Chapter 4: Dream

Chapter 4: Dream

The next morning, I woke up. Or rather, I got out of the bed I'd already been lying awake in.

1 hour, 34 minutes. Not bad. I needed to play around with that cat a little more today. I had to develop this ability and learn how to use it on humans.

I went to school. This time, the thoughts were a little clearer:

“Man, I hope the math teacher doesn't check the homework.”

“Leyla's taking forever to reply again. Is she mad at me again? I didn't even do anything.”

“He didn't sleep again. Is this guy a vampire or something?”

I sat at my desk and waited for the teacher again. This time, I looked at Kenan sitting beside me. He wasn't exactly the smartest guy around; he usually preferred solving his problems with threats and connections. In short, I didn't think his brain would give me much trouble. I focused and tried to enter Kenan's mind...

Wait. This isn't normal.

I've never felt a headache this bad in my life. It was like I could see the door, but I didn't have the strength to open it. The longer I stayed there, the worse the pain became. I suddenly snapped back to reality.

Okay. The human mind is difficult. Very difficult. Nothing like a cat.

As soon as school ended, I went straight home again and sat the cat in front of me. I focused. This time, getting into its mind was a little easier. As I moved around inside, I wondered what I could take, and night vision came to mind. But the cat had been born with it and had been using it for years. Those neural connections had to be incredibly strong. What did I have that I'd been doing for years, something that had practically become a reflex? A few seconds later, I thought of my ability to add and subtract. I'd learned it in elementary school and used it every day for years. Being able to add any numbers in your head probably meant there was a pretty large neural network behind it.

I started the exchange. My headache got much worse, but I tried to endure it. If I could pull this off, I'd be the first human with night vision. A few seconds later, a sudden, sharp pain shot through my head, and I stopped the exchange. There was only one way to find out whether it had worked. I went outside and looked around. It had been dark just moments ago, but now... I could see everything, at least a little. I couldn't make out much detail, but I could tell what things were. This was incredible. I'd taken the cat's night vision for myself, but I hadn't managed to take all of it. That meant my ability to add and subtract hadn't been enough, neurologically, to fully compensate for the cat's night vision.

The cat went outside like it did every evening, but something was strange. It looked outside, then came back into the house. It didn't go out that night. Because now it couldn't see in the dark...

The next morning, I went to school again, sat at my desk, and class began. This time, I was determined. I was going to enter a human mind. I focused on Buse. She was listening to the lesson and writing notes in her notebook. I'm sorry, Buse...

I entered her mind. The headache was unbearable, but I had to endure it. I wasn't going to stay long. I was just going to leave a few thoughts behind and get out. Dreams are very shallow. Most of the time, people barely remember their dreams, if they remember them at all. That meant the neural cost of a dream should be fairly low. And I could leave a few scenes here under the guise of a “dream.” I placed a scene inside Buse's mind where she'd seen me in a dream. We were sitting together at a café, laughing and talking, even holding hands. Okay, that was enough. But now I had to take something in return. Nothing too significant. I looked around for a bit and found the dates of a few wars our teacher had made us memorize last week. I took them for myself.

Done. My first experiment on a human had been successful. I'd entered Buse's mind, left thoughts about myself inside it, and taken the dates of those wars in return. The good thing was, since I'd created those thoughts myself, I hadn't exactly forgotten anything by giving them away. Buse, on the other hand, had forgotten those dates. Everything was going perfectly...

Until I looked at the board.

I looked at the integral problem the teacher was solving. I remembered the rules. I knew them. I could do this.

But the calculations at the end...

He was just adding and subtracting a few fractions

The problem was, I had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

I couldn't do it...