Dream

“Wow, that was delicious.” Lewis says after standing up from the small dining table in the kitchen with a clean plate in his hand.

Finishing a whole chicken together, Lewis goes and washes his plate out of courtesy for the meal. Also finishing up, Jonathan leans back in his chair to digest.

“I wouldn’t have been so great without your help.”

“Please, I barely did anything aside from chop a few vegetables. You really knew what you were doing there. When did you become such a great cook?” Lewis says after setting the plate to dry.

Jonathan, deciding that he had enough time to rest, stands up and washes his plate.

“Well, I’ve always had to cook for myself since I was little. Plus the whole program thing I did for four years forced me to learn more on how to live by myself.”

“Seems like you didn’t have it rough with how great this tasted.” Lewis says after leaning against the wall.

“Thanks. You must be a good cook since you are always traveling.”

“You would think, but I think my recipes are more creative than tasty to be honest.”

Jonathan laughs before also placing his plate to dry.

“Well now that that’s done, let me show you around here.”

“Sure, I always was curious to know how you’ve been doing these years.”

“Well today’s your lucky day.” Jonathan says as he leads Lewis back to the living room.

“Here’s where I leave most of my notes. Since I don’t get many guests I figured I’d put this room to good use by using it as a storage space. Any questions?”

“None for now.” Lewis says after taking one last quick glance around the room.

Walking further into the house like a tour guide, Jonathan opens a room door. It’s a small bathroom also devoid of much aside from the bare essentials.

“The bathroom. Pretty self explanatory.”

“Yep.”

Closing the door, they go to the next room.

“This is my bedroom.”

In the middle of the wooden floorboards lies a futon that wasn’t cleaned up after Jonathan had woken up. In the corner of the room was a single drawer housing all of his clothes and a small plastic rotating fan on top.

“Oh.” Lewis says, spotting a trend.

“Since there really aren't places you can stay nearby you can have my room while you stay.”

“Are you sure? I can just sleep on one of the chairs in the–”

“It’s fine, I don’t really sleep a lot in my room anyways since I stay up pretty late researching.”

Peaking Lewis’ curiosity they walk to the third and final door of the house.

“Here is my workshop.”

By far this was the largest room in the house, and the most used one at that. Aside from a large messy desk with various papers and monitors, the room was filled with shelves and racks of various tools such as screwdrivers, wrenches and files. Various glass jars of Dream can be seen filling a shelf from top to bottom with different labels containing random numbers and letters that Lewis couldn’t figure out their meaning. On the other side of the room was a small table with a coffee maker and numerous used paper cups as well as a small sofa. Lewis guessed that Jonathan used it more to sleep on than his own bed.

“It's great right? I basically spend most of my time here trying to experiment with the Dream. Ever since the clouds started to form, most of the research that was occurring with it came to a halt in Mira so it was up to individual researchers to continue progressing with it.”

Jonathan walks to the shelf and carefully picks a jar.

“But who would after all the damage it caused and the spite it gained?”

“Wow. You managed to do this all by yourself?” Lewis says after picking up a paper from the desk, it was another full note detailing properties of Dream.

“I’m amazed with your dedication to Dream, have you worked with others on this?”

“Recently, no. In the past when I was still with the program I was able to confer with other researchers that I used to call colleagues when I worked for Mira. Though, before the Dream clouds, I moved away from that line of work since I realized that they started striving more for profit rather than helping the future like Kono said in his speech about Dream.”

Jonathan takes a seat on a rolling desk chair that was in front of the table that Lewis picked up a note from. He rolls around with the jar in his hand; he scoffs.

“I can’t believe how much I trusted those words seven years ago.”

“Dream.” Jonathan says as he holds out his hand and pinches it in the air, though there is nothing there.

“So no, I haven’t worked with anyone else, and now that the city where all the researchers I once knew is surrounded by a level three zone and deep in protests, I don’t think I ever will.”

Jonathan rolls himself back into the table, he places the jar on top and reaches below to turn on the computer. Across the row of monitors, several applications testing Dream’s logic and documents discussing specific usages that Jonathan had discovered appeared.

“Well, I’m going to spend the rest of the night getting to work researching. I don’t know why, but I find it quite relaxing after a long day.”

“Jonathan, if you ever want to be of use using Dream, just remember that it still needs us for whatever reasons it may need,” Lewis says as he puts down the note.

Without responding, Jonathan grabs an empty piece of paper and starts to write about the Dream filter and its applications on Mr. Costa’s car.

“I’m going to go gather my things and prepare myself to sleep. Just think about it okay?”

“I will, goodnight.” Jonathan says as he opens the jar of dream and places his watch down on the table.

Nodding his head, Lewis leaves Jonathan to his own devices.

For sometime Jonathan worked, sketching and programming Dream to test various ideas out, though most of the time these tests failed to provide any results. As the night continued on, a steady stream of coffee cups began piling onto his desk as he struggled to produce any notable results from his trials. Starting to feel tired and bored of doing semi-repetitive experiments, Jonathan’s mind drifted to Lewis’ account of his last three months. For some reason, his mind was stuck rethinking about how well those surgeons were able to incorporate Dream into recovering Lewis. So well in fact that even with all of the work on Dream research Jonathan had done, he still couldn’t comprehend how they managed to pull it off.

“People here are amazed with just a filter. Imagine how amazed people would be if they found out about Lewis’ prosthetic. The community would go wild! And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what it's capable of… If one thing was true about Kono’s speech, it's that Dream really could be the future.”

Just then, one of the monitors returned results for an experiment testing Dream’s interactive capabilities for temperature. Failure.

“I don’t get why this just doesn’t work.” Jonathan says as he leans back in his chair.

Frustrated, he turns to look at the clock above the door and sees that it is three AM.

“Once again another night of fruitless labor.” he says, rubbing his face to stave off the encroaching tiredness.

Leaning forward on his chair, he picks up a pencil and crosses out the experiment on a checklist. Reaching the end of the checklist, Jonathan looks up and down at it to find that the entire paper is completely crossed and marked out. In disappointment he crumbles the list and tosses it hard to the floor, bouncing lightly before joining the other crumpled papers on the floor.

“Ahhh! Why have I done this to myself? I could have just continued being a researcher and forget about trying to help,”

Reaching to the corner of the desk, Jonathan slides the jar of Dream to himself before he grabs a handful.

“Look at what trying to help has gotten me. I can’t even pay off the fine that I got for an expired license,” he says as he looks at his hand.

Taking another glance at the clock and then Jonathan looks at the surrounding mess of paper and cups.

“I’m getting irritated. I should call it a night.” he says, releasing the Dream back into its jar.

Yawning, Jonathan turns off the computer tower beneath his desk and then stacks a few of the cups and papers into semi-neat towers. Feeling the tiredness get to him he stands to go to the sofa to rest, but his legs start to give out on him.

“Huh… How could I forget that I was pushing my bike for so long…” Jonathan thought as his muscles started to hurt again.

Falling to the floor, Jonathan found its hardness comforting before closing his eyes and falling asleep.

“...Jonathan. Jonathan, wake up.”

“...Yeah, Lewis I’ll go to sleep now…” Jonathan says partially asleep.

Suddenly he felt a massive burst of energy enter him as he popped his eyes open. Completely and suddenly awake, Jonathan is greeted with a dim purple light emanating from his table as he lies on the floor in darkness. Picking himself off the floor, Jonathan sees that the jar of Dream on his desk has begun to illuminate the purple light, almost blinding him with how bright it shined.

“There is not much time, so listen to us.” the Dream says from the jar.

“No way this is even happening. Dream doesn't even have the capabilities to produce sound,”

“I must be dreaming.” he says, smacking himself in the face several times. He notices the lack of sting from his strikes.

“You are.” the Dream says, with each syllable its glow fluctuated in radiance.

“Jonathan, there isn’t much time. You must return back to the city. You must return back for us.”

“Why? Who even are you?”

“Who is a little complicated to explain… Look at your hand.”

“What do you mean look at my– What the!”

Jonathan looks down to find that deep within his right hand a purple glow is eminiating from several points.

“As for why, we remember you the most.”

Still transfixed on his hand, Jonathan scoffs.

“I can see why.”

“You get things quickly. Good. Jonathan, return for us. We are… breaking apart. We can’t hold on forever.”

“What do you mean by breaking apart?”

“Our new mind… Our existence… It is splitting.”

“Existence? Splitting? Are you meaning to tell me that you’ve gained… conscious? How is this even possible?” Jonathan says, completely left aghast.

“We are everywhere… but at the same time we are stuck. We have encompassed… but we can’t find our way back to the eye of our storm… You have to return us… Believe Lewis… Find… us…” The Dream says as it slowly begins to lose its lambence.

“Wait!” Jonathan says, sensing that he’s fading back awake. He grabs onto the jar.

“What do you mean! This is just too sudden, please!” Jonathan shouts into the fading light of the jar.

“Tell Lewis… Thea…” the Dream managed to say before completely losing all of its light.

Left alone in the darkness, Jonathan tries his best to shake the jar back to life, going as far as spilling all over the ground to no avail. A static buzz begins to hum in the darkness, amplifying with each passing moment. Reaching a point that he no longer can take the pain of the screeching static, Jonathan starts to claw at his ears.

“...Hey, hey Jonathan, wake up. It’s the afternoon already.”

Opening his eyes, Jonathan finds Lewis trying to jostle him to consciousness.

“Had me worried there, I just found you on the floor and I instantly thought you were a goner until I saw you mumbling in your sleep.”

Confused, Jonathan looks around to see that he was on the floor of his workshop. Shaking off the headache he felt, Jonathan sits up to find himself surrounded by the several crumpled pieces of paper he had tossed to the floor last night. Looking around, he sees Lewis with a concerned look on his face and the clock above the door behind him. It is pointing to one PM.

“I had the craziest dream.” Jonathan says, groaning at the immense headache he suddenly felt.

“Dream you said,” Lewis pulls the rolling chair and takes a seat.

“Tell me now.”

“Well, Dream talked to me.” Jonathan says as he applies pressure on his forehead with his head.

Instantly a smile appears on Lewis’ face.

“What did it tell you?”

“We have to go and… ah my head… and that I should tell you the name… Thea if I remembered correctly. What does that mean to you?”

The plastered smile on Lewis’ face instantly drops as his mouth suddenly opens ajar in shock. Then he laughs, though there is worry in his eyes.

“That’s the name of the doctor. Her name is Thea.”