The Problem with Dreams – Chapter 2
A/N: Ah, the second chapter. I was so anxious to start writing this after I wrote the first one. But all in due time, eh? Hehe, so anyway, this chapter doesn't follow the movie as much as far as content goes. I'm exploring the relationships with the characters, and also how their ideas and thoughts and dreams affect the plot. So… Enjoy.
P.S.: OMG this is terribly OOC. I am HORRIBLE at making characters sound real. I'm only good at that with my own characters (obviously *smacks self*). So sorry.
P.S.S: Dear Lord I always put WAY too many commas in my stories. Ignore the comma army… And adverbs. Ignore them too. Thanks.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Inception. It belongs to the magnificent mind of Christopher Nolan. *Bows to Mr. Nolan*
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Ariadne walked through her dream, glancing at the buildings, cars, Projections, everything. She came to a river which had a concrete bridge over it. She morphed the bridge into one made of bronze, with rails that were shining with accents of gold inlaid into them. She walked casually over to a bench and sat down, admiring the pearl-like glistening quality the water seemed to have to it. There were birds flying leisurely just above the surface of the water.
Curiosity struck Ariadne, and she took her totem out of her pocket. The brass bishop felt feather-light in her hand. When she tried to tip it over, its head fell very slowly onto the wood of the bench. This only meant one thing: she was dreaming, and now she was sure.
"Nice bridge," she jolted in her seat as she heard the voice behind her. Ariadne turned her head to see the person: Dom. Wait, Dom? What was he doing in her dream? He noticed her shock. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he said with a chuckle.
"Dom, what are you doing here? Are you in my dream?" Ariadne asked. Something was strange here, she knew. Dom walked towards her and sat down.
"Uh… yeah. I am in your dream. How is it, by the way?" Dom said casually. Normally one wouldn't enter someone else's dream unless they had to or it was a shared dream. But Dom bent the rules. He always bent them.
"It's fine… Just thinking," Ariadne replied. She was definitely thinking… about everything. It was too much for one dream, for one person.
"About?"
Should she tell him she was really thinking of him, and how glad she was that he was back with his children? How he had gone back with her from Limbo to join the ranks of reality? She couldn't. "Nothing really. Just comparing dreams and reality." She smiled slightly at him. He smiled back.
"I tried that once. A long time ago. Back when Mal and I were sharing dreams. Let's just say it didn't work for me." Dom chuckled. "But maybe you're having an easier time with it than I did..?"
Ariadne stood and walked to the railing of the bridge, looking over the edge with her head down. "Well I think I've got some things figured out…" She looked back at Dom who had joined her at the railing. "In reality, we live our lives going along, knowing that it's all real; knowing everything we see isn't an illusion or a trick of the mind. Knowing it has structure. But in reality, we also know that it can never be more than what it is, that it can never be what we want it to be," Ariadne explained. She wasn't sure whether Dom was following or not, but knowing him, he was.
"Makes sense. What about dreams? You're a smart girl, I think you can figure it out." Dom threw a kind smirk her way. She was looking at him pensively.
"In a dream, anything we imagine becomes a part of the dream. Our minds are free to create whatever they want, because there are no rules in a dream. There are no boundaries as to what can happen or appear, or what we can create. Nothing is outside the realm of possibility." Dom nodded for her to go on. "But the only problem with it…"
"Think you have that part?" Dom asked with obvious concern in his voice. Ariadne turned her eyes in his direction and saw that he was wearing his wedding ring… meaning this had to be a dream. He only had his ring on him when they were in a dream. In reality, he didn't wear it.
"The only problem with dreams is that they're not real." Ariadne felt strange saying it; she didn't know why, she just did. She was starting to sound like Mal.
"Ariadne, to be frank, you're starting to sound like me. When I was in Limbo with Mal," Dom said. He put his back against the bridge, crossing his arms. He narrowed his frosty blue eyes broodingly at her pale face. "After a while, I started thinking that it was just a dream, and I couldn't live like that for much longer. Mal was perfectly fine to stay in Limbo with me forever; I mean I could understand why. It was everything we could make of it. But eventually I convinced her to join me on the train tracks…" Dom looked away from Ariadne towards the river. He could just make out the sun over the water. "And I think you know what happened from there."
The two stood on the bridge watching the sun go down and illuminate the dusky sky in washes of reds and purples. The very top of the sky, if you looked straight up, that was the deepest blue. But nothing was out there. This was, after all, a dream.
"It was wonderful, wasn't it?" Ariadne asked. "Limbo; you could've stayed there forever, but you didn't. I don't see why you didn't stay."
"I couldn't live there knowing every day wasn't real, knowing that every second I was there, I was farther and farther away from reality. From my real children and my real wife." Dom ran his hand through his hair. "So I created the train tracks and the train. The same one that I brought into Fischer's mind. I really don't like to think about it anymore."
Then the dream was over. The timers on the metal briefcase ran out on Ariadne and Dom's sedative. They woke up.
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A/N: Abrupt ending again. Sorry for that, that was the only way I could think of to end the chapter. Wow, I had major issues with writer's block here. I hope it was satisfactory at the least. Now click that review button down there! Each and every one I get makes me immensely happy. :) Hope you liked it, now back to getting writer's block and being ADD again!