SPOILER ALERT :- Dream Academy, my story about The DreamTeacher, is a part of the Trinity world. It is a background story to Jacy, one of the many unique characters in Trinity.
As Dream Academy is set a few years before Trinity, the end of that story has already occured.
So as a result, you may find out now how Dream Academy ends, but only if you can read between the lines:)
If you do not wish to know, look away!!!!
But for those intrigued to find out more about Jacy, I suggest you read Dream Academy! I will probably make more background stories to the numerous characters in Trinity, for they all have amazing backgrounds!
But that is for the future.
In the meantime I must prepare the reader for a chapter that twists and turns and may get a little confusing! It kinda confused even me, and I wrote it!
But I love stories that are deep. Real deep. And philosophically challenging. Really philosophically challenging!
Hope this lives up to your expectations!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 7# - The Dream Prophet
RECAP :- We have extracted the GhostTalker from the car accident and proceed in the stolen hire car north, towards Port Hedland.
With Tuomas asleep on the backseat, I allow my mind to dissolve into the ether.
It is with mixed emotions. The guilt of lying to Travis. The intriguing silent, one sided conversation of answer followed by question.
The amusing thought of awakening to a bovine before me.....
And as the tightness of the seatbelt fades into obscurity, my soul reaches out to embrace the gift of slumber.
And as I become aware of my dream state, Jacy senses me nearby. Her skin is prickling with delight. The reverence of my presence. The illusory promise of vengeance against me.
"I know you are here, Shadow. That you only just became aware you're dreaming," she says to me, her words tinged with regret.
Jacy is The Dream Prophet, and the dream before us is the future. The moment I will be killed.
We are on a desert plain that stretches out to the horizon in all directions. She is trying to discover where she is. Where I will die. But the lack of any unique indicators makes it extremely difficult. She will reach down and grab a fistful of desert sand, then let it fall through her fingers, admiring its grainy texture and warmth. The sun, the temperature, and the swirling colours around her suggest afternoon. There is not a tree or shrub in sight.
I look out at the barren landscape before us, and the desolation of unremitting Nature is tainted with the corpses of the soldiers of Free Will.
My future self stands before my killer, arms rising at my sides indicative of my pleasure in accepting encroaching Death.
"Remember our conversation years ago when I first met you," she continues. "When you taught me how to kill you? You told me that true bliss for an omniscient is to be blissfully unaware. And the only place you can escape your omniscience is when you're dreaming. When you are unaware of who you really are, and so by extension unable to defend yourself from my wrath."
Jacy learned from the Dream Teacher how to kill someone in their dreams. From the Dream Teachers greatest student, Serenity, she learned how to have total control of her emotions. This allows her to weave every facet of her dream, as well as the dreams of others. From her dear friend Sinjana she learned how to heighten the emotions of her victims when necessary, for she cannot kill me unless she has access to the deepest source of my emotive power. Thus she was priveleged to have mastered her art under the tutelage of the best Dream Weavers in the world.
"It must be so sad for you, to have lost the comfort of blissful slumber now." Jacy is enjoying trying to edge me into speaking, judging my silence as a sign of weakness. "Now you have Dream Weavers from across the world chasing you. As well as me, the best damn Dream Weaver of them all."
And so it is I judge that it is time for me to speak, an ability I deprive myself of in the real world, but here I have a voice. And as she listens to my solemn commune to her, she will grant herself a fleeting glimpse of victory. "Sad? What is true sadness, Jacy? It is one thing to know normal emotions, and another to actually feel them. After all, what is the knowledge of depression to one always happy? It is nothing more than mere facts. Even worse, facts blurred by the emotional context. A person who is always happy will think they understand depression, but only one who lives and breathes depression every waking moment of their life truly understands it. Thus I know all there is to know about emotion, but am aware that unless I allow myself to feel them, I will never truly understand them. But as an omniscient I do not need to understand anything. I need only know what I have to do to get what I want, and all I want is the emotion of normality, an emotion only dreams can provide for me. And as I am omniscient, I know the moments when your students and yourself are awake. When I can escape into the bliss of not knowing, and when I must allow the pain of omniscience to seep back into my conscience once more. If only for my own welfare."
As I start to materialize behind her, she lets out a sigh of exasperation at the dismal mood of the conversation. "You cannot truly understand emotions? You? An omniscient? I find that hard to believe." And as my shadow appears on the ground before her, she lets a smile play on her lips. "Here at this spot, you will supposedly meet your death. I want to ask you where and when this will be. It is a desert environment, but if you've seen one desert, you've seen them all, right?"
I reply with disgust at the banality of conversation itself; at having to wait for her to speak before saying what I know I will say. "I am well aware of every part of my death scene, down to its finest details. Indeed I know this scene so well, that to see myself die..... It bores me."
"But it fascinates me, Shadow. I hate you so much, and you can't blame me after what you did to me in the past. Sinjana didn't deserve what you did to her."
"I know."
Jacy searches for regret in my eyes as I reply, but finds nothing. "Of course you know. You know everything. And yet you refuse to answer my questions. Who is that man? Your supposed killer. You hide his face well."
"I do not hide his features. It is Destiny that deprives you of the Truth. But you will know who it is when you wake up."
Jacy will speak with a bemused countenance. "I shall meet your killer upon awakening? I look forward to awakening then. I would be honoured to meet this person you speak of."
"No Jacy." I tell her. "You don't want him to kill me. Otherwise he will fulfill destiny. And if he fulfills his destiny, then he will prove that free will is truly an illusion. And I know you are one of the many determined to prove free will is dominant over fate. But mark my words here. Free will is an illusion."
Jacy smiles at this, and shall now reply in a haughty tone. "Look around you now. All these sand dunes. They are all an illusion. We are dreaming, Shadow. And yet in this illusory dream world, everything here represents what is real. What is actually in existence. As well as this, I have the power to take the life of people who are asleep in the real world. Like you for example. I shall kill you here, tonight, because there is a thin line between what is real and what is illusion. In some places, this line is so obscure that it is virtually non existent. So it is with free will versus fate. The line between them is an illusion in itself. Free will and fate are actually one and the same."
"Yes you can kill me here, Jacy." I respond. "But then I am omniscient. I already know that you will try to kill me tonight. That is why I am aware right now. So you don't kill me, because you don't have the honour of killing me. Fate will not allow you to. Only He is allowed to kill me." I point to the man with the blurred face, knife raised and ready to strike at me. And as she turns back to the scene of my death, that which represents my future self falls away with the knife planted firmly through my heart. My life force is seeping into the sand. Crimson blood and sweat, and the joyful tears at knowing my pain is finally extinguished. And as Jacy observes the future before her, I answer the questions that rush through her mind. "Look at me there. Satisfied as the cloak of death gathers in my eyes. And at him, lamenting now at having done what Fate demanded he had to do. His furious vengeance against me unsatiated, unappeased. For he will lead against me the only true force of free will in this whole universe. And in the end he shall fail, for he will do that which he was born to do. Kill me."
"You are wrong Shadow. This is not a representation of Fate but of Free Will overcoming Fate. He will have the free will to kill you or not to kill you. And the choice he will make is what I see now. Not destiny at all, but a choice that he will decide of his own accord. I have known you for years Shadow. How you always give a different answer to every person that dares to ask you about Fate. I have witnessed all the different answers you have given. They cannot all be the truth. Some of them have to be lies for it to make any sense. And that is what you can do, say things to make people believe you. You are a liar and the greatest schemer to have ever walked the Earth. That is why I will never believe what you say when it comes to explaining these things. You can never be trusted to tell the truth."
I laugh at what I am about to tell her, for she will regret everthing she just said after I have finished. "You are right Jacy. I am a liar and cannot be trusted. But remember this. I can lie to make you never trust what I have to say, and thus groomed to not trust me, speak the truth that you will never believe. Do you want the truth? Here is the truth. You say you are the best Dream Weaver of them all. Your wrong. You are actually Omnipotent. Travis, who is supposedly omnipotent, is the best Dream Weaver of all time. Because this is reality now. Here. This is not a dream. We are awake, and you are manipulating the real world."
"You lie. That is a lie."
"Is it, Jacy? Or does it make sense to you? What is the truth and what is a lie? I know the answer to everything. You don't know everything. That is why you will not kill me tonight. Because I know exactly what your trying to do. You need to make me angry, or fearful, so I may expose my deepest emotions to you. Then you can kill me. But I know what words to use to make you question your own actions. Of course, now you will point out that there is one "me" over there bleeding to death in the desert sands, and another "me" here talking to you, thus proving we are dreaming. But think about it. Even you yourself said the line between what is real and what is illusion is so obscure it is virtually non existant. Could this be the real world now, and all you are experiencing is a vision? The sand. The temperature. The smell of fresh death. It is all real."
"No, you lie again. Your the greatest schemer in all history."
"I am the greatest schemer in the whole universe! And that makes you sick. To never know what is the truth and what is the lie in what I say."
Jacy is starting to let her rage overcome her as she struggles to comprehend my intricate web of deceit. Now she will try to create my greatest fear, but as always I am one step ahead. The vision of the future fades and we are now in open space, the total periphery around us a vivid portrait of eternity.
Jacy is trying to guage how I will react, unsure why I would fear this position so much. She will not be happy with what I am about to say.
"My dear, Jacy, were this a real vision of open space I would be overcome with total fear. My mind would undergo a mental explosion. But instead of being overcome with an infinite amount of knowledge in a single second as my eyes scan around and take in the massive amounts of raw data of all that is occuring across the universe, I see mistakes. A couple of galaxies missing there, two stars I should not be able to see from this vantage point I can see over there. Instead of encapsulating the whole truth in a moment, I see the tiniest mistakes in your facade, and it makes me laugh. You really need to lay off those sleeping pills. They are making your mind wander." My shadow grows darker across her body, and as her face contorts to portray grim determination, I stoke her fury with a wry smirk. "Really Jacy? A comet? Couldn't you do better than that?" I don't have to look behind me to know it is there. Omniscience has its uses in that sense.
And as I throw out barrier of charged particles around me in protection, the comet explodes and desintegrates into a rubble strewn mass of rock ice.
"Now I know you are lying." she says to me. "Sound cannot travel in deep space. So in hearing your voice here, I know this is a dream."
"Nothing is impossible, Jacy. Only highly improbable."
Jacy will now warp spacetime and soon the largest peices will organise itself into a train of debris and attempt to pummel me into non existence. "How correct you are. That is exactly why you are going to die now."
Although I know I am fated to survive, I must be fully alert to everything she does, for she is more powerful than she realises. And although she cannot kill me now; deprived of access to my deepest emotions, she can seriously injure me if I am not careful.
Falling away from her, the long train of cometary peices follows me down as I endeavour to stay ahead of their ever quickening pace.
Behind me a small saphirre sattelite looms larger, and soon the oceans and continents become discernable. And as my back punches through the atmosphere and heats up, in the real world my sleeping body starts to sweat, the temperature seething against my skin. I can see the incandescent flaring of the meteoroids before me, chunks breaking off as they yearn to tear me apart and destroy me.
"Jacy," I yell to her. "Jacy, you are wrong......"
"Burn in hell, Shadow," her emepheral voice speaks out across the abyss. "Burn in hell....."
The pain grows within me, and as my slumbering body in the passenger seat of the car heats up, Travis realises while he is driving that there is a plastic bottle at his feet, having rolled beneath the accelerator pedal.
"It must be the stupid guy from Karratha," he thinks as he reaches down to remove it. "The guy who we stole this hire car from. An empty water bottle....."
In my dream the pain is becoming unbearable, and Jacy is laughing in delight as I writhe like a worm.
Travis reaches down while the car pummels down the highway and feels something he wasn't expecting. A peice of paper. "I wonder," he thinks to himself.
Some of the cometary material is exploding now, under the force of the intense heat and atmospheric pressure. Travis does not notice that I am making slight movements in the passengers seat in response to the searing debris rushing past me in my dreams, each burning rock able to cause real grevious harm should I be hit by one.
Travis cannot hear Jacy laughing at my situation as I struggle to awaken from the nightmare but am unable to. She has closed me out of access to the real world. Travis pulls away the water bottle that was hindering the accelerator pedal and throws it at my feet in the passengers seat. He then feels for the paper that I had surreptisciously placed there at the car accident in Karratha.
"See Shadow!" Jacy screams out to me. "Do you see? Free will dominates the universe! In the end it is me who shall kill you tonight! Nothing is impossible!"
Travis pulls up the paper from at his feet and as he drives on uses his infa red vision to read what it says.
In my dream I suddenly turn to Jacy, smile at her, and wave goodbye, knowing at that moment Travis in the real world is about to read the scrap of torn paper.
*Hit the brakes now.*
As Travis lets his vision return back to the highway, he realises there is an unsuspecting cattle herd crossing the road! He hits the brakes hard, feeling his driver seat shudder as Tuomas in the backseat tumbles into it. The car grinds to a halt, mere inches from the startled bovine.
The sudden stop surges me forward, the seatbelt harness preventing me from crashing headlong through the windscreen. It awakens me and as expected, there is a large brown cow with splotches of white on its flanks clambering off into the darkness.
Jacy lost.
Again.
With a smile at Travis of innocence and gulity satisfaction, I twist my palm and beckon Travis to turn the scrap over.
*Thanks.*
Travis is wondering at why I said thanks in the message, pondering whether it is real or just a joke. He notices I am sweating, but decides the better of it and will not ask me why.
"Her smile is so fake.... I can't believe I almost killed her," he thinks to himself. But then he smiles back at me. "Nice one Shadow," he muses. "You got me again."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nobody probably remembers now how Shadow left a scrap of paper at Travis's feet back at the car accident. She put it there when Travis went to go and retrieve Tuomas, but nobody would probably remember that as it has been so long since I updated Trinity! Sorry for that.
I hope it wasn't too bad. It kinda confused me when I wrote it as I am not that good at dialogue!
Again any criticisms and help you can provide is very welcome! Hope it lives up to everyones expectations, cheers!