Disclaimer: I don't claim anyone in this story. John Call belongs to AliedCam1, if you want to read the story that inspired this one.
Psalm 39:5 "You, indeed, have made my days short in length, and my life span as nothing in Your sight. Yes, every mortal man is only a vapor."
"In Memory of Allied…" her fingers trembled as they typed. She stopped, unable to see the computer screen through her tears. "Oh, God, where do I start? What do I say? It needs to be done, it wouldn't be right to just let him fade, forgotten." She laid her head on the desk and wept some more. How had it come to this? She couldn't forget. Could John Call? What had happened to him to bring it all down to this?
It had begun in her rootless childhood, the gift Vapor had discovered for dream walking. She didn't know the name for it then, she only knew that when she slept she was in more control of her world than when she was awake.
She learned how to visit the dreams of those she knew in the waking world, and gain the comfort of those visits when moving again and again took her away from those she knew and had begun to love.
That endless moving…people often asked if she was an "army brat." No, but daddy still had the focus, purpose, and passion of his military training. "You can take the man out of the army, but you can't take the army out of the man," she'd guessed. It became natural as breathing to lightly sleep and actively dream walk during those endless drives from California to all points east and then back again.
She had met dangers in the dreams. She had been rescued and sternly, though lovingly, taught how to master her gift by Aiel wise women whom she joyfully (and just a little, fearfully) recognized in books she read later in life.
Vapor never felt she quite belonged in the waking world; she always seemed to misunderstand the customs, was slow to get the jokes, and completely lived up to her name—she was a nothing, really. But in dreams, she was no vapor. In dreams, able to correct her mistakes, she learned how to fight, and met a golden-eyed warrior who taught her both passion and compassion. To her delight, this warrior pursued her right out of his dreams and into the waking world where they married and did their best to work things out in an often unforgiving world that didn't bend to their will. But they had each other, and that was enough.
She didn't dream walk for a long time after that until she discovered that when she was with child, she could visit their dreams and begin to know their hearts. Neat trick that…she was able to name her daughters according to the secrets she'd discovered in their dreams. However, she was only ever able to know and hold her son, John, in his dreams before he left her. Most times, those were bittersweet dreams she tried to shove to the furthermost reaches of her mind. Most times, she succeeded.
She continued to visit the dreams of her daughters from time to time, just to make sure all was well with them…when she discovered a strange phenomenon. When her children were on the computer long enough, they lost all sense of time and their brain-wave patterns mirrored sleep patterns. When Vapor dream walked into their thoughts at these times, she was also able to enter the fantasy worlds they were focused on, as if those worlds were dreams themselves. She had all the same abilities to interact in these fantasy worlds as she did in the dreams, even to changing things or making suggestions to the "dreamers." Of course, just as computers had become addicting to her children, this new type of dream walking became addicting to Vapor. Because she had found a new way to enter them, there were many, many new worlds to discover and the creativity of the young minds which built them intrigued Vapor endlessly. Needless to say, she was getting less and less real sleep.
And so it was that one day, Vapor happened upon a strange fantasy world that didn't work at all like what she was used to. It was found in "In A World Without Dreams" created by Allied, or so it seemed from his Prolouge. Apparently, those who populated this world had purchased a DreamLand device invented by John Call that allowed them to enter it. Vapor didn't have this device and the fact that everyone else in the World did seemed to interfere with her dream walking ability. She could enter it, observe, but in this world she was unobservable and unable to effect any change whatsoever. She found a strange comfort in this state of affairs, and the vastness of the world and the characters that populated it caused Vapor to return time and time again. She was drawn to the adventure. She was drawn to the struggle to maintain sanity that Larry Thomas, Allied, and John Call grappled with. She thought, perhaps, that if they won their war, she, too, would win hers.
In fact, she was so interested in everything about the World Without Dreams, that she began to search the web for more information on certain characters, and visited The John Call Chronicles, written by the same author. She even applied to Balamb Garden as a SeeD candidate, just so she could take some classes with John Call. She thought maybe learning a bit about soldiering would come in handy the way the waking world seemed to be shaping up these days. Besides, sword fighting was so incredible to watch. As one of the anonymous cute girls in his class, she was once the recipient of one of his rare smiles, and at that moment something turned over in her heart and she was never quite the same—dream walking or wide awake.
Everyday life was going at a faster and faster pace for Vapor. Her daughters were all turning into teenagers at the same time and the house was actually melting under the force of their combined hormones. "Oh, why didn't I space out their births a little further?" she wondered repeatedly to herself. Their financial needs were growing faster than the little marks going up on the side of the door where they celebrated every new 1/4 inch of height. Taking on extra odd jobs and realigning her future plans so that she could keep up with the financial needs began taking their toll. Vapor started sleeping fitfully and remembered little of her dreams. But she did remember Allied…or was it John Call?--they shared the same face--coming to her once to offer his tender support and to kiss her on the forehead just before he left. "That's weird," she thought, "is he dream walking now or am I just wishful?"
And that is how she knew something was dreadfully wrong in "A World Without Dreams." Perhaps he had bonded her with that kiss. She'll never know. All she knows is that she began waking up with tears on her cheeks morning after morning. She sensed a strange undercurrent of something she could not name, but it swamped her emotions and nearly choked the breath out of her. Then she heard the screaming…and she knew. She rushed to the computer trying to enter the World Without Dreams. She was too agitated to enter dream walking, so she had to log on and read. "Hurry! Hurry!" She was yelling at herself, as if that would make any difference at all. There it was, Chapter 15, Larry was picking up on a rather nasty stew of emotions. Vapor felt this darkness creeping up on her, chilling her to the bones and warning her worse was yet to come in this story. She didn't want to read on. She had to.
The strain made her feel faint…that was enough to help her close her eyes and step into DreamLand. She arrived in her ineffectual vaporous presence just in time to witness John Call approach Allied with destructive force. "No-o-o-o!" she screamed. But there was no sound heard by her in DreamLand. Allied's screams, however, ripped at her body, her heart, her mind. When he stopped screaming, she stopped breathing for a moment.
When John Call threw away Allied's head and left DreamLand, she walked to the spot the horrible deed took place and shook with her weeping. "Oh, Allied!" "Oh, John!" Who would mourn them? Yes, both should be mourned. Were they not, after all, one and the same?
Her tears made big, fat splats on the landing pad. "What this?" she was shocked that the water was real, even here. She reached out to touch, and her hand passed through. Vapor still, the only thing real about her was her tears. Her heart was still too broken to wonder at even that.
Vapor sat still at the computer wondering what words could be used to express the loss of Allied. There were none. Who would ever understand? How could she put in words what she couldn't understand herself? Sometimes she could still hear his screams. She pushed the memory way back in her mind, with all the other memories that hurt too much to hold. She was not going start reciting some painful list. She was not. "Oh, Allied," she thought with anguish, "may you wake in a better place." "Oh, John, what can I do? What can I do? Is it too late?"