Chapter 15: Body Guards - A Dream of Waking Life

Painfully bright light pierced Matt’s retinas, and he was forced to shut his eyelids and hold them tightly closed against the torrenting radiance.

He felt for May’s grip, but he couldn’t find her warmth.

Alone, Matt said to himself as he tried in vain to recollect the whole of the DMT trip. It was like a typical fading dream; he could remember that little bit of information about it at least.

I’m alone. In my own head. Everything is just...it really is all a dream...or something like that. But I’m alone. That much is clear.

He remembered what May told him during one of the dreams of the video game world.

She said that she had to leave. And now I’m alone. May is…

He struggled to finish the thought, and though he couldn’t explain it, the DMT had revealed that reality was not at all real. Whatever the real world is – May’s world or the old man’s world or that other world with the braided cord or something else entirely – it doesn't matter. Because she left. And I’m alone. And…

“And there’s no way out,” Matt whispered aloud to himself.

He tried opening his eyes again, and this time the light seemed more bearable. He squinted until his vision finally adjusted to the room.

He was in Dr. Heron’s office, seated on the couch. Dr. Heron sat across from him, staring him down with venomous disdain as if he had been observing Matt for some time.

“How did I get here?” Matt croaked, and he had to cough to clear thick residue from his lungs.

“How can you know for certain there’s no way out, Matthew?” Dr. Heron inquired with pain-filled scorn in his voice.

I keep ending up back here in this fucking office with this...monster, Matt considered in horror. This office is like a repeating dead end in an endless labyrinth of madness, and he, Matt eyed Dr. Heron with a shiver, is the Reaper of that maze.

The man in all black removed a typical prescription bottle from his jacket pocket, opened it, and held a red pill in his palm.

“Serotel,” Dr. Heron mused sadly. Then he brought his palm to his lips, let the pill fall into his open mouth, and swallowed it.

What the hell, Matt gawked. Is everyone taking this damn pill?

“You have to know for sure, Matthew,” Dr. Heron said with tangible regret. “Of course you do.”

“Who are you really?” Matt demanded as his heartbeat quickened, flushing away the lingering fatigue left over from the trip that had launched him inside or outside himself – he couldn't be sure which. “Are you even my therapist?”

Dr. Heron grinned sinisterly and chuckled beneath his breath. “Why would a dream character need a therapist?” he laughed openly. “What a ridiculous notion.”

Matt shook his head instinctually, readying himself for the deluge of insanity. But now Dr. Heron was finally agreeing with him.

“Death,” Dr. Heron offered simply, “you know that’s the answer. That’s the only way to know with total certainty. But if you’re wrong...well...there’s no coming back from that mistake, is there?”

“You’re telling me to kill myself?” Matt seethed at this man who was supposed to be looking after him.

No, Matt corrected himself. He was never taking care of me. This is all a dream. A fucking dream!

Matt lifted his hands to do a reality check. Then he checked the clock on the wall. Then he tried breathing through his closed mouth. Then he tried to taste the light. Then he closed his eyes and tried teleporting to a new location. When he opened his eyes, Dr. Heron smiled with childlike amusement.

“Seems perfectly real, doesn’t it?” Dr. Heron announced with a mixture of dread and excitement. “I’m not telling you to kill yourself. I’m just agreeing that death is the only way to know for sure. That’s how you know the video game world is just a dream, right? But how is that possible when the logs show that you really were in the video game? That would only be possible if even this world is –”

“A dream,” Matt finished, and he bit his lip in an effort to keep himself from screaming out for existential help from some forever unknown real world.

“Yes,” Dr. Heron nodded with seemingly genuine intrigue, as if he too was in this labyrinth with Matt and was just as desperate to get out. “That would certainly explain everything. And I suppose that means you’re the dreamer. I’m just in your head. Is that it?”

Matt now recognized that piercing interest, bordering on all-consuming fascination, increasingly filled every one of Dr. Heron’s words and movements.

“You have to die to know for sure,” Dr. Heron repeated. “Or you can just keep taking the Serotel and sleep away eternity in a hospital. That’s a possibility too.”

Dr. Heron swallowed yet another Serotel and smiled with rapacious fervor.

Matt glanced at the undulating inkblot behind Dr. Heron and prepared himself for the ink-Reaper to come to life again. Dr. Heron's smile soured with a degree of something like agony as he appeared to be waging an internal battle. He sighed, composed himself, then removed another pill from the bottle and swallowed it.

“It’s incredible,” Dr. Heron mused with morbid interest, “that even after the DMT, your mind still can’t accept the truth without actually dying.” He let out a huff of pain-stricken laughter and threw up his arms. “But you’re too attached to the illusion to let go. She is all that matters, right?” he mocked with deranged amusement. “So let’s just get this over with and take you to the hospital. I’ll have your bodyguards take you there now, Matthew,” he said, smiling slightly as if savoring the bittersweetness. “We’ll keep you there for observation and safety. Everyone’s safety.”

This is it, Matt realized in profound, existential anticipation as Dr. Heron swallowed yet another pill. Everything is unraveling. This world is a goddamn dream, and so is the old man’s world and the video game world and the braided cord world and even the DMT trip. Everything is a fucking dream. A nightmare!

“And if that’s true,” Dr. Heron said expertly, addressing Matt’s internal thoughts, “then we need to make sure nothing happens to you, the dreamer. Don’t you think?”

Matt’s heartbeat intensified exponentially, and he suddenly went as weak as the old man. Just breathe, he told himself, but it felt as though all the gravity in the universe was centered at his chest.

Dr. Heron rose from his chair, and Matt slumped into the couch, fighting desperately for air.

“Come on in,” Dr. Heron announced to the door. “He’s ready for you.”

The door opened to reveal a retinue of Matthew Willish imposters. They shuffled into the room and crowded around Matt like ravenous wolves encircling their bleeding prey.

“Your bodyguards will take it from here,” Dr. Heron explained despite being occluded by dozens of imposters at this point. Still, more men shuffled into the room, pressing against each other like liquid solidifying into a dense crystal.

Matt’s vision blurred from lack of oxygen, and his mind raced in a desperate attempt to escape this nightmare.

Just let it happen, the old man suggested. It’s just a dream, after all.

Matt processed the old man’s words and knew them to be true, but the logical pathways of his brain were totally cut off now. Stars began flurrying at the periphery of his vision, and his survival instinct overtook every one of his thoughts.

“You have to know for sure, Matthew,” Dr. Heron explained, and the voice seemed to come from both the outside world and inside his head all at once.

Because the world and your mind are the same place, the old man reasoned pityingly.

No! Matt objected, his eyes bugging with splintering veins as he teetered on the verge of total suffocation.

“Just let go, Matthew. Go to sleep,” Dr. Heron said with a softened edge, but this time it sounded as though the voice was coming from Matt’s mind.

Matt began convulsing as his lungs futilely pulsed against his iron-heavy chest cavity.

Help me! he pleaded in his mind, and he felt the old man shake his head stolidly, unable or unwilling to help.

The imposter closest to him removed a syringe from his jacket pocket and uncapped it.

No! Matt pleaded. This is just a fucking dream!

He felt the old man nod in sad agreement.

In his final moments of consciousness, he thought of May. He could hear her chanting Mu’s calming words, and then he heard his own mind process thoughts on its own accord from some detached part of his consciousness.

This is all in my head, the thoughts announced. These imposters aren’t my bodyguards. They’re doctors and nurses and medical staff. I must already be in the hospital.

He could see May now as if through a window in the ceiling. She was busying herself with something in her home while humming one of Mu’s chants under her breath.

Or maybe I’m still in her apartment, Matt considered as he watched May’s movements like an audience marveling at a ballerina’s perfect dance. Maybe this is all the DMT, Matt sobbed to himself in total defeat.

Just a dream, the old man explained sorrowfully.

Please! another part of Matt’s mind pleaded desperately.

May is all that matters, another part of his mind concluded without him.

His lungs heaved against his chest with terrible intensity, flailing for the air just out of their reach. He opened his mouth as wide as possible and pulled hard, but his throat was blocked as if by some immovable mass.

The imposter stuck Matt in the thigh, injecting something cold into his veins.

He could still hear May’s chanting despite his heartbeat machine-gunning his eardrums, and though he tried his utmost to hold onto her presence, the syringe’s contents were already reaching his heart. His heartbeat suddenly slowed to a crawl, and the stars floating at his periphery scurried and multiplied, overtaking the whole of his vision.