"Do you know of the Dreaming Pill?" rumors of the Dreaming Pill went around the entire school that Tuesday afternoon during lunch time. The rumor originated from our classmate, David Hammerson.
"You can dream anything you want. It'll last for few hours. Where I got it? I'm not telling you," David blabbed to every boys and girls who came to him and told them the same story he has repeated several times that day. The rumor of the Dreaming Pill already existed before when I entered this Beaverton Middle School in Oregon. But nobody knew it was true, until today David confirmed the existence of the Dreaming Pill. I rolled my eyes as I heard David showing off to another group of girls how he bravely fought against a dragon to save a princess in his dream.
It was starting to get windy as the season entered Autumn, and I was heading home with my scarfs rapped around my neck tightly, trying to block the wind.
"Hey, Brad! BRADLEY EVANS!" I spun around as I heard my name being shout from the back and I saw David Hammerson running towards me. I suppressed my urge to roll my eyes.
"Are you deaf? I've been shouting your names out loud since I left school!"
"Sorry. I was deep in thoughts, I guess," I gave a bitter smile to him.
After catching his breath, we started walking, "Hey, do you know about the Dreaming Pills? The one I had and all the boys and girls were around me to hear my story. The one I had a dream of fighting a dra-"
"Yeah, I know," I had to cut him off because he was getting too annoying.
"Well,... yeah. Well, I was wondering you didn't show any interests to my stories today." Actually, I was really interested in the Dreaming Pill. Where did David Hammerson get the Dreaming Pill? What will I dream about if I actually got the pill for myself?
David whispered as I said nothing, "I could tell you where they sell the pill, you know?"
I stopped and turned around to face him, shocked and determined to hear the full story.
Few hours later
"Why on earth did ya call me out this late, Brad!?" I saw my best mate, Logan Bishop (who looked a little angry with me) come running to me down the road in our residential area. Logan Bishop has been my mate since I entered middle school, and lives next to our house.
"It's middle of the night, mate! I 'ad trouble getting out of my 'ouse to come out 'ere!" Bishop stumped his feet from coldness and anger and his burning red long hair that looked like swab flied in all direction. He was still in pajama.
"Calm down, Bishop. I won't disappoint you. Anyway, you had no trouble getting out of the house using ladder. What's your problem?"
"Are ya freaking crazy!? It's cold!" Bishop brought his head closer to mine and his freckles on his nose were visible. He looked up and down at me, fully dressed in parker, jeans and sneakers with a torch light in my hand. "Wha' are ya up to?" Bishop asked me suspiciously as he raised one of his eyebrows. After taking a breath and running a hand through my spiky messy hair that looked like chestnut burr, I took out my hair wax I always carried around. Putting it on my hair in a failure attempt to keep my hair flat, I started explaining, "You know about David Hammerson and the rumors of the Dreaming Pill? Today after school he came around to me and told me where they sell the Dreaming Pill." I smirked as I saw Bishop's eyes sparkle in excitement.
Few minutes later we were running through the street in the downtown. "So...where is it again?" Bishop asked again.
"It's a small bungalow house in the forest at the edge of the town," I explained, "You're supposed to say 'having a good sleep?' to a grandma who lives there. Then she'll make and sell us the pill-," I stopped in mid-sentence as Bishop in front of me came to halt. It was the forest. The trees looked unusually tall and inside the forest, it was pitch black.
"Are we going in there?" I muttered to myself. And, I admit, I was a little bit scared. But who wouldn't be scared to go into a forest at middle of the night with only two eighth-graders? "Scared, Brad? Be a man, Evans," Bishop said, but I saw in the corner of my eyes Bishop take out his special kit he always carried with him, slingshot. Cold sweat trickled down my forehead as we stepped into the forest and I turned on the torchlight. "Come on," I muttered and started running, hearing Logan's footsteps behind me. I checked my digital watch; 11:56.
We stopped in the middle of the forest when a bell struck 12:00. A bell that sounded like in between someone's snoring and groaning. Weird, we don't have a bell to tell us the time in our town. Afraid, I took out my hair wax, Bishop prepared to shoot his slingshot. We turned around in caution to find something we definitely didn't see on our way; a small bungalow black house, a thin smoke coming out of its small chimney. Leaves whistled around our feet as wind blew past us. "Well, at least we found the 'ouse!" Bishop said in delightful tone as he pushed me to the door of the house, using me as a shield. Coward.
I knocked the door, but no answer came, so I slowly pushed open the door. The door creaked open, and we found ourselves in a dark room with a single candle light on a table.
"Hello...?" I said in a small voice.
We spun around on our heels as we heard the door shut with a creek. In front of the door, stood a hunched-back grandmother, wearing a black robe.
"Um," I swallowed my words, "Having a good sleep?" I shivered as I saw no tooth when she sneered. Slowly, she headed to the center of the room and lit a fire, a green fire under a huge cauldron that could fit a person. I took out my hair wax and spreaded them on my hair again. The moment my hair wax touched my hair, my mind calmed and cleared, and I took in the room we were standing in. The room glowed green from the fire, showing a room with overflowing books and papers, and plants I've never seen before. Jars full of slimy things that was slightly moving (something I prefer not to know,) filled most of the shelves. No window, and a door. In between the door and us, a witch who was opening a book as she laughed madly. There was no way for us to run away.
We stood still as the witch brought few jars and plants; one plant had grotesque tentacles with thorns that wiggled as though an octopus was buried in the pot. She threw in ingredients one by one, and the potion turned from the color of red, green, blue, orange then to purple. The potion exploded several times and purple smoke started to overflow from the cauldron with bubbles coming out into the air. The witch had her robe hooves off as she stirred the potion in continuous motion, still laughing. Her messy gray hair was tied in one at back of her head although she was almost bold, and her eyes, which were looking in different direction, twitching.
Suddenly, the witch stopped stirring and opened her palms to me. "Oh!" I searched through the pockets of my parker and took out to drop them on her wrinkly, grayish palms; four baby tooth I used to have. She took away my tooth and put two in the cauldron, and another two in a gigantic jar three-quarters full with other people's tooth...gross. "Oh, and could you give her some of your hair?" I asked as I pulled out my hair. Ouch. "...Why, Brad?" Bishop asked. "I don't know, David just told me that she needs it." We passed her our hair, then she headed back to the cauldron and sniffed the purple liquid with her huge nose, and filled the two glass vial she took out from her black robe's pocket. She put each of our hair in the purple potion and handed to us. My hair in my vial, Bishop's in his. I saw my potion turn pink, and Bishop's into dark red as our hair touched the liquid.
"I though' it was a pill?" Bishop bravely asked the witch. The witch glared him and opened her hand, urging him to give back the potion. Bishop pulled the potion back to him closely, "No, I'll have it." The witch gave a smile. "Um...thank you, then," I said as we pushed open the door and left.
Wind was whistling through our legs again when we got out. We turned around to see a bungalow house, but mysteriously, there was nothing but trees that rustled with the wind. Suddenly, my mind became dull and I became distracted and my attention was drawn to my shoelace that was becoming loose with each step I took.
We walked for the next few minutes in silence through the forest to the town. But finally, "Well I guess it was real then, the Dreaming POTION," Bishop emphasized on the word potion, looking at his vial that contained the potion.
"Yeah... do you still regret coming with me?"
"No... It was WICKED!" Bishop sneered.
"...Are you going to drink it? The Dreaming Potion?" I asked after a while.
"Ph, YEAH! Obviously!"
"Well, that grandma looked quite mental. How can you be sure it's safe to drink something a mad person made?"
"What on earth 'appened to ya tonight, Bradley Evans! After all that, ya DON'T DRINK IT!? It costed four of ya tooth and two 'airs!"
"I'm just being logical, Logan. Something you're not familiar with," I laughed and Logan glared at me, but blasted laughing as well.
"True, Evans, true. Logics are something WE are not familiar with. But that's the best part of us," Bishop smiled widely. I waved Bishop as I headed to my house.
I looked at the Dreaming Potion again in the moonlight that was coming in from my window as I lay on my bed. It was deadly pink. I decided to drink this some other time, maybe on my birthday or something, so I carefully put the vial into my parker's pocket and went into a deep dream.
" 'ey, Brad! Did ya try out the potion!?" Next day, Logan said in an excited voice as he catched up with me on the way to our school.
"No, I decided to try it some other time. Did you try?" I asked curiously.
" 'ELL YES. And it was the best dream I've ever 'ad! It was a dream of me throwin' rotten eggs and playin' jokes on our 'eadmaster, and then 'e forbid all tests and 'omework! I was the 'ero of the school," Logan finished proudly.
Next few days was a chaos and there are two reasons for that. One, some bloke started selling the Dreaming Potion at school which he got using all of his baby tooth and so many of his hair (which made him quite bald, obviously). Everyone was talking to each other the dreams they had: Millie, a girl in our class said she had a dream of flying. Brianna Davies had a dream of a handsome prince coming to save her from an evil witch. Dylan Johnson had a dream of breaking a world record of soccer ball juggling.
Reason two, something's wrong with Bishop; he looks really tired and he has shadow under his eyes. I asked him why and he says he can't sleep well because he keeps on having a nightmare about failing every jokes he tries on people. After few days, I heard Millie Brown talking that she was having a nightmare too about falling in a dark, bottomless pit, and Brianna was talking about how she got dumped by the prince last night in a dream. Soon I was the only one in the class who never tried the Dreaming Potion and was not having any nightmares. As people started getting nightmares, the more popular the Dreaming Potion became.
"ACHOO!" I sneezed that night for the fifth time; I 'ated the smell of onions. I was improvin' my slingshot on my desk by putting onion fumes in balls. 'ehehehe, the 'eadmaster 'as no idea what's coming to 'im. "Logan, are ya doin' your homework? It's almost dinner!" it was my mom, so I answered "Yeah, mom! I'm almost done!"- she 'as no idea. I was about to go steal more onions from the kitchen when I saw a room in the next 'ouse across my room turn off the light: Brad's room. Then a single light was turned on in Brad's dark room. So I jumped off my seat and turned off my room's light as well. I went by the window and took my goggles off, which I was using to protect my eyes from onions. The light in Brad's room flickered several times. I quickly translated the morse code into english in my 'ead 'M-E-E-T A-T F-O-R-E-S-T A-T 1-1 '. I turned on the lamp beside window and flicked several times-'Got it'. I 'eaded downstairs for more onions after I checked Brad's room turned on the light.
At 10:50, I was runnin' to the forest, slingshot set with various types of balls in my pocket, including the newly made onion fume ball. When I reached the forest, Brad wasn't there yet, so I decided to wait for him. Just as I was yawnin', I saw Brad runnin' towards me. "What's up?" I asked Brad. "Have you noticed about others in the class who took the Dreaming Potion? People can't go to sleep because they're having nightmares, including you," Brad put a shoulder around me, explainin', "What do you think about it?"
After a moment of thinking, Bishop replied, "I think it's because of the Dreaming Potion, and the witch. Ya' the only one who didn't drink the potion yet, and ya are also the only one o's not 'aving a nightmare."
"Exactly! I was thinking, the witch made the potion to give a great dream to the dreamer on the first night, but give nightmares for the following night. So that people will want more Dreaming Potion, and she could add more tooth to her collection," Logan saw Brad's hair sticky with hair wax, geez, 'e must 'ave been thinking about this a lot.
"What are we goin' to do now? I 'eard lack of sleep can make people mental, or even bring deaths," Bishop asked worriedly.
"We have to go to the witch's. Right now. Do you have the slingshot set with you?"
"Anytime, Captain," Bradley saw Bishop smirk.
Few minutes later, we were dashing in the forest again. The bell rang again, and when we stopped and turned around on our heels, there it was again, the bungalow house with a small chimney. This time, Brad went up to the door with no hesitant, and put on another extra hair wax on his hair before he pushed open the door. Again, the witch wasn't inside. But we were prepared when we heard the door shut with a creek. We turned around to face her; the witch. The source of all of this chaos.
"We know. We know you are the one who's giving all the nightmares and problems. So we've come to fix it," determination was on Brad's strong green eyes. Much to our disgust, the witch didn't seem scared, and her facial expression remained calm. But she took off her hooves, and started talking for the first time in hoarse voice . "Actually, I was in the impression that I was the one who was giving all the happiness to everyone. I was a horrible witch when I was young...I couldn't cast a single spell to make somebody feel happy, or couldn't make a single potion to heal somebody. I've always thought for what reason I was born. I couldn't even make a person feel better with my magic. Until, I've heard of the Dreaming Potion when I was at the age of 23, the potion was forbidden to make in the wizards world. But I've searched for the lost recipe of the potion for decades, and I found it at last. However, when I tried the potion, it was the best day I ever had. I was helping everyone with great magic I possessed, I had power, I had friends and people who loved me in my dream. But after a while, I noticed that the potion only lasted for one night, and the rest of your life you only dream about nightmares. I became obsessed with the Dreaming Potion. It was like, myself in the dream was real me and the dreams were my reality, and this reality was a nightmare for me. Oh how I wished if I could dream forever and never wakeup. That's why I kept on making the Dreaming Potion for myself, and I only have little left of my hair and no tooth. That's why I've started this, I can collect tooth as a payment for the Dreaming Potion and I'll have enough tooth to make the potion for myself for the rest of my life. Dream is so much easier and fun than reality, my boy, if you know what you are dreaming. Therefore, I have no intention to stop creating Dreaming Potion," the witch finished, her eyes twitching.
"We don't care whether you are obsessed with your dream-self, or not. But I can't let my friend here having nightmares for his entire life," I said through gritted teeth.
"I would like to see you try" the witch sneered and took out a vial of the Dreaming Potion from the shelf, plucked her hair out and put it in the potion; the potion turned black. "Now drink this, and you two will be sharing my dream. Let's see what you can do against the powerful wizard in my dream." The witch poured the potion into three dirty wooden cups.
I flicked my torchlight several times, hoping that Logan will notice this. And to my relief, he did and he winked me back. Then I passed the vial of my Dreaming Potion to Bishop. Suddenly, Bishop jumped, and surprised the witch fell on her back.
"I'm 'orry, are ya okay!?" Bishop exclaimed, and I went to help the witch up. In the corner of my eyes, I saw Bishop slip few drops of my Dreaming Potion to each of the three cups. 'Great, the plan's working. Now I only hope this will work,' I thought to myself as I helped the witch come to her feet. She huffed and gulped down the potion in a sip, and then fell to her knees as she went off into a dream. We drank the potion as well, and as I fell to my knees, the last thing I remember was the horrible taste of the potion that spread through my tongue.
When I opened my eyes, I was in middle of grass field that continued on forever until the horizon. The wind was rustling and the sunlight was warm. Is this... what the witch has been dreaming about the whole time? I woke up, and saw small fragile fairies fluttering their wings around me. I also saw a small white lovely house on top of the hill. And in front of the house, was a young man and a small girl about 11 years old, waving and smiling. She looked somehow similar to the witch, the big nose, and I noticed her from the old dirty picture frame that was decorated on the desk at witch's house. I didn't notice the man, but I noticed his ring he was wearing on his left hand's fourth finger. It was the same ring the witch was wearing around her neck in a piece of string. I looked around myself in search of Bishop, and he was laying about a meter away from me. I went to wake him up, and as I saw his eyes flutter open, I sensed someone behind my back. It was the witch wearing black robes, only, much younger and beautiful with the ring she was wearing as necklace on her left hand's fourth finger, like the man on the hill. Her hair was still rich and she had no wrinkles on her pale skin.
"Beautiful place, isn't it?" her voice sounded young, like a flowing river, "I never found out the way to bring the people and place I loved back, but at least I was able to duplicate them in my dreams." "Don't take them away from me," the witch's voice extraordinarily sad and calm, but her voice started to sound angry with her last few words.
"Now, attack them!" she shouted as goblins, giants and trolls appeared behind her and they were running towards me. Bishop's eyes widened in fear and shot few of his slingshot. Now was the time to see if my plan worked; if this dream was witch's and mine, the dream should follow witch's imagination, but it should also follow my imaginations too. My classmates weren't concentrated enough to control their dreams, but if I could concentrate enough... I put extra hair wax again on my head and my eyes widen and my mind cleared, and my concentration was held only on what was in front of me; the witch, the magical creatures, Bishop, and me. Now was the time to prove the ability of imagination of the best gamer in school, myself.
I concentrated on all sorts of the creatures I've seen on the games, and in the corner of my eyes, I saw centaurs and pegasus appear. The witch was startled, "How! How is this...YOU ADDED YOUR POTION INTO MINE!" the witch's anger was overwhelming. "WOW, Brad! How did you do that!? It's awesome!" I smiled to myself as I heard Bishop exclaim in joy. I did it, I was able to control my imagination, my mind. The centaurs and pegasus fought goblins, giants and trolls bravely and many of them vanished into white and black smoke as they were killed. At the end, there were only three of us left; Bishop, the witch and me. The witch's fiancé and sister was still smiling and waving on the hill. The witch screamed in frustration and she took out her wand from her sleeve and pointed at me, but before I recognized what was going on Bishop was in front of me, holding his last ball, the onion fume into his pinball as he stretched the rubber towards the witch determination on his face. So Bishop was not a coward, after all.
However, something we've never expected happened. For the first time, fear etched the beautiful witch's face and her eyes turned dark, "THAT! That smell! Is it onion?"
" the bloody 'ell do you ask that?" Bishop asked suspiciously.
Suddenly, I noticed. "Logan! It's the onion! She's afraid of the onion!" The next few seconds happened in slow motion; Bishop pulled the rubber as he set the onion fume ball in his pinball. But, Bishop fell to the ground, and so did his pinball set. The witch gave a high-pitched evil laugh, and approached him, her wand pointing at his face. The witch brought her face up to face me and said, "Say goodbye to your little friend." It seems like her words and her cold smile was stabbing my heart like an ice. And I panicked. My friend is going to die. My friend is going to DIE. I CAN'T let my friend die!
And before I knew what I was doing, I put the remaining hair wax on my head, and ran to Bishop. The witch's wand was glowing red. I grabbed Bishop's pinball and the onion fume ball that was laying on the ground. My mind was concentrated to its maximum, and my eyes were pierced on the witch's face that gave an evil, insane smile. I set the ball to its rubber and I pulled with my full strength. And after calculating the distance the ball can fly with my strength and it's parabolic path, I released. The onion fume ball ran straight to the witch's face, and by the time she has noticed what was coming to her, the ball has hit her square in the face. "Checkmate," I said as I saw the witch's face turn into shock and fear, and smoke engulfed her entire body. Then the scream followed. The smoke disappeared after a while. The witch stood for a while, and her engagement ring slipped off her fourth finger and dropped to the ground. Then the witch fell, and the witch was lying on the ground now wearing a white robe. Bradley also noticed, she was smiling. She never looked peaceful than ever before, and beside her lay a silver ring. He looked up to the house on the hill, and her sister and fiancé was still smiling and waving at them. Then he noticed three fairies approaching him, two held a flower tiara and one held a bouquet. Two laid the flower tiara on the witch's head, and one gave the bouquet to me. So I laid the bouquet on the witch's chest and crossed her hands over it.
I was becoming dizzy and my image blurred as I came to notice that I've used too much of my energy to concentrate. And then, I had an insufferable urge to go to sleep, and the next moment I was falling to the ground, my eyes shutting and the last thing I saw were the two figures on the hill waving.
I woke up on the hard, cold floor of the witch's house and my entire body was aching from fatigue. I yarned as I stood up and saw Logan Bishop still sleeping next to me. 'Take that, 'eadmaster... It's a present from your dearest fan, Logan Bishop. Muahahahahahaha," Bishop muttered in his sleep. I groaned, went over to Bishop and slapped him in the face to wake him up. "Fuga! 'o 'oke me up!?" I heard Bishop mutter when I turned around and found the witch lying on her back, sleeping peacefully. She was holding her hand tight around her necklace.
"At least her dreams came true. She's going to dream about herself dead in a place she loved and with people she loved," I muttered to myself, "Come on, let's go home, if we run fast enough, we should be able to catch some few minutes sleep."
The morning sunlight hit our face when we got out of the house, and when we turned around to face the house the house was no longer there. Suppressing my urge to fall asleep on that spot, we started running home in the morning sunlight of Beaverton town.
Since that day, we've never heard of the Dreaming Pills, or the witch, or the bell that rang at 12 o' clock in the forest, or people who has lack of sleep from nightmares, nor we've seen the witch's house.
A/N: A little break for Marvolo's Ring. This was my english assessment and I'm submitting this on friday. I got this idea of dreaming potion from the Fred&George's product, a potion you can dream about anything you like for 30 minutes. I hope you liked it ;D