Before You Read

I wrote this at a really not great time in my life, a few months before I had a bad day and got sent to a hospital. If it seems awfully dark, that's why. It is also based on a real dream I had. Do with that information what you will. Also, it was really late at night and I was really tired. The grammar and structure aren't where I'm happy with it, but I think it's better that I don't change anything.

Lucidity - By m4x0n

I have never been able to remember my dreams. I would awaken in a haze, my memory fogged, and soon I would forget what had happened entirely. So why did I remember it then? If I had listened to my dream, would Kristan still be here? It told me he would do it. I saw him in my dream, slitting his own throat the same way he did it that awful day. So why didn’t I talk to him? Why couldn’t I save him from himself, if I had been given the chance already? I knew it would happen. I had hoped I was wrong. But I didn’t even try.

My dreams were never simply that, were they? No, they had to have a purpose. I remembered that one for a reason, because it would happen. So why can’t I dream anymore? How can I dream if I keep myself awake at night, despising myself for failing to help him? I cared about him. I even loved him. So how could I be so worthless? I couldn’t let this happen again. I can’t let anyone else get hurt because I was too incompetent to realize the truth of my own mind.

When he was still here, Kristan told me about strange dreams his sister had. She was able to have them at will. She could control them. She could do anything inside of them. She called them “lucid dreams”. I needed to know. I needed to know how I could have one. But I can’t ask her. She must blame me for killing her brother. She must hate me.

I visited the library. I searched the shelves. I looked at the spines of every book until I found it. A guide on lucid dreaming. It was perfect. I read a few pages, only to see how difficult it would be to learn. Two pages turned into twenty. Twenty turned to hundreds. I took the book home with me.

My apartment was dull and empty. The mattress lay on the floor, blankets lazily scattered around. Cups of instant noodles and energy shots were the only things on the shelves. I sat down at what used to be my desk, before it became a home for mold and involuntary yogurt. I re-read the book, cover to cover. I memorized every technique, every method I could attain a dream.

I spent 5 long nights trying everything I could. Every single time, no matter what I did, I would awake from a dreamless sleep until the 6th night. I woke up to an alarm at around 2 am, just like the other nights. I lay in my bed, letting my body shut down into a slumber, while keeping my mind active. I focused my attention on my breathing. My hand twitched. My wrists flicked. I began entering a dream. I visualized myself rolling out of my bed, waking up my mind. I looked down at my hands. The patterns and creases on my hands were different. The birthmark on my arm was gone. I had done it, the nights I spent trying weren’t wasted. I snapped my fingers, and it became nighttime. I was a god to this world. I could do anything I pleased…

But that was not why I was there. That was never why I had learned this in the first place. I had to figure out what happens next, what to do with my life. Kristan was my whole world; he was everything to me, and even if I moved on, even if I found someone new… It could never love another person the way I loved him. The book said I could talk to my subconscious and figure out what I truly want… but what if he doesn’t know either? What if this had been a waste of time? I could never truly understand until I tried. I walked out of my apartment and drove down the street to the town square, where I found one person sitting on a park bench. He was me. He looked identical to me. The same green eyes, the same brown hair. It disgusted me to look at him. I sat down next to him. He turned to face me and noticed my sour face. He lowered his head in understanding. “You don’t know who I am, do you?” he asked me.

I flinched at his voice. It wasn’t my own, it was… demonic. I answered him, “I think I do. You’re me, aren’t you? My subconscious mind, like the book said.”

He shook his head, almost looking amused at my incompetence. “You’re not very far off. But I am a specific part of you. The part you hide from the ones you love. The side that sickens you to your core. You hate me,” he said, “but I love you. I need you to survive; I have no other choice. Even an existence that brings pain to others is preferable to death. Especially if it’s you, right, Bodhi?"

My hands started shaking at the sound of my own name. How could a name that I had chosen for myself be this disgusting to hear? It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hate you. I don’t want you to feel that way about me. I’m not a bad person, I just need a second chance,” I said to him.

His face lacked any expression. With apathy, he said, “Kristan doesn’t get a second chance. He died because of you, right? It was you who failed to save him.”

My mouth felt dry. “You know I loved him! You were there, right? YOU SAW HOW MUCH HE MEANT TO ME. YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVED HIM!” I shouted.

“If you loved him, then why did you let him go? Why couldn’t you save him…?”

After he said that, he disappeared. Or, at least, he changed. He didn’t look like me anymore. He looked like Kristan. He looked at me with regretful eyes, the same hazel eyes I had fallen in love with. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him so close it hurt.

“Did you cry when you heard what happened to me?” he asked.

“No. I couldn’t cry, no matter how much I tried. I locked myself in my home for weeks, and I even got fired from my job. But I never shed a single tear. I couldn’t. I don’t want to taint your memory with my weakness,” I told him, burying my face in his neck.

He seemed unsurprised. “Do you miss me?”

“With all my heart.”

“So why don’t you come with me?”

My hands began shaking, but he held them so tightly, it was like my worries were being washed away. “Because I’m too scared to hurt the people around me like you did.”

He kissed my forehead. “They won’t miss you. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“So when you wake up, stop for a visit. Stay as long as you’d like,” he said.

“Okay.”

“I love you, Bodhi."

“I love you more.”

My vision blurred, and suddenly I was back in my apartment. I was back where I started. Awake. I looked down at my hands. They were normal. I felt my face… and there were tears on my cheeks. I glanced across the room. My revolver sat in my nightstand, where my bedframe used to be. My throat tightened. It was as if I were being choked, a cold burning enveloping my lungs. I dragged myself to the corner of my room, gritted my teeth, and pulled the trigger.

And it was like Kristan was never there in the first place.