Chapter 2: Sleep Softly.

Lu’dunum spun lightly on his heel.

His long white hair fluttered behind his shoulder as he turned, the strands catching faint green reflections before settling again against his back. The movement was graceful, almost practiced — as though the room were a stage and he had just been called upon.

He walked with near excitement toward a small table and chair set upon rails in the center of the room.

Both were on wheels.

The chair held a tiny cushion secured with elastic bands. Embroidered carefully across its surface were the words:

For thy rump.

He was not really allowed to have it.

But as long as he took it home when he was done, who was the wiser?

The chair rolled smoothly when he nudged it with his hip, offering a playful resistance before settling obediently into place.

The table did not share that personality.

It lacked the flamboyant bounce of the chair — or of Lu’dunum himself, for that matter. It was strictly functional: a metal roll-away cart fitted with a shallow catch tray beneath its surface. The tray bore faint discolorations that no amount of scrubbing had ever fully erased.

Several tools of the trade decorated the top in careful arrangement.

Two scalpels of differing sizes.

Their blades were clean.

An electric saw rested near the edge, its cord coiled neatly beside it. The casing bore minor scratches from prior use.

In case the Dreamer still had his head intact.

Often, the processing friends opened it for him.

What nice guys.

There were the usual clamps.

Extra bandages.

Gauze folded with mechanical precision.

And a small tin container filled with stickers.

Lu’s fingers lingered on the lid of that tin.

“I am not allowed to kiss the dreamers’ wounds anymore,” he said softly, almost apologetically, though his smile returned quickly. “But they didn’t say I can’t put a sticker to make it better.”

He opened the container just enough to peek inside.

Stars.

Smiling suns.

Bright little animals.

He closed it again and placed it carefully beside the smaller scalpel.

The rails beneath the chair and table led toward the center platform of the room — a low metal slab mounted between vertical supports. Restraint brackets lined its edges. Adjustable. Padded.

Above it, a mechanical arm extended from the ceiling, tipped with a crown of crystalline needles that glinted faintly beneath the green light.

The floor grates around the platform were darker than the rest.

Used.

Lu nudged the chair forward along its track with a soft metallic glide.

The eastern doors had not yet opened.

But they would.

And somewhere beyond them, another Dreamer waited.

A metal buzzer snapped to life.

Short.

Sharp.

It gave a thin excitement to the air, as if the room itself had perked.

Lu’s ears twitched.

The heavy eastern doors — far too heavy for Lu to ever open without assistance — answered the signal.

Click.

Chank.

A grinding slide of a thick bar withdrawing from its locked position echoed through the hinges. There were multiple locks on the other side. Reinforced. Layered.

“What a silly design,” Lu thought, tilting his head faintly.

If someone wanted to leave, the locks were not on this side.

The doors parted slowly.

And with them, the laboratory illusion ended.

Within Lu’s room, the world was green, metallic, sterile. Grates drained messes and liquids with obedient efficiency. Tools gleamed. Surfaces reflected light in clean, predictable ways.

Beyond the door was something else entirely.

Rusted metals lined every visible inch. Sheet metal walls patched over older sheet metal, rivets exposed, seams uneven. Some plates were warped from heat. Others bowed slightly inward, as if the building itself had exhaled too hard and never recovered.

One wrong scrape along those surfaces would give tetanus a sporting chance.

The lighting shifted there — harsher, dirtier. Not green, but a bruised orange-white leaking from industrial bulbs strung along beams overhead.

And beneath it all—

The churning.

Gears grinding in layered rhythm somewhere deeper in the factory. The sound traveled through the walls, through the floor, through the bones. A constant mechanical digestion.

Sometimes, if one listened long enough, another noise threaded through the churn.

A high, strained cry.

Like a violin being pulled too tight.

As if its strings were being ruptured one by one.

Lu’dunum did not like leaving his room.

Not without loud music from his radio to protect him.

The noise beyond the threshold pressed against his senses in a way the green lab never did. It was unpredictable. It moved in waves. It felt… crowded.

It simply stressed him out.

He remained near his rails.

Waiting.

The doors continued their slow, reluctant opening.

Lu waited.

His tail flicked left, then right, then left again — a slow metronome of anticipation. The green light caught the pale pink fur as it moved, giving it a faint glow of its own.

Half a minute passed.

Lu grew impatient.

And curious.

He rose from his chair — the cushion shifting slightly beneath him — and waddled forward with his hands tucked neatly into the pockets of his coat. His steps were light despite the metal beneath them. Curious. Eager.

He approached the now-open doorway and leaned just far enough to peek beyond the threshold.

To his amusement and jolly surprise—

The Dreamer was on its way.

Strapped into a moving chair mounted on rails, it rolled steadily toward him from the rusted corridor beyond. The wheels clattered unevenly over joins in the track.

The creature we call a Dreamer was beyond recognition.

From where feet would have been to its neck, the body was wrapped tightly in layers of plastic sheeting. It gleamed beneath the factory’s bruised lighting like tin foil stretched too thin. The wrapping compressed its shape, flattening curves, obscuring identity.

Its eyes were covered.

Its mouth as well.

There was no expression left to read.

The only visible feature — the only part left exposed — was the brain.

Resting openly within its cranial cradle.

Ah.

The processing boys had taken care of it.

Wonderful.

And clean.

Not a splotch of blood.

No visible contaminates.

A very clean delivery.

Lu’s ears perked.

“From my point of view,” he said with delighted sincerity, “it looks like a jelly worm! Hah. Oh, you.”

He chuckled warmly at his own observation.

The chair creaked as it crossed the threshold into the green-lit lab. The harsh orange of the corridor retreated behind it, replaced once more by sterile fluorescence.

Lu stepped backward, beckoning with small flicks of his fingers as though coaxing a shy animal.

“Oh, get on in here, yooouuu~ Where have you been?” he teased gently as the rickety contraption rolled into place upon the central rails.

The Dreamer’s chair locked with a muted click at center stage.

Lu’s tail curled loosely behind him.

He gave a small, content sigh.

The machine behind the mirror churned on.

As the giant metal door began to close, trapping both of them inside the lab once more, Lu noticed something strange.

Beyond the threshold — just before the final inch of metal would meet metal — he caught a glimpse farther down the factory floor.

His room sat at the center of a T-junction of four hallways, including his own.

And something was happening.

A rush of men in suits — dark silhouettes against rusted walls — moved sharply to the left corridor. A few guards followed close behind, their boots striking metal in urgent rhythm.

Flashing lights began to strobe.

Red.

White.

Red again.

And then—

A rush of feathers.

Ink sprayed violently across sheet metal walls.

Something blasted several suited figures backward, scattering them across the opposite hallway. One guard struck a beam and slid down it in a heap.

The sight lasted no more than a breath.

The heavy door sealed with a final thud.

Click.

Lu chuckled lightly.

“Well, that’s for a different chapter.”

He spun gently on his heel and walked back toward the sink as if he had just witnessed nothing more than an inconvenient spill.

Behind the mirror, something shifted.

A muffled voice attempted to push through the glass.

There were no visible speakers. No perforations. No obvious mechanisms by which sound should travel.

Yet it did.

Distorted.

Compressed.

“Dreamer subject maro— Lean— Extraction.”

The words were swallowed and reshaped by whatever medium carried them.

Lu blinked.

Then laughed softly.

“Hah, I didn’t even understand the first words. But all the same.”

He paused.

Lu’dunum should stop breaking the fourth wall.

“…Sorry.”

He inclined his head slightly toward the mirror in apology.

As Lu finished apologizing to the glass, he reached beneath the sink and fetched his radio.

It was a small box with tapes inside — almost a foot wide and half a foot long. Its edges were worn smooth from handling. A faint crack ran along one corner of its casing.

He held it with visible love and care.

Then placed it gently upon the chair beside him.

“For you, my friend,” he said softly to the radio.

The green lights hummed.

The Dreamer remained very still.

And somewhere deeper in the factory, gears continued to turn
-----

The tape caught with a soft whirr as it began to spin. The machine hummed — not loudly, but with the patient steadiness of something well used. There was a moment where a man on the recording drew in a breath, close to the microphone, intimate and human.

Then the music began.

A soft pling of piano keys.
Chimes.
Distant dings that echoed as if down a long hallway.

The sound settled into the room like incense.

Lu slipped on his gloves with practiced ease. The material snapped faintly at the wrists as he pulled them tight. Once both hands were covered, his posture changed.

Straighter.

Focused.

He began to move.

Lu circled the Dreamer slowly, his steps light, deliberate — not hurried. It was not pacing. It was not inspection.

It was a strut.

As if he were serenading.

There was much to do.

And Lu had begun to sing.

♪ The actors, they walk in ♪

He reached out and locked the Dreamer’s chair into place, the mechanism engaging with a dull metallic clack that echoed beneath the music.

♪ Through the same glass doors ♪

Lu moved around the table, fingers dancing briefly over instruments as he passed. He grasped the large circular apparatus suspended above — a halo of metal holding several fine needles — and lowered it with careful precision toward the exposed brain.

♪ Wash the blood from their hands ♪

He leaned close to examine the Dreamer. His voice softened even further, the words barely louder than the music itself.

Like a lullaby.

♪ They might need them again ♪

Lu drew his hands back to his chest, holding himself as the next line approached. This was his favorite part.

♪ While the fires fly ♪

He clenched one fist, the other resting lightly at his hip. His body swayed gently with the rhythm, hips moving just enough to keep time.

♪ While we lose our f—eing minds ♪

He stopped himself mid-word, cheeks lifting with a small, sheepish smile.

He was a good boy.

He did not cuss.

He did not wish to be punished for it.

As the music continued, Lu brushed his gloved hands gently across the Dreamer’s face. Clear liquid streamed from beneath the coverings over its eyes, slipping down toward the plastic wrap below.

Lu watched it with reverence.

They always leaked like this.

He interpreted it as gratitude.

Liquid reverence.

After all — he was saving them.

They always did this at the last verse.

♪ You sleep peacefully ♪

The needles hovered in place.

The music played on.

And Lu smiled, convinced — utterly, faithfully — that this holy work was kind.