"Not a clue," you reply honestly.
"Oh, right. You didn't hear me. Well, let's just say it's time for you to make a few choices."
Just then, the door to the outside opens up, and your sister steps inside. She looks at you, alarmed. "Rose! I thought you were dead! I- oh, um... nevermind. Were you talking to yourself, just now?"
"Uh... no. Just, uh... talking to myself about how much I hate these exams." You quickly change the subject. "Saw a ghost in the forest."
You shake your head. Your name isn't Rose, and you're quite sure there shouldn't be a forest in the kitchen, but somehow neither of those things feel unnatural. Weird.
"Ghosts aren't real, silly!" Your sister says, smiling. "Now come on, we need to get to the hospital. I want to make sure you're okay."
"Give me a second to think," you say. "You're... Laney, right?"
"Of course! Don't you remember?"
You shake your head. "I don't... I'm not sure of anything."
She frowns, looking confused and worried. "What do you mean? Don't you remember our parents? Or... or me?"
"I..."
Oh, you remember. You remember, all right. Your name's Ariel, and Rose is your older sister. She isn't, y'know, you, but then you also remember 'waking up' several times in a row. You want to find Mai, to figure out what's really going on -- and you want to look yourself up on the internet, because to say that this is confusing is an understatement.
"A-Ariel? Are you okay?"
"I..."
She didn't even notice the switch. This is a dream. It has to be a dream. But if it is, what does that mean? Does it mean you're dead? If so, what's happening now? Is this Hell?
Probably not. If it is, you're in it together.
If this isn't a dream, then something even weirder is going on.
You need to find a computer. A quick search of the house reveals one in Laney's room, and you sit in front of it as she watches, visibly confused.
You'd have used your own, but your room has inexplicably been replaced with a kitchen.
A quick search online brings up... well, nothing for a while. Your first search brings up nothing but suggestions to 'improve your search' or advertisements. Your next one brings up several pages claiming that Rose or Ariel or both are dead, and that their deaths are your fault, which brings up the question of who exactly it thinks you are.
A moment's reflection reminds you that you'd previously programmed your computer to analyse your dreams. That was in a dream, but probably so is this, so perhaps you should log in remotely and check what it's figured out. You do so, and are presented with a text-only interface.
Apparently it's running on Unix now.[0]
You run 'ls', and it lists the following folders:
Current Dreams
Earliest Dreams
MySQL Database
Analysis
Tilde ~
You run 'ls Analysis' and it lists the following files:
CURRENT.HTML
FRIENDLY FAKIR.HTML
GHOSTLIGHT.TAR.XZ
Those names are a little concerning, but setting them aside for now... you read CURRENT.HTML, which you guess is the output from your ongoing dreams.
It's a mess of symbols, numbers, and characters. You run 'man less' to learn how to use the less command, then use it to navigate the file. You search for settings or website and quickly find those entries.
They're addresses. The first two are your home and school. The third is '
www.website.com'. A website, it seems, has been creating these dreams for you. You look up the owner of the domain name, and find it's simply a dummy account at a webhost... but the webhost is actually yours.
Okay, fine. You're reading this in a dream, and the computer itself is also part of the dream. You don't know why you were expecting anything different. Maybe you can influence the dream by interacting with the computer? You'll try that later.
For now, though, you continue reading your html file, searching for anything else that seems important.
You find some references to an instance of 'Ulivik' several times. And 'Rose' is mentioned a few times. Finally, there's a reference to a 'Dampening Field'. This seems related to the dreams, somehow.
Okay, you'll try to figure out the significance later. You exit the program by pressing 'q',
but before getting up, you decide you should search for any information it might have on Mai. You could just ask her yourself, but doing this seems more interesting and less awkward.
You run 'grep Mai CurrentDream', and retrieve a single line:
You're Mai. You have short brown hair and wear a tight black t-shirt with long grey sweatpants.
That doesn't seem right, so you simply try again. And again, and again. Each time, the results are different.
"W-what the..." you stutter, as the computer screen begins to glow brightly. You shield your eyes, and when you uncover them, you're standing in the tower that rose out of the graveyard. A girl with long black hair stands in front of you. She looks a few years older than you, and wears black pants, a grey tunic, and a sword belt.
It takes you a moment to adjust, but fine. Fine. You'll cope.
"I remember you," she says, frowning. "You're that boy from class. What are you doing here?"
You look down at yourself. Nope, definitely still a girl, and you're a few years too young to be in her class. Her eyes are fixed on a spot a little above your head, and it's disconcerting. Worse, you think you have in fact seen her before.
"I remember you, too," you say, trying to change the subject. "I've seen you somewhere before..."
"We had class together," she says, matter-of-factly. "A year ago. But that was a lifetime ago. So much has happened since then."
Yeah, you bet.
"Let me guess," you say. "Scary adventures? People or monsters out for your life?"
"Something like that. Except you'd be surprised how often the scary monsters have hearts of gold. And the people you think are your friends... I miss home."
The alarm bells are ringing loud and clear. What's happened to her is the same thing that's happened to Mai. The exact same thing. Except... isn't this girl dead? You're sure you heard precisely that, back before this whole thing started. If the same thing is happening to your best friend, then--
Suddenly your heart is in your throat.
"Has anyone been visiting you in your dreams?" you ask, trying to sound calm and collected.
"Wha?" she asks, raising an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"
"I-- nevermind." You take a deep breath. "Sorry to bother you."
She gives you a funny look but doesn't stop you as you slip by her and out the door.
You hurry down the stairs, nearly slipping on a landing but catching yourself at the last moment. As you're nearly to the bottom of the tower you take one more look back up. She's still there, watching you. You shake your head and hurry down the last few steps. You know you'll have to help her later, but for now you absolutely have to get to Mai.
Your heartbeat only starts to return to normal once you're outside and away from the tower. You have real no idea what's going on. She can't actually be dead if she's standing there talking to you. Right?
It's a short walk to Mai's house, but it feels much longer than it really is. You open the squeaky gate and start up the dirt path to her house. You ring the doorbell and hear the chime inside, though no one comes to the door. After waiting a few minutes you try again with the same result. You've never known her mom to
[1] the doorbell when it rings, and Mai was supposed to be done with school hours ago--
is the thought that tries to force its way into your head, until you remind yourself that this is a dream.[2]
You take a step back from the doorway and look around. The yard has only enough room for the house and the path, with no bushes or anything to hide in. There's a window close to the door, but it's too high to see through. You try the doorknob and nearly fall over backwards when you open the door.
Before you can even take a step inside, you're blinded by a flash of white light. Then you're falling, and falling, and falling...
You land on something soft. It feels like grass, but much softer than it should be. You open your eyes and close them immediately at the intense light.
"Mai?" You shout. Your voice sounds different, higher than usual.
[3]
"Please, you mustn't do that!" Mai's voice shouts back. You feel someone grab your hand and help you up. "The blinding light of the sun through the windows will ruin my furniture."
The what will what, now? Oh boy. She's really not thinking right. You open your eyes to find yourself in a very fancy room with big glass windows. The walls and floors are a light wood, and the furniture looks like it came from another era. Mai helps you up off the floor and smiles as you look around.
"You're not wearing the right clothes," she says. It's not a question. "Let me get you a change." She walks past you into a hallway to the right of the room, leaving you all alone in the room full of windows and sunlight.
You take a look around while you wait. There's a large bookcase against one wall of the room, filled with novels and non-fiction books of all kinds. A white piano sits in the corner next to a glass cabinet full of figurines and other knick-knacks.
You're in a dream; you're sure of that now, but you're equally sure you're not dreaming alone. As much as your mind keeps wandering, you've managed to fix those thoughts in your head.
Now, with Mai right here, what do you want to ask her?
= = =
Quite a ride. I don't think it would take very much cleanup to turn this into a proper story, actually. I'm not going to, so if anyone else would like to try it, be my guest.
0: And Unix uses base 0 footnote indexing. I note it does a pretty decent job simulating the terminal interface...
1: "to ignore", obviously. The AI typoed here, which it amusingly does in a very human way. It doesn't happen often, mainly because I correct it if it does, which means it thinks it's trying to simulate an author who doesn't typo... but it's no disaster letting one slip past either, as you can see.
2: It's pretty good at remembering this, and would have twisted the story back in that direction regardless, but this was me erasing a bit of pointless filler. The AI definitely needs an editor.
3: I have no idea what it's doing. I bet we'll find out.
