Past the gates of the sun and the place of dreams, they soon reached the meadows of asphodel where the ghosts abide, the phantoms of men whose work is done.
The Odyssey - Homer
~ ~ ~
I woke up in the middle of the night and found the world shrouded in complete darkness. Not even the streetlamps on the campus grounds cast any light through our window, and I concluded that Moon must have shut the blinds at some point. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness around me, but after what felt like a couple of minutes, I still could not see. I slowly sat up in bed and waved my hand in front my face – nothing.
Slowly and carefully, I got up from bed and reached out towards my desk and chair, but my hands only went through empty air. And my eyes still refused to adjust to the darkness that surrounded me. I could feel fear well up inside me, gripping my insides with a leaden touch. Something was not right. I had to turn on the light, even if that would mean waking up Moon, but in my rising panic I could not even find the light switch of my bedside lamp. I turned around and moved towards the bathroom – or what I thought was the direction of the bathroom, because instead, after two steps I walked right into a solid wall.
"Oh for fuck's sake!"
I cursed as I stumbled back, and in the process, tripped. With a scream of surprise I fell over backwards, hit my head on something and cried out in pain.
Suddenly, the light turned on. I remained blind – the darkness before my eyes had merely been replaced by glaring white and dancing specks of red and yellow. I groaned in pain and rubbed one hand over my eyes and the other over the back of my head.
"Oh my, are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, just hurt my head." I grumbled, squinting my eyes as they adjusted to the light. "What the hell did you leave in the hallway, M-"
Her name got stuck in my throat as I recognized the voice. It was not Moon's.
Finally, my vision cleared and adjusted to the light, but what I saw was still white. I was back in the white room, back in the prison. I was sitting on the floor, and on the far side of the white bed sat a girl with wavy auburn hair and a very confused look on her face. Bridge.
"Oh no. No. Nonononono." I shook my head in disbelief as I scrambled to my feet. "Why am I here? Why am I back here again? How is this possible?!"
The panic I felt caused my heart to pound painfully in my chest and constrict my throat. The girl had no answer for my question. She just stared back at me wordlessly, her face a reflection of my own confusion and fear.
This isn't right, I thought. It's not supposed to be like this. I'm not supposed to be here. I have to wake up.
Determined to force my way out of this dream, I pinched the back of my trembling hand. I dug my nails into my skin, until I couldn't bear the pain anymore. Nothing happened. With a cry of frustration I slammed my fist against the wall that I had walked into. Now both of my hands were aching. Along with the dull throbbing that originated from the back of my head, the pain pulsated through my body with each panicked heartbeat. But even that didn't manage to wake me up. It couldn't even overshadow the increasing sense of utter dread that welled up within me. The feeling was like a tide, as dark and evil as the water that had swallowed me and spat me out, over and over again, in my previous nightmare.
The world before my eyes began to blur, and darkness crept up from the corners of my vision. I stumbled back and sank down against the wall, eyes wide with horror as the memory hit me with full force.
"I don't want to be here. I don't want to go back... to that place," I whispered.
Cowering on the floor, I hugged my knees close to my body and buried my head, hoping that the white room around me would disappear again if I just didn't look at it. And it did. Instead, I could feel the water all around me again, black and inky in my eyes and mouth, filling my lungs and making it hard to breathe. My body began to shake uncontrollably, and hot tears carved searing paths down my cheeks.
"Hey, calm down. It'll be alright. Everything will be alright. Come here."
Warm arms pulled me closer and into a delicate embrace, as if she was simultaneously scared of breaking me, and scared of me. I couldn't blame her. I was scared of myself, scared of what my mind was doing to me, and how my own emotions had completely spiraled out of my control.
"I know it's hard. You feel lost and helpless and it hurts so much. But you are not alone. I'm here for you. We're all here for you. Always," the girl whispered into my ear with a soothing voice. "You are not alone. It'll be alright."
But I am. I am alone in this world. Because it is just a dream, I thought, as uncontrollable sobbing continued to shake my body.
Or is it not?
A sudden realization struck me, and I lifted my tear-drowned face.
I had forgotten to take the sleeping pill. That was why I had gone back to this damn place. I had put it on my bedside table when I had gone back to my room, but I had been so exhausted that I had ended up falling asleep before swallowing it.
It's a dream, nothing else. If falling asleep is how I got here, maybe falling asleep again will get me out of here.
I looked at Bridge, who loosened her embrace as she noticed that my shivering and sobbing had stopped. Her face was close to mine, and the look in her eyes was full of compassion and worry. They had such a beautiful color, a warm brown with flecks of amber. She smiled lightly and brushed her fingers against my cheek to dry my tears. I shuddered at the gentleness of her delicate touch. It just felt so -
It doesn't matter, I decided. She's not real. None of this is. No matter how real it may feel.
"You're right. It will be alright..." I muttered. All of a sudden, I felt completely calm. I softly freed myself from her embrace. "Thank you."
She stared after me in confusion as I got up without another word, and went back to bed. I laid down, curled up into a ball and squeezed my eyes shut. I told myself that when I would next open them, I would be back in my room in the dorm, and would laugh about this bizarre experience. I repeated that to myself again and again, in a hope that that would make it true.
"Alright. Try to get some more sleep. You'll feel better when you're rested, you'll see," Bridge's compassionate voice reached my ears over my chanting, and I felt her crawl into bed next to me, behind my back.
With my eyes squeezed shut, I could hear her rummage around some more, and then the red glow that I saw through my eyelids turned black. As darkness flooded the white room again, I finally took a deep breath and tried to relax. My face felt raw from crying and my body still hurt in various places, but none of that mattered. It was all a dream, and when I woke up again I wouldn't be hurting anymore. I just needed to fall asleep.
But sleep didn't come to me. It seemed like a paradox - to try to purposefully fall asleep within a dream. I didn't feel tired at all. In fact, my thoughts were running wild, there was an inconceivable current that ravaged through my mind, an uncontrolled stream of thought as if a floodgate had been opened. Images whirred past my mind's eye like a fast-forwarded recording of every single thought I had ever had, all the images I had ever seen. But the more I tried to focus on something, the faster it moved away, like sand running through my fingers.
Stemming the tide proved a futile effort, so I gave up and surrendered myself to it. Adrift within my mind, incapable of holding on to any thought, I tried to relax by thinking of something simple, something easy, instead.
Basic math, how about that. One times one is one. Two times one is two. A squared plus B squared is C squared. Yes, the Pythagorean Theorem has always had something nice and calming about it.
I saw triangles form in my imagination, they danced across a dark background and reflected light like scales of a colorful fish. Their dance became faster and faster, the triangles turned into polygons, and collided to form structures and objects of odd and impossible shapes. They folded back and in on themselves, collapsing into infinitesimally small dots, or stretching out, as if they wanted to wrap themselves around the darkness that surrounded them, until they formed large spheres. The surface of such a sphere began to vibrate and shimmer with soft, rolling waves that quickly turned into sharp spikes. They rapidly increased in number and grew narrower and taller in size, until they were so long and thin that their tips became invisible points in infinite distance.
No, this isn't good. No way will I fall asleep like this. What do people do to fall sleep? Don't they count sheep, for whatever reason?
I did not consider sheep particularly interesting or soothing to look at, but maybe thinking of something boring would help. So I came up with a sheep. The sheep turned out pink like Moon's hair and stood on a purple meadow under a green sky.
I groaned in annoyance.
That makes no sense, I thought. Sheep ought to be white, or at least brown or black. And that grass should be green. And as far as I remember, the sky is supposed to be blue? What is this absurdity?!
I sighed. Opting to ignore the bizarre color scheme of the scenery, I reached out to pet the sheep, but before I touched its fluffy fur, I hesitated. Something was dripping from my face, with a faint sound – a constant drip, drip, drip.
I touched my hand to my face, and it came back wet, covered in inky, black tears. Or blood? Was this really my hand? Unbothered, the pink sheep just continued to look at me with a bland expression.
Why don't you tell me what to do? How do I wake up? I asked it, but it didn't reply. Of course, a sheep wouldn't be an expert on these matters.
Then at least tell me how to fall sleep! I begged in desperation. I am so tired... I just want to go home.
But what if falling asleep doesn't mean waking up? Another part of me remarked.
But then how do I get out?
This place, it has a weakness. Like a seam. Pull the thread and it will all come apart, a voice behind me said.
My own voice. I turned around, and I was looking at myself in a mirror now. Only there did not seem to be a mirror between us. It was me, but it also wasn't. The girl had my face but the eyes that stared back at me from underneath my constantly furrowed brows were green, not blue. So she wasn't me. Or was she?
You are here for a reason. This is not a dream. You have to remember that, she said.
Why should I believe you? This is just a dream within a dream. You are just a dream, I countered.
You wanted to know how to get out, and I just told you. Find the thread, and cut it. This is your purpose. The thread that holds it all together. Isn't that what you wanted to know? How to be free? So what are you waiting for? You're running out of time, Alice.
Alice? What the hell are you talking about?
She took a step back and so did I. Now that I could see her full body properly, I realized that mirrored-me was stitched together with seams at her limbs like a ragdoll. Were these the threads she had been talking about? But why would I want to pull on those? Several more strings were attached to her, they pulled her up until she was suspended in mid-air like a puppet, hanging limply amidst the darkness surrounding us. The strings turned into a black simulation harness, but it looked different than it was supposed to. Threatening. She was wrapped in it - trapped in it. The belts and bands of the harness began to crawl across her body and coil tighter and tighter, like rapidly growing vines, until they covered her completely, locking her into a black cocoon. Everything was swallowed in blackness.
And then the lights turned on again.
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A.N.
dedications don't work with the app, but I'd like to dedicate this to RainerSalt because "When a main character starts to dream, the 💩 is about to hit the fan." 😁