Silver woke up at 8:00 AM and frowned. His alarm hadn't gone off. Luckily, he could avoid being late, because he only overslept by about five minutes.

He became aware of a bad feeling. Maybe he'd had a bad dream. Maybe he shouldn't get up out of bed after all. Call in sick.

Silver just brushed it off and got his Burgertopia uniform on.

Business was fast today, so Silver had been taking a lot of orders. He was about to get a small break, as Amy, his manager, had just clocked in and was taking orders as a carhop, while Silver's coworker was getting ready to prepare the order. The customer was giving Amy a hard time, hence the break.

Eventually, the customer's order was placed, and Silver's coworker went to go prepare one bag of fries.

"What's up, Amy? You look annoyed," Silver said.

"No reason, just the butt-ugly customer I've been dealing with," Amy spat. "My mind's been off-track for a while, and I don't know why."

"Been having weird dreams?" Silver grinned.

"Huh? ...No, not at all, why?"

"Just something Blaze has been talking about lately."

"Yeah, well, I'll tell you if I end up with those."

Silver chuckled, moving out of the way of his coworker. Amy took the bag of fries from the coworker, and skated away. Silver reclined against the wall, waiting for the next customer.

Actually, Silver's question about dreams hadn't been totally in jest. And it wasn't just Blaze that had been having them. He'd been having them, too.

Blaze was Silver's pen pal of eight years. They were closer than family, so everything Blaze said Silver took very seriously. Blaze had mentioned having weird dreams, and as soon as Silver began to have them as well, he'd made a point to write her about it. He just hadn't gotten around to it. He was going to wait until she took her turn, though. It was, after all, her turn to send a letter. So he would wait.

Silver returned home once work was over. It was a little late in the day-5 in the afternoon-so Silver decided to relax in his bedroom.

He happened to glance over at his writing desk. There were no letters from Blaze. Now that he thought about it, it had been a little longer than usual since he had received a letter from her. He remembered that bad feeling he'd felt in the morning. It was back.

What am I thinking? She's probably getting around to it real soon.

Silver fell asleep within the next few hours.

It had been another week. Silver was getting a little concerned. Okay, a lot concerned. It was a Friday night, and he was busy being concerned. He realized it was a little ridiculous.

Unfortunately, he had occupied most of his day being concerned. He'd sleep for now, and try to enjoy his Saturday.

Almost instantly, he dreamt.

He hadn't remembered any of his prior dreams, but undoubtedly, he would remember this one.

He was ankle-deep in tall grass and weeds. A meadow. The air was, somehow, tinged with purple. The forest before him was a dark blue-green. It seemed calmly menacing. Or menacingly calm. One of those things.

And in front of him, staring him in the face, was Blaze. He recognized her from a few pictures he'd seen over the years. She was probably the same way.

They were both surprised. They both stepped back.

"Blaze, what are you doing here?" Silver asked. He suddenly realized he was perfectly conscious of everything in his dream-he didn't feel like he would forget it when he woke up. It felt like real life. "Why are you in my dream...thing?"

"Why are you asking me why I'm in your dream in my dream?" Blaze asked.

They both took a moment to be confused. Then another.

"Uh...I'm glad to see you, I guess," Silver smiled.

"Me, too…" Blaze said. They were definitely still confused.

"Well, while you're here...should we catch up, assuming we're sharing a dream?"

"I guess. What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know if there's a polite way to ask this, but I guess if this is a dream…"

"Go ahead."

"...why haven't I gotten any letters lately?"

Blaze grimaced. "I'm really sorry about that. Let me explain. See, you know how my parents are, right?"

"Yeah, absolutely."

"They love me and all-" Blaze noticed Silver rolling his eyes, and ignored it-"but I happened to come home late a few nights ago, and they stopped me from sending letters to you for the next month."

"That's awful!" Silver said. "I oughta-"

"You oughta wait a month. Please don't make a big deal of it. It's just a month."

"You don't mean that," Silver said.

"I don't. I'm sorry, I really wish I could send you something, but my father's been checking every piece of mail that goes in or out. I can't get anything past him."

"And your mother?"

"You know her. Non-confrontational to a fault."

"I wish your dad took after her," Silver muttered.

"Yeah, well. How long do we have in here? Do you feel awake?"

"I've been feeling awake this whole time, so I guess that doesn't mean much. You wanna hear about Burgertopia?"

"Not so much," Blaze laughed. "Actually, since we don't really know how long we have here...why don't we explore?"

"Sure, why not?" Silver shrugged. "Maybe we'll run into someone else we know."

They didn't, even though the forest seemed to go on forever.

Silver couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched, or followed. He was pretty sure Blaze felt it, too; she kept looking over her shoulder. Nothing jumped out at them.

He woke up. Already he knew he had forgotten something important. Something had jumped out at them, but he couldn't remember what. There was a huge gap in his memory.

He was sweating, hard. His heart was still going. But it was 8:15, and he was about to be late for work.