The misadventures of a Dreamer

It’s been approximately eight years since I’ve last seen the sun. I sleep. I wake. Now and then, I still manage to dream..which, as it turns out is the reason for my life-long misadventure.

I was nine years old when my mom suddenly gave me a sleek black journal. I guess I had been having trouble in school - This was my moms way to let me practice the things that I was learning away from the prying eyes of those seeking to evaluate. Don’t get me wrong, I had great teachers - but the pressure of knowing the things I was writing would be so acutely deduced prevented me from wanting to try.

At first, I didn’t know what I should write about. Anything that I jotted down suddenly felt stupid or inane.

I settled on something safe- I began writing out my dreams.

From a young age I’d always had an incredibly vivid dream life. Going to sleep was an adventure I looked forward to every night - a convenient escape from my tedious life. Night after night, my dream would start the same: I’m walking along a sidewalk, and then - out of no where there is a heavy shift in humidity. I fall forward. Instead of hitting the sidewalk, I fall through. I feel as if I’ve been put through hell, and all at once I’m walking on the other side of the sidewalk - a complete 180 from where I’d began, in a strange new place. It looks exactly like where I came from, but stale. The sky is in a state of indefinite sunset, which - under first observation is quite beautiful; The unchanging aspect of the sky however, is disconcerting. Beyond the perpetual warm haze - life goes on as it normally would, with the exception that here, nothing happens to me, but rather I get to be the observer, the judge, and the juror.

This is where I am powerful, and in control.

It all began fairly innocently at first, but soon I knew these dreams had meaning. When I would read back through my journal - I began noticing that ‘Under Reality’ (as I then called it) was actually the world we literally lived in - only ten years from now.

Things were crazily accurate.

As the years passed, I began having déjà vu from the dreams I’d had as a child. I became obsessed with my early writings - studying them as though my life depended on them. I began gambling with the knowledge I’d subconsciously come across years earlier.

And I’d win.

I always won.

I won in relationships, in finance, in career. Everything was lining up so perfectly.

It, of course, didn’t take long for the wrong people to take notice. At one point, I was offered $20,000 for intel. Obviously I took the money - but I wasn’t about to completely open my dream vault. I’d planned on crumbing people along.

I don’t really know what I was expecting to happen - I guess - I assumed that these people would assume my predictions couldn’t always be accurate.

I assumed too much.

They didn’t assume anything.

I don’t even know why I took the money. It’s not like I needed it..maybe I was proud to finally have or be something that people valued.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that they sold me out.

It wasn’t long before I found myself out of breath - sprinting down a forgotten path, clutching my notebook in a dystopian world where somehow, my unconscious thoughts had been turned into implements for other’s benefit.

I lost everything.

Now my body, once kissed by the sun, able and strong - is connected to so many wires and monitors..even my dreams are no longer my own. My skin, nearly translucent from being hidden so long.

I have no reason to live.

I have no agency to die.