Then at the night, I found the key in my dream. It was in my pocket."

I shuddered a little.

Somehow the story was going strange.

"The next morning, I woke up and put my hand into my pocket. But of course there weren't the key. So I thought, 'I shouldn't have picked it up in the dream.'"

He was creepy as I knew.

"Since then, the key hasn't come out of my dream. It's always in my pocket in my dream. I've placed the key in a drawer of my desk in the dream and opened the drawer when I woke up. But there weren't. There's no other way. I'm a little in trouble."

He was telling an unbelievable story.

The key disappeared from reality and existed only in his dream? Because he'd picked it up in his dream?

In addition, he was trying to find the way to return the key from dream to reality.

Although that was a total crazy story, when Master told, it took on a reality which made me feel creepy.

"Ugh! I missed it up again!"

He put the box on the floor, complaining.

Apparently the sound of pushing buttons that had been going well was restored to the original.

"But even if you succeed to solve the puzzle you can't open it without the key, right?"

As I pointed out, Master smirked creepily.

"I know. But I invited you here today because I'm so ready and able to open."

Feeling a chill for some reasons, I stepped back.

"Since the key never comes out of my dream, I thought, I should open this box in my dream."

What?

What?

What the hell was he saying?

"Now, all I have to do is to solve the puzzle to open."

Hey, wait, wait a minute.

Despite me being pale, Master began to feel for the key, plunging his hand into the pocket of his jeans.

Then ...

"With, this key."

A rusty gray key was in his hand.

At that moment, a terrible sound as if a rigid metal broken went around.

The floor crumbled, the world blacked out, and I became unable to understand what was happening.

As I was shaken by somebody by the shoulder, my world got the light back.

It was Master.

"I was just kidding."

I still had my head dazed.

In his hand, the key was still held.

"You got unconscious by that," Master helped me to sit up by my armpits and said, "That's you."

He looked so satisfying.

"You got what the key meant in a moment. It's amazing. If you were more susceptible to suggestion, you might've been banished in front of me."

...

I didn't manage to say anything.

He revealed it was a lie that he picked up the key in his dream and yada-yada.

He invited me to make fun of me that day and he couldn't solve the puzzle after all.

I don't know about the rest of the story of the box.