Chapter 10: There Is No Way Out - A Dream of Waking Life

Spiraling vertigo coursed through Matt’s consciousness like a chrysanthemum unfurling its thousand individual petals, depositing him onto solid ground. He opened his eyes and suddenly fell over before he even realized he was standing.

The sudden closing of bus doors directly behind him forced him stumbling back onto his feet. He turned to see a bus driving away, and he could just make out the oversized woman at the steering wheel.

He turned back to see that he was standing outside his office building.

How did I get here?

Matt probed his mind, desperate to recollect what had occurred between the therapist’s office and this moment, but all he could remember was darkness.

At least I didn’t go back to the video game dream, Matt noted hopefully. But that still didn’t explain how he got here.

Matt reached into his pocket and found the full bottle of Serotel. He popped it open and looked inside the bottle, just to be sure. It was full of large red pills, and he sighed with tepid relief.

Now what? Matt wondered, looking up and down the street as if the world itself might offer an answer. Back to work?

He had his pills. He was back on track. He had a company to run. Matt nodded to himself, hoping against a torrent of doubt that as long as he kept popping a Serotel each day, everything would be all right.

Back to work then, I guess.

There was no guard outside the building this time, so Matt walked in without resistance.

“Mr. Willish!” Linda gushed, practically jumping to her feet.

Matt reached out a hand, not wanting to alarm her.

“It’s okay, uh, Linda. Please, you don’t have to get up.”

She half-ran to him anyway, but Matt didn’t break stride.

“I got the text, I mean, we all got the text that the other executives sent out.”

Matt nodded, pretending to understand.

“So you’re totally back, then? You’re okay now?” Linda checked with genuine concern.

Matt offered her his most convincing smile as they approached the elevator, and she swiped her card, opening the elevator doors without him even having to ask.

“Mr. Willish, did you still want to, I mean, did you…” Linda said, struggling to find the right words.

“Drinks,” Matt said, and Linda chuckled and rolled her eyes playfully.

“Sorry,” Linda started, but Matt quickly interrupted.

“No, I’m sorry, Linda. We’ll have to put it off just this one more time, okay?”

Her smile vanished and was replaced by a heart-rending look of rejection.

“Sure,” she said simply.

She swiped her card again, giving him access to the executive suites, but she didn’t ride up with him this time. The elevator doors closed without her giving Matt a second glance.

Idiot, Matt scolded himself. Stop playing with the girl. Next time just tell her it isn’t going to work out.

Matt felt heavy suddenly, and he was forced to brace himself against the wall as the elevator ascended.

Get out! a voice said inside his head. This is a dream! A fucking dream!

“Shut up!” Matt said aloud to his suffocating mind. “Shut the fuck up!”

But the feeling wouldn’t relent. The pill bottle in his pocket felt like barbed wire wrapped around his thigh.

The meds! the voice told him. It’s the fucking meds. The voice was the old man, and the old man was Matt.

Get out of my head, you old bastard!

The voice didn’t answer back, but a feeling of complete dread was deposited into him, diffusing across every cell of his body with each quickening beat of his heart.

Maybe this really is a dream, Matt ventured, trying out the thought as if to check its solidity.

He squeezed his eyelids tightly. May isn’t a dream, he told himself. Fuck you for even thinking that way. He rolled his eyes at his internal blaze of emotion, remembering the heart-rending attraction and impossibly deep love he felt for May.

May's just your employee. You don’t even know her that well, Matt admonished himself.

You don't know what you know, came the old man’s voice.

He slowed his breathing, forcing his mind into the present moment. But, despite everything seeming perfectly real, he couldn't fully cleanse himself of the haunting feeling of unreality.

The elevator slowed then opened its doors to the executive suite hallway, jolting Matt back to reality.

Or maybe unreality, he reminded himself grimly.

He stopped, for he felt that if he didn’t, his mind might suddenly give out. The elevator might suddenly drop. All the world might suddenly explode into a trillion scintillating fragments of nonsense.

“What is going on?” Matt asked the world and himself and everything. “I should be in a hospital. Dr. Heron...he…”

He’s part of the dream, the old man’s voice explained. But this time, Matt didn’t strangle the thought into silence.

Maybe, he reasoned. Or maybe you’re just in my head.

There was no answer, and as the elevator doors closed again due to inactivity, he felt a chill as the two sides of his body in the door’s foggy golden reflection became one.

Are you in my head? Matt asked the old man. Or am I in yours?

Or maybe we’re both inside the video game character’s head, Matt considered even more horrifically. Why not? Nothing makes sense anyway. So why not?

Matt shook his head and let it fall into his open palm. He sobbed silently.

I just want to understand.

Peering into his past was like catching glimpses of burnt, grainy film of another person’s life. He tried to picture his dad’s face clearly in his mind, but the image kept contorting and shifting through an array of possibilities.

What about my mom? Matt wondered. Siblings? Grandparents?

It was as if the memories had been haphazardly torn away and every attempt to piece them together only fogged the scant clarity that remained.

Would Dr. Heron really let me be on my own if I weren’t capable of being alone right now?

Matt realized that he still had no recollection of how he ended up in front of his building.

If I walk through these elevator doors, can I be sure I’ll end up in the right place?

The thought made him almost laugh in horror. It was something only a lucid dreamer would think to consider.

I can remember that, at least, Matt noted with a trace of solace. I used to practice lucid dreaming. I mean, I still do – I think.

Just a dream, the old man interjected through a whisper.

I know, Matt admitted to himself painfully, breathing heavily against the horrifying implications. Maybe this is all just one giant dream.

Matt groaned into his palm and began wiping tears from his eyes.

The elevator doors opened suddenly, and Matt lowered his head at the sight of a man and woman wearing fine tailored suits standing side by side. They looked like upper management, but Matt wasn’t sure if he had ever met them before.

“Hey there, Mr. Willish,” the woman said uneasily, clearly unsure if he was okay.

Matt nodded and walked immediately through the door, hoping they would chalk up his insanity to eccentricity.

“Have a good one,” the man called out to Matt, and the woman hushed him as they stepped into the elevator.

“He –” the man began, but the woman hushed him again, waiting for the elevator doors to close before the gossip started.

They think I’m crazy, Matt told himself before laughing wearily and admitting the obvious truth again and again. I am fucking crazy.

He walked straight ahead to his office. He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know where he could find answers, and he didn’t know what answers he was looking for. He didn’t know where to start or if any of it would ever end. He didn’t know himself nor his other self nor his other self. He didn’t know anything.

Matt opened the door to his office. It was just like the last time he was here, but also just like the dream. He couldn’t help checking to see if May was sitting on the couch in meditation, but the room was empty, save the fountains, fish, fixtures, and a large desk with a single laptop on it. Just like in the video game dream.

He checked the door, half-expecting to see it replaced by a solid wall, but the door was still there. He looked above the desk and checked for the circular golden cover leading to the Room Reaper battlefield, but it was just drywall embedded with golden-hued lights.

Everything was perfectly normal, except Matt’s mind.

He pulled himself to his desk through a swamp of fatigue and sunk into the oversized red leather chair.

Half his mind recognized the office with casual certainty, and the other half peered at the room of a total stranger.

He let the sound of the running water pierce and dilute his confusion with a forced calm, but his thoughts wouldn’t relent.

Who even decided to decorate everything like this? Was it me? Did I do all this in February before I ran out of medicine – before all this madness? Will I ever be okay again? Was I...ever okay?

Someone was walking toward the office, so Matt opened his laptop in an attempt to look busy.

Three quick knocks broke the calming sound of running water, and Matt knew somehow that it was Souvik.

“Yeah. You can come in.”

Souvik opened the door but kept to the side of it, hiding his body playfully. He peered into Matt’s office with a huge grin.

“Hey, buddy! Back in action, huh?”

Matt nodded.

Don’t act crazy, he told himself.

“Okay! Okay!” Souvik said cheerfully, treating Matt’s silence as endearing. He strolled into the office and balanced on a single foot, pretending to nearly fall into the pond before easily correcting his stance. He took a half-seat on the end of Matt’s desk and smiled wide again.

“You’re feeling better though, right?” he said with seemingly genuine concern.

Matt nodded and glanced at the computer screen. There was a prompt. It said: “Are You Awake?”

Realizing he must have been the one who input the question, Matt’s heart skipped a beat. He remembered giving the wrong answer when the Golden Door asked him the same question.

That was a dream! Matt had to remind himself. He quickly typed, “yes,” but the password was denied.

Souvik forced some laughter under his breath and pulled an inch away from Matt.

“You still mad at me, man?” Souvik said with a crack in his voice. This was clearly his true purpose in coming to see Matt. He was seeking forgiveness for a past slight of some sort.

“I’m not mad at you,” Matt said without knowing what he should be mad about. Whatever issue we had is the least of my worries right now.

Souvik nodded hesitantly and let out a deep sigh.

“I hope you’re not just saying that, man.”

Matt nodded absentmindedly and tried the password again. He typed “no,” but the password was denied once more.

“Look,” Souvik said, forcing Matt to finally give him his full attention. “I know you said you wanted to be left alone. We all got the text this morning. But...I just don’t want bad blood between us, you know?”

Text?

“What text?” Matt asked nervously. He reached for his phone to check.

“You sent it at like 4:00 in the morning. You don’t remember?”

He checked the messages. Sure enough, there was a group text sent to dozens of numbers at 3:52 a.m.:

“Thank you for your hard work. I ask that I not be disturbed until I send another text notifying you otherwise. Thank you.”

No one had responded, though based on the content of the message, they probably just saw responding as an unwanted disturbance.

These people just listen to me. I shouldn’t even be in charge of my own life, yet I’m responsible for dozens of other people?

He scrolled up and saw a message from Dr. Heron at exactly 8:00 a.m.:

“Did you take your pill?”

And there was a response from Matt that said:

“Yes, doctor, thank you for your concern. All is well.”

That doesn’t even fucking sound like me. Matt noted with horror. It’s like half the time someone else is in control of my life.

“Anyway,” Souvik continued, “I just…”

Matt let him struggle with whatever he was chewing on and tried the password again. In exasperation, he typed, “Imstuckinadreamwithinadream.” The password screen faded to a standard-looking interface full of apps and file shortcuts.

Why did that work?

On the right side of the screen, there was an internet browser called Rayo open to an array of headlines from various news outlets all under the category of Rayo News.

“I feel bad about it, Matt. The whole thing. I feel fucking terrible, man,” Souvik said finally, letting his words gush forth from some cavernous pit pooling deep within his mind.

Matt nodded, but his primary attention was drawn to the news headlines displayed on his laptop:

“Matthew Willish: The Elusive Billionaire Is Back?”

“Room Reaper: Your Guide to Class Selection”

“Room Reaper and the Man Behind the Global Phenomenon”

“Willish Enterprises Closes at All Time High for 80th Straight Day!”

The news was all about Matt and his company. The spotlight of the entire world was on him. Room Reaper was even bigger than he could have ever imagined.

Room Reaper spread worldwide. And I’m apparently a billionaire?

“Matt,” Souvik lamented, “she’s not into me, okay? She’s into you. You hear me, man?”

Matt could barely discern his words. His full attention was now devoted to the headlines:

“#roomreaperislife Chirped by Over 1.2 Billion People in Single Day”

“The Golden God Door: What’s the Secret to Its Secrets?”

“Analysts Say Willish Enterprises to Remain Bullish Through Third Quarter”

“Scientists Say Room Reaper Is Better Than Intercourse”

“Matt?” Souvik said, forcing him away from the news. “Okay?”

Matt nodded.

Souvik exhausted a heavy sigh, obviously not satisfied with Matt’s answer.

“Come out with us tonight. May’ll be there.”

Matt finally perked up.

May...he felt that intense longing for her again. She was important to him somehow. She was...everything.

What does that even mean? Matt probed his mind, but all he could know for sure was that he felt an unnerving level of comfort just hearing her name.

“Is...she here now?”

Souvik’s sad eyes widened, and his lips curled back to child-like glee.

“I knew it!” he said. “Is she why you came back, man? I knew you had a serious thing for her.” Souvik reeled himself in and tightened up. “Sorry, that’s...that’s exactly why I’m sorry, you know, man?”

Souvik’s words and facial reactions finally made sense, and Matt realized in a flash what all this was about. He slept with her. That must be it, Matt noted, but he didn’t feel any of the upset that Souvik assumed he must.

“May’s her own person, Souvik. If she slept with you, it’s because she wanted to,” Matt told him sincerely, though he couldn’t help wondering how May felt about Souvik.

“No, of course, man. I didn’t mean otherwise. I just…”

Souvik shook his head, treading carefully with his words.

“I knew you had a thing for her, and I still went after her. And I’m sorry for that.”

Matt nodded. “Okay,” he said and then looked back at the screen in a subtle attempt to let Souvik know that he had more important matters to consider.

Like the validity of my own damn existence.

Souvik nodded back, dissatisfied with himself and the result of this conversation that he’d probably played in his head a thousand times.

Maybe it would be better if the other me took over, Matt thought. I don’t know the emotional dynamic of my own life. I don’t know if I should really feel jealous. I don’t know how I act when I’m...not me.

“Okay,” Souvik said finally, lifting himself off the desk. “Okay, okay,” he repeated. “So you’ll come out with us tonight?”

Matt shook his head, his eyes still on the computer screen. “I don’t know. I...have a lot to work out.” At least that’s not a lie, Matt told himself.

Souvik nodded, offering visible understanding. “Sure. Yeah, that makes sense, man. I’ll let you get back to it.”

Souvik walked straight for the door, hesitated for a moment to speak, then thought better of it and opened the door.

He was halfway through the door when he said, “She’s not here, by the way. May and Chike had to fly to Atlanta to check up on one of the pilot offices. Some run-of-the-mill stuff, but I guess it was important enough for them to check it out.”

Matt nodded, and Souvik nodded back.

“Okay then,” he said. “See you tonight, I hope.”

Souvik left and closed the door with incredible care.

Matt placed his fingers on the keyboard and felt familiarity in its texture. This was his tool. This was how he could make sense of the world.

If there’s any sense to be had, he noted with dread.

He began searching for information about the company and himself, filling his mind with data that must already be stored in the inaccessible recesses of his memories.

Matt was surprised to learn that over just the few months between his last bottle of Serotel and this one, the company’s only game, Room Reaper, had become more of a global pastime than mere recreation. The game and its unparalleled ability to integrate a multitude of IPs into a single dynamic server spawned a new term: Grand Scale Maps. One article explained that tens of thousands of players competed on the same map in official tournaments while hundreds of thousands of players competed on the same map in unofficial tournaments that could last days or even weeks. Another article celebrated that if a team of five couldn’t be formed, missing teammates would be replaced by some of the best AI the industry has ever seen.

A total of 3.9 billion people play Room Reaper, Matt gawked as the statistic filled his mind with profound awe. That’s nearly half the world.

Matt performed another search and learned that the game cost only fifty dollars, but there were a multitude of payable cosmetic options for each character. Furthermore, it cost only a single dollar to try out for an official tournament, but if someone made it to the final forty thousand or so players, they had to pay an additional thousand dollars just for the opportunity to compete for the million dollar prize. Willish Enterprises held tournaments every single weekend.

That’s pure exploitation, Matt winced. My company is pilfering the pockets of half the world using a scheme that would make a used car salesmen squeamish.

Matt continued reading and learned that Room Reaper’s unexpected success allowed the company to go public, making Matt worth exactly $32 billion as of one week ago, though virtually all of it was tied to unrealized assets in the company’s stock. Official reports anticipated that he would be the richest man in history before the end of the year.

I’m a fucking asshole, Matt gawked as he learned about the man he had become. I’m exploiting the world. I’m preying on billions of people for…

He looked around his office – at the fountains and gargantuan water-hungry plants and shimmering gold trim around every little feature.

I’m a grade-A asshole.

He felt dirty.

Am I really capable of being...this person?

He remembered having a small office. A small team. A small life.

Not this.

A folder on his desktop called Patch Notes flashed red, indicating that it had just been updated in real time. Surprised he could remember what the flashing meant, he clicked the folder and read through the recent issues and fixes released for the game. He absentmindedly scrolled through the patches, allowing his mind to wander.

Did I really do all this? If I’m rich, then do I really have bodyguards?

“There was a major issue with the servers last night, 07/25, around 23:00. But the issue has been resolved.”

Should I be concerned for my safety? The whole world knows who I am…

“The issue involved a total disabling of all lights, along with the Reaper.”

What?

Matt stopped to read the rest of the internal report.

“Servers continued to function otherwise normally, but only a single team of four NPCs and one player were able to access the servers.

“The player, who chose Loki, utilized a client-side program to mod the game on the fly. The player engaged the character Mu in a sexual manner before attempting to access the company’s system files via a remarkably clever backdoor created when the player logged in to the server.

“Player is believed to be an experienced hacker. Admins, please be on the lookout and report any suspicious activity. The last thing we need is a horny little schoolboy programing prodigy throwing a wrench in the spokes of our golden wheel.”

Matt tried in vain to keep his breathing even.

That was my dream. That was me!

His mind reeled at the possibility.

No! It’s not just a possibility, Matt corrected himself. I have the proof right here in the logs. The logs recorded exactly what I experienced in my dream.

He expected the old man to interrupt his thoughts, but he was alone inside his head.

That might mean I can control the dream from here. Maybe I can program the dream from this desk.

That’s actual crazy talk, Matt considered. That’s absolutely fucking crazy.

But he couldn’t deny what he was reading in the logs.

Matt took out his phone and texted Souvik:

“Are these logs about the hacker accurate?”

All Matt could do was stare at the phone. He wasn’t sure which reality he preferred: the one where Souvik said, “What the hell are you talking about,” or the one in which Souvik confirmed the accuracy of the logs.

Souvik texted back:

“Crazy shit, right? We need to hire the guy.”

Matt turned off his phone and pushed it across the desk. It was like a vial of poison, and he didn’t feel safe even holding it.

What does this mean? Matt urged his mind helplessly. I’m dreaming myself into the game? Or there’s some weird psychic connection happening? Or…

He reached for the Serotel bottle in his pocket.

I’m just fucking crazy. I’m just fucking crazy!

But the logs said that he was perfectly sane. The logs proved that the world was crazy, and to be crazy in a crazy world – that seemed like sanity, or at least some form of it.

I’m not crazy. I just have to figure out what’s going on.

There was another icon on the interface called Source. He clicked it.

Code streamed across the screen, unfurling the inner mind of Room Reaper into Matt’s eager consciousness. Queries and commands and numbers and symbols were translated effortlessly by his mind, and rather than disjointed code, he saw, with perfect clarity, the impossibly complex yet brilliant intricacy of what he and his team had constructed.

It’s fucking perfect, Matt marveled, probing his creation with a mind both perfectly acquainted and perfectly foreign to its landscape.

It’s a masterpiece.

Concise, clever, efficient, sleek: the array streaming through Matt’s consciousness was the programming promised land. The digital infrastructure they had written, synthesized, and parsed would be used as the evolutionary prototype of every digital species born in the future. It was as if they had created the very first cell in a chain of multibillion year evolution that would eventually grow into intelligent life.

This masterpiece is just the beginning, Matt marveled.

His eyes stopped when he saw the code constituting Mu.

It’s May, he confirmed, seeing this woman he longed for, possibly even loved, in every little detail of the code that brought Mu to life.

I’m sorry, he told her in his head. I have to make changes to your world.

He knew what he had to do, regardless of the beauty of Mu’s world. It might be the only way to know for sure what was real and what was only a dream.

I have to change things. I have to mar this masterpiece. I have to experiment.

Matt absorbed the code, surveying it like a satellite over an endless landscape. From satellite, he changed his perspective to that of a hawk, scanning the ground for its miniscule prey; he spotted the perfect place to start making changes. Smiling and diving at full speed, Matt felt free for the first time in as long as he could remember.

He burrowed and bounced and consumed and digested the digital world without any sense of final destination at first. Then he began to reform the digital world, atom by atom. His fingers raced to keep up with his mind. The outside world was no more; there was only code and this world of his own making. Time became a foreign construct, dwindling in the recesses of his consciousness and eventually disappearing altogether. He felt one with the digital construct, as if it were his own body he was exploring and altering.

He had to be careful not to change it too drastically – only just enough to make a difference, but not enough to kill it.

Yes, Matt confirmed to himself with a bleak stain of hope welling in his gut. If this works and the system doesn’t automatically revert to the last stable patch, then –

“Matt!?” Souvik said, standing in the open doorway with a look of total surprise. “What are you doing, man? I’ve been knocking for like ten minutes now.”

Surely ten minutes was an exaggeration, but Matt hadn’t heard any knocking whatsoever.

“Sorry about that,” Matt said, saving his work and closing the laptop in one swift movement.

“What are you doing, bro?” Souvik pressed again with a tone of worry.

“Work,” Matt said simply. Souvik didn’t push any further.

“You’ve been in here for ten hours straight, man. Or did you leave at some point without me noticing?”

Ten hours? Was it possible?

Matt turned and glanced outside the windows behind him. It was dark outside. He felt the sudden, intense urge to urinate, and his mouth became extremely dry.

I’m certain it’s only been a few minutes since I started coding.

Time had been burnt away in an instant, and this wasn’t the first occurrence.

He felt the bottle of Serotel in his pocket and reasoned that the medicine just needed time to really kick in.

Souvik waited for an answer, but Matt just shook his head, uncertain what to say.

“Well…okay,” Souvik stammered, then shook his head and let go of his curiosity. “Anyway, you still coming out with everyone tonight?”

Souvik recognized Matt’s hesitation and quickly noted, “She’ll be there.”

May...

Matt shrugged, not wanting to reveal his true feelings. “I might. Yeah.”

Souvik nodded and offered Matt his classic wide grin.

“That’s the best I’m going to get, isn’t it?” Souvik laughed.

Before Matt could respond, Souvik held up a card connected to a lanyard.

“Linda said you still don’t have a keycard, so here you go, man.”

Souvik handed Matt the card. Matt grabbed it, but Souvik had something to tell him before he let go. They were connected through the card, and Souvik demanded Matt’s attention with his desperate eyes.

“I’m really sorry, man. Okay?”

Matt nodded easily. This bro code that Souvik clearly subscribed to was plaguing him at the very foundational levels of his being.

“Just let it go, Souvik. I’m okay with it,” Matt told him sincerely, not caring how he actually acted when he wasn’t in control of his own body.

Souvik nodded furiously to himself, hoping, despite his doubt, that Matt’s words were authentic.

“Thank you, Matt,” Souvik said with incredible gratitude. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He let go of the keycard.

“It’s a block east of here. The place is called LaBerge’s Dream Lounge.”

Matt laughed inwardly at the twisted synchronicity of the bar’s name. Of course that’s what it’s called.

“Hope to see you there, man.”

Souvik still wore a subtle etching of self-inflicted pain at the edges of his being, but he visibly forced the feeling away and left Matt’s office without another word.

She’ll be there, Matt repeated to himself.

May…

He’d been disrupted before he could put the final polish on the changes he’d made to the game’s source code, but it would be enough. The next time he went to sleep, he would at least have a purpose in being there. If the changes worked, he would know for sure that the video game dream was in fact a dream. And, he would also be able to gain access to the replication of his office they’d found last time.

If I can get back to that laptop, maybe I can make changes to the old man’s world. That will at least prove I’m the real one. Then I won’t have to, Matt gulped hard as the words slithered into his mind, die to find out for sure.

He felt an all-consuming rush at the thought of dying with no waking dream on the other side.

Matt pondered true death. He knew people killed themselves time and time again in the depths of mental illness.

Is this how it happens? Are some of them just trying to...wake up? Or is it only my fucked up mind that’s like this?

Matt stood, and in the same instant, the lights in the executive suite hallway flickered off, leaving only dim bulbs to light his path back to the elevator.

Matt turned and peered outside the window, wondering if he could see the bar from his office. Even if he could, he was too high up to discern anything at the ground level.

May, his mind interjected forcefully. She filled his every thought, and he felt suddenly as if there were a braided cord connecting the two of them. The now tangible draw to her was so intense that he could feel exactly where that braided cord, extending from his chest to hers, finally ended.

So strong, Matt noted in horror. This pull – she’s everything to me. So how the fuck could I have just forgotten about her?

Matt rose and breathed in the sweetness of the koi fish and the butterflies and the viridescent fronds of numerous technicolor fauna.

It was the very definition of tranquility, and yet it filled Matt with loathing.

It’s an illusion, Matt forced himself to admit. The truth is horrific, and all this does is hide it. The truth is…

The truth is that you’re dreaming, came the voice of the old man, and Matt felt his breathing suddenly constrict.

Get out, Matt told him. But he could still feel the old man somewhere in his consciousness peering at him with condescending pity.

You aren’t even real, the old man told him.

“Get out!” Matt shouted.

The old man was gone suddenly. His office softened, and the tranquility it was meant to fill him with became more apparent.

The rush of water filled Matt’s mind, blocking out the old man as if it were a powerful mantra.

Stay out, Matt warned him.

He breathed deeply and stepped into the dark hallway, leaving the crimson sanctuary of his office behind.

Each of his steps seemed to ground him, reminding him of the connection he could still feel tugging at his chest.

He swiped his card at the elevator, then waited as it ascended to meet him.

He stared at the MW symbol, and he felt it burrow inside him, forcing itself into each of his cells as it filled him with disgust.

I don’t want it, Matt thought.

He closed his eyes and waited for the elevator. He didn’t want to open them again until the doors parted and the symbol disappeared into the walls.

That isn’t me!

He strained to breathe as he centered his thoughts on May. He could feel the tangible pull at his solar plexus. The elevator dinged at the same moment the invisible braided cord tugged at his chest so hard that he was yanked forward. Intense vertigo threw his mind into panic as he plummeted from the 81st floor into the pitch darkness of the empty elevator shaft.

No! his mind wailed futilely against the fall as an image of his broken body at the bottom of the shaft stabbed through every thought with strobing panic.

Matt clenched his fists and jaw, but his legs flailed wildly on their own. He wanted to scream, but he could only grunt in shock.

Then everything changed.

The darkness beneath him coalesced into a chrysanthemum-shaped, undulating, RGB-glowing field and immediately unfurled to reveal a quickly approaching sidewalk beneath glass towers and a placid night sky.

Just as he was about to hit the sidewalk at terminal velocity, Matt’s speed slowed to a crawl without any inertia, and he was regurgitated from the darkness of the elevator shaft. His body rolled haphazardly onto the sidewalk, battering his limbs against the solid ground with enough force to bruise but not break.

He gritted his teeth against the pain and pulled himself onto a bench just a foot away. Lifting his head, he saw the bar directly across the street.

Fuck! Matt thought in total shock. He looked back at the place where he first hit the ground, but everything looked normal.

The chrysanthemum pattern that stopped my fall and brought me here – it felt like I passed through something similar when I woke outside the office this morning, Matt observed eagerly, hoping the connection might elucidate precious information regarding his insanity. Is that how I got from Dr. Heron’s office to my office so quickly? A…chrysanthemum portal?

Does that not prove this is a dream? came the voice of the old man.

He’s got me there, Matt thought. How can I possibly explain that away?

Then he remembered. The message sent to all the other executives. And the message from Dr. Heron.

I didn’t portal to my office this morning, Matt urged himself to believe. I fell asleep at the doctor's office. My bodyguards took me home. I slept through the night and somehow sent some messages without remembering. Matt winced at his memory lapse and wished desperately that his life would return to him from the void of amnesia.

Not remembering those messages could just be a side effect of the sleeping pills, Matt told himself, but the reassurance his reasoning brought him was like an anchor attempting to find the ground of a bottomless sea. And this morning, Matt continued, trying to piece together the jigsaw of his existence with only a few useless puzzle pieces, the bus was driving away when I finally...woke up. I clearly took the bus to my office, not a fucking portal.

Matt nodded vigorously to himself, forcing acceptance that the portal was a hallucination. Like Dr. Heron said, he was dissociating himself from reality. The portal was his mind, not the world. The world made sense. The world was normal.

It’s me. I’m the problem, Matt accepted fully. So what do I do? he thought to himself, almost whimpering.

Laughter filled his mind. It was the pitying laughter of the old man.

Matt tried to shake him away, but he wouldn’t leave.

I’m going to get to the control room in the video game dream, and I’m going to erase you, Matt told him.

The laughter stopped.

What makes more sense? the old man asked evenly. That you’re crazy? Or that you are simply a confused dream character inside my head?

Crazy! Matt seethed. It was the only thing he was really sure of.

Then why aren’t you in a hospital? the old man asked with a slap of seeming sorrow. Should a person who travels randomly through flower-shaped portals really be on their own in the big world?

I should be, Matt admitted, more to himself than the old man. I should be in a hospital.

Do you know where I am? the old man asked, this time with seemingly genuine condolence for Matt’s condition.

“A hospital,” Matt said aloud, and it suddenly made sense. The dream of the old man represented Matt’s deep understanding that he belonged in a hospital until he could get better.

No! the old man scolded. I’m not your dream. You’re mine.

A pang of dread torrented down the length of Matt’s spine. He gripped the Serotel bottle in his pocket.

This will take care of you for now, Matt told the old man. And over time, I’ll get better, and you’ll be extinguished from my mind like a forgotten thought.

Matt felt suddenly resolute in what he would do next.

I’m going to see May. I’m going to tell her I love her. I’m going to apologize to her for everything – for myself. And then I’m going to a hospital to have you erased from my mind. For good.

Matt opened the bottle, removed three pills, then swallowed them.

Fool! the old man told him.

Matt smiled, though there were tears in his eyes.

You’re in my mind, not the other way around. Now leave me alone. Hurry up and die, old man.

He could feel the old man shaking his head with profound disappointment.

Fool, the old man repeated, and then he was gone.

Matt sat there, relishing the silence for just a moment. He evened his breathing and focused on the air as it moved in and out of his nostrils. In and out. In and out.

Now I know what to do, Matt told himself. Everything will be all right.

“Hey,” someone said, jolting Matt from his thoughts. “You okay, pal? You say you need a hospital? We saw you trip over there.”

A man and woman stood over Matt with looks of incredible concern.

“You mean I didn’t fall out of a portal?” Matt said with a smile, and he laughed at himself with incredible, freeing joy.

The couple realized that he was joking and laughed along with him.

“Okay, okay,” the man said. “As long as you’re okay.”

Matt nodded and thanked them with his eyes. The couple waved and went on their way.

See? They said I tripped. I’m just crazy, Matt told the old man with an ounce of happiness, and he chuckled miserably at himself for even entertaining the voice in his head.

You’ll be gone soon, Matt urged.

He stood and walked across the street to the entrance of the bar. A soft neon coursing glow from the small, innocuous LaBerge’s Dream Lounge sign filled the air.

Matt’s solar plexus throbbed with coursing energy.

She’s here, Matt confirmed, butterflies filling his stomach and rising into his chest. They seemed drawn to the braided cord.

“Mr. Willish,” announced a young man at the bar’s entrance. “We’ve been expecting you.”

The young man wore a tailored suit, fine gold necklaces and bracelets, and slicked-back auburn hair. He didn’t look large enough to be a bouncer, but he made up for his size in presence. Matt could tell that his smile and frame were a facade hiding lethal danger just below the surface.

Maybe ex-military, Matt wondered.

“The others told you I’d be here?” Matt asked.

The young man just winked and opened the door for Matt. A trance beat could be heard in the distance, and the interior buzzed with a soft crimson glow, not unlike Matt’s office.

The man nodded for Matt to enter and winked once more.

“Enjoy yourself,” he said as he waved Matt through the threshold.

“Thanks,” Matt said, genuinely thankful for the seemingly friendly face, despite the danger he had felt emanating from the man.

The bar reminded Matt of something that might actually be pulled straight out of someone’s dream. A soft spray of roaming lights oscillated steadily between red, green, and blue hues, filling the air with an aura that reminded Matt of the RGB lights of his old computer and the terminal-like room he used to work in as a fledgling programmer – at least, that’s what he felt to be true.

I still can’t fully remember. It’s just…a feeling, Matt thought, struggling with the right words. I can’t trust my mind. Matt gulped with grim understanding.

Something floral and pungent filled Matt’s nostrils and drew his mind back to the here and now. Matt traced the billows of smoke to their milky roots at the first table in front of him. A small group of people bobbed their heads to the trance music and lounged around an ornate, golden hookah at the center of the table, taking pulls of the floral smoke between smiles and nods. A large bulb hung above them and emitted a soft ochre light from a glass shade featuring a green field with numerous peacocks, their wings outspread. The birds seemed to be staring at Matt with incredible intensity, though none of the people at the table took any notice of him.

Matt’s eyes darted left to a large oil painting of a blizzard-white ram’s face in front of a solid blood-red background. The ram’s eyes were the same blood-red as the background; it was as if they had been removed by the artist as an afterthought. A pair of eccentrically dressed people wearing swami-like robes sipped mixed drinks and took no notice of the ram staring straight at them.

On the far right, a man and woman with near-identical cascading dreadlocks tended to the bar. On the wall behind them hung a gargantuan oil painting, at least six feet high and nine feet wide, of a furious-looking tortoise. It stood erect next to crisscrossing rivers and roared with its mouth fully open. A handful of assorted animals stood at the tortoise’s colossal feet in seeming obedience to its power.

Matt’s eyes finally came to a table tucked into one of several small alcoves cut into the long wall every fifteen feet or so. There was a table in each nook with a hanging bulb and peacock lampshade emitting either an ochre or crimson hue, but Matt only had eyes for the nook closest to him. A sizable oil painting at the back of the nook featured an ancient Chinese castle surrounded by a large moat of water filled with abstract, swirling fractals. Peach trees filled the courtyard outside the castle, and a single jaguar prowled beneath the peach trees, scanning the other side of the moat for intruders. Beneath the painting, Mu tucked her raven hair behind an ear and nodded easily to another woman Matt had never seen before.

That’s May, Matt corrected himself, not wanting his mind to shatter before he had the chance to finally talk to her. Get yourself together.

He saw now that Souvik and Chike were also sitting around the circular table with a couple other people, likely other executives.

Matt listened for the old man’s return, but he seemed totally gone. He felt for the Serotel in his pocket and was filled with a tangible boost of confidence.

I’m going to tell her how I feel. And then I’m getting you out of my head, Matt said, more to himself than the old man.

Matt was on his way to the table when Souvik turned and noticed him. He jumped up and waved Matt over, beaming his wide smile for all the bar to notice.

Chike and the others turned and greeted Matt, while May stared him down as if she were the jaguar in the painting’s peach orchard. She sipped her drink and never broke her enchanting gaze.

Matt wished the others would leave him and May to themselves.

But what am I supposed to say? Hi, I barely know you and forgot all about you for a while, but I love you. You mean the world to me, but I'm going to the hospital now. Bye.

Yeah, that’ll go great, Matt scolded himself as his mind raced for a reasonable alternative to those words. But he was already at the table.

“Hey,” Matt said directly to May. She didn’t nod or smile or do anything to acknowledge him. She just kept staring and sipping at her drink.

“He only has eyyyes...for youuu!” Souvik sang to May, mimicking the Garfunkel version of the song.

May lowered her drink and turned slowly to Souvik while the rest of the table waited for her reaction.

“Look!” May pointed with mock excitement to the bartenders and the tortoise painting. “There’s some unattended women at the bar. Go say hi. Just don’t start humping their legs like a cute little puppy.”

May winked, and the three diamond studs lining her eyebrow sparkled with ochre brilliance from the light above.

Souvik smiled even wider and put his hands up in defense.

“I’m not that bad!”

The whole table quickly looked among themselves, looked at Matt, then returned their eyes to Souvik in clear disagreement.

“Shoo, pretty boy,” May told him with an easy wave of her hand.

Chike bellowed with the laughter of a father observing a sibling tiff.

“Come on everyone,” Chike said with a sudden joyful burst. “Drinks on me. Let’s do some shots at the bar.”

Matt wasn’t sure if the other executives agreed out of obedience or genuine desire to drink with Chike, who Matt assumed was their superior, but they all rose in unison and shuffled out of the booth. May was the only one who didn’t move a muscle.

Chike gripped Matt’s shoulder with brotherly affection and forced him to sit at the booth.

“Talk to you soon, buddy boy,” Chike told him. Matt watched as Chike made a fist and pretended to wind up to punch Souvik, who chuckled and tucked his arms to his chest defensively. The other executives laughed along with their playfulness and found seats at the bar.

“They’re like animals at the feet of the almighty Putch,” May said with casual amusement, staring at the others along with Matt.

Putch, Matt repeated to himself in sudden horror that she was referencing his dream. But then he remembered Putch was also just a character from the video game they had built together.

“You okay?” May asked him, her voice like silk across his skin.

Matt shook his head in a painful rhythm and moved closer to May on the bench.

How can I possibly even begin to answer that question?

“What did you mean by that? About Putch?” Matt asked, trying to redirect the conversation away from his sanity.

“You’re the one who taught me about Putch the tortoise god. Remember?”

Matt nodded along with her, pretending to remember. He recounted painfully again that he had no concrete memories of May whatsoever. None. It was the same for the others too – Souvik and Chike. Objectively, he knew their relation to one another and himself, but beyond that, he couldn’t recall any memories of them in even the vaguest sense. There were just flashes of emotion. He could feel in those flashes the brotherly affection for Chike. But most of all, he felt the intense beaming love for May. No matter where his mind turned, even in his dreams within dreams, there was that incredible longing for May constricting and releasing his every thought – like a beating heart pulsing through braided networks of living tissue.

“All the animals flock to the feet of Putch when she roars,” May recounted, lowering her voice and adding an air of authority as she mocked some version of himself that he couldn’t remember.

“Not like Xiwangmu,” May said, and she winked at him while sipping from her cocktail. The jaguar in the painting was just behind her, as if readying itself to pounce.

May looked back at the jaguar and nodded with approval.

“The art really did come out spectacular,” May marveled. “You made the right choice in artists.”

“I commissioned these paintings?” Matt gawked, and he had to stop himself from admitting the truth that he could remember virtually nothing of his life before just a few days ago.

May offered a half-smirk, then peered at him more closely, catching just a glint of the seriousness of Matt’s mental predicament.

“You’re not really feeling better, are you? That text was just you placating us, wasn't it?” May sighed with something like disappointment or maybe even worry. She pursed her lips and peered deep into his eyes as if searching for something.

Matt shrugged honestly.

I’m not here to lie to her. I’m not here to trick her. I’m here to tell her the truth.

“May…” Matt began with trepidation, not wanting to shock her with the impossible depths of the chaos and confusion that constituted the endless, haunting caverns of his mind.

“I’m glad I’m here with you right now, May,” Matt said, grasping for her longing stare with his own.

She furrowed her brow and looked away from him for just an instant before placing her hand on the bench and moving a few inches closer.

“I’m glad you’re here too, Matt. But, what exactly –”

Souvik’s howling laughter suddenly jolted their attention to the bar, breaking the moment. Souvik had his arm around some young girl and was regaling a crowd of people with some story that seemed to be making them genuinely laugh.

May shook her head in disappointment.

“You like him?” Matt asked bluntly, feeling wrong for even putting her in the position of having to explain her relationships to another man.

May rolled her eyes, tilted her head back, and laughed a few forceful beats.

“Sure. In a reckless, disappointing little brother sort of way.”

May shook her head and rolled her eyes again in Souvik’s direction.

“He can’t help it. His brain is used exclusively for coding. The rest of his neuronal networking is rerouted to his dick.”

Matt didn’t stifle his laughter, and she encouraged him to laugh with some of her own.

“He’s harmless. You know that. More like a little puppy dog than a man, though.”

May turned suddenly and eyed Matt with suspicion.

“Did he put you up to this, Matt? Coming out tonight. Showing up out of the blue. Talking to me like this. I mean…”

She trailed off, but Matt wasn’t entirely sure what she was getting at.

“Never mind,” she said, not letting Matt consider the matter. “I think he feels like some weird bro-code was destroyed between you two just because we slept together.”

Matt nodded casually, conscious to not show any reaction. But inside, his mind raced with possibilities.

So they did sleep together. Maybe she cares more about Souvik than she’s letting on.

Matt glanced at Souvik.

He looks like a celebrity. He’s even better looking than Kartikeya, the CG version of himself. Of course May likes him...who wouldn’t?

“I wish he would drop it,” May continued. “I’m the one that instigated it. I just had to know what all the fuss was about. He’s an entire topic of conversation all on his own when it comes to the other women in the office.”

May drew closer to Matt and cupped her hand in front of her mouth, offering to tell him a secret.

“He’s a great guy, but my god is he a boring lay.”

Matt chuckled, and she straightened herself into a more comfortable position.

“So you and Souvik aren’t…” Matt began, but May interrupted him with more liberating laughter.

“Sleeping with someone doesn’t have to mean you like them.” She laughed to herself and eyed Matt with a newfound realization. “You have a traditional mind, you know that?”

Her drink was empty, so she replaced it with the half-finished drink of one of the other executives.

“I’d offer you some, but I’m not sure you should be drinking on the medication you take, right?”

Matt felt paralyzed. Reference to his mental illness – here it was. He would have to admit to her sooner than later that he was far further down the rabbit hole of insanity than he was letting on.

“Serotel, right?” May asked. “I saw the bottle the other day when I called your therapist, or psychiatrist, or whatever he is.”

Matt nodded, unsure how to tell her.

“I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it,” she finished.

A traditional mind, Matt wondered, recounting her words. Is that true?

Tell her, he urged himself, forcing his mind away from distracting tangents.

“I have a broken mind,” he said finally.

May cocked her head and looked physically hurt by his words.

“You have a beautiful mind! A beautiful mind!” she said, nearly scolding him.

Why does she seem so angry? Matt knew there was something he was missing – something between them.

Why can’t I just remember? Matt seethed at his mind. Damn you.

He grabbed one of the cocktails closest to him and downed it in a single gulp.

“Whoa!” May said with incredible concern. “Easy, Matt. Is that even safe?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “I don’t know,” he repeated in reference to absolutely everything.

May tenderly removed the glass from his grip, set it on the table, and took his hand in hers.

“Just relax with that, okay? Let me be your poison and let’s just talk. No more alcohol, okay?” she said, squeezing his hand.

The tangible bubbling in his chest, like a tethering to her soul, surged as they made contact.

Can she sense it too? Matt wondered, his heart fluttering in anticipation. But she didn’t give any indication that she noticed the connection.

She let go of his grip and offered him a half-smile of assurance.

“This is the part in the movies when you profess your undying love for me,” May chuckled, and she placed the back of her hand on her forehead and pretended to swoon.

Matt nodded at her, desperately wanting to tell her.

I do love you, May. I do love you.

May took his hand again, and this time she held it more comfortably in hers as if she didn’t plan on letting go.

“Just tell me. Where did you go, Matt? All those months. You just disappeared. Just...where did you go?”

She looked deeply hurt, and Matt could tell that his willingness to be honest with her was paramount in this moment.

She’s right, Matt told himself with painful admission. If you love someone, you wouldn’t just leave like that.

“I don’t know,” he told her honestly, his voice cracking with the realization that she would see that answer as anything but honest.

She pulled her hand away from his and nodded with some painful resignation of hope.

“May, I –” Matt started.

“You know,” she interrupted, “I’ve always been straight with you. And you always stay totally hidden. I know you do it to everyone, even Chike, but…”

“I really don’t know,” Matt urged, wishing that he could directly show her the events of his life over the last few days to help her understand.

Matt removed the bottle of Serotel from his pocket.

“I think I’m going crazy,” he told her evenly.

Wrong! his mind shot back.

Matt nodded in agreement with himself. “I am crazy,” he said.

“I know,” she said with enrapturing warmth, and the smile she offered him was full of pain and longing in equal measure. “You’re a fucking loon,” she chuckled at him as if it were their personal little secret. She squeezed his hand tighter. “I know that, Matt, but I wouldn’t be in love with you if you were normal. Normal people bore me.”

In love? Matt repeated the words in his mind in rapid succession.

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember,” she said evenly, but Matt could see the strain in her eyes and the tightness of her lips and understood that he had been the cause of a great deal of hurt in her life. “I told you about my feelings after all those times you led me on so hard you practically gave me a rash,” she said with restrained but tangible pain in each syllable. “And then eventually you just brushed me off,” she finished, waving her hand in front of her face as if shooing away a persistent fly.

“I didn’t –” Matt started, but May cut him off again.

“Sure, you didn’t exactly brush me off. You blamed it on your work. And your mind – my two favorite parts of you.”

She still thinks I’m lying. She thinks I’m just playing her. Who am I in this world when I’m not...me?

May turned and nodded in the direction of the Ram painting. Matt followed her eyes and saw Linda stealing glances at Matt from behind a beer bottle.

“Seems like you have eyes for the young ones nowadays anyway,” May said with a sneer in her tone. She sighed, loosened her grip, then reshuffled an inch or two away from him.

She was giving me a chance to tell her the truth. She thinks I’m lying to her. May...please believe me.

“No,” Matt said, shaking his head. “That’s not it. I –”

“Then tell me where you went,” she demanded with finality, letting everything hinge on his answer.

Matt continued shaking his head, unsure if he should just make up a story to appease her. But even if he wanted to, he didn’t know what he could possibly say to rectify the damage done to any potential relationship by the Matt who took over his life for whole days and months at a time.

May removed a small pink pill from a shallow pocket in her red cropped denim jacket. She popped the pill, then removed a joint from behind her left ear that Matt hadn’t noticed until now.

“Sorry,” she said, laughing to herself and shaking her head self-scoldingly. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Why would you? I’m just a coworker, right? Just an employee.”

She stood and Matt lunged, reaching for her arm.

She cocked her head, and her look of warning made him stay his hand.

He pulled back and lowered his head.

“Please,” he said, wishing he could redo the whole conversation. “I love you, May. I love you. Please don’t leave.”

May kept her gaze on the exit to the bar for a few seconds, then rolled her eyes and let them fall back on Matt.

“Sure you do,” she offered with a cruel, facetious stab.

“Please don’t leave,” Matt pleaded, not sure if he would ever see her again after tonight.

There’s no telling how long I’ll be hospitalized...or if they’ll ever let me out again once they understand how bad off I am.

May hesitated, sighed, then said, “I’m going for a smoke. I won’t leave if you don’t. Deal?”

Matt nodded with relief and felt the sudden, intense urge to urinate. He stood and May turned around.

“Matt,” she said almost beneath her breath, “let me just have a minute to myself outside.”

“Sorry,” Matt said, “just going to the bathroom.”

May laughed at herself and shrugged. “Of course. Sorry, this is all just...a lot all at once. I’ll see you in a few, okay?”

Matt nodded and smiled at May, and her smile blossomed back.

He watched her leave the bar, and he marveled at her incredible poise and beauty. She was like a spotlight amidst darkness.

She can have any guy she wants. But she said she loves me.

It was the last thing Matt expected: they already had some kind of relationship, and Matt had been the one to end it.

Why would I leave her? Why the hell would I do something so stupid? If I could just remember…

He caught Linda’s gaze suddenly, and she averted her eyes immediately, pretending to be busy in conversation with a group of young people. Matt felt genuinely horrible.

I’ll have to explain everything to Linda once and for all. Enough screwing around with her emotions.

But it would have to wait. He needed to get to the bathroom first.

He quickly scanned the room, looking for a sign, and he spotted the bathrooms near the bar. Making his way over, he caught Souvik’s attention, who nearly pounced on him with a series of excited thumbs-up and jeered violently with dramatic fist pumps of approval. Chike pulled Souvik back to the bar and held him lovingly in place by the neck. Souvik laughed with child-like glee. Chike just raised a single large hand and offered Matt a thumbs-up without even turning his head.

These are my friends, Matt told himself, demanding his mind release its hold on his memories.

But his mind refused.

While the bar itself had an ambience befitting its name, the single bathroom was anything but special. There weren’t any pieces of art or posters or ads on the walls. It was just a tiny room containing a sink, a mirror, and a stall with a toilet inside. There weren’t even any paper towels or an air dryer.

The intense need to urinate was bordering on painful. Thankful that it wasn’t occupied, Matt locked the stall and was finally able to relieve himself.

Any longer and I would have burst, Matt thought with a pang of worry. Does the other me just never pee? Or was it just because I lost track of time on the computer?

As he urinated with incredible relief, he stole a curious glance at some of the writing on the stall’s walls:

A dream has no true beginning or end.

Funny, he told himself without laughing. The universe really does have a grim sense of humor.

He looked down at the large green lettering to his right:

Endless is the maze.

I guess they’re really going for the lucid dreaming vibe.

There was writing everywhere. Some of it was short scribbles while other parts were more like poetry. He read another one written in blue marker:

Silent and empty is the way of heaven. Full and vibrant is the way of Earth. Tao is neither.

He was still urinating, and it didn’t feel like it was letting up in the slightest.

This is a fucking world record, Matt thought with a twinge of concern, and he wondered if he might have damaged his bladder by holding it in so long.

He read another longer one written in bright red:

Treating everything as a dream liberates. As long as you give reality to dreams, you are their slave.

Matt closed his eyes with mounting worry.

How the fuck am I still peeing?

It wasn’t slowing down. He estimated that more than a gallon of liquid had already streamed out of him without pause.

In a panic, not knowing what else to do but give it more time, he read another scribbling:

She is all that matters.

Who is “she”? May? Matt shook his head and tried to force his mind to calm down. It’s just writing on a stall wall, you loon.

He remembered that’s what May had called him in a strangely endearing way. A loon. She knows I’m crazy. She said she loves me for my craziness. That really happened. That was real!

She is all that matters, Matt told himself. He read the line on the stall again:

She is all that matters.

No, the old man told him miserably, sorrow welling in his voice as if he really was sorry that Matt’s existence was nothing more than a transient idea in an old man’s dying head.

This is all a dream, the old man told him just as Matt read another piece of text on the stall:

This is all a dream.

What the fuck? What is happening? he demanded inwardly, and his eyes darted to another piece of writing:

What the fuck? What is happening?

His heart jumped and he momentarily lost control of his stream, peeing on the back of the toilet.

“Will it ever end?” he yelped aloud, panicking in full force now.

He closed his eyes and tried to will his body to stop peeing, but it seemed to only make it worse. The pressure of his urination was ramping up, and he felt like he was going to explode.

“FUCK!” he screamed, and his forehead ejected a fount of blood from the same spot the Reaper first stabbed him.

He grabbed at his forehead and came back with crimson-slick fingers.

“FUCK!” he screamed again, but his urination was finally coming to an end, providing a shallow measure of determination that he could keep himself alive long enough to just get to a hospital.

In his terrible panic, he glanced another piece of writing:

There is no way out.

Call: “16180339887”

A number, he gawked, holding his hand against his head for pressure. His clothes and the entire bathroom were covered in blood and urine, and he felt disgusted and cold, like a misplaced piece of litter among corpses. He began trembling, and he wondered if he was losing too much blood.

My head, he remembered. It was bleeding the morning this all started. I bandaged it up. And then suddenly the bandage was gone and my head was just fine. I...just didn’t notice, I guess.

No, Matt admitted. That doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes any sense.

He forced himself to remove his hands from his forehead, letting the blood flow freely over his eyes. He closed them, replacing the sanguine flow of life with pitch black darkness.

None of this is real, is it? he asked the old man.

He felt the old man shake his head.

I wish it were, the old man said.

Matt couldn’t help tearing up.

There is no way out.

Maybe that’s true, Matt forced himself to reconcile with total horror. Maybe there is no way out of this madness. Maybe even the hospital can’t help me. Maybe nothing can help me.

Blood freely poured from his skull, and there was a flash of objective observation in the madness that told him it was simply too much blood to lose without passing out or even dying on the spot.

It isn’t real, he seethed to himself, spiteful of his mind for betraying him so devilishly, for abandoning him without a hope of refuge.

Refuge, his mind raced.

Matt grabbed at the Serotel bottle. It was his only hope.

He brought the bottle out, blood still flowing at an oddly even pace, his hands and the floor and maybe the whole room covered in his thick red insides.

The bottle was empty.

No! Please, No!

The hopelessness of his situation injected him with a defeated and helpless form of acceptance.

There is no way out, he repeated to himself.

Matt opened his eyes and read the message again.

There is no way out.

That’s when he finally noticed that all the messages were in his handwriting. It was like this exact stall and this exact moment amidst all of space and time was a meeting of his own subconscious mind with itself.

There was a black marker on the floor. Matt picked it up and wrote:

Somebody help me.

He glanced left and saw the same message.

Somebody help me.

It was identical. It was absolutely his handwriting.

“Somebody help me!” Matt screamed, slamming hard against the stall as his legs went weak and he lost his balance.

The door to the bathroom opened suddenly, and the strobing RGB glow of the bar flashed inside the stall. Matt felt sober suddenly. His head stopped gushing, and he watched as the blood and urine-soaked floor steadily vanished like slowly burning grass.

“You okay, bud? You say something?” someone asked from outside the stall.

Matt swiped at his forehead, but his hands came back clean, and except for a splash of urine on the backside of the toilet, everything seemed perfectly ordinary. Except for the writing. All the writing remained. Either it was real or it was a hallucination, and the person outside the stall could tell him.

Matt opened the stall and tried playing it cool, nodding in a futile attempt at assurance to the twenty-something surfer-looking dude.

“Can you see the writing in there?” Matt asked him, readying himself for the man to look at him with bug-eyed skepticism.

“Yeah, bud. That stall is pretty intense on a mescal-run or a k-drop, or sometimes I lock myself in there for a while on some good ‘ol acid, you know?”

Matt had no idea what he was talking about, but he could discern they were all drugs of some sort.

“So you can see the writing in there right now?” Matt asked with greater urgency, but the young man kept his zen demeanor.

“For sure, bro. It says stuff about dreams and how there is no way out of a maze or something – some trippy shit, bro.”

“Yeah,” Matt nodded, unsure if it was better or worse that this man could see the writing.

“Oh shit!” the man said suddenly. “Marker!” he said, pointing excitedly at the marker in Matt’s hand. “My dude, you for real just wrote all that? You like, a poet or something?”

“No,” Matt started, “I mean yes, but –”

“Don’t worry,” the young man said, holding up his hands in assurance. “It’s all good, bro. I mean, that just adds to the trip next time I get lost in the stall. So thank you, you know?”

Matt shook his head. There was no point trying to explain everything.

“Thanks,” Matt said, dragging his voice. He turned and saw the number on the wall. He took out his phone and snapped a picture of it.

“You going to call that number?” the man asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Probably,” Matt admitted forlornly, knowing that he would at least try it on his way to the hospital.

The young man clearly recognized that Matt didn’t want to get any deeper into what had sparked the man to enter the bathroom in the first place. He patted Matt on the back, and Matt moved to wash his hands.

The young man left without any further comment, and Matt breathed deep.

Say goodbye to May. Then go to the hospital. Enough is enough.

He shook his hands of excess water, then opened the door. May was seated in the alcove. She waved her head to the trance beat and eyed the people of the bar with measured interest.

Matt felt suddenly that the air was different. There was a heavy humidity in it. It felt like a late-summer day.

Surrendering to the well of total insanity he had fallen inside, he took out his phone and checked the date. It was August 21st.

He looked back at May and saw that she was still wearing the same outfit.

Is this the same day or isn’t it?

Matt didn’t lose himself to the panic this time.

How much worse can it all get? Maybe I jumped a month forward somehow. That isn’t new, he told himself in a defeated, sordid resignation that his mind might never actually be whole.

But May is still sitting right there. There is no way out. She is all that matters.

Matt could feel it now with acute certainty: he would never see May again. He would never see any of them again. He was too far gone. Reality was bent too far out of shape, and there was nothing strong enough to bend it back nor any way to even know what the original shape looked like.

Say goodbye, Matt lamented inwardly, wondering if it would be better if he just left without saying another word. Maybe that would make it easier for her. Maybe I’ve already caused a problem by even getting this involved with her.

No! another part of his mind that was not the old man reminded him. She said she loves you. That's what matters. You walked away once – apparently. Don’t do it again. Don’t do that to her again.

Matt waited for the old man’s take, but he remained silent. Not that it mattered – Matt knew what the old man would say anyway: This is all a dream.

Fine, Matt said inwardly in defiance of the old man and reality itself. If this is all a dream, then fine.

He strode forward to May. She smiled with her eyes and pursed her lips.

“I saw you check your phone by the bathroom,” she said playfully. “You getting bored?”

Matt existentially ached for this woman who was but an ever present shadow in his mind. The braided cord between them pulsed with incredible energy. He hesitated for only a moment, then offered her his hand. She smiled, elusive but endearing, and allowed him to lift her to her feet.

He gently pulled her close, and she let him wrap his arms about her.

She is all that matters, he knew with perfect clarity despite nothing else making any sense. His lips were drawn to hers, and as they kissed, the braided cord pulsed with such intensity that Matt had to pull away just to breathe.

She smiled with her eyes first, then she let her lips curl with profound elation.

“Fuck yes!” Souvik jeered from beneath the giant tortoise painting before being strangled into silence by Chike.

May chuckled and rolled her eyes despite an attempt to keep her gaze locked on Matt’s longing stare.

He pulled her close again, embracing her fully as the connection pulsed back and forth between them.

“Can you feel that?” Matt asked her, hoping that it was anything but a hallucination.

“Everyone staring at us, you mean?” May snickered.

Matt pulled away and saw that the entire bar was watching them. He glanced back to where Linda and her friends had been standing. Her friends were there, but Linda was gone.

“Your place or my place?” May asked bluntly, and she curled the fingers of her right hand around his left hand, squeezing him to let him know she had no intention of letting go.

Matt knew the right answer: Take me to a hospital. That’s what the rational part of his mind wanted to say.

“Yours,” he heard himself say with equal relief and horror.

I can’t just leave her now. Not now. Not again. Not ever.

They left hand in hand.

When they were outside on the sidewalk, May said, practically giggling, “Quite the show of confidence, Mr. Willish.” She let go of his hand and removed her phone from a shallow pocket at her waist. “That was fun. I see you’re going for the romantic movie theme like I suggested earlier.”

She glanced at him, smiled, then went back to her phone. Matt didn’t break his gaze from her. He didn’t want the world to crumble and portal him to some far away corner of the world or anywhere at all if it wasn’t by May’s side.

“I’m getting a Mega back to my place. You can pay me back.”

Matt just stared, absorbing her every movement.

Don’t let this end. Please don’t strip me from this moment, Matt pleaded to the world. But everything seemed normal. Too normal for having just had a complete psychotic break in the bathroom. He knew it was only a matter of time before his mind snapped again.

The hospital, Matt urged himself. But here was May. The hospital would always be there. He didn’t have the same assurance with May.

She glanced at him again and this time let her stare linger. “That was a joke. I know you’re rich, but I work with the numbers every day, and I have more money in my bank accounts than you do. You’d have to sell some of that precious stock. So until then, I’ll just look after your broke ass, okay?” May said, cracking another joke.

Matt removed his wallet and showed her that it was completely empty. It didn’t even contain his ID.

May reared her head back and let out a hoot of laughter.

“Not a dollar to your name, Matthew. What am I going to do with you? I’ll teach you about finance back at my place, how does that sound?”

Matt allowed himself a shallow chuckle.

“Okay,” he managed.

May furrowed, unsure how to read him.

“Is everything okay? You want to go back in?” she asked evenly, pointing back at the bar.

No! Matt almost yelped aloud. He shook his head fervently and closed the gap between them.

“No,” he told her with an obvious pang of dread in his tone. He moved to kiss her lips again, and May pulled him hard against her, kissing him passionately.

After a few seconds, May pulled away, but she let her lips linger half an inch away from his. He could feel the warmth of her breath mixing with his own. She kissed him twice on the chin, then pulled far enough away to take in his sad, longing eyes. She offered him a smile identical to Mu’s.

“Everything will be all right,” she told him.

Her words were meant to comfort, but they filled Matt’s mind with the grotesque memories of Mu being decapitated or shredded to pieces or skewered.

“I’m not sure about that, Mu. I mean, May,” Matt said, looking at the ground out of embarrassment. “I’m crazy, May. I’m...I’m not…” Matt said, unsure how to express that Alice’s trip in Wonderland was like a walk in the park compared to what he was enduring.

“You’re right,” May told him pleasantly. “Kissing me in the bar like that was a pretty crazy thing for you to do. But I’m glad you did.”

She doesn’t understand just how bad off I am. And if I explain it to her, that might ruin everything. But I can’t lie to her. And I can’t just walk away.

Matt removed the empty bottle of Serotel from his pocket.

“It’s empty,” he said as he formulated how to explain his predicament without really explaining it.

“Don’t you have a script for it? I thought you went to see your therapist after you...came back.”

“It’s not a prescription,” Matt began, “or, maybe it is. But Dr. Heron gave me this bottle from his office.”

May looked slightly alarmed. “He just…gave it to you? Where do you usually get your prescriptions filled?”

Matt shrugged. “I would tell you if I knew.”

May shook her head in consideration, then began searching for something on her phone.

“Serotel? Like, s-e-r-o-t-e-l?” May asked incredulously.

“That’s what the bottle says.”

May huffed in frustration. “I can’t find anything at all. Did he refer to it by a different name?”

What the fuck is he giving me? Matt pondered with dread.

“There isn’t even any information on the bottle. It just says Serotel,” May confirmed with greater surprise. “But what happened to the pills? You drop the bottle somewhere, or…?”

Just tell her the truth, Matt demanded of his mind.

“It was July and then I went to the bathroom and it was suddenly August. And all my pills were gone. Just like that.”

“You probably just spilled them in the bathroom, Matt. I’m so sorry,” May offered, overlooking Matt’s statement as some form of strange exaggeration.

“I’m not sure I can trust Dr. Heron,” Matt said finally, admitting it more to himself than May.

“Why?” May asked, her eyes wide.

How will she react when she sees just how far down the well of insanity my mind really is?

Matt shrugged, unsure how to explain it.

I should be in a hospital, Matt reminded himself. A fucking hospital. But I can’t tell her that. Not now. Not yet. I don’t want this to end.

“Well, I admit it’s weird – this Serotel he’s giving you,” May said. “The pill just says the drug name and to take one a day.”

“I took three earlier,” Matt admitted.

May nodded with a casual understanding, as if everything suddenly made sense.

“Okay, well, there you go, Matt. Maybe you took too much?”

Matt shrugged. It was certainly a better theory than anything he could offer.

May stroked his temple with her palm, and Matt closed his eyes momentarily, letting his head fall into her hand.

“Maybe we should take you home,” May offered tenderly.

“Please!” Matt begged, his eyes still closed. He felt that all he needed was her gentle caress. “Please don’t leave me. Let’s just go back to your place.”

“Matt...are you sure?”

“Please don’t leave me, May.”

May went on her tiptoes and pulled his head down to meet her lips. She kissed his forehead.

“I’m not going anywhere. But tomorrow we’re going to get your meds filled. We’ll go together, okay? I’d like to ask your therapist about this Serotel,” May said, sounding like a concerned spouse.

Yes, Matt told the world. Give me tonight. And then the whole world can fall apart. Just let me have tonight.

The Mega arrived, and May checked with the driver to make sure he was the right one. After confirming the information, Matt opened the backdoor and let May get in first.

“Very gentlemanly,” she told him playfully, but then she smiled seriously and said, “You’re sweet, Matt.”

Matt took his seat beside May and folded his grip into hers. She nestled her arm atop his and crossed her legs. Her tight black jeans did nothing to stop the warmth emanating from her legs, enveloping Matt’s arm like sweet nourishment. She slowly caressed the outside of his hand with her thumb, gently rocking his mind into a blanketing calm with just the subtlest caress.

The driver, an elderly man wearing a brown beret, finished working haphazardly on his phone, then put the car into gear. He drove slowly and easily, seeming to be in no hurry.

The city lights streamed by like smeared starlight, and Matt was reminded of the starlit space outside the windows of the circular laboratory from where he assumed the old man must be watching him.

Get out! Matt ordered at the presently silent old man. I don’t want you ruining this.

He breathed in May’s very presence. This is perfect, Matt rejoiced. This is what I’ve been searching for.

May kissed the outside of his ear, and a pleasant tingle ran down the length of Matt’s spine. He smiled and leaned into her lips, and she giggled and squeezed his arm into her chest.

“That young love, oohwee!” the elderly man beamed at them from the rearview mirror. He smiled and nodded to himself, recounting happy memories of what Matt assumed must be his long-lost love.

May smiled back at the man through the mirror. Matt couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s drooping eyelids and sallow cheeks as the memory of old, sagging skin filled his mind.

Is that really who I am? Is May just...a dream?

Matt swallowed the idea away, pushing it as far down into the recesses of his being as he could manage.

Matt marveled at how normal everything was in this moment. He wished there were a way to make sense of all the confusion. Though he knew he would have to go to the hospital tomorrow, that didn’t solve the present moment.

I should ask her about the inconsistencies, he thought, like the logs and the time jump and...even the bodyguards. Dr. Heron told me I have bodyguards. Why would he say that if I don’t?

“Do I have bodyguards?” Matt asked her bluntly.

May considered it, then said, “I don’t know. Do you?”

“I’ve never seen any,” Matt told her.

“Me neither,” she laughed. “Why? Do you want some bodyguards? I’m not enough protection?”

A wave of realization pummeled Matt suddenly, and he was reminded that this would all come to an end. It was only a matter of time.

But maybe it doesn't have to end. Maybe May will be there on the other side of the hospital, if there is an other side. Maybe…

“Last time I was at his office, my therapist said that he would have my bodyguards take me home.”

May shrugged. “I’m really not sure, Matt. But I definitely don’t like the sound of this therapist. Let me go with you tomorrow, okay?”

Matt squeezed her tight, and he couldn’t help tearing up.

“Thank you, May. Please don’t leave me.”

“You okay, buddy?” the driver asked.

“He’ll be all right,” May answered. She looked back and smiled at Matt. “Right, Matt?” she said and stroked his temple the same way she had outside the bar.

“I’m not leaving, sweetie.”

Matt nodded fervently in thanks.

Everything’ll be all right. That’s what May and Mu always say. But everything does seem all right when I’m with her. Everything is staying normal. Everything is all right. Maybe I won’t have to go to the hospital. Maybe I can just stay with May. Maybe...

“You ever feel like maybe everything is just a dream?” Matt asked grimly.

“Of course. It is all a dream,” May offered sweetly, taking his question in stride.

“I’m serious,” Matt told her.

“So am I,” May said, and she went back to caressing his hand with her thumb.

“You don’t think that’s crazy?”

May shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s something I think about all the time, Matt. I just feel like saying reality is a dream is no crazier than calling reality real. What do we even mean by that word – reality? That it exists? So do dreams. So, by that logic, are dreams not real since they exist?”

Matt nodded rhythmically. “Exactly,” he said, impressed by her succinct use of logic to easily disprove the so-called realness of reality using reality itself.

May went on with a painful, dragging tone, speaking as if she had been through all this in her mind a thousand times over. “The atomic structure of reality is mostly free space, and that free space is made up of other subtle energies and fields, and none of it has any real, objective solidity outside of what our brain convinces us is true.” She shook her head and stared into the distance as if recounting painful memories. “But our brains are made of the same stuff. We don’t really know what’s going on in reality. Science just categorizes and observes. It can never derive meaning because there is no meaning.” May lowered her head despairingly, then she turned to Matt and smiled. “So it might as well be a dream.”

Tears streamed from Matt’s eyes in full force. “Exactly,” he said, and he turned his head to wipe his eyes, embarrassed to be crying in front of her.

“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream,” the old driver sang, waving his finger as if he were a composer.

May removed a tissue from one of her many small jacket pockets and offered it to Matt.

“It’s okay to cry,” she offered with what seemed more like empathy than sympathy.

Matt nodded in gratitude. She was right. What do tears matter anyway?

“What happened between us?” Matt asked. “Will you tell me? I...can’t really remember much.”

May kept her hand entwined with his, but she pulled away a little to catch his eyes.

“Are you for real right now, Matt? You’re not just saying that?”

Matt nodded miserably.

“Okay,” May said, accepting his words. “Tell me what you do remember.”

Matt sighed heavily. “I woke up confused from a series of strange dreams. I went to the office. You helped me. And then I came back the next day and –”

“I mean, what do you remember about us?”

“I…” Matt began, and he tried to remember something. Anything.

Please! he begged his mind. But his memories remained encased in some unreachable portion of his psyche. He stared into her inviting eyes and breathed in her every feature.

Nothing. I don’t remember her. Not a single memory.

“I remember that I love you,” Matt said in a whisper, ashamed that he couldn’t remember anything specific. “I remember that you mean everything to me.”

May looked disappointed and shrugged with defeat.

“But Matt...why are you saying all this now?” she demanded.

“Why the hell didn’t I say it before is a better question,” Matt said with no other explanation.

“You were always busy coding,” May said, flipping her hand as if tossing the words away. “Coding everything. Every minute. And the rest of your time spent alone doing...who knows what. But...you made Room Reaper. I mean, we all did. But really it was you, Matt. You’re like Doctor Manhattan – you can just work your fingers and create life. You created, line by line, the biggest…thing in the world. Room Reaper,” she repeated with actual awe in her voice. “So I guess it was all worth it, huh?”

Matt slumped in his seat, feeling heavy from the hapless realization that his programming masterpiece was one of the major causes of May’s affection, but also one of the major reasons they hadn’t been truly together until now.

“I don’t want any of it,” Matt lamented. “Nothing is worth being without you, May.”

“Beautiful,” the driver rasped.

“It is beautiful,” May admitted bittersweetly. “I just wish you would have told me all this sooner.”

Matt prepared himself for some forlorn ultimatum from May. Maybe she would say he was just too late.

I can’t possibly matter that much to her, certainly not as much as she does to me. Can she not feel that cord between us – our connection? Even a little? It’s so damn strong!

“But that’s okay,” May told him, providing sweet relief. “We have this moment and all the rest.”

She kissed him on the forehead and wiped away a stream of his tears.

Matt continued sinking into the seat. He felt so heavy, but he refused to fall asleep.

Not now! Matt demanded his tired mind. Not yet. Not yet! He remembered that he had made changes to the source code of the game. So, he had a reason to fall asleep. He had a mission, finally, and it might even lead to some semblance of understanding...of something.

Stay awake! Matt shouted in his head, and the car drove over a small bump, knocking them an inch into the air and jarring Matt back to alertness.

“Don’t let me fall asleep. Not yet, okay? I don’t want to lose you again,” Matt told her, his voice rasping with exhaustion.

“Lose me again?” May asked, trying to understand. But then she let go of trying to understand his words and just offered him her sweet caresses.

She pinched him on the hand suddenly with her nails.

“Ow!” Matt gasped playfully.

“You told me to keep you up,” May beamed.

The Mega came to a stop.

“This is it,” May told the driver. “Thanks.”

The driver smiled and waved goodbye as if he might actually miss them.

Matt’s legs felt like hardened muck, and May had to help him out of the car.

“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream,” the driver sang pleasantly as he waved goodbye.

Matt felt terrible and downright pathetic that May was holding up so much of his weight, but there was so little strength in his legs now.

She helped him up the steps to the front door, and May placed her finger on a biometric scanner. Several bolts slid open in what Matt now understood to be a large steel door painted to look like wood. The door swung open on its own, welcoming them inside.

“Are you sure this is okay,” Matt asked her, giving her a chance to be rid of him and his endless burdens. “I don’t want to impose on you like this. My legs are just….and –”

“Shut up, Matt,” May cooed as she helped him up the steps of one of Chicago’s classic Victorian two-flats and into the foyer of her home.

“You own the whole building?” Matt marveled, realizing they had walked through the front door and right into her home without having to take stairs or an elevator.

“Of course,” May said reasonably as she helped him find a place on her plush ochre-colored couch. He breathed deep, and he felt a small measure of life return to his limbs.

“Don’t you own your own flat?” May chuckled with surprise.

“Maybe,” Matt admitted, “but I woke up in my old apartment. Just my old, small apartment.”

And I'm not even sure how I know that it’s my old apartment, Matt reminded himself, still in surrender to whatever might come next. Some things I just know. But it’s all useless information. Why would I not have any memories of May? Why would I not remember her beyond anything else?

“We’ll have to buy you something that more accurately reflects your wealth, then,” May said, spreading her arms wide to present the whole of her luxury house. Matt estimated that it must have cost her at least a few million to buy something this large so close to Lake Michigan. It probably cost at least half as much just to furnish it.

It was obvious now who designed the foyer of Matt’s office building and the decor of his personal office.

“Who feeds the fish when you aren’t here?” Matt asked aimlessly, not sure what to say to deflect from the madness of his mind and the world that was like a desert outside the oasis of May’s home. May filled a glass with water from a small nozzle near the sink, and as she walked to Matt, the light above and the shimmering of her diamond piercings made her seem otherworldly. Matt absorbed her and the surroundings all at once, and for a moment, he felt like he might be back inside his office. The crimson carpet, the luscious green fronds, the gently swimming koi – it was all the same, except here there was no MW symbol to be seen. Matt was thankful for that.

“The house feeds the fish. A lot of it is automated. Nice feature to have when I’m out of the state or country,” she explained, handing Matt the glass.

He gulped it down in a single movement, unsure of the last time he actually drank water.

“I didn’t realize how thirsty I was,” he told her, wiping his mouth.

She giggled and refilled his glass. “Plenty of water. Don’t feel bad for drinking an ocean’s worth. I’ll just add it to your running tab.”

She returned to the kitchen and poured a drink for herself – a mix of whiskey and some mixer he couldn’t make out.

Matt tried not to blink, fearing that everything might suddenly flip back to insanity. Please don’t let this end.

She took a seat on a chair opposite the couch he was sitting on and crossed her legs.

“Did you make me one?” Matt asked, pointing to the drink.

May swallowed half the drink in a single gulp, then said, “Drink the water and get comfortable. That couch will be your bed for the night – or what’s left of it. It’s already past three.”

The energy surged through Matt’s solar plexus so suddenly and so intensely that he winced and gripped at his chest for just a moment before pulling his hand away and digging his teeth into his bottom lip to hide the...not pain, Matt thought. Intensity. That’s the only way to describe this feeling. Like pure energy.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” May said, jumping to her feet at the sight of Matt’s wincing. “Did you just have a heart attack?”

Matt shook his head vigorously. “Sit next to me,” he managed, trying to will the coursing energy into submission.

With worry strewn across her every feature, she came to his side and slid her hand into his. The flow of energy finally began to wane, leaving Matt gasping for breath as if he had nearly drowned.

“Just stay by my side, okay?” Matt pleaded.

She nodded and held him close.

“Okay, Matt. Okay. Everything will be all right,” May said, putting down her drink and rubbing his back.

“You’re worse than you were letting on, aren’t you?”

As long as we’re close. She’s all that matters.

“I’m okay if you’re by my side,” he said, and it seemed like that was true, for the braided cord’s vitality was no more than a soft hum, and the world was just the world, not a mind-shattering trip.

He opened his eyes and read a tattoo on her forearm that he hadn’t noticed before: Awake?

He rubbed the tattoo, ensuring its realness, and he kissed it, savoring the sweet yet sweat-laden scent of her skin.

“What’s your answer?” he asked her.

“I’m stuck in a dream within a dream,” she answered without hesitation.

“That’s my computer question and password,” Matt whispered, knowing that was the least insane connection of anything that had occurred thus far.

“Well, yeah, I set up your computer. I set up your whole office. It’s basically just my house all over again,” she laughed. “It wasn’t like you were using it.”

Matt nodded into the nape of her neck, still staring at her tattoo and holding onto her tightly. “Of course, I’m glad you took that liberty. Who wouldn’t want an office full of lush plant life and fish?”

May seemed pleased with his answer. “Good,” she said snarkily. “Besides, your office is first and foremost my meditation room. It is your office exclusively on a secondary basis.”

She kissed his head, then the tip of his ear, and then his neck.

“But we aren’t having sex, Matt. Not tonight. I’m not taking advantage of you while you’re in this state.”

He didn’t even need to have sex with her. Of course he wanted it, but all he really needed was her presence. Everything was so calm in her presence. Everything seemed serene and exactly as it should be.

“If you don’t want to, then I understand. But if you don’t want to only because you think I’m crazy – that I’m too far gone, then –”

“No!” May insisted. “Not that. That’s not what I’m saying. I just...I want to make sure you’re okay, Matt. I would just feel selfish if we had sex.”

His mind was filled with images of May in orgasmic ecstasy beneath him, then above him. The energy in his chest pulsed, and he felt his penis pulse with it. He glided his fingers over her forearm, then moved his hand to her thigh and relished her warmth in his grip. She clasped her hand over his hand and issued an unintentional moan beneath her breath, gyrating her hips for just a moment to some internal tantric rhythm that Matt realized she was actively suppressing despite every signal in her body telling her to do the opposite.

“Then let’s make love,” Matt offered simply, and he gently kissed the inside of her neck and then her exposed collarbone.

May kicked back her head and laughed a few loud beats before hugging him even closer to herself.

“Matt, I want you too. Just not tonight, okay?” she told him despite clearly stifling an intense desire to have him in that moment.

“Sure,” Matt told her, not wanting to push the subject. “It’s just that...now...right now we have this...each other...and later is...so out of reach,” he explained grimly.

“Don’t say that,” May volleyed, not wanting to even fathom the meaning of his words.

Matt pulled away and looked her straight in the eyes. “Am I crazy, May? Am I...is it all...will there ever be...”

He couldn’t think of the proper words. There was something in the back of his head growing louder with each second. Then he heard it clearly. It was the old man’s subdued, pitiful laughter.

Call the number, the old man told him.

Matt had forgotten all about it.

“Will you do something for me?” Matt asked.

May was caught off guard and gave him a hesitant look.

“Are you going to say, ‘Have sex with me?” she chuckled.

Matt didn’t laugh. He took out his phone and showed her the picture.

“Will you call this number on your phone? And let’s use your phone. I can’t...trust mine.”

She eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then shrugged and dialed the number.

“That’s the golden ratio,” she told him simply, inputting the numbers into her phone with just a few easy glances at the picture. She put the phone on speaker.

“Have you really never done this before?” May snickered.

The phone began to ring, and Matt shook his head in total shock.

“You...have?” he checked.

“Of course. That number has been up in the stall for a while. Here, watch what happens,” she explained with a measure of excitement.

The phone stopped ringing, and May brought the phone closer to their ears.

Maybe it will be nothing. Maybe normality will continue for a while longer, Matt hoped beyond all hope.

There was something on the other line. Beeps of machinery. A heart rate monitor. Heavy breathing.

May brought her ear closer and so did Matt.

“Nurse!” an old man said from some distance away. “Am I dreaming? Nurse!” the old man shouted with incredible urgency.

May looked at the phone with excited surprise.

What the fuck? she mouthed.

But Matt just stared wide-eyed, for there was nothing surprising about what he heard.

“That’s me,” Matt admitted to her, knowing that his statement wouldn’t make any sense.

“You recorded it?” she asked incredulously, cocking her head.

The old man shouted for the nurse once more, and then the call ended abruptly.

“No. That old man on the phone call. That’s me. I’m the old man.”

May set her phone back on the table.

“It’s just a random generator, Matt. Every time you call, it’s something different. Watch.”

She picked the phone back up and redialed the number. Sure enough, a loud whistle could be heard, and a train conductor said, “all aboard!”

But why would it randomly play exactly my dream? That doesn’t make any sense.

May hung up the phone and set it down once more. She took his hands in hers and offered an uneasy smile.

“You heard it though, right?” Matt checked. “You heard the old man scream for a nurse?”

May nodded evenly. “Yeah. I heard that.”

“It’s me,” Matt persisted, not caring anymore how crazy he might sound. He felt like these were his final moments anyway. Nothing made sense and nothing ever would.

“Every time I go to sleep, I wake up in a dream...I wake up in Room Reaper. You’re there too,” Matt gushed, and May allowed him to let it all out. “And I see you die over and over again in the most horrific ways.”

Matt verbally whimpered and winced at the images of Mu being brutally murdered. May kissed the top of Matt’s hands for comfort and allowed him to continue.

“And then we all die, and I wake up as an old man. I’m in a hospital, but it isn’t normal. It’s...huge...and there are stars outside...and on the other side there’s a blizzard and...there are people out there...and...”

Matt stopped. Holy fuck, he told himself. Holy fucking shit, I sound so batshit crazy.

May kissed his forehead. Matt looked up at her and saw tears in her eyes.

“What?” Matt asked, tears welling in his own eyes.

“I don’t want to see you like this. I don’t want you to suffer like this. Promise me you’ll go with me tomorrow to the hospital.”

Matt nodded with total assurance.

“Promise,” she repeated stolidly.

“I promise,” he answered, truly resolute that it was his only real option.

She kissed his forehead and hands again, then she lifted herself onto him, straddling and wrapping her legs around his thighs. She sniffed hard, stifling her tears.

Their bodies intertwined, she lowered Matt’s head into the crook of her neck and rocked with him. He could feel the intense heat from between her legs as she slowly gyrated and rocked against him. He pulled her closer, and her soft hip movements continued, grinding softly into his groin.

“I don’t think you’re crazy, honey,” she said, her voice hoarse and full of buzzing desire. “I’m the crazy one because I’m fucking crazy about you, Matt. I think you’re just you, and I’m mad about you.”

She lifted his chin and locked lips with him, kissing him passionately. After a few seconds, she broke away and said, “If a little craziness comes with the package, I’m okay with that.”

“What about a lot of craziness,” Matt offered, his breathing heavy with the same desire overtaking May.

She nodded vigorously and licked her lips. “I’m okay with a lot of crazy too. You let me in your life, finally, and I’m not letting go that easy. I want to know you, Matt. The real you. If the real you is crazy, then so be it. That’s who I want.”

The braided cord swelled at her words, and he felt the overwhelming urge to have her in that moment. He lunged with incredible desire and so did she, locking lips and bodies. This time the braided cord’s energy did not abate but surged with orgasmic power. Matt moaned as pleasure flooded his cells, and May beamed at him with eagerness and exhilaration. They tore at each other's clothes between impassioned kisses placed upon every inch of skin they could reach.

“But you’re out of it, Matt. Is this okay?” she checked, sensually gripping his inner thigh with her sharp nails.

“Yes!” he practically pleaded. “The only thing that makes sense is you. The only thing I understand is you. I want you, May. I need you!”

It must have been exactly what she wanted to hear, for she pounced like a jaguar prowling through sweet fruit trees.

She pulled at his thighs and practically forced him inside her, moaning with overflowing emotional and sexual desire for Matt.

His mind raced, wondering what she could possibly see in him, but her body and moaning and grabbing at every part of him forced his mind to focus only on her. The connection’s energy swelled with an impossibly forceful rush. They both screamed in ecstasy, and Matt was forced to arch his back, desperate to counter the raging rush of energy between them.

“Fuck, Matt!” May moaned through rapid breathing, clinging tightly to Matt as he groaned and arched and nearly cried at the power of the braided cord. The whole room began to tremble, and he felt the energy explode inside him, spreading through him like a nuclear reaction.

May’s moaning, ecstatic face was steadily washed away by mounting luminosity so bright that Matt had to shield his eyes.

“Fuck!” he heard May scream in ecstasy, and then her weight was suddenly gone. There was total silence. He opened his eyes and found himself laying on his back in a pitch-black room surrounded on every side, even above and seemingly below, by RGB LED lights flashing in sync with his heartbeat.

Amidst the perfect silence of the room, his heart beat madly in his ears. He thought he might scream, but he couldn’t move his body. Not even his eyes. He felt a great buzzing mass protruding from his chest, but he couldn’t move or look to investigate it further.

There was nothing he could do except observe and attempt to understand or maybe even recollect what it all might mean.

May! Matt pleaded, searching frantically for her inside and outside his mind despite being unable to move. But he was alone.

This might be a dream, Matt thought with familiar trepidation, and he realized that he still thought of himself as the same Matthew Willish who had just slept with May Anh.

Not the old man, Matt told himself with some amount of relief. Not the video game character. I know who I am. I’m still me. I’m...

He tried to do a reality check by looking at his hands, but he couldn’t move his neck to observe his own body.

Sleep paralysis, came a thought from the recess of his mind, and he realized that’s exactly what it felt like.

Did I wake up? Is this the real world? Was all that just a dream? Absolutely everything and everyone?

He recollected May moaning in ecstasy and gripping him intensely with sweet release.

No, he demanded. She’s not a dream. She’s not a fucking dream.

“Can he hear us?” an elderly woman asked, and despite her age, Matt knew who it was.

May, he tried screaming. May, I’m here!

But it was no use.

“Matt, my darling,” the elderly version of May sobbed. “I wish you’d just wake up.”

May! Matt raged inside his mind, but there was just the darkness and the endless blinking of reds and greens and blues all around him.

I'm stuck inside a dream within a dream, he wanted to tell her. I love you, he wanted to tell her even more.

“Goodbye, Matt,” the elderly May said through painful sobs. “But I wish you’d just come back to me.”

I’m here! Matt pleaded.

The lights began flickering off one by one.

Please! Matt sobbed within himself.

There were only a few lights left.

Everything will be all right, he heard from inside himself. It was Mu and his May at once, both their voices melding into a harmonized melody.

The final light went out.