Calli used to lucidly dream about the same world every night, a world that was as real as her conviction took her. For the past two months, however, the gap between each dream had grown wider and wider.
One night, the wayward door opened again—only this time, she harbored an inkling that this dream was going to be the last.
With no recollection of where non-REM ended and where the dream began, Calli realized she was crying from a profound crisis. Uncovering her face, she felt the brumous air of her nocturnal world kiss her hot tears. Through the clearing murk, she saw Arciel walking toward her.
“There you are,” he stopped in front of her. His smile was darkened by the light of a street lamp, the shadows of his face breathing with him. He extended his arm, caressing a tear from her cheekbone. She stiffened—the air all around her felt like static buzzing between endearment and discomfort. “When did you get here?”
“I don’t know.”
In her wakeful reality, she had been trying to map this world out, battling with the eroding distinction of what was real and what was not. Awake, she tried looking for this misty plane, driven by a responsibility to prove this world real and to accompany the lonely Arciel, but to her shame, found that it only existed in sleep. She felt something close to survivor’s guilt every time she awoke–a wickedness that was inflamed by the feeling of relief.
“I missed you,” Arciel said with a knit brow that made Calli feel sick, yet she was reluctant to admit that somehow, someway there was solace in this ghost town, along the empty asphalt roads, desire paths on grass that disappeared into the fog, the warm, subdued light coming from windows, and him–the unyielding, persistent, saccharine Arciel. “I have something for you.”
Calli leaned against the bench, needing something on her back. Ill with dread, she did not utter a word. Gifts in dreams never came out right. Despite how true this all was, by no means was it normal in the way she knew. A reality accessible to her and only her, not even Arciel, who, when asked by the once thrilled woman if he also awoke, answered, “Think of me like a novel. The story progresses when you pick it up and pauses when you put it down.”
Jittering with displaced excitement, Arciel got down on one knee and presented a ruby ring cradled in a velvet box, only it was not just a ring, but a severed finger wearing it, and one that Calli recognized to be her partner’s in the waking world. She immediately stood up, fixated on the appendage, lightheadedly stepping back. A compulsion to shout was met with the thick fluidity of her dream state, and only labored breaths left her lips.
“Where… did you… get that?” she mustered. He pursued her, holding the ring toward her with a disbelief that was appropriate only to a being of dreams. “That’s—who—what did you do?” Calli continued to walk backwards, watching Arciel emerge into the light of every lamp they passed, flickering.
“What’s the matter, Calli?” With concern, he pocketed the box, slowed down, and made a gentle fanning down motion with his hands. She was reminded of his blamelessness, that he knew nothing of her partner, of what a cleaved finger entailed, of what moral codes she lived by when awake. All he knew was Calli and everything that materialized from the thin air of her slumber. “I got this for you because I know this is the last time I will ever see you.”
She halted, engulfed in the overhead light, Arciel across her, brooding in the unabating fog.
“The last time I will ever… be,” he muttered, drained of his initial brazenness. “Do you know… what that means for me?” he very faintly raised an eyebrow, eyes seeming to stare off into two things at once.
“I have no control over any of this,” Calli asserted, subconsciously seeking the sweetness he was now devoid of.
“Yes, you do. You’ve decided.”
- Keep reading for Calli to wake up. Stop now to keep Arciel alive. -
Lightning cracked the sky open, and thunder harped in the distance. Countless testimonies fought for the lectern, but Calli could only cry out. “Arciel, I’m losing my mind. I can’t keep coming back… but where would you go? Where would all this go?”
The fog was lifting, and she could see he was crying, his countenance in pain, a mosaic of conflicting emotions. She swore that the wind carried a soft whisper, one pleading her not to wake.
“Arciel, please stop crying. I’m getting scared. I don’t want to wake up yet,” Calli cowered at the tempest that was growing stronger. Arciel swallowed his boyish cries, his face twitching.
“As long as you remember me, I’ll see you when you decide to come back,” he lied. He would have said anything if he thought it would appease her.
A bolt of lightning struck down, impaling the land between them, and Calli’s eyes opened to a blinding gap of light through curtains. She had awoken to not just a new morning but to the mental collapse, the all-encompassing loneliness of a person’s first kill, haunted by the petrified cadaver of her suitor and the ghost town around him becoming nothing but a blip in her wakefulness.
