Fever Dreams
a short one by The Pop Tart Spirits

Gomenasaimasu! I didn't make it last this long out of spite; I've been uber busy in RL.

Here's the third chapter. Thanks for your reviews. I promise to stop being such a bitch about it; if you were one of the ones who were scared/disgusted into a review last chapter, then please go read the addended author notes there. It'll make a lot more sense than my apparent review whoring. I was just really frustrated... I thought no one liked my stuff anymore. But you proved me wrong!

Here's the story, d00ds. This chapter wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

Seto Kaiba was not happy. In fact, he was troubled, frustrated and a little afraid. According to every source he could access, the place where Jou was wasting his life away did not exist. Seto Kaiba had access to a plethora of sources, legal and illegal.

His suspicions were growing deeper by the moment as his lithe fingers danced over a soft-type keyboard. When he first decided to visit Jou, he'd simply walked in. No one had even glanced at him. His only suspicious observation then had been that for a government-operated sleep research facility, there was a remarkable lack of patients. Then, there was the reaction of the nurse, doctor and orderlies. It had only been his reputation that kept him from being killed, he was sure of it. Kaiba had made the split-second decision to come every week based on that observation.

Then, as the weeks progressed, Jou's weakened state and the machines he was hooked to, plus the aloof staff and their insistence that he finish his dream raised Kaiba's suspicions to the point of action. A year ago, he would have paid the place good money to kill the mutt - now, he would exhaust himself trying to save him.

Mokuba was surprisingly helpful in the matter. He called around and found out the exact dates Jou had odd dreams in the past, when he'd missed school because of them, and so on. Kaiba was hoping to find a pattern in the data, but so far his algorithm had turned up nothing.

Other than the fact that Kaiba knew it existed, and was visiting it every week, he had absolutely nothing on the place itself. The building didn't even have a name on it, just a number, and there was no sign on the drive, just a gate. This was never shut during the day; Kaiba hadn't noticed until the third or fourth time he'd happened upon it open. That was another suspicious thing, that they were trying so hard to appear inconspicuous.

Frustrated by this lack of progress, Kaiba turned his research to the dream itself. Being mindful of outside influence on Jou's dream (he did acknowledge that much of the doctor's drivel), Kaiba had quizzed Jou intensively during his visits on every little detail. He'd taken notes from memory the minute he got into his limo, too.

Settling into his chair, Kaiba adjusted his headset and spoke. "Computer, search for any and all references to dreaming and dream sequences. Commence."

"Commencing search," an alien female voice replied, and the three surrounding screens blinked alive.

It was three hours before the computer hit on something even remotely helpful. "Is ID you dot com," said the computer, impassionate as always. Kaiba was about to say "Next result," but a topic on the navigation bar caught his eye. "Dream Information: Types of Dreams: Lucid Dreaming," he said in succession as each one was selected. As he scanned the article, his eyes widened.

Lucid dreams are those in which the dreamer is fully aware that they are dreaming. Most people wake themselves up once they realize this; others have cultivated the skill to remain in this lucid state. They become an active participant in their own dreams, making decisions and influencing the dream's outcome without awakening.

Lucid dreaming gives us the ability to control our own dreams and steer them toward our desires. In the lucid state, we are more willing to confront threats and as a result, become more self confident. The application of lucid dreams is limited only to your imagination. Lucid dreams can help us visualize and rehearse events in our minds before they actually occur.

Because brain activity during the dream state is the same as during a real life event, what you "learn" or "practice" in your lucid dream state can be seen as training and preparation for reality. Our neural patterns are already being conditioned.

At least half of all adults have had at least one lucid dream in their lifetime. Many have reported having lucid dreams without even trying. However, with practice, lucid dreaming can be learned and can be achieved at your will.

"Manual control override," Kaiba whispered to the computer, and began clicking around.

Why should you bother remembering your dreams?

1. Your dreaming mind has access to information that is not readily available to you when you are awake. Your dreams may reveal your secret desires and subconscious feelings.

2. In remembering your dreams, you will have an increased knowledge about yourself, bring about self-awareness and self-healing. Dreams are an extension of how you perceive yourself. They can be a source of inspiration, wisdom, and joy.

3. Learning to recall your dreams may help you become a more assertive person. In remembering your dreams, you are expressing and confronting your feelings.

4. Remembering your dreams can help you come to terms with stressful aspects of your lives.

Upon reading this, Kaiba swore to try and get Jou to relate every possible detail of his dreams. It could be that what he should be looking for was not the building, or some external clue as to why the government or a private company might want Jou to finish his lucid adventure. The answer obviously lay in the interpretation of the dream - something that both excited and scared the people in charge of the experiement. Kaiba checked his calendar: only three more days til his next visit. He would be sure to ask Jou about the beginning of his dream, and the symbols therein.

He then flipped to the notes he'd already made. Jou had mentioned an orange bear, a desert, a large sword... Kaiba typed them all in turn and as the definitions popped up, a pattern at last began to form - again, not in the external data, but in the dream itself.

Kabia read halfway aloud to himself, a bad habit developed from years spent researching alone. "Orange... influence of the spiritual. Bear... significant of overwhelming competition in pursuits of every kind. 'Alternatively, bears symbolize the cycle of life and death and renewal. It may signal of period of introspection and thinking.' Put them together, that's spiritual influence in either competitive pursuits or the cycle of life and death." Kaiba blinked. Spiritual influence... "It also says, 'To dream that you are being attacked by an animal, is a warning to be careful with those around you. Take notice on who you know in your waking like that shares and exhibits the same qualities of the animal that attacked you in your dream.' Does he know anyone bearlike? I wonder if it would reveal to much to ask. 'To dream that you kill an attacking animal, signifies that your life will be saved by a stranger'." Kaiba inspected his notes. "Well, he didn't kill that one, but the city he's in sounded like the dream is about to culminate."

He noticed a note he'd made in the margins. "He was wearing white clothing? Hm..." A few clicks later: "White represents purity, innocence, awareness, blah, blah... You may be experiencing a reawakening or have a fresh outlook on life. However, in Eastern cultures, white is associated with death and mourning." Kaiba's eyes narrowed. Yes, that's right, we do... but Jou is American, therefore the first applies to him. I wonder if that's significant, that he's bound to define the white as purity when they define it as death?

Kaiba made another note to ask Jou if he knew which direction he'd been travelling in. Several of the entries on the dream site were devoted to the diverse meanings of travelling or facing in a certain direction.

He remembered Jou saying something about his time in the desert, something about how it felt as though over time all of his illusions about self and self-sacrifice had been stripped away, leaving only the desire to survive. Quickly his pale fingers tap-danced 'desert'. "The wilderness with which outer life seems to present us, creating a terrible thirst and hunger for certainty and real experience of our inner being. Loneliness - being deserted - having nothing growing in your life... In the desert these desires, and the aridity, cause us to see mirages, or illusions. So the desert represents all the so called logical, intellectual, arid opinions, beliefs, speculations and biases men hold on to when they lack true inner knowledge and certainty. It also represents the actions and thoughts that arise in our lives from such beliefs and opinions."

"A sword," he read next, "may be your discrimination and search for truth; protective instincts or strength of character. The large size obviously means he feels threatened by something - your intelligance astounds me," Kaiba added caustically. "This just makes all of this dream research even less reputable than it started out. I feel as though I am giving a tarot reading to a nuclear bomb."

He sat back and cracked his fingers outward. This gives me a good starting point, and a vague idea as to why anyone might want to see this particular dream through. However, it still tells me nothing about the organization, nor the all-elusive and crucial 'why did Jonouchi agree to this in the first place'? They must have given him a reason - for all of his bluster and nonsense, he's not a complete idiot.

And I've still yet to find anything pertaining to a talking ring.

Ah, well. That's enough for now... perhaps he's made some progress in that city.

"Ungood..."

Jou tightened his grip on the handle of his buster sword. He cursed the ring ten kinds of foolish for being silent, and tried to size up his opponents. There were around twenty or so, they stood lower than his waist, they wore ragtag armor and carried wicked looking blades. He was vaguely reminded of Orcs, or gnolls, but these really did just look like midgets dipped in tar.

At any rate, he was surrounded, and this close to being dinner.

He'd wandered straight up the main road of the city, passing through deserted shops and houses, trying to find any clue at all as to why these people had simply dropped dead during their morning routines. For they had, said his reasearch therapists. The way he described the corpses as simply desiccated where they'd dropped, not appearing to have been in any kind of struggle or pain. And they were everywhere, which meant that somehow the entire city had been killed instantaneously.

Jou still had not found a single piece of wealth. By that time he had frustratedly considered that they'd never had any - but then the locks on the doors always convinced him otherwise.

The city being deserted and all, Jou felt it safe to simply stroll through the front gates of the Palace. The main gates opened right into the main street of the city. The Palace itself looked to have been built before the city, out of stronger stone and metal. It, too, looked as though it had sat unused for many years... on the outside. The moment he'd opened the door to the entrance hall and glimpsed the rich and dust-free furnishings, however, Jou had realized his grave error. Whoever had lived in the Palace during his ring-guide's time lived there still, knew he was coming, and was ready for him.

Add 'and didn't like him', as well, Jou thought despairingly as little well-armed creatures poured out of side nooks and down stairs.

However, they hadn't skewered him just yet, and so Jou was considering clearing a swath of them and making a mad dash for the staircase. It was wide and forboding, but he figured that if he could just get on higher ground -

He hadn't counted on a trapdoor.

Since the little creatures had been encircling him rather widely, not one of them fell with him. He landed in a dusty pile of something that made him sneeze, and immediately scrambled up, reaching for his sword. "Who's there?" he shouted.

"Hsst!" he heard, and a pale hand grabbed his arm.

He whirled around and found himself staring into a pair of familiar, yet vastly different, sapphire eyes.

The articles and such on dreams and dream symbols come almost word-for-word from dream moods dot com and other googled sources, except for where I changed them to fit the story. If you simply skim them, you won't get a lot of information vital to the 'whys' of the story.

Thanks for bearing with me!