C.S.

Jones

First Draft: 2/15 12/31/2013
Additional Edits: 1/4/14









PREFACE

Laurie Connellys dream journal covers just one week.
Thats because she wasnt trying to document all her dreams, just to record the story told
over a specific set. And what it lacks in longevity, it makes up for in detail. Each entry
describes a complete sensory experience that seems to last hours, if not days.
But read alone, its impossible to make sense of. To understand it, some context is needed.


PART I

Laurie never cared for reality. She dealt with it, but that was all.
The maze of tract houses, big box stores, and chain restaurants she lived in had long since lost
her interest, and the endless news of wars and terrorism from the outside world had gotten
old just as fast. Likewise, she couldnt have cared less about all the fashion trends, boy bands,
and singing contests that seemed to define culture in those days.
She was never one to examine her own life either, and when she did, she tried not to talk about
it. She didnt even find it interesting herself, so why would anyone else? It baffled her how
long most people could go on about their daily minutiae, their pets, or their petty arguments
with whoever.
And she wasnt interested in whatever divine abstraction might be up there. Like a lot of her
generation, she believed there wasnt one, anyway.
Her interest lay in other worlds.
To her, fiction writing was the smartest thing humanity ever got into. She was awed by how it
could build worlds from words, fill them with people just as real as any shed ever met, let
anyone step into them, and sometimes make the experience more beautiful and moving than
anything shed seen in her eighteen years in meatspace.
Dreams had always fascinated her for much the same reasons, but until that week, hers were
nothing worth writing down. On the rare occasions she remembered them, they were always
nonsense. If there was any meaning to pull from them, it was so well-hidden that not even in
her most pretentious moments could she claim to be able to find it.
...Except for that one from last year where she was staring at a blinding orange mushroom
cloud erupting into the sky, and in the last few seconds before she was burnt to a sticky black
lump, she wept tears of joy.
That one was obvious, and she was disappointed her subconscious wasnt more creative.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

A few things happened that week to change that.
She and her dad had spent the last month cleaning up in preparation for a move. They didnt
know when it would beno one even seemed interested in their housebut they wanted to
get it done early, just in case.
The basement was the hardest part: it had taken two weeks of work to bring it up to the level
of pigsty. Even worse, the pump had recently gone out, so every time it rained too much, like
it had that week, theyd come home to find it ankle-deep in brown water. Her dad would have
to rent a shop vacuum to suck it up and dump it outside, then theyd have to go through the
whole room, tearing open waterlogged cardboard boxes and throwing their contents into
garbage bags.
Whenever facing the task, shed try to come up with an important homework assignment due
the next morning. It was painfully boring, the basement smelled like mildew and misery, and
she resented being punished for her parents hoarding.
She couldnt believe some of the crap theyd collected: over those two weeks, shed come
across a collection of mid-nineties computer parts, five pairs of her moms old Gloria
Vanderbilt jeans, two decades of warped holiday and baby shower cards, several
tumbleweeds of tangled Christmas lights, fifteen rusted paint cans, and most of Journeys
discography on cassettenone of it hers, and none of it interesting in the least.
But that evening, sorting through a pile of fallen boxes, she came across a little plastic
container, not much bigger than a shoebox. On opening it, she excused herself, hurried
upstairs to her room, and emptied it onto the bed.
Inside were:
One Ziploc baggie of mechanical pencils, most without leads.
One broken costume necklace with a large fake ruby in the center.
Four sketchbooks, labeled Characters, Places, Others, and Yume.
Two spiral-bound notebooks full of hastily-written stories, not a single one finished.
They dated back to a simpler time, when she dotted her is with circles and had yet to learn
what a Mary Sue was.
The stories were readable enough to pull her away from the internet for the night, and she
spent an hour or so flipping through them, but as she went on, her nostalgia quickly turned to
embarrassment. Her writing was so childish and clichd.
...And then there were the drawings. Of course, she didnt expect masterpieces from her
preteen self, but shed have a hard time forgiving her for this.
The two-dimensional buildings.
The shaky-at-best grasp of anatomy.
The endless chibis.
The stock expressions stolen from shoujo manga.
The shovel-faces.
The enormous heads.
The sparkles.
So many sparkles.
She was a better person now, and all of this was best put back in the basement, hopefully to be
destroyed in the next flood. But, for some reason, she decided to hold onto them instead. And
later that night, after finishing her homework, she even idly re-drew a few of her old sketches,
just to prove to herself how far shed come as an artist since then.
Then she put the new drawings in with the old ones and stuck the container in her bedroom
closet. She had no idea why, but something told her she might want to see them again
sometime.


THURSDAY AFTERNOON

It turned out to be sooner than expected. The next day, she had the strangest dream of her
life. Three things made it so:
The first was that, unlike her fuzzy normal ones, it was as clear as if it had actually happened,
and she remembered it down to the details of the furniture.
The second was that it seemed like the beginning of a fascinating story. But, as is often the case
with dreams, she didnt get to finish it. She was almost at the most interesting part when
someone punched her in the arm, hard, and she woke up.
She was on the bus home, and it had come to her stop. She looked around, suppressing the
urge to kill, but everyone around her was snickering equally, so she couldnt tell who did it.
She ignored them, trudged to the front, and got off. The bus had stopped in a puddle, so her
feet landed right in it and her cheap canvas shoes soaked through like paper.
It was just one of those days.
Forgetting to wave goodbye to Ben, the only other person who got off at her stop, she turned
and headed home. It was a long, boring walk down a long, boring street lined with
prefabricated houses and decorated with dead cars on dying lawns.
She came to 5927 and turned down the dirt driveway. It was a small brick house, old and
dingy, with a weathered For Sale sign in the front yard. The same place shed lived all her
life.
The weather was brutally dreary. A steady rain fell from a low, overcast sky and the dull light
filtering through the clouds tinged everything gray, like someone desaturated reality. Shed
forgotten her umbrella that morning, so by this point, she was thoroughly soaked.
She sniffledshe wasnt sick yet, but she could feel it coming and forced her key into the
rusted lock. The house was silent: her dad had mentioned hed be closing the store today.
That meant he might have to work until as late as eleven, so shed have the evening to herself.
She went straight to her room and locked the door out of habit. Like the rest of the house, her
room was small, cluttered, and filled with cheap, mismatched furniture, but shed made it all
distinctly hers.
She covered the ugly metal desk in the corner with a mess of pencils, markers, and
half-finished drawings, for that arty look.
She filled the peeling faux-wood bookshelf with alphabetized rows of novels, manga, and
DVDs.
Anime posters, arranged and straightened with reverent care, lined the walls.
Her parakeet greeted her with a flurry of chirps as she entered.
It was the only place she felt like she belonged.
Her homework load was light that day, so she decided to look something up before getting to
work on it. Dropping her backpack next to the chair, she sat down at the desk, cleared a space
for her bulky, six year-old laptop, and pulled up Google.
Each search brought up millions of pages on dreams. Meanings, documenting them, common
symbolism... Browsing through them, she took the most interest in the ones about lucid
dreaming. At first, shed just wanted to know why the one shed had was so vivid, but now she
was thinking itd be nice to have more like it. To see where the story would go.
There were hundreds of guides to induction techniques, most too involved for her to take
seriously. Memorizing a 61-point relaxation technique? Making a scented pillow from scratch?
She wasnt going that far.
But there was one called Keeping a Dream Journal. That was doable.
Step One
Find a notebook or journal specifically to record your dreams in. Keep it within arm's reach of the
bed.
Fair enough. She had an empty one in her desk drawer.
She glanced back to the article.
Dreams fade quickly on awakening, so you need to write them down as soon as you wake.
Well, it was too late for that, but she could at least work from memory and piece the rest
together.
Note down the date of your dream. Then write down everything you can remember. Write
everything in the present tense. This helps with remembering dreams by putting you in the moment.
Pushing aside her low-end Wacom, she cleared another space on the desk, set the notebook
down, and opened it to the first page. She didnt know exactly why she was doing this, but at
least shed found something in her life worth documenting.
She adjusted her glasses, by the bridge, with two fingers, stared pensively down at the page
for a minute, and began to write:

3/10/2010

I open my eyes.
Dust gets in them.
My whole face is covered in dust.
I brush it off and sit up. My body creaks like I havent moved in years.
Im in a huge four-poster bed with velvet curtains, in a dark room filled with antique furniture.
I creakily heave myself out of it and look around.
Theres a Persian rug on the floor and a chandelier on the rug, with a hole in the ceiling where
it should be.
One walls taken up by a giant picture window, also with velvet curtains, and another across
from the bed is just one big floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.
The bed is pushed up against the third wall, and the fourth has a fireplace with a sword stand
on the mantle. Theres a giant painting of a young girl hung over it, but I dont recognize her.
Theres a huge wooden wardrobe in the corner, with a big mirror on top of it. It dawns on me
that I have no idea who I am, either. So I look in the mirror.
Im not me.
On one hand, I look better in some ways. Im thin: perfectly toned, actually, and my nose is
much smaller. Its barely there. Im not sure how Im breathing.
Am I? I make a note to figure that out later.
My skin is flawless except for a light dusting of freckles across my face. My eyes are the size of
tennis balls, which will take some getting used to, but besides that, theyre nice. And now I
recognize the girl in the painting, too.
But on the other, Im a mess. My hairs a rats nest and feels like straw to the touch. Im
barefoot.
Im wearing a white dress, a burgundy velvet cape with ermine lining, and a tiara. Normally,
this outfit would look majestic, but its badly worn out and seems to have been made for
someone half my height. My dress, which would touch the floor on someone it actually fit,
ends at my knees and is coming apart at the seams, the cape is fraying, and the tiara looks like it
could give me tetanus.
Carefully stepping around the broken chandelier, I cross the room to the bookshelves.
Theyre filled with the kind of books you always see in lawyers offices on TV: rows of big,
matching hardbacks that look like old encyclopedia sets. But none of them have titles, and
when I try opening some, theyre all blank.
I take a look at the sword on the mantle next, then pull it off and remove it from its sheath. Its
long and narrow, with a complicated hilt. Its spotted with rust and feels kind of brittle, but
its still better than nothing. I dont know whats outside this room, so I bring it with me.
Then, in hopes of figuring out where I am, I turn my attention to the huge window across from
the bed. I try to draw back the curtains, but when I pull on them, the rod pops out of the wall
and they fall to the floor.
Good enough.
I look out.
Im at the top of a very tall building, overlooking a ruined city that stretches to the horizon. It
looks like those black and white photos of Europe after World War II, just buildings collapsed
and gutted as far as the eye can see.
Big parts of it are just debris, jagged bits of metal sticking out from piles of stone and bricks.
On top of that, everythings actually black and white. Theres no color in sight.
I can tell nothings alive down there. Not just because I dont see anything moving, but... I dont
know how to describe it... Theres a profound sense of emptiness, and of some kind of dread I
cant describe, so thick it hangs in the air.
Something just feels wrong about this place.
The skys a deep charcoal, the color of an approaching storm, but the clouds dont move. In
fact, it doesnt even look cloudy. Its so even in color, its like it was painted on. Everythings
dead silent. There isnt even wind.
The windows hinges are rusted, but with a hard shove, I can open it enough to lean out
cautiously, just a bit, and look at the building Im in.
Its a castle: a very big and complex one. It looks like it was made of white marble, but decays
left it the same dull gray as everything else, just a lighter shade.
Thankfully, this building has held up much better than everything else, but from what I can
see, its still in a pretty bad state. My windows the only one with glass in it.
Straight ahead of me about a mile away, dominating my field of view, theres a giant crumbling
statue in the city square. It looks like it was put there so this specific window would have the
best view of it.
I recognize its face too, and Im starting to think whoever built this place mustve had a really
weird fixation with me. This version of me, I mean.
I decide to go outside and look around a bit. I open the rooms only door and find it leads to a
long spiral staircase. The climb down takes forever, and I spend it wondering what kind of
moron put my room at the top of a tower in a land with no elevators.
At the bottom is a set of heavy wooden double doors, about twenty feet tall, in a frame shaped
like a gothic arch, with wrought iron decorations and a crest of a bird set into them.
They obediently creak open as I approach them, then shut themselves behind me. Its a little
weird, but Im not complaining.
The door leads to a long, winding hallway, that leads to another set of doors just like the last,
that lead into a giant hall that looks more like something out of a cathedral than a castle: its far
longer than wide, with a lofty ceiling.
Times trashed the place. Stained glass crunches underfoot, and there are holes in the roof big
enough to see the sky through, and cracks are scattered across the floor, some wide enough to
peer into them. The furnishings, once so luxurious, are all rotting and caked in grime.
Dull, gray light streams in from a series of broken windows set high into the walls. The few
that arent busted out have stained glass depictions of me doing a variety of heroic-looking
things: making some kind of important speech with my hand raised in the air and light coming
from around my head. Dramatically pointing a sword at something outside the frame. Riding a
flying creature of some sort. I dont know whats important enough about me to warrant all
this art of me.
Next to the door, a staircase leads up to a huge raised platform in the middle of the room, on
which sits a huge marble throne covered in intricate carvings.
I climb the stairs and take a close look at a set of words inscribed into the throne. Its
something along the lines of:
LOREM IPSVM, NONSENSIUM NONESUCH. DEUS EX MACHINA AD INFINITVM. HOC SPACIVS
LEFTVS BLANKVM, ET CETERA.
I wish Id learned some Latin.
I explore the rest of the room. In total, it has six sets of doors. The one at the back of the
room, obviously, lead back to where just came from. I think the one at the front leads outside.
Three more open onto a maze of hallways I have no interest in exploring.
The last one is immense: about twice the size of all the others. Its locked.
As I continue around the room, something gives me the chills. I dont know why, its just this
weird feeling I get. And despite the sense of desolation I mentioned earlier, something tells
me I might not actually be alone... Its like theres some kind of silent presence lurking around,
always just out of my range of sight. Something watching me, but refusing to give itself form. I
look around, and consider calling out.
In the corner of my eye, a shadow darts across the other end of the hall. Its only for a fraction
of a second, but I swear I see it.
I whirl around and whip out my sword.
Who goes there?! I yell.
But theres no answer... Still no sign of any kind of life at all. After a minute of pointing it at
nothing, I start to feel kind of stupid and sheathe it again. It must just be paranoia, I tell
myself.
And from behind me, I hear something creaking. When I turn around, one of the front doors is
just slightly open. It wasnt before.
And then I start to hear something that sounds like a human voice. I cant make out what its
saying, but someones definitely whispering to me. Actually... Its not so much a whisper as a
gentle breath, like someone beginning to speak a word, but not quite doing it.
I clutch the sword and start to run toward the door...
Then some dick punches me, and I wake up.
Couldnt he have just shaken me or something? Dick.

She finished up, then looked back to the article.
Step Three
Identify dream themes. Think about the location, characters, sensations, sounds, objects and
emotions of the dream. Underline key themes that may help with interpreting dreams.
On waking up, the meaning of the dream was apparentshe wouldnt have been moved to
write it down if it wasntbut vague.
But now, the meaning of its details was beginning to emerge, and she could tie each one to
something shed found in the sketchbooks, giving much more clarity to what she was so
indulgently describing.
And that was the third thing strange about the dream.
She could trace every part of it to...

JUNE 2003

...About halfway through her annual two months of doing nothing.
She didnt remember her childhood that wellmost of it was just a blur of boring things with
no dates tied to thembut that summer stood out.
She was a pudgy eleven year-old who burst into freckles when exposed to sunlight and wore
thick plastic glasses of the kind that wouldve been seen as cool a few years later, were she
wearing them ironically. But she wasnt, so they werent.
But with no one to criticize her appearance, she didnt care. She had a Gamecube, a DVD player,
a new sketchbook, and several packs of mechanical pencils, and she was happy. Even at the
rate she lost pencils, those would be enough to keep her occupied without having to deal with
other people.
That was also around the time she started getting into anime. Shed seen a few of the basics
before: Pokemon, Sailor Moon, a few from Toonami, and those crap ones the local Fox channel
showed on Saturday mornings, but with her newfound free time, she started looking for more
online.
She didnt expect the whole new world she found, bursting with color and optimism. She was
too young to recognize its clichs, so it all seemed new, dazzling, and so much more alive than
any other medium she knew. And often very weird, too, but in a good way.
It was the beginning of an addiction, but one that was hard to feed. In those days, her choices
were limited to whatever the local video store could cram onto one dusty shelf towards the
back. Not that she could afford it, at thirty dollars for one DVD of three episodes from a series
of hundreds.
Once, her parents let her use their credit card to order a few bootleg DVDs off a
questionably-legal website. She had to take on some new chores for that, but it was worth it.
Her haul was three Ghibli movies burned onto one disc, seven badly-subtitled episodes of
.hack//SIGN, and ten more of Cardcaptor Sakura, the original version with the first seven
episodes intact. But they were watched and re-watched ad nauseam that summer, leaving her
wanting more.
The closest she could get to a steady fix was from the early issues of Shonen Jump. Getting
three hundred pages of manga for five dollars was the highlight of her month. But even those
were usually read in a day. She tried fanfic, but without the visual element, it wasnt very
satisfying. Her parents were starting to complain about how much time she was spending on
their computer by that point, anyway.
So shed have to make her entertainment herself. About halfway through the summer, she
started drawingat first, just fanart. She hadnt gotten the hang of realistic poses yet... Or
hands, feet, clothing, body proportions, making characters look three-dimensional, vanishing
point perspective, how humans emote, how to draw mouths from the side, how hair falls, how
joints bend, or making facial features line up. ...But with no one around to criticize it, she didnt
care.
But two weeks into her new mania, her dad brought her an English-Japanese dictionary. He
only picked it up because it was on sale, and gave it to her with a mumbled apology for his
cluelessness about what she wouldve actually wanted. But it wasnt necessary; she was
delighted, and went on to spend hours poring over the lists of words that all seemed so
strange and exotic.
Thats where it began.
Most kids have alter-egos, and she was no exception. She came up with hers that summer,
starting with the name. Being eleven and somewhat literal-minded, she went straight to
dream.

Yume

Short, easy to remember, and even kind of feminine. Good enough.
Then, being eleven, she decided her alter-ego should be a princess, and looked up princess.
Hime
She liked the half-rhyme they formed when put together, and was satisfied. Looking back, she
was ashamed of what a silly word choice it was. But at the time, with no one to criticize it, she
didnt care.
Next, she looked in the bathroom mirror and mentally subtracted a third of her weight,
doubled her hairs length and buffed it to a brassy shine, replaced her nose with a single line,
took off her glasses, and gave herself a pair of big, shiny eyes. The result bore little
resemblance to her real self, but that was just how she wanted it.
After settling on her alter-egos appearance, her personality came naturally; it was just as
idealized, with all the traits she lacked in real life: Grace, refinement, confidence...
Yume always knew what she wanted, how to get it, what to say at all the right times, and where
to put her hands. She never sweated, fidgeted, or hyperventilated in social situations.
Continuing to work outward, Laurie developed a detailed world for her to live in, starting
with a castle. Picture the kind of castle an eleven year-old, working mainly from Googled
Disney World photos and half-remembered storybook illustrations, would dream up. Now,
imagine its ten times bigger than whatever you pictured. Once she started building it in her
mind, unconstrained by a budget or the laws of physics, she just didnt stop. None of it had
measurements, but it was at least seven or eight hundred feet at its highest point, with
hundreds of rooms and towers, topped by a forest of golden spires. It dominated the
landscape.
And it was just as ostentatious on the inside: labyrinthine hallways of polished marble ran
between cathedral-like halls and ballrooms, most with no discernible purpose. Most of the
details were imported from the memories of a PBS documentary on the Vatican shed watched
late one night when there was nothing else on.
In the middle of the great hall at the front of the building was Yumes throne, a giant marble
construction with velvet cushions, built into the floor. It was engraved with all kinds of
elaborate floral patterns and Latin sayings. She didnt know any Latin, but no other language
seemed formal enough.
Her bedroom sat directly at the top of the biggest, tallest tower, accessible only by a spiral
staircase. Looking back on it, it wasnt the smartest design.
Around the castle, an extremely quaint city sprawled to the horizon. Despite her obsession
with Japanone that would deflate a bit on her discovery of how they saw gaijin and
otakuher fantasy world wasnt based on the real country: it was based on their RPGs and the
medieval fantasy that inspired them, with liberal amounts of Miyazakis Europe thrown in.
Shed spent a lot of time looking up places like Prague and Florence after watching Kikis
Delivery Service, and was mesmerized by their fairy tale looks. So her fantasy-land was
painfully picturesque, with fountains, statues, and clock towers everywhere.
Her world was permanently stuck in... The medieval age? The renaissance? The Victorian era?
Something like that. Everything from 1000 to 1900 kind of seemed the same, anyway.
Whatever time it was, all the trappings of the modern world were forbidden. Cars, guns, even
phones and computers: she didnt want any of it.
Also banned were people. Preferring the company of things more fantastic, she populated her
kingdom with mythical creatures; talking cats and dogs, rabbits, foxes, animated dolls, small
dragons, and anatomically-fixed tanuki roamed the streets. As she learned more about
fantasy, she got more creative, adding things like chimera and jackalopes.
Her subjects were always friendly, said only things she wouldve approved of, and regularly
held massive parades in her honor. Her approval rating held steady at one hundred percent.
A colossal white marble statue of her stood in the city square, almost as tall as the castle. In
its right hand, it thrust a sword to the sky. Its open left hand swept backwards towards the
castle, as if presenting proof of its majesty to anyone viewing it from the front. It wore a long,
flowing gown, frozen in mid-billow. It was based on a similar one somewhere in Europe she
saw a picture of once.
Outside her kingdoms lone city was a vast and pristine naturescape, but one without bears,
snakes, bees, mosquitoes, or anything like that. There were some parts of nature she could
live without. There were plenty of cherry trees, though, which meant plenty of cherry
blossoms.
It didnt make sense, but that was just how she liked it. Keeping the rules fluid ensured
everything was always just how she wanted it, and she could just rearrange it whenever she
got bored. And she purposely avoided inventing a backstory; she didnt want to be bothered
explaining anything, even to herself.
Yume had no origin or past, she just came to exist somehow. And she didnt have parents,
because Laurie dreamed of a world where no one could order her around. Technically, that
made her a queen, but the title sounded too stuffy, so shed still be a princess.
No one would ever have to teach Yume anything, Shed never attend a class in her life, but
shed know everything there was to know, have masterful etiquette, and speak in the prim,
contraction-free sentences of fantasy novels.
No one was paying for anything, but Yume had everything. She surrounded herself with
fantastic opulence and dressed in the finest of royal frippery. Giant frilly gowns, ermine
capes, tiaras, the whole bit.
There werent villains or conflict, either. In those first few months of its existence, Lauries
world was just a happy place where her avatar could live a quiet life, albeit one of absolute
rule over thousands of peons. Having to save it would just be a pain.

JULY 2003

Catherine Connelly was a petite woman, aged before her time by stress and a pack-a-day habit,
but according to the high school photos on the mantle, formerly possessed of a starlets looks.
But despite her unintimidating appearance, shed never been a touchy-feely person. And
years of suppressing her true nature had only made it worse: she worked at a call center, so
being nice was her job, and she refused to take her job home.
One Saturday morning in early July, her husband woke up before the alarm, but forgot to
switch it off. It woke her at seven. It was a good thing hed already left the room; if hed been
within arms reach, she wouldve smothered him with a pillow. She usually worked evenings,
and to her, this was an ungodly hour.
So, on getting up and going into the living room, she was shocked to find her daughter sitting
on the floor, less than a foot from the TV, watching the same cartoon shed already seen at least
fifteen times. The sun hadnt even fully risen yet. Why was she up this early? And why would
she get up just to watch that again? That couldnt be healthy.
So she snuck up behind her, grabbed the remote out of her hands, and hit the power button.
Go outside.
But... Laurie began.
Youve been on it all morning.
But... Laurie tried to begin, again.
Look, how many times have we had this talk?
Laurie steeled herself. But dad said I could stay in cause its gonna be hot today!
Her mom grabbed her by the ear and pulled her to her feet. She hated back-talk. Do I give a
shit?
But... But I wanted to...
Wanted to what?
I dont know... She sighed, giving up.
If you dont know, we dont have anything to talk about. This is between you and me, anyway:
you know how much your father knows about whats good for you. She spat the words your
father like cherry pits.
So just go, and if he asks, tell him its cause you want to.
That wasnt really out of concern for her health, Laurie thought. Mom just wanted the room to
herself so she could smoke and watch some cable news special with a name like Avenging
Freedom.
She detoured through the kitchen. Her dad was in there, making a pot of coffee before work.
Maybe she could convince him to overturn moms decision.
Jim Connelly was in his early forties, six-one, and built like a potbellied stove. He was
red-faced, as people from that area tended to be that time of year, and clean-shaven, as hed
been for as long as Laurie could remember.
Height difference aside, he and his daughter resembled each other a lot. They had the same
dishwater brown hair, and though hers was longer, they both wore it roughly the same way:
parted on one side, with a section swept over the forehead and tucked behind an ear. It wasnt
a conscious choice on either of their parts, though. It was a why bother hairstyle.
Their personalities were different, though. Where shed always been shy, he was outgoing and
good with peoplean expert at small talk and projecting an air of down-home geniality.
They never saw eye-to-eye on politics, either: he went on to put a W sticker on the family car
the following year, and didnt get why shed always stood somewhere to his left. But it wasnt
an issue for either of them. He was a good dad: reliable, worked hard to provide, and really
cared, in that understated but genuine way.
Where are you going? Hed asked.
Outside.
Why?
He knew why. He just wanted to see what shed say.
She looked at her feet and mumbled, Because I want to, I guess.
He sighed. Cathy threw you out, didnt she?
She nodded. He sighed again. Just do it this time. He said, adding under his breath: I dont
want this to be another goddamn ordeal.
So she did. She went to her room, gathered a few pencils and a sketchbook, and shuffled out
the back door. She could tell it was going to be a hot and boring day, but at least she could go
to the park and draw there. Just because her she had to obey the letter of her moms law
didnt mean she had to obey it in spirit.
At the end of the street at the end of her street, there was a pitiful little park: just a pavilion, a
modest playground, and a stone plaque that comprised the sole legacy of some late civil
servant.
She sat under the pavilion and drew for an hour before getting bored, after which she
wandered around until she noticed something shed never seen before:
Behind the park, there was a patch of forest, left there by the developers to hide the power
lines that ran through it, and a small lake that was fenced off to keep idiots from drowning.
Next to the lake, there was a small dirt path that led into the forest.
The path ended in a field of tall grass where the trees had been cleared out to make room for
the series of massive pylons. The clearing went on for what seemed like miles, much further
than she cared to explore. Shed eventually find out it led to another development like hers,
but its destination didnt matter. She just liked its atmosphere. The forest surrounded it on
all sides, thick enough to block the view of the houses outside it, so if she didnt look up, it felt
like she was journeying into some vast, ancient lost wood.
Another tiny path branched off from a separate part of the clearing and led around to another
side of the lake. The area by the shore was completely obscured by forest, so no one would
even be able to see her from the park.
That became her secret place.
She went there regularly over the next month. Whenever her mother would throw her out or
shed just get sick of her parents arguing, shed fill a backpack with the few manga she owned,
a sketchbook or two, and a handful of pencils, and spend an hour or two staring out at the lake,
thinking up some new addition to Yumes world.
Although, as she soon found out, it wasnt that secret. No one bothered her there, but it was
obvious that she wasnt the only one who knew about it. The clearing sat right between two
neighborhoods, so people would sometimes use it as a shortcut. Every now and then, shed
hear rustling and voices from within the forest. Once, a couple of twenty-somethings passed
through, chatting idly to each other. She hid behind a bush until they were gone.
And more often than people, she ran across the things they left behind. They were usually
normal things: snack wrappers, cigarette butts, soda bottles, and beer cans. But sometimes,
they were more interesting.
One day, she found a wooden rake handle. She had no idea why anyone would leave it out
there, but it didnt matter. What mattered was that it was just long enough that she could
pretend it was a sword.
Though there were still no threats, immediate or planned, to her little utopia, she wanted her
alter-ego to know how to fight. It was just such a classic image, the refined lady who could
still handle a sword with the best of them.
Yume would need a rapier.
Laurie didnt have any specific affinity for rapiers, but no other type of sword seemed elegant
enough. Longswords and claymores were too mannish. Short swords were for peasant boys.
Katanas were always cool, but they wouldnt fit the setting. And she didnt know any others at
that age.
Of course, anything besides a sword wasnt acceptable. Archery was for backup characters,
spears were for nameless henchmen, and what kind of princess would use a crossbow?
Yume would know fencing. No one would have to teach it to her, she would just know it. It
seemed to be just a bunch of parrying, anyway. You could probably get it down in a day.
So, after checking every inch of the clearing several times to make sure she was alone, Laurie
picked it up, got a feel for its size and weight, and swung it. She attacked a few invisible
targets, then practiced some awkward stances and strikes before tripping over her own feet,
which brought her back to reality enough that she couldnt help but laugh at herself.
Another day, she found a piece of costume jewelry, half-buried in the dirt: a tinny necklace
with a big fake ruby in the center of its charm. She could tell it was worthless, but its shine
was strangely appealing. She took it home, washed the dirt from between the links of the
chain, and stole a dab of her moms jewelry polish when she wasnt looking. She couldve just
asked, but then she wouldve had to explain where shed found the necklace, which she didnt
feel like going into. Then she hid it in a drawer by her bed.
She couldnt even wear it, anyway. The clasp had snapped almost in half, which might have
been why it was left there in the first place. And she wouldnt even have wanted to. It was far
too gaudy.
But Yume could. She used the necklace as a drawing reference, and incorporated the result
into her mythos. This would be her amulet. The Amulet of... Well, she wasnt sure what to
name it yet, so she put off the task until she could think of something fantastical enough.
She wasnt even sure exactly what an amulet was, but she knew this was one. It would have
magical powers, but she had no idea what they would be. She always told herself shed figure
it out later.
Most of the time, her parents had no idea what she was up to. Theyd occasionally catch a
glimpse of her drawing something, but shed hide it if they got too near. But it was normal for
that age, they figured. They were willing to let her have her secrets.
So she spent the next few months in a happy daze, unburdened by the outside world.

AUGUST 2003

But soon enough, the summer had to end. Shed be moving on to sixth grade and a new school.
The night before she had to put on the itchy white polo and khakis, she huddled under the
covers, rocking herself back and forth and clutching a Kirara doll.
There was a knock at the door, which she didnt answer. It creaked open anyway.
Her mom came in and turned on the light. She was greeted by a lump on the bed, covered
entirely under a large blanket. She sighed. Yes, they kept the air conditioner a little high, but
it was still August, so it wasnt exactly cold. Laurie would never admit it, but she did this
when she was nervous about something.
Is anyone in there?
There was a nodding motion towards the top of the lump.
What did I do? Came a timid voice from inside it.
Nothing. I just want to talk. In fact, Im sorry Ive been so, uh... Abrasive.
Laurie pulled the blanket down to her nose. Really?
Yeah. I keep wanting you to act like an adult, but youre not. And I dont want to ruin your
mood.
What mood?
Youve seemed different lately. She said. Happier. Its nice to see. It reminds me of how I
was when I was your age.
...But look at me now. She mumbled, breaking eye contact and looking off into the distance for
a second. There was a pause before she looked back. Anyway, are you excited about
tomorrow?
Laurie shook her head. I dont know.
Are you nervous?
She nodded.
A little scared, even?
She nodded again.
Dont worry about it. Thats what growing up feels like.
Really?
Yeah. Get used to it. She sat down on the bed. Its weird. When youre a kid, you want to
grow up. When youre grown, you want to be a kid again. Grasss always greener on the other
side. But in a way, its not really that different. You just get put through more.
What do you mean?
Thats the big secret about adults: we have to cook and clean and go to work, but most of us
are just tired kids. We dont know what were doing any more than you do. Its all just an act.
So we put on this big show, but you know, its because were all kind of afraid. Weve made a
lot of mistakes and were afraid of making more. Were afraid of letting our families down and
not being able to pay the bills. Weve been hurt, and were afraid to let ourselves feel.
Thats why were so... Cold, sometimes.
Laurie didnt know where she was going, and wasnt sure this monologue was even meant for
her.
Her mother looked so worried. Am I making any sense?
I guess. Laurie said, only lying a little bit.
Well, theres no point in me talking your ear off about it. Youll see for yourself soon enough.
For now, just enjoy this part while it lasts.
She didnt know what to say, so she just nodded. She hoped that wasnt supposed to comfort
her.
Good night. Said her mom, leaning in and kissing her on the forehead. She winced and
squirmed a little, but still smiled.
With that, her mom flicked off the light switch and closed the door. With that, the last light
disappeared from the room.
She pulled the covers back over her head, but never quite felt warm again.

THURSDAY NIGHT

Physically, Laurie hadnt changed much since then.
She was still freckled, and her baby fat didnt go away with age. Quite the opposite, actually.
She was about five foot four now, so according to a chart she found online, shed be roughly her
ideal weight if she sawed herself in half.
Besides her longer hair and the obvious signs of her growth, the only noticeable difference
was her glasses. Two years ago, shed traded the coke bottles for a pair of thin rectangular
wire-frames, thinking theyd make her feel less like a stereotype. They didnt.
But mentally, she was a different person entirely. All the dreamy idealism had left her. The
past several years had alienated her from most everyone she knew, and begun to sour her on
normal society in general. Adding insult to injury, shed spent the majority of her free time in
books and on the internet, coming across all kinds of depressing and horrific things, her faith in
humanity steadily draining. If only her younger self had known how brutal the world was.
Shed never have been so nave. So she turned to the age-old coping mechanisms of apathy and
cynicism. She thought her old self was stupid to have ever found so much joy in life.
The passion for escapism, especially anime, was all shed retained, but it had gotten even
deeper and more committed. Shed become an otaku. It was a label she accepted with a
mixture of pride and self-loathing, especially since she knew the terms original meaning. And
had to admit that it, too, applied to her.
And no matter how much she analyzed her favorite shows for their artistic merits, she knew
some part of her was just trying to lose herself in cuter worlds to avoid thinking too much
about this one. So she kept quiet about all of it. That often didnt leave her with much to talk
about at all, but that was better than embarrassing herself.
But of course, she never thought about Yume anymore. Overall, that was a part of her life
from which shed moved on without a second thought.
Even now, she suspected the dream was just the last kick of a dying animal, and that now that it
was written down, she should just forget about it and get on with her life. What was the point
of wasting her time puzzling over it, anyway? It was just a dream. Even if there was a story in
it, it didnt matter; she wouldnt be able to see it through to conclusion.
But she still couldnt resist trying. It was in her nature: when she got interested in a subject,
she had to learn as much about it as possible. After finishing her homework, she spent another
hour reading up on lucid dreaming.
Rereading Keeping a Dream Journal, she took notice of another passage.
Find a lucid anchor.
Just before you go to sleep, choose an object that you can see clearly from your bed. When you look
at it, think: I will remember my dreams.
Simple enough. No harm in trying. And there was something perfectly suited to the purpose,
something that also tied her to her childhood and her old fantasies, sleeping in a cage next to
her.
When she was twelve, her parents had brought her a parakeet. A dog or a cat was out of the
questionthey made sure it was something that could be contained to her room and her
responsibilityand goldfish were too fragile.
Being at the height of her weeb years, she named him Tomodachi. He wasnt what shed
wanted, but she loved him anyway, and he was even included in her fantasy world. In her
dreams, he became a magnificent creature: something like a Chocobo crossed with a phoenix;
fifteen feet tall, with the wingspan of a small plane. She kept him in a giant glass aviary in the
castle gardens.
She gave him the ability to talk, and hed listen to her worries and give advice. He never led
her astray: he was an animal familiar, and they were always right, somehow. Occasionally, shed
let him out, jump on his back, and let him fly her across the kingdom. It didnt matter where
they were going.
In real life, he spent most of his time flapping from one end of the cage to the other, biting the
bars, and twittering occasionally, a noise shed tuned out years ago.
But she still talked to him. Shed bid him good morning and good night, and occasionally
confess to him some deep secret or hidden anxiety in a low whisper, just for the satisfaction of
having told it to someone. And to her surprise, it did help. Often, just putting her fears into
words could help her work through them. He never learned to say anything back, but it was
fine.
Almost six years had passed since then. She didnt talk to him anymore, and even entertaining
the idea of it these days was embarrassing, and though she still took dutiful care of him, the
novelty had long since worn off. She never changed his name and saw no need to, but she never
called him by it either. And although she still loved him in a silent way, she saw him as a living
memento of her pastof all the times she wanted to distance herself from.
But tonight, for the first time in years, some of her old fascination with him was starting to
return. It felt good. Even if nothing else came of all this navel-gazing, it was giving her a
renewed interest in her own life.
As always, she fed him and changed his water before getting into bed, but this time, instead of
turning out all the lights and rolling over as usual, she left her desk lamp on and watched him
until she fell asleep.
And though it felt a little silly, as she drifted off, she repeated to herself: I will remember my
dreams. I will remember my dreams. I will remember my dreams.



3/11/2010

Im in a dead garden, surrounded by rotting topiaries, wilted flowers, and fallen trees.
Making my way through it, I come across a lot of dry fountains and broken statues. Time has
eroded most of their faces off, but all of them seem to be of me.
At the center of the garden, theres this building that looks like the Crystal Palace: a huge
structure of metal and glass, most of it rusted or broken.
It has a strange air of familiarity about it, and something tells me to go inside. So I open the
door and go in.
It looks like it used to be a giant greenhouse of some kind. Its full of trees, all bare now, but
still very big and impressive, and smaller plants, which appear to have been... Eaten.
I make my way to the back of the structure, where I find something I never expected: a sign of
life.
Its Tomodachi.
Hes even bigger than I imagined him.
Hes asleep, head tucked under a wing, but hes definitely moving.
I approach him noiselessly, but he still opens his eyes as I get close.
I run to him, and he wraps his wings around me. We hug for a while.
Welcome back, he says, without moving his beak. Youve grown.
I always imagined that he (his fantasy counterpart, I mean) could talk, but I never knew how
hed sound. His voice is deep, like the voice of God in a movie, and it sounds incredibly wise.
Its the kind of voice you instantly trust.
I have? I respond.
I clearly remember my own voice, too. It only vaguely resembles my real one. Its slightly
higher in pitch and much more melodious, which is nice, but on the other hand, my speech is
kind of stilted and artificial, like Im reading it from a script and over-enunciating every word.
Basically, I sound like a bad voice actress.
He nods. Do you remember anything?
Hmm... Not at first, but it is starting to come back now. I remember who I am, and I have a
vague sense of where I am. But beyond that, my memories are conspicuously absent. In
addition, although I can tell that I have slumbered for an exceedingly long time, it seems to
have been no longer than an ordinary night.
I dont know why my speech is so flowery. I just open my mouth and whatever I was thinking
comes out that way.
He nods. Also, I dont believe you know whats going on here. But thats to be expected, given
the circumstances.
Where is everyone? I ask, thinking of all the things Id dreamed up to keep myself company.
We abandoned them. They died.
I feel so alone and confused. But looking back on it now, it makes some sense. Tomodachis the
counterpart of a real bird I see every day, and Yume is, of course, an avatar for myself. So the
two of us, unforgotten, were the only survivors of... Whatever happened.
Whatever happened, anyway? I ask him.
One day, you simply went to sleep and failed to wake up, he says.
And for how long was I comatose?
In your time, five years. In ours... Decades, centuries... Its impossible to tell.
Looking back on it, I wonder how he knew how much time had passed in the outside world, but
like everything weird about these dreams, I dont notice it at the time.
And what catastrophe befell my kingdom during my slumber?
Nothing so dramatic. The world simply ceased to function as its population slowly died off.
Theres a long and dismal silence.
So... What happens now? I ask.
What do you mean?
Am I to spend the remainder of my life trapped in a wasteland?
Actually, no. This worlds going to end pretty soon.
Fair enough. Thats a rel...
It takes a minute to hit me.
Wait... What?! I mean... Are you saying... Soon, relative to cosmic time, or soon meaning...
Sometime this week.
Five different emotions flare up inside me, but they all cancel each other out, and it all goes
quiet, like something in my head just exploded.
Oh, I finally respond, after about ten seconds.
Another long silence.
He smiles. Although you may be able to save it.
All right... I... Um... How? I stammer, still struggling to process what Im hearing.
Your eloquence fits your position, he says. I suppose you could say it involves a quest. Of
sorts.
My head's still spinning from that part about the world ending. I... I see. So... Uh... Where do
we start?
Not we. Just you.
I can take you a few places, and I can give you advice. But I cant fight your battles for you, and
I certainly cant go with you into that dark world. In this, you are alone.
What dark world?
The one behind the wall.
I do not believe this city has a wall. I say flatly, growing frustrated.
Dreams and Nightmares are twin worlds, he says, separated by an invisible wall.
With a sweep of a wing, he gestures toward the world outside his cage.
Look what weve made, he says. A grand cocoon, built on sand. Have you ever wondered
what lies beneath it? Or behind it? Or in fact, what surrounds it on all sides? You will soon
see, because the wall is breaking down. As we speak, the holes grow.
You speak no sense, I pout. But he keeps going.
Through them, demons will emerge from the world below. You will fight three: one in the
places you know, one in a mirror, and one in a fog. When these beasts have been driven back,
you will be rewarded with an artifact that will grant you power beyond your wildest dreams.
Finally, the door to The Center will open, and there, you will come face to face with The One
Behind All.
At that point, you will decide your own fate.
OK, that part I do get. Fight three monsters, get three keys, find some legendary weapon or
something like that, then fight the final boss.
I sigh a long, theatrical sigh. We couldve saved a lot of breath if hed just gotten to that first.
But he says something that throws me for a loop. But make sure you truly want to do this.
Who wouldnt want to save the world?
What are you on about? I ask indignantly.
Have you ever stopped to consider that this may not be as straightforward as you think?
What if you...
Die? I spit back.
Well... He trails off.
No. Stop. Just stop right there. There is no chance of that, and I am offended by the mere
mention of the word. How could you even suggest such a thing?
If I may be completely frank, you may not be as up to this task as you believe. Youve been
asleep for... An extremely long time. And you seem to have acquired a curious case of amnesia.
Furthermore, your previous life here was one of leisure-certainly nothing that would prepare
you for combat.
I can feel the blood rushing to my face.
I never gave you my permission to be completely frank. I do not know who you think you are,
but it matters not, for you are merely my mount, and I do not see you serving even that
purpose very well at the moment. And I repeat, there is not even the slightest possibility that
I will die here.
How do you know?
Do you not know who I am?
Tomodachi seems to smile again. Well, your assumptions basically correct. You wont die
here. In fact, during your quest, no permanent harm will come to you at all. This will merely
be... I suppose you could call it a journey of self-discovery.
But then, his tone noticeably sobers. However, that doesnt mean youre safe. Should you fail,
your immortality within this world will simply mean those creatures of the dark will be able
to torture you infinitely. And trust me: though they cant kill you, theyd love nothing more
than to make you wish they could.
Enough! I shout. Just tell me where to find them!
Dont ask me, ask yourself. Only your intuition can guide you.
Im beginning to give up on the hopes of ever getting a straight answer out of him, but I keep
going. And what do I have to fight them with? I ask.
He gestures toward the sword at my hip. That.
What about magic?
Honestly, even I dont know. This worlds magic is chaotic. He said. At no point has a set of
rules been defined for it.
Whoever created it, (he emphasizes that part, then pauses) mustve just kept giving up
because it was too complicated, then going back to dreaming of tea ceremonies.
Hmph, I hmph.
So, are you starting to understand why this might be a bit harder than youd anticipated?
Nonsense. I am still more than prepared to handle anything this world, or any other one,
cares to throw at me.
But then, I pause for a second as the question finally occurs to me: How do you know all of
this, anyway?
He smiles. I know much more than you would imagine.
And with that, I wake up.



FRIDAY MORNING

Sunlight peeked in through the blinds, casting orange stripes across the room.
Laurie woke from a sleep that did nothing to refresh her, shut off her cell phones chirping
alarm, and fumbled around the nightstand for her glasses.
On finding them, she began her daily routine. First, she stared into the middle distance for a
minute, reflecting on all her past failures and the pointless existence into which shed awoken.
The morning stare was her favorite stare of the day.
Next, she got up, stretched, showered, brushed her teeth, and tried to force a comb through
her hair. Shed let it grow to chest level with almost no maintenance, so trying was the best
she could do.
She then returned to her room to get dressed. Her closet was filled with baggy jeans, T-shirts
a size too big, and tent-like hoodies, most in muted colors. The only splashes of brighter ones
came from the occasional game or band logo, usually ironed-on. She dressed to draw
attention away from herself.
She ended up going with a shapeless pair of black jeans, a plain white shirt, and a muted blue
hoodie shed decorated with three emoticon buttons over the left chest.

O_O, DX, and T_T, they read.
Finally, she took the notebook with her and headed out to the kitchen. For breakfast, she stuck
two frozen waffles in the toaster and poured herself a bowl of stale cereal with
almost-expired milk.
Her dad joined her after several minutes, and scrambled a few eggs for them to share. He was
different than beforequieter, less emotional. Theyd both changed in many of the same ways.
They ate in silence. She spooned cereal into her mouth with one hand and scrawled into the
notebook with the other. He avoided commenting until she spilled a spoonful on her pants.
Whatre you working on? he asked as she mopped at it with a wad of paper towels. There
was the same gentle friendliness to his tone as always, but for the last year, itd seemed kind
of forced.
Homework. She answered.
Shed resolved to keep the diary a secret. If anyone were to read that shed spent last night
arguing with a giant budgie about how an immortal princess could save the world, theyd start
asking all kinds of annoying questions about her sanity.
Five minutes passed before her dad turned around to look at the microwave. The clock read
0:00. There must have been a power outage the previous night.
What time is it? He asked.
She checked her cell phone. 7:48.
So youre going to miss your bus, arent you? He sighed. And youll need a ride.
She didnt answer, but he remarked to no one in particular, I wonder what your mom
wouldve said about that.
He was still talking about what mom wouldve done. She tried not to think about it, but she
knew exactly what mom wouldve done:
Mom wouldve spent the morning lecturing her with obvious disappointment in her voice.
Mom wouldve asked a lot of questions.
Why didnt she have a social life? Why were her grades just average when she was so much
smarter than that? Why was she wasting her life on cartoons, computer games, and drawing
pictures that werent that good anyway? If she was going to be so antisocial and stuck in her
own head, she should at least be studying something practical, like math or the piano. Never
mind that they couldnt afford tutoring or a piano, it was the principle of the thing. And why
did she let her diet go? She was doing so well.
If Laurie tried to object to anything, mom would cut her off and inform her that she didnt care
about her opinion. Plus, if she was tired of this, maybe she should think about what shed done
to deserve it.
So shed just nod and give some kind of halfhearted monosyllabic answer at the end of each
sentence, her brain screaming the whole time.
Mom wouldve pointed out that all the other parents had kids they could brag about.
Mom wouldve used the word pathetic a few times.
Mom wouldve quietly said, I dont know how much longer I can take this.
Dad wouldve pretended not to know what she meant.
And so on.
Laurie started to snap back, You couldve... but shut herself up before she could make it to
...Reminded me. She didnt want to go there.
Im doing the best I can. He mumbled, mostly to himself.
I know. She said, and meant it. It might not have been good enough for mom, but it was good
enough for her.

TEN MINUTES LATER

The rain started again at just before eight, and Ben went out into it shortly afterwards.
The bus came a little early that day, and hed missed it, so he had to walk. The school was two
miles away, but dad would kill him if he found out hed skipped. Dad always found out,
somehow.
Benjamin Fischer was eighteen, tall, lanky, and very black. He was named after his grandfather,
a dutiful and hardworking man, but all through his teens, hed endure taunts about his name
being too white.
His family moved down from upstate New York when he was ten and his dad, a military man by
career, transferred bases. It took some getting used to, especially the taunts. Things were
different down south.
But overall, theyd built nice lives for themselves, especially Ben. He was popularone of the
elite few kids whod managed to land a girlfriend by fourteen, and to have them consistently
since thenand hed always done pretty well in sports. He joined the track team in eighth
grade and found a comfortable niche in it that lasted him most of his teenage years.
And his home life was downright picturesque. It was cheaper here, so his parents didnt have
to work too much, and the family spent a lot of time together. It wasnt where he wanted to
move, but overall, he liked it.
He didnt care for the rain, though.
He pulled up his jacket, which kept it out of his face for a couple of minutes before getting
saturated and dumping the excess into his eyes. He tilted his head down, pretended not to
care, and trudged on.
As he neared the end of the block, a car pulled up next to him. The window rolled down just a
bit, and a big white guy poked his nose over the top. Need a ride?
Ben almost never saw most of his neighbors, so it took him a second to recognize him as one of
them.
Uh... Sure. He responded.
He apologized for getting their seats wet and got in the back.
Laurie from the bus stop sat silently in the passengers seat, staring out the window.
He looked up at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Oh, hey. Morning.
She looked up at his and nodded once, almost too subtly for him to catch.
How you been? He asked, hoping to get at least a vocal response.
But she just sighed and shrugged.
You win this time. He thought.
Shed always been that way. Ever since...

AUGUST 2003

...When theyd met. It was his first day of middle school.
He considered himself a perfectly average kid at that time in his life. He got decent grades and
didnt give his parents any trouble. He fantasized about fightingfollowed wrestling
religiously, saw Bruce Lee as a god, and had a few burned Wu-Tang CDs hidden in his
closetbut never indulged in it in real life.
He walked out to the bus stop to find a girl hed never seen before sitting on the ground,
playing a Game Boy.
He waved at her. She nervously waved back. He walked up to her, and they said a few quiet
words of hello.
You a sixth-grader? Hed asked.
She nodded.
Me too.
There was a long, awkward silence. Ben tried to make a little more conversation - he asked her
where she was from and what she liked to do - but all he could get were one-word answers.
He thought she was weird, she thought he was too nosy.
Neither of them liked each other very much.
Most of the bus-stop conversations theyd go on to have over the next few months were
similar, and they rarely saw each other at school. Every now and then, theyd pass each other
in the hallways, and greet each other with an unenthusiastic wave or an understated nod.
But her aloofness didnt bother him. He had plenty of other things to worry about, and his own
circle to run in.
Around that period, Ben started hanging out with a strange group of kids after school. The
group that wanted to be cool, but wasnt. In those days, before Ben got to know anyone else, it
was just him and three others.
First was Jerrell. He was really into football, and kind of hard-edged. Ben hadnt seen him
since moving on to high school, and didnt remember much about him besides that.
Next was a kid everyone had nicknamed B.T., unusually tall and unusually fat for his age.
Would do anything for attention, and was occasionally funny. Kind of a clown at times, but
overall, all right. Thats why they kept him around.
And then there was Eric.
Ben never liked him much. A lot of people did, but he didnt.
Eric Duvall was short and skinny, with wide eyes. He wasnt a jock, or a bad boy. Compared
to everyone else in the group, he was strangely cute. He was small, with a voice slightly high
for his age, and a face that looked about nine instead of twelve.
He was insecure about that, and covered it up with a relentless machismo that was almost
funny, coming from someone who looked and sounded like him.
He lived in one of the trailer parks outside town, but he never told anyone, and no one wanted
to hang out with him outside of school, so no one knew.
If anyone had asked him, he wouldve insisted that he wasnt that bad of a guy. He had some
anger problems, but he was overall a decent person. No one asked him, though. If he was
pissy with you, its just because you caught him on the wrong day. Everyone was waiting for
the right day. It didnt seem like it would ever come.
Hed tried to get into sports, but he wasnt any good at them. He could fight, but that was
about it. He wore his hair gelled and spiked up in what he thought was the universal style of
tough guys back in those days.
He was the only white kid in the group. He seemed to believe the black kids radiated some
kind of ambient coolness he could soak up by hanging around them. They didnt throw him out,
because he was bearable on most days, but once, Ben had confessed to Jerell that he secretly
thought he was just an insecure idiot who tried too hard, and Jerell agreed. It turned out a lot
of people did.
In hindsight, Ben found that whole part of his life lacking in sympathetic characters.

FRIDAY MORNING - THREE MINUTES LATER

Ben, also, was not that different from his old self. But his life had changed around him. Hed
given up on hanging out with the losers after sixth grade and joined a more popular circle.
He didnt let it go to his head, though. Everyone who knew him said he was a pretty good guy.
Any problems hed had with his neighbor were left in the past, but it was still hard to talk to
her. They had nothing in common. They grew up on the same street and went to the same
school, but they might as well have lived in different dimensions.
And, like always, she still didnt seem interested in conversation. Shed taken out a
spiral-bound notebook, with great urgency, as if shed just remembered she had important
business with it, started scribbling in it, and did that in silence for the rest of the ride.
No one talked.
Ben, glancing around the car, considered trying to start a conversation, but he had no idea
what to talk about. He considered last nights football game, but he didnt think either of them
would want to hear it.
Lauries dad scanned the dial, trying to find something to listen to. To his daughters dismay,
he settled on a country station, but at least he knew Ben probably wouldnt like it, and turned
it down to a tolerable level.
Meanwhile, said daughter stopped writing for a minute to look out the window at the
landscape of boarded-up stores and deteriorating prefab houses blurring by. Every street
they passed looked just like the last. Occasionally, a gas station or a small church would pop
up, but that was as exciting as it got.
Maybe, in order to understand her compulsion to dream her way out of her world, it helps to
know more about it.
Her world was about six square miles in area, a space it shared with a small, run-down town
just outside a small, run-down city. It sat just north of, or maybe in, the Deep Souths nebulous
border, so it was lousy with country music stations and confederate flags. It had been years
since shed left it.
Both the town and the city were built around a large military base, so much of the local
culture revolved around machismo. There were a lot of veterans raising future veterans.
Hunting camo was high fashion around there, and gun collections were a popular discussion
topic.
Besides the normal suburban assortment of big box stores, gas stations, and fast food joints,
almost everything was built with the soldiers in mind. Lots of strip clubs, dive bars, and
tattoo parlors.
And it seemed that whatever wasnt for them just existed to take advantage of the poverty the
city was mired in. Tons of churches, fast food joints, Chinese take-out shacks, liquor stores,
check cashing places, used car lots, sweepstakes cafs, gun-and-pawns. A few museums, but
almost all war-themed.
There wasnt much for someone her age to do there but go bowling. She hated bowling. She
felt she looked stupid enough without day-glo shoes.
Nothing amazing happens here. Everything is ordinary.
She glanced back to the clock on the dashboard. She had to get back to the journal. There
wasnt much time left. If she let herself get absorbed by her classes without writing more of it
down, shed forget some of the details.
But she wasnt able to. She scribbled a few notes for herself in the margins, then got out and
resolved to finish it later.
Five minutes later, they pulled up in front of their school, a squat brick rectangle. She tucked
the notebook in her backpack, waved goodbye to Ben, and got out of the car. Then she
disappeared into the packed halls, made her way to homeroom, and began another average
day.
High school wasnt that bad. Her current life was nothing like it was supposed to be, according
to TV, but that was probably a good thing.
Most of the stock characters and situations werent present. The popular girls didnt
torment her with catty insults. In order for them to do that, they would have to notice her.
There were bad boys, but she mainly knew about them from overheard stories. Some were
rumored to be gang members, and she was afraid to even look at them too long. Plus, in order
for them to talk to her, they would have to notice her. Shed heard vague rumors of parties,
but she never attended any. For anyone to invite her, they would have to notice her.
And no one did. But she was fine with that. Watching all those dramas unfold with other
actors, she decided she didnt need a role. She avoided clubs, musical programs,
extracurricular activities, anything that would keep her at school longer than necessary. She
knew that whatever interest her life was to offer, it wouldnt be found there.
It was a lonely life, but at least it was peaceful. That was good. Shed already had enough
surprises for one adolescence. With a routine established, she was able focus on her studies.
That was going well: she wasnt valedictorian material, but her grades were good enough.
So she told herself she was fine that way, and things were better than ever. She had to tell
herself that a lot.
As the bell rang, she arrived at her first class, took her seat, and began her routine.
Within her weekly and daily routines, each class had its own miniature one.
First up was homeroom. Sit in the corner and dont look at anyone, recite the pledge, write in
dream journal.
Next up was AP English IV with Mrs. Curle. Read from late 19
th
century novel, pretend to
listen to everyone else read from book much more slowly.
Second period, World History Honors with Mr. Dean. Read from textbook, copy onto paper,
worry about upcoming project. Although she had to admit she was enjoying this class much
more than she thought she would. It was giving her a grudging respect for the real world, or
at least, the world of the past.
Third period was by far the most memorable of the day. It was Chemistry with Mr. Barker,
who usually managed to make it interesting, and that day, he didnt disappoint.
The period began with a dramatic introduction to the topic of particle reactions. Hed turned
the lights off and moved a small metal table to the front of the room, atop which sat a Bunsen
burner, a spoon, and a funnel with a long plastic tube over the narrow end.
After all the students were seated in the darkened room, he lit the burner, casting a flickering
orange light across the room.
Today, were going to learn about dust explosions. He announced.
A Certain Magical Index. Laurie immediately thought. Episode Thirteen. She couldnt help
it.
Mr. Barker held the funnel up so the whole class could see it. This is a regular funnel.
He bent down, reached under the counter, and came back up with a ten-pound bag of flour. He
set it on the table and opened it. And as you can see, this is an ordinary bag of flour.
Looks like it was wheat flour inside.
He pulled on a pair of goggles and stepped back. Those of you in the front, stand up and move
back a little. This experiment can be hazardous, and I recommend you dont try it at home.
Hair can catch fire, hands can be badly burnt.
This might be a rather dangerous circumstance, eh?
He scooped a spoonful of flour into the wide end of the funnel, held it close to the flame, then
paused to explain what he was about to do. When air pressure is applied to fine powders, it
becomes airborne dust. The particles spread out, exposing their entire surface area to the
oxygen.
Because theres powdery stuff floating in the air...
When combined with a source of ignition, each particle will ignite almost simultaneously.
And if it caught fire, I bet the speed at which oxygen burns would be crazy fast.
And when that happens, I think the result needs no explanation.
Youve heard of dust explosions at least, right?
Now, Im going to hold the funnel close to the flame, and when I blow into the hose... Watch
what happens.
Muahahahaha!
As Laurie bit her lip to keep from smiling, he raised the hose to his mouth, the flour hit the
flame, and a miniature fireball shot a foot into the air. The whole class gasped and jumped
back.
Grinning, he shut off the burner and turned on the lights. Now, open your books to section
10-13...
Fourth period was Visual Arts III with Ms. Matias. That was the other class where she broke
out of her routine. It was relaxing, and she was good at the assignments, so she usually
finished ahead of time. Third and fourth periods were always the best part of the day.
But the crash from that high always came with the next periods lunch break. Kristyn Gilliss
table was next to the lunch line, so they always had to see each other. They didnt speak, and
Kristyn whispered something in her boyfriends ear as Laurie passed, knowing she could see
her. Just like every day.
And just like every day, she ignored her, snuck through the cafeteria exit that was left
unguarded by the monitors, made her way to the media center, and ate alone.

AUGUST 2006

Four years ago, shed sat at that table. It was the third day of her freshman year, and shed yet
to meet anyone she liked enough to sit with them.
So after picking up her free meal of a slice of cardboard pizza, a handful of rubbery tater tots,
and a box of milk, she wandered aimlessly through the cafeteria for a while before picking
what was clearly the uncool kids table.
Three of the people at it had glasses, everyones clothing was mostly black, and band T-shirts
appeared to be something of a uniform among them. Laurie, with her Dir-En-Grey hoodie,
guessed this was where shed have the best chance of fitting in.
It was a circular table, but one girlblonde ponytail, smattering of acne, Linkin Park
shirtwas obviously at the head of it. Laurie was the last to take her seat, by which time the
girl was already ranting about what some former friend had done to her in a voice like a
dentists drill. Everyone else was leaning in close, paying rapt attention.
Laurie listened and tried to extract sense from it. The girl was very angry at... Something.
Something something Myspace, something something fucking annoying was all she could
understand. She was talking very fast, and most of the intelligible words were some variation
of fuck.
Laurie didnt bother saying anything. She wouldnt have been able to get a word in. Besides,
she wanted to see if she could catch any of this.
...So I dont even know how to fucking answer that shit, and...
The fuck are you staring at?
Several heads turned to face Laurie, and she could feel every flaw on her body being
magnified. She tried to answer, but realized mid-sentence that all that was coming out were
various combinations of I, uh, and nothing.
What? Said the girl.
Laurie came up with several comebacks at once, but they all got lost in transit to her mouth, so
all that came out was a mumbled half-word best transcribed as weh.
A stick-thin boy in a Disturbed shirt looked at her, then to the blonde girl, then back at her,
wearing that unique combination of smirk and raised eyebrows that says, can you believe this
idiot?
Hey. He said.
Yeah?
You retarded or something?
She wished she couldve come up with something wittier than just no.
This whole exchange was already starting to stroke The Fear.
She couldnt think of a more specific word for it, but a simple the was good enough to
separate it from her normal fears like rats and syringes.
It wasnt just the usual nervousness she felt in social situations. It was the creeping suspicion
that everyone was always judging her; it was the certainty that if she got close to anyone,
theyd abandon her; and it was the knowledge that everyone hated her, and if they didnt yet,
they would soon enough.
That seemed to be the case here. Better, she figured, to just leave before the inevitable
sequence of events had a chance to play out.
But when she got up to move to another table, the girl stopped her. Hey, look... She began.
Were just fuckin with you. You can stay.
There was a minute of awkward silence before she added: ...And by the way, Im Kristyn.
The rest of the lunch was spent in relative peace.
And much to her surprise, Kristyn shouted after Laurie from across the parking lot as she was
heading towards her bus after school. She came up to her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
Laurie recoiled slightly at the physical contact.
You seemed kinda pissed. Were you?
No. Laurie responded, a half-truth.
Will you be back tomorrow?
I dunno. She mumbled.
You are pissed, arent you? Kristyn spat, more of an accusation than a question.
Laurie wasnt particularly angry, but shed still decided she didnt like that group very much,
and wanted to be left alone again. So she just shrugged. Hopefully, she could frustrate this
girl into going away It worked with everyone else.
Kristyn hesitated, obviously a little taken aback by her disinterest. You didnt take that too
seriously, did you? I mean, we were just making fun of you because youre new. And honestly,
youre weird. And like, even more honestly, youre awkward as fuck.
Laurie brushed it off. If you think that, why are you talking to me?
And she felt a little bit better. She might have lost when she was up against the whole group,
but she could hold her own against this girl without them.
You seem nice enough. Look... You can come back
Why? You look like youve got enough friends.
But theyre just a bunch of assholes. Honestly, I dont even know why I hang out with em.
Kristyns tone was entirely different now. Much softer.
Wait... Arent they your friends? Dont you like them?
I hate everyone. She responded, but hesitated before adding:
But I dont know... I feel like I can trust you. In fact, maybe we can hang out sometime.
Uh... OK. Laurie replied, cracking a smile, but only out of the remnants of the instinct to show
her teeth to a predator.
So they exchanged phone numbers, and Laurie went home, feeling proud of herself, but also
nervous. She tried to suppress the latter, to convince herself that she was just being
unreasonable, but she couldnt.
Something about that girl made her very uncomfortable. She looked like she was constantly
sizing up the world and judging it, finding nothing up to her standards.
But even more than that, there was just something off about her. Just... Off. There was no
other way to describe it.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

The Fear never went away. It faded into the background, but it was always still there.
There were anxiety attacks at times. The pain was literal and burning, like her heart was
trying to tear itself out of her chest, and her breath came out in jagged little rasps.
There was a miniature one as she passed Kristyn. Just a pang, and a few breaths skipped, when
the memories came to her. Just like every day.
But she suppressed it, like always, and the rest of the day proceeded uneventfully. She went
from class to class, listened, took notes, and read from textbooks. In the hallways between
classes, she got lost in picking up snatches of conversations and wondering what their context
was.
I dont think Josh loves me anymore.
So I said, dont even try to talk that shit in my house.
I dont care, as long as he doesnt win.
Yeah, I shouldve done that, but Ill do what I want.
Oh my God, Stephanie, did you hear that? Oh my God...
...So I told the bitch to take it off.
Everyone was so loud. It made her head ache.
In apropos of nothing, a voice behind her asked, whats going on?
I dont know, she mouthed to herself without knowing why. When she turned around, she
found out it came from a girl on her cell phone.
Normally, she wouldve gone on to PreCalculus with Ms. Phipps, but as it was a Friday towards
the beginning of the spring season, seventh period was cancelled for a pep rally. The entire
student body crowded into the gym to sit through an hour of nonsense about what all the
sports teams were doing. It was better than having more homework added to her load,
though. She spent the hour listening to The Pillows on her cheap Mp3 player and finishing the
entry in her dream journal.
About halfway through the hour, a wadded up piece of paper bounced off the back of her head.
The boy sitting next to her looked over his shoulder and hissed,You missed, fag! She turned
around to find another one trying to suppress a giggle fit. Sorry. He snickered.
For a moment, it took her back.

OCTOBER 2003

There was a boy in math class who threw paper balls at her.
It didnt hurt, but it was unbelievably annoying. Especially since she could always hear him
rip a sheet out of his notebook and crumple it up, so she knew it was coming well beforehand.
Thered be a pause of unpredictable lengthanywhere from a few seconds to several
minutes until the teacher turned away. Then it would smack into the side of her head.
She couldnt dodge it. Not only was it coming from her blind spot, but she was confined to a
desk that was bolted to her chair, so there was no room.
In the few times she did try, it made it even worse: the limited space she had to move out of
the way made her ashamed of how much of the desk-chair gap she was occupying, and her
inevitable inability to dodge it made her feel slow. It was like the boy, the universe, and her
own body were conspiring against her.
It soon became a defining fixture of her day. Fifth period was the period where she got hit in
the face with things.
She didnt know why he chose her alone as a target, or what enjoyment he got out of watching
her wince and turn to glare at him over and over again, but judging by that dumb look on his
face, he must have found it very satisfying.
Sometimes shed tell the teacher, and hed lecture the boy or send him out of class for a little
while, but he was always back, doing it again the next day. And she eventually caught wind
that her telling was making her even less popular, so even that recourse was given up soon
enough.
Even worse, the kids around her started to laugh with him. Just a little at first, and it
eventually faded after a few weeks. But after about a month, the length of the gag became the
gag, and it apparently circled back around to funny again. By that point, every time she
reacted, it would trigger a chorus of giggles that slowly spread around the room.
Then the teacher would turn around and shout something, which made everyone giggle even
harder, and as a bonus, drew their attention to the fact that shed been getting hit with a paper
ball every ten minutes for the past month and that the entire class found it hilarious.
Days turned into weeks turned into months, and it slowly grew maddening. Even worse, he
started to throw them harder and harder, and eventually to lick each one, so each impact
stung and made her feel slightly unclean.
Three months into the Chinese Paper Ball Torture, her mind finally began to unravel.
Every time another spit-soaked ball ricocheted off her cheek, she had to consciously stop
herself from reverting to a feral state. His snickering, sneering face haunted her dreams. She
learned his name - Eric Duvall - and where his locker was. Eventually, she got up the nerve to
find him there after class and confront him.
Whats wrong with you? She almost yelled at him.
He rolled his eyes. I dont know what you mean.
Yeah you do.
Maybe. He said. But it doesnt matter. What are you gonna do about it anyway?
I I dont know. Just stop.
Oh, dont be a little bitch. Just get over it.
Then stop.
He slammed his locker. Make me.
She wasnt expecting that.
You could tell Mr. Davies again, but we know how good that works, right?
She had to admit he made a very good point. She could go to a higher authority, but hed tell
everyone, and no one in that class would ever look at her again. This had become
unexpectedly complex. She opened her mouth to issue some kind of threat, but the silence
that followed betrayed that she had nothing.
Eric smiled. You got nothin, right?
She looked away from him and down towards the floor.
He laughed. Ill give you a free chance to get back at me, then. Hit me.
She almost jumped at the chance. Shed been fantasizing about getting the chance to do it for
weeks now. She clenched her fist and raised it
But she stopped. She suspected this was a set-up. If she hit first, hed be able to hit her back
and get away with it. And she could tell hed hit back harder. He didnt seem like the
chivalrous type.
What are you waiting for? He said, loud enough to draw some attention. And sure enough,
she turned around a second later to notice theyd attracted a small but enthusiastic audience,
waiting with bated breath to see what shed do.
More doubts flooded her mind. What if she messed it up and didnt throw it very hard and it
just kind of bounced off him and he laughed? Or even worse, what if she missed? It would just
be better to not do it. At least she could still keep some kind of dignity that way.
So she backed down. There was a chorus of awws from the onlookers.
This kid was clearly a master of psychological power games. Hed won, she thought, the
bombardment would continue the next day, and there was nothing else she could do about it.
But it didnt. The following days class passed without incident. Although that did nothing to
ease her suspicions: the opposite, in fact. Every five minutes, at roughly the interval she
would have been hit in the face, she would turn around and look over at him, just to see what
he was doing.
Whenever he saw her, which he usually did, hed simply smile until she turned back around.
She knew he was planning something else..
And she was right. He was naturally curious, and in a way he couldnt put into words, he
wanted to see what shed do. What would happen if he drove this girl - who he could tell with
one look had never really gotten truly angry, or even stood up for herself - to the point where
shed...
Would she just break? Or would she snap?
The next day after school, she left her backpack sitting on the ground at the bus ramp while
she went to the water fountain. Shed only be gone for a minute or so, and it was too heavy for
it to be worth the bother of taking it with her.
But hed been waiting for his own bus nearby, and watching. The second she turned her back,
he snatched it and ran off with it.
He took it to the grassy area behind the school, where he unzipped it, dumped the textbooks
on the ground, and ransacked it for anything interesting, pocketing all the pencils and pens
inside. Then he threw the empty bag over the fence, where it landed in a drainage puddle. She
always brought a sketchbook with her so she could draw at lunchon finding it, he tore the
spine off and tossed its contents to the wind.
Coming back from her drink, all she found was a pile of books and binders on the ground, and
her drawings scattered across the pavement, crumpled and covered in footprints.
That was a decent start. He expected better from himself, though.
In class, he remained quiet, but he developed a gamut of other ways to torment her outside of
it. He shouted insults from a distance whenever he saw her pass, and pressed his nose up and
snorted when she tried to talk back to him.
Ben, Jerell, and B.T. were usually hanging around somewhere nearby. Sometimes they
laughed, sometimes they ignored it, sometimes they just watched. But they never did
anything.
She always just avoided looking at him and showing emotion. That just pissed him off. Getting
a rise out of people was entertaining. When they refused to give him one, he felt like hed been
cheated in some way. But he loved a challenge.
She dutifully ignored him for another month. But finally, once again, it got to be too much. So
he cornered her in a hallway after school.

Whats wrong with you, anyway?
What?
You dont react when I talk to you. You deaf or just stupid?
Leave me alone. She dourly told the floor.
He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. Look at me when I talk to you.
Dont touch me. She spat.
What you gonna do?
Ill, uh... Ill tell an AP, she said, more weakly than shed expected.
Aight. Go on. I aint stopping you.
...But wait up.
You ever heard of an HK USC?
Laurie paused. A what?
He leaned in close. She pushed him away, but he swatted her arms off. She tried to back away,
but there was a concrete wall behind her. Cornering her, he leaned in close, then dropped his
voice to just above a whisper, so no one else would hear.
Its a pretty cool semi-auto gun. Civilian model of onea the ones SWAT teams use.
So... Lets use our imaginations, right? Lets say some imaginary dumb bitch went and
squealed on some kid whose dad owned one. Lets say he got expelled and he knew he
wouldnt be able to do nothin with his life, so he wouldnt have nothin to lose, right?
So... If he went crazy enough, he could get some hollowtips and bring it in the next day and
shoot her right in her fat ass and blow her spine out and turn her guts to goo. It carries ten
rounds, so he who pissed him off, too...
And I aint threatenin no one, just sayin, thats the kind of thing someone real fucked-up could
do. And itd be sad if anyone went and caused that, especially if they got warned about it first.
She remained silent, but her eyes widened. She nodded.
So, for the sake of everyone involved, the best thing she could do would be to shut up, right?
Why dont you just leave me alone?
Cause youre fun to fuck with, thats all. You take everything so seriously. Some genuine
affection crept into his tone. He was enjoying this relationship. And he was amused by the idea
of her trying to explain this to anyone else. She was probably the type who went around
snitching on everyone, he figured. Would anyone even believe her?
Unable to think of anything else to say, she slunk off, feeling utterly defeated.
And Eric turned back to his friends, whod stopped on their way to the bus ramp to see if they
could catch what was going on. He was snickering to himself, but it didnt seem to be a
sentiment they shared. It was thirty seconds before anyone spoke.
Damn, man, said B.T., looking a bit unnerved. What did you say?
Nothin really. Just scared her a bit.

NOVEMBER 2006

Look, I hate this place, and youve told me you do too. Kristyn sighed. Everyone knows its a
shithole.
Laurie just listened. Most of her social interaction consisted of just listening.
But Im not complaining, Im just saying... What else is there, anyway? I remember you telling
me about that stuff that Eric kid did to you back in middle school and it was awful, but thats
just how the world works.
Hmm. Laurie responded.
Like, we have all our different religions and politics and shit, but everyones the same deep
down. They used to tell us that in elementary school like it was a good thing, but its really
not. When you get down to it, it just means people are retarded everywhere, and the whole
worlds just fulla fuckin sheep.
She waited for a reaction. Eventually, she got tired of waiting and went on.
And thats just how they want it. They want everyone to be the same and they want everyone
to be dumb and shallow and obsessed with Hollywood and Hollister and shit, so we wont care
about anything but buying their shit, so we wont notice them stealing all our money and
fucking up the world.
There was an awkward silence, which Kristyn distracted herself from by pulling out her Mp3
player and messing around with the settings.
Is that a new one? Laurie asked.
Kristyn lit up.
Yeah. Its a Creative Zen Vision M. She gushed. I just brought it last week, and its so much
better than my old iPod. Its a little thicker, but it doesnt scratch as easily. Plus, its got sixty
gigs. Thats fifteen thousand songs. It also has like, fourteen hours of battery life. It can hold
over a hundred hours of video, but I dont usually use it for that cause the screens only two
and a half inches across. But I heard you can still connect it to a TV, so I guess Ill use it that
way more often. You can set your own wallpaper and customize the equalizer. It can play
audiobook files too, but I dont listen to those. I mean, its not perfect - the touchpad interface
is kinda weird, and it comes with a bunch of features no one needs, like a built in FM radio.
Oh. Laurie responded.
They were sitting in the living room on an overstuffed couch, under a landscape painting of the
kind sold under tents on street corners.
Most of their conversations were like that. Whenever Laurie had tried to bring up a topic of
conversation that interested her, it was met with a dull expression of annoyance or a prompt
subject change back to something more Kristyn-focused. So shed stopped trying.
Kristyn lived on the other side of the forest and the power lines, in a slightly nicer
development than Lauries. It wasnt that different - no yard cars, somewhat newer houses -
but those details meant property went for more over there, and the people who lived in it
considered it the good part of the neighborhood.
Laurie visited at least once a week, but always left feeling very strange. Their house was too
clean, for one. Every room was spotless, every dish was washed the instant it was used, and
her mom could often be seen scrubbing things.
And Kristyns mom was quite weird herself. She wore makeup at all times, often so much that
she looked like a mannequin from afar, and had, in place of a personality, the kind of vacuity
often brought on by taking more antidepressants than the bottle recommends. Shed never
talk to Laurie except to occasionally acknowledge her existence.
Her dad was never around, and seemed to be a forbidden subject in conversations. It turned
out no one knew where he was, actually.
To make up for whatever anguish this may have caused Kristyn, her mother brought her
whatever she wanted. Anytime she acted out, her mom refused to do anything about it,
apparently because her daughter was lost and confused and probably very upset about
her fathers disappearance even if she didnt show it, and she didnt want to ruin her
childhood any more.
Once, Laurie came over right after theyd obviously had a fight, and Kristyn was in an unusually
bad mood. Or was she? It was hard to tell.
But either way, when Laurie asked what was wrong, she just sighed, nothing, then turned to
her mother, washing dishes several feet away, and yelled, moms just being a stupid bitch.
She sometimes called her mother by her first name, too, and she was never punished for any of
it. It seemed nicer than the overbearing scrutiny Lauries own mother subjected her to, but
something also felt very wrong about it, so she couldnt say she was jealous.
And for some reason, Kristyn hated her mom. But that was normal. Kristyn hated everything.
She hated preps, which Laurie could kind of relate to. No one except other preps particularly
liked them, with their put-on valley girl accents, their obsessive tanning, and their fifty-dollar
shirts.
But shed always keep going on after that. Once she started talking about that subject, it was
hard to get her to stop. She hated the ghetto kids. She hated Christians, especially the ones
who talked about it in public. She hated sluts and whores. Yes, she had her share of
exploits herself, but she always insisted that she wasnt one of them, because those were all
with actual boyfriends, except for that one time with David in the bathroom. She said she
hated jocks, but could often be seen staring at them. She hated subtlety, too.
From there, shed usually start going on about how she didnt believe in anything; how society,
authority, and religion were all just a bunch of bullshit; and how no one understood her.
Eventually, Laurie got tired of Kristyns fighting with her mom, which would usually start her
ranting about all her favorite hates, so she just showed her how to find the clearing.
From then on, they usually hung out there. Theyd arrive in the early evening, and stay out
until maybe eight or nine. It became a strange type of ritual, carried out under the cover of
darkness: just the two of them and, later some illicit goods.
On the third night, Kristyn had asked Laurie to bring her some of her mothers cigarettes, and
she did. Her mom kept so many packs lying around the house that shed never miss one. In
exchange, Kristyn stole a bottle of unflavored vodka from her moms liquor cabinet, for the
same reason, and offered her half. Laurie tried one swig, but it tasted like something youd
use for pest control, so she declined any more. Kristyn sipped from it over the course of the
night, wincing with every taste, but still managing to get some of it down. Shed been
practicing.
Laurie listened while Kristyn told her about her current boyfriend. She went through at least
six over the course of high school. This one was the one that started with an R: Roger or
Robert or something like that.
Im leaving. Im breaking up with that asshole. She slurred, towards the end of a long rant.
I mean, hes got a big dick and hes a good enough fuck, but why did it take me so long to
realize hes got all the personality of a fuckin cardboard cutout? I mean, he likes fuckin Three
Doors Down and Nickelback and shit.
I dont know. Laurie responded.
And all I get is shit from him.
What kind of shit?
Its a long story. Like, I cant even describe what he does, but its fucking annoying.
Dont you think you should talk to him about it?
No. You cant fix people. They dont listen. Better to just find someone without problems in
the first place, right?

Why? Dont you care about him?
I dunno. Its... She hesitated, and her voice saddened. Its kinda hard for me to care about
anyone.
Laurie looked a bit hurt, which Kristyn picked up on.
No offense. She said. Youre different, I guess.
But why do you think that? Whats wrong with caring about people?
Youre just giving them a chance to let you down.
Hmm. Laurie offered. Dont you think youre being kind of paranoid?
Their eyes met, and Kristyn had this look of intense remorse that Laurie didnt get at the time.
Thats sad. I thought you were smarter than that.
She couldnt tell if that was a joke. Kristyn teased her a lot. Sort of. It was always hard to tell
whether Kristyn was serious or not, because she didnt smile at the times most people Laurie
knew did. Her expressions seemed disconnected from what she was saying.
And Laurie wasnt enjoying this. If this was what normal social interaction was like, she didnt
know why everyone was so into it. She just wanted it to be over.
She checked her cell phone. Eight-thirty. She mumbled. Ill get yelled at if I stay out much
later.
Kristyn sighed and rolled her eyes. Who gives a fuck?
What about your mom? Doesnt she care? Laurie asked, even though she knew the answer.
Shes always passed out by this time.
Sorry... But Ive got to go.
Youre just going to leave me? Kristyn spat.
What do you mean?
I hate walking back home alone. Its creepy.
Laurie nodded. Yeah... Its a way shorter walk back to my house than yours. I guess I
shouldve thought of that...
Kristyn giggled. Then maybe I should spend the night at your place.
And before leaving, she leaned in and air-kissed her on the cheek. There was no physical
contact, just a whiff of cheap perfume and alcohol breath covered with chewing gum.
But against her will, Laurie started to feel something.

FRIDAY EVENING

The rest of the afternoon was lost in reminiscence. Ever since shed found the box, shed been
reliving the past seven years in brief snatches. She didnt know why, though; something just
told her they were all connected somehow, and she was right on the verge of figuring it out.
Maybe, if she could mentally arrange them in a way that made sense, an overarching story
might emerge. But she couldnt find it yet.
For now, it was all just random nonsense, and not even interesting nonsense. The memories of
having a backpack snatched, or being insulted at a lunch table... Surely, those couldnt have
been the best uses of her attention.
And what mystery was she even trying to solve? She knew it had something to do with the
dream, but even thinking about that for too long seemed like a waste of time. At times
throughout the day, she had to stop and remind herself that it was just a dream - basically, an
abstract painting done by her subconscious - and there was no logic, meaning, or lessons to be
taken from it.
So she brought herself back to reality.
The rain started up again at around two, alternating between drizzles and showers for the
rest of the evening.
Shed forgotten her umbrella again, just like the day before.
And just like the day before, the bus stopped over the same puddle, and she trudged home in
the rain.
The rain felt icy against her skin - a biting cold, as if it had frozen on its way down. Strange,
since it was a moderately warm day for that time of year.
But the rest of the day proceeded according to routine.
On getting home, she took off her wet school clothes and changed into an old mens T-shirt that
fit like a housedress and an equally baggy pair of knee-length gym shorts from her freshman
year.
Then she started her homework, but she couldnt focus on it: she couldnt stop her mind from
wandering back to the dreams. It wasnt for lack of trying, she just couldnt, for some reason.
After an hour, she put it away and told herself shed finish it later.
It was only five thirty, so she still had a whole evening to kill. She drew a little. She still drew,
almost compulsively by this point. She didnt quite understand why, but it filled some kind of
hole.
She opened the paint program that had come with her tablet and sketched out a few rough
faces, first from the memories of her classmates, then a few that popped into her head from
nowhere in particular, then a few from the posters on her wall.
But she found herself getting tired much sooner than shed expected. Tired, congested, and a
little nauseous. Shed been coughing and occasionally sneezing throughout most of the
evening, but she hadnt paid attention to it until now.
She took notice of it when she found herself sneezing ten times in a row. Her eyes were
burning and her nose felt like it was filled with drying cement.
She wanted to go to bed early, but she wouldnt be able to get to sleep like that. So she took a
capful of Ny-Quil. Then another one. Shed heard about its dream-enhancing properties, and
although she didnt want to admit it to herself, the second one was just to make sure theyd
kick in.
She was a bit nervous about it, but as she fell asleep, a quote from 52 Ways to Have Lucid
Dreams ran through her head.
35. Don't be afraid of lucid dreaming; there is nothing to fear inside your own mind.