The corridor breathed softly, smothered in dust as its dull grey wallpaper peeled and cracked. Blinking didn’t clear my vision. My implant felt cold against the top of my ear and I tried to remember how I had gotten to the hospital. I glanced at the Tattoos on the back of my right hand, a number beneath the knuckle of each finger, but my eyes found it hard to focus on them. When I blinked again the numbers counted to six.
Of course, I thought, I’m dreaming.
The room fell away from under my feet and I was embraced by an infinite horizon of blinding sky. Wind enveloped me, pinning my hair back as I turned myself towards the approaching ground. Lakes glistened like quarters in the brilliant sunrise and I inhaled a lung-full of fresh, turbulent air. Even as I closed my eyes I could picture the serenity of the landscape behind my eyelids, and if I wanted to, I could picture something different and open my eyes to see it. Everything was right again. I was Lucid.
Adrenaline kicked in and I let a cry of joy empty my lungs, opening my arms to accept the plummet. Nanotech particles spawned at my knuckles and, starting with a robotic gauntlet, they set to work weaving me a sleek suit of glistening, obsidian-colored metal. I was running out of sky when the helmet formed, its broad, reflective glass faceplate blocking out the wind. Let’s mix it up a little this time, I thought, fabricating a twin-tailed, black leather jacket on top of it all. I bet they’ll love this.
A city stretched out below me as I careened towards it, cars passing in the narrow streets like insects. In seconds I would hit the ground. Let’s make it a good one this time. I flipped in the air and slammed into a central street, the asphalt shattering under my metal fist as I landed in perfect superhero form. Rising slowly, I felt the dream going fuzzy around me and stopped to rub my hands together. The physical sensation stimulated my brain and stabilized the dream. Perhaps that was a bit too much excitement. It was hard not to think of my body lying in bed, jacked into my computer through an implant in my skull. I recentered myself in my imaginary environment and chuckled. I should have been recording that one.
Aware of the world again, I took in the familiar commotion of the impossible city. Cars honked, citizens chattered, dogs barked, and planes roared distantly overhead, each a mechanism that worked in an isolated tandem to maintain my simulation. Every awestruck face that crowded the sidewalks around me was borrowed from my memories. Some I recognized, others I had only glanced in passing. But that collection was getting smaller and I was beginning to see doubles.
I spawned a camera drone behind me and turned to make sure it was there. The small metal sphere hung, suspended silently by a hidden propellor as it glared at me with one large, round eye.
“Don’t look at me like that, Cam,” I said, “Look, I’m sorry for the wait. The Sandman was waylaid.”
It returned a neutral, unblinking gaze. Raising my wrist I activated a holographic feed of the camera and waved at myself from inside the crater I had made.
“Let’s get that fixed up,” I said, lifting gently from the ground. By sheer power of will, I suspended myself above the street and watched as the damage reversed, tiny pieces of rubble skittered back even from across the sidewalk as they returned to their original positions. In seconds it looked as though nothing had happened. I dropped back to the ground and took in a deep breath. “Time to go live.”
Choosing a building at random I walked toward its entrance and blinked my eyes, spawning a set of bold white letters to float in front of the door.
“Stream Starting Soon,” It said. While I was at it, I turned the ordinary door into an intricate glass double door with gold hinges and a marble staircase. My logo was laser-etched across both of them: a stylized serif ‘L’.
“Wait out here, Cam,” I ordered, stepping inside.
Waiting deep inside the entrance hallway I made some last-minute changes to my jacket, adding blue highlights to the end of the coat-tails and rolling up the sleeves. From the holographic interface above my left wrist, I navigated to the ‘Start Streaming’ button and pushed it. The interface grew taller, morphing into a chat box as hundreds of viewers tuned in at once. Limited by the extent of my comprehension, the chat was one long stream of glyph-shifting gibberish. I couldn’t process every message that appeared at once, but I could feel them. Every message stirred something inside of me and I could feel the anticipation building as the viewers watched the static scene I had left outside. What emotes I could see popping up were of eager, cartoonish versions of my helmet and blue stars.
I let it all wash over me, closing my eyes to receive it. Nothing compared to the feeling of a hyperactive chat. One could allow the exuberant masses to overpower their emotions and rewrite their mood. It was better than drugs and just as addictive. Every moment I spent without it I longed for it, and every time I returned I loved it more. Yet, I felt like I was missing something. A piece of me held on, the last remaining ember in a pile of ash, the very piece I had set out to extinguish.
I’m fine, I thought, I’m just a little off today, I’m sure I’ll feel better once we start.
“Let’s do this.”
I hopped in place for a moment, shaking out the nerves before settling myself and breaking into a dead sprint. Hallway lights sped past one after another before I hit the door and shattered it into a million pieces, roaring at the top of my lungs. The words I had left outside flickered out of existence and the chat went into overdrive.
“What is going on everybody!” I cried, exaggerating my personality, “You know it’s Lucid coming at you live from the city of your dreams! Or more accurately, The city of my dreams!”
I could hear the voices of donors in my ear clamoring with adoration. “If you’re here this early, that means you have notifications on, and that warms my heart chat. What do you say? While we wait for the rest to realize I’m streaming, let’s do a donation frenzy!” I flicked a switch on my interface that disabled the need to bid when paying for dream effects. “All limitations are off! Go nuts!”
After a two-second delay, my world plunged into chaos. The color of the highlights in my suit cycled between every possible hue as hundreds of donors paid for their favorites. Music and sound-bites of all kinds played simultaneously all around me. Fireworks went off everywhere. Cam pulled away to catch it all in frame. I simply stood with my arms wide, raking in hundreds of credits with every second that passed.
“Alright everyone,” I said, “Had your fun yet? Frenzy is over in three… Two… One! That’s it!”
In the next moment, everything was back to normal and Cam returned to get a closer shot. “From now on if you want to affect anything you’ll have to bid for it.” I began strolling through the city. “I want to take this time to thank you all for how insanely irresponsible you are with your money.”
Cam followed close behind as cars swerved effortlessly around me.
“If you guys remember from last stream, we were working on the cyberpunk part of the city. I was thinking we head over there and throw together a few more towers.”
A donor sent a message, urging me to fly around.
“Listen. When you’re new to Lucid dreaming, flying is the best thing ever, and it still is. But I want to stay down here and get a feel for the true scale of the city. I mean, just look at the spire over there! Move over Dubai! That thing could high-five the moon!”
Despite myself, I lifted off the ground, drifting through the air like a kite as the street fell away. I felt the wind pull at my coattails and based on the chat’s reaction I decided that the new jacket was a success. For a moment I remembered to smile.
Cars passed above and below me, straddling the streets or hovering in the air-lanes. Architecture of every conceivable and inconceivable kind manifested as towering skyscrapers on every street. Styles leaked into each other’s districts like forests colliding; Steampunk into Solarpunk into Cyberpunk and more around every corner. It was a dream metropolis larger than any ordinary lucid dreamer would have thought possible and it was only getting bigger. As long as my brain could contain it I would build, and thousands of my fans would watch me do it. This place was my home, even more than the reality I would inevitably wake up in. This place was me. Reality wasn’t worth anything anymore.
“Why won’t you answer my calls?” a donor said.
The Cyberpunk District dripped with perpetual midnight rain, droplets illuminated in the flickering neon light of holographic advertisements, and kicked up from the glistening streets by passing hovercars. Citizens, pushing the limits of fashion, wandered around with hoods pulled up or clear plastic umbrellas over their heads. I looked right at home in my own cybernetic get-up as I landed.
“Just as good as I remember it, chat,” I said, “This is definitely my favorite part of the city right now.”
With a wave of my hand a hovering convertible pulled over next to me and the owner promptly abandoned it. The driver seat was already perfectly adjusted and as I gripped the wheel I could feel the engine rumbling in front of me. It almost looked like the car my dad used to drive.
For a moment I could feel the covers draped over me but I shook my head and focused on driving the vehicle, one block at a time. The damp wind tugged at my collar and colorful lights whipped past me, no doubt creating stylish reflections in the curve of my faceplate. A week ago I couldn’t get enough of this place. Why doesn’t it feel the same? The chat wasn’t amped up enough to pull me out of my stupor. I needed to go big.
“Watch this,” I said, wrenching up the emergency brake. With a twist of the wheel and a stomp on the gas, the anti-acceleration jets fired and the convertible swiveled on a dime before barreling down an adjacent street. Someone turned my suit’s highlights red and fireworks discharged at the end of the road.
“You want a show, huh?”
I blinked a ramp into existence in front of me and my car hit it at full throttle, leaping through the air like a rocket as colorful fireworks blasted all around me. For a moment I slowed down time, watching the bright neon sparks glitter like fireflies in a static cloud of smoke and rain. I exaggerated a yawn and put my hands behind my head, trying to absorb the adoration of the chat as Cam orbited around me. Time resumed and I abandoned the vehicle, leaving it to crash back down and explode violently beneath me while I hung in place, only my silhouette visible in Cam’s feed.
Why don’t I feel better yet? What more could I possibly need? I just drove a hovercar through exploding fireworks! The chat felt distant, like a near-forgotten thought in the back of my head. Wait, why has the rain stopped?
In the confusion, it took me a moment to realize the streets below me were empty. Despite the parameters I had set in place the sun rose rapidly in the Cyberpunk District, casting dark shadows on bone-dry streets. It felt hollow.
A sickening feeling caressed my spine and I feared to turn around. Sweat beaded my brow and my breath became shallow in my helmet. My heartbeat pulsed through every vein in my body with a driving force.
“Turn around.” A donor requested. Paralyzed with fear, I turned the city around me instead.
A sinkhole eight blocks wide and perfectly circular lay before me, the darkness of its depths unfathomable. Confusion pervaded the chat and I could barely conjure a response.
“I… I didn’t put that there.”
The chat didn’t believe me. Some goaded me on to explore it but I stayed fixed rigidly in place. The thought crossed my mind to end the stream but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Something about that gaping maw bred a certain kind of apathy within me. In the same way it pushed me away, it pulled me towards it. Before I knew it, I was suspended above its center and I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there.
I formed a blue flame in my hand and encased it in a sphere of glass before turning my palm and dropping it into the depths. For 17 heart-pounding seconds, I watched the light get smaller and smaller but it never hit the bottom. It was swallowed by shadow before I could hear an impact.
Try as I might, the sinkhole could not be undone, even if I shut my eyes and imagined buildings in its place. I imagined every detail, every window, every story, but to no avail. It baffled me. I had spent every night of the last two months in complete control of the dream and now it refused to respond. Every time I opened my eyes the void stared back at me and fear pervaded my consciousness. There was nothing else that could be done. So I fell.
…
The further into the hole I tumbled the further away the chat became. Their amusement was replaced with my own building sense of dread. Somehow the hole felt alive. For minutes I fell, warm air rushing over me and all sense of direction meaningless. A void of black was slowly digesting me. I felt violated.
Time went on and the urge to flinch at every deepening shade of darkness went away. Soon I was begging for the ground to strike me. I feared that I would never see the light of day again. Then, as silently as it had disappeared, a flicker of blue light appeared below me and it began getting closer. When I could make out the flames it was too late to prepare for impact.
The wind was knocked out of me, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe. My head spun, and strands of a clear, sticky liquid clung to my suit as I peeled myself from the ground. The texture of the glistening, wet, stone floor was only highlighted by the light of the tiny flame. Somehow it had turned from blue to crimson. I didn’t do that either.
“Hello?” I muttered. My voice rose up the circular walls of the pit like a cloud of vapor, reverberating and echoing into obscurity. When I looked up the sky was nothing more than a pin-prick of white in a suffocating canvas of black. “Chat, can you hear me?”
Silence morphed into a deep, guttural groan, so slow at first that I barely noticed it surrounding me, a cacophony of quiet, grating scrapes accompanying it.
With a rapid heart, I took to my feet, wary of a dark presence embracing me. I tried to spawn a light above me but nothing happened. The darkness was getting closer. I tried again to make light but it was a futile attempt. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I control anything? It felt like losing control of a limb, my brain was firing commands but nothing responded. It left me numb.
Blood-red light flashed from below and I saw a figure standing no more than three feet in front of me. Before I could blink I was thrown into darkness again and the sound of raspy, pained breathing met my ears.
My pulse shook my bones and I crouched slowly, stealing the marble of fire from the floor. Holding it in front of me I took four slow, conscious steps forward, agonizingly unsure of how close the figure was. It appeared like lightning, its shadows chased away by my flame’s dim radius. First, there was a pale slender hand and as I lifted the marble upwards it revealed hairy, withered arms and a bony shoulder.
Emotionless eyes glared out at me from the shadows of its sockets, glistening with red light as I lifted my flame to its face. I was looking at a perfect replica of myself, my real self. It had haggard, pimpled features and a scraggly, unkempt beard. Its curly black hair was cut short and a shiny metal implant was fixed above its ear. Despite its strained, gasping breath, I found the lips sealed shut. It did not react to my presence.
“Are you okay?” I croaked. Its voice returned to me, muted and strangled, but its lips remained together.
“I’m fine, it’s nothing.” A chill swept down my spine.
“Who are you? What is this?”
His gaze snapped towards me. A heartbeat passed and his jaw fell open with a scream. I could only drop to the ground and pin my hands over my ears. The horrible, ear-splitting howl filled the entire room before vanishing in an instant.
When I opened my eyes again I was in a dim, flickering, hospital hallway. One all too familiar to me. The Rehab section was always the darkest. Every adjacent doorway led to inky blackness and not a soul was in sight. There was only a single stool sitting in the shadowy end of the corridor with a phone resting upon it.
For a moment nothing occurred, but then the phone lit up, vibrating diligently as the caller ID remained blank. The phone buzzed again but this time I felt the vibrations in my chest. Again. I felt the pressure change in the room. Again. The floor rattled beneath me. Again. I collapsed and the vibration became visible in the air. My skull condensed under the pressure and I feared my eardrums would explode. Again. Screams of pain emptied my lungs and I writhed on the ground, clawing my way towards the stool. I had to hang up. Again. Black spots appeared, swimming in the edge of my vision. Again. Grabbing blindly I seized a leg of the stool and knocked it over. The phone skittered across the tiles. Again. My muscles wouldn’t respond even as my fear screamed inside of me. Adrenaline pumped through my veins but it had nowhere to go.
Nothing.
The call had stopped. With great difficulty, I raised my head to see familiar words displayed across the screen, “You have 1 missed call.” Every time my heart beat the number grew exponentially and within seconds the digits exceeded the boundaries of the screen. I tasted the salt of tears under my helmet and I wished for the chat to be inside me once again. I wished to control everything again. I was so alone.
Footsteps broke the silence. First a single pair, then ten. Seconds turned agonizing before the silhouettes appeared in the shadows. A woman in a dress stalked forward out of the darkness, but as I craned my neck to meet her gaze I found a face smoothed over and empty. Two more strangers joined her, each with their own blank, fleshy visage. Her ranks grew and as they walked towards me I feared for my life. I fought to get away, my limbs moving sluggishly as if they were struggling through hot tar. In moments they were upon me. Terror consumed me.
I sat bolt-upright in bed, gasping as I tore the output cord from my implant. My heart took a moment before its relentless pounding began to slow. I stepped out from under the covers, finding the tight quarters of my apartment still shrouded in midnight darkness. The city outside was eerily silent. When my breathing relaxed I flipped the light switch but nothing happened. Stupid cheap bulbs. I had to feel my way, carefully, in the darkness before I made it to the bathroom.
When the mirror light clicked on it blasted into my eyes and I had to fight to keep them open. Feeling for the tap I turned it on and splashed cold water in my face. With a shaky breath, I met my gaze in the mirror. I hardly looked like myself. My dripping face was gaunt and hollow and my implant looked like a parasite latched onto my temple. I knew something was wrong as I watched the implant grow larger. It burrowed into my skull like an infection. Before I could react it was already covering my eye. Wires weaved into my pores, oozing silvery liquid and stretching my skin across my skull with excruciating pain. In moments I had succumbed.
Daylight flooded my apartment room as I woke again. Sheets clung to me, drenched in a cold sweat. My breath came to me shallow and strained. I looked down at my hand and knew without a doubt that I was awake this time. My tattoos counted to five.
Legs shaking, I stumbled out of bed. An eviction notice had been slipped under my door and I had no idea how long ago. Instinctively, I put a hand to my implant but my breath caught as my fingers met my scalp.
In the bathroom, I found my reflection showing no different. The implant was gone. No!… That’s impossible! The last vestiges of my dream still clung to reality. For a moment I opened drawers, fumbling around as if I would find it. I knocked my melatonin out of the cabinet and it spilled across the floor. There was a lot less in the bottle than I thought there was. I must be dreaming. I have to be. If I imagine a door behind me it will take me back to the city. I closed my eyes picturing a door in the wall, heavenly light peeking through the cracks and slicing through the dust, a golden doorknob with a diamond set in the center. I could almost feel its presence tickling the hair on the back of my neck. All I had to do was open my eyes.
The only thing behind me was clarity. The very clarity I had been without for months. I sat hard on the toilet lid, my head spinning as a blank wall glared back at me. I never had an implant. No such thing exists. The last two months of my life had been spent in denial, wasting away in bed with delusions of grandeur, of an escape. It was easier to believe that I could broadcast my dreams to the entire world than it was to see that I was alone. I had known that from the start. I had pushed away everyone who I was close to in fear that I would disappoint them. I had locked myself away and decided that reality had nothing left to offer. Lucid was a lie. Lucid was me.
I felt the spot above my ear where I had believed my implant to be. The thought of such a thing seemed ridiculous in retrospect. It had started because I wanted control, but if I couldn’t control my dreams then what was left?
…
It was almost half an hour before I left the bathroom and I found my phone still laying plugged in on the floor by my bed. I had missed 40 calls from my father and a text that read, “I just need to know that you’re okay.” I opened the sliding door to the balcony, breathing in the stale air of the city as burning sunlight washed over me. Cars drove under me like insects but this time the height made my stomach lurch. Their distant honks met my ears, drowning out the footsteps of the pedestrians. Every person below was living out a life equally as complex as mine and every single one had a face that was unique. None of them knew that I existed. I looked at my phone again, and for the first time in months, I returned the call.
Fantastic work!