Dreamscape [Reikas]

[Reikas Esterion]

Lately, I've been having these dreams...I guess you'd call them recurring nightmares. They're not frightening in any "jump out and scare you" sense, but...They've certainly made sleep something I worry about.

"Hello? Hello?? Please, someone!"

It's quite boring, actually. I'm just alone, in a dark room. I used to blame Belial, but I've come to realize...he has nothing at all to do with it.

"Please, I don't know where I am!"

Sometimes I'm in chains, and it's just me and that hellish slither of metal on... what must be cement. Latelyy though, I'm free to move and I just wander.

"There's got to be someone here, please!"

I wander and wander and wander. There's no end to it. I'd say it was a field, but there's no breeze, no grass, no dirt, no stars. It must be inside, it's so dark, the floor is hard and cold. Yes, I feel things here, too, But there's no echo. It's must be huge. I've never encountered a wall, or any sort of obstacle. There's just...nothing.

"Oh, God, please, let me go..."

It's more than just wandering around a dark abyss, though. It's one of those vividly realistic dreams. The kind where, when you're dreaming, you feel like you're not. You feel like your real life was a dream that you just woke up from into this nightmare world of true reality. It's a head trip, really.

"HELP ME! SOMEBODY, PLEASE!"

No one ever does. I speak, I call out, I scream until I'm blue in the face, until terror and strain force tears from my eyes. But no one comes. No one ever comes. There is no one here but me. I am forced to wander until I weaken and collapse from fatigue, and then I wake up, sometimes cold, sometimes shaking, sometimes with real tears, always with an aching fear that can only be calmed by the sight, sound, or touch of someone else, that sensory reassurance that I'm not alone.

It's not every time I fall asleep, though, but it's always the first time I do, each evening, and after I've woken up, the rest of the night is normal. It wouldn't be as frightening if the dreams didn't connect in the worst way. I told you, I wake when I've given in, when my body cannot wander anymore. Well...each night, this period of wandering grows shorter and shorter...and shorter.

I am starving. In my dreams, I am starving, little by little, like my mind keeps track of how long I have spent in this lifeless, joyless vacuum, and translates that to my body. Each night, I wake earlier and earlier in the evening, sometimes a few minutes, sometimes an hour, and each time, I know it's because I am weaker in the dream.

I have become obsessed with timing these dreams. I wear a digital wrist watch now, and check it every time I wake, recording how long I spent in this world. My physical body remains unaffected, healthy as ever, but in my dream, vitality is but a wish, and each night, I am subject to more and more grueling starvation. I remind you, it feels real, and I'm growing quite concerned.

It has been months since this started, and I am very close to dying now. I spend mere minutes in this world each evening, just barely drifting off only to awake once more by fatigue and helplessness. I can barely move, and what little I see of myself in this endless darkness is skin and bone.

I am afraid, I am terribly afraid. I don't know what will happen when I die in this chillingly vivid series of nightmares. It is affecting me in both worlds, because I cannot tell which is real sometimes.

I don't want to die, and I can no longer sleep alone. Not that it matters how closely I cling to a lover in bed though, because there is no one to save me in this endless, joyless hell.

[Reikas Esterion]

Tonight, everything changed. Tonight I didn't wake up when I collapsed in the darkness of that void. Tonight, the Dreamscape continued.

"Um, he's waking up!"

The voice is tiny and high. A child's, maybe a girl's. I open my eyes. Everything is white. I feel heavy. Oppressively heavy. I know this is weakness. I know this is the same world of my endless wanderings.

She stands there off to my right, alone. She is quite young. I lie on a simple bed, under white sheets, fully clothed. She looks uncertain, but my God, she is real. A human child, just standing there. And I am so weak. I need her. I smile at her.

"Hi."

I speak softly. My voice does not betray me. She was looking away, at something over her right shoulder, but when I speak, she gasps and looks back at me. She looks uncertain. I stay friendly. I need her happiness. I need her to come over here. I need to know she's physically here. I need to hold her hand.

"What's your name?"

Thousands of questions are swarming through my head, and that is not among the most important that people would imagine asked by a man starved nearly to death waking up in a room of uniform sterility. To me though, it is of paramount necessity.

"Marissa."

She is not afraid. Relief floods me at the response. She is uncertain, but not afraid. I almost shed a tear of joy, but blink it back quickly. Presentation is key.

"That's a beautiful name, Marissa. My best friend's name is Marissa. My name is Ray, how old are you?"

And so it goes. I collect information from her question by question, information to use to make her feel comfortable, to familiarize us, to manipulate her into liking me. I have to make her like me, I have to make her comfortable. I invite her to sit on the edge of the bed. It takes me three tries to sit up, but by the third try she is not nervous any more. She is concerned for me. She helps me up, and the touch of her hand confirms the reality of her presence. I am getting a thin wisp of comfort from her. It is not enough. I need more, so much more. I am patient, though. I have spent many many months starving, I will be as patient in working with her as I must be.

She is seven. I learn of her family, her two sisters, one older, one younger, and her two mothers who adopted all three of them. I learn much that I could use to make her happy. She is perfect, full of pent-up need and longing that I am only too ready to fulfill for her. She tells me of her family, of how both moms play favorites and neither one is her, of how she was there first and how it isn't fair, and I sit and nod and sympathize. The more she talks, the more relaxed she becomes. I dare to lay a hand on her shoulder and she doesn't push it away. No one must have taught her how dangerous it is to talk to strange men, because she responds to my touch. She leans in, and then I feel it. I feel the hope, the warmth, the happiness at such a simple, familiar gesture and I can feel her uncertainty by the way she tries to ignore it, to push it away. She has daddy issues. I'd guessed as much a while back. She wants one, and I am here.

I encourage the acceptance and squeeze her shoulder gently. When we are more familiar, I will admonish her for this dangerous behavior, but for now I need her acceptance more than she needs safety. She is safe with me. There is no one around. we continue conversing about her family. It isn't long before I have her leaning against me, an arm around both of her shoulders. I struggle to support her weight but I do so for my own sake. She is feeding me now, happy for the embrace of a father figure. We continue to talk about her mothers and sisters and she complains and complains and complains and I offer only gentle reminds that they are her family and even though she didn't choose them, they chose her and she should be grateful. She doesn't like it, but I tell her that most families don't even get that choice. Obviously she's a bit young for the talk, but I explain to her as best I can that most families don't get to pick, but her mothers did, and she's special because of it.

I have to explain a lot of mature terms to her during the course of this conversation. I have to explain why she has two moms when all her friends have a dad, and I begin to wonder if this is some sort of test. I don't know what the goals of the test could possibly be but my own goals are food and I am passing my personal test with flying colors.

We have spoken for a long time now, and she is very happy in my arms. It is enough for now. I know children are just bursting with joy and I look forward to tapping into this reservoir when I am well enough to stand and play with her, but for now, I am content with this much.

I make the mistake of yawning after some time. I thought it harmless enough, but it seems to trip a switch. She notices, and goes rigid in my arm. I look down at her in concern as she looks up at me with the same.

"Is something wrong?"

"Are you tired Ray?"

"Yes. I was sick, Marissa, that's why I'm in bed." I had invented a lot about myself to explain this strange situation to her. Strangely enough, she'd never asked about it, though. I felt the happiness drain from her and was instantly on alert. I'd done something wrong. Before I could ask, though, she offered an extremely cryptic reply.

"They said I have to leave when you're tired."

They?

"They?"

"They said you need to sleep. I gotta go."

Panic floods me. Who are they? She can't leave, what if she's not here when I wake up!? I need her, I don't want to starve again! But I smile as she wiggles out of my arm and slips off the bed. I want so badly to grab her again and pull her back to me. The first human contact in months, she can't just walk away! But I can't scare her, I can't do anything but watch her back away from the bed, regret and confusion on her face. She doesn't understand any more than I do, it's clear, but someone gave her orders and she's following them. The questions, the questions! They swarm in my head like agitated bees.

"I don't need to sleep, I'm not that tire--"

"No, you need to, they said so."

She actually interrupts me. But she's not afraid. I don't understand. What cajoles a seven-year-old into such obedience that doesn't involve fear? She acts like she's obeying some kind of universal law. That's just the way it has to be. Ray is tired, I need to leave. And the more she backs away, the paler she grows, and mist swirls around her. I realize we are surrounded by fog. That explains why everything is so uniformly white.

I am torn between remaining professional and opening up to her. I decide to call out, one last time. It is a mistake.

"Marissa! Will I see you again when I wake up?!"

"I don't know."

She is gone, and leaves me with only a cold terror of isolation. Only her voice floats back to me, and I am left alone. A deep, aching sadness overcomes me and I feel the tears flow. There is no one to watch, so I don't bother to hide them. I don't want to be alone. I want her back, I wish she had stayed until I fell asleep. I lie down in regret, and close my eyes. The tears still flow.

Crying exhausts the last of my pitiable reserves of strength, and it isn't long before I drift off, uncertain, confused, weak, and frightened.

[Reikas Esterion]

You can imagine my utter confusion when I wake up in my own bed. I am still crying, and I am still scared, but I am healthy. It only frightens me more. Belial would enjoy me like this. Frightened and in need of physical comfort. Perhaps I need to see him. He would understand. I could ask him to comfort me, and he would not mind my tremulous anxiety. Perhaps I will request to spend a night with him soon.

It was so real, though. I believed it as real when I was talking to Marissa as I believe now that this world is the true reality. I sit up, careful not to disturb my lover a few feet away, and look around. I question this reality, and the fact that I even feel compelled to do this frightens me more. Both worlds are equally real as I awake to them in turn. Both follow the same consistencies, both follow the same laws and logic. Gravity, speech, hunger...Who's to say this world is real because I have spent more time in it? Who's to say I did not simply suffer amnesia in my world of starvation? Who can judge these things with absolutes?

I am cold, and so I lie beneath the covers again. I will not sleep for the rest of the evening, but I do check the time, as I have every night.

The pattern is broken, I notice immediately. It is merely an hour before true dawn, and the sky is already lightening outside. Hours and hours of undisturbed sleep in this realm were mine while I questioned Marissa in the other.

I must begin to analyze this. Tomorrow night, I will ask questions of Marissa, questions about the strange, foggy world. I pray she is there to answer them. Her uncertainty is not forgotten to me.

I feel quite rested now, though. The chain of nightmares now interrupted and my wits gathered once again about me, I am no longer weary and exhausted. I take from the drawer of the nightstand beside the bed a journal, a pen, and a small book light, and I begin to record everything that has happened. I feel as though something important is happening in my life, and though I know not what yet, I do not intend to forget any moment of its origins.

I write well into morning, until my lover awakens, but set her mind at ease with a smile as I close the book and put it away. She is concerned, but more grateful that I seem okay for the first night in months than curious as to why that may be. I am not yet ready to share these dreams with this world. They are mine, and mine alone.