the lurking hand with the continuous arm that stalk the shadows and fought with Kureha. Ohara never did graduate the class, she simply disappeared when she didn't attend class three times in a row. Dream Self: She takes form of a hand and a continuously long arm. She has the ability to multiply into many little hands and arms or a giant one to crush her enemies away. Mashiro and Sou's senpai in the Kendo club, he is portrayed as a very kind and understanding person. He serves as an 'agony aunt' to Mashiro. However, he is revealed to be the son of the president of an important company, and his outside personality is nothing more than what his father and mother wanted him to be. Dream Self: It is later revealed that he, and not Sou, is the Black Knight. The Black Knight seems to symbolise his real, darker personality along with his feelings towards his parents. He graduates in the 9th volume. A girl in Mashiro and Kureha's class. She's the source of many of the rumours circulating in the school. Dream Self: She takes the form of a parasitic face that attaches itself to the body of other dreamers. When the parasite is cut off from the host's body, Ebizawa returns to her real appearance, but stays in the dream world. Sumida A boy in Kendo club who admires several people over the course of the series. He is Sou's friend. Dream Self: His form changes in dreams to impersonate the forms of other dreamers. He is very weak in his dream form. In volume ten the impersonating dream student is identified as Sumida. Development According to Mizushiro, the story was originally conceived as science fiction, set on board a space-ship. When she began to develop it as a manga, she moved the setting to a high school, changing the sleeping pods the characters used for shared dreaming into canopied beds. The characters Itsuki Shinonome and Asuka Suo were supposed to be part of the initial class of dreamers with Mashiro, but after serialization was announced in Princess as a horror story, Mizushiro put off introducing them because she thought their dream forms of a giraffe and mermaid were too gentle for an atmosphere of horror. Release After School Nightmare was written and illustrated by Setona Mizushiro. It was serialized in the monthly manga magazine Princess, beginning