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He is kneeling. The specifics are different in each dream, sometimes he's in his office, sometimes he's outside, sometimes he's in the tunnels. But he is always kneeling.
His eyes are fixed on the ground- grass, this time, healthy and green and with morning dew sprinkled on it. He feels the water seep through his suit pants and briefly thinks about how much the dry cleaning is going to cost him. Then he reminds himself that he is dreaming.
A slight breeze ruffles his hair. His hands are clenched to fists in anticipation and he forcefully relaxes them. He tries to speak, but finds that he shouldn't bother. Anything he says will have already been answered long before he has time to put it into words.
It's up to him. He already knows this, of course. This isn't the first time he's had this dream. He has it every night, and every day he wakes up relieved that he can put his mind to other things. Not forget, of course. He cannot forget. It will not let him.
He can look up and it will be over. Sometimes he is quick. Sometimes he can rip it off like a plaster and enjoy a relaxing, dreamless sleep for the rest of the night. This time, as most of them, is not such a time.
He stares at the grass. There is a grasshopper there, a ladybug to his right. A few flowers are poking their heads out, although none are blooming.
He can never ignore it for long. This time, it's about his breathing. He becomes aware of it when he breathes out with a little more force and sees his own breath white in the cold morning air. He's suddenly aware of every time he breathes in, of every bit of air that enters his lungs. The way he pauses slightly before breathing out again.
And he knows it isn't just him who is aware. He can feel it. It extends to his heart and he notices that it's beating very steadily, despite his oncoming panic. It's all a very mental thing. Certainly fitting, he supposes.
He never cared much for neuroscience. After all, the only thing the scientists explaining these things research is how the brain works when what it is thinking is natural.
He knows how his own mind works and he knows that its knowledge is not self-contained. His is not a mind trying to comprehend itself, to wrap around its own being. No, this knowledge is shared, given to him as much as it is taken from him.
It's a dream, he knows. He could change where his is, what he is doing. He certainly has tried. He's always known that his efforts were for naught, but he has tried over and over again regardless. To run, to leave, to find a place within his mind that is his own. That is his.
Where he can hide and the Eye cannot see him. But he knows as well as it does. There is no place, real or otherwise, within his mind or outside of it, where he is not known, where he is not beheld.
By day, he revels in being unknowable. He revels in his secrets, his past lives that they don't know about, the things he keeps hidden, every one of the truths he keeps just out of reach. Keep them curious. Make them want to know. He never reveals more about himself than he has to.
In his dreams, there are no secrets. The carefully constructed half-truths and omissions that are his greatest weapons and his greatest defenses are gone. Without them, he is powerless.
The last thing he has, the last thing that is his only defense, feeble and he knows that he only has it because he has to leave it behind. And yet he still refuses to look up, refuses to let it gaze into his eyes.
He grows desperate. Wants to escape. His mind makes an attempt at pleading, there is no concrete thought of it but he already knows the response. He is ashamed, of course, he himself does not show mercy to those he binds to him. He knows he has to look up.
He closes his eyes and there is a quick flicker of an apology inside his mind. He would never say it out loud, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how long he takes. It only changes the amount of time he gets to sleep without dreams.
With his eyes closed, it's easier to move his head up. He immediatly feels it on his face, almost like sunlight. But it is not warm. And looking into it will not blind him.
Finally, he opens his eyes.
The stark terror that rushes through him is visible in his eyes and he can see through them into a mirror image of everything he is. His own thoughts are visible, synapses firing wildly, atoms being charged and decharged and he knows it all, he sees it all. He knows his cells are experiencing what it would be like to be observed under a microscope, carved up and seperated and filled up with knowledge of the what, the how, the why.
The tears that brim in his eyes don't give him the mercy of blurring his vision.
He sees his very self kneel on the grass, eyes fixed on that which watches ceaselessly. It drinks in all that is fear and terror and it lets him know with a certainty beyond comprehension that this is what he is to it. He is fear and it feeds on him and his secrets and lies and everything he does not want known.
He drinks in the knowledge it gives him, he welcomes the certainties into his mind as if they were his own and he knows his own fear with an intimacy that can only be shared by that which knows all, sees all and lets him see and know and become part of the knowledge, part of the watching, part of the fear and he cannot look away.
And when the certainty of consciousness approaching enters his mind, he knows his eyes are staring at the ceiling with an intensity that makes them hurt.
Waking up does not change anything.