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My wife has become sick of my murmurings of my odd dreams lately, so she gave me this journal so I can write about them instead of blabbering it to her all the time. I love the woman very much, so I suppose it is in her best interest if I put my thoughts here.
The dreams began a few weeks ago, not long after the state arrested my son and requested he be put under probation. As much as it pained me to send him away, we didn’t have much choice in the matter. His school gave us a call and informed us that he would no longer be permitted to attend following his actions. With no other school for miles and us feeling unconfident in our ability to give him quality education of our own, we decided it would be best for him to attend school somewhere else in the country. But who could we trust to take care of our boy? It was very hard finding an arrangement for him. Our relatives were either unable to take in our son with their own situations, or the schools near them refused to allow him to enroll. It was looking very bleak, until I phoned my old chum from high school. While he couldn’t take my son in, he said he knew a guy who might be willing. He introduced us to this man, a coffee shop owner from Tokyo named Sojiro Sakura. My friend got Sakura-san in contact with me, and we hit it off very well. While I would much rather have a relative watch our boy, I felt like I could trust him, especially with our options being very limited. By a great stroke of fortune, the local school was also willing to enroll him. Even with everything set up, I still felt a great deal of sorrow for my son. He may have hurt that poor man, but I felt something was off. He cried to me that he didn’t do anything to purposely hurt him, and that he was only trying to save the woman with him. Part of me thought he was just lying to get out of trouble, but doubt sat in the depths of my mind. I wondered if I was truly doing the right thing. Even worse was that the government forbade us from contacting him while he was under his probation. They reasoned that our son’s behavior may have been due in part to bad parenting, so they wanted us to have as little influence on him as possible when he was away. It’s truly awful, and it’s even worse that the government now sees us as untrustworthy. On the day he left, I tried to spend as much time as possible with him, loading every piece of fatherly advice I could bestow upon him, seeing as he wouldn’t be able to hear any of it for a year. He looked dejected during the whole thing, which was perfectly understandable, but extra heartbreaking for me. Since I saw the subway doors close in front of him as he headed into the unseen distance, he has been the subject of my every thought. I can’t know what he’s been thinking or what exactly he’s been up to. Sometimes I’ve been able to vicariously know through sporadic calls with Sakura-san, but it’s stressing to not be able to hear it from my boy himself. My wife theorizes that my odd dreams all come from this stress, and that I should relax because our boy is certainly doing fine.
Speaking of the dreams, it’s about time I start documenting them here. There are many details I remember in lucid detail, and some I hardly remember, but I will do my best to recall them. The first dream happened one dreary afternoon. I had became very drowsy all of a sudden. Perhaps I was exhausted from last night’s work. I do late night shifts after all. I had dozed off into a nap. When my mental acuity returned, I was in some sort of cell. I was pinned up against a wall by two men in armor-no, it wasn’t exactly me. Somehow I knew it was not I, but my son who was pinned, and I was just viewing the scene from his perspective. Across the room was another armored man standing above a boy on the ground, weapon in hand and ready to end the young man’s life. Beside him was a man wearing a crown, cape, and not much else. It seemed he was the one ordering the armored men. Any moment and he would give the command to kill the boy. Horrified, I shouted out to my son. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I recall it being under the lines of telling him to stand up for himself and save the boy. I then thought of how he claimed to us and in court that he saved the woman testifying against him. If he really was telling the truth, then perhaps he could save one more person. I could tell something clicked within him, as if he realized my presence. He then began to struggle and quiver. Shortly after, my perspective suddenly changed. No longer was I viewing the event as him, but behind him. I saw he wore an outfit I never recall him having. Did he perhaps go clothes shopping when he got to Tokyo? He looked at me, tears in his eyes. He said weeping, “I don’t want to die…” Then, the caped man stared at us in confusion. He called for his guards to attack us. Their suits of armor burst, revealing two strange pumpkin monsters. They charged at my son. Determined to protect him, I raised my arm, and a blast of red energy hit one of the monsters, significantly injuring it. I didn’t think much of it during the dream, but it seems odd how nonchalant I was about it in retrospect. I then cried out to him to do something. He pulled out a knife and slashed the monster I attacked multiple times until it exploded into a black mist. I of course didn’t think much as to why my boy had a knife, but as I said before I didn’t question much then. We then took out the other monster together.
The rest of that dream is mostly a blur. I do remember running through a castle with the boy who was in the cell, as well as a weird looking cat, both of who would becoming recurring characters in my dreams. We fought some more monsters together alongside the cat. After that, I hardly remember anything at all. Then, I woke up in cold sweat. I heard the front door open. My wife had just come home from her day shift. I relayed to her my dream. She looked at me with eyes of concern. She’s no psychologist, but she could tell my anxieties about my son had dominated my mind and were taking over even in my sleep. She told me to take it easy, and she fixed me a cup of my favorite tea.