Beyond the Night - Ever a Dreamer

January 2068. Lejl and Shaz are stalking stores to look for a gift for the shark guy's boyfriend. An unexpected meeting with an old acquaintance, though, awakens dark thoughts in Lejl's mind, thoughts connected with her essence as a Dreamer.

“Imma gonna thank ya, horny gremlin. Ya were the only peep good ol’ Shaz could ask for this!”

My ideal of a day off would seldom be ‘strolling around the commercial district of New Langdon with a muscular sharkman who used to be my colleague. Yet, this is what I’m doing. An interesting change of pace, if you ask me – a sudden one too. But you need to be flexible, swim with the flow – or completely against it, whatever feels more exciting. So, here I am, walking through rows of open stores, taking notes of prices and wearing heavy winter clothing that hides my body completely, protecting it from the plummeting British temperatures. I’ll be frank: I hate winter. I hate it with all of myself and even with the part of myself that got lost in the Gallery. Winter has no reason to exist, except to annoy me. If this world were created by someone, as those weird annoying guys wearing crosses say, said designer should be hit on their head with a wrench repeatedly, once for every winter mankind has endured since the dawn of times. If you exist, you’re up there and you’re hearing me, know I won’t have mercy: winter was your stupidest invention, together with pugs and flu. It’s cold, humid, everyone’s covered up from head to toes, no babe flashes even a little bit of skin and you can’t do anything outside. Plus, of course, it rains all the time. So, any little bit of entertainment during this absolute joke of a season is welcome, be it playing drunken strip poker with Chai and Paddy while dressed as Santas, learning to drive a rally hovercar (still working on this, give me some time) or helping a gay shark find a present for his human boyfriend – which feels a little anticlimactic, since Christmas has already come and gone. I assumed that was the traditional festivity to exchange presents, not a nondescript day in the middle of January, but whatever. Oh, a bit of a tangent, but ‘festivity’ is a new word for me, one that I learned only last month. I’m proud I’m slowly expanding my vocabulary – being split from Aylin sucked so much, since I can’t exploit her vast and refined lexical thesaurus anymore (‘lexical’ and ‘thesaurus’ are also words I learned just a couple months ago) and had to rebuild my language skills from the ground up. Now, though, it’s not the time for new words. It’s time to find something to gift to this elusive Todd McGilligan I’ve heard a lot about but seen little of. My shark pal seems lost, in this labyrinth of lights and inviting displays, biting his non-existent lips with a chainsaw worth of teeth. So, it’s time for Lejl to run to his rescue.

“You got no ideas at all, Shaz? Like, nothing?”

“Less than zero. Aaaaand that pains me so much, awright? Imma be real, me and Todd have been a thing for a five months tops and we missed each other on Christmas, yes? Ivva just sent him a couple pics, but gal – long-distance relationships suck!”

Oh, yeah, that was a thing, riiiight! Last Christmas, I.N.A.B.A. held a concert in a sex shop built inside a desecrated church, dressed as a nun and singing her new single ‘Holy Threesome’ with a vibrator-shaped mic. That almost caused a political incident with the Holy See, but her ratings skyrocketed again. Todd, of course, had to be there, dressed in his usual counterfeit suit while directing a choir of fake angels, made of people he just grabbed on the streets mere hours before. Being I.N.A.B.A.’s manager sounds like a hellish job, with how unhinged that robot is. Personally, I like 47-Shishichi more than her: Her songs are more visceral, her outfits more scandalous and those platform shoes… I wonder if I can find a similar model here at PangiMart to gift them to my babe, so that she can use them on me. Aaaah, Cyphy! Your limitless legs, your smooth skin, those four inches of sole pressed against my… okay, stop, Lejl. Stop. I’m a useless lesbian and I’m proud of it, but there’s a moment for everything. Now, it’s the moment to help a dumb shark, not to fawn over my girlfriend wearing impossibly tall shoes.

My (admittedly limited) attention turns towards the displays, to the mannequins wearing every possible combination and fit, with their constructed, mechanical poses. Those mockeries of a human being (‘mockery’ is yet another word that I use too seldom) evoke feelings I’d prefer to keep suppressed. Their broken joints, their unnatural angles… they make me sick. Once, I saw one of them with her head turned in the wrong direction, facing her own back. And I remembered them. Those shells, those empty constructs watching me in the Gallery, while I was losing myself. I feel a little bit of nausea, almost to the point of retching. A long breath. A short breath. A moment of calm. That’s all I need. That’s all I can do. I stop staring at the mannequins and grab my shark pal’s tree-trunk-sized arm, almost as an automatic reflex.

“Tell me more about this Todd. What does he like? He works with music, so you could gift him a vinyl, maybe?”

“But what if he ain’t into it? Imma not sure which genres he listens to!”

“Then, maybe, a nice t-shirt? With a joke or something written on it?”

“Nah, can’t see him wearing it.”

“Huh. Okay, then what about a…”

I whisper in his ears, making sure my carefully chosen words reach his brain, one at a time. I see his eyes widening, his fin shivering, his scales blushing (is that even possible?), till he almost shrieks at me.

“Bloody moonfish! NO WAY! Imma not buy him somethin’ like that!”

I wink at him, like I’ve learned by watching movies. My mimic is still a bit stiff, since I had to learn how to express and understand emotions properly, but I’m pretty sure I did a good job. So, I wink again, smirking for a good measure too.

“Come on, wouldn’t you love it, if he used it with you?”

“You can’t be serious! I kno’ ya and me are the bottomest bottoms ever born on this g’damn rock, but that’s too much, yes?”

I’m not sure about it. I would have totally bought that for Cyphy, if I were more into that kind of stuff. Oh, well, his loss, not mine.

“Fine, fine. You’re so boring.”

“Damn gremlin, ya just have one thing in that mind of yours? Can’t ya, like, stop thinkin’ ‘bout yer GF bangin’ ya for half a day?”

I feel something. Something that I don’t perceive often. Something that makes my hand curl into a fist, that makes my blood boil. I feel my muscles vibrating, my breath accelerating. Then, calming down. Slowly. Quietly. Yes, this overgrown fish is right. I have one thing in mind, but it’s not what he thinks about.

My ‘one thought’ is managing to bring me back home, every night I end up in the Gallery.

Because, apparently, the world stabilizing and the plants thwarting the Tides aren’t enough to keep me out of that nightmare. I was so happy when Veckert explained the whole ordeal to me and Cyphy. I was sure, confident, hopeful that my excursions outside existence were gone for good. Turns out it was all wishful thinking. And, since most Dreamers are dead and bloomed, I don’t even have access to a self-help network anymore. My mind can feel like a chaotic horny mess, but there’s a reason for it.

I’m scared.

Scared that, one day, I won’t wake up from my trip to darkness.

If that day comes, when that day comes, I don’t want to have any regrets. I want to live my life to the fullest. If this means yielding to my urge to have intimate experiences with my girlfriend whenever I feel the need to, so be it. It’s the price I pay for being an incomplete vessel born out of a splinter of someone else’s information.

Of course, Shaz is still in the dark, when it comes to my real identity: I’ve never told him the full story, he doesn’t know about my origins. The only people alive who have any idea of what ‘Lejl’ was are Tiger, Amy, Cyphy, and Vince – maybe Veckert too, she's too smart not to have connected the dots. I still remember Vince’s (lack of) face when I spilled the beans on myself, after our run in with Saìl and his cronies. First, it was disbelief, accentuated by a small twitch of his white eyes – one of the few motions I can recognize in that blurry mess. Then, it was contempt, since he found out who my savior and former boss was. Then, it became a eh, whatever, since he realized that it wouldn’t affect the way I work for him. Yet, when I told him about the Gallery, his expression turned sullen, all of a sudden. He understood what that meant, he understood why I behave the way I do. And he accepted me as I am, without questions, right while hugging me.

Vince.

Hugging me.

It feels weird to be pitied by someone like him, but isn’t it what makes us human? Empathy, compassion for the others?

Maybe I should take my sweet time and explain the whole story to Shaz too. Maybe, he would understand. But, honestly? This is not the right moment. We are here to find a gift for his boyfriend, not to talk about me. Lejl’s existential hurdles must take a backseat, today.

My hand relaxes, my fingers open, I answer with a smirk.

“At least I can have her bang me whenever it pleases me, contrary to a certain thirsty shark in a long distance relationship.”

I see Shaz’s mouth falling agape. That hit the spot, better than I expected. I don’t relish in causing emotional damage to other people, but at times it’s oddly… satisfying. I can completely understand why Cyphy likes unleashing her snake-tongue piercing remarks.

It takes a good ten seconds for Shaz to recover from the staggering hit I delivered, only to shake his head and grumble something under his breath. In the meanwhile, we have walked through a good third of the PangiMart without finding anything. Pangi the Penguin stares at us from every promotional poster, be it two or three dimensional, with a whole lot of “special sale!” and “super offer!” callouts. I find that cartoon penguin quite cute, but Cyphy begs to differ (rich coming from someone who wears penguin-decorated pajamas, but I guess that’s not her kind of cartoon penguin). Shaz isn’t too hot about him either, especially after having been punched while wearing a Pangi costume. He told me the story so many times back at Jackson’s, while we were both on cleaning duty, that I can almost remember it by heart.

“I hate them penguin, gremlin. ‘Fore rehab, I was playin’ mascot for PangiMart 9-18 to pay some debts, clad in them stuffed costume. All goes swimmingly till them muscle head says I scared his kid and then pummels me to the ground. Thaaat still hurts, bloody moonfish.”

I’m a bad person. I laughed a lot at the idea of Shaz in a penguin mascot costume being hit on repeat by a burly man in a tank top in front of a crowd of screaming children. But, seriously, props to him for lasting so long and finding a way to get back on his feet.

All of a sudden, I see a promising bookstore. Gothic decorations. Bats. Black signs. The Book and the Pendulum. I’ve never been there, but it’s a classy name – I love it. I point my finger at it, trying to bring my friendly shark there with me.

“Let’s check there! We can find some nice collections of horror stories! Or even a guide to some trendy analog horror series!”

Yet, he doesn’t move. He simply shakes his head, halting my momentum before it ever had a chance to develop.

“Meh, Todd doesn’t really like novels, be it horror or not. Ivva seen him read only old fashioned newspapers. Gotta say no, nuthin’ to be gained there. ‘sides, Imma no intellectual type. No way we can share the hobby, huh.”

I groan as loudly as I can, to signal my discontent. Books are awesome, especially those about cryptids and urban legends. Whenever I enter a bookstore, I buy the newest issue of my favorite mystery magazine (Traveller Redux, an amazing collaboration between Res Vertighel and Villam Sanderbach) and, if I find it, a book on a new paranormal topic. I have a small monthly allowance allocated to researching new monsters or supernatural events – so far, I’ve collected fifty-six volumes and around one hundred thirty newspaper cutouts at home. These bizarre creatures and phenomena were, most likely, reality oscillations and undeleted clumps of information that found a temporary shape, before dissolving back again into a sea of nothingness... just like me. The Flickering Lamppost, the Screamers, the Talking Black Cat, the Man-Eating Manhole, the Sunken Singing Corpses… Aaaaah! New Langdon is a goldmine of mysteries and apparitions. I’m taking care of documenting them, trying to take pictures of them too to make them real, delay the deletion fate that inevitably awaits them. Veckert once told me that, now that the ‘shizas stabilize this plane of existence, ROPES will appear less often and vanish faster. However, this layer still needs some time before reaching that equilibrium. This means I still have a little leeway before they disappear completely and stop showing up, so I’m not losing hope yet. So far, sadly, I’ve never managed to find any of them. Just rumors, second-hand witness reports and cousins of friends. The closest I got was when Paddy showed me a Northern Algol police badge she found while strolling around with Mr. Kramers. Like, she met a real ghost. I’m so, so jealous. Though, now, I’m not here for me. I need to keep my attention straight and stop the Lejl’s attention deficit engine to take over. So, I let that awesome, cozy, unsettling bookstore go away, before moving back to the main corridor of PangiMart.

Finally, after yet another row of insipid clothes stores (except one that sold female underwear that made me weak in the knees), something peeks out of the corner. Something unexpected. I look at it, look back at Shaz, look at it again. Before our very eyes, stands a giant plushie of Puffi the Happy-Go-Lucky Drug Addicted Bunny, with a fake joint shoved deep down his mouth, staring at us from the stands of a gadget store. I let out a chuckle, at that bizarre sight. I’m not a fan of that series – not enough boobs and too much black comedy, but it has its estimators. I scratch my hair, put my hands together so that the fingers create a rectangle – the objective of an imaginary camera.

“Never seen one that big. Is it, like… five feet tall? That’s huge!”

I hear a sound of snapping fingers, of snapping teeth. Shaz. His eyes. His eyes are shining?!

“That’s it, gremlin! THAT’S IT!”

“What.”

“Todd and I watched them season five special last time we met! We cried like toddlers when Gumbo died of lung cancer! That was so sad, so sad! Aaaawww, Gumbo dying in Puffi’s arms at the hospital! We cried our eyes out, hugging too! And then…”

And then you re-enacted giant snake vs mega shark under the sheets, I get it. No details, please. I have only so much imagination and I’m not going to use it for that.

I look at that plushie again. A giant cartoon rabbit smoking a bunt. That’s so cheesy, but… also so Shaz, in a way. I could totally see him hugging it at home as his emotional support stuffed bunny. So, if this Todd is even remotely like him, that’s a surefire success. Before Shaz can even start elaborating on it, I grab his arm and pull him behind me. Not sure how many such Puffis are in stock, so the faster we buy it, the better. Once, I missed a second-hand leather jacket I wanted to buy because of a moment of indecision. It was so cool. Shiny, with logos of metal bands from all over the world sewn onto it. It felt so right for me, but I decided to think it through – money doesn’t come easy in this twisted world. When I made up my mind, it was already gone. Puff. Bought by someone else. I don’t want Shaz to make the same mistake. We’re buying the giant rabbit plushie, be it the last thing I do, so I grab it from the stands outside the shop, and drag my shark companion through the front door of the store, aptly named Pop Parade. The entrance bell chimes the tune of a retro video game Cyphy once showed me, announcing our glorious arrival to the single employee standing behind the counter. Blond hair, blue eyes, somewhere in his thirties (maybe late twenties). Something feels off. I look at him for a second or two to try to understand what.

“Welcome to Pop Parade! How can I help…”

Till I see his eyes widening to an impossible degree.

“YOU?!”

But it’s not just his voice that pitches up in a shriek. Shaz chimes in too, shouts almost in unison.

Before punching the guy in the face, making him fly against the ground full speed ahead, landing with a loud THUD. Followed by another, equally loud THUD, as Shaz hits the floor in a similar manner, punched in the eye at full force by a silhouette I can’t fully grasp.

So, there I stand, hugging a giant stuffed rabbit in total confusion, right between a human guy splatted on the parquet and a shark mutant curled upside down, butt up, with his mouth agape.

And a colossal blue lizard cracking their knuckles while towering over him.

This is truly a Lejl situation, isn’t it?

I’m starting to become a little too self-conscious about the kind of stuff that happens when I’m around.

**

It takes us a while to straighten the situation, all the four of us sitting in the back room of the store, right as another employee took the front desk to serve the other customers. I’m relieved nobody called the cops, ‘cause that would have been a total disaster. Shaz struck first, completely unprompted, after all. But, now, I can somehow understand the reason of his gesture. The man sitting in front of us, pressing a pink ice bag decorated with cute smiling ice cubes on his swollen eye, is none other than…

“Whaddaya do here, you taserin’ motherangler bastard? Lookin’ for more children to kidnap?”

… well, I guess I’ll let Shaz do the talk. After all, he was the one on the receiving hand of a sucker punch electric shock in the first place. My interaction with this guy was shorter: I just slammed him on the concrete while on a rooftop, after seeing him exactly once among Saìl’s cronies – the easy part, if you will. Said guy grumbles something, before shaking his head and looking straight into my dumb shark companion’s (equally swollen) eyes.

“Look, I’ve gone straight, okay? After the whole plant apocalypse thing.”

“Straight as wet spaghetti. Ya can’t trust cultists!”

“I’m not… ugh, whatever.”

I turn around, with Puffi safely enclosed among my arms, trying to read the room. I have trouble understanding emotions, courtesy of my physical existence being less than three years old. I can get why Shaz is livid, but maybe, just maybe, he overreacted a little? Which then prompted this humongous lizard lady to do the same, I guess. I get a glimpse of her shapes. Blue scales, taller than the average shoiga, more muscular too, with a crown of short feathers around her neck. Her punch must have hit like a truck, to send Shaz flying the way it did. Said lizard reciprocates my stare, with something akin to curiosity, I… guess? She bares her fangs, opens her jaw, letting her long tongue slip out for a fraction of a second. Then, she starts speaking.

“Care to explain the whole ordeal, monkey? Possibly, from the beginning.”

Shaz growls, waves his arms like crazy, points his finger at the person whose face he so viciously smashed (viciously is another delicious word, I don’t use it as much as I’d like to).

“Wanna an explanation? Here’s yer explanation! This Rishel motherangler son of an oyster sittin’ here worked for that nuts-for-brain Brother Whatshisname, punched me ampullae and kidnapped my best pal’s kids! Why he do be free?!”

“I wasn’t talking with you, seafood! I’m asking your pet naked monkey, so shut your trap!”

Pet naked monkey. I take a long breath. This lizard is a shoiga, alright, and a racist one too. Duly noted. Permission to be equally racist with this space reptile granted. Though, probably it isn’t a good idea, since she can flatten me to the ground with just one flick of her colossal biceps. I must admit she has a nice frame. If Paddy were single and into women, she would have had a field day with this one, real weak in the knees material. Well, maybe she is into lizard threesomes? Knowing Paddy, that wouldn’t even be that remote of a possibility – though I guess she is very vocal about faithful monogamy with her lizard BF. Ugh, whatever, the mind picture is too perfect. A red shoiga and a blue shoiga in the same bed as her? Same combination of colors as her beloved hematos too – for twice the fun! Yeah, that sounds very fitting, I’ll bring her here with an excuse – and what happens happens. After all, sharing is caring, or? Yet, now I have more urgent matters, such as silencing this annoying alien in front of me.

“This pet naked monkey has a name, as I’m sure you have, space lizard. That name is Lejl, written L-E-J-L but read like layl. Don’t mess it up, ‘kay?”

I see her eyes widening at the mention of space lizard, before turning back to an acceptable size in a matter of seconds. Her voice, though, lags behind, pitching up and then down with a considerable delay.

“Space liz… okay, okay, that’s fair. Then let me share names with you. I’m called Talissa of the Kasdra brood. Now that it’s settled, please, explain why in Kraal did your fish owner hit my coworker.”

My fish owner. I bite my lips. If Shaz were my owner, I would have already jumped from a bridge or two. Fortunately, he’s just a very close friend of mine, so I can avoid the whole bridge-jumping-thingy, but it’s still such an annoying idea. These shoigas need better education on human customs. I’ll let that slide, just this once.

“He already said it. Last year, your coworker pummeled him extra hard and took away the kids of a friend of ours, under orders of an even bigger grade-A asshole. We thought he was still in jail.”

“I am still in jail. See this thing here?”

The man named Rishel lifts his leg, showing something like a metallic ring clamped around his ankle. Looks like old tech, very invasive when a chip would suffice, but I guess the idea is to make it visible.

“I’m under surveillance 24/7. Got a chance to start working to increase my social credit and reduce my time behind bars. I have a nine hours permission per day to get my shift done, courtesy of Veckert Rainer. Every night I go back to my cell, ‘kay? At least for the next four months, after which I’ll be a free man again.”

I see him sighing, shaking his head too.

“So, please, I have already paid for my mistake – I’m still paying for it. Most Dreamers I knew are dead, I have no family or friends left and I even got half of my stomach replaced by nanomachine constructs because of those bloody flowers. Give me a break, will you?”

Shaz rolls his eyes, growls, I can see rows of sharp teeth glaring in the warm lights of the room.

“You ain’t said the magic word, dumbass!”

“You want me to say sowwy? Here’s, here’s your sowwy Mr. Shark, I was such a despicable villain!”

“Sarcasm ain’t save ya from another shiner.”

“Listen up, you tell me what you would have done in my place! Imagine waking up in a blasted hell landscape every single night, not knowing whether you’ll ever get back home! Every single night for years! Then, someone gives you a solution, a way to cope with it! Wouldn’t you have taken it?!”

Laughter.

Shaz.

Shaz is laughing.

I blink.

Talissa blinks.

Rishel blinks too.

We all look at each other, puzzled, as Shaz keeps up laughing.

I’m

Legitimately confused.

“Ho boy, I needed this!”

Then, Shaz stands up. Stands up, towering over both Rishel and Talissa, grinning from ear to ear.

“I was chased by the mafia for two years. Two bloody years of switching flat every two weeks, of changing name every five days. Just to find out that them nice lady at the reception of my old place was found dead at sea. Or that my grumpy old neighbor disappeared overnight. You lived your every-night fantasy hell? I lived that every hour of every frickin’ day.”

Then, he lets out a sigh, something I’ve seen him seldom do.

“But yeah, when me old pal gave me a way out, I too caved in. Bring me another person and ya’ll be free, he said. ‘Twas a trap, of course, but I can’t judge ya, can I? So, yeah, old Shaz would have taken that chance you say pronto. Ya know, it’s still hard to believe in that dreamscape, yes? I’ve seen the Donner and his wibbly-wobbly hell with my eyes in Euterpe, so I kno’ the supernatural exists, understand me, but…”

“Fair. I wouldn’t believe it either, if I hadn’t experienced it on my skin and…”

This time it’s Rishel who sighs, against all my expectations.

“… and maybe I owe you a real apology, even if it’s not going to change anything.”

“See? Now we’re talkin’! Apology aaaaaccepted!”

All of a sudden, Shaz proffers his hand, in what I suppose to be an offer of peace. Rishel stares at it blankly for a couple seconds, before looking at me, then looking at him, before, finally, accepting the exchange and join hands with my big bulky shark comrade.

“I guess a new start isn’t really possible, but I’d like to make amends… not just with you.”

I see him grabbing his lizard colleague’s arm, pulling it a little.

“Talissa? Can you take Shaz to the checkout and process his order? I’d like to have a word with Lejl here, before she goes. It’s about some… private matters.”

Dreamers matters.

That’s all it can be.

The red line that connects us.

My vision changes a little, sharper, more focused. My pupils have turned catlike, as they always do when I feel even slightly stressed. It’s a weird feature of my eyes, something Cyphy likes a lot. She thinks it makes me even more unique (though the next time she calls me my cute cat girl I will bite her and scratch her till morning comes, as a retaliation. I’m not a neko and I have no plans of becoming one). Shaz, of course, notices that immediately.

“Are ya cool with it, gremlin?”

“All under control. Just buy the Puffi and wait for me outside. I’ll be there in no time.”

He lingers for a second longer than I’d like to, before grabbing the plushie and slowly following Talissa out of the storage room. Just before crossing the threshold, though, he turns around, stares at Rishel, points his fingers to his eyes, then to the blond guy sitting close to me, as if to say don’t do any silly things, I’m watching ya.

Then, without any further word, he leaves us alone, closing the door behind him. Silence. A couple seconds of silence, of sighs and eye contact, till Rishel starts talking.

“You’re still waking up in the Dream.”

“Five to six times per month, yes. Not every night, fortunately. It’s like…”

“… this world is slowly accepting you as the real deal.”

“Precisely.”

I see him slump, still keeping the ice bag on his swollen eye. Shaz hit him hard (and I can’t blame him too much for that). He’s focusing on my face, on my somewhat exotic pupils, if I have to bet. Though he doesn’t seem alarmed. Just… tired.

“There aren’t many Dreamers left in this city. Most died after Saìl…”

“The flowers, yes.”

“We might be the last two Dreamers in New Langdon.”

“It’s possible.”

“… except I…”

He swallows a lump of saliva, sighs again. That’s pretty different form the brutal henchman he used to be. I’d almost mistake him for a human being, if I didn’t know who he was – who he used to be.

“… except I don’t wake up in the Dream anymore. Not once since last November.”

What.

This.

This has to be a joke.

I feel my fingers curling, blood boiling, my fist closing.

Clam down, Lejl.

Calm down.

Wait. Listen. Don’t

Don’t smash his face just yet.

A short breath. A long breath. A moment of calm.

Observing Amy taught me a lot about self control – and I sorely need it now. My words exit my lips slowly, surely, without a hurry.

“Care to elaborate?”

“What I said. I’ve… stopped being a Dreamer, as weird as it sounds. All of a sudden, overnight.”

“How.”

Yes, how? How have you… how have you got what I secretly covet since I came back to life? How? Why you, of all people?! Why not… I? I have to force myself not to overreact, not to assault him. Calm down, Lejl. Calm. The heck. Down. Let him talk. Let him…

“I have a theory, but…”

I see him averting his gaze, his ice bag still clumped around his blackened eye. Then, after what feels like an eternity, he finally talks.

“… okay, it’s not a solid theory, but it’s the only explanation I have. At the beginning, I thought that the Dream was over for good… until detective Rainer told me that there are still Dreamers. So, I… tried to understand what made me different. And…”

His free hand moves to his belly, to the level of his stomach.

“… and I think I’ve got an idea. In the Dream, we wake up with nothing except our bodies. No clothes, no items, no implants, no prosthetics, right?”

“Right. Birthday suit and nothing else.”

“… what if you had a pacemaker?”

‘Pacemaker’ – another word I’ve learned only six months ago, after an incident involving a toy EMP generator and an elderly customer at Jackson’s. Sounds scary to have to live forever with a device that makes sure your heart goes on properly and doesn’t break down. But that’s a foreign object, an external device, something that doesn’t belong to your body. So, the only logical conclusion is that…

“… you couldn’t survive. You’d die in the Dream, as soon as you wake up there.”

“That would be a paradox, wouldn’t it?”

We look at each other, our eyes make contact, my cat-like pupils reflected in his endless blue. My mind starts connecting the dots, in a way. If my body couldn’t survive on its own, while inside the Shadow Gallery…

Rishel nods, cracks what looks like a wry smile.

“Half of my stomach is artificial, Lejl. I can’t survive without the prosthetic layer that I got implanted down here. The night after I was operated… was the first where I didn’t end up in the Dream. And I’ve never been back there ever since.”

He pauses for an instant, to give his message enough time settle like dust on old furniture, before letting out a long sigh.

“I know the connection is tenuous at best, but…”

I gasp. I cannot control my reaction, as my heart jolts. His body… Rishel’s body has been damaged beyond repair… and that prevents him from entering the Gallery?! I breathe slowly, trying to calm down. It makes some shred of sense. By interacting extensively with this reality, by leaving a part of himself here, he somehow got ‘accepted’ by the superficial layer, to the point where being sent back to the ‘stable’ layer would be an even bigger paradox. This sounds like magic, but if that’s the logic the Gallery operates on…

“Lejl?”

Rishel commands my attention again. I must have zoned out for a few seconds.

“I’m here.”

“Do what you want with that information, but… don’t overdo it, okay?”

“How could I overdo it?”

“You know how.”

…

I know it too. I just…

I just don’t want to fall into the Gallery ever again.

That sounds the lesser of two evils.

That solution…

“There must be a less traumatic way, this is all I gotta say.”

Rishel’s words pierce my sacred inner world again, bringing my train of thoughts to the end station. But, in the background, the information keeps being churned, my neurons running like hamsters on their wheels. My hand curls into a fist, once again.

Why.

Why Rishel.

Why he… after being infected by the plants…

Why didn’t I…

Stop.

Stop, Lejl.

All the Dreamers who followed the flowers are dead. Rishel is the only known survivor. You would be dead too, unless a miracle happened. Dead and buried. Maybe, even relegated to the Gallery forever, as a ghost roaming the red send under the black sky. What if that was the ultimate fate of the Dreamers who were killed that day? What if their essence is now trapped in the Gallery, doomed never to wake up again in the world they knew? Screaming without being heard. Crying without being seen. That would be…

My stomach hurts, I feel like retching.

Stop.

Stop, Lejl.

Calm down. You’re here. You’re alive. Despite everything, this is still you. I’m still myself. I’m still…

Suddenly, the door slams open again. The blue-scaled face of Talissa emerges from the other side, scanning the area, looking at Rishel first, ignoring me with all her might.

“The boss says you can go home, Rishel. You’ll be paid for the whole day, but you can’t work at the counter with that black eye of yours. Get medicated and come back tomorrow.”

Rishel groans, pushes the ice bag against his wounded eye.

“Can’t I… just work in the storage room? I don’t want to go back to jail already…”

“Sorry, ain’t no way at the moment.”

A sigh of what I assume to be resignation.

“Fine. I’ll give Dan a call.”

He looks dejected, maybe even disappointed. I feel slightly bad for him and – somehow – responsible. Shaz and I ruined his day – but seen how our previous interaction went, I can’t say it was totally undeserved. Well, then maybe I should get the dumb shark back and get going. Our joint operation ‘Gift for Todd’ was successfully completed, so I don’t feel like I need to stay here any longer. Which might be actually good, for my mental well-being.

I need to think.

Or, rather, not to think, at least for a while.

**

“Bloody moonfish, who gave you yer license? Betcha yer car drives for ya, shrimp!”

My head spins like mad, while my stomach goes up and down the rollercoaster. Sitting on the same car as Shaz feels like going on an adventure ride in a theme park with Cyphy, except with more swearing, less kissing and a layer of unbearable motion sickness. Shaz waves his arm outside of the window, shouts something my brain has trouble parsing, while driving through the jammed, packed entrails of New Langdon. You’d think automatic cars would be the way today, but some people either can’t afford them or can’t trust them. The dumb shark belongs to both categories, unfortunately, acting on his steering wheel with the same delicacy of a drunken gorilla, almost ripping it off at every turn, while stomping his foot on the throttle several times in a row. This car of his is also cramped as heck, completely undersized for that mountain of muscles driving it, with the seat barely containing him. The interior is, if possible, even weirder, with scraps of paper everywhere (mostly bills), a small dinosaur plushie oscillating like a pendulum under the rearview mirror, a portable speaker half tucked under the passenger seat, taped to an open thermos of what looked like coffee. And, of course, the stereo system blasting MIRAI Nanami songs all around at a volume loud enough to make me regret my life choices. Now, it’s ‘Down the Streets of Hong Kong All Summer Long’, of course. Shaz was singing along too, obviously off key, until that other driver almost collided with him at the crossing.

“… is it… is it always like this?”

I hear a weak voice coming from behind me, from the rear seats. Rishel. Hugging the gift paper envelope of the stuffed Puffi we bought. Fighting for his stomach’s life, while still trying to keep the ice bag on his blackened eye. Poor sod. I can only answer with a wry smile.

“Sometimes it’s worse.”

I see the color draining from his face. Much like me, he’s also probably reconsidering his life choices, and especially the choice that made him board Shaz’s broken down ‘57 FIAT Arpa. He should have caught my hint and get on the Tube, but no – he didn’t get the clue in time. The car turns sharply to the left, almost making the tires screech. Rishel’s eyes widen, as his body is kept in place only by the shocking pink safety belt with Nanami sticker plastered all over it. I almost pity him – almost. He lets out a long groan, trying his best not to throw out his soul.

“If only Dan could give me a lift…”

“Blame the guy who punctured his tires.”

“I’m already doing that, at every turn. I hope they’ll get their face smashed.”

Rishel’s expression was truly marvelous, back at the store. Someone damaged all the four tires of Dr. Tey’s car with a screwdriver or another pointy object this morning, leaving the good doctor stranded at Yard and him stranded at the store. When Shaz offered him a ride to the jail to make up for his sucker punch, I thought the big shark guy just wanted to make amends. But, now, I get it.

It wasn’t an offer of peace.

It was additional, gratuitous, cruel and unusual punishment – masqueraded as an act of kindness.

“Jellyfish brain, the direction lights, yes? Turn them on!”

Another driver, another insult, in that deep voice of his. Every crossing, every traffic light, I fear for my life. What if a truck didn’t stop? What if Shaz lost control of the vehicle? We would plummet against the guardrail, maybe against another car. Crash, smash against a wall. A tangle of limbs and metal, a ripped Puffi plushie. Would I survive? Maybe I would. Maybe, I’d need some major surgery. Something like replacing some organs, or fixing them, in order not to die. But then, if that happened… I’d be out of the Gallery. Forever. Ever a Dreamer. Never a Dreamer again. My eye indulge on the handbrake. It would be so easy to pull it. So easy. That would make our car stop all of a sudden, in the middle of the crossing. Overrun by other vehicles. The crash. The emergency room. The white lights. The doctors. The surgery. I could lose my legs too. It would be funny – an armless girl and her legless girlfriend. Wouldn’t it? But then, no Gallery. Every night peaceful. No existential dread. No panic attacks during the day. Gone. The pain. The horror. Gone. All I need to do is pull the brake.

Pull the brake and toss a coin.

Head, I die.

Tail, I live.

Head, Shaz dies.

Tail, Shaz lives.

Lejl.

Stop.

This is morbid.

This is absolutely morbid.

I can’t.

I can’t seriously have considered that.

I feel like retching.

Disgust.

I’m disgusted of myself. How could I even consider doing that, even for one second?!

“Don’t overdo it, okay?”

Rishel’s words now make more sense, and yet…

“Alright-y, we’re almost there! Can see the prison from here, yes? Wheeere do I drop ya, pal? Main entrance?”

“Y… you can drop me here too. I’ll… I’ll walk.”

“Nah, pal, gotta make amends for yer shiner. Ivva a bit overreacted, yes? Aftah all, ya were already five months behind bars! Ivva been there too, just for two days though, ‘fore Go moved his motheranglin’ tentacles to get me out. And, trust me, them two days were ‘nough for me not to want to get arrested anymore.”

So, the torture goes on. Five more minutes in the same car as Shaz, right as ‘Shining Star Sapphire’ starts playing. Either Shaz is the clumsiest person alive or the most sadist. He can’t possibly have missed how pained Rishel’s expression is. If his laughter is of any indication, he might have calculated everything. The thought of this dumb big sea-dweller being a secret mastermind scares me to no end – has he faked his good nature till now? Just to have Vince and me do his bidding? No, not a chance. I refuse to believe it to be a possibility. Yet, when I glance at his bared fangs shining in the sun, I second guess myself once more. This is a predator. A creature engineered to hunt, rip and tear. A creature designed to cause bloodshed and suffering. With the brain of a goldfish. Okay, that’s fine. It’s Shaz I’m talking about.

Of course he hasn’t got the clues. Of course.

There’s no malice. There can’t be malice behind him. And, even if there is, it’s not real malice.

Or, at least, I hope.

Five minutes of painful turns, accelerations and decelerations later, the entrance of the prison finally enters our field of vision and becomes somewhat inviting. A day in a cell sounds like a godsend after fifteen minutes in Shaz’s car. The brakes screech, I feel almost catapulted against the windshield, till my safety belt reminds my body that inertia can indeed be countered. The FIAT Arpa unceremoniously stops a couple hundred feet before the main gate, the engine going into rest mode. I turn around to glance at Rishel, to check whether he’s still with us. Unsurprisingly, he’s deathly pale, on the verge of delivering the whole content of his stomach. Yet, alive. Shaz turns too to face him, with the widest smile I’ve ever seen him showing to a stranger.

“Alrighty, prince! Heeere’s yer castle, hope you enjoy’d the ride!”

“Almost as much as an a heart attack.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Thanks… for bringing me here. Now… excuse me but… I gotta get to my cell. And collapse on my cot for the rest of the day.”

As Rishel leaves the vehicle, Shaz beams at him, extends his fist in a gesture I can’t completely parse.

“Aftah today we’re even, yes? Eye for an eye, we both got shiner’d. No bad blood, huh?”

“… no bad blood. Alright. See you around.”

I notice Rishel accepting the offer, bumping his own fist against Shaz’s – almost missing the mark due to how messed up his balance must be right now. From inside the car, I follow him with my eyes, as he stumbles towards the front gate, with his anklet lighting up like a Christmas tree. He turns around once more, waving his hand in a shaky motion.

Giving me just one last gaze.

Before disappearing behind an automatic door, after being greeted by two wardens. I keep staring for a couple seconds longer. That man will go to sleep peacefully, without even thinking about the Gallery ever again. He will be kept in a small room for a couple months longer, before getting out and starting a new life.

A new life without being a Dreamer.

That sounds… too good.

I’m jealous.

“Hey, gremlin, need a ride home too? Ivva got pack the Puffi for Todd, but if ye need help with something, ya can trust them good ol’ me!”

“Just… bring me to the riverside. I still have some chores to do.”

And, frankly, I don’t want to spend more time than needed on this car of his, especially not if he’s driving in the traffic. That’s when he beams at me, winking too.

“No worries, Imma drive gently now. That was a nice show, right?”

A nice…

I blink. Twice.

“You.”

I need a second or two to complete my sentence.

“You drove like a drunken ape on crack… on purpose.”

“Course I did. Didya think getting tasered in me ampullae and punch’d in me eye was something I could forgive that easily? Nah, ya kno’ me. Imma well educated gentlefish, but there’s a limit, yes? Now, we’re really even with them motherangler.”

Oh my goodness.

He really calculated everything.

Remind me never to get on his bad side.

Yet, I feel an evil grin forming on my face. After all, I could have said something, but remained silent to the very end. The truth is, that we’re partners in crime. This dumb shark and I are on the same wavelength. Which is, frankly, wonderful, for how different we are. So, it’s my time to congratulate his wonderfully evil plan.

“Good job. He was really going to throw up.”

“Yep, that was priceless! I saw It in the mirror. Made sure to keep him on the edge too, but not more. Couldn’t have him make Puffi green!”

I bump my fist against his, cracking a smile.

“Heck yeah, brother! You fooled me too!”

“‘cause yer awareness is so low, gremlin! I bet that if there were boobs involved, ya’d have picked that up immediately!”

I laugh. I can’t help but laugh like an idiot. Laughter that turns into the dreadful realization I could have… pulled that handbrake. Just because of…

Calm down.

Calm down, Lejl.

You didn’t. You didn’t do it. Another Lejl in another world might have. But you didn’t. Shaz is here, laughing too. Rishel is safe. Nobody died, nobody got injured. In another timeline, maybe, you lost your legs and became the manager of Jackson’s, stopped being a Dreamer the day the ‘shiza emerged. But, in this timeline, you didn’t. You still end in the Gallery, but everyone you love is alive. Vince, Shaz, Amy, Tiger, Paddy, Chai… Cyphy. Cherish what you have. You are better than this.

You are… I am…

I need some time for myself.

I need it.

To straighten my mind.

Before I go back home.

**

When I finally unlock the door of my flat – our flat – it’s late. Very late. Mr. Kramers is giddy, feasting on his canned food in his small corner. He always wakes up when we go to sleep, but he got accustomed to it. We’ve taken care of buying him some toys (not squeaky), so that he can play a bit while we’re snoring, but lately I’ve taken the habit of bringing him out on midnight strolls. Not this evening, though. I’m not in the right mind. I look at the clock. Eleven thirty-five. I spent the past five hours going up and down the river, thinking, thinking, thinking, and thinking.

About myself.

About what Rishel said.

About my weakness.

About Cyphy.

I leave my shoes at the entrance, slowly, silently. Cyphy might still be sleeping. I don’t want to wake her up. I just…

The lights switch on, before I can even realize it. Soft lights that illuminate our kitchen, lights designed to be bearable for our pet nocti too. Except I didn’t activate them. I didn’t even say the word. No, the person who did that is standing there, already wearing her penguin-decorated pajama but still keeping her artificial arms installed, crossed in front of her chest right as her foot taps on the floor several times, without any discernible rhythm.

“I was starting to get worried, Lalli.”

My babe. My Cyphy. Waited for me, the whole time.

“No messages, no calls, just a ‘I’ll come late’ and all your devices offline. I was going to go the police, if you didn’t show up before midnight.”

Anger. Fear. Relief. I can hear contrasting feelings in her voice. All of them, though, are well justified. I’m a disaster of a girlfriend, under all points of view. So, apology it is. Straight to the point.

“I needed time to think. Something… weird happened today.”

She nods, without saying anything. Her eyes and mine meet. My pupils must be catlike again, because she looks more tense than usual. Then she sighs, shakes her head too.

“Weird for your standards? Alter, that has to be some serious reality-breaking shit.”

She sits down on the sofa, close to Mr. Kramers. Her artificial hand pats his darkened skin, his flashy bioluminescent bands. I slowly walk to her, sit by her side. That’s when I need to open up, I guess. She knows everything. She knows I’m a Dreamer. She’s the single person for whom I have no secrets. So, I spill the beans.

Rishel.

His reveal.

The Gallery.

The car ride with Shaz.

My self-destructive tendencies.

The allure of pulling that handbrake to end up in an incident.

The self-loathing that hit me soon after.

All in one go, in a long, continuous, uninterrupted stream of consciousness without beginning or end, a train of thoughts without stops. I barely keep the tears at bay. Two years of going back to the Gallery, without a way out, burst out of my lungs, once again, in a liberating flux of words. Much like that time after the ‘shiza bloomed. After Veckert convinced me to open up with Cyphy. Just like that time, I’m freeing myself from my woes, letting them flow, washed away by the rain pouring down my cheeks. This for seconds, minutes, till it’s past midnight and I hadn’t even realized it. Cyphy grabs my hand, her prosthetics are surprisingly warm, delicate.

“Lalli… I wish I could share this pain with you… come with you to the Gallery, so that you aren’t alone.”

No, that’s…

“You don’t. You really don’t.”

“But I do.”

“There’s no way.”

She nods. She understands. I don’t want her to… end up there. Because that’s too much. That’s something I would never ask her to do, even if there were a way. I know why she says this, though. She feels powerless. She hates that too.

“Is there any way I can help?”

See? What did I tell you? Yet, I can only shrug.

“None. Everything will be better when this reality accepts me as – well – real. I need to leave traces, to leave my imprint on this world… and I need the world to leave its imprint on me. And I’m almost there. A… almost. ”

Almost. Once, every single night I fell into that red hell. Every single night. Now, it’s different, happens at most twice per week. At most. When it happens, though, it feels even worse – after savoring the quiet, being thrown back there is even worse. But maybe… maybe if I keep living like I’m doing, I’ll be finally free. Maybe. I don’t understand how it works. I can’t. But hopes… hopes are gratis, right? I just need to endure it a bit longer.

“Imprint, you say.”

That’s when I feel it – a soft pressure on my neck. Lips. Cyphy’s lips. Her tongue. Licking my skin. I chuckle, even if just a little.

“Hey… I didn’t give you permission to do that.”

“I don’t need anyone’s permission to leave my imprint on my babe.”

As her fingers move through my body and clothes, unfastening, unzipping and unbuttoning, I find the strength to crack a smile. I close my eyes, let Cyphy take the lead, while my body reacts to her touch. I savor every moment as she brings me to heaven to save me from hell.

Maybe, this night I won’t end up walking the red sand, after all.

But, even if I do, I’ll have something to look forward to, once I get back to this world.