Episode 3: What is Sleep?

Question: What is sleep?

Is it…

A. Baby don’t hurt me?

B. Something you’re not getting enough of?

C. Hours of your life wasted doing nothing?

The true answer has yet to be revealed, but one can only ponder.

For Erica, however, the answer was B. It was unfortunate for her that she developed a bad case of insomnia towards the end of November…

But why?

Well, this is what happens when she eventually falls asleep…

☪

Huh? Where am I? thought Erica as she looked around her surroundings.

Huh. I’m in front of a door.

It sure didn’t look like hers… it was someone else’s.

“Oh, what should I do?” she wondered aloud, hand to her chin. “Ah, why not? Let’s open the door. It wouldn’t hurt to do it, right?”

And so she did. And, to be honest, what she saw did not disappoint.

On the other side of the door was a bedroom and inside were Mari, Naoko, Behami, and a boy she didn’t recognize.

“H—hello?” she said softly, suddenly feeling nervous.

Oddly enough… After she said that, everyone but Mari disappeared.

Erica’s eyes widened. “Alright, what is going on here?” she muttered.

“I don’t know either, Erica,” Mari replied, shrugging. She then paused. “Wait—so you’re not part of the dream? Is this like a new power of yours? If so, that’s pretty sick. Well, anywho. You kinda interrupted the dream I was having, me hanging out with Naoko, Behami, and James and all that, but whatever.”

Erica couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. She assumed that the boy that was in the room with them was James, because that made sense. It was only a little weird that he was there, however… she had never heard Mari mention him before, if ever.

“Huh. You and Naoko are pretty tight, Behami too. As for James—that’s gotta be a ‘who?’ for me, dawg.”

Mari cackled like a witch, or at least tried to. Well, now I know that she can’t use her powers in her dreams. Yes! Dreams! “He’s a YouTuber I really like and I’ve always wanted to hang out and play video games with him in my dreams, so here I am!” In the end, she shrugged carelessly.

The more you know…

After she said that, her friends reappeared at the drop of a hat and they continued gaming as if nothing ever happened, the game resuming and everything.

Note to self, Erica thought. Ask Mari if she remembers this dream tomorrow, although I doubt she will.

Mari gave her a salute as she walked out the door… and appeared in a new place, this time an amusement park.

“Huh?” Erica’s face contorted into one of confusion. Now I’m in another dream? What is this, an advanced version of Inception?

That was when she heard a familiar singing voice.

“‘I am lost

I am vain

I will never be the same

Without you…’”

It was Jopi! She recognized her voice because she and Mimori liked singing duets in the clubroom like every other week (don’t question it).

She also heard a choir singing along too, after her solo. Where the heck are they? She wondered as she wandered around the amusement park.

And then she found them.

There, in the middle of the amusement park was a huge stage, with Jopi and what she assumed were her choir classmates on it.

Erica made her way through the bustling crowd, and of course, when she finally made it to the front Jopi was done. The crowd clapped and she did as well.

Jopi then jumped off the stage and landed right in front of Erica.

“Erica-chan! I’m so glad you could make it! The others couldn’t, but I can’t believe you chose me over the dumb club activities!”

Erica rolled her eyes at Jopi’s (purposely?) bad acting.

She chuckled stiffly. “Yep, you’re right! I made it right on time! Hey, do you happen to be aware of what’s going on here?”

“Ehhh?” Jopi’s eyes widened cutely. She sure is acting OOC. “What are you talking about? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Alright, that was a bad idea. Quick, change the subject! “Your choir was great, by the way!” She gave a thumbs up, but as she did, a sinking feeling was growing in her stomach.

Am I… gaining new powers?

Suddenly, this matter gained more precedence than hanging out with a weird, uber-moe Jopi in her dream world. “Ah, I had too much lemonade on the way here! I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick, okay?”

Yes. The age-old bathroom trick.

“Oh, okay.” A big smile was still plastered on Jopi’s face. “Take some time, okay?” She waved in a super cheesy manner.

As Erica ran away, aimlessly searching for a place to hide and collect her thoughts, the sights before her vanished… once again.

And just like before, it was replaced with a different setting—a world that appeared to be just a completely empty, white space.

Running away was a dumb idea.

But wait.

Even if I didn’t run away and I just stayed put, would I still have teleported into another… dream?

These things really made her think.

“Aw man,” she grumbled, hand to her forehead, a la Kasumi on a regular school day. “Thinking too much about this is gonna give me a headache. Wait, how does that work in a dream?! Augh…”

“What are you talking about?” a voice queried. But not just any voice…

“Ah! Mi—Mi—Mimori…?” Erica jumped up, feeling suddenly flustered. She craned her neck to look behind her, and sure enough, it was who she thought it was.

It was indeed Mimori… to an extent. For one, she was pretty sure that Mimori didn’t have dark pink hair tied into buns with sea green highlights in them, along with purple eyes. For two, she would never, ever be caught dead wearing a leotard and archery gear. For three…

If I continue rambling on I’m gonna lose my head even more.

Erica took a deep breath as she approached her friend. As she did, the white background morphed into a convention center like it was the most natural thing in the world, like it was a video game loading.

“Are you cosplaying? What’s going on here?”

To confirm her suspicions, Mimori giggled in that distinct way of hers. “Yep, I sure am! I’m planning on going to a convention pretty soon where I just so happen to bump into Hank there!”

She’s aware. Oh no. “Wow, you really got this dream thing down, don’t you?”

Mimori cackled in a cartoonishly evil way. “Wait—how did you even get here? Is this Inception? Where are the ‘BWAAAHS?’”

“Heh. Yeah, I was thinking that too.” Even in a dream world, she had to raise her voice in order to be heard. “Um, hey. Since you seem to know you’re in a dream world and all that, do you think you could take the two of us to a quieter place with, uh… less people making noise?”

Mimori moaned as she narrowed her eyes. “Ugh. Fine! How about my house, just without the parents and stuff?”

“Uh… sure, that’s fine?”

Right after she said that, the girls were teleported into her bedroom, which Erica had to admit was pretty neat and would most likely come in handy in times like these.

“Aww, man! I forgot to say this to you earlier but this is just like orbing!” Mimori did a little dorky dance.

How would that even fit into our previous combination? In what context? And what is “orbing” again?

“Oh, and I’m cosplaying Sour Sweet, by the way! From the upcoming Equestria Girls movie!”

Erica sighed and shook her head as she took a seat on her friend’s bed. “Ah, I figured. You’ve been talking about that series quite a bit lately.”

“Oooh, yes I have! And for good reason, too!” The crazy girl was spinning around her room now, for no good reason.

“Hey, Erica-chan?”

This girl is so hard to deal with one-on-one. “Yeah?”

“Do you think I’m ‘losing my sight, losing my mind? Wish somebody would tell me I’m fine?’”

Erica did another facepalm. “I know what you’re getting at, so please stop quoting songs.” She slapped her then as if to refresh her mind. “Anywho! It seems like I’ve been hopping around in people’s dreams tonight. I’ve been in two of our friends’ dreams before this… and in case you were wondering, they were Mari and Jopi’s.”

“Ah, cool cool!” Mimori stopped her spinning and smiled. “And then what? What do you think is gonna happen next?”

“Well, that’s the problem. I don’t know how to make any of this stop! Although by now I would have yet another dream…” Erica knocked the footboard off the bed, even though it was metal and not wood.

“Oh snap, sister! You better figure it out sooner or later! H—”

“Let’s get back on track here,” ordered Erica before she quoted yet another song. “I at least figured out one thing—and that’s this power must be an extent of my other one, telepathy.”

“Well, obviously.” Mimori chortled. “So that means you’re just like Princess Luna! That’s so cool!”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Whatever that means.”

Mimori stomped her foot and clapped her hands at the same time. “Alright! Exposition is over! Can I go back to dreaming now?”

Oh God. She’s getting impatient now. “Sure, whatever. Go ahead.”

Erica decided to just let her fellow clubmate dream, and right as she thought about going to another place, she teleported out somehow.

★

Luckily for the rest of the night, Erica didn’t teleport into any more of her friends’ dreams. Rather, she didn’t remember anything that happened.

It was like all she saw was black.

“ … And that’s the story of how little sleep I got last night!”

A slow clap emerged from the end of the clubroom table. It was coming from Suika.

“Hey, cut it out!” Asuka said sharply, elbowing her friend and fellow choir student in the shoulder.

“Ow.” Suika said that stoically, as she always did.

Tomo giggled. “It’s so hard not to burst out into that Eurythmics song whenever you said the word ‘dreams!’”

“You mean that Marilyn Manson song?” Mari added.

“Ah, no. He covered it. Well, anyway.” Tomo clapped her hands together, the trademark. “It seems like whenever Erica falls asleep now, she enters one of our dreams subconsciously. At least, I believe it is subconsciously.”

“Yes, good theory. As long as she doesn’t go into mine.” Asuka blushed as she said this bit.

So her dreams are that embarrassing? Erica could always read her mind and find out why she didn’t want her to peek into her dreams, ignorance is sometimes bliss.

“Which brings us to our next point,” Erica said drowsily, holding back a yawn. “I’m kinda scared to go to bed tonight. Like, what if I teleport into one of your dreams again? I don’t want that to happen!”

“Same!” Mimori said cheerfully. “Like, I liked seeing you and everything, but it really did feel like an invasion of my privacy!”

Erica bit her lip. I do feel bad about this. “Yup… so how are we gonna handle this? How am I gonna sleep from now on until I learn to control my powers?”

“Just don’t,” Naoko said simply. “That might solve everything.”

Mari almost fell out of her chair, the first noise that she made in almost ten minutes. “Are you kidding!? I’m your best friend in the entire world and even I think that’s a dumb idea!”

Naoko shrugged slightly and continued to read the book that she was previously neglecting.

Erica raised her eyebrows. “It’s worth a shot! But if I fall asleep during class tomorrow, I’ll find my way of revenge, Naoko.”

★

Erica’s Guide on How to Stay Up All Night:

Step 1: Pretend to go to bed when your mom tells you to.

Erica just about perfected the art of this. She would, on most occasions, stay up a little bit late past her bedtime on the weekend and holidays.

Step 2: Charge your phone all the way to 100%.

Done and already done! If she was successful enough, she would have to charge it again too.

Step 3: Load up on food and drink.

Erica had that all ready. She snuck up a bottle of Mountain Dew, Motrin, and a bag of candy and hid them in her closet, as well as two bottles of water that were currently sitting on her dresser.

Step 4: Do whatever.

That was going to be the hardest step to accomplish.

Now what? Erica thought she curled up on her bed. I can’t really talk to my friends since they’re all asleep right now… ugh, what should I do?!

About ten minutes passed as she just lay there, staring up at her ceiling.

“Ah ha! I know!” she whispered suddenly. “I’m gonna marathon all of Nostalgia Critic’s commercials videos, then I’m gonna marathon some Jacksfilms videos!” She giggled quietly to herself.

Here I go…

I’m gonna do it… now!

The girl pressed the first commercial video on her phone and was ready for the journey to begin.

☪

It wasn’t that hard. Not at all.

But somehow, she still ended up hitting the sack and dream jumping.

The first dream she ended up in was at a place where there were tons of girls, screaming, and girls screaming.

“WHERE AM I!?” she yelled, contributing to the noise.

That was when Erica heard a song starting to play, and the screaming increased. She turned around, finding the song familiar.

There were five young men on the stage… she was at a concert venue.

“‘Everybody, groove to the music
Everybody jam!’”

The shrieking got even more intense and the audience began jumping around and waving their arms spastically.

Oh my God. Everything finally came together. I’m at a Backstreet Boys concert from the past.

“Tomo,” Erica spoke through gritted teeth. “Of course!”

As she searched through the sea of girls, looking for her friend, she was once again wondering how to wake up from this dream-hopping experience.

Last time, didn’t I just tell myself that I wanted out? Or do I have to think about it in a more subtle way, somehow?!

Once she got down to the front row, the sound vanished and the scene changed in a twisty, warping way.

She was in a chapel that was decorated with a bunch of ribbons and flowers.

Ah. A wedding ceremony. Great.

Noticing that the ceremony had yet to actually start, Erica went to the entrance and peeked her head through the door.

The person she saw behind it was… Naoko.

“What the—”

Right after she said that she—

★

—shot up from her bed.

Gasping for air, Erica dug around in her sheets for her phone and found it by the foot of her bed, somehow.

“Damn, it’s two thirty-six already.” She calmed her breathing and flopped back down on her bed.

Maybe if I just clear my mind and think about nothing… maybe that’ll stop this from happening to me…

Erica closed her eyes and tried to ease her mind, one deep, calm breath at a time.

☪

Erica found herself floating around what looked like a great white space again. In other words, a place that looked like a whole lot of nothing, save for the occasional lens flare.

But that’s when she somehow saw a silhouette of a person approaching her.

“HELLO!?” she shouted as loud as she could. Although she could feel her throat burning, it still didn’t sound loud enough.

“No need to shout,” the person said, sounding a bit irritated. He, since it was clearly a guy, was coming closer.

“Hank?” Erica said, amused. “No, no. Is it Henry? Am I right?”

The boy (man?) sighed. “Yes, it’s Henry.”

With further inspection, Erica realized that Henry was pretty darn cute. His light brown hair looked silky and soft and he had striking hazel eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Henry asked, and for good reason.

Erica backed away from her close position and giggled nervously (which she doesn’t do often by the way). “Eh heh heh… sorry. I just never really got close to you like this before. Not in a lewd way, though!”

Henry snorted. “I wasn’t even thinking about it in that way. Get your mind out of the damn gutter.”

“Oh, ha ha, sorry. But hey, if you’re ever looking for someone to date, just gimme a call! Or teleport into my room as Hank. Whatever.”

“I’m gonna have to say ‘no’ to that one, Erica,” Hank replied, shaking his head and looking annoyed. “I’m dead. Besides, even if I was alive, you wouldn’t be able to me anyways. I’m an adult and you’re still in middle school.”

Erica pouted. “Gosh, dang it to heck! Why does aging have to be a thing?!”

“Because if it didn’t, we’d all look young, and I know that sounds ironic coming from me, but it’d be really awkward if it happened.”

“Oh. Yeah, you’re right. You win this one.”

Henry cleared his throat. “Moving on. Yes, this is an extension of your powers. You’re able to read people’s minds and now you can go into their dreams. Sorry that you’re losing sleep over the latter, though. It does take a while to get used to and control it.”

Erica bit her lip and furrowed her brows. “What is even the point of dream walking, anyway? Is it supposed to be useful? If so, I mean, I already know that Naoko wants to get married to Nathan and that Tomo’s a Backstreet Boys fan!”

Henry shrugged. “Well, I just thought it was a cool concept at the time. Also, you could get to know what your friends are worrying about and stuff. It can be useful at times.”

Erica’s mouth formed a straight line. “Oh, well. I suppose I get it. But you never did mention this in your book. And how do I stop going into dream walking, anyway? Is there a button in my mind that I can press to stop it?”

“No, it’s not like a video game, sorry. There’s not really a way of stopping that power without stripping your other one for good. My solution is to think of nothing before going to bed.”

Erica felt like she was going to pull her hair out (which, considering this was a dream, would actually be possible.)

“But this is too much, even for me!” she argued. “Why did I just develop this power now? Is there any other ability that you haven’t told me about? The power of empathy or something?!”

Henry drew a long breath. “Not yet, anyway,” he said, almost like an aside. “But if you’re so fed up with your abilities, would you want me to get rid of them altogether?”

He was addressing the elephant in the room.

Should I? If it’s really causing me so much stress, why not, you know? Yeah, it’d suck not having my telepathy powers anymore, but sleep is more important in the end, right?

“I can tell you’re having a hard time deciding,” Henry mused. “Just letting you know, though: You don’t have much time to decide, it’s almost time for you to wake up and go to school.”

Erica’s face flushed. She felt as if she was going to overheat.

Let’s see what Henry’s thinking about…

Erica used her powers to tune into her friend’s mind.

Hmmm, instead of being in Hank’s body, perhaps I can try to transfer my soul to another one… another one that’s closer to the literature club girls…

“I can hear you, you know!” Erica teased. “And that’s not a bad idea, either. I’d say you should become Max. He’s one of my closest science club friends and he’s pretty chill with everything.”

“Oh, the nerdy-looking one? Yeah, I know who you’re talking about.”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Hey, he’s not that nerdy. In fact, I’d say he looks quite a bit like you, too!”

“We’ll see about it,” Henry declared. “The process of splitting our souls and removing myself from Hank’s body is probably gonna be a lengthy and complicated process, but I can try to get it done before school ends for you.”

It was then that Erica came to a conclusion.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Okay… I’ve decided. I’d like to keep my powers. The only way to get better at something is to keep trying, right? And I’ve decided I’m not gonna give up on controlling my dream walking powers!”

“Good job,” Henry said, giving her a thumbs up. “Now leave me and just dream of nothing, okay?”

Erica nodded. “I shall! And I’ll try not to dream about dank memes or going viral online! Although that’s a hard thing to do.”

★

Erica had never been so tired in her whole entire life. She knew that that was what she was going to get after spending the majority of the night watching YouTube videos and the rest of it talking to a hot ghost, going in and out of Tomo and Naoko’s dreams, and having her own about chasing rare Pepes (yes, she did end up having one).

Although the whole thing of dream walking sounds like you’d be in REM sleep the whole time, this did not feel like the case for Erica because she felt like she slept for only an hour or so… which was definitely the case.

“But alas,” Erica said aloud in an almost poetic way. “It felt good, man.”

It was now the sixth hour, the last period of the day, and Erica was holding on by a thin thread.

Psst. Psst! Erica, I’m here!

And then that thing happened. It seemed like someone was communicating with her via telepathy.

Yup. She knew exactly who it was.

“ERICA SANCHEZ?”

From the sound of it, it also seemed like her algebra teacher was trying to take attendance, and that scared the crap out of her for some reason.

“Uh, here! Hai!” That somehow slipped out of her drooling mouth.

As the teacher, Mrs. Banzai continued to take attendance, things went back to being boring and normal.

Until…

“Takanashi?”

“Hai!”

There it was. The big reveal. Or rather, the big un-reveal.

That’s me by the way, Henry said.

Oh, wow. He actually did do that soul-separating process that he said would take a bazillion and one years or something.

That’s it, thought Erica determinedly to Max—er, Henry. You did it. You made my shitty, sleepy day, you bastard!

“ … Alright, everyone! In today’s lesson, we will be learning about two-step quadratics!”

Now would you mind teaching me how to solve these problems? Henry asked as politely as he could.

Erica smiled. Why of course, Mr. Scienwitch!

★

“What makes you so happy, Erica-chan?” Behami asked, a bit too curiously.

“Or at least happy enough for a zombie,” Mari chimed in. She and Behami were engaging in an intense Pokemon battle on their New Nintendo DSes that they snuck to school.

“Well, somebody special is gonna be here any minute now,” Erica said in an oddly calm manner.

Just then, a flash of light appeared and then quickly disappeared into the clubroom.

“Oh, it’s just you girls this time… all ten of you. Phew!”

Mimori did her “Oooh hoo hoo hoo~” thing and Tomo adjusted her glasses pointlessly.

“Okay, I have a million and one questions to ask right now,” Kasumi stated dramatically.

Erica shot up from her chair and went over to where the boy was standing. “Hi, Erica Sanchez here with the breakdown, because ‘everything is gonna shake down someday!’”

“Oh! Oh! I know that one!” Mimori shouted, waving her arms around the air like a moron. Jopi gave her The Look.

“Obviously, this isn’t just Max He—I mean, Max Takanashi! This is Henry Takanashi. Henry separated his soul from Hank’s and placed it into Max’s body because POTATOES!” As she kept talking, Erica grew redder and redder in the face.

“Hi,” Henry said, waving a hand. “I thought being in the body of a fellow middle school student would be better than being in the body of a college kid who lives in Australia. You don’t even talk to him anymore, do you Mimori?”

Mimori shook her head, pouting. “Nope. I haven’t talked to him in eons, it seems like. And you don’t count. Uguuu~.”

Henry nodded, understanding. “I thought that. It’s best for us if we all start on a clean state, isn’t it?”

Tomo raised her hand. “Does Max know about us now?”

“Yes. And he won’t tell a soul.” Henry blinked and edged closer to the door. “I better get going now, one of the science club kids just texted me. Bye Erica, bye everyone, it was nice seeing you!”

After the door shut, everyone started talking at once.

Excitement was in the room—with the legendary wizard now occupying a new body, it was like the club was born anew.

Even though she was exhausted, Erica was all for it.