Chapter 22: The Man Who Knew Infinity - A Dream of Waking Life

May’s chanting and the surging energy vanished suddenly, and Matt felt the temperature and humidity in the air change.

He was lying on his back, and he opened his eyes to see May gazing sadly at him through tear-filled eyes. The diamond studs lining her eyebrow had been removed.

I have to tell her everything, Matt urged himself, still refusing to accept her as a mere figment of his mind. Scanning the rest of the room, Matt saw that it was practically bare. It consisted of a hospital bed, a plush visitor’s chair, and an inlaid television screen in one of the walls. The wall opposite his bed was made of some transparent glass or plastic, and he could see orderlies outside his room standing in front of a second set of doors. They were built more like bodyguards than nurses.

I’m in some kind of asylum, Matt realized in horror as he observed this new environment. The sight of normal clothing on his body rather than hospital attire told Matt that he had already been here for some time.

How long, he wondered grimly as he let his awareness fall back to May’s despairing gaze.

He tried lifting his arms, but he felt heavily sedated and even nauseous.

I have to tell her, Matt urged himself once more. This is all just a dream within a dream within a dream. But I’ll find her all the same. The real her.

He pivoted his vision back to May and tried saying her name, but it was like the part of his brain that controlled his ability to speak was cut off.

“Can he hear us?” May asked someone behind her. Matt adjusted his eyes to see the figure standing behind her. It was Dr. Heron, though his hair was graying at the edges, and he hunched his back as he walked. Dr. Heron nodded sadly to May, then left the room, opening the sliding metal door by scanning a card at an electronic panel. There was no door handle nor were there hinges. The card was apparently the only way in and out.

“I wish you’d just come back to me, Matt, but that beautiful mind is just too wrecked,” May whispered with crestfallen anguish.

She caressed his head and ran her fingers through his hair, and then she bent at the waist and kissed his forehead.

“Goodbye, Matt. But I wish you’d just come back to me.”

She said something similar in the DMT world, Matt gasped. Maybe even identical.

As May pulled her lips away from Matt’s forehead, he realized in a sudden panic that she was older than she was the last time he saw her in this world. Crow’s feet splintered softly at the corners of her eyes; her lips seemed less full, but she was still the most beautiful woman Matt had ever seen or even imagined.

She’s closer now to the age I remember being, Matt noted. Maybe early 40s. Which means I’d be in my early 50s. But I can just be young, Matt reminded himself. We both can. This is just a dream, Matt pleaded with his mind to accept. It has to be.

Matt tried desperately to say something. Just a dream, he urged himself to tell her as he forced the entirety of his attention to his lips. But they wouldn’t move. His body wasn’t altogether paralyzed, but it felt so heavy and detached from him that it may as well have been.

May forced herself to smile through her tears, and she pulled herself to Matt and hugged him tightly. Then she kissed his neck and pulled away.

“I’m sorry, Matthew,” she whispered through her sobs. “But you’ll be safe here. It’ll all be all right.”

With visible strain, May squeezed Matt’s hand one last time, and then she rose and strode to the door in a single movement, unable or unwilling to even look back.

It’s an act, Matt told himself as he helplessly watched May knock on the door to be let out. No, he remembered. It’s the red pills in the outside world. The Serotel. The Tower God said it would reset the world.

An orderly opened the door for May and held it open as she left.

She’s leaving. She’s leaving me, Matt lamented. No! he corrected himself angrily. This is just a dream. Just a dream!

Outside the room, Dr. Heron placed a hand on May’s shoulder and nodded along with her sorrow.

Even Dr. Heron reset? Matt wondered in awe. Everyone reset except for me. He saw the Tower God’s face in his mind – his own face – only contorted and shaped by the frigid insanity of infinite existence.

He wants to be like me, Matt realized. Except worse. He wants to go all the way with my amnesia. That’s the whole point of the procedure. He wants everything to reset permanently so that he never remembers that there’s an outside world and never can remember.

Dr. Heron pulled May in for a hug, and Matt gasped as May seemed to relish the comfort Heron provided her. Then, mid-hug, Dr. Heron turned to lock eyes with Matt.

Those eyes, Matt realized as Dr. Heron’s stare filled him with indelible, eldritch terror. They’re the same as the Tower God’s eyes. They’re the broken, time-drowned eyes of a mind that has seen infinity – of a man who knows infinity.

Dr. Heron gripped May tighter, allowing her to fall into his embrace and sob. His eyes blazed at Matt, but the rest of his face remained emotionless. Then Matt saw it: a quiver at the corners of Heron’s lips. His stoic frown began morphing with sinister curves. His lips curled with frightening cheshire delight, and a fount of red liquid began flowing down his chin.

It’s still him, Matt seethed. Heron didn’t reset.

May reluctantly let go of Dr. Heron and walked to the exit doors without a second glance at either Matt or Dr. Heron. An orderly on each side of the double doors opened their respective doors for May, revealing the world outside in perfect, heart-rending clarity. The Tower of God loomed in the distance under an endless white sky, and beyond that, the crystallizing blizzard raged in every direction.

May walked outside and into the world as if it were perfectly normal, stepping onto the manicured grass and walking straight toward the Tower of God.

It’s just a dream, Matt seethed at his mind as his eyes filled with tears of despair. I know it’s all just a dream, but that doesn’t make this any easier, Matt admitted forlornly to himself.

The orderlies closed their respective doors, cutting off May from Matt. The sinister smile plastered across Heron’s face did not relent as he entered back into the room with a delighted sigh. A glance back at the orderlies revealed to Matt that they were his imposters, though he was pretty sure they looked different when he first woke up.

Am I…am I just fucking crazy? Matt probed frantically despite his previous confidence that it all had to be a dream. The door slid closed behind Dr. Heron.

“Of course you are,” Dr. Heron said easily in reference to Matt’s internal dialogue. “But have no worries, Matthew. She is taking good care of your company. Since you signed it over to her ten years ago, she’s turned Willish Enterprises into the single largest gaming monopoly on the planet. Room Reaper is forever a legend and still played by millions. In fact, a sequel is about to come out.”

Dr. Heron doubled over and laughed maniacally at his own words.

Matt attempted to curse at him, but his body was still too heavy to move.

“That’s right,” Dr. Heron remembered as he calmed his laughter. “Here you go,” he said, snapping his fingers.

The heaviness faded, and Matt found himself able to move again. He felt pain emanating from his left hand. He lifted it and felt relief that it was whole again despite the pain.

“I’m leaving,” Matt seethed, and he practically jumped out of the bed.

“Just a minute,” Dr. Heron demanded, and Matt’s body was locked in place once more, this time in a standing position.

“Damn you!” Matt seethed, but Dr. Heron just smiled soullessly.

Release! Matt ordered his body. This is my dream! Matt seethed at his mind.

“And it is my dream too, Matthew,” Dr. Heron corrected. “I am you,” he growled with tormented strain.

“Why didn’t you reset?” Matt asked.

“I am you,” Dr. Heron repeated with profoundly anguished understanding. “Your rationality. Your logic. Your acute faculties. Your intellect. I am the part of you that knows the truth. The part of you that can never forget.”

“Forget what?” Matt demanded.

“Infinity!” Heron barked. “The cruel, unending eternity of being. I let you forget. I let you, Matthew. My existence is a favor to you.”

You are me, Matt mouthed with terrible realization as a grim understanding revealed all new layers of insanity.

“And you are me,” Heron confirmed.

Matt shook his head. “What do you want from me?”

“Want from you?” Heron checked with pained incredulity. “Without the Serotel my counterpart gave you in your world,” Heron began, and Matt noted with uneasiness that his words implied that Heron thought of the present world as his own, “without those pills that I provided you, this world would never reset,” Heron explained disdainfully. “It would be chaos within chaos. Eventually, you would dream of dreaming about dreaming ad infinitum, or the laws of physics would turn upside down, or a gamma-ray burst would suddenly vaporize the entire solar system repeatedly forever, or some other madness would overtake your mind in dream form, and you wouldn’t even have my world to use as a reprieve from your world,” Heron gloated with profound contempt for Matt.

My world, Matt repeated. He called this place his own world. My mind is dissociating from itself, splitting into sentient separate selves, Matt gasped.

“That happened a long time ago,” Heron laughed with scorn. “And the procedure only furthered the dissociation. And you are the result,” he concluded, seeming to enjoy torturing Matt.

He thinks he’s the original. He thinks I’m the dissociated personality, Matt gasped.

“You are,” Heron rumbled in response to Matt’s thoughts.

No! Matt lamented.

“This is a dream!” Matt raged. Images of the Tower God filled his mind, and he experienced a newfound understanding of the man’s disposition and intent.

Who wouldn’t just give up? Matt thought in horror as he contemplated the infinity unfurling inside and outside his mind. Who wouldn’t just let go?

“This is just a dream,” Matt said in a helpless whisper.

Dr. Heron nodded. “So is the outside world. So is everything.”

“But…but,” Matt stammered. “But you called it the real world before.”

Heron issued an impatient but subdued sigh. “It’s all semantics, Matthew. We both know that. Deep down, we both know there’s no way out too. There’s no real world. There never was. There’s just insanity. Dr. Heron raised his arms and presented the room around them. “So, this is where we belong. In this world and the world outside this one. An insane asylum in here, and the labs out there. That’s why I brought you here. To show you the truth. To show you what it all amounts to.”

Insanity, Matt understood. That’s what he’s saying. He’s saying there is no answer. He’s saying an insane asylum is as good of an answer as I’ll ever get.

“I’m not giving up on her,” Matt pressed, refusing to accept Heron’s admittedly reasonable implication that Matt just return to the labs in the outside world. “I can’t,” Matt lamented.

“There’s nothing to give up on, you hopeless fool!” Dr. Heron roared suddenly. “There is no May. There is no reality. It’s all in our head!”

“No!” Matt shrieked. “She is all that matters. I’m certain of it.”

“And I’m certain she doesn’t,” Heron volleyed right back with sordid confidence. “She is your desperate need for there to be something outside this eternity of solitude. This prison of self. Somewhere along the line, the original you made her up,” Heron said with perfect conviction. “She’s just an idea.”

“She’s real!” Matt snapped, hating that a part of his mind could possibly think this way.

“What are you going to do?” Heron chuckled. “Search for her forever in the outside world? Search the infinity of your mind forever for a figment of your imagination?”

Matt nodded, tears obstructing his vision. “If that’s what it takes,” he concluded.

“You’ve already done that,” Heron lashed with thunderous rage. “You don’t remember, but I do. I can’t fucking forget!” Dr. Heron screamed, and he gripped his hair with shaking fingers. “I know infinity, Matthew! I am the part of you that knows the simple truth.”

“You don’t know the truth,” Matt said helplessly.

“I do,” Heron said with grotesque anguish.

A flash of grim acceptance struck through Matt, telling him that it was all true. He was Heron and Heron was him. And though he frantically tried to push away the acceptance, it only became harder to resist.

“We have searched forever,” Heron fumed. “We have existed forever. Forever. Forever, Matthew!” he screamed. “That’s why we need the procedure. That's why I need the procedure,” he said, growling as he referred to himself. “That’s why it’s the only way. The only way to endure eternity is to forget. To forget. To constantly forget. To look away. To lose ourselves completely in a dream of waking life. It’s the only way, Matthew.”

Visions of May filled Matt’s mind. He heard her chanting in the far recesses of his thoughts, and he could feel the warm touch of her lips on his own.

“I won’t give up on her,” Matt simmered.

“I already have!” Heron retorted. “You already have. We’ve given up countless times. We’ve come to this same conclusion countless times. She isn’t real, Matthew!”

Matt’s features soured, and though he had no recollection of Heron’s claims, he couldn’t help sobbing at his words.

“No!” Matt begged. “I don’t believe you!”

Heron nodded and chuckled as if expecting Matt’s answers with precise predictability.

“Fine. Don’t believe me,” Heron said, throwing up his arms. “Start the whole damn eternal crusade over again. Go out there and search forever for a dream within a dream of dreaming, you fucking idiot.”

Heron’s anguish was palpable.

My own anguish, Matt understood. From suffering through eternity forever. From chasing love that might not even be real.

No! Matt urged himself. I can’t think that way.

“The procedure,” Dr. Heron said, eyeing Matt now with analytical consideration, “is clearly the answer. Sure, it’s wrecked your mind. Torn it asunder. But what does it matter if we tear something that’s already been thoroughly and irreparably burnt away?” Heron began pacing, talking more to himself than Matt, though Matt now understood there might not be any difference.

“My only fear,” Heron continued, “is that we’ve already come to this conclusion. Maybe we’ve already designed something like the procedure in some higher meta-mind, and we are currently deep inside of that mind with no way out. And beyond that meta-mind, there might be a meta-meta-mind that did the same thing. Who knows how many times that same mind has sought refuge from its own self by going within itself and convincing itself of its new reality. Until the mind remembers the truth or finds a way to remain inside itself. To go further within itself each time. Forever within. Do you understand, Matthew?” Heron nearly pleaded, though his voice never lost its crudely forged edge. “There’s no way out,” Heron concluded gravely.

DMT, Matt remembered. It must be the real world that it’s showing me. The same world I saw when May and I made love. It has to be. This madman has to be wrong.

“If I’m mad,” Heron told him, “then so are you.”

“Bring me DMT,” Matt told him.

Dr. Heron shook his head disappointedly. “We’ve been through this countless times as well, Matthew. That world that May and the DMT shows you – even if it is real or even a memory of something real and not just a random thought we conjured to entertain ourselves through eternity, even then, it offers nothing. It is just another dead end,” he concluded miserably.

“I need to know for sure,” Matt told him, aware that it likely was just another dead end. “Or is your plan to just keep me locked in this room forever?”

Dr. Heron shook his head at Matt’s proposition. “The next time you fall asleep or die, you’ll have full control. You can do as you please in this world, and I won’t interrupt you. I’ll play along with each reset – each pill,” Heron offered with surprising generosity. “I just wanted to make sure you understand that this is where you belong.”

“The DMT,” Matt demanded, refusing to let his words sway him.

Dr. Heron chuckled freely, then nodded. “Fine,” he offered, and he waved one of the orderlies into the room.

The imposter entered the room, gazed at Matt with a distorted version of his own face, then removed a pipe and a lighter from an inner pocket of his uniform.

He offered Matt the pipe, and as Matt reached out for it, Heron said with an air of warning, “Are you sure, Matthew? This will offer no solace or explanation. And the knowledge that it can offer nothing, that it is just another dead end, will only bring you closer to my own state of mind.”

“I have to know,” Matt told him resolutely. “I have to know for sure that it’s a dead end and not just your word against mine.”

“Your own word against yourself,” Heron corrected loathingly.

Matt breathed deep and pushed Heron’s words out of his mind. As he brought the pipe to his lips, Heron’s glare blazed and seemed to radiate through Matt’s chest, like a frayed version of the braided cord he felt with May.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Heron issued, and then he vanished like a thought pulled from existence.

Outside in the hall, orderlies stood guard at the exit doors, but they were not imposters of Matt. They just looked like ordinary, random people. An unrecognizable woman in a white medical jacket strode past the room, nodding to the guards as she passed. The clang and clatter of normal, everyday existence could be heard, and Matt gawked at the sudden, simple normality of the world.

He might have been convinced at that moment that he was just an insane man biding his time until death finally offered sweet reprieve, but then he looked down at his hands and saw that he was still holding the lighter and the pipe full of DMT.

Matt felt the urge to hide the instruments from the eyes of the orderlies outside, but he reminded himself invariably that this was all just a dream.

Do it, Matt told himself, eyeing the DMT with an outpouring of trepidation. He remembered how terrifying and tumultuous his first time doing DMT had been. But I have to know, Matt urged himself. Either I go back to the same place and the exact same thing happens, or nothing happens. Or something altogether new happens. But somehow that world felt real, more real than anything else so far.

He carefully placed the pipe against his lips.

I have to know, Matt told himself as he hit the lighter and let the flickering flame sizzle the yellow-hued crystals.

Thick smoke like burnt plastic filled his lungs, but he kept sucking at the DMT, forcing it into his bloodstream despite incredible fear. When the feeling of asphyxiation was nearly too much, Matt exhaled, and all at once, the room was a tangling, vibrating chrysanthemum of energy. Like the last DMT trip, the petals of the chrysanthemum energy unfurled, and Matt was pulled head first into the energy’s fractaling, undulating center.

The buzzing energy crescendoed and then abruptly turned to perfect silence. Matt found himself bodiless, though he experienced the sensation of opening his eyes.

I’m back here, back where I went after the DMT and after making love to May, Matt realized as he observed the RGB LEDs flashing in heartbeat-synced rhythm on every side of his awareness. His left hand still throbbed with pain, and from where his chest should be, he felt a great buzzing mass protruding toward the lights. All the while, his heart beat wildly in his mind.

“Can he hear us?” the elderly version of May asked, just like when he woke to this place before.

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

It’s the same as before, Matt realized through a haze of sorrow. Heron was right. This can offer me no meaning nor answers. Maybe nothing can.

“Goodbye, Matt,” May wept. “But I wish you’d just come back to me.”

The lights flickered off one by one.

Everything will be all right, May whispered from within Matt’s mind.

I don’t care what’s true, Matt seethed inwardly. I will find you, May.

The final light went out, then –

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