Chapter XVI: A Strange Dream Part Two.

***?***

Jackson could feel the soft embrace of his pillowcase, and the warmth of his sheets. He closed his eyes. There was nothing but darkness for some time.

It was a dense darkness, one that seemed oddly familiar. It lingered as Jackson opened his eyes, and not even the light of the clock beside his bed seemed able to break it. He rolled over, and reached out to claw at the lamp on his table, but his hand slapped down onto a cold, hard floor. His sheets seemed to drift away as a chilling breeze blew past him. He slowly got to his feet, and looked around.

And then he saw it. At first it was a tiny light in the immeasurable distance. But as it grew closer, he could make out its form. It was a small, green butterfly, flying gracefully towards him. The flutter of its tiny wings broke the silence, and Jackson reached out a hand, as the butterfly came to a rest on the end of his finger.

A voice cracked through Jackson's head. It was a calm, male voice, with a hint of mystery hanging on the end of each word. It said, "How strange that you have eluded me for so long, Jackson Blake."

Jackson was stunned. His eyes darted around, but he could see no figure from which the voice came. Was he dreaming? He hadn't fallen asleep, he was sure of it.

The voice spoke again, "I see you have awoken to the power of persona without my knowing. How very inspiring." Jackson looked down at his hand, and the butterfly had gone. He heard a flutter of wings beside his ear, and he turned on his heel to see the butterfly slowly flying away from him.

"It seems you all now have the strength you need to take on this burden." The voice was quieter now, "I would be interested to find out how you came by this. I will be watching you all carefully." The voice had all but faded away now.

"Who are you?" Jackson asked, but his own voice seemed to startle him, as if it had woken him from a nightmare, and he found himself back in his room again. "Was it a dream?" He asked himself. The familiarity of the experience worried him most, though. He could have sworn he'd been there before.

He could feel the soft embrace of his pillowcase, and the warmth of his sheets. He closed his eyes. There was nothing but darkness for some time, as he drifted off to sleep.

***Saturday, October 4th: Early Morning***

The buzzing of Jackson's cell phone against the table woke him, and he scooped it up. Sam was calling him. He slid the green 'answer' bar across the screen, and put it to his ear.

"Hello?" He mumbled, wiping his eyes with a balled fist.

"I'm in my room?" She sounded a little confused.

"Yeah?"

"Did you put me in my bed?... When did… I'm a little unsure what's going on here."

"Oh, haha." Jackson sat up in his bed, "You passed out after awakening to your persona, and so we took you home. Your parents were piiiiiiiiissed."

"Oh god." Sam chuckled, "What did you tell them?"

"Ray told them you were drunk."

"What!?" Sam was startled, "They're gonna slaughter me!"

"You'd rather we told them the truth?"

"No..." There was a long pause. "Hey, so Jackson..."

"Yeah?"

"I had this weird dream last night." Sam said.

Jackson stopped. A weird dream? It couldn't have been… "Go on."

"Well there was this butterfly, and a strange voice. It knew my name."

"I had the same dream!" Jackson shouted.

"You did? Oh man, this is weird!"

"I'll bet Alex had it too. We should all meet up."

"Yeah… I'll meet you guys in town in like two hours and we'll talk about it then."

"Ok, cool." Jackson agreed, "Hey, at least you remember everything that happened when you awoke to your persona."

"Yeah." Sam said, "Crap, my Mom's calling me from downstairs. I'll see you later."

"Ok, bye." Jackson said. He heard Sam hang up, and put his phone back beside his bed. He looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "How could she have had the same dream?" He thought to himself. There was no denying that it had happened now, though. Jackson remembered it all perfectly. The butterfly, the voice, and what it had said. But what did it all mean? He lay back in his bed, and pulled the sheets over his eyes, hoping for a few more minutes of sleep before he had to face the day.

***Morning***

Ray wasn't in, so Jackson felt he could approach Alex about the dream he and Sam had both shared that night.

"Hey, man." He said, waving lazily at Alex, who sat at the kitchen table eating cereal.

"Mornin'." Alex replied. The tiny kitchen was a mess. The three boys had neither the time nor the energy to take proper care of it, and so dirty dishes lined the sideboards, and the sink was piled high with cutlery and glasses. Jackson pulled a chair out from under the table, and it screeched across the hard floor.

"You sleep ok?" Jackson asked.

"Yeah, I suppose. Yourself?"

"You sure? No weird dreams?"

"Well, yeah, but I mean my whole life is weird dreams." Alex frowned, "Why?"

"I just wondered." There was a silence for a while. Jackson took the cleanest bowl he could find and filled it with cereal and milk, and grabbed a spoon that looked safe enough, before returning to his seat at the table. "I had this dream that kinda freaked me out."

"Go on."

"To be honest, I'm not entirely sure it was a dream."

"…I think I know what you mean…"

"Really?" Jackson leaned forward slightly, "Did you dream of a weird voice? And there was blackness and then a butterfly, like the ones we saw when we summoned our personas for the first time.

"Yes!" Alex shouted, "I had the same dream!"

"Sam had it too!" Jackson said, "It must be to do with our personas and the shadows."

"That's creepy, man. We should talk to Ray about this, maybe he had it too."

"Yeah, maybe." Jackson returned to his cereal, "I told Sam we'd meet her in a bit so we can talk about it then."

They caught a tram into the centre of the city. It hummed through the streets and carried them past tall buildings and busy commuters, glistening like mercury in the sunlight.

Sam was waiting for them at the mall where they had arranged to meet.

"Hey." She greeted.

"How were your parents?" Jackson asked.

"Very, very angry." Sam said, "But I don't live there anymore so I can just stay out of their way for a while."

They all sat around a table, and bought coffee. Alex spoke first.

"So Jackson said we all had the same dream." He said, as he pulled the lid from the cardboard cup that housed his beverage.

"Yeah.." Sam said, "You think it's got something to do with the forgotten frequency?"

"I should think so." Jackson nodded, "It's too big of a coincidence to not be. The question is, who- or what- is behind it?"

"You think someone's trying to get into contact with us?" Alex asked.

"I think they've succeeded to." Jackson said, "Look, I don't know weather it was the same for you two, but the voice told me that we all 'have what we need to take on this burden' or something. Surely that means it knows we all have personas. It contacted us the night Sam awoke to hers, that can't be a coincidence."

"Yeah it told me the same thing." Alex said.

"Well then whoever it is, they must have been following us for some time." Sam said, with concern filling her face.

"But how? Who has that kind of power?" Jackson asked.

"Another persona user?" Alex suggested.

"Maybe." Sam said, "Or a shadow? Could it have been the archangel?"

"The shadows are stuck in their world, they can't get to us here." Jackson said.

"Maybe we should talk to Ray about it? What if he had the same dream?" Alex asked.

"He doesn't have a persona, so I doubt it. It said we all have what we need, but if that does mean our personas then Ray couldn't possibly be included." Jackson reasoned.

"Well whatever it is, there's nothing we can do about it now." Sam said.

"Yeah, at the moment it doesn't seem like whoever it is that talked to us in that dream means us any harm." Jackson said, "It just said it'd keep a close eye on us, so I vote we just sit it out for a bit and see if anything else crops up that might help us work out what's going on."

"Agreed." Alex said, "Then if we don't find anything else out, we can always talk to Ray about it."

"Ok, deal." Jackson said, and sipped his coffee. The conversation turned to lighter topics, as the day moved on around them. After the events of the last few days, the three of them were just welcome of some time that they could spend how they wanted, without having to worry about fighting the shadows. The next few nights had nothing to surprise Jackson or his friends with. The voice in the dream, it seemed, would not be returning for some time.