LUCIDITY
Clothed only by darkness and the infinite drone of cars in the street, my feet clanged up the fire escape, flying from level to level. The building seemed to stretch into the sky itself, its roof shrouded in clouds. Endlessly I made my way to the top, finally passing through the smoggy mist to where I could see the top. Toes latching onto the ledge of the roof, I became aware of an intense heat radiating onto my face; the world below the clouds disappeared, and the only solid ground was a rocky rim circling the bubbling magma pit before me. This earth crumbled between my toes, and tumbling like a pebble I went toward the center. The heat intensified, and I squeezed my eyes shut as the heat intensified, and my feet started to singe.
"Happened again, huh?" Don soothed as I jolted awake.
"Yeah." I murmured, catching my breath as he wrapped me tighter in our sleeping embrace. "Same dream, too."
"Aw, Leo. You've been doing so well in the daytime."
"Even when it's not nightmares, my dreams are crazy vivid. It's like being trapped in a movie theatre."
Like every other day that started this way, I composed myself in a few minutes for breakfast and training. Don was right; during the day, I had pretty solid handle on the straggling symptoms of withdrawal, minus the occasional headaches or random space-outs. For all intents and purposes, I was back in full gear, but the constant threat of night terrors was only adding to the difficulty I already had at getting well rested. Between that and our collective decision to stop drinking coffee, it was always grueling to push myself through the morning grogginess.
Hanging up our weapons after a lengthy session of training, I flopped onto the couch beside Mike as he loaded up the video game he'd been immersed in for the past few weeks. The loading screen dissolved to reveal his player, wrapped in black shrouds that hid everything about his identity aside from the scaly green tail jutting out the back, and clutching a dark metallic bow in his claws. The armored lizard was on a stone bridge in a rural village that bustled in the ominous shadow of a snow-capped mountain, nestled right into its base.
"Ugh, I forgot to save before the Frost Troll got me on the Seven Thousand Steps!" He groaned. "This game's so repetitive."
"Yet you keep starting new characters." I noted. "Have you even finished the main quests in any of them?"
"Not really…but only because it's so boring and it takes so long!" Despite this, Mike's character started up the mountain, skipping the shrines along the way and launching barrages of arrows at the wolves that stood in his path. The setting changed from autumnal to alpine as he passed the tree line, hunching behind a glacial snowcap to conceal his location as he attacked the furry white monster ahead from a distance. When it identified him and started charging, a quick visit to the menu replaced the bow and arrow with a shield and glinting war axe. As the troll drew his arm back to swipe, Mike mashed a button to thrust his shield forward, making the creature stumble before tapping furiously on the triggers to chop away with his axe. His health bar shrunk considerably after a couple swipes landed, but in seconds, the creature fell, and was harvested of its apparently valuable 'troll fat'.
"Booyakasha!" Mike cheered victoriously. Up the mountain he continued, until a great stone temple appeared toward the summit as he rounded a corner. Ominously, the whipping winds blew powdery gusts straight up the staircases, as if directing the player toward their objective. The colossal door creaked open as he clicked it, and the familiar blackness of the loading screen drifted into view. A faint buzz sounded from Mike's belt loop, and he fished his cellphone out, slightly concealing the screen from my view as he checked the message. "Oh. Oh…" He looked back up at me. "You can play if you wanna, Leo. Raph wants me to…move some furniture in his room. Don't be surprised if you can hear it through the floor." He winked, and turned on a dime to rocket out of the room, leaving me laughing in his wake.
I trudged through the dialogue with the temple's ancient-looking monks, only paying half attention as Don exited his lab across the room.
"So, I've been doing some research…"
"What else is new?" I smiled to him.
"…Specifically on a new way that psychotherapists are treating recurring nightmares. Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming?"
"Yeah, vaguely. We watched Inception that one time, remember?"
"Well…it's not exactly the same thing, but pretty close. The premise is, if you're able to recognize that you're dreaming, then you can control the dream."
"That sounds far out. How would you be able to know you're in a dream?" He pulled his phone out and furiously thumbed a message.
"Like this." My own phone buzzed, and I checked it to see "Are you dreaming?" on the glowing screen under Don's name. "If you get in the habit of regularly questioning whether you're awake or asleep, it's bound to carry over into your dreams."
"I'm still confused, though." I admitted sheepishly.
"In a dream, you might think you're constrained by the same rules as reality. But it's all a product of your mind; you can become anything or go anywhere if you realize you're in control."
Throughout the day, Don's texts continued to barrage my phone every hour, on the dot. In our evening meditation, he led me through some mindfulness exercises that focused on the fine differences between the mind in its awakened and sleeping states. I was still skeptical about the whole idea, but typically when Don gets convinced something will work, there's little one can do to change his opinion. The texts didn't stop coming until, late in the night, he clicked off the lamp on his nightstand and rolled off of me, cuddling in close as I rested my head on his chest.
"You dreaming yet?" He asked humorously.
"Might be." I murmured, before drifting off.
Bitter winds whipped around me, rustling the shrouds of cloth and animal hide that wrapped me. My feet crunched as they trudged through the snow, leaving a trail of tracks behind me that stretched down the winding path and out of view. Ahead, the auspicious pewter temple stood in defiance of the alpine conditions, and up the steps I heaved. Unable to see any light through the narrow windows, I knocked on the monolithic door at the top of the stairs, and, hearing no response, let it groan open a crack so I could slide in. The inside was dimly lit by torches, but didn't match the appearance I'd expected as my eyes adjusted. Instead of Nordic runes and dragon motifs, everything was blank stone, bearing no decoration or emblem. The bearded hermits I'd anticipated seeing were, instead, bald-headed and staring menacingly back at me between their deerskin hoods and black shrouds. No one spoke. It all felt eerily familiar.
From the satchel at my waist, I felt a buzz. Underneath a few pink and green vials, I found my phone, which appeared so out of place in the medieval temple. On the screen, the expected "Are you dreaming?" appeared. As my eyes broke away from it, I was surrounded by white emptiness. The room and its inhabitants had disappeared. In a moment, the blank space was replaced by the warm candlelight and burning incense of a familiar den, paper door closed and silk scrolls still hanging on the wall.
"My son, your tea is getting cold. I've been expecting you."
Fluff Interlude Part 2 of 2 is now complete! Still working out the kinks of the next arc, so sorry in advance if it takes an extra day or two :)
