Chapter 8: A Dream Within a Dream - A Dream of Waking Life

Calm, Matt told himself as he woke from the dream. Stay calm. They can probably see my heart rate from those offices.

He kept his eyes closed and breathed steadily. He needed time to consider everything – to critically analyze his very existence.

This feels real, Matt considered. But the middle-aged game developer sees his world as the real world, and though the video game character recognizes his world as a dream, his world seems perfectly real too.

Matt gulped hard. And when I go back to being them, I’ll think back to myself now, and it will seem perfectly obvious that I’m just a dream.

His heart rate threatened to quicken, but he willfully slowed it with his breath.

Breathe. Just breathe. I need to understand!

All three of these people...they are all me. They all seem perfectly real. But...I am me. I’m not those others. They’re just dreams…

Matt opened his eyes momentarily, taking in the stars shimmering in mad defiance against the infinite darkness outside the windows.

When all reality checks fail, then what? When a dream is as real as reality, is it not true reality? The only reason we call reality real is because we can compare it to our dreams – the unreal – and because when we die, there’s no coming back. So then, by that logic, the video game world can’t be real. I can die there and come back. But that leaves me and the video game designer. Neither of us have died...as far as I can remember. Is that the only way to know for sure?

Matt couldn’t help his heart rate this time. He looked back at the machine and saw a small yellow warning light flashing beside scrolling cardiography lines.

Do I have to die to know? Matt searched his mind, wishing it could answer him on its own accord.

He lifted his arms and let his eyes scan the length of an azure vein extending like a braided cord from wrist to inner elbow.

Am I the dreamer? Or am I the dream that wakes to being the dreamer?

He lifted himself onto one arm and peered through the windows behind him. A small distance separated the windows from what appeared to be a glacier wall of ice blocking the entire view of the sky from where Matt was lying. Between the ice wall and the corridor’s exterior, a blizzard raged so violently that he thought he could hear the arctic gales, but then his mind would return to the near perfect silence of the infinite corridor, reinforcing that those sounds were all in his mind.

His eyes locked on something in the blizzard. There were figures out there. Other people. Two others.

Who?

Matt lifted an arm in an unlikely attempt to get their attention. To his surprise, they waved at him.

Are there really people out there? Or is this just part of my mind’s corroded confusion?

Doubting the reality of people just standing and waving as an unearthly storm raged around them, Matt lowered his arm, and the figures did the same.

Will I ever know what’s real? Matt begged his mind, but it could offer no reprieve from the chaos of ignorance.

“You’re up,” a nurse said cheerfully, approaching Matt without him noticing. “Let’s just take care of that,” she practically sang.

“Just...just give me a moment,” Matt pleaded weakly.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Willish,” she said with genuine-sounding regret. “You know we can’t do that. You’ve got to remain asleep.”

Asleep! So this is real! The other selves – they’re just dreams! This is...the real world?

Matt thought of May and saw her in his head, walking toward him to offer him the powdered blue pill.

May...that means she’s a dream? She can’t be...just a dream.

Matt gasped, his chest pounding in protestation against the possibility.

“Tell me,” Matt said evenly, not wanting to alarm the nurse into urgency as she worked slowly and pleasantly, preparing her syringe. “Is this the real world? Am I...awake?”

The nurse smiled with her eyes and placed a gentle hand on Matt’s shoulder, imbuing him with supernatural warmth.

“I can only imagine how disorienting this must be, Mr. Willish,” she offered sweetly. “But we’re very close. “Doctor Heron thinks we’re almost there. So, just lie back, okay? It’ll all be all right.”

“Doctor Heron?” Matt gasped as she injected the syringe into his IV.

My fucking therapist?

The nurse smiled with her eyes, offering only beautiful confusion.