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Jonas had several dream journals after his brain surgery to get rid of the visions Niirti gave him. Before that surgery, he had never had dreams. At least none that he ever really remembered. But after? He’d be lucky to go one night without a dream.
He sorted his journals by where his dreams took place.
The first three were filled with his return to Kelowna. The life that he had for years before he decided not to leave. The pain and loneliness that left an ever-present ache in his bones. His first conversation with the Void.
The next two were random happenstance. Things that would sometimes happen later, but most times would narrowly be avoided. The Void would often talk to him in these dreams, reminding him that every choice was important to what happens in every moment.
The last one and a half were…confusing. In those journals, he documented a life that he was sure couldn’t have been his. In those dreams he visited the city of Sateda, a city that lived somehow very similarly to Kelowna, and yet not at all alike it. Jonas often saw one particular man in these dreams, a man who seemed keen to avoid him. The strangest part was that Jonas could tell the man was watching him wander the city, walking through Sateda, and Jonas could almost feel sadness and desperation coming from him. If that wasn’t odd enough, Jonas would periodically run into that woman from his first encounter with the Void. She wasn’t from Sateda, and didn’t even seem to notice that that was where they were. She didn’t say much, but would often grin at him and laugh as if Jonas himself were some joke that only she could see the punchline to.
Jonas strolled peacefully along the streets of the city, enjoying the feeling of the sunlight on his skin. The noise of the city life bustling about him somehow added to the peaceful, contented feeling that surrounded him. If he could choose to be anywhere in the universe, it would be Sateda on a sunny day. He smiled to himself as he watched a couple walk past him, arms linked matching smiles on their faces.
Jonas could feel the other man’s eyes on him, even though it was from a ways away. He could feel them boring into his back. Jonas whipped around and just caught sight of the man’s startled face. “I’m sorry.” Jonas blurted out, not entirely sure why he felt the need to apologize to his stalker. But he could tell the man was suffering from bone-deep sadness. A feeling he understood all too well.
The dream journals were kept in a box under Jonas’ bed in his quarters. Every morning he would pull out the box, grab the journal on top, and go to the next blank page to write out every detail that happened in that night’s dreams. Some mornings his hands shook from the leftover nerves of the dreams. Other mornings it was like writing out a to-do list, utterly detached and devoid of any emotion. The journals themselves were kept as reminders of what (almost) was.
It was hard to be upset, when you walked the streets of Sateda on a day where schools let out early. The children took advantage of their freedom with a kind of wild and reckless abandon that Jonas had never seen in Kelowna. The youths ran and screamed along the side of the streets, careful still to remain outside of the traffic. Jonas laughed at the sight. He felt it again, the sense of deep regret and mourning that came before the Other Man. A wave of children crossed the street in front of him, when they passed Jonas saw him. “What’s wrong?” He asked, though he still knew there wouldn’t be an answer. The Other Man turned and ran in the other direction. Jonas considered giving chase, but didn’t. He had a feeling the Other Man had more experience running.
Instead Jonas continued enjoying the sight of the children running free. The same couple that he had seen before passed him again, this time with a small child walking between them, holding both of their hands in tiny pudgy fingers.
Jonas lived in fear that someday he’d come into his room and find the box sitting open atop his bed. That someone would read through the lifetimes held inside them. If anyone were to read them, they’d have questions. Questions that Jonas wouldn’t be able to answer, because he didn’t know anything either. If anyone asked what the dreams meant, Jonas would only be able to say that he didn’t know.
The streets of Sateda were abandoned. Strange. How could a city go from being full of life, full of people living and laughing one day, to nothing the next. Dust clogged the air, shoved its way down Jonas’ throat. He gasped when he came across the first body. After that, he saw many more. Practically piled on top of each other. Jonas gagged from the sight, but there was nowhere he could go that was free. The bodies with a strange wound in their chests seemed to follow him around the city. There was nowhere free of the carnage. “How did this happen?” Jonas choked out, still gagging on the carnage and dust.
“The Wraith.” The answer came from around the side of a building. Jonas turned to see who it was, –even though he already knew– and saw the Other Man.
“Wraith?” Jonas asked.
“The Wraith.” The Other Man nodded once, then turned to walk away. Jonas made to stop him, but failed.
Jonas was alone again amongst the dead in Sateda. If he tried, he was sure that he could hear their dying screams ringing out like a death knell.
Jonas shot up in his bed, looking around his room in shock. He took a shaky breath and reminded himself of where he was, that he was safe in the SGC. Then he reached for his dream journals. The screams of the dying Satedans still ringing in his ears, as he wrote about the destruction. Nowhere, it seemed, was safe from the carnage and cruelty of the universe.