Petra woke up to the electrodes again. She was familiar to the minimalist room. She was, as usual, strapped onto the white bed and listened to the unceasing hum of machinery. The soulless walls and character-deprived door were also, scarily, a part of the immense Deja-vu sensation that drowned her.

"I would say good morning, but you know that this is a dream." An adult said from behind Petra's head.

"What's the plan?" Petra asked, deliberately adding a bored tone.

"You walk about, jump and run and then we chat."

"As always?"

"As always."

"You should pick a more direct way of communicating, you know."

"And I always say…"

"If you're the symbol of my inner inhibitions, you would not be able to tell me about that." Petra tinkered with the theory that this dream adult, a scientist of her father's age, was a symbol of her subconscious. Freud and a few other theorists she had had the fortune to read up on suggested this possibility, and scared by her recurring dream, Petra clung to the scientific fact.

Therefore, mutely, she paced about the small room, measuring her steps in the way she thought her deeper self was. When she jumped, she always tried to break gravity, to prove a point to the apparition of her inner mind. Their chat, as Petra tried to keep it, was the most open, honest conversation imaginable, to the point where Petra exaggerated her hidden self. It was all a dream and she felt, it was her trying to understand herself.

She woke up to reality, as she had many times before, refreshed by her walk and talk. She smiled more easily, laughed and was less brooding. She sprang down the stairs, only reminded of Levi by his bag. It was only his second week in a house, she recalled.

"Morning." She called. Levi grunted, as he had started to recently. "You fine?"

"Yeah."

"You seem bothered by something."

"An odd dream is all."

"Same."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Must be magnetic interference around the house."

"That's your theory?"

"Yeah. Do you have one?"

"Well, I think the content of mine's about me trying to understand my subconscious."

"What's the content?"

"I wake up in a sort of lab room and then some adult asks me to walk, jump and speak."

Levi looked aghast for a few seconds before saying: "That's my dream too."

"I've had it since I was a child…" Petra thought out loud.

"Same."

"What? How?"

"Hell if I know."

"That's so weird."

"Does your dad know?"

"He'll spout some crap – that's what he did when I first told him."

"Like?"

"He told me dreams don't have meaning. He may tell us it's all coincidence."

"It may be."

Outside, in a blank, ubiquitously white corridor, the adult checked off a calendar, sighing, musing and walking down the quiet hall. It was a special Tuesday, but one nonetheless. He preferred it, but only as a boiling carrot must have preferred the pot to a cauldron.

"Well?" Another man generically asked as the adult turned in the corridor, entering a livelier room than the two he had just left. Inside was the anonymous manager, surrounded by a few screens, indicated all the data required. The manager was in a matching lab coat – it marked his profession – and was leaning on a desk, holding his arms to support a small percent of his weight, in a casual expression of unjustifiable comfort.

"Very. Both of them." The adult did not feel up to words, though he knew he was more deserving of the converse: words not feeling down to him.

"Good."

"I still hate you." He tried to apologize to the words.

"Ral does so more."

"But… but it's so beautiful."

"It is what it is, that is what is hard."

"Only 208 more."

"You count?"

"Always have been."

"208… four years, then?"

"Already been 13."

"The computers agree."

"How's their world?"

"Accurately, probably and scarily fine."

"Good to know they're in good hands."

"Very."

"Anything interesting?"

"No. We must just let the clock run down."

"See you later?" The adult walked away, glancing down the corridor, unable to wait the required four years. If only he had not been stupid that day thirteen years ago. Yet, he could have never known, never comprehended, what terrible forces pulled him into that room, that dragged his antiquated pen across the older paper of the calendar every week. Contradictorily, it was the most beautiful thing he had seen: the true interdisciplinary study that his college and other institutions pretended to cater. Computer science, physics, graphics, biology, economics, history and even philosophy played minor roles in that which he was witnessing weekly. But ethics did not play a role at all.

The manager nodded, noting nothing different. He replayed the data and found nothing peculiar. The next phase was to begin, and the next time the man came around, it would be a surprising visit.

Since school was a uniform liquid of boring days, the slow pouring of time barely seemed to make a difference to Levi or Petra. It was only when marks of the sediment of life: the small grains of sand or miniscule specks of dust that were exams and tests passed, that either noticed that time was flowing.

However, Petra was privy to a different sediment – the one in her dreams. She never had the recurrence (that odd lab-involving fantasy) in the same month. Though she could not predict the timing, she knew that they would be separated by around four weeks. Therefore, the week's passing as made abundantly clear when, precisely a week after her dream – the one she revealed to Levi – she was once again in the lab.

"What's the agenda?" She asked, feigning calm.

"I have a few questions."

"Is there something odd in my life?"

"Ours, according to your working theory."

"Well?"

"This Levi bothers me."

"How so?"

"I don't know… he's everywhere."

"So?"

"I don't know…"

"What? You think the two of us fancy him?"

"What? That's outrageous."

"Well, then?"

"You trusted him with me."

"And my life – we sleep under the same roof."

"But still. I'm only yours."

"So? You're mine! I do what I want with you."

"But I don't like it."

"Tough luck!"

"Well, who's in power here?"

"Don't you dare! We'll both be hurt."

"Fine."

"So what about Levi?"

"Don't trust him…"

"Give me a reason, you over-attached freak!"

"He's… new."

"Do what you like. I'm going to be myself around him."

"And he'll stab you in the back."

"He will not. I trust him not to."

"Unwise."

"Caring. Besides, I'm his sister – if he does anything major, he'll what to deal with my father."

"Good point."

"Was that all?"

"You might as well walk and all, since I got you here." The adult began undoing the straps on Petra.

"Fine." Petra rose slowly and paced as she was told to. "He's a nice guy, you know."

"Do you fancy him?"

"I might."

"What?"

"I'll leave the theory open."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope. I'm considering liking him… in that way."

"Get back to reality." He said as Petra sat down after jumping as she was usually required to.

"See you soon?"

"Beats me." Petra dozed back into reality after that, waking up to the middle of the night.

Levi also woke up to the electrodes. "Well?" He said.

"Petra bothers me."

"My life, my problem."

"But she knows about this."

"She suffers it too."

"But she could backstab."

"How?"

"I don't know."

"She's fine. She's pretty much the only person I really trust at school now."

"That is pathetic Levi. Do not."

"I will. She's my sister now."

"You shouldn't tell her about this."

"Why? You're only in a dream."

"That's not what she thinks."

"Her theory her problem."

"Just take my word for it."

"I won't."

"Suit yourself."

"Do I walk and stuff?"

"Might as well." Levi did as he was bid.

"Bye." He said, emerging into reality.

He woke up to the midnight darkness. He groaned and proceeded to inwardly curse himself as the groan echoed about the quiet house. It only took a few seconds for a reaction – too few for both Rals to be sleeping, Levi decided. After a few quieter footsteps, a knock came on the door. "Levi?" A small voice called.

"Yeah?"

"I had that dream."

"Me too."

"That was too soon."

"And another 'coincidence.'"

"That too, my subconscious tried to tell me not to trust you."

"The guy in my dream did as well."

"Evidently both of us decided against trusting him."

"I think that that's good."

"Same."

"But now what?"

"I don't know."

"I'm sure that the adult is not my subconscious – I can keep too many secrets from him."

"Fair enough."

"Otherwise…"

"I don't think there's much more we can say."

"Unless the dream is the real world and this is a dream."

"Don't go all inception on me."

"I was kidding."

"It's too early to be kidding."

"Fair enough."

"Well, good night."

"Good night." Petra left and fell back into a dreamless sleep.

The adult could not face himself. He could not face the manager either. This time it was worse. It was less moral; a bigger deceit; a lower blow. He did not deserve sight of the rows of monitors. He merely opened the door to show his face and then proceeded to leave. "It was a job well done!" The manager called. "The data is amazing." The adult gestured backwards. "Don't deny your curiosity." The finger flailed upwards once more – a repetition of the lewd gesture presented.

(I hope this was not too confusing. Some confusion is intended, though.

That concludes the first part, the introduction.

I'll be publishing the next part soon, and can promise no updates to "A Future Life" until then.

Have fun!)