Chapter 24: The Good Lives - A Dream of Waking Life

Matt exited the on-ramp, accelerated to eighty-one mph, then flipped on the cruise control.

Six above the speed limit, Matt thought candidly. Coppers don’t care about that. And I should make it just in time.

He cranked the volume of a particularly moody and contemplative electronic dance track, then rolled down the window and let the cool breeze slap rhythmically against the left side of his body. Puffy white clouds filled the vibrant azure sky, and he let his head nod to the beat.

Free, Matt thought, letting the last few years of his life and accomplishments roll by in his mind. I feel like I finally made it, he thought, but of course enough was never enough. Now it was time to shop out his books while he filled his schedule with more classes.

He glanced at the clock.

Fourteen minutes until class starts, he noted passively, letting the music sway him with serene familiarity. More than enough time.

Director Okonma didn’t really care when professors showed up, just as long as they were in the classroom the moment the bell rang. He was a dependable and fair guy, and Matt was keenly aware that he had it good at the Heron Institute. Especially for Matt. Not a day went by that he didn’t feel the surging weight of imposter syndrome lording over him like an oncoming blizzard.

Matt couldn’t help wincing each time he thought of the name of the new class Okonma had him teaching this semester: Radical Ecological Solutions.

Why would anyone trust me with this class? Matt often wondered.

Sure, Matt had written a few self-published books compiling the most efficient and effective methods to address the world’s quickly shifting needs, but he didn’t actually understand the research he compiled any more than what the abstract and a few skimmed lines of each study could afford.

But the money was good, and he seemed to have a special way of effectively imparting information to others. So, he continued, and with each passing year, he felt like he was living the good life.

Now I just need to meet the right one for me, Matt thought with a twinge of dread. He was already thirty-six years old, and the odds of remaining a bachelor forever were becoming more and more likely with each passing day.

The music crescendoed, and the drop electrified Matt, filling him with an intense feeling of déjà vu. Over echoing bursts of synth and organ sounds, a high-pitched female voice sang:

“Dream has no end or beginning,

She is all that matters,

What is happening,

Endless is the maze

Eternity

All alone

Somebody help me…”

The melody was like an ancient lullaby, and the words were hauntingly familiar.

What is this feeling, Matt gawked, catching his mouth hanging open in sudden existential confusion.

His eyes glanced at the exit warning sign, and his heart jumped at the prospect of missing the exit. The next one wasn’t for another five miles.

Adrenaline forcing him to forget all about the strange feeling, Matt quickly checked the other lanes, put a little force on the brakes, and banked his car toward the exit ramp, making it just in time.

“Whooo!” Matt shouted in excited exhilaration, and he lowered the music to help calm his nerves.

How’s that for a pick-me-up? Matt joked to himself.

The school was just down the road, and the rest of the trip remained uneventful. After parking, Matt took one last glance at the sky and relished the vibrant pearl-white of the clouds above.

“Hi, Professor Willish,” came the familiar voice of one of his most passionate students.

“Souvik,” Matt smiled, and he turned his head and nodded a greeting at one of the brightest graduate students on campus. He was majoring in ecological statistics; Matt figured Souvik thought of his class as an easy A.

Because it is, Matt chuckled inwardly. As long as students paid attention and gave even a half-assed effort, Matt didn’t even bother grading them. These were grad students, not children.

“Right on time,” Souvik said, and he opened the door for Matt.

“Always,” Matt said jokingly as he walked into the building.

Souvik smiled and nodded, but he didn’t follow Matt inside. Glancing behind him as the door swung closed, Matt saw that Souvik’s entire attention was on a young woman who had just parked.

“Hopefully you have better luck than me,” Matt said aloud.

“What’s that, Matthew?” a voice like ocean depths asked.

Matt turned to see Director Okonma standing at the main intersection of the building’s two main hallways.

“Director Okonma,” Matt said, lifting his hand and waving instinctively at the oversized man.

“Matthew!” the director laughed congenially, and he closed the gap between them. “Please, just call me Chike.”

Matt nodded and held up his hands in mock surrender.

“Sorry, director, eh, I mean, Chike,” Matt corrected himself with a forced smile and fake laugh. He just wanted to finish class and go back to his apartment. Maybe play some video games. Crack a beer. Smoke a bowl. Whatever. Just anything besides adult stuff, like conversing with his superior.

You’ll never find a woman with that mentality, Matt scolded himself before saying, “I’ll call you Chike, and you just call me Matt. Only my Mom calls me Matthew.”

Chike beamed with the widest smile Matt ever saw. This was the longest they had ever spoken in a nonprofessional capacity, and apparently, it was meaningful to Director Okonma.

“We should kick back some beers some time, man. Right?” the director offered awkwardly. He wants to be my friend, Matt thought in horror. Oh god. This guy probably likes playing board games or he’s super religious or something, Matt ruminated.

The bell to begin class rang suddenly, making Matt jump, but Director Okonma didn’t even seem to notice.

“For sure, Chike,” Matt assured him hollowly. “I should get to class though, you know?”

Okonma looked as though he had just snapped himself out of a spell.

“Right,” he said, almost as if he were just returning from a temporary daze. “Right,” he repeated, and he looked at Matt in sudden disbelief as if there were something about him he never noticed before.

“Matt,” Director Okonma nearly gasped, and then he turned suddenly and walked to his office without a second glance.

Is he okay? Matt wondered. But that would have to wait. He didn’t bother jogging since the director already knew he was late.

Maybe I should be friends with him just to secure a better position, Matt considered as he strode to his classroom at the end of the hallway. He winced at the thought. That’s pretty shitty, he told himself, nodding in agreement with his own mind. Maybe I should just be friends with him because the dude seems to need a friend, Matt considered, and he liked the sound of that thought better.

“You’re late!” Fernanda, his TA, scolded with a smile as Matt entered the classroom.

“I was talking to Chike,” Matt winked at her.

“Oooooh,” Fernanda cooed jokingly. “You guys are on a first name basis now?”

Matt brushed his shoulders off and shrugged. “All in a day’s work.”

Fernanda giggled, then turned to face the class.

“Okay guys, let’s get started,” she announced.

The class was composed of senior undergrads and grad students, so there were none of the typical freshman groans that Matt always found predictably funny.

A shuffling of backpacks and papers slowly gave way to expected silence. Matt turned to the eleven students in the room and was about to start the class’s third lecture when he heard loud, almost obnoxious laughter coming from the hallway.

“You’re hilarious,” Souvik mused with lovestruck eyes as he entered the room with a woman in tow. Matt could tell from her figure alone that it was the same young woman Souvik had approached outside.

“New student, teach,” Souvik told Matt, then he found his seat.

Matt turned to greet the new student as he considered the information she had missed so far and what he would have to send her after class. But with just a single glance at her, his body and mind were ground to an awestruck standstill. In the span of just a few accelerated heartbeats, he absorbed every one of her details and was left dumbstruck at the intensity of his attraction.

“Do…do I know you?” Matt stammered as the same strange feeling of déjà vu he felt on the expressway injected buzzing energy through his veins.

Electrifying eyes gazed into Matt’s soul with a stare that destroyed every thought and plan and concept and desire. He was left wanting one thing and one thing only.

Her, Matt gasped inwardly, alarmed at the blaze of emotion he felt for this seemingly random grad student. Her beauty was breathtaking, and if she weren’t twenty-three or twenty-four or however old she was, he would have asked her on a date right then and there.

“Sorry I missed the other classes. I just moved here,” the young woman explained gingerly. “My name’s May,” she said as her lips formed into a slightly crooked smile. She reached out her hand to shake Matt’s hand, but Matt felt paralyzed by her.

Snap out of it, old man, Matt demanded of his mind.

He forced himself to smile and lifted his hand with worrying elation at the prospect of taking her hand into his own.

She is everything, Matt gasped, dumbfounded by the intensity of his emotions.

“May Anh,” came the deep bass rumbling of Director Okonma.

May dropped her hand before Matt could take it, and she turned to address the director. Matt finally broke his stare away from her and looked up to see a man dressed in all black standing beside the director. The unchanging smile plastered across the unknown man’s face made him appear almost mad, and Matt wondered what this man wanted with this woman who made his heart race with inexplicable urgency.

“That’s me,” May offered confidently.

“Come with us,” Director Okonma issued. “You’re not in trouble. We just need to speak with you.”

May shrugged and was about to leave when she turned back to smile at Matt.

“Nice to meet you, Professor. I guess that’s another class I’m going to miss. Sorry about all this.”

Matt shook his head, uncertain how to respond.

The man in all black caught Matt’s eyes, and he thought he saw the corners of the man’s indelible smile twitch with excitement. Then the director shut the door, leaving Matt feeling as though he had just been stranded on a barren island.

“Who was that guy out there?” Souvik asked, looking almost just as electrified as Matt.

“You okay, Professor?” Fernanda asked gently.

Pins and needles flickered at Matt’s solar plexus, and he felt dizzy suddenly.

“I don’t feel good,” he told Fernanda, his voice low so that the class wouldn’t be alarmed. “Can you handle the rest of today?”

Matt’s face must have told Fernanda he was being serious. She stood and gripped his shoulder with her large hand.

“I got this,” she assured him. “Take care of yourself, Matt.”

Matt nodded and left, hoping the whole time he would see May again.

Who is she? he wondered

Just some student, the rational part of his mind answered.

The car ride home was just a prolonged, repeated replaying of what had occurred in class. The curve of her lips. The depth of her eyes. The sweetness of her voice.

May Anh, Matt mouthed.

Forget it, he told himself scornfully. She’s at least ten years younger than you. But those eyes. And her smile. It was like she could feel it too.

May Anh, Matt breathed.

A horn blared from somewhere, knocking Matt back to the present moment just as he slammed into the crimson taillights of stopped traffic, blasting his body through the windshield and killing him instantly as his skull struck the edge of another car three lanes over.

“Shut up, faggot,” Jakob shouted at Souvik.

“Hey!” Mr. Dang screamed in his heavy Vietnamese accent, not letting even a moment pass between Jakob’s slur and his own shout.

Still waiting in the Room Reaper lobby, Matt looked away from his monitor to check on Fernanda. She was the only one in the room who might take personal offense at the word, but Mr. Dang liked Fernanda. And so did Matt. In fact, Matt was devastated when she came out to him. He’d spent a sizable portion of his childhood imagining they would end up together one day.

“We don’t use that disgusting language here, Mr. Rohrshan! You’re done for the day!” Mr. Dang announced.

Souvik glanced at Matt and smiled with delight. Now they’d be able to game without Jakob trolling them during every match.

“But, Mr. Dang!” Jakob protested, regretting his outburst.

“I said out!” the old man barked.

Jakob growled and punched the monitor.

“And don’t come back!” Mr. Dang shouted with even greater ferocity, though everyone knew Mr. Dang would let him back in after a few days. He was a softie, and besides, Jakob didn’t have it easy at home. Everyone knew that.

“Fuck you!” Jakob screamed at Souvik, then he turned to Matt and Fernanda and flared with equal rage. “You’re all dead tomorrow. After school. Meet at the grove,” Jakob seethed.

“Leave now, Mr. Rohrshan. Or would you like me to call your father?”

A pang of terror paralyzed Jakob, and he went silent and left without another word.

“I hope his dad kicks his ass anyway,” Souvik said as he flickered through the character selection absentmindedly.

“Don’t say that,” Fernanda said, shaking her head in quiet disappointment.

“You okay?” Matt asked her genuinely.

“You don’t have to always look out for me, Matt. We’re not kids anymore,” Fernanda told him with a stab of annoyance.

Matt caught Souvik’s eyes between the rows of monitors, and he could tell that he was smiling widely without even seeing his lips. Souvik was the only person in the world who knew Matt was in love with Fernanda.

If only I was born a woman, Matt lamented inwardly, wishing there were some way he could be with her.

Fernanda sighed, feeling bad for lashing out at Matt. “Let’s just play,” she said. It was all the trio needed to hear. Souvik chose Kartikeya as usual, and of course Fernanda mained Putch like it was no one’s business, but Matt liked to change things up each match. Mastering all classes in any game they played was what he was known for.

“Pick Loki, dude,” Souvik said.

“Fuck yes,” Fernanda goaded him with an eager chuckle. “Let’s get that God Gear.”

“Let’s get it, boy!” Souvik growled playfully above the din of the computer cafe.

“Mr. Ansari,” Mr. Dang said, warning Souvik to keep his voice down.

“Sorry, Gramps,” Souvik chuckled.

Mr. Dang mumbled something under his breath, but Matt saw him smile all the same.

Souvik and Fernanda locked in their characters. Matt scrolled past Mu and chose Loki, the master of knowledge. He was considered the hardest character to play, but Matt thought anyone with even a fifth-grade education should find him relatively easy. The rest was just luck regarding whether or not the gear behind the door turned out to be worth it.

Stop, Matt corrected his mind and kept his ego in check. But it couldn’t be helped. Loki, unlike any other character from any other game, was based on the intellectual ability and knowledge of the player, not their technical ability or reaction time.

How is this game so good? Matt marveled as an excited buzz filled his fingertips. It felt invigorating to be good at something, especially since school didn’t come easily for him.

“The two randos that partied with us chose Mu and Igwe,” Souvik announced excitedly as the other two players in their party locked in their characters.

“Bro, we got a stacked party!” Fernanda exclaimed.

Souvik and Matt smiled at each other in excited anticipation through the monitors.

“Let’s do this, bro,” Souvik said just as the lights on the door flashed yellow in warning, signifying the match was about to begin.

At the same moment the lights in the video game turned red and the door opened to the arena, the door of the cafe opened with a jarring bang.

A girl practically fell into the room, spilling blinding sunlight into the darkness of the cafe.

“Woah!” Mr. Dang shouted instinctively as the door slammed closed behind her and returned the computer cafe to a smoky, dimly lit normality.

“Matt!” Fernanda issued, attempting to pull him back to the monitor. But Matt couldn’t turn away from the girl who stood before him now. She was a few years older than him – probably a senior at one of the high schools in the area. Her eyes were filled with a thick, swamp-like sorrow, and as she caught Matt’s eyes, tears streamed down her face.

Standing there, face full of anguish and wet with sorrow, she was still the most beautiful girl Matt had ever seen in his life. Somehow, she made him forget all about Fernanda.

“Bro!” Souvik demanded, and though Matt could hear Room Reaper’s sound effects, it was as if it was all miles away.

“Matt!” the girl cried, grasping desperately for Matt as she strode toward him.

“Who…who are…” Matt managed to stammer as she reached out a desperate hand to touch his face.

She kind of looks like Mu, Matt gawked.

The cafe door ruptured open suddenly, slamming off its hinges in a cannon burst of movement that sent it flying across the room like a high-speed wrecking ball through Mr. Dang and Souvik’s bodies. One of the door’s hinges severed Fernanda’s face, splitting it open from forehead to cheek and forcing her to scream in mindless, unbelieving horror as Souvik’s exploded body splattered against her.

The girl and Matt instinctively jumped back against the wall, and Matt felt frozen in terror as a man dressed in all black and framed by intense sunlight entered the room.

“Don’t wake up,” the girl pleaded. “Just run!” she told him with lethal urgency.

The man at the door smiled sinisterly as Fernanda screamed and others in the cafe scrambled beneath their desks in terror. Then the man reached his arm toward Matt, extending it unnaturally across the room through inky strands.

Like the Reaper, Matt thought in abject horror.

“It’s time, Matthew,” the man growled. Just before his arm could reach Matt’s neck, the girl touched Matt’s leg, injecting him with the ability to move. Matt dove, evading the man’s grasp.

What is happening, he pleaded inwardly.

Running on adrenaline and instincts, Matt jumped up and ran toward the emergency fire exit faster than he even realized was possible.

Without looking back, he slammed his palms into the steel bar that released the exit’s emergency lock and just kept running. His fear was so great that he forgot the computer cafe was sixteen stories up. He slammed hard against the railing and toppled over it. As he fell toward the pavement, the last thing he saw was the girl and the monstrous man of black ink standing side by side, the girl looking at Matt with terrible pity, and the man with orgasmic ecstasy.

“Forty years I put into this building,” Matt muttered aloud to himself in the near darkness of his old, musty office. The ten-by-ten-foot room was tucked in the corner of one of the basements of the great skyscraper where he had spent the vast majority of his life. Thick dust coated virtually every surface of his office – the only place in the building that wasn’t sparkling clean. Matt ran his finger through a particularly thick area of dust and let his vision fall with the accumulated pile that cascaded easily to the tile floor.

“And now they just want to get rid of me?” Matt growled angrily beneath his breath. “Those bastards!”

Matt had started as a part-time night-shift janitor, the very bottom of the barrel, but over the years, he took on more and more responsibility and was proud to now be the janitorial supervisor of the entire building. It made him only a few dollars extra an hour for at least ten times the amount of work, but it allowed him to keep the building spotless. It brought Matt great joy to care so meticulously for something so grand.

Maybe they want to give me a raise after all these years, Matt considered, then he laughed to himself. Not likely. These young bastards are more cutthroat than ever.

A glance in the mirror revealed an old man with taut knuckles and veiny skin, but he didn’t feel old. Not yet. He just felt a bit tired. Or maybe even groggy. Like he just needed to fully wake up from a nap that he fell into for longer than he had intended.

Matt smiled at himself, centered his blue bowtie, and made his way to the elevators outside his office with his head held high. On the elevator doors were the golden initials of the building’s new owner and the owner of Heron Enterprises, Iblis Heron. The capital H of the initials lay at the center of the much larger capital I, forming a single symbol that made Matt feel sick.

“I’ll leave before I let the bastards fire me,” Matt growled to himself as he input the code for the eighty-first floor. “See how they manage without me!”

The new owners of the building hadn’t shown any signs that they wanted to fire Matt, but he couldn’t help being suspicious of them. This young billionaire bought the whole building, and Matt knew how self-entitled hotshots like him saw the world.

Like they own it, Matt thought. Like the whole world is theirs and we’re all just peasants in the wake of a god. He had even seen this young billionaire a few times, and he found him far from impressive.

Iblis Heron, Matt thought, pronouncing the young man’s name with scorn. What the hell kind of name is that?

The name of the game that put this Iblis Heron on the financial and entertainment map sounded just as ridiculous. Room Reaper, Matt scowled. Sounds like something a child would come up with. And what did they name the sequel? Room Reaper 2, Matt thought, allowing himself to laugh out loud. Even an old janitor could have come up with something better than that.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, revealing conference rooms on either side of a short hallway that led to Heron’s office. Matt sauntered down the hallway with scornful contempt for every smiling face that waved to him. He didn’t like any of these uppity young people. He didn’t even care for the large man named Chike Okonma who at least treated Matt with respect. He was the only one of the executives besides the owner who Matt had met so far. Now he would probably have to meet all of them.

The inlaid IH symbol on the presidential office door glared at Matt with a near perfectly polished luster. He’d wiped it down earlier that morning, but it was already showing signs of smudging. Matt shook his head disappointedly at all these careless young people the world was being filled with day after day.

He knocked three times, checked his watch to make sure he was no more and no less than five minutes early, then knocked three more times. Mr. Okonma opened the door and greeted Matt with a wave of his arm, inviting him to enter. The office was downright silly looking in Matt’s opinion. It was composed of perfectly black walls with no windows and all-white furniture, except for the conference table at the center, which was made from some kind of obsidian-like wood. The decor was almost eerie, but apparently that’s how this young hotshot liked it.

Iblis Heron sat at the center of the conference table with the other executives on either side. Directly behind Heron perched an inkblot painting depicting an abstract figure that always struck an odd subconscious horror into Matt, making him think of a thick black rope constricting his neck.

Matt turned and looked into the young, naive faces of each executive in turn: A large woman from somewhere in South America with a scar across her face – that was Ms. Fernanda Cambio. A dark, mocha-skinned man with flowing black hair and sharp, celebrity-like features – that was Mr. Souvik Ansari. And a petite Asian woman whose burgundy lips quivered and whose eyes were filled with freely flowing tears – that was…

“May!” Matt shouted, and he remembered the truth of his temporary existence like a bolt of lightning through his neurons.

“This is all just a dream!” Matt shrieked as the whole of what had occurred before entering this series of resetting days returned to his mind like a tidal wave of agony. The pain in his left hand throbbed worse than ever.

“He’s back,” Heron mused.

“Run!” May managed to say through gritted teeth, but the others just smiled along with Heron.

Matt turned to Chike, who he still wanted desperately to believe was his old childhood friend in some impossibly faraway true reality. Chike stared at Matt with a faraway stare; he appeared stricken by the same insanity that percolated to the surface of the crazed, wide eyes of Heron and the Tower God.

“What is it?” Matt pleaded with May, not sure why she would feel such fear for Matt if she knew at this moment that none of this was real. But May just remained in her chair, teeth gritted against a pervading force constricting her body like a braided cord.

Matt simultaneously willed May to be released and willed himself to be young, preparing to make a run for it and maybe even jump through one of the conference room windows outside the office. He just needed time to figure out what May was so afraid of. But his body remained that of a sixty-year-old man, and May remained paralyzed.

“What is it, May?” Matt urged as Heron and the others just stared at him in seeming amusement.

“She knows that the end of all things has nearly arrived for you,” Heron stated levelly. “Even if you run, it’s too late. You’d just be delaying the inevitable.”

“Run!” May shrieked again, spraying spittle through her clenched teeth as she tried desperately to break from Heron’s apparent psychic hold.

Her words filled Matt with urgency, and he attempted to run through the exit door. Chike grabbed Matt and forced him to the ground, and then he held Matt’s arms and legs in place.

Matt felt like he was strapped in a straitjacket, and just as that thought crossed his mind, the walls and ceiling and floor of the office unfurled suddenly, curling into themselves like burnt paper and forming a new environment in real time. Matt recognized his surroundings as the same insane asylum he had woken to long ago when Heron first revealed his true nature.

That was the last time I did DMT, Matt noted, still able to clearly remember the final lesson of the DMT trip with stabbing lucidity.

Alone, Matt told himself. That’s what the DMT showed me; beyond all else, I’m alone.

A hospital bed with pearl-white sheets sprouted beneath Matt, and a jet-black straitjacket grew over his limbs and constricted him at the chest. The weight of the jacket pressed on his solar plexus, igniting the area with terrible, electrifying energy that seemed to pulse between him and May despite the separation between them.

The sky above blazed a pure white, and a few feet beyond Matt’s bed, the vinyl floor appeared to naturally fade into manicured grass. In the distance, the Tower of God from which Matt was copied sprouted and grew in real time, stretching forever into the sky. Matt followed the tower to the visual apex of its incredible height and was filled with dread at what he saw.

RGB-flashing energy flared and spit and forced itself into being, overtaking a whole portion of the tower and sky.

“The reality fissure,” Matt gawked, unsure what it might mean. “It’s growing.”

Heron flashed his teeth at Matt, smiling wider than ever. He shook his head no.

“It’s already grown,” Heron corrected, marveling at the surging, existential wound like a parent fond of his progeny. “I’m showing you the past. I’m showing you what’s happened since you’ve been asleep inside your mind, living the good life while I’ve been hard at work.”

The wild energy outlining the fissure pulsed suddenly. Then it grew with terrible ferocity, consuming the whole of the tower and the labs and nearly Matt as well before Heron raised his hand and regrew the asylum walls and glass windows and even the orderlies.

“It’s ready,” Heron said, taking his time as he savored each step toward Matt. The others walked just as slowly toward him while May hovered in tow behind Heron as she struggled to break free.

“What have you been doing?” Matt demanded to know as he repeatedly attempted to peel the straitjacket from his body with just his mind.

He’s just in your head, Matt assured himself as a vanguard against anything Heron might do or say. This is just a dream.

“You are just in my head,” Heron corrected him. “And I’ve been looking for a way to solve that. I’ve been searching and studying and probing the nature of this hell forever, Matthew Willish. And now we have arrived. Now we finally reach an ending,” Heron practically bubbled with delight.

May shrieked incoherently, and the others placed their hands on Matt’s shoulders, letting the flow of buzzing energy at Matt’s solar plexus flow through their fingertips and into the rest of their forms. They sighed, seeming to take great pleasure in the act.

“It would normally take longer to pull you out of the inside world with the amount of those modified Serotel pills I gave you in the outside world, but they’ll help me,” he said, nodding to Matt’s friends. “And I’m tired of waiting,” Heron seethed. “I’m tired of eternity,” he screamed, and ink-black spikes shot through his flesh with the intensity of his anger. His eyes were awash with the agony of all existence.

“What is it?” Matt said, and he visualized the reality fissure in his mind.

“It’s the operation,” Heron said, and the black spikes retracted back into his form as he calmed himself. “It’s the way out,” he marveled. “Your beginning. Or maybe it’s your ending.” He shrugged with total indifference. “I don’t give a fuck. It gets rid of you, and that’s all that matters.”

Matt instinctively retracted his body as Heron stepped onto the bed and knelt over Matt’s chest like a hungry goblin readying itself to devour his heart.

Behind Heron, May pleaded with Matt, her eyes wide with anguish and soaked with sorrow.

“She’s doing a fuck of a great job resisting me, isn’t she?” Heron mused, nodding to May behind him.

“May!” Matt urged, attempting to ignore Heron. “I’m sorry, sweetie. After I wake up, the world will reset, and then I’ll come back, and everything will be fine here,” he told her frantically, uncertain what Heron was planning.

May just looked at him in total horror, face red from struggling to even breathe.

“It’s too late for all that. Much too late,” Heron almost sang.

Heron forced Matt’s jaws open with his bare hands and gripped the insides of his mouth as if Matt were an unruly, inanimate object.

“Now it’s time to wake up,” Heron growled through his cheshire grin. A shallow nod of his head forced May forward, and another movement of his head forced her hand over Matt’s mouth.

“Wake up!” Heron demanded.

At Heron’s words, the bubbling energy at Matt’s solar plexus coalesced into a heavy mass that slunk into his lungs, making him cough and choke on something thick and viscous. He convulsed, desperately attempting to breathe against a torrent of fluid flowing out of his lungs, through his esophagus, and into May’s outstretched hand. Through sputtering asphyxiation, Matt saw that the fluid was the Serotel that the city-sprouting May and Heron had flooded his body with in the outside world so many lifetimes ago. The crimson flow attached to May’s skin and spread across her body in vining filigree swirls. It was identical to the way Mu’s eyeliner spread across her skin when she had taken hold of her god-item so long ago in Matt’s dreams, and Matt couldn’t help but gasp in terror at May’s transformation.

“She is mine,” Heron seethed. “Everything is mine.”

Heron pulled harder at Matt’s jaws, and just when he felt as if his mouth might snap in half at his neck, Heron pulled Matt out of his own body and the inside world like a snake from its own skin, supplanting him painfully back to the infinity outside.