Chapter 3: Home Base - A Dream of Waking Life

Matt woke in a flurry of limbs and gritted teeth and screamed out, “Please!”

But he had his own voice, not the old man’s. He wasn’t in a cold cell with naked strangers either. He was back in his bed. Back in the real world.

Just a fucking dream, Matt assured himself, but he didn’t feel any of the relief normally associated with returning to reality from a nightmare. The dreams about the cell and the old man – they weren’t just dreams. They couldn’t be. They were as vivid as reality – in the case of the old man, maybe even more so.

Matt touched his forehead and inspected his arms. Everything seemed to be in place.

“It was a fucking dream, Matthew,” he told himself aloud with an authoritative tone, forcing the words into the deepest recesses of his unconscious awareness. He often felt like his mind was a battlefield to be conquered, only it was himself with whom he was locked in eternal battle.

I remember that, Matt realized with relief, remembering that in his dreams, he couldn’t recall anything outside his own name.

Attempting to soak in what should be his familiar apartment, Matt suddenly paused uneasily, noticing an air of foreignness weaved into every detail of the room.

This is my apartment, isn’t it?

He looked at his hands, checking to make sure they looked normal. It was a reality check he hadn’t used since attempting to lucid dream as a kid.

He inspected them carefully, but they were just normal looking hands.

Knock it off! Matt told his mind, unwilling to do battle this morning. His right hand instinctively probed a small night table and came up with an empty prescription bottle.

My meds! Matt remembered finally. I ran out. When did I run out?

Matt looked for a date on the bottle and found one at the bottom.

February 10. 30 pills. Serotel. 100 mg.

The name of the drug didn’t sound familiar.

What’s the date today? Matt looked around for a phone or calendar to check, but again he felt a surge of foreignness, as if this were some makeshift simulacrum of his actual room. The bigger problem was that he couldn’t fully remember how it was supposed to look or even feel in the first place. He considered that maybe his own memory was the simulacrum, and he felt suddenly like an invader in his own reality.

What the fuck is going on? Matt ruminated at the threshold of panic, gritting his teeth harder as his legs went as numb and heavy as the old man’s from his dream. Then it came to him in a flash: the cell with the naked people – he remembered now. It was his game...the video game. Room Reaper was soon to be the most popular game on the planet. It was Matt’s game. He was an indie video game developer. He was poised to make millions. He lived in Chicago. He worked in an office. He lived alone. He had a therapist.

Yes!

Matt rejoiced at the rush of memories finally filling in the necessary details of his life. I need to go back to Dr. Heron. I need more meds. That’s right, Matt told himself. Everything’ll be all right. He remembered that both the naked woman, Mu, and the nurse had said those words to him. His mind centered on Mu, focusing on her lips and nipples.

Enough! Matt scolded himself. Get out of bed. Go to work.

He remembered the empty bottle, and he wondered forlornly how long it had been since he ran out of pills.

Few days at most, he reasoned with nervous skepticism plaguing his every thought.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he saw his phone lying on the ground. Grogginess still filling his eyes, he picked it up and tried to turn it on, but it was dead.

Shit! I must’ve forgot to plug it in.

As he plugged his phone into the open charger, something across the room caught his eye. Beyond his dresser, a Room Reaper poster signed by his coworkers practically buzzed, beckoning his attention. All the characters were there, posing with illustrious armor and intricate weaponry. Igwe stood at the vanguard, his raised fists covered by gauntlets emitting lightning. Mu crouched just beside him, black filigree patterns painted across her skin and her armor like flowing water connecting her to the ground. She held a hand close to her face, displaying sharpened kunai between each finger. Putch stood apart from the rest of the group and brandished a giant, misshapen boulder carved into a makeshift bat. Kartikeya hovered above the group with spread peacock wings while brandishing a spear multiple times the length of his body, pointing it at the viewer as if he was about to charge at them. Behind the entire group was a small figure wearing a cloak of shadows. Only his eyes could be seen, like tiny spotlights in an infinite void.

Yes, Matt sighed with a measure of relief as he absorbed the familiar faces of the poster. I just dreamed of my video game. Just a dream!

Below the poster was a photo he took with his father at a beach when he was a kid. They were both smiling at the camera, and Matt couldn’t help staring at the young man in the photo.

Is that really me? Matt was reminded suddenly of the Serotel. I’m not even recognizing myself, he thought, tightening his grip on the prescription bottle still held in his left hand.

Call Dr. Heron! Matt ordered himself.

He tried his phone again, and now it had just enough juice to power on. The phone stirred to life, and its welcome message asked, “Are you awake?” Matt chuckled to himself with grim humor as he continued to shake the vividness of his dreams and false awakenings from his mind. Maybe I should get back into lucid dreaming and try exploring those dreams, Matt pondered seriously, but the thought was forced out of his mind as soon as it entered, replaced by the jarring realization that he would be late for work if he didn’t get a move on. The phone said it was already 8:00 a.m.

He swiped at the screen and pressed the calendar app. The date glared insanity at him, leaving Matt blinking in confusion. July 24. No – that’s not possible. The Serotel was prescribed in February. There must be a more recent bottle around here. That has to be it, Matt reasoned as his breath skipped a beat. No way I’ve been off the meds for that long.

He felt his heartbeat quicken and a flush of sweat fill his pores. Was it possible that multiple months had already gone by?

Matt checked his head with his fingers and came back with a smear of red.

Blood.

He raced to the bathroom and peered anxiously into the mirror. Sure enough, there was a small gash on his forehead. All of a sudden, he saw the giant figure behind him through the mirror, its twisted arms and death blades like flesh-rending hurricanes. Falling back and screaming as the blade lunged at his forehead, Matt felt a flow of blood force its way out of the wound. Then the giant figure was just gone, and Matt was once again alone in his apartment.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! was all Matt could think as he stood and rinsed away the blood. It’s just…just a hallucination, Matt reasoned in his mind. I just need meds, he assured himself unconvincingly as he applied pressure to his head with one of his bathroom towels. The blood seemed perfectly real, as did the searing pain emanating from the gash.

Psychosomatic symptoms, Matt probed in a weak attempt at objective rationality, trying to calm his shaking hands and breath. Or maybe I cut my head in my sleep somehow. Or…

Matt pulled the towel back and looked in the mirror. His mind staggered as he saw that the gash didn’t look as bad as it did only a few moments earlier. But the gash was still deep enough to warrant a single stitch, and though it was bleeding profusely, he knew that head wounds always bleed worse than they actually are.

It’ll be all right, Matt told himself, wondering suddenly about the fate of those naked people in the cell. Are they really dead? Will they be there if I go back to sleep?

He thought of the beautiful Mu and the way she had openly displayed herself to him. Will I see her again?

No! Matt grabbed his head. Stop it! A dream. Just a dream!

“It was just a dream,” he told himself aloud, shaken suddenly by the youthful sound of his voice.

No, he remembered. I’m not an old man. I’m me. I’m me!

He lifted the towel again and jumped back in shock.

No gash. Not even any blood.

Just get more meds. Matt urged himself, feeling dizzy with confusion as he let the unstained towel fall to the floor.

But first go to work, another part of his mind urged, clawing him away from the obvious psychological break he was currently experiencing.

Work will have to wait, he weighed, considering that he might only be a liability at work while undergoing an episode.

An episode, Matt considered, ensnared by the terrible familiarity of the word.

This has happened to me before, Matt realized with dread. And I need to get back on my meds.

He forced himself to return to his phone to call his therapist or even an ambulance if that’s what it would take to get more meds. The phone remained lifeless as he attempted to power it on, and he looked down to find that the cord had fallen out somehow.

Fuck! Matt groaned, but then he recognized in that moment that everything seemed normal. Maybe I’m okay enough to get to the office and just call my therapist from there, Matt considered, doubting every word of his thoughts. But as he breathed, the world seemed clearer, and something inside him assured him that he would be all right.

Biting his lower lip, Matt eyed his phone one last time before leaving the apartment without it.

I’ll be all right, Matt urged his mind. I go to the office. I call my therapist from there. That way no one will worry about me.

The bus stop was at the corner only a few buildings down. As he walked to the corner, a wave of relief washed over him; he felt like his world was finally returning to him as if from a haze. The dreams had been so jarring and vivid, and having two right in a row like that made the experience truly horrifying – like he would just keep waking into endless dreamscapes, each one more varied and strangulating than the last.

Maybe I’m still dreaming. The thought fell into his mind like a precision bomb aiming right for the heart of his psyche. He checked his hands, but they were still his normal hands.

Maybe my hands just happen to look normal because I’m in a dream of waking life. He felt his heartbeat quicken again, and his head pulsed with phantom pain.

How can you ever really know for sure? His mouth went dry at the thought, and he felt sweat build in his armpits and palms. He scratched an itch at the base of his nose and tried to hum away the possibility that he was still dreaming, but it was no use.

Shit! Matt scolded himself. He tried to recollect the other reality checks he used as a boy.

A light switch, but there was no light switch around.

A clock, but there was no clock nearby. He searched frantically with his eyes and through his memories.

A wall! Matt tried to push his hand through the brick edifice of the wall he found himself leaning against. It was as solid as any old brick.

That’s two, Matt confirmed. That’s two reality checks. I’m awake. This is real.

He hoped pleadingly that he wasn’t falling into a new cycle of psychosis.

Or maybe I’m in it now – knee deep in an episode of insanity, Matt thought in horror once more. Yes, that has to be it. And Dr. Heron is the solution.

Get to work. Check in with everyone. Call Dr. Heron. It’ll all be all right, Matt thought, treating the words like a handhold for his mind to grasp for survival.

As Matt arrived at the bus stop, his eyes looked among the others already waiting. A bearded man spoke lovingly to his little girl; an old woman held a phone unsteadily as she scrolled through a series of pictures. A teenage boy nodded his head to a beat that could be just slightly heard over the din of slow traffic. Everything was so normal – these people and their activities. The simple joy of these people living their lives while waiting at a random bus stop in a random city of the world filled Matt with an unquenchable but ineffable longing. Something about these people...it just seemed right. It was as if every moment of the universe had conspired to create this singular moment, and Matt got to observe it – he was a part of it. He imagined that there were these scenes and moments all over the world happening all the time, and he breathed deeply, reminding himself again that this was the real world and not a dream within a dream.

The bus turned a corner and screeched to a halt. Matt let the others get on first, then made his way into the vehicle. He reached into his pocket and then realized he didn’t have his pass on him. He opened his wallet, revealing that he didn’t have any money on him either.

“I’m so sorry,” Matt started saying as he brought his eyes level with the bus driver. A large woman with a scar stretching from the left side of her forehead to her right cheek stared at him with surprise. Then she furrowed her eyebrows and looked him over head to toe inspecting him. Matt, on the other hand, recognized her immediately.

But that’s impossible, Matt told himself, wavering again in his certainty regarding reality. It was the woman from the cell – the one called Putch. Here she was overweight instead of rippling with muscle, but the rest of her was identical.

“Do I know you?” the bus driver asked, her voice identical to Putch’s down to the Brazilian accent.

Matt shook his head, uncertain of what to say.

“I don’t think so,” he lied uneasily, telling himself it couldn’t be a lie if it only happened in a dream.

She’ll think I’m crazy if I tell her the truth. I...I am crazy!

“I’m...I’m positive I know you from somewhere…” she said, trailing off despite her claim of certainty.

Matt wanted to say something clever or anything at all, but he couldn’t even bring himself to move.

“Let’s hit the fuck’n road, lady!” a passenger barked from somewhere in the back, and a murmur of agreement from various other passengers followed.

“Come on then,” the woman told Matt with a disappointed sigh, but she offered him a half-smile. “It’s okay just this once.”

Matt hesitated, uncertain what she was referring to. Then he remembered he was still holding his empty wallet as if intentionally displaying it to her.

“Oh, oh, yeah,” Matt stammered, and he looked away suddenly to avert her gaze. “I mean, thanks,” he said finally.

She cocked her neck back, indicating he should get on. Then she turned back to face the road.

Feeling suddenly old and heavy, Matt pulled himself through the bus using the backs of seats and avoided eye contact with anyone else. The bus rumbled into movement, and Matt finally arrived at an open seat. He plopped into the chair and kept his gaze to the ground, terrified that the passengers might look like the other people from his dream.

Look, damn it! Matt scolded himself. You have to look!

He finally looked up and scanned the passengers, but no one else struck him as familiar.

Shit! I need those meds. This is too much.

Matt gritted his teeth and held his eyes tightly shut.

Those dreams were too vivid, Matt ruminated. That wasn’t normal. None of this is normal.

He wondered if the Serotel had ever made things better for him, but it must have, or else he wouldn’t even have a job. Who could possibly live without being able to distinguish dreams from reality with absolute certainty? How long could the average mind withstand being deprived of its own existential validity?

I do have a job, Matt told himself with sudden uncertainty. He tried to think of his coworkers, but no names or faces came to mind. He could remember the office, at least how to get there and what it looked like. But he couldn’t remember his coworkers now that he actually tried to.

When I see them, it’ll all come back to me. It has to, Matt assured himself grimly, wondering if his memory would always be this patchy and hazy.

Matt consciously slowed his breathing to a steady rhythm and let his body rock with the bus’s soft turbulence. He felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks, and exhaustion filled every pore of his body as the bus’s whirrs and thumps and rocking lulled him to the edge of sleep. Hypnagogia began to trickle into his conscious thoughts, and he saw a vision of the beautiful, lithe woman from the cell standing before him. She smiled at him, and he felt his own lips curl into a smile along with hers.

A chant formed on her lips in the same foreign language she had used in Matt’s dream. Tangible calm flowed through Matt’s cells, and he began to fall easily into a heavy slumber.

“Everything will be all right,” she said just before Matt’s mind slipped fully into unconsciousness.