That night, I had dreamt of the boy. We met in a field of flowers that I had never seen before. The breeze was warm, as was the sun. But still I knew it was a dream. The boy came up to me, and finally we were face-to-face. He stood about a head taller than I with hair that shimmered in the sunlight. "Are you the boy that spoke to me?" I asked him as we stood without moving.
He nodded his head. "Your voice is familiar. You must be the one I spoke to with my mind."
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "This is a dream, isn't it?"
Again the boy nodded his head. "This is a dream. I can feel it. But I don't know why I'm here. We may be connected again."
A soft sigh escaped me as I sat down on the grass. "It appears so..."
I felt his eyes watch me when I turned from his view, inspecting a yellow flower in front of me. His footsteps made almost no sound against the plants as he walked up to me picking flowers along the way and sat down beside me. My curiosity overwhelming me, I glanced at him, watching as his little hands worked the flowers into a thin ring. As he added more, the ring became a necklace, and then a thick and bright tiara of colors and scents. Silently, he placed the tiara on my head and sighed. "Why don't you want to be my friend?" the boy asked me, his eyes and voice betraying his sadness.
"Because you will vanish, like all the others," I told him. "Everyone I've become friends with vanishes."
"Why did they vanish?"
I refused to look at his prying eyes. "They were weak." My words were harsh and cold, but I knew it was true. During my time in my chamber, I had heard some of the other scientists talking about the other experiments. It was because they were weak they vanished. Yet I remain, I thought. Does that make me strong?
"I'm not weak."
There was something in the boy's voice that made me look up at him, my gaze caught in his. His eyes remained sad and almost distant as he stared at the ground in front of him. It was then I sensed his inner pain and loneliness. He's just like me, I thought sadly, watching a passing butterfly go to him, landing on the boy's nose. I smiled to myself, watching him wiggle his face the get the bug off. Lost, alone, scared...Just wanting a friend. Will I lose him too? The way I lost Amber? "Why do you say you aren't weak?" I asked. "Are you saying you are stronger than you look?"
The butterfly began to fly away, but with an amazing speed, the boy caught it with both hands. Turning to me, he carefully opened his hands. I was expecting to see a crushed butterfly in his little hands, but a slight sigh passed through me as the butterfly opened and closed its wings, resting in the warmth of his hands. "Its the experiments," the boy explained, still stumbling over the word. "They make me strong, smart, and fast. They enhance me." Another foreign word to the boy's lips. "They want me to be the most powerful out there..."
Again I sighed. "Most powerful..." I nodded my head. I understood the boy now, what he was going through and how he felt about this. He was just another victim, like me. "Are you a clone?"
"Clone?" The boy tilted his head as the butterfly flew from his hands. "What's a clone?"
"A copy of something strong or powerful." It amazed me how a child knew about angels and nature and all that was good, but not science and cloning and the evils we were caught in.
He shook his head. "I'm myself. I'm not a copy of anyone." The boy trailed off into thought, playing with the petals of a daisy. After a moment of silence, he spoke again. "Even if I do vanish, can we still be friends? I don't like being alone and I enjoy talking to you when I'm asleep and when they experiment on me. It makes me not afraid and helps me stay calm. Normally I have panic attacks or seizures during experimentation."
I looked at him with wide eyes. Seizures and spasms were normally signs of a failing experiment and a dying subject from what I heard from the scientists. Yet the boy was as alive as myself; living, breathing, and warm with a heart and soul. We were alive, unless we had both died in our sleep and were in Heaven now, but that wasn't possible because Amber wasn't nearby. Still, I reached out to touch him, my hand, if that's really what it was called, brushed the boy's cheek. He didn't flinch or retract as I felt his warm flesh along a strong cheekbone. Yes, I answered my question. He is real and alive.
"What's wrong?" he asked, his eyes now concerned. "You seem upset."
I shook my head. "Its nothing...I was just seeing something...Never mind." Sighing, I retracted my hand and stared up at the sky. "If you want, we may still be friends," I finally answered his question. "But I warn you, I will not be as close or comforting as you wished I was. I don't want to go through the pain again, of losing someone close to me."
He smiled weakly, but his eyes again betrayed his sadness and hurt. "All right...Its better than nothing I guess..." The boy sighed and looked up at the sky. "Do you want to come back here when we wake? Or do you want to go somewhere else?"
"Where is this place?" I asked, glancing around. "I've never been here before."
The boy's smile became a real one, full of warmth and true happiness. "This is the field outside my home. I live in that town over there." He pointed at a small town, the ocean melting with the horizon behind it. Turning, he pointed at a dark, dismal black city that gave me a strange sense of fear. "That's where they take me when they experiment on me. Mommy doesn't like it when they take me there, but she's a scientist too."
"I see..." I turned quickly from the black city, the fear melting away as I focused once more on the flowers. "Perhaps I shall show you my home next time. Or maybe our minds shall meet at a different place. I guess it all depends..."
A dark cloud loomed overhead, blocking out the sun and turning day to night. In an instant, the two of us were on our feet, staring up at the sky. I could feel that he wasn't afraid of what was happening and was ready to stand his ground and fight whatever it was that threatens us. But neither of us could hide our surprise when both of us were lifted from the ground and drifted to the cloud. The boy glanced at me, appearing to be laughing at himself for making a mistake. "It seems we're waking up," he told me with a light chuckle.
Feeling foolish as well, I allowed myself to smile. "It appears so."
The air rang with our laughter and tickling bubbles that danced in the breeze as we floated towards the clouds and our rightful minds. I knew this wouldn't be our last encounter in our dreams, and I'm glad it wasn't. There was a sort of innocence in the boy I hadn't seen in Amber. He was different from her, his spirit seeming to be freer than her clone-copy soul. Perhaps that's why I liked him. Perhaps that's why I was looking forward to the next day and the new memories we'd share with each other...