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He felt groggy.
He felt like he had been dragged kicking and screaming out of a blissful, heavenly sleep and dropped back down on earth in his sore, desperately-in-need-of-sleep body. A couple of seconds passed, taking away the initial sting of being jostled from his dreams. The dim lighting assured him he could get back to sleep and maybe amass more than his usual four hours, so he laid back down.
There was something else too, though. A creeping feeling of something that just … wasn’t right.
Did he forget to buy something he needed to buy? Or to take out the trash? No, Jongdae doesn’t forget these things; and he could stick distinct memories to them from the day before. Especially since the latter action happened at approximately 2 in the morning.
This feeling was different entirely. It slinked up and made itself at home in the recesses of his mind like a corner that light just won’t reach for some reason.
Whenever he had dreams sometimes he would wake up and feel the emotions of the dreams a bit after. It wasn't uncommon for him at all. He remembers vividly being angry at his flatmate, Jongin, for an entire morning because of something he did to him in a dream.
But this time it was different.
The feeling he couldn't place didn't fade. It didn't get any stronger, nor did it do anything besides just sit and percolate on the back burners of his brain. He had a certain inability to get rid of this feeling for days to come.
And the feeling felt very much like a warning.
The next time he woke up from a dream, he had a glimpse of it.
But it made no sense.
Jongdae rolled over onto his side and blinked at his phone: glowing and buzzing and ringing to tell him it was time to get up and get going. After a hasty slap of the snooze button, he found himself shutting his eyes and focusing on the dream that was slipping away.
It was dark and it was dreary. There were clouds and someone was talking ... or maybe not?
"Coffee!" Jongin yelled from somewhere in the apartment.
"Mmm ..." He groaned in response, "5 more minutes, mom."
It was cold this time.
Jongdae looked up at the sky and something felt amiss. Like there was something he was supposed to be doing. Or maybe he was late for work.
That feeling flooded his senses suddenly as the sky grew dimmer. The air was hot and heavy and smelled like it had just been raining. This all felt very familiar.
But everything was blurry. It was foggy and unclear. He kept reaching up to clean his glasses, but he had no glasses on.
"What's going on?" He asked to nobody in particular.
There was a grip on him then, one that made him instantly tired. He began to drift as he stood there, feeling like he was fainting, but very slowly.
"This almost never happens." A voice from behind him said with quite a bit of certainty, "Don't worry."
Jongdae sat up in his bed this time.
He was staring into the mirror on the wall across from his bed. Jongin had put it there when they first moved in and Jongdae hated it; but Jongin said he would thank him for it the first time he got laid. Jongdae has yet to do so and thus has yet to see its purpose. Besides forcing him to look at the sweaty mess he was first thing in the morning.
His alarm went off with a sudden beeping noise.
It made him jump. Almost leaving his skin behind him as he squabbled to shut off the alarm in panic.
Once it was finally silenced he dropped it onto his bed and ran both hands over his face, trying to pull off the bizarreness that he had felt when he first woke up. But it stayed there, collecting at that mass in the back of his mind of ill feelings towards the future.
"What is going on with me lately?" He asked out loud, as if anybody was there to answer.
"Coffee!" Jongin answered from the other room.
Jongdae turned back to look at his reflection, making eye contact with a mirrored version of himself.
"Coming." He said, almost so softly Jongin couldn't have heard it.
There were rocks under his feet.
Loose, chunky gravel that rolled beneath his shoes as he walked. He felt a pang of confusion as he realized he didn’t know where he was, or how he got here. He looked down.
His hands were in focus now, holding a small brown package tied with string. It almost felt lighter than air though, like he had to grip it tight and use mental will to keep it from floating away. But unless this was filled with nitrogen, there's absolutely no way it could be lighter than air.
With an absurd amount of willpower, he forced his eyes up and into the distance. He was walking a marked path, passing a couple of thatch houses. They weren't right though. Each house was droopy or looked like it should for all scientific reason be falling over, but it stayed upright.
And everything was gray, gently desaturated and dreary looking.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure. It was a dark mass that lurked in his periphery, following him in a parallel path but from a distance.
The sky had been populated with a few clouds before, but now he noticed a storm was rolling in on the distance. Before anything else could happen, his heart began to race.
He was running, and his vision became a tunnel, black inking in from the sides of his eyes until it was entirely dark and something grabbed him from behind
When he sat up, it was dark. But not as dark. There were shapes … in a room.
He took in a deep breath and felt how cold it was entering his lungs, like he hadn’t been breathing in this same room for the past couple of hours. The clock by his bed told him he had time to sleep before the morning came, and it was Friday, so he’ll probably need it considering Jongin’s newest fling would be coming over for the weekend.
Jongdae laid back down, falling back to sleep almost instantly.
“Are you okay?” A watery vision of a person above him asked, “Are you asleep again?”
Jongdae tried to answer, but his mouth wouldn’t move. The world around him was slowly piecing itself back together into the colorless dreamscape he had just managed to escape moments ago. A man was looming over him with curly hair and a concerned expression.
“Oh, don’t try to talk.” He said gently, laying a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder, “Your sleep is too shallow. I’m sorry. My name is Chanyeol. You’ll have to trust me.”
“You’re part of a dream.” Jongdae managed, his mouth fighting the words he spoke, “How?”
“Shh--Calm down, short stop.” Chanyeol looked around, “You’ll wake yourself up!”
“How?!” Jongdae was a bit more forceful this time.
He did wake up. The echo of his phrase bouncing back at him off the terse walls of his room.
It was light now though, and the world revealed itself to be exactly the same as he had left it before, albeit far more confusing than when he left. He wondered immediately what any of his dream meant. Who was Chanyeol? Did he make it up? Why did he sound different from the voices before? Are the dreams even related? Why the fuck is he feeling this way?
Something shifted in the corner of his room just then.
When his eyes made it over to the corner he saw his jacket on the floor. The one that had been hanging from one of the hooks in the wall. His previously whirring mind came to a full stop as he gingerly gave the room a full glance to find not a single soul present there.
His alarm began to beep.
“Coffee!” Jongin called.
He didn’t seem interested in either.
As soon as he got done with work he went to the library. He knew that Jongin’s girlfriend would be over by now so there was no point in going home anyways. Not that Jongdae didn’t love making first impressions; he was quite good at them, but because he never knew how long these things would last with Jongin so there was no use trying.
When he arrived at the library, he got out of the car with that thought in his head. He always wondered why Jongin couldn’t stay consistent with any of ex’s. For a really sweet guy, he always ended up heartbroken. Perhaps the problem laid in there.
Jongdae nodded to the person working at the desk and went for the tables near the nonfiction realm. His laptop was out and open in mere seconds, the vast information of the web suddenly at his fingertips.
But … what first?
After typing in “dreams”, he quickly came to the conclusion that he was lost in a sea of information. The Dream Dictionary seemed to be a little bit unhelpful and somewhat unreliable so he clicked away, trying again.
“Dream psychology?” He mused out loud, pressing enter.
He frowned. While the idea of interpreting his dreams using symbols and theories by Germans obsessed with their mothers was appealing, he was less interested in that side of things. He knew his dreams and surely figuring out what they meant would be fun, but that didn’t have any implication in his life. Everybody dreams.
No, he wants to know how dreaming works. Or better yet, why it works.
From there it began to flow. He quickly took in a lot of information, jotting things down in a little notepad he often used for meetings. Before he knew it, he knew how long a sleep cycle was and how much of that time was spent in REM dreaming.
However, the more he pushed into this, the more walls he hit. It seemed as if nobody really knew why it was that dreaming happens.
A couple more clicks brought him to a website with facts about dreaming that he found fascinating.
“If you become aware during a dream it’s called lucid dreaming …” He paused at the next one, “Your brain is incapable of showing faces you haven’t seen.”
“Need help finding something?” Came a voice.
He turned to see Sehun, the recently hired librarian looking at him from the end of the long table.
“Oh …” Jongdae trailed off, “No, I’m just doing research.”
“Oooon?” Sehun drew the word out, leaning against the chair at the head of the table and looking at him pointedly. “Look, I’m bored as hell, Dae. Talk to me.”
Jongdae chuckled. So very Sehun like of him. “Dreams. Scientifically speaking not like … Freud garbage.”
“Really now?” Sehun laughed, “I should introduce you to my roommate then. He’s an expert.”
“Please do.” Jongdae leaned back from his computer, tipping the chair back onto two legs and balancing there to talk to the eerily young library worker. “I’m not really interested in meeting Jongin’s new cohort anyways.”
“Guy or girl?” Sehun asked.
“Girl.” Jongdae answered.
“Ooh …” Sehun feigned interest, “Well, in that case, if you want to come crash please feel free. We can get a couple drinks.”
“That sounds perfect.”
The world was a bit crisper now.
The edges of table he was sitting at became amply clear as he sat up straighter in his chair. He was in a bar or a mess hall or a cafeteria. It was almost impossible for him to turn his head too far and anything beyond the table became indistinct and difficult to comprehend, though he saw shadow figures roaming along in that part of the world.
Half of him knew it wasn’t real, but the other half of his brain seemed to speak more loudly, buying into the false images projected before him.
Then he managed to move his hand, grabbing the edge of the table and feeling wood. It had real grooves and grains and felt very cold to the touch. Something he had never encountered in a place that wasn’t real.
When he looked up from the table he saw someone sitting at the other end.
“Sehun?” Jongdae asked.
Sehun didn’t respond. His head was down and he looked to be sleeping, except for the fact that his eyes were open. They looked down at the ground with a blank glassy expression, no other part of him alert at all.
Jongdae wasn’t comfortable with that at all. “Sehun, hey!”
This seemed to disrupt something.
The shadowy figures in the mist surrounding the table paused, each one of them seeming to look directly at Jongdae despite the fact that they had no eyes and just barely a silhouette of a form.
“It’s … it’s fine.” Jongdae offered a scared smile, “Don’t mind me.”
They began to turn towards him, looking far more broad straight on and approached, their voices becoming heard as they neared him.
What caught him off guard was how human like they sounded. As if a man hadn’t had much to drink in a while, but kept talking in his throat until it hurt.
“Is he aware?” One said.
“I promise this doesn’t happen.” Another responded.
A crystal clear voice cut through the fog around him and called out, “Wake up!”
Jongdae was woken up by someone rolling him onto his back.
It was dark and he was not in his apartment, but he also still felt a lingering buzz from the drinks he had earlier and quickly recalled. The person manhandling him was not Sehun, nor could he really make out the guy’s face based on just how dark it was in that living room.
“Why are you on the floor? Did Sehun leave you here?” The man grumbled, “He should treat his friends better.”
“I thought I went to sleep on the couch.” Jongdae muttered, sitting upright and getting closer to the person.
Whom he suddenly recognized.
“Chanyeol.” Jongdae said.
Chanyeol nodded, “Yeah that’s me. Do you need water?”
“I’m not drunk …” Jongdae trailed off, “But I might be dreaming.”
A couple of emotions flashed on Chanyeol’s dark features before he returned to a concerned smile once more, “Are you hitting on me?”
“No.” Jongdae shook his head, “Not that you’re not … I just -- I saw you in a dream.”
Chanyeol snorted, “You’re definitely drunk and definitely hitting on me.”
“I swear I hit on people better than this. Also, still not drunk.” Jongdae chuckled, shaking his head and freeing himself of the uncanny likeness of this boy to the guy in the dream.
Except for the fact that they had the same name. He couldn’t shake that.
Jongdae met his eyes and grinned, “You sure you haven’t been traipsing around in my head calling me short stop?”
The face of playful interaction disappeared from Chanyeol’s face. Every muscle that made expressions on his features went limp, leaving him with a look of seriousness and an uneasy feeling in Jongdae’s stomach.
It pinged that oozing dark fear in the back of his mind. The feeling slinked up, causing a shiver to roll down Jongdae’s spine as he maintained eye contact with the curly headed boy. The face of seriousness eventually broke then as he looked off to one side, obviously contemplating his moves from here very carefully. Which did not comfort the smaller of the two.
“You saw me in a dream?” Chanyeol asked.
Jongdae nodded.
Chanyeol spoke with an easiness then, “Were you dreaming just now?”
Jongdae nodded, no words passing his lips.
“Did you see Sehun?”
Again, he nodded.
Chanyeol looked back to him, “I bet you have at least a hundred questions.”
Anger swelled up in Jongdae, “What does that mean? Of course I do.”
Chanyeol’s eyebrows went up, “I understand. It’s probably confusing. Actually, it’s insanely confusing. I am, though … you did see me in a dream. You’re …” He kept trailing off like he couldn’t gather his thoughts up in a timely manner. “Can we talk in the morning? I’m dead tired. I promise to explain everything.”
Jongdae didn’t like it, but he didn’t see much of an alternative. He was excessively tired, and hoping that by sleeping he could transport himself to a world where this all made sense.
Again, without words, he shrugged and agreed to the terms and services here. Chanyeol silently stood up, offering Jongdae a hand that was eagerly accepted. A couple of steps across the carpet brought him to the couch where he stared for just a couple of seconds, making sure Chanyeol made it off to bed.
“I’m sorry.” Chanyeol said, pausing in the doorway, “This is an awkward way to meet. Start over tomorrow?”
Jongdae couldn’t help but smile, “Fine.”
Usually coffee shops are bright places. Lots of light and people getting their caffeine fix. If there was ever a time Jongdae had been distraught over coffee, it absolutely had to have dealt with him spilling it all over himself. He’s never felt uneasy sitting in a coffee shop. Certainly not quite like this.
Jongdae glanced at Chanyeol who hadn’t spoken too much that particular morning. Jongdae didn’t exactly have the heart to be asking much anyways. Part of him really wished that he had dreamt the whole interaction and just asked him to hang out instead.
If only.
“I guess we don’t have to introduce ourselves. I’m Chanyeol.” He smiled shyly, still afraid to really look at Jongdae.
“I’m Jongdae.” Jongdae nodded. “Master of being confused by dreams apparently.”
“Do they scare you yet?” Chanyeol asked softly, tapping at his coffee cup, and only glancing at Jongdae out of the corners of his eyes, “The dreams I mean.”
Jongdae shrugged, “I don’t like them very much.”
“But they aren’t … frightening?” Chanyeol pushed.
“They’re … unsettling. Make me feel like something’s wrong long after I’ve woken up and started on my day. But they haven’t really freaked me out … until last night.” He explained, “Can you tell me what’s going on? Sehun said you’re an expert on dreams.”
Chanyeol finally met his eyes straight on, they looked very dark. Warm and inviting, but at a distance he couldn’t physically traverse.
“There’s three kinds of people. People like Sehun that sleep every night, entering the dream world and molding it with their unconscious mind, leaving it in the morning none the wiser. People like me that walk the dream plane with the same power, but full lucidity and awareness. And people like you.” Chanyeol took a sip of his coffee, “See, when we sleep our brain processes everything. Our dreams and desires, but also our fears and anxieties. Those anxieties and fears manifest themselves like shadows in the dream world. Those shadows have no power because the dream world is crafted by humans and humans only.”
“I still don’t understand.” Jongdae let out an incredulous laugh, “How does this explain the weird dreams? Who are the people like me?”
“You go so fast. Hold up.” Chanyeol smiled at him, his face getting brighter for the first time that day. “When those embodiments of fear and anxiety want to change the dream plane they need humans to do it. You are one of the unlucky few they have tapped into.”
“And you expect me to just buy all of this?” Jongdae asked.
Chanyeol sat back in his chair. He was a tall, lanky man so he took up a lot of the chair and when he moved it was always a great distance even if it was just a subtle shift in seating. Once again, he looked away from Jongdae and into the warm orange tones of the coffee shop.
“If you had just been quiet then you wouldn’t have woken up from that dream when we met.” He said softly. “I was in your dream. You just have to believe me.”
Jongdae paused. His first and immediate response was anger. How in the world did Chanyeol know that’s how the dream went? How in fact … did he even know about the dream and was in the dream with his name and face before they had even met?
“Fine.” Jongdae sighed, “So how come I’m this old and never experienced it before?”
“Easy.” Chanyeol chuckled, “Something in your life caused a change in stress. They usually latch onto people who aren’t sleeping well and have a lot of fear.”
“I did … move here recently.” Jongdae said slowly.
Chanyeol pointed a finger at him and nodded, using the other hand to take another drink of coffee.
Jongdae grit his teeth together, “Okay, well how do I make it go away?”
After a little more coffee intake, Chanyeol put his cup down and folded his hands together on the table, “Usually it goes away on its own. Stress decreases in your life, they lose interest in you, or …”
His smile disappeared.
“What? Tell me.” Jongdae insisted.
“Well, sometimes. In my experience at least …” Chanyeol bit his lip, released it, and then looked away yet again, “Sometimes it gets really bad. People stop sleeping to avoid it or ah …”
“I get it.” Jongdae put a hand up.
He took in a deep breath, the air pooling in his lungs as he did so and expanding them all the way to the very bottom. The oxygen rushed to his brain, feeding those thoughts in the back of his head as they did so. It caused the dark spots in his mind left over from dreams to swell amidst the increased blood flow. It felt nauseating.
“They say things.” Jongdae said out of the blue, “They say that … this doesn’t normally happen or … something?”
This once again piqued Chanyeol’s interest, “They do? When?”
“Usually when I start to be able to move around.”
The warmth in Chanyeol’s eyes was squeezed out when he narrowed his eyes, “You’re saying that you can move around sometimes? You become lucid?”
“I don’t know what that--”
Chanyeol interjected, “Lucid like me. Awake in a dream.”
“Well, yeah.” Jongdae was confused.
“Shit. What?” Chanyeol made a face. “That’s not right. Nobody is ever both lucid and used.”
“Words, again.” Jongdae reminded him.
“The shadows don’t use lucid people. They’ve never used lucid people. You can’t be lucid.” Chanyeol insisted.
“But--”
They all at once realized that their conversation had rose to a fever pitch, people around them had began to stare and make faces. When the suddenly stopped, the whispers continued, people seemingly disturbed by their conversation.
Chanyeol lowered his voice, “I have to go to work. Can you come see me tomorrow?”
Jongdae agreed.
The darkness seemed endless.
His palms felt along a smooth wall, only occasionally running over a crack or bump in the surface as he followed it along. There were no noises, no smells, nothing to see, and the air only felt a bit thinner than usual. When he shut it eyes, it almost felt a shade lighter behind his eyelids than the outside dark.
“Hello?” Jongdae called out, pushing himself closer to the wall as he shimmied along it.
Things became brighter in spots, not enough that he could really get a feel for where he was, but enough to make out the lines of walls leading this way and that. None of them formed corners or intersected or turned. It felt like a very dark funhouse. The lights came from nowhere in particular either, seeming to just encompass a small area and taper off a little bit later.
He did find a corner then, but it was occupied.
Something was hunched over, it’s back to the connection between two walls, breathing heavily with a rasp.
Jongdae’s instincts held him back, yet urged him to speak, “Are you okay?”
It seemed more human-like now, but it was too dark to make out any features besides how thin and collapsed it was.
For several seconds it only breathed before finally uttering a phrase in a ghastly high drone, “So you know.”
Jongdae’s eyes popped open, but he didn’t move.
He couldn’t move.
It felt like a ton of bricks had been dropped on his chest; pinning him to the bed and keeping him in place. His fingers and toes didn’t respond when he told them to move and only his eyes could look around from where his head was locked in place.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shape. A deep, dark, voided hole that felt like a person. He didn’t know it was a person, but he could tell it was looking at him. It was in no way a friendly guest in his home.
All attempts to make a noise were stunted by a lack of motor control in his mouth and lips. Groans and moans came out, but not a single true word could break out from between his lips.
The figure was drifting, almost without moving a single part of itself, further into Jongdae’s eyesight; getting closer as it neared the edge of the bed. It was hard to tell it apart from the darkness of the room, but unmistakably sentient at the same time.
He closed his eyes, willing every single part of his body to move, forcing his fingers to break out of the tingling grip that had frozen them together.
And just like that he could sit up.
His head did a couple of quick turns, looking to see if there was anybody in his room, but not a single soul was in sight. His breathing was hot, heavy, and almost painful like he had been running not laying down. And that figure was gone. He stared at the spot it had stood for a long moment before shaking it off and running a hand through his hair.
“What the fuck is going on?” He muttered to himself.
“Chanyeol!” Jongdae called, pushing through the unlocked door to said person’s apartment.
“Hi to you too.” Sehun said from the couch where he was lounging as he read a book, “No love for the youth. I understand.”
“Sehun.” Jongdae rolled his eyes.
“In his room.” Sehun pointed back in the hallway.
Jongdae thanked him briefly before making the quick trip to where Chanyeol’s room was. He knocked on the door and only heard a grunt from inside, which he assumed was proper consent for him to enter the room. When he did, he saw that Chanyeol was a touch on the messy side. Clothes were strewn about on the floor, a couple of newspaper clippings on the wall along with more legitimate posters, and in the corner his computer sat on a desk where he was reclined in an office chair, listening to music from the speakers.
“So, uh …” Jongdae started, “Something weird happened.”
Chanyeol raised his eyebrows. “How weird?”
“Terrifying.” Jongdae kicked a couple of discarded shirts aside as he made his way over to sit on the edge of Chanyeol’s bed. “Like I was laying in my bed, but I couldn’t move weird.”
“You mean sleep paralysis?” Chanyeol asked, spinning his chair to give Jongdae his full attention.
“Ah … sure.”
Chanyeol sighed, leaning back and turning his eyes towards the ceiling.
After a couple of moments passed, Jongdae tacked on, “And I saw things.”
Chanyeol looked at him, “Saw what?”
“One of the shadow people. Just standing at first in the corner then walking.”
“Fuck.” Chanyeol exhaled, “Can’t you just come and tell me that you picked $5 off the ground or something? Always weird.”
Jongdae laughed, but he was really put off by the comment. Chanyeol seemed like a great guy and all, but the cryptic nature of every single thing that came out of his mouth made Jongdae almost not want to like him.
“I don’t think even $5 would make this better.” Jongdae sighed, “Spending all day wondering if I’m crazy is no good. Or if you are.”
Chanyeol looked back him and shrugged, “The latter is up for debate, but you … are not crazy I think.”
“You think?”
“I’m really trying to be helpful. I’m sorry …” He trailed off and Jongdae let out the little breath he was holding in. Maybe it was best he didn’t harass Chanyeol too much. The fluffy haired expert started to explain then, with a slow and decisive tone, “When you dream, your body goes into a slight paralysis to keep you from acting out your dreams. Sometimes it doesn’t work quite right though, often leading to sleepwalking. On the other end of the spectrum, if you wake up and your brain isn’t entirely conscious, the body may stay in paralysis for a bit leading to an episode like … that.”
Jongdae pulled his feet onto the bed, “Why the hallucinations, then?”
“When you can’t move, your brain tends to panic and create reasons why we might not be able to move. People often see someone sitting on their chest or a malevolent figure holding them down.”
“So it’s just a hallucination?”
Chanyeol made a hesitant hum, showing some teeth. “For some people, sure. But keep in mind this is the only time when your brain is truly in between the dream world and our own. The shadow figure could have been from the dream plane, appearing in our own.”
“But they go away when I wake up fully?” Jongdae asked.
Chanyeol’s hesitancy showed itself again, “I assume so. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
A little gust of wind pushed his blinds out a little ways from the window sill. They drifted back into place, settling against the wall with a couple of bounces from lost momentum. It was enough to draw Jongdae’s eyes away from the other man in the room. As it did so, the light in the little room shifted ever so lightly, casting shadows against the walls. The shadowy shapes rang uncanny in Jongdae’s mind, once again touching on that sinking feeling of dread he had been harbouring for over a week now.
“This isn’t good.” Jongdae stated softly, “I just feel like something terrible is going to happen and I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.” Chanyeol offered, “If you’ll trust me a little more, we can go see a friend of mine.”
For the second time, he found himself agreeing to Chanyeol’s wishes.
The car ride was longer than he anticipated. It was a Sunday, though, so he had nowhere to be and thanked his lucky stars that Jongin was grateful to have him out of their home for a little bit. Both him and his friend were soundly asleep when Jongdae snuck in to steal his bags of stuff. Packing just enough clothes for a couple days and sending an email calling sick to work tomorrow.
A little ways into the trip and another cup of caffeine later, they both manages to get awake enough to start talking and chatting about this, that, or the other.
“Where are you from?” Chanyeol asked with a smile.
“The middle of nowhere. I graduated with 50 other people. Super small.”
“Explains a lot.”
“Hey.” Jongdae tossed an empty coffee sleeve at him, knocking Chanyeol right in the head.
They continued on like that for a little while, getting to know one another as much as they could and ignoring the fact that the radio was tirelessly replaying the same 10 songs over and over again. It was background music to a larger ensemble at this point.
It didn’t take too long for them to find similarities. They loved to learn and do new things. Chanyeol wrote music and Jongdae wrote stories. And eventually, they got onto more relevant topics and Jongdae found out that Chanyeol wasn’t as cryptic as he had once thought. More like … an open book.
“I’ve been dreaming lucidly for as long as I can remember.” Chanyeol recalled, “I’ve been walking the dream plane and meeting other people. I’ve watched it change too. Every night thousands of people terraform an entire world, but the rational part of their brains are shut down so they don’t even know it.”
“Are we going to see one of the people you met?”
“Yeah. He’s the one who introduced me to everything I know about the dream world. He’ll know way better than me.”
Jongdae nodded, putting his head back against the glass of the car window and unexpectedly falling into a nap.
Chanyeol shook him awake twenty minutes later though, spewing something about how he shouldn’t be nodding off until they get somewhere else. A few more minutes and he could have been in the dream plane, blissfully unaware of his surroundings.
“You really know a lot about dreams.” Jongdae groaned, picking his head up from the window after a few minutes.
“I have to.” Chanyeol shrugged. “With so many people that don’t … someone has to. Plus running around a world you control is awesome..”
“Do you ever use it productively?” Jongdae wondered, “Like to study?”
Chanyeol laughed, “No, no. You can’t read in dreams anyways.”
That struck Jongdae as odd. He can’t recall having ever read anything in a dream, but surely that didn’t mean it was impossible. It’s just like anything else. “What? Why not?”
“That part of your brain is asleep. The part that can comprehend writing. Just like how the part of the brain that’s rational enough to understand you’re in a dream is often unconscious for most people, so is the one that’s responsible for reading.”
“So I can always tell I’m in a dream if I can’t read?”
Chanyeol only hummed in affirmation. The conversation died with that.
They did eventually make it to where they were going. The next city over where there were tons of houses spaced apart like a suburban dream. Chanyeol rolled his car into one of the gray driveways, parking it there for the foreseeable future.
Jongdae had gone from country living to city in a short period of time, so he never really got to experience much of the in between. It was crazy to think somebody could have a yard that wasn’t the woods or just a balcony.
He followed behind Chanyeol silently, watching him approach the white door and knock. It only took a minute or so for somebody to answer.
“Chanyeol!” The guy greeted warmly, reaching an arm over him to hug.
Chanyeol embraced him fully, almost absorbing the guy with his stature, “Long time no see Minseok.”
“The phone works both ways, you know.” Minseok responded with a wink and pulling back from him, “This the lucky guy?”
“Yep.” Chanyeol turned, giving Jongdae a full view and gesturing to him, “Minseok, Jongdae. Jongdae, Minseok.”
Jongdae gave him a little nod, which was reciprocated just as pleasantly, “Nice to meet you.”
“Well, come in!” He implored, waving his hand a couple of times to herd them beyond the door frame, “Don’t have forever.”
Minseok did in fact knew more than Chanyeol. If that was even possible.
They talked in words and phrases that Jongdae couldn’t even begin to understand despite the fact they were totally in his native tongue and even made up of real words, just in odd combinations. And with that, slowly the warmth dried out of the conversation, business overriding the pleasure of the trip. Consequently making the air a bit more dense and somber around them.
“He’s both lucid and being used?” Minseok sat back in the nice little recliner, putting a finger on his lips as he repeated Chanyeol’s words back to them, “And he saw a shadow person during SP?”
Chanyeol nodded, “I have no idea what to make of it.”
“Forgive me for not immediately taking your word for it,” Minseok spent a glance on Jongdae, “But are you sure everything is true to his word? Not to say he’s lying, but perhaps confused.”
“No, I saw him.” Chanyeol jumped to Jongdae’s defense, “I spoke to him. He remember what I said to him. All the things he says are too close to the truth to be untrue. He spoke to me in the dream world. I just figured he was new to lucidity until he approached me about it in the real world.”
Minseok did the Chanyeol thing where he contemplated it for a second. Maybe all of these dream walking people have an obsession with grinding thoughts to a dust in their head before drawing any conclusions or commenting.
He did speak though, “We could have a huge problem on our hands.”
“Huge how?” Jongdae asked, catching a turn of the head from the other two since he hadn’t spoken much at all since he got there.
“Huge like …” Minseok paused, bettering his judgement. “I don’t want to draw conclusions. I think you should sleep here tonight. Chanyeol and I will both have access to you so it’ll be safe.”
Chanyeol bit his lip, “We can get a better idea of what’s going on if we’re closer to you in the physical realm. Way easier to find you in the dream one that way.”
“You can’t leave me in the dark.” Jongdae said, “What am I looking for?”
“Nothing at all.” Minseok said quickly, “You’re just going to dream.”
Maybe this is all a pyramid scheme or something. Maybe they injected him with a drug that’s giving him these dreams and they’re going to offer him the antidote for money. Maybe they’re crazy and these are all normal things happening to him with just a tad bit of coincidence thrown in.
It was almost midnight and Jongdae had spent the whole night staring at the ceiling and pondering if escape was a good solution. He was only two stories up, if he landed in the hedges he would be fine. He’d need Chanyeol’s keys, but that’s fine. Oh, well, he might be a wanted criminal then. Better to just go on foot and find a bus station. Awesome.
His thoughts were interrupted by the door creaking open.
He turned his head, “Yeol?”
“Uhh …” Chanyeol hummed from behind the door, “Yeah. I was hoping you were asleep.”
“Why?” Jongdae asked to the cracked door, “Don’t be weird. Come in.”
Chanyeol slowly pushed the door open the rest of the way and shuffled in, his feet creating friction with the carpet. He gently closed the door behind him before leaning back against it.
“I’m afraid you’ll have sleep paralysis again.” He admitted.
“You and me both.” Jongdae chuckled, “So what? You going to watch me sleep?”
Chanyeol grimaced, “You make it sound really creepy.”
Jongdae laughed, rolling onto his side to look at Chanyeol, “Because it is.”
“Well since you’re aware of it now, it’s fine, right?” Chanyeol shrugged, holding his palms open, “I’ll just sit here on my phone while you sleep and if something happens I’ll get you.”
“Yeah, right.” Jongdae scoffed, “You have a bed. Go sleep in it. I was fine last time, I will be this time.”
“No, it’s …” Chanyeol mentally kicked himself so hard that even Jongdae could see the kic back from it across the room, “Minseok thinks that the shadow people are somehow abusing you since you can be both lucid and used by them. He thinks they’ve figured it out. I can’t leave you alone. You’re in danger.”
“You’re not going to go back to your room, are you?” Jongdae asked.
Chanyeol shook his head.
Jongdae sighed, “Fine, then you’re sleeping here.”
“If I sleep I won’t notice if you’re in paralysis.” Chanyeol frowned, “You’ll be in the bed and I’ll be on the floor.”
“Then just sleep next to me.” Jongdae rolled back over.
“Oh … just …” Chanyeol stammered.
“Yeah, hurry. I’m tired.” Jongdae called back to him.
Chanyeol nodded, as if Jongdae could see him give a visible sign of agreement before he walked over to the bed. The ever present hesitancy in him seemed to keep him at bay from immediately getting in, but Jongdae turned his head to give him an eye and Chanyeol put out his hands muttering, okay, okay, and getting on it with one knee.
He pulled himself under the covers, letting Jongdae under as well, and then straightening out. Then length of his frame was just barely a fit for the bed and he could feel the tightness of the sheets at the bottom where they were tucked taught under the mattress, tenting with his feet.
After they both settled on their respective sides of the bed, Jongdae reached over and tugged the lamp cord, suspending them into darkness just like that. He let out a yawn and shut his eyes, trying to find a comfortable and restful place in his mind to sleep in.
After a little bit, he felt uncomfortable and rolled onto his back.
“No.” Chanyeol whispered, “Don’t do that.”
Jongdae popped one eye open, “Do what?”
“Lay on your back.” Chanyeol explained, still in a hushed voice, “That’s just asking for sleep paralysis.”
“First of all, you can talk normally. I’m still awake.” Jongdae shut his eyes and sighed, “Second of all … what does that even mean?”
“Well …” Chanyeol tugged the covers up to his nose, “It's easier for your spine to lock up when it’s straight flat. That’s how sleep paralysis works. It’ll happen on your side, just not as strong.”
“So …” Jongdae turned onto his side and looked at Chanyeol’s eyes peeking over the blankets, "Like this?"
Chanyeol flicked his eyes over to Jongdae then back to the ceiling, nodding softly, "Mhm."
Jongdae shut his eyes for a moment, but the popped back open. Chanyeol's eyes hadn't closed and he seemed really interested in the ceiling. Just out of curiosity, Jongdae rose his eyes to the ceilings, seeing no hidden messages written there he brought eyes back down to Chanyeol and sighed, "I think I'm scared?"
"Think?" Chanyeol's voice was muffled through the blankets, "Haven't you ever been scared before?"
Jongdae furrowed his brow. "Of course I have. Just, I normally ignore it."
"You sound like a badass." Chanyeol commented, "I'm kind of sad you weren't flirting with me now."
Jongdae rolled his eyes, "You're crazy."
"Okay, okay." Chanyeol looked over at him for real this time. "I promise nothing will happen to you. Minseok and I are professionals, alright?"
"Professional dreamers. Boy, what a world we live in."
"Better than a cubicle." Chanyeol shot back, tugging the sheets down a smidge so that his smirk was visible. "At least you don't have work tomorrow."
"Fair." Jongdae smiled, "Will I see you?"
"We'll find you." Chanyeol affirmed seriously, "We will come looking for you. Nothing's going to go wrong."
It didn't seem to put him entirely at ease, but it didn't seek to make Jongdae feel worse. He resigned to letting his head nod and his eyes close. It wasn't long before the world of sleep beckoned him by name and he walked right into it.
"This isn't right." A slow raspy voice said, "Something's wrong on his side."
A quicker, higher, more anxious voice responded, "We don't have time for this. He's catching on."
Jongdae made a grunting noise. He couldn't move at all. The only thing he could do was open his eyes into the gray misty surroundings where a couple of dark figures were looming in the peripherals of his vision.
"He knows. This is your fault." The higher voice accused.
"He knows nothing!" The raspy one insisted, "How else could he know to not let us in. How will we get to the other side?"
"Jongdae!" Chanyeol called out.
There was an alarming sound. It was like a gunshot muffled by a couple layers of drywall. The dark figures scattered immediately and footsteps approached him, clattering against the cement. A head of curly Chanyeol hair came into view over him.
"Can you move?" He asked hurriedly.
"Chanyeol!" Minseok's voice echoed out of the mist.
Chanyeol turned back to look at him before turning back to Jongdae, "You've gotta get lucid, buddy. We need to go."
Jongdae's vision became crisper, but his body wasn't responding to anything at all. It made his heart race. The idea of being unable to do anything, yet feel everything was sinking into his bones very suddenly.
"I can't." Jongdae stuttered, "Chanyeol, I can't."
"Chanyeol! Now!" Minseok screamed.
Chanyeol's head swooshed back and forth between the mist where he was assuming Minseok was and Jongdae, laying down on some sort of surface. He seemed to be mentally conflicted.
"Fuck." He grunted. "Alright. Let's go."
Chanyeol scooped Jongdae up suddenly, carrying him bridal style into the mist. Everything was unbearably cloudy and all Jongdae could feel was the bouncing and the clack of Chanyeol's sneakers against something hard. Slowly the sound morphed into one of rubber soles against dirt or rocks and in the process, the mist cleared away gently to reveal that muted and foggy scenery Jongdae was too familiar with.
They slowed to a halt, jogging behind a thatch building. Chanyeol squatted down, leaning Jongdae up against the house. Somewhere along the way, Jongdae had gained a bit of mobility and could slide himself back against the wall.
"Listen to me." Chanyeol seemed very serious again. "You have to get lucid again."
Minseok rounded the corner. "Any idea what the fuck that was?"
"No, I don't know. Why would I know?" Chanyeol sighed.
"I just thought you saw something. I was outside running them off." Minseok leaned against the side of the building as well.
"They're upset." Jongdae stated, using all his might to look over at Minseok standing beside the wall. "I think they know I'm not sleeping on my back."
Minseok looked over at Chanyeol. They exchanged something.
"What?" Jongdae asked, "What is it?"
"We think ... maybe ..." Chanyeol stammered, grimacing.
Minseok was unfazed. "He needs to be lucid. Now."
"Why do you guys never tell me anything?" Jongdae blinked, feeling a bit sleepy. "I hate you both."
Chanyeol scooted closer, reaching over and tapping Jongdae gently on the cheek. "Come on, buddy. Stay with us. You're in control here all you have to do is-"
"They're back!" Minseok spun around and-
"Jongdae." Chanyeol shook him gently.
Jongdae blinked awake, immediately feeling the sweat of overheating and taking in a sharp breath. He tossed the covers off, and Chanyeol's arms in the process, sitting up to try and breathe better.
"Jongdae, calm down." Chanyeol reached a hand out, propping himself up on his elbows.
He wouldn’t listen, keeping his eyes straight ahead and fixated on the door as his shoulder rose and fell with his lungs.
Chanyeol spoke softly then, "Hey ..."
Jongdae breathed out, "Sorry. Sorry."
Chanyeol put his hand on the back of Jongdae's shoulder, gently pushing his fingers up over Jongdae's shoulder and gripping it firmly. "You good?"
"I am ... yeah. I'm just ..." He nodded shakily.
"Lay down, okay? We can try again later. You haven't slept long enough." Chanyeol tugged on Jongdae's thin shoulder.
Eventually Jongdae conceded, leaning back until his back his the mattress and Chanyeol let his hand off. Instead he tugged the pillow down behind Jongdae's head so when he laid back, the fabric sank down around his hair. Chanyeol nodded then.
"Okay. Just rest. They won't try again." Chanyeol's voice was gentle and almost floated through the darkness effortlessly.
"Mhm ..." Jongdae hummed, his eyes fluttering shut. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Chanyeol chuckled. He brushed his fingertips across Jongdae's sweat slick hair line.
It was comforting enough for him to fall asleep once more.
It was a good thing Jongdae liked tea as much as he did since this was the literally only thing in his life that was keeping him from having a mental break. Minseok and Chanyeol had been chattering incessantly ever since breakfast and in the meantime, Jongdae had just barely managed to take a shower and answer one singular email. His response was two sentences.
"You seem shaken up." Chanyeol said finally from the other side of the table.
"Yeah, well ..." Jongdae sipped his tea. "It's hard not to be when every dream you have is a nightmare and you're in another town with people you barely know and oh yeah, they won't tell you anything!"
Chanyeol's eyes widened, but Minseok again, didn't seem very shaken by it. Maybe it was his age or maybe Chanyeol was just a bit softer than him, but Minseok just eyed Jongdae silently.
"Jongdae." Minseok stated calmly, saying his name for the very first time in that instance. "When you sleep and when you dream, your brain is working through all of the information you've taken in throughout the day. That's why your dreams resemble what's on your mind. The shadows feed on this. We don't tell you things because if we tell you, then you tell them. Whether your want to or not."
Jongdae swallowed, feeling the weight of the information of his shoulder as he worked through it, "You guys could have said that sooner."
"Well ..." Chanyeol let out a breath, "Now next time you sleep, they'll know that we know something. It's an information game."
"It could ... be different. If he could get lucid." Minseok tapped the table a few times.
"We can't count on that." Chanyeol tilted his head as he spoke.
"Why not? If you guys can do it then I'm sure I can." Jongdae asserted.
"He's capable." Minseok said, "Just not entirely available."
"Available? I'm not on a singles page." Jongdae chided.
Chanyeol laughed, "No, like. Something's holding you back. You have to be really ... aware to do it. You have to know you're in control of the dreamscape. You can't be scared or doubt yourself because if even for a second you don't believe ... then it won't happen."
Minseok snickered, “You have to belieeeeve.”
“Hey.” Chanyeol slapped Minseok on the shoulder. “Don’t make fun of me.”
And as they continued to bicker on again, but Jongdae didn’t have the attentiveness to keep up with it. Instead he turned to look inwardly, wondering perhaps if this entire thing was because of an incapacity on his part. To be truthful, he never did feel in control of his life. He was being pushed from one place to the next and just let things happen around him. But, no trip out of the state was going to make him better able to handle that.
“So what now?” Jongdae sighed, detracting from the playful tone in the room. “I don’t even want to sleep anymore.”
Chanyeol’s expression dipped a few shades. “Maybe it would be better if you didn’t. At least not long enough to dream. It’ll buy us some time too.”
Minseok seemed to agree.
“Awesome. I’ll just only sleep in 30 minute increments.” Jongdae exhaled, “It’s university all over again.”
It was by no means awesome. Maybe at first it seemed to work out. He felt well rested from the thirty minute power naps and was able to go a few hours doing work remotely before the tiredness started to nag at him again. It helped that Chanyeol was taking the whole quest on with him as well. He would wake Jongdae up when needed and kept him entertained once he finally ran out of emails to respond to and calls to make.
They played every board game Minseok owned and watched a couple of movies through the night and well into the next day. They even made a few snack runs, but quickly decided driving wasn’t a good idea for either of them when they hadn’t gotten much sleep.
Minseok had chosen to go meet with a friend and ask him about it. This left Chanyeol as the only person to keep a strict enforcement on Jongdae’s new sleep schedule, but he probably needed more sleep than his companion did.
Inevitably, they fell through the cracks.
They had been sitting at a table with a scrabble board chock full of words criss crossing in lines. But somewhere between thinking about their next moves and waiting, they had both managed to nod off.
It didn’t last long. He picked his head up of the scrabble board, a long sticky line of drool coming with him. It took a few blinks for him to come back to reality and he saw Chanyeol passed out in his chair as well.
“What the …” Jongdae reached up and pulled one of the square board pieces off his face. It had stuck to him with the drool in a disgusting manner so he tossed it onto the table haphazardly.
The noise stuttered Chanyeol awake. The mess of curly hair bobbed forward as he sniffled back to life.
“Mmm … sorry.” He apologized off the bat.
“You’re fine.” Jongdae chuckled, wiping at the remains of his nap off his cheek with his sleeve. “Luckily it wasn’t long enough.”
“Yeah, seriously. Could have been really bad.” Chanyeol nodded, sitting back up. “You’re good, right?”
“I feel fine. Just tired … and stressed … and worried.” He gave a less than fitting smile.
“You don’t have to be worried. No reason.” Chanyeol assured him. “Everything’s fine.”
“Oh definitely. Not a bunch of dark embodiments of fear using my brain as an interdimensional toll road or anything.” Jongdae joked.
“Let Minseok handle that okay. Our job is to just be distracted.” He said succinctly.
Jongdae shrugged. “We’re running a bit low on distractions. I couldn’t imagine doing this with somebody I didn’t like. Torture.”
“You like me?” Chanyeol grinned cheekily.
“I didn’t say that.” Jongdae responded with a finger point.
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Chanyeol teased. “Maybe you’re delirious from lack of sleep.”
“Absolutely.” He knew that to be true. “I miss it so much. I used to love dreaming. It was a respite from actual life. And who doesn’t love sleep?”
“You’ll be back to it soon enough.”
Jongdae didn’t feel like he would. “I’m so tired of all of this. My life has been spiraling since I started having these dreams, but it was out of control before that. I get pushed around at work and I have shallow friendships because who knows when I’ll move again. I can’t even bring myself to meet my roommate's new girlfriend because she’ll probably disappear again and somebody new will be shoved into my life that I have to get to know all over again.”
“You think entirely too much.” Chanyeol said pointedly. “Life is only 1% what happens to you. The other 99% is how you react to it. You’re entirely in control of that.”
Somehow, someway … that actually clicked in Jongdae’s mind. Like a lever snapping into place, he felt a wave of blissful easiness wash over him. Like he wasn’t tired anymore. Or scared.
“Thanks.” Jongdae said softly. “Means a lot.”
“Don’t go soft on me. I already know you like me.” Chanyeol chuckled, tapping at his scrabble pieces.
“I’m not the soft one. You’re the one hell bent on actualizing your crush.”
“Hey.” Chanyeol warned.
“It’s true.” Jongdae added, effectively turning the tables from earlier onto a now fluster Chanyeol. “You just won’t do anything about it.”
“I totally will.”
“Do it then.”
Chanyeol pushed himself out of his chair and kissed Jongdae. One hand on the table, one on the back of the chair he was now hovering above, Chanyeol kissed him for a moment.
Jongdae, not entirely against it, reciprocated the brief gesture, smiling when they parted.
“So … new distraction?” Chanyeol smiled again, falling back into his seat.
“Definitely …” Jongdae trailed off, his eyes catching the letters on the scrabble board.
He squinted for a second, realizing that they didn’t immediately make sense to him. But even when he did, they were still indecipherably. No longer words of any kind.
It took less than a single exhale for him to realize he was dreaming.
Everything was quiet. He couldn’t even hear his own breathing or heart beat.
Slowly, he turned to look where Chanyeol was sitting, but Chanyeol was no longer in the chair.
Where the lanky, smiling man had once been, was an even taller shadow. The depth of blackness was incomprehensible. Void of all tone, yet understood to be in motion. Wisps of shadowy dust trailed and arches around the figures loose frame as it looked at Jongdae in silence.
Yet, Jongdae didn’t feel fear.
Apprehension, curiosity, a little less heat in his body maybe yes.
But not fear.
The creature leaned forward in a painfully slow fashion. Its voice was lower than that of any baritone Jongdae had ever heard and it sounded like it was mirrored by a fainter, much higher pitched voice speaking the same words at the same time to create a wince of dissonance when it spoke.
“You’re not afraid.” It said slowly, the r’s in the sentence seeming boil in its throat.
Jongdae looked back at the scrabble board for a moment in thought. “I’m not.”
“You should be.” Came an eerily quick response. “You’ve made everything worse by putting off sleep. It’ll be impossible to wake up in time.”
“For what?” Jongdae turned his eyes back, noticing that the world was becoming desaturated as they spoke, colors fading out from the wall paint and the furniture. “So you can walk out of my mind and into the real world?”
The creature didn’t move. It seemed to warp a bit, growing larger as it loomed in the chair. “It doesn’t matter if you know. You’ll never stop us.”
Jongdae became aware of the shadowy figures lurking in the hallway behind the one directly near him. They were menacing and dark, gathering like an army ready to march.
“But I can.” Jongdae said softly. “I’m in control here.”
A low chuckle came from the shadowy creature. “You are fooling yourself.”
“Am I?” Jongdae sent a look over to the scrabble board and suddenly all of the tiles flew off of it random directions as if a gust of wind had suddenly swept them from the table. “This is my mind not yours.”
It seemed unfazed. “You wish us to think a few flying board game pieces is a show of force. How petty. You’ve never been in control, Jongdae. Not in high school or university or any day of your life.”
Jongdae sighed. He looked around at the dull gray room, melting into fuzzy, blurry shapes around him like a stew that had been left in a slow cooker one hour too long. Then he brought his eyes back to the shadowy army. Hundreds of them stood before him, stretching out into the distance where a hallway once was. Leaving two people in chairs next to a card table.
“Well …” Jongdae started, picking up the one letter tile still left on the table. “I’m going to start somewhere.”
Suddenly they were in his room. It was vibrant and during the day. Only a few of the shadow creatures were there now, disoriented and confused at the change of scenery. Even Jongdae was surprised. He had managed to will an entire setting into existence.
The shadow that had been sitting on the chair fell to the ground without something to sit on, morphing as it hit the floor. Jongdae stepped up into the air then, imagining stairs only he could walk on that took him into the air, floating above the shadows.
They looked up at him and began to make growling and gurgling noises, their raspy voices muttering nonsensical phrases as they scrambled.
“I didn’t get it until right now.” Jongdae looked down at his hands and frowned. “When I’m in sleep paralysis all of you shadowy pricks can just walk through my head into this world. So it’s not a huge jump to assume that was the plan. I guess I’m smarter than Chanyeol and Minseok gave me credit for.” Jongdae curled his fingers into fists, imagining thunder between his knuckles and seeing sparks fly out at the impulse. When he uncurled them a bit, it revealed a ball of vibrating lightning in his palm, buzzing against his skin. “Chanyeol said that when we sleep we mold this world. Or at least our little part of it. All those houses and buildings are entire realms created by a sleeping person. So if I burn down my house, there’s no way for you guys to leave.”
The shadow creature spoke again then, “You’re meddling with forces you don’t understand. If you destroy this you’ll never dream again. You won’t even kill us. There’s far too many of us to kill. We’ll find someone else.”
Jongdae spread his fingers apart now, watching the ball of white energy glow and fritz like microwaved tinfoil. It sparked and buzzed and felt like pure power on his fingertips. It was a sensation he’d never felt in real life before, and for a second he considered an alternative. Some far off idea that maybe this could end some other way.
“Good luck with that.” Jongdae smiled.
He let the energy go, feeling a release that crackled into the air and sparked, jumping from air molecule to air molecule as it surrounded everything he could see with a blinding white light. The shadow creatures remaining began to evaporate under the stunning glow, and the walls fell away, furniture dissolving, feelings numbing until eventually Jongdae had to cover his eyes.
The world grew quiet again. He went to move his arm down from his eyes, but felt resistance. Instead he had to pull his head up from his arm.
He found himself face to face with a string of drool and a letter tile sticking to his cheek. But he was too dumbfounded to move. After a couple seconds like that, the tile lost friction with his skin and fell off, clattering to the card table and in turn waking the other sleeping person at the table.
“Triple letter!” Chanyeol spat out, shaking his head quickly as he tried to regain consciousness in a timely manner. “You got that?”
Jongdae blinked for a second, not immediately responding.
“Jongdae?” Chanyeol reached up and covered a yawn, trying to play the whole thing off.
The other boy looked at him with a somber expression on his face. “It’s over.”
“What?” Chanyeol scrunched up his face, “We’ve still got like a bunch of letters. We’re good to go. I haven’t even pulled out my Z yet.”
“No. Chanyeol.” Jongdae said sternly, his voice deep and dark. “It’s over. Everything.”
Chanyeol opened his mouth and then shut it again.
And Minseok arrived minutes later.
“You really don’t have to do this.” Jongdae said, gently folding his t-shirt and shoving it in his bag. Everything was packed and ready to go except for the toiletries he would need in the morning before the trip.
“I do, though.” Chanyeol said, toying with the ends of the comforter. “There’s a million reasons why something could happen tonight. I just want to be sure you’re safe.”
Jongdae rolled his eyes. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you just liked sleeping with me.”
Chanyeol let out a huff. “As if.”
The conversation didn’t get much further. Jongdae zipped up his bag and practically threw himself into bed, tiredness pressing him into the mattress live a force of gravity. He immediately snuggled up into it and shut off the lights before feeling a wave of relief came to uncoil his muscles.
“You know.” Jongdae said quietly into the dark. “In my dream you said life is 1% what happens to you and 99% how you react to it.”
“And you still thought it was me?” Chanyeol joked back. “Did I do anything else.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Jongdae let out a breathy laugh.
“Like what?”
Jongdae rolled over, close to Chanyeol’s head and leaned in, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Like that.”
Chanyeol tried to contain himself. “Oh. Dream Chanyeol is way cooler than me.”
“Dreamier too.” Jongdae teased before turning back over and retiring for the night. “Goodnight, Chanyeol.”
“Goodnight.”
He woke up the next morning to the sound of chimes playing off his phone. It was 8 AM and he had reache dhis quota of sick days so he had to turn it off and get back to living his life. He gently pressed on the screen in different places until the phone quit making noises. Silence was ushered in under its wake and he could tell Chanyeol was already awake and sliding through social media.
He side-eyed Jongdae before speaking in a low, morning voice. “How’d you sleep?”
“Great.”
Chanyeol nodded to his phone, “Sweet dreams?”
Jongdae looked at the white wall opposite the bed and made no change to his facial expression.
“No dreams at all.”