Chapter 5

New chapter

I couldn’t open my eyes, I tried to move an arm but I didn’t have enough strength to do it. A T.V was On, I could hear that, and I could hear people talking in the distance too. Everything was... weird.

Okay, don’t bother me right now, that’s all that I could come up too. My vision with Diarkar felt like it was only a dream, a nightmare. I didn’t feel like I was in a dream now, I felt like everything was real, but I didn’t want to make false statements, first, I needed to know where I was and why I felt so…calm.

Out of all the feelings that I could off have, I felt calm. Like when you’re in your mother’s arms, nothing can hurt you there, you feel calm, you feel safe.

I could barely feel my body, I felt paralyze. That’s when fear kicked inside me. I couldn’t move my body! But why did I feel so calm about it!? My emotions were a salad inside my head, one thing after the other kicked in.

So I stayed there for a while, maybe after a few minutes, I couldn’t move nor could I open my eyes. Losing my vision wasn’t fun at all, in fact, it made me mad, scared, and anxious, I wanted to open them now and see where I was, where Diarkar had brought me. But I couldn’t.

How could my life, out of all the things that exist, come down to this? I don’t know if I’m somewhere inside my head or if I’m in my supposedly real world with Regina and my mother.

My mother

What about my mother? Was she okay? Did anything bad happen to her? But out of all, what scared me the most was a simple question: How did my mother look like?

My memories about her, they… they were gone! I couldn’t remember her, what did she look like? How was she? But I did know that I had mother, of course, everyone has one! But how did she look like? Why wasn’t she at home on the weekends? It’s true that she had to work for the both of us, but people in the Midnight City weren’t allow to work on the weekends… So where was she?

And now that I think of it, where am I? (Yeah yeah, I know what you’re thinking right now: It took you that much time to come out with that question? Seriously?)

The T.V was still on, and by the sound of it, I think the news channel was on.

I tried again to move my body, my arms and legs moved a little but not that much. It was frustrating not being able to move.

Okay, let’s try to open my eyes.

I slowly opened my eyelids. There was a light that was shining straight into my face. But after a while, I could see clearly.

It was some kind of hospital room where I was at. There was a table next to me with flowers and some kind of chocolate bread. Chocolate bread. That word was really intriguing to me, what was it… Maybe it’s something important! I must keep it inside my thoughts, maybe it’ll me important, or maybe I’m beginning to lose my head.

Above it, there was a window. I could see that rain was falling outside, the drops of water perfectly glue to the window and the obscure clouds that hovered above, not a single ray of light could go in between them.

Just staring at those clouds made wonder a lot of things, I wanted to break the window and fly above those clouds, see where the wind would take me.

Like I said, I had a lot of questions inside in my head, I couldn’t answer not a single of them and some were just random thoughts popping inside my head, like the one I just told you about. My last three days have been a marathon of weirdness, hell and questions. And then, Diarkar.

That damn purple sphere, what exactly was he? Was he a human or just a stupid floating purple ball? And what did he say… something about the dreaming universe? That it was time for me to wake up from my dream? That I had something that he needed?

I stopped my thoughts for a second, and thought of my worst fear.

Was I, Daniel Huntington, living on a dream? Was all of my life just a fake movie from my imagination?

I thought about my friends, my mom, all of the other people who I saw on my way to school

Regina and Cornelius, both were my best friends. Where they fake?

No no no NO! I couldn’t accept that, It-it was impossible, how could a dream become so real? So vivid? That wasn’t right, maybe I’m in the hospital because someone found me dead or something in my bedroom and the when someone opens that the door there will be Regina and Cornelius with a doctor that will tell me that everything is okay.

Yeah yeah, that is what is going to happen, nothing to fear about.

I heard someone open the door.

A lady with black jeans and a red sweater stepped into the room. Her hair was a radiant black color, by the look of her face, she looked worried about something.

“He’s awake, look in the damn IPhone Spencer, something just clicked in there” Said the woman in a surprise but annoyed tone.

“First of all, it isn’t a click as you call it, it’s a “biping” sound, second of all, indeed he’s awake” Said a boy’s voice in the back.

A boy who looked just like my aged made his way in.

He had brown hair with brown eyes, He was wearing a green shirt that said: “I hate everyone and everything” and he was wearing blue jeans.

“Third of all, you should go out, he’s barely waking up and we don’t know if he remembers us or you, it would suit him better if I and Caitlin gave him the welcome back” said the teen.

The woman didn’t look happy about it, but all she said was: “Okay” and walked outside. Although she didn’t look satisfied about it.

Who were this people?

A girl with long black hair stepped in. She was wearing slippers and a white shirt with black Adidas pants. She looked beautiful as she smiled.

“Is he really awake?” Said the girl, she looked surprise but happy at the same thing.

It really made me comfortable just seeing her there.

How haven’t they’ve seen that I’ve had my eyes opened this whole time?

“Come on, we have to make sure” Said the boy

The both started walking towards me.

The girl had her arms cross while the boy was looking at his “iPhone”. God knows what in the world that was.

“Da-Daniel, how are you?” Said the girl, she looked kind of worried now.

“His eyes are opened, Daniel, how do you feel?” Said the boy now paying full attention to me.

Okay, I didn’t have a single clue of who this people were.

How did they know my name?

Oh crap, I didn’t want to answer, I felt scared. Both of them, strange people whom I’ve never met in my life, staring directly at me asking how I felt? It made me uncomfortable.

But then something kicked in my head, the strange feeling that I was where I belonged, that I was home.

But how could this be? All of my life, I’ve always questioned everything that I had in sight, yet I always put aside the feeling that I wasn’t home, that my home wasn’t with my mother, it was somewhere else. I would always think about that when I laid on the grass.

Could this be really it? Has my worst fear become a reality?

No, I needed answers, I needed to know where I was and my best ticket to answer land where this two teens.

“Daniel?” said the girl once more, in a sweeter tone than before.

“Who-Who are you?”

Yes, that was the most Cliché response to a question that I could ever imagine, and yes I know that just reading that question made you think about all of the movies about people with memory loss that’ve said that, don’t question me, if you were in my position you would think the same thing. Trust me, it is not cool to be laying on a bed without knowing where the heck you are.

“He doesn’t remember us…” said the girl with spite, her happy face turned into a sad face.

“Maybe because he’s been too much time on the Dream universe” Said the boy, he’s face was sad too.

Just seeing both of their faces, reminded me of Regina and Cornelius once, when I got sick and didn’t go to school, they looked really sad. 

Then I thought of what Diarkar said, that I was going to wake up, and now this boy here says that I’ve in the dreaming universe for too long.

I remembered my visions, the one that I had with the woman and the doctor talking in my living room. The woman the first came in looked exactly like the one in my vision.

That’s when something clicked in my head, as if pieces of a puzzle had been put together at once.  Everything was too much to be coincidence, I really was in some kind of dreaming state…

My whole life…. My friends…. My studies…. Everything had been fake….

But if that’s the case, then how did I get into this kind of dream in the first place? How did I get into the dream universe as they call it?

Wow… I never thought my life would take such a twist. It wasn’t fun to think about it, I still couldn’t accept it, but… I didn’t know what to think now… What was real and what was fake?

“Daniel, I know that you are confused right now and that you can’t move yet, few are the people who can wake up from the dream universe, especially from the middle realm of it” Said the boy said

“But you have to listen to what we have to say Daniel, I know that you don’t know who we are, what we’ve been through… but you have to listen to us, okay? Just give us an opportunity and maybe we can answer the salad questions that you have in your head” Said the girl.

There was nothing else to do, maybe talking to them was the best idea.

I recovered the movement of my body, a part inside of me told to me to run for the door but another part of me said to stay here and listen to what these people have to say.

By how they talked to me, I think they “are” my friends. Nobody would talked to me that…nice, not even in Midnight city were supposedly all the people were nice to each other, there’s always chaos, even in the nicest persons.

I put myself on a sitting position to have a better look at them.

The boy, the boy looked exactly like the one I saw in my dream, the one that said that he was sending stimulus to my world to see if I’d wake up.

“You, I’ve seen you before, in a dream” I said looking at the boy.

They both shared surprise look.

“Where have you seen me?” asked the surprise boy.

“Like I said, in a dream, you said something about sending stimulus to my brain or something like that, to wake me up” I said.

Wow my voice sounded like I just ran a 34 mile marathon if that is even possible for my body. It sounded like someone just beat me up.  

Okay Daniel, this is your chance to get answers, I said to myself.

“Maybe you were already waking up, but in your dream, you saw it like it was only a vision” Said the boy.

The girl was looking directly into the boy’s face. He then realize that he was being watched by the girl.

I’m getting tired of saying “The boy” and “the girl” I’ll ask their names later, but right now I don’t feel like it, maybe they’ll tell me later.

Then the boy said:

“Oh right, umm, I’ll let you both have a talk, I’ll come back later to see how you feel Daniel, that crazy lady outside is not going to leave me alone” Said the boy

“I heard that Spencer!” Yelled a woman’s voice in the back.

Spencer (Good, that’s his name then) went outside, and the door closed.

There was silent for a while in the room, the rain was still falling by how it looked outside the window.

I broke the ice with one stupid question:

“Aren’t you tired of standing up and looking at me?” I said to the girl

She looked annoyed now or mad, I don’t know, a girls emotions change as fast as the speed of light.

“You haven’t changed a bit haven’t you Daniel?”

The Girl grabbed a chair and sat beside my bed, her expression was now annoyed and happy? Okay forget it, I was the worst man for this.

“Let’s start all over again, my name is Caitlin and your name is Daniel” Said Caitlin

“I didn’t know that my name was Daniel” I said sarcastically

She raised her hand as if she was going to slap me, but she put her hand down.

The more I talked to her and to the other boy whose name is Spencer, the more I felt home, I guess I was starting to accept my situation.

I didn’t want to tell Caitlin or Spencer about Diarkar, at least not yet, I didn’t want to rush things. But I felt good with them, like they were really my friends, people whom I’ve known for years. I didn’t feel weird anymore… I felt happy, an emotion that I haven’t felt in years.

“You retard, you haven’t lost your sarcasm have you?” said the girl crossing her arms

“That’s something I never lose, even if I was in a dream” I said looking at her.

She grabbed my hand and looked directly into my eyes. I didn’t like staring at people’s eyes for too much time, I would always look somewhere else when I was talking to somebody.

“There have been somethings that have changed on earth while you weren’t around…”

I remembered what Diarkar said, that they were going to tell me what has changed. I now realize that the infamous they were this people.

“I and Spencer have been your friends for quite a long time “Said Caitlin

“But it would be better to get you out of here and tell you what you’ve missed and who we really are, maybe with that, we can bring your memories back” Said the girl

She said it in a way with so much hope, although I knew that deep inside her, she felt sad. I don’t know how, but I felt it.

“You still don’t have a clue of who I am right?” Said Caitlin

“No”

“Okay then, let’s get started”