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NaNoWriMo starts in a week or so. I wanted to test and see if my idea will have enough momentum to last me a month. Since, you know, I've never actually finished anything before. I have the outline set up, and by my count there should be seven "sets" of stories (of course, how many updates I'll take to finish each set is up in the air). So, without further ado, I present this story.


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness



Old and tired, the assembly hall’s silence was shattered by a keening, heartbroken wail. It echoed from the belly of the room. It scampered around the rows upon rows of desks and chairs, most empty of autonomous folk and instead filled by blank-eyed, fuzzy-edged humanoids. Their clothing were splashes of bright and drab colours like a modernist painting. Their expressions were not present, for their expressions were not being observed by the Perspective of the dream.

They were, on the other hand, completely observable by Edward, who grimaced as another wail filled the room.

‘Don't do that,’ he muttered, already lining up the base of the ladder to the wall. ‘There we go, easy does it.’

Solid and in place. Edward checked behind him. Just like last time, the poor lad had his face in his palms, and another keystone -- his girlfriend, perhaps? -- rubbed smooth circles into his back. Edward could feel her reassuring the lad. Namely, he could feel it failing and only adding to the boy's worries. He didn't want to disappoint her. What was the easiest way, and the worst way, to disappoint someone? Failing to do something through no fault of your own. That was why the clock, the other keystone, had to be marshalled by a third party.

Edward wrinkled his nose as he grabbed the clock's hand. Just in time. He could feel the hand suddenly try to press forward, to leap ahead in time, with the juvenile strength of a Nightmare turned foul. Edward braced his elbow against the clock's frame. He didn't let it budge.

‘Sorry, buddy,’ Edward told it, ‘you'll have to try somewhere else.’

Edward could've sworn he heard the Nightmare hiss. But, that was just his imagination. No matter how powerful the imagination could be in Edward's line of work, there was a fine line between it as a weapon and it as just the fantasy of the mind.

‘ “You'll have to try somewhere else?” Seriously?’

‘Let me have this,’ Edward complained towards the ceiling. ‘It's not like anyone other than you can hear me and remember.’

His grip slipped. Edward stifled a swear and planted his other arm under the clock's hand. He forced it back up, back to what it would be without the snarling spittle of a Nightmare twisting its form. Outside the light shifted, skipping forward an hour, then painfully and painstakingly rolled backwards, back into regular and calm time.

‘Three years and you still haven't upped your game? For shame.’

‘Not done yet!’ Edward said, voice stepping up in octaves. Part of him was grateful Marama couldn't hear him. The rest of him was too busy hoping like hell the clock wouldn't figure out that if it let up the pressure, Edward would abruptly fall off the ladder from lack of support. If the Nightmare plucked that idea out of Edward's head, then he'd have to wait at least an hour to try again.

Chancing a glance at the Dreamer, Edward could see the kid nodding, mouthing out lines Edward heard the last time around. And then -- there! -- the kid glanced up at the clock. Edward felt the relief like a hammer to his brain. In turn, the clock gave another hiss as the pressure downwards slowly faded away. When it was safe to do so Edward cautiously let go. The clock didn't move.

What did move were shadows that Edward couldn't quite see. Shapes that human minds weren't trained to observe, but were barely able to notice the shadows of. Edward kept his glare on it for as long as he could. Then even the shadows were no longer there, not from the Nightmare, but just from the clock that hung on the wall. Edward kept glaring.

‘What about now?’

The words popped into Edward's head, not quite heard but not at all seen, matched up to Marama's voice only by the shortcuts of Edward's own brain. It was exactly like how a person's eyes filled in the gaps left by their blind spot. Edward knew her voice, spoke to her when they were awake, and so his head translated the words he knew she made into, well, her voice. It was almost elegant. Still, Edward never knew if the tone his head gave her was actually intended by Marama. He'd long since decided to never take anything Marama said seriously when said in a dream. It wouldn't be fair to her. Sure, he treated it seriously when events were serious, but only in treating the events. What happened in a dream didn't matter to the real world, not when most involved forget.

But, not the two of them. Edward sat back on the ladder. He watched as the boy and his keystone -- okay, she is absolutely his girlfriend, or at the very least a crush -- embraced and kissed and, Edward stopped watched.

‘Now? I don't know, you tell me.’ Edward paused. Outside, he knew, Marama was starting a scan of the dream. He added, ‘I think I saw the Nightmare drain out. I'm assuming it lost its grip when the Dreamer didn't have a jump in stress? But it could be hiding in another keystone.’

Almost as he spoke, Marama's words popped into Edward's head. ‘It looks clear.’ And an instant later, ‘Two keystones?’

‘It can happen,’ Edward said.

He made his way down the ladder as, presumably, Marama composed her response. His foot hit the floor when her response appeared.

‘Research says two infections are rare.’

Edward made a soft, cooing sound. ‘Reeeeally?’ he said, extending out the letter. He knew Marama couldn't hear his tone, but she should know exactly how it sounded. ‘Well, if “research” says that it must be true.’ Edward was sure to put emphasis on Marama's dodgy term. They both knew who Marama meant, and nobody else would read their logs.

The response was nearly instantaneous. ‘Shut up.’

‘Two infected keystones can happen,’ Edward said, dropping it. ‘It's rare, but it's still possible. It's also rare to chase out a Nightmare in only the second run, so can you humour me and double check?’

It seemed that Marama was grateful that Edward dropped the topic, or at least, the Marama of Edward's imagination sounded grateful. But then again, he couldn't trust it as accurate. It was fun to imagine. He'd be lying if he said otherwise.

‘Don't worry. I'm checking.’ Then, ‘Could you do a circuit while the scan's running?’

‘Sure, sure, I'll do that. Oh, be sure to ask “research” for a second opinion, would you?’

‘I will leave you in there for the full shift.’

Edward pouted at the ceiling. ‘No you won't,’ he said. He frowned. ‘Uh… actually, please don't. Dropping it now.’

With a grunt of effort, Edward picked the ladder back up. Dreamer and keystone had vanished, likely to one of the dream's other constructed rooms. Edward determinately did not think about him further, instead running his eyes over other parts of the assembly hall. Above the stage was a school crest of an oak tree, strong and proud. The blank forms of people at their desks in their blurry colours of clothes, well, they were lifeless and remarkless.

Still, Edward did peer into each face. None of them had the detail a keystone needed. The writing on their papers didn't evolve beyond scattered letters and smeared blots of ink. Behind the stage was nothing at all, just formless mist. Nobody spoke, nobody laughed or cried, and nothing at all happened.

The ladder digging into Edward's neck happened. He sighed, adjusting it, then looked up at the ceiling. ‘Can you blip the ladder out of this dream?’ Edward asked. ‘It's a pain in the neck to look after.’ He smiled after the words. Nobody but him got the joke, but boy was it worth it.

‘I don't know. It might be more useful to research how long a construct can last.’

Ouch. Edward's head filled the blank in as “frosty,” also known as “Marama was not happy.” But that was just him. For all Edward knew, Marama could in actuality be grinning from ear to ear.

Still, it was better to play it safe. Besides, he'd be breaking his own rule if he responded in kind. ‘Okay, I'm sorry. Next time I tease you, I'll do it where you can retaliate.’

‘No. I'm thinking you buy lunch. You buy the two most sugary items I can find, and we call it even.’

Edward's eyes widened. ‘Marama! Those are expensive!’

‘:)’

Edward's head jerked to the ceiling.

‘Did you just send me a smiley face?’ Edward said incredulously.

‘;P’

‘I have no words,’ Edward grumbled. ‘The dream looks clear on my end. Yours?’

‘Very clear. As clear as my luuuuuunch.’

Sometimes, it was difficult to work out what tone Marama intended. Sometimes, Edward had to make use of his three years on the job and the two decades with her as a friend to figure out her intent. At other times, Marama made it so blatantly clear that Edward would need to have an aneurysm to misunderstand.

‘Well then, the sooner I get out the sooner we can eat.’ As Edward spoke the ladder's weight faded and when he looked, it was gone. He rolled his shoulder. Like it had never been there, not even a mark would be on him. He was already on the stage, and there was nobody there to see him, so Edward crossed to the front and sat on the very edge. Before him, a good hundred shades feverishly wrote nothing at all.

There was a ping in the back of Edward's head. ‘Pulling you out in five,’ appeared simultaneously. Marama couldn't provide the countdown for him, but habit did. And by habit, Edward closed his eyes.

A rush of cold curled around his legs, rolling up his bones and settling underneath his skin. Edward's sense of where he was and what he was twisted, just for a moment, and then he was lying on his back.


Any thoughts?

This is really cool, I like the idea of someone possibly even an agency of someones helping clear people's dreams. It's just a really wondrous and fun concept, I look forward to reading more. 

@Fortis Scriptor Thanks. Wondrous and fun are always goals of mine. =D

Two things. First, I could not keep ideas for this out of my head (which is good for my chances!) and second, I realized about half a minute after I posted that the main character's name starts with an E. Great job, Elb, you dingus. Third thing, November features two days in which I have exams (and one essay) so I'm hedging my bets and giving myself some wiggle room. I'll be removing anything I type early from my "official" count at the end of the month, but it'll make me feel better. I dunno.

By the way, I cut off mid-paragraph in this part. The best way to ensure you keep writing is to know exactly where you're going next, so since I'd gone over the word requirement for the day I left it alone. I'll likely be editing that last paragraph a touch when I put out the next part, but for now it'll be my incentive. Also, designing character voices on the fly is a pain.


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness, Part 2/?
Count: 1,671 / 3,340



Waking up was disorientating. But then, it always was, wasn’t it? If teleportation existed, Edward would wager he could write entire collections on the hows and the whys and the various similarities between them.

Sometimes, Edward was in a vibrant castle, stained glass windows glowing in indiscernible patterns. Cries of dragons filled his ears and his heart raced in shared delight or fear, and fear. He raced down the open fields after a Dreamer or leading a Dreamer away from a Nightmare. He’d take up a sword and make use of rusty fencing skills, or even better, he’s grab a broom and learn to fly.

Sometimes, he found find himself in a maze of twisting passages, all alike, with dirt under his nails from unspecified labour. Edward walked down those halls and shed from whispering, cobweb ghosts lurking just around the corner, and he’d call up a siren to shatter the looming atmosphere. Play some hard rock, most Nightmares couldn’t work out how to twist hard rock faster than Edward could sprint.

Sometimes, waterfalls cascaded from great floating islands, held aloft by imagination and wonder, and Edward strolled down them and among the silk-soft trees. Armed with a water pistol, he’d extinguish the flames long before the Dreamer could even notice something was wrong.

Sometimes, an assembly hall would sit in front of him, and he’d need to stop a teenager from crying his eyes out and letting a Nightmare feed on his anxieties.

But every time, every single time, Edward would stop being there, in the fantastic, in the wonder, in the dream. And every time he’d end up in the same place.

REMission, the operation floor, the chamber of dreams and likely secrets too.

Going back to the essay-collection concept, Edward could boil the entire collection to one sentence: those worlds are real. Strictly speaking, literally speaking, Edward was wrong. Dreams are not literally “real.” They are only real to two people. Dreamer and Jumper, until death do them part, and the Link if Edward wanted to be fancy about it. But only his head and the Dreamer’s head would ever witness the world the dream crafted. With the capsule Edward was always hooked up to, the dream elevated itself from flickering sparks in the Dreamer’s head into, well, something Edward could touch. Sort of.

The point Edward was trying to make, in the half-asleep, jerked aware state he was stuck in, was that teleportation would be disorientating because no matter how perfect the teleport was, the subject would come out amongst differences. Temperature, smells, slight adjustments to gravity and background sounds that the subconscious would scream in alarm at.

In the darkness Edward swallowed.

Well.

Edward had many opportunities to think about this.

See, there was always a pause between waking up and the capsule unlocking. Edward could open it. There was an emergency lever in case of, well, emergencies. But he always needed a minute to work out where all his limbs were. And while he did that, Edward was free to wonder at the universe and come up with convoluted and frankly ridiculous and pointless hypothetical essays.

Like how teleportation would feel just like how Edward felt. Fuck his life. What was he thinking about? Right, teleportation. What about it?

Awareness clicked back into place. He grunted, the sound shockingly loud in the dark. Edward twitched his fingers, one after the other, then his toes. Wait, scratch that. With a huff, Edward went back to his fingers. Distal middle proximal. Wrist elbow shoulder. Toes ankle knee. Jaw. Tongue.

Edward immediately wished he had not moved his tongue. Every single time, without fail, wasn’t life just the greatest. At least he hadn’t bit it that time round.

The wonderful thing about not thinking clearly was that it was nearly impossible to pinpoint one is not thinking clearly from inside one’s head. Everyone’s at least a little bit crazy. Still, Edward’s grateful that Marama didn’t have access to his brain when it disconnected from the capsule.

A light blinked on. It was a soft red shade, but even so Edward screwed his eyes shut again. A headache flared. It pulsed between his eyes but faded as his eyes adjusted. Experience taught him that it was a warning. But not a warning for equipment failing or that something had gone dreadfully wrong. No, that light was a bright yellow designed to hock the Jumper as awake as possible.

The red light was a warning. For him.

Edward stifled a groan and covered his eyes. It wouldn’t help. But he could dream. That was his day job.

Droning, dull beeps filled the capsule -- a countdown -- and then a line of light stabbed Edward through the eyeball and into the brain, leaving no survivors. He’d been doing the dance for three years but it still burned to step out of the darkness. The line split the ceiling in two, then parted and widened, the sides lowering enough for Edward to reach, blindly, to the outside. He could feel sweat making his clothing stick to him. Joy upon joys.

A trio of snapped fingers caught his attention. Edward let his hands drop, wincing at the light, and glanced the clicker’s way.

‘Morning, sunshine,’ the floor nurse said dryly. Edward glanced at her nametag. Deva Derring. Right, her. ‘It’s five to seven in the evening, you’ve been in there for three hours, thirty eight minutes, bunch of seconds, two cycles registered.’

‘Not bad,’ Edward said. He swung his legs out of the capsule. ‘I don’t suppose I can skip the health check?’

Deva perched her hand on her hip. Except, not quite, she held her hand in the right position but didn’t let her hand make contact with her sides. Nurses. ‘Yeah nah, that sounds like a real quick way to get brownie points round here.’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Nope,’ she said, popping the p. ‘Arm.’

Edward begrudgingly gave it, Deva snatching his wrist and holding it against his chest. Her head slightly tilted, nodding to a rhythm Edward couldn’t see. It would take her three minutes, at least, to be satisfied. In the meantime Edward worked on re-orientating himself.

The operation floor was low-lit. It mimicked the dusk air that must have been outside, with cool blue lights being the dominant shade. Rows of blue LEDs sat to mark pathways between capsules and the doors, marking the areas that must be kept clear at all times. It was like an airplane at night. Other beads of light crept around monitors and edges, but they were small enough not to interrupt the strictly dim room.

Each of the blue lights streamed down from the distant ceiling. It was at least two stories high, and Edward knew that for a fact because the second story windows faced into the floor. From Edward’s perspective they were black. He wasn’t certain about any of the science, but he did know the usual white office lights were sharp and pressing to the other side. The Link rooms had a clear view into the operation floor, for example, and they were brightly lit. Same with the hallways and the break rooms beyond. Somewhere up there, Marama was shutting her equipement down, stretching, and presumably heading off to her break. That, or she was taking a gander at the view and Edward having his hand held by a nurse.

But then, the low light of the operation floor made it resist observations.

On a normal day there were ten capsules. Those shed the most light in the room other than the blue. Most were not filled. It was a standard procedure to have more capsules than necessary, for you never knew when an emergency would strike. From what Edward could see there were three others sealed and switched on. Someone’s shift started between Edward’s start and his end. The capsules were like coffins, smooth and white ones with their gullets stuffed with machinery and a tank behind the Jumper’s head, just for fun. The grand toilets of coffins, they’d once joked. They sat in two rows, with a corridor of lights down the centre.

At every occupied capsule was at least one of the floor nurses. The nearest, Paul, Edward could hear speaking quietly into a headset. Other floor nurses crossed the floor, files under arms and stern expressions being worn. If Edward’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, it looked like there was some trouble in paradise.

‘Sam and Eri,’ Deva said. Edward glanced back and yes, it looked like she was well aware of Edward’s staring. ‘Murder witness, I think.’

Edward hissed between his teeth. ‘How’s it looking?’

‘Paul’s worried. You know, the usual.’ A smile crept over Deva’s features. ‘No actual health issues but everyone spare’s on alert. Should be done by your next shift.’

‘When did he head in?’

‘Must’ve been… hm.’ She absently snapped her fingers, staring into open space. ‘An hour after you, at least, so--’

Deva jumped, her free hand darting to her ear.

‘...Gbeho says head out,’ Deva said. With a sigh, she tapped Edward’s hand against his chest. ‘Lucky for you your resps are fine. Get some rest, get some food, see you if you’re at my bench next shift.’

Edward nodded his acknowledgement. She did help him stand, shooed him along by a metre, and then hurried off to join the other nurses whispering over Paul’s shoulders. She peeled off quickly and vanished out one of the door, headed to the bay, Edward would wager. Edward on the other hand had a different door. Namely, the exit. He crossed as quickly as he could without running. Down the blue lines, along the-- dear lord it really was an airplane, wasn’t it? Anyway, Edward headed for the exit.

The main doors of the operation floor were the way Deva just went, to where the nurses had their wings of operation, and the flood doors. Oh, and the actual door Edward and other Jumpers used. The flood doors were strictly for emergencies.


Man, I'm excited for November. Who's excited? I'm excited.

The first few sentences (in italics) were in the previous part and have not been included in the word count. Said word count has also been reset because it's November the first for me. Good luck to everyone taking part!


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness, Part 3/?
Count: 1,709 / 1,709 (+3,340)



The main doors of the operation floor were the way Deva just went, to were the nurses had their wings of operation, and the flood doors. Oh, and the actual door Edward and other Jumpers used. The flood doors were strictly for emergencies. They were made of stern metal and took up most of one wall. They could slide apart at the push of a button, ready for a sudden rush of faces and hearts in throats to rush inside and crowd around the emergency. Or to help carry a broken capsule out of the room for repairs, since dismantling each within the room would both be time consuming and something far above Edward's pool of knowledge to contribute to.

Edward had walked through the flood doors exactly once. It wasn't a dramatic walking, however. The Jumper’s normal door had just gotten stuck, so everyone on shift was ushered through the flood doors. It was far less exciting than Edward thought it would be. The door was fixed while Edward was on shift so he didn't gain a second opportunity to be excited, just in case he was too startled to appreciate it. What he did learn was that opening the doors was loud.

His door, on the other hand, was whisper quiet as he scanned his keycard and slipped through. When it closed behind him Edward stretched, spine popping, and gave the hall a cursory glance. No sign of Marama down there.

Getting his head back into his body, Edward felt, was the best thing he could do after emerging from a capsule. In fact, that was advice his instructor had told him before he'd even seen a capsule. Everyone had their different means. Natsuki tended to get something to eat as soon as possible, Gabriel would dive for his flavour-of-the-day phone apps. And… if Edward's honest, those were the oddest ones in their branch, that he knew of, and they weren't too odd at all.

Edward just spent more time than necessary walking afterwards. Once he was reacquainted with gravity he was fine. The best way to do that was to walk around. Walking required a surprising amount of coordination that isn't used when you're asleep. And, shockingly, when one spends most of his work lucid dreaming, it does require some amount of attention to put his limbs into place.

However, Edward never had any trouble until he thought about it. It was the flaw of a centipede thinking about how it walked. The first time he’d started wondering, he’d had to take nearly a day trying to wrap his head around it. After that he started taking walks after he stepped off his shift, as a way to reassure himself that yes, he could walk, no need to start doubting himself. Edward got past the mental tripwire soon enough. At the current point in time he just did it to wake himself up, and habit.

He did a loop around a few hallways. Several scatterings of employees made their way past, Edward greeting those he knew and nodding to those he didn’t, and dodging those who were running at speed towards the operation floor. It was a short walk up to the break room, after all. After heading up the stairs Edward did pause at where Marama’s Link room was, but a harassed looking Hannah pacing inside deterred his enthusiasm. Instead, Edward diverted towards their usual break room.

The door was already open. Scattered laughter approached, glanced Edward's way, and bumped into the tinted windows on its way to cackle further down the hall.

Edward rolled his shoulders. Yup, his legs were his legs and his arms were his arms. The door had a window in it, but he didn’t need it to know who was inside. He gave the door a sharp rap. ‘Room service,’ he called.

There was a sharp gasp. ‘Is that the pizza I ordered?’ Carlos said.

Edward raised his hands, deliberately scanning them. ‘Huh, must’ve left them in my other car,’ he said, and shut the door behind him.

The break room changed nearly every time Edward stepped in. People kidnapped chairs and tables on a regular basis for whichever room they needed to populate, and the one they ended up in was no exception. Nor were the regular meeting rooms, or even the Link rooms, and Edward could swear he’d once seen an actual sofa dragged down to the operation floor. How they had gotten away with it without Gbeho noticing, Edward didn’t know. It left the seating of everywhere exceedingly eclectic. Sofas sat against the walls or were hauled flush to the equally scatterbrained tables: round ones, an outright coffee table, the works. Wooden stools that belonged in a primary school classroom, some tipped over, cast shadows in corners. Cheap plastic chairs, foldable ones, and even an actual rocking chair played a sometime literal game of musical chairs, except the dancers were the rooms instead.

What Edward did know was that Carlos prefered to be somewhere where he could see outside of the room. That left Carlos, Leila, and Marama directly opposite of the break room door, where he could see out the door’s window. They were loosely gathered around a coffee table, today, one that Edward recalled seeing in the foyer before his shift. The rest of the break room was as empty as a tomb, or at least as empty as one could be with three -- and then four -- occupants inside, as well as the general clutter.

Leila hadn’t looked up. She was perched on top of the couch, as in on the back of the couch with her boots on the cushions, with her laptop balanced on her knees and her nose buried in her laptop. Carlos on the other hand had half stood when speaking to Edward, and settled back into a armchair with a scowl as Edward headed over. Marama sprawled on the couch on her back, a pen idly spinning in her hand, and had her attention flicked up from a newspaper. Edward stifled a smile.

‘Why would I have lunch? That’s your job,’ Edward said. He hooked one of the plastic chairs up and over to Marama’s side, even as he directed his words at her.

Marama jabbed her pen towards the coffee table. ‘And I delivered. Did you get lost?’

‘No, I just don’t like you and wanted to delay this as long as possible,’ Edward said. The chair was short in one leg. It wobbled as Edward sat, testing his weight. It would do, he figured. ‘What did you get?’

‘There were these pizza muffins at the bakery,’ Carlos said. Edward scooped the bag up, glanced inside, and there were no pizza muffins inside. Carlos added, ‘But we’re too poor to get more than three, so we got you a sandwich instead.’

‘I will treasure it forever,’ Edward said flatly.

He spotted Marama shift just before there was a sudden flash of movement, and he did not dodge in time. Instead, he was swatted in the face with a second paper bag. Edward barely caught it, but from the weight it felt far more like a dense muffin than the sandwich.

‘Say,’ Carlos said. ‘Did you ever figure out what exam the Dreamer had? Marama wouldn’t say.’

Marama’s attention had already returned to her newspaper. But she was kind enough to respond. ‘I wouldn’t say because neither of us knew. What was it you said, it was just a generic examination instead of a legit one?’

Dreams shy away from specificity. That was why most people had difficulty dreaming words. Words required a large amount of focus. Even if someone can read several sentences whose words have their innards in a jumbled pile, the brain frequently forgot what those words were by the time the Dreamer came back to the phrase. Sure, Jumpers can create stability. But even they had trouble holding together an entire exam sheet that might change itself the moment their attention lapses. Edward had spotted calculus, music, English, hard materials, and history before he’d concluded the exam’s contents was irrelevant.

‘I think so, just generic exam stress,’ Edward said. ‘It was too scattered to tell.’

‘And we aren’t mind readers. I’m aware,’ Carlos said. He pulled out his phone. It looked like he was checking the time, at least, that was Edward’s initial thought. Edward caught a glimpse of Carlos’s thumb shooting across the screen and a text flying away, and then Carlos put the phone away again. Carlos said, ‘So, you have another hour before our shift starts and, unlike the rest of us, you can’t eat on duty. Hurry up and stuff your face.’

Edward snorted. He wordlessly extended a hand and, in nearly identical timing, Marama handed a sheet of the newspaper to him. ‘A hour is plenty of time,’ Edward said. He glanced down at the newspaper he’d acquired. ‘Another earthquake? Seriously?’

Leila jerked, her laptop nearly dislodging. She thankfully caught it before it could do more than wobble, let alone drop onto Marama. With a bashful smile to the rest of them Leila took out her phone.

Her smile dropped.

‘What?’ Marama said. She sat up, newspaper sliding sideways.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ Leila said quietly. ‘Just someone thinking I wasn’t paying attention.’

‘What just happened, then?’ Carlos demanded.

Leila hummed for a second in thought. ‘Well, Edward woke up, and he informed you that you lost the bet you made with Jerry.’

‘What? No, no I won the bet.’

‘You thought it was maths, Jerry thought English, so you both lost,’ Leila pointed out. There wasn’t a trace of visible smugness in Leila’s tone, or even acknowledgement of Carlos growing increasingly nervous. Nor did it acknowledge Marama’s open grin, or the smirk Edward struggled to hide around his pizza muffin. It was nice, unsurprisingly, if a little cold from time. Leila finally looked up from her phone. ‘Or, you tied? You didn’t win.’

Carlos fell backwards on his chair, staring up at the ceiling.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I texted you so you could mediate and Marama wouldn’t find out. Traitor.’

Edward swallowed. ‘Wait, what about me?’

‘Also a traitor!’ Carlos said vehemently. He pulled out his phone again. ‘Okay, no, all of you just go back to eating and reading and whatever it is Leila does, I’m going to tell Jerry he lo--’ His sentence stumbled, Leila raising an eyebrow at him. Carlos cleared his throat. ‘Neither of us won. Happy?’

‘Very,’ Leila said.


You may have noticed there are a lot of names being mentioned. Don't worry about most of them, they're just there because it would be odd not to have names mentionable. I may have gone overboard a bit. I'm also erring on the side of caution regarding the pacing of this, so… sorry if it takes a while to get to anything interesting.

Still not happy with how some of these characters sound. I'm working on it.

Went a bit above the required word count today.


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness, Part 4/?
Count: 1,912 / 3,621 (+3,340)



Like all tea breaks the time swept away like sandcastles on a shoreline. Edward found his bags packed back in Marama’s solemn care and his feet on the way down into the depths of… well, being a productive citizen, he supposed. Edward caught sounds of racing footsteps and raised voices as he headed back to work, but the inside of the operation floor as as quiet and as dim as ever.

The door opened. The crowd around Paul was three strong. Even Adela Gbeho was there, glasses worn and a stern frown on their face. Edward didn’t have long to linger and eavesdrop, but he caught one of them mutter something about blood pressure and stress disorders. His walk to his assigned capsule, according to Marama’s directions, was long and uneasy.

Somehow his floor nurse seemed completely unbothered. Michael wore a sunny expression and a surprisingly wide smile as Edward approached. ‘Oh, you’re with me, right?’ Michael said once within speaking distance. ‘Now, don’t worry about the circumstances around the capsule, okay? It’s soundproof! Er, slightly soundproof? Mostly soundproof. And we’re quiet enough out here.’

‘...I know that,’ Edward said. He sat down, Michael grabbing his hand and forcibly wrenched it around to check his pulse. ‘Hey, careful--’

‘I’m fine! Really!’ Michael’s words were forced between his teeth. Edward eyed him. Now that he was closer, the “sunny expression” looked like it had been carved on. ‘And even if I’m not there’s nothing you need to worry about, nothing that’ll affect you, anyway.’ Michael trailed off in a laugh, staring vaguely over Edward’s shoulder. Paul’s capsule was in that direction.

Edward deliberately cleared his throat. Michael’s attention snapped back to Edward’s.

‘Don’t worry about them,’ Edward said. ‘Focus on what we’re doing, alright?’

‘Right right right, I know, I know.’ The smile was gone. The pretense dropped along with it. ‘Y-you’ve been here a while, right? Uh, nothing’s going to explode, right? Doctor Gbeho said that nothing explodes. Does it every explode?’

Michael, from what Edward vaguely recalled, was a new face. New faces were a necessary part of keeping REMission going for an extended period of time, but it was nerve wracking to think his health was being monitored by someone working themself into a panic. ‘Nothing’s exploded when I’ve been here. And G-- Doctor Gbeho’s been here far longer than I have. If they say nothing’s exploded, then that’s the truth.’ An idea hit Edward. ‘Why not ask someone to walk you through the blueprints on your next break? You can see for yourself all the different ways a capsule can fail, and I promise you that none of them involve detonation.’

They did, however, include neck trauma and/or total brain death. But Edward’s goal was to calm down his nurse, not fire him at more things to worry about, so it would be unwise to mention that.

‘Right. Right. You’re right. I’ll ask Rhiannon if she has time, after this.’

With the way Michael’s eyes darted to Paul again, Edward wasn’t certain if Michael meant his own shift or the problem with Eri and Sam.

The grip around Edward’s wrist wasn’t as tight as it was when it was first grabbed. So, mission success. Michael followed Edward’s eyes and seemed to realise he was supposed to be counting. At least, from his abruptly guilty and then focused expression Edward assumed that was the case.

Edward still had to wait five minutes. Michael grew more and more uneasy as the time stretched on. He let go abruptly, like his hand was burned.

‘Okay done let’s get you in your thing now clock’s ticking let’s go!’ Michael said in one breathless rush. He nearly upended Edward from where he sat, which was on a short wooden stool. It fell to one side and vanished into the dimness. So much for being calm. Edward obligingly waited as Michael rushed to the capsule, his form a wire-frame wobble of nerves. Michael’s fingers flashed over the keypad. The capsule opened with a hiss of pressure and motion, and the white coffin’s covers parted like an ocean before an ocean liner.

Edward hopped inside.

As always it was soft. Nearly every surfaced lined to protect the Jumper in case of emergency. There were a lot of items the way they were for emergencies. It was also snug. Edward noticed it less when he woke, darkness confusing distances, but in the blue light of the operation floor it always looked too small to sleep in. But that was a trick of the eye. There was enough space that he could move up and down. There was less space for rolling over. Then again, having too much space to twist and turn would be unhelpful for the sensors.

He laid flat on his back. Michael hovered the entire time, only relaxing when Edward smiled and gave him a thumbs up. “Relaxing” was a relative term, but it was sufficient to describe Michael.

Near Edward’s ear, a speaker clicked on. ‘You took your time,’ Marama said, her voice only audible from the short distance. ‘Is everything okay down there?’

‘Can’t you see it?’

Michael glanced up from the capsule’s controls. Edward waved him off.

‘Little bit. I can hear Sam arguing with his research team in the other room.’ Marama sighed. ‘It looks quiet down there. I don’t know how they do it.’

‘Neither do I. Any idea where we’re headed yet?’

‘We’re not going anywhere. You’re going to get knocked unconscious and I’m going to type into your brain like a freaky brain spider.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Mm hm. Let’s see.’ From Marama’s microphone, Edward caught the sound of paper rustling. He could help his grin. All the wonders of technology at her fingertips, and quicker fingers than the average besides, and Marama still relied on pen and paper. She said, ‘From the scans it looks... mature? Fucking-- why can the blokes in America get their asses together and make a god damn filing system for these assholes?’

Edward snorted.

‘Shush up, I’m looking over this utter garbage-- there we go. It’s a mature Nightmare. At least. So... it has some fangs and probably a bachelor in eating minds. Your mission, should you accept it, is to eat it back.’

‘I don’t accept.’

‘Too bad.’

‘Anyway, it doesn’t look like it’s latched onto someone properly. It’ll attach by the time you’re nice and knocked out. If we’re lucky Sam’ll pipe down by that point.’

‘Hold on, didn’t they head in an hour after me? Even if we were done in half the time, they should be--’ Edward paused and ran the numbers. Three for the overlap, two for the break. ‘Five hours? Alright, there’s around three more hours for them, how many REM cycles was that?’

‘I can ask Leila to check while you’re getting under.’

‘No, there’s more important things to do. What about after we clock off for today?’

‘I have a date.’

‘Really? That was fast.’

‘With Shortland Street you ass,’ Marama said sharply. ‘And the sugar you owe me.’

Edward had honestly hoped Marama forgot about that. Like the coward he was, he dropped the topic and said to Michael, ‘How’s it looking?’

‘Fine! Everything’s fine!’

Didn’t that fill Edward with brimming confidence?

A perfectly level voice said, somewhere in the vicinity of beyond Edward’s feet, ‘Micheal, please don’t raise your voice too high, mm? Delicate operations are happening all around you.’

‘S-sorry, sorry.’

‘Do you need chaperone?’

‘No! Yes? Maybe.’

‘So kind of you to give multiple choices, I choose the yes. Rhiannon please, be Michael’s seat belt, ten minute intervals.’

‘Sure thing, Doc,’ Rhiannon’s voice said. Edward caught a glimpse of movement, and then her face appeared by Michaels. Both faces were lit, faintly, by the screen Edward knew was on the capsule’s side. Rhiannon peered at the space where Michael looked. ‘Eh, that’s fine. Edward is there anything in the capsule that’s digging in or whatever?’

Edward checked the sides. ‘Nothing that I’m noticing now. I’ll let you know when I wake up.’

‘Cool. Michael, fire it up, I’ll spot you,’ Rhiannon said.

She stepped back, out of Edward’s sight. That left only Michael’s face visible. It was pinched with obvious nerves. Was Edward’s shift the first time Michael worked without an aid, or something? No, it couldn’t be. Even Gbeho wasn’t so cruel as to make someone’s first shift alone be in the centre of a crisis. Were they? Edward hoped not.

With only Michael to focus on Edward could clearly see his throat bob in a swallow. ‘Okay,’ Michael said, more to himself than Edward. ‘Closing the capsule now, keep still so nothing is crushed, and your Link will count us down.’

Capsules could not crush anything. They had sensors to detect and prevent that. It was more annoying than dangerous, like an automatic garage door refusing to shut on a twig. It was good for limbs, bad for patience.

Edward still leaned backwards into the soft back of the capsule. Lying on his back meant he couldn’t go much further, but he still did it. He watched as, bit by bit, the capsule’s sides rose and drew ever closer together, the blue lights far above being blotted out by the moment. While they hissed as they drew together, they didn’t make a sound when they closed. Not a click, or a beep, or a thump. Instead, all the faint sounds of talking and walking were cut off like someone hit pause on a remote.

He reached up. He found the ceiling and tapped on it. It was solid, but the interior had a slight yield.

‘Do we have to go through the whole call and response thing?’ Marama said. The speaker seemed louder in the darkness. A light blinked on above Edward’s feet, bathing them in a faint red. ‘This isn’t recorded, and we did just do it.’

‘There’s not much I can do if you decide not to,’ Edward pointed out. ‘You’re the one who still needs to make the checks. I, on the other hand, get to sit back and get increasingly bored while you make sure nothing explodes.’

‘Didn’t you just tell the nurse nothing can explode?’

‘Figuratively. I meant that figuratively.’ Edward gave the dark canopy of the capsule a grin. ‘Come on, it’ll be over before you know it.

Marama made sure Edward heard the entirety of her long, drawn out sigh. But like Edward predicted the usual checks went past without a hitch. Was the capsule safe, were they getting the readings in line with the results Michael just recieved from Edward’s pulse and whatever, did those align with all of Edward’s previous, and so on and so on.

Eventually Marama proclaimed every check as completed.

‘Any last words?’ she said gravely.

‘Try keep our nurse from having a panic attack,’ Edward said. ‘We don’t want more work.’

Marama laughed at that. ‘I’ll try. Good luck.’

‘See you on the other side.’

There was a slight pinch on the back on Edward’s neck. Maybe it was psychosomatic from experience and time, or maybe it was just extremely effective, but he already felt tired. It likely was psychosomatic. It took at least half a time clock to go from awake to in the dream especially with making sure he was alert in there and dreams normally didn’t care about that then there and then he….

And then….

And then….


And then he died. The end!

I'm getting a better feel for these guys.


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness, Part 5/?
Count: 1,676 / 5,297 (+3,340)



‘--can’t pull her out, not without hurting both of them.’

‘That’s utter bullshit! That thing is mutating. If we keep the dream going--’

‘We keep it going and we can fix--!’

Aaaaaand there went the soundproofing again. Marama spun her chair and scowled up at the button. Handy dandy umbrella cracked into it, and without further ado the room was pitch perfect silence once again.

‘Tah dah,’ she said to nobody at all. Since nobody at all was there, nobody at all replied, and Marama ended up feeling slightly, just a little, maybe possibly a bit foolish. But hey! Nobody could hear her! What was the point in feeling foolish if the only one who knew that was her? Exactly. Zero point. Score one for Marama.

Out the windows Marama saw the kid, what was his name? Edward didn’t say. Nurse-y boy hand his hands on the screen and the other one wandered off. Nothing looked busy. Frankly, she didn’t want to watch the slow crawl of disaster, so she shoved her monitors to block the window. With four of them it was child’s play. Children would leave sticky hand prints behind. Erugh. Alright, make it drunk person’s play, one with a semblance of cleanliness.

Marama poked her headset into life. Yup. It looked alive. She checked her paperwork, absently inputting the correct channel as she did. ‘Paging Smith and Ramsey, paging Smith and Ramsey,’ she said with lofty tones into the mic. Become the airline pilot you dreamed to be. ‘Sleeping beauty’s started snoring, repeat, sleeping beauty’s snoring away, ETA’s half an hour.’

There was a pause.

‘This is channel sixteen of the research department,’ Carlos’s voice said, ‘We read you loud and clear, ma’am, stand by for fairies ex machina.’

Marama leaned back in her chair. Fuck, she forgot to steal a stool. Could she nip out and grab a footrest? ...No, no, too late. She’ll just have to bully a newbie into getting it for her. ‘Please stand by, we are getting reports of stormy weather. Dragons are responsible, we’ll need an expandable bloke with a sword to waste the bastard before we take flight.’

Something smacked into the wall next to Marama. It looked like smooth wall to her, so… someone threw something at the other side? Marama pressed her lips together and put it out of mind.

‘We’re fresh out of expendable blokes. I got a weird plushie of blood plasma, will that do?’

‘What is wrong with you two?’ Leila asked.

‘Sorry, Leila,’ Marama said.

In spite of all her chatter and her split attention, Marama was not shirking her duties. Her duties were to monitor, to pay attention, to inform people of when shit was going down. That was the official blanket of jobs. But beyond that was her and Edward’s business, the business of dreams. Good times. Much fun. But with an audience there came the shame, because loneliness was far easier than dealing with disapproval.

Marama put in the extra attention. The floor nurse… oh, there was his name. Michael. What an asshole, having a similar length and shape to her name. Marama knew the paperwork was going to be a bastard. One monitor was filled with the operation floor’s data. Blood pressure, time under, etc., etc. Michael was in charge of eyeballing it, but Marama had the honour of seeing it too. Another was a mirror for one of room sixteen’s screens. It was a nice and easy way for them to show her anything important they found. The third and fourth were jugglers. Marama usually kept one screen for monitoring and manipulating the dream, another for any inputs she needed to make. But Marama juggled it. Once, she’d had nearly everything packed into one screen and the other three were covered by reference images. It wasn’t practical. She had to wait and see what she needed.

It took Marama ten seconds to scan over Edward’s vital signs, another ten to look over the dream again. She jotted down notes as she did. The Nightmare lived for some time before coming onto their radar, their case. They called that kind mature. Shitty name, really, but if the alternative is “four one zero seven A dash eight” plus a good few more numbers that weren’t loaded in properly, Marama was damn well going to call it mature.

But there was one item she understood. ‘Carlos, this one likes ye olde American dream,’ Marama informed them. ‘Does that give you any leads?’ As she spoke, Marama tabbed a large chunk of data from her scan and sent it to the research room’s computer. It appeared on the mirror. Bare seconds passed before Carlos, apparently, was there. The muse flew across the vast array of numbers.

Carlos clicked his tongue. ‘That’s too wide an area. When Edward heads in I can get a clearer look.’

‘What type of Nightmare are we looking at?’ Leila asked.

On cue, the Nightmare solidified. ‘Got it,’ Marama said. Her hands flew across the keyboard and deftly linked Edward’s still unconscious mind with the forming dream. At the same time Marama read the newly identified identification tag. Gosh, it was almost like ID tags were designed to identify shit. Four one zero seven A dash eight three two four seven one six zero two. Marama wept for the poor sap who figured out how the hell to set that up. ‘Leila, sending the Nightmare’s tag now, see if you can find us anything in its files. I think it’s done the rounds at least once.’

‘On it,’ Leila said, and Marama swept the numbers over like a composer before a stage.

Her two researchers had their jobs. Marama had all the information she could possess. Now all she had to do was wait. Marama checked the time again. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes until their shift truly began and she couldn’t let her attention lapse at all.

She bit her lip. She really shouldn’t.

Marama pushed one monitor down and peered into the operation floor. The nurses were deathly still. Almost every face was turned towards the troublemaking capsule and Erihana inside. The slight form Marama was pretty sure was Michael was outright staring and barely even pretending to work.

Like them, Marama waited, half her eye on the operation floor, the other half on the clock. Fourteen minutes. Thirteen minutes. Twelve.

Paul shot upright. Like silent thespians the free nurses moved as one towards the capsule. It cracked like and egg and then there was Erihana. A leg, an arm, the nurses practically manhandled her out of the capsule. But even four of them assisting her didn’t stop her from collapsing to her hands and knees. Even through the tinted glass she looked pale, shaky, and her eyes barely open.

It looked like she was trying to throw up, but there wasn’t anything available to spew.

Marama slowly took hold of her microphone. She needed to hold something, something useful. ‘Erihana’s out.’

‘Is she okay?’ Leila said immediately.

A shape blurred from the doors. Sam. Marama hadn’t heard him leave the other Link room. He pelted over, only to have his arms grabbed by the head of the department. His face was ashen. Drawn. Like he was at a funeral house.

Marama tried to stop her voice from shaking. To her own ears, she did not succeed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

Leila made a sound, that typical sound of air pulled in through one’s teeth.

‘It-- Sam’s there. I think there’s shouting,’ Marama said. Research rooms didn’t have visual on the operation floor. If she left things up to their imaginations, they’d visualise far worse things than what actually happened. It was Marama’s job to stop that. ‘Uh, Erihana… I don’t think she can stand up. She’s not standing up.’

The other Jumper’s head abruptly snapped up. For a split second it was like Erihana was looking straight at Marama. But that was impossible, the windows didn’t go both ways, and her gaze slipped into a closed eyes grimace in moments. She blindly reached up and seized the nearest nurse’s arms. It was less like Erihana stood and more like she fell into being upright.

‘She’s up, she’s conscious, I think? She looks out of it.’ Was Marama babbling? She felt like she was babbling. A tiny animal was in her insides, yowling and tearing at the bottom of her lungs. ‘She looked out of it,’ Marama repeated. What else could she say?

Sam was finally allowed forward and he swept to Erihana’s side. He looked almost like he was hugging her. Then Erihana fell into him, against him, and the pair unsteadily took themselves towards the doors. An almost herd of nurses followed behind. The door closed behind them.

Marama sat back.

‘...They’re fine,’ she said.

‘I could run and check on them,’ Carlos offered. ‘The search will run itself.’

‘No, don’t. I think they’re preoccupied right now.’

Marama reached out and deliberately raised the monitor again. There. No fleeting glimpses, no running, nothing. There was only her, Marama, with her audio to the research room and the keyboard to the dream.

Everything was fine.

‘If you say so,’ Carlos said dubiously. ‘...Are you going to tell Edward?’

Marama froze. Shit.

‘Uh. Good question.’ Marama’s eyes landed on the clock. Four minutes. Where did all that time go? Four minutes. Four minutes to figure out what the hell she was going to do. That was her job. Keep people calm, keep the information in order, keep everything in mind, and figure out what each half of what she linked together needed to know.

So the question was: what would a good Link choose, in the name of their job? Tell Edward, let him know the results of something that could easily snap its jaws around them? Prevent the effect of other jobs jeopardising that of theirs? Focus only on the mission at hand?

Fuck that.

Better question.

Much better question.

What would Marama choose?

Within the minute she made up her mind.


Strictly speaking, yesterday was supposed to be a day off due to exams. I finished this part last night anyway. Go me. However, it was about half eleven by the time I was done and there were far too many italics to try uploading it.

Hopefully I write another batch before the end of today. Any thoughts?

No criticisms, but I'm really liking this. Looking forward to the next part.

Nooo, give me criticisms, criticisms are the best! =P
But in all seriousness, cheers Gerrick.


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness, Part 6/?
Count: 1,659 / 6,956 (+3,340)



No matter how solid the fog looked Edward couldn't feel a trace of water. Milky sunlight seeped through the apparent moisture, ballooning out from around him. He looked up. The sky was empty. He looked ahead. The world was empty.

Down below there was, he realised, grass. Soft. If he didn't pay it mind it faded back into a murky blur just like the fog. As Edward stood the fog quavered. It condensed. The ground came first, because of course it had to, he had to be standing on something else he'd fall down forever. It felt like he was falling forever. But not with the ground. With the ground Edward was stable.

Other shapes drew together, thick sculptures of blurs in the fog. Edward watched as people appeared. Their faces were clouded by the fog. So too were their features, their colours, and all their identifying features. Did Edward just say features twice? The thought blinked dully and brushed under the matt of grass. Like water droplets the colours of grass spread. They were vibrant. Oddly vibrant, really, like a photo whose exposure and colours were tweaked into artificial candy.

In early mornings Edward felt water at his fingertips, when the morning was too cold for the clouds to rise and grant the morning with clear visibility. He felt water. He didn't feel any water in the fog there, with its patchwork grass and its fog-made humans.

More and more appeared. Between blinks more gathered. In the fog they were greyed, almost flickering in the corners of Edward's eyes. All were statues on pause. Edward reached out, unbidden, and let his hand drift through one's torso. They didn't twitch. They stayed put, one hand raised mid-gesture and a divot in their face. It was like they wore a balaclava made of cloth and their open mouth sucked the fabric into itself. Edward felt nothing. Cotton candy, moisture, weight borne by a breese. Nothing.

Bit by bit the fog drifted. It condensed into the people, into the grass, into the skies and into trees Edward eventually spotted far in the distance.

He was standing in a field, in a crowd.

Like lightning struck him Edward woke up.

‘Marama?’ he said.

‘Connection established.’ Marama's “voice” appeared almost before Edward stopped talking. If he were to guess, she'd already typed the phrase and was waiting on him. ‘How are you feeling?’

How was he feeling? Now wasn't that a loaded question? It was standard, though, and one Edward should never take lightly. He let it lie for a minute. Instead he weaved his way through the crowd, looking for anything noteworthy, eye catching, or otherwise important. How was he feeling… there was a crawling in his stomach. Edward could feel his heart pattering, elevated, even if it wasn't in the waking world. It was a familiar feeling.

‘Apprehensive,’ Edward settled on.

And then he was at the edge of the crowd. Surprise halted him. It put a hand to his chest and gently asked him to go no further, don’t step out of the crowd, never step out of the crowd, that led to hurt and--

Edward glanced behind him. There were the people with their foggy forms. He took a deliberate step forward. The apprehension was a spool wound tighter.

‘Fear of the limelight,’ Edward muttered.

‘Carlos is tracking down where the Dreamer is. Start in America, working our way outwards. Leila: REM in ten/fifteen.’ Ten seconds passed before Marama’s next message slipped into Edward’s head. ‘Apprehensive?’ and then ‘What are you looking at?’

‘It’s sunny and I’m standing in the middle of some park,’ Edward said. ‘It’s still too undefined to have the full picture but whatever this dream is, it has a crowd as centre stage. Anxiety ramped up when I stepped out of it.’

As he waited Edward picked a random direction in the fog and started to walk, one slow step at a time.

‘We did see your heart rate elevate. Be careful. Crowds can hide a lot.’

‘I know, I know.’ Edward stopped. ‘Found something,’ he informed Marama, and quickly picked his way towards… huh.

It was a stage. A cheap looking thing, barely an extra metre off the ground, but there was wooden elevation clear as day. Edward easily climbed up and kicked it with the heel of his foot. Rock solid. That wasn’t exactly accurate to how stages were built in the real world let alone one sat in the middle of a field, but Edward was in a dream. The plausibility of circumstances was something Dreamers regularly tossed out their windows. At the back of the stage was a formless tall shape, about the size of a small van balanced on its back.

‘Okay, this might be more complicated than I thought.’ Edward ran his hands over the shape. It felt like whatever it was going to be, it had a texture of wood. ‘The crowd’s assembled in front of a stage. It’s empty so far. But something big’s at its back and it doesn’t properly exist yet.’

He knocked on it. Solid.

‘Stage, crowd, or big thing at the back. Got it. Think any of them are keystones?’

‘We’ll need to wait for the dream to start,’ Edward said with a sigh. ‘You’ve already got a lock on this dream, right? The last thing we need is--’

‘It’s locked,’ Marama interrupted. Then, ‘What do you take me for, an amatuer?’

‘You were one yesterday.’

‘Yesterday was yesterday.’

‘Alright, alright.’ Edward surveyed the world ahead of the stage. The fog was drawing itself into proper forms, thinning, mixing, turning, churning, and becoming something real. Except it was all in two heads. His, and the Dreamer’s.

The stage was too shallow to see properly into the crowd, let alone the quickly clearing forms of the distant trees. Distance was odd in dreams. What Edward needed was higher ground.

‘Five minutes. The time jumped.’

‘Copy that.’

Edward peered up the shape. He could see colour forming in it. It was a reddish, but also a goldish shade. Bumps and rivets formed in the fog. It came together as Edward watched, but not quite present yet.

...Oh, why not?

Edward found a handhold and clambered his way up the shape’s form. It was more important to get a clear view of what was going to happen. If it was a keystone, Edward could climb down quick enough. If the keystones were scattered in the crowd, Edward would have a greater chance to spot them from the shape’s top. If the shape was an infected keystone… well, he was a Jumper. Nightmares didn’t attack Jumpers. They attacked Dreamers, fed on their fears and their stress and their anxieties, stirring up everything Dreamer’s worried about to craft themselves a greater meal. A Jumper’s lucidity easily stopped Nightmares in their tracks.

Now, the question was, where were they? Edward dearly hoped the Nightmare wasn’t the entire crowd. Edward appearing in its midst suggested that the Dreamer’s perspective would appear there too. A Nightmare could do so much with a crowd as its claws. They could jeer, they could part, they could make everyone the Dreamer respected laugh. A crowd as a keystone was the worst case scenario. That made it the most likely. What fun.

‘So, plan,’ Edward said, and barreled on before Marama could type her response. ‘First cycle’s focused on finding the Dreamer, identifying the keystones, and watching out for the Nightmare. Second cycle, win.’

There was a pause. ‘This plan is missing steps.’

‘And yet it works so well,’ Edward said. ‘Can you set up the radar or is it too cluttered?’

For a split second Edward’s vision flickered. Everything inverted, flashes of gold swimming in purple space, but the vision died before anything was visible.

‘Too cluttered.’ If Edward had to guess, he’d say Marama sighed as she typed that, and his mind filled in the gap. ‘Sorry. I’ll try again after the first cycle.’

Edward could tell the dream would engage soon. The masses of people were faceless. Yet unlike their blurry forms before, they had increasing amounts of stability to them. The sunlight grew stronger and stronger. The fog drained, leaving only a regular haze in the air where Edward’s attention wasn’t, like heat draining up into the sky. The sky itself was full of sunlight. Dusk dreams were never fun. But even nightmares with sunlight in them could be just as fear-filled as ones in the dead of night. They ate at emotional responses, after all, no matter how irrational.

He’d once tackled a dream where a green suited man with a ruler was the Nightmare. It looked very goofy. It didn’t stop the Dreamer being afraid.

But the good hundred impassive people didn’t quite feel like Edward’s source of unease. Well, the Dreamer’s source, really. They wouldn’t engage with the Nightmare’s circumstance until they entered REM state. Until then Edward was twice removed from it all.

‘Thirty seconds.’

Edward adjusted his grip on the shape. It too was forming. It refused to identify itself. Usually, the less formed an object was before the dream began, the less important it was to the dream. Clocks were the first thing to appear in the last dream Edward entered. But it was centre stage. It was healthy to stay suspicious of its importance.

And then, the air shifted.

What happened defied explanation, like always. Edward tried to explain it once, along with other Jumpers in their branch. It was like switching into high definition, or telling someone where the hidden dog is inside a painting of dots. Nothing really changed. But Edward could still see more. And that happened long before the final flash of fog to real. Edward still saw faceless masses and a shapeless nothing when the air changed. It was only afterwards that the world itself solidified.

The Dreamer had entered REM state. And with them, the dream began.


>Outlined seven different sets for this story
>Took five parts to leave set one’s prologue

You know, I think I’ll have enough story to fit the word count.

I know that I took those two extra days for a good reason, but I'm going to feel guilty if I end up needing them. =/


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness, Part 7/?
Count: 1,718 / 8,674 (+3,340)



Step one was the sound.

It hit Edward like a wall. A hundred voices from a hundred throats spoke a hundred phrases at once, rising and falling in a rhythm not quite natural, not quite attuned to one another. The pauses were drowned and the speakers were unheeding of their neighbours. It turned sound into a modernist painting -- that is, with most rules thrown out the windows. You’d need a translator to pick out any real meanings.

But finding meanings was never the point. Edward indulged the voices for a moment:

‘--see the--’

‘--on guard--’

‘--display I never--’

‘--went to the--’

‘--heroic of her--’

‘--never understood--’

‘--candy cane--’

‘--indeed I--’

None of it condensed. So, what the crowd was saying, right then and there, was not important. They still were blurry. They were in the background of whatever goal the dream held. Quite a light collection in the crowd. Their faces were wiped clean like sketches on a window. Their clothing were bright, single tones, plain shirts and half-forgotten blobs on top. All in all, background noise.

Edward freely discarded the crowd and turned instead to what he was sitting on.

It. Okay. Edward was sitting on a statue of a dragon.

How comforting.

It was still made of wood, with golden peeling paint strewn across its surfaces. Red graced the pinched edges, making the scales, the teeth, the horns, the ridges, making them all pop out and stand out. If Edward was not sat on its head it would tower over him, standing at twice his height. Its limbs were coiled up into its chest, wings absent, and a long snout folded downwards to send a glare out into the crowd. Edward felt a mix of awe and fear. He knocked on it several times, but nothing alarming happened other than the soft knocking sound he produced. Was that alarming? No, not really. Sound wasn’t alarming unless it was an alarm.

‘So, I’m sitting on a dragon,’ Edward began.

‘What?’ popped into Edward’s mind. ‘Could you clarify that?’

‘It’s not real,’ he reassured her. ‘For now. It’s a wooden carving, if you want to get a scan of it. No clear indicators of the Dreamer yet.’

‘Stay put for a moment,’ was Marama's input.

‘Will do.’

Edward planted his palms against the dragon’s head. The stage before him was mostly empty, save for a lonely microphone stand sat on it. It didn't look realistic. The microphone was fused to the stand itself. Dream shortcuts. Of course. Edward scanned the area around the stage, but none of the nearby people were sufficiently defined. That didn't prevent the dream conjuring someone onto the stage when the Dreamer's attention was elsewhere.

No, the action had to be in the crowd. But… if what the majority were saying was fluff and nonsense, there had to be one conversation with some coherence. At least one.

If Edward couldn't find the infected keystone right off the bat, he'd have to try find the Dreamer. Edward stared into the crowd. Easier said than done -- Dreamers had the unfortunate habit of being horrifically inconsistent from dream to dream.

One Dreamer could see the world from their own perspective. An “original” or even “first” person's perspective. Their place in the dream condensed around a particular shape, one that Edward could find and help out. It was infinitely easier to fix a dream if Edward knew where the Dreamer was, and that was easier if the Dreamer was visible.

Another Dreamer -- an asshole of a Dreamer -- would hover around the dream's narrative from a floating, distant perspective. If Edward was the “second” person involved in the dream, then the floating Dreamer was a “third” perspective. It was quite literally the most frustrating way a Dreamer could dream. How could he know how the hell the Dreamer felt without being able to see them, their position, or from what angle they were observing the Nightmare from? Worse, even if Edward managed to work out where the perspective was sitting, and what character the narrative was swirling and shaping itself around, Edward could never trust if the Dreamer remained there as time went on. They could jump to someone else. The only clues they'd leave behind would be the attention the Nightmare gave, or in especially dire cases Edward would need to deduce from what angle everything was paying attention to. For example, if random objects appeared out of thin air Edward could be reasonably confident that the Dreamer was not looking in that direction.

Third person, in other words, was objectively awful.

Don't get him started on dreams that swapped between styles.

Or that one time the Dreamer was seeing things from his perspective -- now that was irritating and disconcerting all at once.

Regardless, Edward was not seeing something that looked like a Dreamer, nor any clues--

There was a lady on the stage.

Edward's attention leapt onto her. Big red coat, long and unwieldy, and with just enough blur to keep away identification of what materials it was made of. Springy hair, brown, nearly down past her shoulder blades. For a moment, Edward thought he recognised her. Wrong. The Dreamer recognised her. This was someone the Dreamer knew.

‘OK we have the scan. Nice looking dragon.’

‘Uh huh, dream's moving along.’ Edward swallowed back a curse. ‘I can't find the Dreamer, but I have an idea where they are.’

‘We can find them next cycle.’

‘I know, I know.’

The lady at the stand cleared her throat. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said, ‘I bid you a warm welcome to you all to tonight's performance of the Marisdale Youth’s performance. To begin we will begin with welcoming you all to tonight's performance, warmly, to tonight's Marisdale’s performance--’

Wait, what? Edward ran the words through his mind again. It sounded like those sentences forgot how they started halfway through. Background noise. Worse, background noise on a loop. Wherever the Dreamer was, they were not paying the stage any mind either. Where were they?

Edward sighed. Well, when in doubt, go for the tried and true methods.

He covered his eyes with one hand. What was “he” looking at? What direction was the dream paying attention to?

The crowd.

He was… there were people all around him, and people were safe.

...Gee, thanks Dreamer, that totally wasn't information Edward already inferred. A direction would be nice. Edward spun his hand in place, a clear “get on with it” gesture if Edward had ever gestured before.

Well, it did feel like he was shorter than the people around him. Ghostly presences surrounded him. Edward could safely say whoever the Dreamer was, they were not claustrophobic. They were unnerved, concerned, anticipatory, worried, and a host of other adjectives Edward could toss into the air.

Behind his hand, Edward carefully listened, then adjusted himself. If he was correct, he was facing directly at the crowd.

He dropped his hand.

His gaze was near the back of the crowd, to Edward's left, and for a split second Edward could see a couple, a defined couple, with facial expressions and frowns aplenty.

There.

‘Gotcha,’ Edward muttered.

REM state was a funny little thing. Most people, when they dreamt, had four or five dreams each night. Usually they were different, or if they were remembered they muddled into one another and became less organised than a primary school student's homework policy. But each block of dreams was separated by unconsciousness, half an hour, forty minutes, beyond an hour. A dream at the beginning of a night only lasted for ten or so minutes.

Strictly speaking, a lot should happen even in ten minutes. Narratives jumped like a permanent hula hoop was glued to their ankles. From playing a videogame to being a game to marking endless paperwork, only the most impactful sequences were retained into the wakeful world. But with a Jumper and a capsule, nails were hammered into place. Some failed, others worked. It was touch and go. The cost was that the Dreamer, though they had the exact same dream playing four to five times with minimal change in their minds, had a significantly reduced chance of remembering it.

Edward thought that it was all too convenient at times, but hey, it made his life easier. Most of the time. God knew he didn't want to start from scratch every dream. The actual cost was that all too often, there was insufficient time for a Nightmare to do anything in the first block of a dream. Yippee.

The crowd's words clouded over.

Colour drained, something drained, attention waned, that indefinable quality vanishing.

The lady at the mic trailed off, mouth hanging open and fog gathering around her lips.

‘REM over,’ Marama pointed out, somewhat obviously.

‘Isn't first REM fun?’ Edward said. He dropped off the dragon statue, landing without any sound at all. ‘No visible signs of the Nightmare, or the Dreamer, but I think I know where the action is.’

‘Crowd?’

‘Looks like.’

‘Keep eyes peeled for falling teeth, small shit.’ Marama followed the words up with, ‘Not literally,’ and ‘They aren't on the stage?’

‘I doubt it. Someone did appear on it. The Dreamer knew her, but they aren't standing on the stage. They're in the crowd. Tell Carlos it feels like a kid, or at the very least someone who thinks themself childish.’

The good part of the dream not quite starting was that Edward had a significant amount of time to figure out the architecture of the dream. Though fog spilled around objects, they'd already existed and Edward's brain had registered it, even if he hadn't consciously noticed. That meant he could search for those two people -- siblings, parents, friends, and altogether absolutely keystones -- without any problems.

Nightmares slept, Jumpers worked, and Dreamers recovered.

Edward took a breath, hopping down into the crowd, and started to recount the dream to Marama.




‘Got it!’ Carlos declared. ‘We're right, they're American. A-Alaska, specifically. Huh, I haven't gotten an Alaska Dreamer before. Alaskan? Alasker? Alaskish?’

‘Alaskan,’ Leila said. ‘Why--’

‘Do they even count as American? They're hanging out in-- by Canada, why aren't they Canadian? Blergh, imagine the transit before planes were invented.’

Marama grinned. ‘Pogo sticks,’ she said.

‘Yes!’

‘No,’ Leila said firmly. ‘Tell Edward there's forty minutes to go, would you?’


...Yes, I do know why Alaska is part of America. Mostly ‘cause I looked it up ten minutes ago. Sue me.

It's kinda funny. The night before I typed up part 6, I idly thought that it would be extremely convenient if I had a nightmare that night, thereby making life a lot easier in terms of remember how the heck nightmares feel. I proceeded to have the least threatening nightmare ever. It had gosh darn baldi's basic whatchamacallits, for goodness sake. I mean, great for not genuinely unnerving me, bad for my pride.

But the actually funny part is that I've remembered actual dreams I've had every night since. That's both weird and really cool. Go brain!


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness, Part 8/?
Count: 1,811 / 10,485 (+3,340)



‘Forty? Exactly?’

‘At minimum. It'll be clearer the closer we get.’

Marama nodded. Her chair ground against the floor as she shifted and typed.

>L: Got it.
>L: Research says 40 minutes until REM.

‘Do we know anything else about them, other than being American?’ Marama said.

Carlos hissed between his teeth in thought. ‘To start with? Edward's right, they're a kid. Little girl, ten or so years old. No recent deaths in her family, no apparent trauma, so whatever the Nightmare's targeting it's something that's deemed unimportant or it's something she's keeping to herself.’

>J: Good to know.

It didn't seem like Edward had anything else to say. Marama leant back in her chair. Numbers crested and fell in slow rhythms.

‘In other words, it's a Nightmare,’ Marama mused. ‘Do you have a picture?’

‘Not until we know we need one.’

‘Speaking of pictures, could I have the scan of that dragon Edward sent over?’ Leila asked. ‘I have an idea.’

‘Sure.’

>L: Dreamer should be a little girl, primary school age.

Marama took the static filled picture, copied it, and then flicked the image to their shared screen. Moments later it was pulled to one side and out of Marama's sight.

>J: That sounds right.
>J: Any chance I can have a picture?

‘That’s a Chinese dragon,’ Leila said. There was a trace of annoyance in her tone. ‘Whiskers and no wings, but the stooped posture hides it. So much for wizards and witches.’

>L: Nope.
>J: Goodie.
>J: Grunt work is so entertaining.

Leila paused for a moment. ‘There's a few options here,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Most likely is she just saw the dragon when she was awake. Otherwise she could be of mixed heritage and it's symbolising conflict between her past and her now, or otherwise race based anxiety… or on behalf of a friend if she's empathetic? Or uh, a wish for power, dragons generically symbolise power, or good luck, but if she's from an outside perspective her mind might have pulled on the most recent intimidating form she recalled. Mm. Could just be she just likes dragons and was thinking about them. Oh, or the zodiac. I'll check the zodiac.’ Leila huffed, the microphone barely picking up the sound. ‘Sorry, I'm rusty. Give me a moment to run through the symbology garden, please. Carlos, could you check if there was anything Disney going on? Broaden it to anything under the bracket of “Asian” after that. We should check those before we go too deep.’

‘We can never go too deep,’ Carlos said.

‘What do you mean you're rusty?’ Marama said with a fond grin. ‘Did you pull all of that from the top of your head?’

‘If I hadn't forgotten half the material, I would've said things that were relevant,’ Leila said with a sigh. She added in a mutter, ‘Why's it made of wood?’

Marama wasn't sure if Leila was speaking to any of them, or was already in her own shining bubble of consideration.

Carlos said, ‘I'm working on her current events. She isn't Chinese or anything related to Asia.’

That was one option struck down. As fascinating as dragons were, they did have a dream to discern and a Nightmare to detangle. With that in mind Marama asked, ‘Leila, do dragons have anything to do with social anxiety?’

‘No.’ Leila paused. ‘Not directly. They have teeth and are stereotypically large. It could represent watching eyes, a looming retribution if she does whatever she doesn't want to do, a particularly nasty subset of activities, but it wouldn't need to be a dragon for that.’

The dragon did look a nasty dirtbag. Big teeth, big eyes, paint leaking out of the carved lines and muddling into one another, the works.

‘We don't know if the Nightmare's in the dragon yet,’ Marama cautioned.

‘It's a dragon! What self-respecting Nightmare wouldn't hop into a dragon?’ Carlos exclaimed.

‘No, I agree. We don't know enough. Is she ten exactly?’

‘Give or take some months.’

‘...Cross the zodiac off the list, then.’

‘Keep up the good work,’ Marama said. She shut off her microphone and stretched. Her spine popped, and the dialogue box remained stubbornly still. The clock said that by Leila's last informing count, there was a minimum of... thirty five minutes or so.

Right.

Okay.

It was going to be fine, right?

She laid her hands on the keyboard.

L: Hey.
J: Hey?
J: Find something?

Fuck it, she had to do her job first. She wasn't stalling. Job was her job, and her job was to keep Edward informed of their current research team and the team informed of what happened to Edward.

L: The Dreamer's a kid, to start with.
J: You.
J: You said that already.

Marama's eyes danced up the screen.

‘Ah. Shit,’ she said.

J: Don't get dementia already, getting another link would be very awkward.
L: :P
J: Why are you even able to type that?
J: Do we not have autocorrect on this?

They did not. They had shortcuts for phrases a Link felt they used sufficiently often enough to justify turning into a single button, rather than five plus, but there was no autocorrect. Or filter. Thank fuck.

L: Anyway.
L: We've ruled out her having Asian ancestry.
L: Or being born in year of drag.
L: Ruled out a lot of things.
J: Business as usual?

Swallow. Breathe. Marama steeled herself.

L: Eri’s out.
J: Oh?
J: Oh.
J: Oh.
J: Is she okay? Sam?

‘Uh, Marama? Everything alright up there?’ Carlos said.

Marama turned her headset on again, well, the microphone of it. ‘I'm telling Edward about… you know.’

Carlos did not respond. Marama almost wished he did, then she wouldn't have to keep typing. Or at least, she could justify not typing for a moment, and not feel like she was leaving Edward in the dark.

J: Don't write a paragraph just tell me if they're alive.
L: They're alive.
J: Good.
J: That's all we need to know.

‘It's really not,’ Marama said.

‘What?’

‘She just said she was typing to Edward,’ Leila rebuked Carlos.

Marama turned the headset off again. From the complaint in her ear, she'd hit it with her thumb along the way. It didn't matter.

L: Last I saw Eri couldn't stand properly.

Halfway through typing, “Sam had to carry her out,” Edward's reply was there.

J: Stop.
J: They're fine.
J: Let's save this kid before we worry about them, okay?

The words sat there. They were emotionless, opaque, and Marama knew damn well Edward knew that too. White words on a black screen. But the damn topic wasn't black and white. Edward was inside a capsule just like Erihana's, in a dream just like she was, and Marama was sitting in almost the same place Sam was. Fucking asshole.

Even so, Marama's half formed message sat there.

She couldn't send it any more, not with Edward's wish plainly sat in her face. It was too late to excuse as her typing too quickly. Bit by bit the delete ate each character, until all that remained was black space and a blinking white bar.

Her hand found the channel input. Carlos's continued grumbling was silenced. Moments later her headset was on again, and she cleared her throat.

The person on the other end yelped. He gathered himself, but clearly, he clearly had no practice hiding his nerves. How was he a nurse? ‘Right, um, hi? This is Edward Trenton's capsule-- um, that. Do you need something? Michael! This is Michael?’

‘Could you compare Edward's current heart rate to five minutes ago?’ Marama said briskly. Standard procedure, nothing to see here, sir.

‘Of course! Of course, I can do that, uh….’ Michael made a few more thoughtful noises, like a baby bird's coos. ‘Let's see. His resting BPM was sixty eight, so if we look at now-- oh, right, that's gone up, that's what, eighty--’

‘Cool, thanks,’ Marama said, and switched back to her regular channel.

‘--hung up on us!’

‘Carlos, I'm trying to have a conversation,’ Marama said hurriedly. ‘Could you be quiet for two minutes?’

Phew, correct phrase said. Nailed it. Carlos let out a long, clearly exaggerated groan, but did as Marama asked. On the other hand, Edward hadn't said anything in the past few minutes. Stubborn git. Marama scowled as she typed.

>L: Alright.
>L: I'm holding you to that.
>J: If you say so.

‘Remind me to corner Edward after we're done,’ Marama complained. ‘Did you have something to share, Carlos?’

Oddly, Carlos sounded smug. ‘Two things. First, Edward said he saw some people, right? I'd like a scan of them, or one if he doesn't have time to spare. Second, it was Leila who was asking the original question, oh almighty multitasker Marama, blessed be your name.’

The plywood was loose. Curses, she did not nail it.

‘What was it, Leila?’ Marama queried.

>L: Research says wants to get a scan of a keystone person.
>L: Both if you can.

‘I was wondering if Edward could check behind the stage?’ Leila said. ‘Behind the dragon? I want to know if it's hollow. If someone could enter it, then it could hearken to the dragon dance, and that brings in themes of teamwork. That would fit the crowd concerns the Dreamer has.’

Marama's lips pursed. ‘How long until REM?’

>J: On my way.

For a minute Leila was silent. The calculations went over Marama's head, but she did know the theory for it. Take the time it had been, look at the time that should pass, then include all the fiddly details of the individual's head. The theory also went over Marama's head. So what? That was why Links had research teams. Hannah, Marama knew, could do calculations on the fly, but she delegated item construction, so Marama wasn't losing out on much.

Leila said, ‘I'd say… put it at thirty, but there's a… let's put it at thirty for now, but I think it'll stretch another ten minutes in there next time I check.’

>J: Alright, start the scan.

Click click went the buttons, and in the corner of one screen an image of thought, neural pathways, and unconsciousness began to form. In near the same moment, Edward's words appeared.

>J: I'm going for the woman first.
>J: She seems a friendly sort. Dark hair, scowling complexion, looks like she'll drown me in uncomfortable Christmas jerseys.
>L: Scan started.
>J: Poor kid.
>L: 30 minutes, but L thinks that it'll be longer.
>L: When scans done, could you check behind stage/if dragon can be entered?
>J: They didn't sound hollow.
>J: I'll do it, just as soon as I can take my hand off this woman's shoulder without exploding your equipment.

A snort escaped Marama. What was with Edward and explosions that day?


Conflict makes the world go round. Lots of dialogue this time, technically, and I feel a bit guilty that my document counts each J and L as a separate word. But since I can't add any dialogue tags to those lines I think/hope it balances out.

...Although, now that I'm looking at the preview, J and L look very similar in a skim read. I might swap the indicators to something else. I can't use E / M because even though they are sufficiently different it makes no sense for that to happen, and Link / Jumper would look long and messy. LNK / JMP ? I'll think on it.

Any thoughts?

This snippet features a Nightmare (finally).


By Chance To Dream
Set 1: The Pursuit Of Happiness, Part 9/?
Count: 1,671 / 12,156 (+3,340)



It didn’t matter. It did not matter.

Their job was to protect people from Nightmares. Nightmares, by definition, dearly enjoyed it when they brought terror to people outside their targets. More food for them for the exact same amount of effort. It was like planning to buy a singular frozen pizza from the supermarket only to find there’s a two-for-one special and they didn’t raise their prices.

Yes, it was terrible and Edward was already imagining increasingly awful things. Yes, in the real world right then and there was Erihana and Sam, people who’d he’d worked alongside with, in circumstances that could have easily… happened. To someone. Yes, it was fundamentally horrible.

But Edward’s imagination belonged to him.

If he couldn’t marshal it, he had no right to be inside someone else’s head promising to fix someone else’s infection. Edward’s job was to protect and help and aid. If he had his own issues he’d only make things worse. If he made things worse then the Nightmare would both be amused and fed, that is, if Nightmares could feel their own emotions.

Could Nightmares feel emotions? That was something Edward did not know enough to make a comment on. But if they could, Edward heartily wondered why they didn’t simply torment one another. Maybe because it would be like cannibalism. Humans ate meat, humans are made of meat, but eating humans was a fun mixture called unhealthy, unsustainable, and unethical. So, they ate people’s emotions. But only the negative ones and only through dreams, as far as Edward knew.

There were scientists whose jobs were to study how the hell Nightmares functioned. They were a strange mix of biologists, zoologists, and neurologists. And Oneirology. But Edward was not one of them. Their REMission branch didn’t have any, either. Most of the people with sufficient know-how were overseas and over dales, where they had far more human resources and general resources. But they were the ones whose job it was to figure out if Nightmares could become cannibalistic in the first place. It’s difficult to study something that only had tangibility in someone’s dreams.

Edward’s job, on the other hand, was just to deal with them, not dance around the details and the devils.

See? Edward was fine.

Edward waved his hands and shooed the fog apart. It parted between his fingers and melted into the dream conjured ground. As he expected there was only grass and the statue’s wooden behind. The grains had their bumps and tears where sanding failed to smooth it out, and the paint did little to hide it. The grass, on the other hand, felt wet for a moment. But there was no dew or any signs of moisture. Sure, fog suggested dampness, but as mentioned the fog of a dream was not wet. Even Edward wasn’t immune to his head filling in unnecessary gaps. Edward straightened.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘No gaps, no odd objects, no zippers or flaps, nothing.’

‘It was a long shot.’

No kidding, Edward carefully did not say. There wasn’t any point to it. All he’d gain was a sentence on Marama’s screen and an annoyed tone she’d need to infer rather than hear, and it was not fair to take something she typed to heart. Never take her seriously in a dream. Now if only he remembered that.

Marama typed, ‘5 minutes. Research says leeway of 1 minute.’

‘Alright. I’m heading back to those people.’

Edward jumped on the stage and paused by the woman at the microphone. Her mouth was blurry, gaping, eyes half-lidded like an unflattering photograph.

‘Does Carlos want a scan of the woman on the stage?’

As Edward spoke he searched the crowd. Now that he’d tracked down the two figures, picking them out in the crowd was child’s play.

‘Not now,’ was Marama’s input. Edward was in the crowd and lightly pushing through the wisps of people. ‘No time for it anyway.’

And there were the people. Male and female. One was a plump woman, like the quintessential kooky grandma in a hundred films, expect younger. So, the quintessential kooky grandma’s daughter. The other was a stern man made of angles and harsh lines, like he was a prisoner’s sketch on a wall. Both were half turned to face one another. Some of their attention was pulled forward to the stage. The rest was on each other.

When Edward took a half-step backwards, something seemed to settle in his head. He had the correct angle. The Dreamer would be somewhere on the line, the one drawn between Edward and the two keystones. All he had to do was find them and whatever the Nightmare was inside.

‘Thirty seconds,’ Marama announced, unbidden.

Like lightning the crowd came to life. Edward was instantly bumped forward by a solidified young woman and chatter filled his ears. He ignored it as best as he could and focused on the keystones. They spoke animatedly, enthused and engaged with one another.

‘I never!’ the woman exclaimed, a hand clipping into the other’s shoulder.

A wry smile crossed Edward’s face. Items in a dream weren’t quite solid, so objects accidentally occupying each other was more common than expected. Most of the time, people’s heads simply glossed over it. But Jumpers had the special privilege to be as aware of their surroundings as they were when awake.

Well. Mostly. There were still gaps both Dreamer and Jumper shied from, gaps that Edward annoyingly couldn’t bridge, but Edward had at least reached the point where he noticed them.

‘It’s true, it is true,’ the man gushed. ‘Abigail will be centre stage! I’m surprised too. I never imagined they’d ever actually use the understudy, did you?’

The woman shook her head. ‘Never. Oh, do you think she’s prepared enough?’

Edward raised an eyebrow. Performance anxiety. After all that, it almost seemed a let down.

‘Of course she’s prepared, she’s Abigail,’ the man said dismissively. If only Carlos could hear his words. Edward would wager the man’s real world equivalent would never directly say that.

And in the distance, on the stage, microphone woman blinked into noticeable existence. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said once again, ‘I bid you a warm welcome to you all to tonight's performance--’

‘Ah ha, here we go,’ the man said. ‘Do you know what part she’s playing?’

‘I don’t!’ the woman said. ‘What part? An important one, isn’t it?’

Christ, would the dream please get on with it?

‘One of the most important.’

Or not.

The man pointed up towards the stage as he spoke. ‘She might be hard to spot, at first, but trust me when I say it’s a role you will remember. She’ll make the family proud tonight!’

‘I can’t wait,’ the woman enthused. She then looked towards the stage with a smile.

With a smile.

With a…

Smiles normally go to the eyes. Those were too toothy.

A sudden wave of apprehension hit Edward.

‘Look!’ the woman said. ‘Here she comes!’

Edward found his gaze drawn to the stage. It was like the world narrowed around it, a phenomenon Edward was all too familiar with. The world twisted like a magnet or a funhouse mirror, except Edward couldn’t properly see the curves. On the stage the microphone was gone, along with the woman, her role having been fulfilled.

Something occurred to Edward.

From where he stood, the dragon’s eyes bored directly into him.

Edward was certain, right then and there, that the dragon was about to spring to life. It fit. An inanimate object, ready to swoop down onto the crowd, with appropriate amounts of set up and direction for an artificially coherent dream.

It fit.

And then it didn’t.

The dragon wasn’t looking at anything at all.

Wood squealed under a sudden, uncompromising weight.

The stage bent under its appearance. It felt like motion left afterimages, from emptiness to a suddenly very present and breathing thing, which held itself low against the stage’s surface. Between blinks the dragon was on its side. A solid, sordid crack filled the air like an afterthought. The statue had snapped in half. Its body was in one place and its head at least a metre away. And the shape? Its meaty, bloody paws rested on either wooden piece.

It pulled itself upwards from its pounce. Eyes glinted gold. Teeth dripped, wet with salivating joy. Under thick and long fur rippled muscles, pulsing and taut. The colour of the shape evaded identification. One moment black, the next orange, until it eventually settled on a hybrid of the two. A tail snaked along the ground. It dusted away the fog. But the fog didn’t leave. Instead it twisted around the creature like a cloak. It highlighted the paws, the claws, the teeth that glinted in the sunlight that, all at once, seemed much dimmer than before. It was the tiger that burned bright.

A low, bass-y growl reverberated through the air. The eyes of the beast had replaced the dragon’s and they glared into the crowd, pinning Edward in place. The crowd itself was trapped in perfect silence. They acted like it was all a show they were obligated to respect. He half expected them to clap.

One paw lifted itself. It was slow, like it moved within water. Or, like it knew it had no need to hurry. Large pink and deceptively soft pads made themselves visible. So too was the bloody aspect. The paw set itself almost daintily back down. Except, the setting-down was accompanied by the dragon crumpling like an eggshell.

A moment passed.

Hissing reached Edward. Around the paw the air wavered, the wood blackened. The next time the paw rose flickers of flame tickled the air. So did smoke. And the paw looked no different. The dragon, on the other hand, was helpless to the slow spread of flames.

Edward swallowed.

‘I found the Nightmare,’ he said.

In the silence his voice sounded small.

‘It’s a tiger,’ he added. ‘And it crushed the dragon. And set it on fire.’


Leila: So THAT’S why it’s made of wood!