Chapter Text
Waves crashed gently upon the pebbled beach, ebbing in gentle white foam, artificial lunar tides making a brand new landscape every day, just for him. It was the ideal sort of white noise – it wasn’t constant like TV static or inconsistent and booming like rain. The wash provided a soft, plodding rhythm of wssh, wssh, wssh.
The calm sound of the sea.
Even inside, he could almost smell the salt tickling his nosehairs, almost feel the cool, careful breeze sailing over the water to tickle his skin, almost feel the raking gaze of the falling-asleep sun begging his eyes to open and behold, behold its fading beauty turning white to yellow to red as it cut through more and more atmosphere before sinking below the horizon for the night. The dwindling warmth would’ve felt nice baking his face, and his eyelids would be burnt orangey-red curtains against the glow.
But it was more maroon right now.
And the wind was pushing his hair around like a bored cat.
And the beach smelled more garbage-y than usual.
And was that a gull?
Something tugged at his foot – more accurately, something tugged something on his foot.
He opened his eyes blearily, blinking rapidly to try and clear the after-sleep fog from his vision and make sense of the scene before him.
He was sideways, but his sense of place-in-space already told him that. He was lying down on something much harder than he fell asleep on, and given everything else, was probably a bench. Concrete stretched out before him, and he lifted his head enough to make out the long line of trashcans and palm trees lining the sand that made up a beach. It was near-dark, streetlamps were on, and scant people speckled the scene.
People.
People. Human people. People on two legs with two hands and two feet and one face—
Grace shot upright, regretting it as his iron failed to rush to his head in time and left it spinning. The bird that had tugged at his sock scrambled and took flight with a signature squawk. He watched its wings for a few beats before refocusing on the bigger picture;
Earth.
Earth warm. Earth okay. Earth with a low, sunny beach and sand and human beings wearing swimsuits and walking around in no particular hurry, no sense of urgency, no—
He wrapped his arms around himself, and then un-did the motion, opting to scratch his head with both hands. Nothing felt comfortable. His skin was prickling. His heart beat fast out of his chest; it might've been joy. It felt like joy. But his body reacted like fear.
The obvious and only answer was a dream. That much was clear—that or a hallucination, but that would be harder to pull off—because of course it was a dream. He couldn’t just fall asleep and wake up 16 lightyears away from his bed!
Well.
Alright, maybe he could, but he didn’t this time—two betrayals of that scale in a single lifetime seemed unlikely. For one, he remembered falling asleep; he even remembered getting his shoes wet in the surf that day, leaving them upside-down by the front door to dry out. He remembered falling asleep in his flight-suit slacks, fully bundled—old habits died hard—and while he couldn’t remember exactly what he had been doing the moment his eyes shut, it was probably a half-finished lesson plan he was now drooling on. Rocky’d read him the riot act in the morning, undoubtedly.
The point was he remembered. He remembered all of his little dome on the dark planet, his little classroom alcove, his students, his friend—and that wasn’t even mentioning that to move all that way while sleeping, someone would have had to do the moving for him, just like last time—
So he was definitely just dreaming. Logistically, emotionally, statistically—he was dreaming.
His knees pleaded at him to fix the odd angle they were stuck at, leaving him to swing his legs down to the cold stone. He wasn’t in pajamas—made sense; he didn’t fall asleep in any and wearing pajamas in public would be weird—and his cardigan seemed like barely enough against the late-evening wind. What was worse was the smell of soon-to-come rain, wet like asphalt and stinging like salt, and here he sat in the open, no umbrella nor shoes, in wool.
Deep breath. Dream, it was a dream. He’d just wake up when it got too sticky out here, and even if he didn’t, there weren’t any actual consequences for getting wet. Right now, it was vivid, near reality with the definition of each shape and sense before him, and he should enjoy it.
Grace stood after a long moment, walking to the edge of the paved space and gazing at the waves. No machine made those, just a great big rock in the sky locked in an eternal game of I’m not touching you with Earth.
Our sister. Or is she our daughter? She came from us, technically. Hm.
Right now she floated a little off to the side, maybe half-full and waiting for the sun to finish setting and really let her show off. The rain would probably cover her up, though.
More was the pity. He’d missed her; he’d had enough space to last a lifetime, and then another few lifetimes after that, but her comfortable, constant phase-changes left a painful absence when he couldn’t check in on her anymore.
Her tides were gentle, settling the too-small sand grains in a new pattern and bouncing a sailboat in the far distance. He did his best to focus on the vessel, peering over his glasses—which, to have them at all felt a little rude of his brain to do, since it was a dream, where anything was possible, even 20/20 vision without aids, but he digressed.
He glanced along the shore, seeing a few people playing late-evening sand games. Volleyball took place a little off to one side.
He had movies. TV. Documentaries. Any and all footage he could ask for of human beings going around being human beings, but there was a special authenticity usually missing from those, usually from the observer effect—people just acted different when they knew someone was watching. These people, though just extremely-convincing brain-soup left on to entertain him while all his chemicals got sorted and memories of the day filed into their right places, were just acting as they wanted to: screaming in joy, diving for the ball, calling the other players names, celebrating a point, on and on and on.
They’d be going on about their business. In the daylight, people would chatter on, jog—some would rollerblade, no doubt, given the concrete—but none of that now. Even most of the vendors were closed now, the evening much too late to be worth manning the stand in hopes of the few stragglers coming and buying things.
What time was it, anyway? He lifted his hand and checked his watch;
8:42 AM.
Well, great, that wasn’t helpful at all. He didn’t expect it to make sense, since he was in a dream—an Earth dream, no less—and his watch was set to Erid’s artificially-made dome-time; thus his brain, of course, wouldn’t make up an actually accurate time for him, since he was too much of a stickler for details on these things; but habits are hard to break—
and he could read that.
He read it just fine.
8:42 AM.
Each number, rounding the whole face. Legible. The second hand moved steadily. He watched it tick over another minute.
That wasn’t right.
Over his shoulder, searching—shops along the promenade. ‘SNACK BAR’. ‘CHEAPSKAES’. ‘THE BRIG’. Perfectly still, pristine lettering. Different fonts, even, one done up in technicolour tie-dye.
I can read.
Why does that bug me?
He kept his eyes trained on the bold black ink, unwilling to look away, like they might suddenly change on him—
That was it! That was it—one particular morning during the long, long journey back to Erid, Rocky managed to bully him into explaining what it all meant when he mumbled nonsense in his sleep, and the rest of that day was spent searching up anything and everything on dreams and dreaming buried in the vast annals of human history stored in Mary’s little computer. From Freud’s dream theory all the way to actual science, they dug in and soaked up all they could about hypnic jerks, restless legs, sleep paralysis—a concept Rocky had seemed interested and disturbed by especially, at least in relation to Grace—and more about dream content, like how smelling something in reality usually wouldn’t make it show up in a dream because the nose was mostly off during the night, but that wasn’t necessarily the case for other sensations.
Grace had never wanted to learn that much about his own brain working as it slept, but what mattered right now is he definitely remembered seeing that people could read in dreams. It was uncommon, and it wasn’t something he had ever experienced— but when had he ever had a dream this vivid, anyway? Maybe his brain just hadn’t felt the need to do that before.
It was stuff staying read-able, that was the trouble. Look away, look back, and all the words are different, because reality was relying on remembering instead of just existing as-is. That meant it was simple; he could read in his dreams, and he was just having a particularly realistic dream, and all those words would shuffle around as soon as he started watching the waves again, and he’d marvel at whatever new and interesting message they had for him when he looked back. That’s what dreams did, and that’s what this dream would do.
So why couldn’t he look away?
Why was it hard to blink, to lose sight of those goofy, simple signs, those hokey business advertisements for even one, single, solitary second—not even a second, for even 100 milliseconds?
And why was the rapidly growing boulder in his stomach so very, very certain that if he were to look away, if he were to check the time again, that as sure as he stood near-barefoot on some West-coast beach still dressed in his teaching clothes, he’d see that black-and-red watchface reading back 8:43 AM in mocking clarity?
Okay. Stop thinking about that.
It wasn’t worth putting any effort into it – he was a worrier and, right now, just some idiot catastrophizing even in his own dreams. There was no point thinking like that, no path that lead to anything good down that road. Best to leave it be.
A problem is what he needed. A solvable problem, something small, something doable he could fixate on fixing—
Location! Where was he? West coast certainly, but not San Francisco, which was weird since that was the kind of beach he most knew and would be most likely for a dream setting; but that didn’t mean anything, just like how those signs were going to change when he looked away.
People. There were people here, people with voices speaking human words with human voices right out of their own, human throats. They knew wherever his brain had plunked him down most assuredly, because that was logical, and his brain seemed to be making things mostly make sense thus far.
The Brig had people in it, and based on both the name and the presence of people despite it being not-8:43 AM, it was probably a bar. A bar with a bartender that would be happy to give directions to a wayward dream tourist.
His eyes finally broke from the signage and kept floorward as they watered, blinking rapidly. He felt out the door with his hands and it opened with a slight screech. The smell of tobacco rushed over him, smothering the ocean breeze and filling his lungs with tar—he had never missed that. Coughing brought him up to the bar itself, and he did his best to stifle himself while waiting for service.
Why couldn’t I have dreamed up some shoes to wear? I’d even take wet ones at this point.
Everything was fine. He’d just tell the very groovy-looking tender he was lost, and she’d give him directions while he avoided the oncoming rain. Simple. And while he waited, he could enjoy the vintage music selection they had coming in over the speakers. He couldn’t place the current song, but not in the wibbly-warbly dreamy sense where it wasn’t real words; he just couldn’t remember ever hearing it before. He must have, for it to be playing now, but a mental survey turned up nothing.
Sounds kind of like the Eagles, though.
More interesting was the people. Flashy outfits lit up the dim, navy-themed bar, with collars standing out from suit jackets like some sort of angry reptilian dominance display. That wasn’t even touching on the… fascinating facial hair situation going on.
The bartender neared, face already sour. Ryland cleared his throat, “so this is a smoking bar, huh?”
“What?” She leaned closer. It wasn’t that loud in here, was it?
“I said this is a smoking bar, then.” He waved his hand around vaguely, offering a smile. People liked when you smiled at them.
“What’re you talking about?”
A very ‘70s-themed dream, then, complete with polyester suits and secondhand smoke. “Nevermind—ah, I’m not from around here, and I’m a little lost. Could you tell me where I am?”
The large acrylic hoops from her ears batted her jaw as she tilted, squinting, scrunching her face. “You hit your head?”
“Uh…” She looked concerned more than anything. Maybe. It felt harder to read faces than it used to be—maybe that was something you had to practice and which, unlike riding a bike, faded with neglect. As for what caused the expression, maybe he looked more haggard than he first thought—or maybe this was a dream where all his teeth fell out, and he just hadn’t noticed. Despite her just being a mind-creation, he still felt a discordant pang for worrying her. “No, not that I noticed. Just a little turned around.”
“Venice. Where else?”
Los Angeles, then. That was going to be his second guess. “Right, right, my bad.”
“Am I the last stop on your grand bar crawl, March? What’s with this shit?”
I must be a regular here. Dreams usually had you playing a role, and he was apparently just another barfly. His ears burned a bit. “Ah—no. Just getting my bearings a little. Not sure how I got here, buuuut it’s probably gonna rain soon, and I’d rather be inside anyway.”
Now there was a look that he’d never forget. Excessively easy to spot, especially as her beachy waves nearly dragged the bartop as she took a look all the way down to his feet. The slight downturn at the corners of her mouth and the furrow in her brow either said ‘pity’ or ‘disgust’, with about the certainty of a coin toss betting either way.
“Smelled it on the air—“
“You gonna order something?”
“Oh, no, uh… I don’t have my wallet.” Haven’t even owned one in… well, years.
“Well, go sit at the end there and I’ll get you water while you uh… get your bearings, yeah?”
His mouth opened, but she was already off, ditching the dour expression and tending to another patron.
What was it about him that made people so confident they could just order him around willy-nilly? His face? His clothes? The old ‘bully the nerd with glasses’ routine?
He spotted the empty seat she hopefully meant and took it. The floor stuck to him, and while he was getting used to it, the smoke was still eye-watering in intensity, making him all the more thankful to be off his feet.
Maybe its the no-shoes thing. Might’ve soured her opinion of me a little. Fully dressed, socks, no shoes. I hope she didn’t have one of those ‘no service’ signs.
Why was this dream ‘70s themed when he wasn’t even alive for the ‘70s? There were way better eras to pick from. Even just the early 2000s would’ve been better; there was AOL, music piracy was in its hay day, nights spent with a Blockbuster rental, everything a college kid could ask for. That wasn’t even mentioning the fashion; low-rise jeans, Y2K, frosted tips—
Okay, maybe it wasn’t all good, but still. He might’ve had a little more affection for those years than the average person, in all its gimicky food-dyed ketchup and inflatable furniture glory, but if anything, that was more reason for his dream to be 2000s themed. This dream was a ripoff.
“Water. On the house.” She nodded as she set it down, already turning away to leave as suddenly as she appeared.
His mouth felt very dry all of a sudden. “You’re too kind.”
He watched her walk over to the phone and lift it from the receiver before he mustered the courage to take a sip.
Grace didn’t know what the courage was for, though. It was cold, it was bland, it was water. It felt good washing down his throat, several gulps chilling all the way down to his stomach before the numbness set in. It spread through his body slowly, gently cooling his anxiously-warm muscles. The cardigan that hadn’t felt like enough outside now felt too much—but he couldn’t take it off now, people would look at him weird! Which, no, of course they wouldn’t, but this was a dream, and his brain was controlling each and every one of the people in here, so of course they would bend to make the worst version of reality come true, and he wouldn’t give it that chance. Cardigan would stay on.
The smoke was still bothering him.
He took another taste of the bland, slightly-too-hard water to clear the burning in his throat.
That bothered him too.
He cast his vision around the bar briefly, gingerly passing over the bathroom signs reading ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’. Cute.
Back to the bartender. She was on the phone now. He was probably making it up—in fact, he definitely was—that she was looking at him. She was talking about him. Had to be.
The journey to Erid was long. That day of dream-discussion was almost un-memorable in the endless march of same-day-as-the-last, were it not for the occasional fact-pull from his friend’s eternal memory whenever he mentioned something that happened in the night. Anything could happen in a dream, really; anything that happened while you were awake could more or less be re-done in nocturnal stageplay, since the brain was the one that made sense of all the stimulus in the first place. All it had to do was make up it’s own stimulus.
But that sign still said ‘ladies’. The other still said ‘gents’. His watch said 8:45 AM, two minutes after it said 8:43 AM without him even thinking about it. The water tasted like nothing but water and the smoke burned his throat in a way no dream ever could. The music was a song he’d never listened to, each person’s face was made of flesh and blood and sculpted in a way he could never hope to replicate with the same level of clarity. He smelled tobacco and booze and woody-musky-cologne and all the things he would never choose to smell, even in a dream, even if he could smell in a dream.
It didn’t make sense.
It wouldn’t make sense, no matter which way he turned it.
In fact, any other crack-pot half-baked ‘there is a leak of some kind in your house and your brain is dying’ spitball would be more sensible than what appeared to be true.
There wasn’t any math to do, there wasn’t any logic to apply. There wasn’t anyone to turn to, to call.
This was real.
Really real.
He’d really, truly woken up lightyears away from home, with no clue how he got there, and no way to get back.
Again.