Our Dream at Sea

Himeko pushed open the door and walked inside, quiet as a mouse as she cursed herself for somehow managing to forget her shoes. Dr. Nakamura was home, evident by his shoes already on the rack. Something savory bubbled on the stove nearby, and she put her bag on the stairs before walking into the living room. Here, a mix of a television screen and hologram projectors displayed a show of some kind, which Dr. Nakamura watched while swirling the deep brown liquid within a wide glass. He looked up from his spot on the sofa when Himeko got close.

“How was your first day of school?” he asked. “Principal Saitō called me to inform me of your test scores. I’m proud of you, even if it means you can’t quite take the classes you want.”

“Good, I’d say. I can still take my electives at the high school, after all. I met lots of strange and wonderful people. I’ll be spending most of my days afterschool at the pier for the foreseeable future.” She responded, taking a seat beside him.

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“A project with some of my classmates, but you’ll just have to see it when it’s ready~”

Dr. Nakamura smiled softly before turning his attention back to his show and his drink. “Then I’ll eagerly await its completion.”

Himeko settled into the sofa with her own smile, watching the show without really understanding what was going on. It was a drama, and it was boring, and Himeko found herself yawning before long. The minutes dragged on and on and on until Dr. Nakamura gently shook her shoulder, making her drooping eyes snap open.

“Himeko,” he whispered. “I think you ought to go to bed in your own bed, not the sofa.”

Letting out a whine, she yawned, unfurling her limbs in a stretch as she stood up. She stumbled her way across the house and up the stairs with her eyes open only a sliver, and just barely managed to peel off her uniform for a pair of silk pajamas laid out for her on her bed before burrowing beneath the covers.

Had she always been so…tired? No, she’d once been able to stay up for days on end, tirelessly working for a tomorrow she’d never seen, without taking any breaks longer than what was required to drink another cup of coffee or sugar-laden energy drink. This exhaustion was new, and it threw her off kilter, but Himeko couldn't think about it for long as sleep’s gentle, cotton arms dragged her under.

Himeko opened her eyes to the furious, biting wrath of cold wind and rain slamming into her. She shielded her face and looked around, though she couldn't see much because of both the rain and how she sat on wet, freezing ground. Shivering, Himeko pushed herself up, slipping once and nearly crashing back into the ground. When she did finally stand, it was shaky, like a newborn fawn, except unlike a newborn fawn, she was alone. She began to walk forward, catching a glimpse of her hands. They were still rife with ball joints. The rest of her body was completely obscured by a thick haze.

Himeko walked. She walked and walked, until there was no walking possibly left in her body and the rain completely ceased. Her eyes were glued shut. She hunched over, the wind still sharp and cruel, and stumbled forward, exhaling at the sensation of sand. Her eyes burned as she opened them to the purity and splendor of the Milky Way lighting up the entirety of the heavens. Gasping, Himeko stared upwards for a while, at the stars and the moon, before her gaze settled on the moon’s reflection on the dark sea. A floating tree hovered over the water and cut a thin, black line straight through it.

…That wasn't right. She refocused her gaze and saw a person there instead. Before she could blink, she too was floating, staring her reflection in the eyes. But then her reflection moved without her, and the once timid sea stirred. Himeko spoke first.

“Is it…you?”

“It’s me,” the familiar and distant voice replied, the sea swirling around her ankles. She looked like Himeko's past self, though her skin was dark and starry, like ever-shifting carbon fibers or a drawing made on black paper with white pencil. “I didn't expect to see you again so soon. Do you have stories to tell me yet?”

“Some, but I didn't expect to see you in my dream. I am dreaming, right?”

“Yes.”

“How do you even dream?”

“I’m always dreaming.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

The cube-Himeko (Cubeko?) sighed, looking up at the sky. Her dark brown eyes reflected the skies. Her carbon fiber skin shifted into a more human tone. It hurt to see how much more human she was compared to Himeko. It made her heart ache. “A part of me is always dreaming, to properly digest what the awake parts of me are experiencing and computing. And a portion of me dreams, too, because I’m still human. We’ gave ‘me’ many partitions to work with, and ‘I’ saw fit to designate them this way.”

“That makes sense. It’s both practical and lets you retain our humanity.” Said Himeko, shivering from the cold. “How are you in my dream, though?”

Cube Himeko’s expression suddenly twisted into something apologetic and a little sad. “Like all of New Urania’s…machines, you are connected to me inherently, even if just barely. By our nature, we are even further connected. It seems that connection allowed us to dream together.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Himeko, it’s what you are, only technically-!”

“I said ‘don’t call me that.’ Don’t act like I’m any less human than you are.” Himeko spat out, furiously wiping her eyes of the tears that threatened to spill out until they were red and raw.

Cube Himeko sighed. “That’s not what I meant. You are just as human as me, even more so. You are living life. I am a mind in a box, put here by my predecessor, and artificially made. There is more of ‘her’ in you than me.”

“I’m sorry.” Himeko whispered, the wind almost stealing her words, because she knew how much ‘she’ longed to be human.

“Don’t fret. You are just a sprout.”

A cold grief blanketed her. Longing settled over her heart, and she wondered if Cube Himeko felt the same as she put her hand to her chest and felt artificial blood course beneath her skin and to her heart.

What was the line between them? Where did the machine end and the human begin? Who was really her, and who was her cheap imitation, if they both shared her dreams and her memories and her name?

Himeko was Himeko, of course. But so was the cube.

A seat of water formed around Cube Himeko. Sitting on it, she stared up at the sky as more swirled around her, diving between her fingers and floating around as droplets above her hair. Her eyes closed. Information – or what Himeko assumed was information – filled the sky behind the Milky Way in blue binary.

It was as beautiful as it was haunting. It moved as Cube Himeko processed it, every piece replaced by more yet to be known in an unending and ever daunting line. Himeko looked at her independent reflection. How did she deal with it? How did she filter it? It seemed impossible. Had she really, truly agreed to that life once? It seemed painful to do that to herself, even if it was the right thing to do.

It was cruel.

Himeko looked away, wondering what her dream would’ve been without the cube. She wondered if she could dream at all without her here. Would Dr. Nakamura let her monitor herself during sleep just to see?

She sank beneath the waves just to see if she could. It was cold, like everything in this shared dream, but from here the binary sky wasn’t so scary. Cube Himeko still worked. Himeko swam around her languidly – until the blue sky streaked red and Cube Himeko yanked her up from the water.

Gasping as air hit her lungs and she remembered how to breathe, she stared wildly at Cube Himeko. The rain and wind picked up, ripping away the serenity of the dream. More and more of the sky turned a bloody red. It fractured and fell until even the sea became infected, and Cube Himeko threw them both into the shore.

“You have to go,” she said as Himeko coughed and sputtered from the sand. “This dream has been compromised.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the partitions the Madam and I set up as a decoy were found. Unfortunately, it seems like our dream was in one.”

“Why are you setting up decoys in the first place? What's going on?”

Cube Himeko had the gall to look apprehensive. “I can't say much, but the Madam and I have been working for weeks against foul play. It nearly compromised your resurrection. It’s trying to kill ‘me.’ Something's wrong in New Urania.”

Himeko stared, her mind racing. “Why can’t you say more to me? I fixed New Urania once; I can fix it again.”

“But it isn’t for you to worry about, not anymore.” Said Cube Himeko. She stared at Himeko in a sad sort of way, so forlorn she could feel it in her bones. “Now wake up before you can’t!”

“But-!”

Before she could finish, the connection between the two of them snapped. The dream world crumbled into nothing, and Himeko shot up from her bed with a gasp, hand over her heaving chest.

She looked around her empty bedroom. The only light came from her eyes, casting long shadows on the wall. Her chest heaved. She lay back down and closed her eyes.

Her heart kept pounding even as she settled back into bed. Himeko stared at the ceiling until she passed out. The new dream was even colder than the first.