Midnight Syndrome

Was originally gonna be the original "Psychedelic" story, but I made the mistake of plotting it all out and got bored with it. Instead, I turned it into a campy tale about dreaming, written in both first and third person.

 

A woman appearing of Hispanic descent with long black hair, sped on route 109, in her blue Alpine A310. The Saturday afternoon traffic from the Deznor-Olympia area had turned her two hour drive to the coastal town of Mabase into a three hour one, and time has never been more precious to her than now.

            Alexis Sunderland, is a 29-year old self-proclaimed psychotherapist who is known for operating “out of the system” with unconventional methods using the ‘dive procedure’, a still relatively new form and controversial of psychotherapy using technology and a computer program called the Dream Catcher developed by the Verstand Corporation which allows her to enter the subconscious of her patients.

            Being a proponent of the Dream Catcher program, she has been black listed by all of her peers and barred from practicing psychotherapy in most of the country. But despite that, she has been successful in her endeavor to cure every patient she meets using the Dream Catcher, curing everyone of her patients since she began using the Dream Catcher. That was until the midnight syndrome started.

            When Alexis finally reached Mabase, at the first red light she picked up her cellphone and went through her list contacts, looking for the last name Pereda. Locating it, the line began to ring, the other end picked up almost immediately.

            “Alexis?” the female voice said on the other side, sounding weary.

            “I just arrived in Mabase. Sorry for the wait,” Alexis said, “I’m a mile from your home.”

            “Please, hurry,” the woman said and then hung up. Alexis glanced at her watch, it was 10:25 PM.

            Without waiting for the light to turn green, Alexis slammed on the gas, driving straight through, narrowly avoiding a collision with a small truck. She arrived at a tower apartment, parked in its underground garage and quickly got out her phone, calling the Pereda number again. Once again the other side picked up immediately and Alexis said, “I’m here. Have everything sat up before I get there.”

            “Yes, yes, we’ll be ready,” the woman said, and the hung up.

            Grabbing a briefcase out of the backseat, Alexis hurried onto the elevator, already open as if it was waiting for her and pushed the button corresponding to floor four. The wait riding up seemed to last for an eternity before the doors finally opened back up, Alexis rushed out to room 404. 

            The apartment door opened without her even knocking, a tired looking woman in a sweater stood on the other side. “I’ve prepared everything,” she said, leading Alexis down the hallway to her patients room. Inside, the bed was pulled into the center of the room, the carpet was a lighter color where it used to sit. Everything else was pushed off to the side, clothes, magazines, other personal effects.

            On the bed was Alexis’ current patient and most recent midnight syndrome victim. A blond 15-year old boy named Elliot Pereda.  He laid on the bed staring aimlessly into the ceiling. With his dark eyes, pale skin and malnourished frame gave him the appearance of a corpse. If this was a little over a year ago, such a sight could have been cited as abuse, but these were just some of the signs of the midnight syndrome.

            Alexis sat next to Elliot’s right side and said, “hello, Elliot. Remember me? It’s Dr. Sunderland.”

            Elliot said nothing, simply continued to gaze up at nothing. Alexis turned to the woman, his mother, and asked “how long ago did he stop communicating?”

            “This morning.”

            “And you said he just collapsed this morning too?”

            “Yes, we were eating breakfast and that’s when he suddenly just… passed out. He woke up not too long after that but when he tried to stand, he just fell back over… again and again, complaining that he was tired and dizzy…and…please, help him,” Mrs. Pereda said, sounding more desperate each time she spoke.

            Alexis looked back at Elliot. He’s already at stage 3. It shouldn’t have happened so early. I classified him at stage 1 just two days ago. Opening her briefcase, Alexis pulled out a notebook laptop, placed it on her lap and booted it up. When the operating system finally kicked in, she started up the program titled “DREAM CATCHER” and placed the laptop on to the ground.

            Looking at the worried mother sitting on the opposite side of the bed, Alexis said, “ma’am, I’m about perform the dive I explained to you about on Thursday.” Mrs. Pereda nodded her head, still focused on her son.

            Alexis, using a marker she kept in the brief case, made a bright blue dot directly on her arm, over a vain. “If I at all look in trouble or the clock strikes midnight,” Alexis said as she reached back into her brief case, carefully pulling out a syringe with a cap on the end of the hypodermic needle, “inject this directly into my arm. Right here,” she said, pointing at the mark.

            “What’s is it?”

            “A kind of artificial adrenaline. Enough to kill you under normal circumstances, so make sure you don’t prick yourself.”

            “Wouldn’t that kill you then?”

            “What could kill me is what’s killing your son.”

            After carefully handing over the syringe to Mrs. Pereda, Alexis retrieved a headset that looked similar to a set of gunmetal grey wrap-around headphones. There was two rubber buds that insert into the wearers ears, the bud on the left was simply attached to the hard plastic that wrapped around the back of the wearers head. The bud on the right was attached to large, plastic earphone that covered that covered most of the wearers ear. The word “Verstand 2011” was printed on the side in diagonal red letters on the earphone.

            Mrs. Pereda gently lifted her sons head and Alexis placed one around Elliot’s head, twisting a small knob clockwise on the side the earphone portion of the headset which caused a series of tiny, series of yellow LED lights came to life on it.

            Seeing Elliot was ready, she picked the laptop back up and plugged in a small black stick into the USB port with a thin, but lengthy cord attached to it with a short gold plug at the free end of it, no more thick than a pencil. Alexis returned to the Dream Catcher program.

            “This… is how you said you can enter dreams?” Mrs. Pereda said.

            “Yes. It takes a divers brainwaves given and ego off REM sleep and synchronizes them with the hosts brainwaves and ego, the host being your son. The electric energy your brain gives off while dreaming, essentially information transmits to the Dream Catcher and forms images which are then relayed to my brain through slight electro shocks.

            “In return, my mind is theoretically sharing the same dream with your son, and whatever my actions do is sent back to him, thus we believe we’re in the same dream together. It’s a very useful technique, Mrs. Pereda. It helps me get a better understanding of what’s going on inside here,” Alexis said, gently tapping Elliot’s head while continuing to type with her other hand, “I think it’s much better than the old ‘tell me what’s on your mind while I pretend to write it down on a pen n’ paper’ routine.”

            Alexis returned her look to Mrs. Pereda and asked, “may I have a glass of water?” Mrs. Pereda looked puzzled, but obliged anyways, rushing to the kitchen. When her footsteps had disappeared, Alexis took this time to finish setting up.

            When Mrs. Pereda’s footsteps had disappeared, Alexis quickly grabbed the other end of the cord attached to the black stick in her laptop. Lifting up a small hatch that covered earphone on Elliot’s headset revealing a port, Alexis quietly said, “sorry if this hurts,” and connected the cord to the headset, pushing the bud deeper into Elliot’s ear canal, just pressing up against the ear drum. To most patients, they would wince a little in pain but Elliot continued to stare forward as if nothing had happened.

            Mrs. Pereda returned to the room with the glass of water Alexis requested. Alexis took it from her, nodding her head with a slight smile in appreciation and placed it on the ground next to her, then grabbed another headset from the briefcase and placed it onto her head.

            Once her headset was activated, Alexis placed another black stick with a cord into the USB port next to Elliot’s and held onto the opposite end of the cord. Things like this make me wish I was in the patients position sometimes. She lifted the false cover of the headset and proceeded to insert the plug of into her headset. There was sharp pain for a brief moment, but it disappeared in less than a second. Mrs. Pereda noticed this and looked at her son to find a similar looking cord inserted into his headset as well.

            “I didn’t want you to see that part,” Alexis said. Placing the laptop back onto the ground Alexis stood from her chair. Mrs. Pereda placed the chair off to the side, then grabbed a large comforter and pillow she had ready and a laid it out next to Elliot’s bed. Alexis sat down onto it, removed her shoes and reached into her jeans pocket to pulled out a small baggy filled with a dozen pills. She took two of them, downing them with the water and quickly leaned into her computer, selecting a “MERGE” option in the Dream Capture program.

            “The pills I took will put me to sleep and within ten minutes, I’ll be in a REM sleep. The Dream Catcher program will begin synching us when the brainwaves caused by dreaming are picked up by my headset.” On the laptop screen were two separate but similar looking windows. The top screen was labeled “HOST”, and displayed what appeared as a spectrogram beating up and down in erratic patterns.

            “Wait,” Mrs. Pereda said, looking at the screen, “Elliot’s is already picking up something. You mean he’s asleep?”

            “No, but he’s not awake either,” Alexis said, laying down onto the pillow, her eyes already heavy. “Our graphs will appear different at first but when I begin dreaming, the Dream Catcher will begin the process to synch us up. Remember though, if I appear in distress or an hour passes, wake me up. Last thing we need is for the both of us to come down with the midnight syndrome.” Alexis glanced at her watch, it was now 11:00 at night. “We have one hour.”
            Mrs. Pereda nodded her head and sat back down next to Elliot. The slowly world went black around Alexis. Before it completely enveloped her, Alexis quickly reached into her briefcase one last time and pulled out a flower.

* * *

When I came to, I’m wearing a knee-length light-blue dress with my hair tied back holding a flower. Looking around, I find myself in a tale-tell sign of someone with midnight syndrome. No familiar sights of the real world, just a empty desert of white sand under the blue sky. Suddenly a single door rises out of the sand and stands uniformly straight.

            There’s nothing special looking about it. It’s just your average, wooden door with a rusted looking knob. I think back to my meeting of Elliot and his mother before entering it. I need to assess what kind of person my patient is before entering his psyche.

            Elliot Scott Roland – Born 11 April 2000, 15 years old, goes to Mabase High School.

            Formally an avid painter, he’s not a particularly cheery person anymore for obvious reasons. His father had committed suicide two years ago, I speculate from the midnight syndrome. It was a new phenomena back then so no one knew what to do with him, but from what his wife had told me, he displayed all the stages of it.

            What is the midnight syndrome you ask? A global epidemic of unknown origin, attacking a person’s psyche. It comes in four stages:

           

            Stage 1 – Voices: Victim claims to hear voices, similar to a person with schizophrenia or psychosis. This stage lasts a week.

            Stage 2 – Collapse: Victim will suddenly collapse and will be unable to stand up from a constant loss of balance. They’re feel perpetually dizzy but are still conscious and able to communicate at this point, though eventually they began to speak nonsensically usually towards the end of this stage. This generally lasts from two to three days, and the victim will be unable to sleep causing large dark circles under their eyes. They’re skin grows pale during this time, as if from being sick.

            Stage 3 – Withdraw: The stage of apathy. The most interesting of the stages, this stage acts as if it’s triggered by time. Early in the morning between 6:00 to 8:00 AM, the victim stops all forms of communications, remaining motionless, essentially becoming a ghost. It is impossible to break them out of this trance. This stage is where the disease got its name from: approximately at midnight, the victim proceeds to stage 4.

            Stage 4 – Death: Seemingly recovered, the victim will come out of withdraw and act as if nothing had happened. Any moment after that, the victim will suddenly commit suicide for no explainable reason. Even when restrained with no means of killing themselves, people have gone so far as to bite their own tongues off and bled to death.

            Can you be saved from it? So far no one has survived the midnight syndrome. But I hypothesis that if you reach out to the victim in stage 3 and convince them to return to reality, they can be saved from it. But… I’ve dived into the minds of six individuals with midnight syndrome thus far, and failed each time.

            And to make matters worse, Elliot here is a unique case. He had went from Stage 1 to Stage 2 in two days, then Stage 2 to Stage 3 in a half hour. In the two years since it has appeared, no body being treated for the midnight syndrome has ever displayed degradation progression this fast. And this is bad, I only have an hour left to save him. It’s almost like the midnight syndrome is toying with me.

            I take a deep breath and open the door in front of me. Through it I see the world of Elliot Pereda in front of me. It’s a forest, something straight out of a cartoon with bright water colored tree made of paper and a cheery looking sun. Not a surprise as he said he enjoyed painting.
            I venture into this forest taking in the scenery. It’s quite beautiful, things like this is why I take great pride in working with the Dream Catcher. But the farther I progressed, the darker the colors became until I was caught off guard by a brightly painted tree in the center of the forest. However, the light colors were contrasted by scene of two hanging bodies and a lone noose.

            The bodies, blue in the face, both resembled Elliot’s parents. I could understand why his father would be there, as that is how he killed himself, but why his mother? And what was the empty noose for? Is it for Elliot?

            I hear the sound of scissors cutting through paper in front of me, and the tree the bodies hang off suddenly rips apart like paper. A blond haired youth stands on the other side of the torn paper, full of life, definitely not the person I’m connected to in the real world, but it is.

            Elliot steps out in a black tuxedo, tossing the scissors off to the side. “Is that you, Ms. Sunderland?” he asks, cheerfully.

            “Elliot? You should be back with your mom.”

            “Oh? You mean her?” Elliot says, pointing at her body which begins to rot as if on cue.

            “That’s not your mom, just some horrible figment of your imagination. She’s by your side in the real world.”

            Elliot grinned like the Devil and said, “Dreams are more real than reality itself. They’re closer to the self.”

            I couldn’t help but to perk my ears to that. “That’s quite a statement,” I say to Elliot, somewhat amused.

            “It’s not mine,” Elliot explains, walking towards me.

            “Then whose is it?”

            “His,” Elliot said, now standing directly in front of me. He’s maybe five feet tall at most, I have to look down to keep eye contact.

            “His? You mean the author, Gao Xingjian?”

            Elliot starts laughing, “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Not him. The dandy man!” He continues to laugh, the body of his mother continues to rot and falls apart behind him. When her skull hits the ground, Elliot catches his breath, sighs and looks back up to me.

            “Who’s the dandy man?” I ask him. It’s probably another figment of his imagination, but at the same time I get the pressing feeling that it could be something else.

            “I dunno, who cares?” Elliot says as he turns around. He starts to gently tap his mothers broken skull with his foot, then peers back at me with a frightening gaze and says “hey, Ms. Sunderland.”
            “What is it?”

            “I’m going to wake up and kill myself, right?” Elliot asks, in a nonchalant tone. I’m lost for a second by it, then begin to feel that something was amiss about this whole conversation. I’ve never encountered anyone so chatty who has the midnight syndrome, let alone seemingly aware of having it.

            “If I can’t find away to save you… that is what happens, yes.”

            “Well,” Elliot said, lifting his foot up. He stomps down on the skull, it turns to dust. After the dust blows away, he turns back to me. “Well, I don’t want to die a virgin.”

            “You won’t if you come back with me.”

            “I don’t want to go back. If I go back, I’ll be back in that Hell and I don’t want that. Mom’s been dead on the inside since dad offed himself and refuses to talk to anyone. You’d think she’s the one who has the midnight syndrome from how little she’s done in the last two years. I hate taking care of her. And everyone at school… students andteachers… they treat me like an outcast, thinking that the midnight syndrome is spread around like a common cold. I hope it’s true.  I hope I gave it to them before collapsing.”

            “I’m sorry about that, Elliot, but you can’t just throw away everything over these little things. You’re young, you’ve got a full life a head of you.”

            “A full life? Of what, taking care of dear old mom? Being ostracized from my peers? Screw it. Let me have a go and I’ll get this waste of existence over with.”  Elliot walked up to me. He reached out and began to group my breasts. I look at him with disgust and swipe his hands away.

            “Grow up and take some responsibility. You’re just blowing everything way out of proportions. The midnight syndrome is simply influencing you.”

            “What do you know? You’re not me!” he yelled back, “You don’t know what I went through in the last two years!”

            “So f*****g what if I’m not you!?” Elliot steps back for a moment, stunned that I yelled at him. 

            “So f*****g what if you’re not me?” Elliot says. The paper ground begins to shake and large tree roots explode forth, enveloping him. “I’ll take you to Hell with me,” he says as he disappears behind the roots. I can’t help but to stand there, wide-eyed and scared. I’ve dived into people and have experienced some bizarre things before, but never have I ever felt truly frightened by a dream. Not even in someone with midnight syndrome.

            There’s a tearing sound, then the roots start to bleed red paint. They suddenly tear apart and a bizarre creature stands on the other side. It’s taller than me, rotten and gangly in appearance. It’s face looks is bizarre, twisted and blue, a tight noose is wrapped around its neck, it’s pulling the rope tight with its own hand. At the other end of the rope is another noose.

            I turn to run from it, the paper forest withers and dies as I press forward. I can hear loud footsteps gaining up on me, and suddenly I fly backwards, hitting the ground hard. I can’t breathe anymore and realize that the Elliot monster had lassoed me with the other end of the rope.

            My eyes start watering up and a man appears from behind the beast in a red and white suit, wearing a showy black top hat. He has long blonde hair reaching down his back, and a funny looking mustache. Must be the dandy man.

            “So I’ve finally caught you,” he says in a heavy southern accent that doesn’t quite fit him. “You’ve been infiltrating my beautifuls, trying to ‘save’ them. Sorry to say my dear, you’re not saving them. You’re causing them harm, trying to return them to a world that causes them pain and suffering. I on the other hand, have the means to save them.

            I managed to cough out, “what kind of vanilla villain are you?”

            He chuckles, holding his hat to his stomach then places it back on top of his head and say with a million dollar grin, “why me? I’m the dandy man, that’s who!” Elliot’s monster pulls tighter on the noose. I literally feel pain and the life being squeezed from me. Can I really die in a dream?

            “What’s the matter? Need air?” he says, crouching down next to me. “Here’s a fair trade, give me your dreams and I’ll have Mr. Pereda here release you. Alriiiiiight?” Even on the verge of death, I can’t help but to roll my eye at that.

            “You’re such a idiot,” I spit out to him, “I don’t need your offer to escape this.”

            The dandy man chuckles, “oh? Why’s that?”

            “We’re in a dream.” The flower I hold turns into a large sword and I cut the rope. Elliot monster looks at it confusingly, and the dandy man merely laughs at the event. I stand back up, coughing but alive. I can only hope that my physical body is not displaying any signs of distress or the Dream Catcher is not giving any alarms up. I can’t have Elliot’s mother waking me up now.

            Dandy man clapped his hand and snaps his fingers. A door tears through the paper ground. “I like your style, ma’am, I like your style! But you’re not the type of person I want to take along with me for the ride to paradise.” The door opens, “I’ll give you this one chance, please go through the exit and never return again. I know you don’t appreciate me or my business, so I’ll be sure not to bless you with my presence in your dreams in the future.”

            “Give me the boy and I’ll never interfere with you in the future, either,” a lie but hopefully he’ll relinquish Elliot up. Dandy man claps again and the monster explodes into smoke. Elliot falls onto the ground, back to normal.

            “You can have him, he was a bit too unruly for paradise anyways. Such a naughty boy,” dandy man says, waving his index finger at Elliot.
            Elliot opens his eyes and crawled back onto his feet. He looks around, appearing confused. “Where am I?” he says before spotting me. “Hey, you’re the therapist mom took me too, aren’t you?”

            I grab his arm without saying anything and proceed into the door. 
            I’m a idiot.

            We scream for our lives as we fall into a void. I quickly grab a hold of Elliot again and then the sword becomes an umbrella, slowly drifting downwards into… emptiness. The dandy man’s laughter rings out of nowhere.

            “I control your fates now. No waking up from this gravy train for you two,” he says. I need to get Elliot’s mother to wake me up. I’ve got Elliot’s psyche, if I wake up he should return to the real world with me.

            But for now I need to keep my grip around Elliot. Even in a dream, 130 pounds starts to get heavy. We continue to drift slowly into nothingness, but if we don’t land somewhere soon, I’ll lose my grip on him and the dandy man might take him again. A idea comes to mind.

            “You’re a painter, right?” I ask him, “paint us a magic carpet or something that we can ride.”

            “But… how do I do that?” he asks.

            “Don’t ask, do it. Imagine a paint brush in your tux pocket and take it out.” 

            Elliot looks down and finds a paint brush in his pocket, then looks back at me and asks “what am I going to draw on?”

            “Draw on the darkness.” He appears confused but does it anyway. He makes the motions of painting a square with his brush and a cube suddenly appears and drifts away.

            “That’s a start, but how about that carpet,” I say. He’s starting to slip. He paints again but another square appears.

            “It’s no use, I can only make these squares!”

            “Stop thinking square and start thinking magic carpet! I can’t hold on much longer!”

            He paints and paints, more squares appear. Finally, he makes a rectangular motion and quickly scribbles in the middle, the image looks like a carpet alright, but it’s too late and I drop him. The darkness is suddenly lit up by hellfire out of nowhere. Elliot screams and just as he’s about to fall into the flames, the carpet comes to life and zips down to catch him in time before he’s cooked.

            I drop down into the carpet, my arm is weary and I collapse onto my knees next to Elliot.

            “Thanks, kid,” I say patting him on the back. But our victory is short lived, a huge fire ball erupts and dissipates, revealing a gigantic dandy man smiling at us. He claps, making a booming noise.

            “I almost had you again,” he says, “but little miss therapist thinks she can ‘save’ you.”

            “Why don’t you leave us alone already!?” Elliot yells out, standing up like as if he could do something. I pull him back down next to me, giving him the signal to hush.

            “I can’t let you return to reality and suffer. What kind of hero would I be if I did that?” the dandy man asked.

            “Who are you?” I ask him, a series of questions popping into my mind, “who are you really? How are you able to do this? You’re behind the midnight syndrome, aren’t you?”

            The dandy man puts his hand to his chin, ponders for a bit and grins. “For all your hard work at trying to save little Elliot there, I’ll show you my true colors.” Fire circled around the dandy man and he laughed once more. When the fire disappeared, the gigantic dandy man was gone and in his place was a handsome angel who descended down to us.

            “I am the God of dreams. Morpheus.”

            “What kind of joke is this?” I ask him. It’s just another trick.

            “This is no joke. Do you really believe that this… ‘midnight syndrome’ as you call it… is the work of a man?” It has to be a joke.

            “Why would you do this then? You do know that you’ve lead to tens of thousands of deaths in the last two years since this madness started?”

            “They’re not dying, merely casting off their physical bodies to join me in eternal paradise.”

            “And leave their families behind grieving!?” Elliot screamed. “You caused my dad to kill himself! It was you!”

            “Not everyone is fitted to come,” Morpheus said, “only those who don’t dream come. Your father was just a shell, he had no real hope of a future, no dreams to live off anymore. Now he does, and I showed him the way. That is why I also chose you, Elliot. You became full of anger and gave up on your dreams of painting after he transcended mortality.”

            “And let me guess, mom was next?” Elliot asked.

            “No, your mother still dreams of you being successful. I have nothing to give to her, but I feel in the near future I will.” Morpheus said, then held his hand out to Elliot. “I’ll make all your dreams come true, just come with me.”

            “Get us out of here,” I mutter to a somewhat shaken Elliot.

            Elliot looks away from Morpheus and the carpet begins to fly off into the darkness.

            I lean up to Elliot and tell him, “We need to wake up. If we wake up, we’ll escape from him.”

            “How do we wake up?”

            “I gave your mom a syringe full of artificial adrenaline. I told her to inject me with it if I ever displayed any signs of distress but it doesn’t appear my physical body is actually affected by all of this.”

            “Even if you wake up, you cannot escape me,” a voice said, surrounding us. Morpheus came swooping over our heads in the darkness. Elliot halted the carpet in front of Morpheus. “Why can’t you just accept the fact that my will is absolute?”

            I shake my head at him and say “Because you’re not absolute. You’re just some monster with a messiah complex.”

            Morpheus pulls back, looking stunned and says, “I’m not a monster.” Something about that had shaken Morpheus. I guess that being a God with a ego, being called a monster was not something he enjoyed.

            “Yes you are! You think you know what’s right for humanity but you don’t! Why can’t you get that through your head!? You’re petty, a power-tripping tyrant.”

            “I’m not a monster.” His body began to shake violently. Elliot got the carpet moving again and we got as far away from him as we could, but we had no idea where to go. We were still in the void. I looked back and saw Morpheus chasing us, his flight erratic.

            “We need something to stop him,” I tell Elliot.

            He shrugs his shoulders, “I don’t know how to kill a God!”

            “This thing is more of a devil than a God.”  When I say that, it looked as if Elliot got an idea in his head but it was too late. Morpheus had caught up with us. We try to turn but he’d simply catch back up.

            His body is still convulsing. He repeats, “I’m not a monster! I’m not a monster!” over and over.

            “Yes you are!” Elliot yells out. Morpheus suddenly stops shaking, then appears as if some invisible force starts pulling him up by his chest. A black, arm explodes out of his sternum covered in blood. Morpheus’ body begins to rip apart and like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, Morpheus’ true form is revealed.

            A tall, lanky black demon with bat-like wings hovers in front of us. It looks down on us with disgust. The void cracks open, light sifts through and eventually the entire darkness shatters. We find ourselves floating in the clouds amongst blue skies. Below is the desert that I started in. On the other side of the demon is a light.

            “We need to get to that light,” Elliot says.

            “How can you be so sure about that?”

            “Well, what else can we do? I think… his powers are weakening. He’s losing control over this world. If we get to that light, we’ll be able to wake up. Both of us.” I have to give credit to the kid, he sure knows how to make a convincing argument. And besides, after what I’ve seen here, I’ll believe anything now.

            If we’re going to get past Morpheus, or whatever this thing is now, we’ll need some kind of defense. Still holding onto the umbrella we used to drift through the void, I try to think of what could kill a devil, but then Elliot suddenly keeled over on the carpet. 

            “Are you okay!?” I shout out to him. There’s a horrible laughter. I look up, it’s the demon, cross armed looking at us. His laugh is worse than the dandy mans. A clock pops out of thin air, it reads 11:56 PM. I only have four minutes until midnight.

            “He may not be under my spell anymore, but I can still bring him to happiness!” the demon tells me. Four minutes and Elliot will enter stage 4 of the midnight syndrome. He’ll reawaken in the real world and proceed to kill himself.

            “Let’s go, we’re almost to the end!” I yell as I shake Elliot but he can’t respond, his chest is on fire.

            “But you,” the demon says, “you’re existence in my paradise… is denied.” 
            It begins to sweep down to us, all I have in my hands is my umbrella. Think think think, damnit! What can kill a demon? As all began to feel hopeless, I feel weight in my hand and look down. Much to my disbelief, I’m holding a large spear.

            Elliot twists his head slightly. I get the feeling this is idea.

             “What can that thing do to me, a God!?” it yells out.

            “You’re not a God!” Elliot cries out in pain.

            I stand on top of the carpet and hold the spear ready to impale the demon. It starts laughing as it plunges towards us, gaining speed. Without knowing it, my body automatically lunges forward with the spear and it impales the demon directly into its boney black the chest. At first, it grins but the smile fades away. The demons body begins to crack open, blood spews from its chest. 

            “What is this thing!?” it cries out in pain.

            “The spear of destiny…” Elliot mutters. I almost start laughing out loud hearing that. I attacked the demon… the dandy man… Morpheus… with the spear of destiny, the lance that Christ was pierced with. It’s said it can kill anything, even Lucifer. The demon lets out one last horrible scream and then shatter and explodes into red mist. I want to celebrate, but the clock above us says it’s now 11:59 and Elliot is still crunched over in pain. To make matters worse, the world around us is starting to disappear, and I have a feeling that if we don’t get to the light, we’ll be stuck in this nightmare forever.

            “Elliot, get this thing going!” I yell at him. He grips the carpet and it begins to take off, but it’s not fast enough, the light starts dissipating. Something incredibly stupid comes across my mind, but damnit if this doesn’t work then nothing will. “C’mon, kid! If you get us out of here I promise I’ll let you have your damn ‘go’ with me!”

            The carpet picks up speed and just as the light faded away and we-

* * *

The clock struck midnight and the Dream Catcher program on Alexis’ laptop begins to malfunction. The screen begins flashing an array of colors and suddenly goes black. Mrs. Pereda sat in her chair, looking at both Alexis’ and Elliot. 

            She started to sob uncontrollably, preparing the syringe to awaken Alexis when both of them shot straight up at the same time, screaming in terror. Alexis ripped off the headset that connected her to the computer and threw it off to the side, then quickly took Elliot’s off, who had regained his skin color.

            His mother rushed to the bed and hugged him, crying his name out in relief. Alexis’ sat back on the ground, her entire body covered in sweat. She grabbed her chest, breathing deeply, unable to slow her heart rate down.

            “Did we make it!?” Elliot asked her, trying to get his mother off him.

            “I… I…” Alexis’ once cool disposition was ruined, she couldn’t utter a word. 

            Mrs. Pereda let go of Elliot and then latched onto Alexis, saying “oh, thank you! Oh thank you! I don’t know how I can thank you!”

            “A glass of tea will do…” Alexis managed to utter over all of Mrs. Pereda’s thanks.

            “Anything, anything for you!” Mrs. Pereda said, the way she said it sounded off but Alexis was too stressed out to care.

            “So…” Elliot said, looking down off his bed at Alexis, “will you really let me have a go?”

            “Hrmm, I dunno about that, kiddo,” Alexis said, “maybe when you’re older.”

            “What a copout,” Elliot said as he crossed his arms.

            Mrs. Pereda looked at them both, confused and asked, “what are you talking about?”

            “Nothing… but yeah, can I please get a glass of tea?” Alexis replied.

            Mrs. Pereda snapped her fingers, “oh yes! Let me get you that glass of tea!” 

            She stepped out of the room, seemingly full of life, something that surprised both Alexis and Elliot. When he was sure his mom was gone, Elliot turned back to Alexis and said, “so you were just toying with my feelings?”

            “Well gee-whiz, we were about to be trapped in nothingness, weren’t we? Now stop asking about that and be grateful you’re okay.” Suddenly Mrs. Pereda stuck her head out from around the corner, waving her index finger waving at Elliot.

            “Boy, boy! Are you bugging our guest? Let’s not be rude, alriiiiiiight?” Mrs. Pereda said before disappearing behind the corner again.

            Alexis and Elliot looked and smiled uncomfortably, unsure if they really did get out of the dream.

Author's Note

I kind of go for a campy tone with this, especially towards the end. Overall, I liked it.

Reviews

[Kristee]

I was totally hooked throughout the entire story. The concept is absolutely brilliant and the entire piece was amazing! I'm still trying to get over the final paragraph or two--where they were wondering if they had managed to get out of the dream--just the way the mom said, "Alriiiiiiiight", just like the dandy man...that was just creepy. Sent chills up my spine and was very eerie. This story was really good though, you definitely have talent! Awesome job!