Los Angeles - Milo

The dreams were more frequent as the days passed on.

It had been about a week since Dad had decided to call me out of school. He’d left me on the couch of our living room, bringing me food and drinks as I’d needed them. As I tried more and more to get rest and feel better in hopes to see Liz again soon, the dreams I’d been experiencing returned, feeling less and less like dreams as the week continued.

One night, I had dreamed of being locked in a farmhouse, with the only thing I was able to do was pick up… uncomfortably large amounts of animal poop. Another night, I was in the same farmhouse, but other people were gathered around me with a hopeful look. A look that told me I was meant for something important.

Other nights, I saw the same woman getting murdered that I saw the morning I met Liz. The fight never changed, the things they said never left my mind, and it always ended with the woman fading away into sifted black dust.

The more dreams I had, the more I could see through the moment and think for myself. I could look around where I wanted to, and experience what was around me. Often, I saw a vast kingdom with patches of houses that pieced together a larger village, and towers and gates that set the boundaries of small castles. In the distance of any of my dreams, though, I could always see a massive castle with red banners and a thick stone wall in the back of my vision. I assumed a king lived in a fortress-like that, or a very rich isolationist.

One of the things I’d always been able to find, however, was Liz’s crimson bracelet. Every time I would be placed in a dream I could find the glowing loop somewhere in the other world. Whether it was worn by someone else who looked nothing like Liz or dropped to the ground where it would shatter into a flurry of glass shards, it was always there.

- -

I heard the door open before I heard Dad’s voice.

“Hey, kid,” He said, carrying a plastic bag that smelled of tomato soup, “I’m home!”

“Hi,” I smiled back at him but it faded fast when he passed by me without a response, placing the soup on a desk next to me.

“Try to get some of that in your system,” he finished as he began to leave the room. “Make sure you get some sleep, though. Let me know if you need anything.” With that, he walked away to leave me alone in the darkness of the night.

I crawled out of my layers of blankets that Dad had placed on top of me and peeled off the lid of the cup inside the plastic bag, the smell blowing out in waves with the lid’s exit. I had a couple sips, then set it back on the desk and tried to fall asleep again.

Falling asleep. It sounded so easy.

For what felt like hours, I slipped in and out of consciousness, and flashes of images from this other world came like lights to a camera flash. In one second, I closed my eyes and saw blinks of a giant bedroom, with a window showing a view of the kingdom. In another, I was looking directly at the girl with the snowy white hair, wearing the glowing loop on her wrist like any other time I saw her.

“The bracelet...” I whispered to myself as I opened my eyes.

Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room again, I saw a small shadow in the corner of the room, eyeing me from a distance. The figure noticed I’d discovered their presence, and walked closer.

“Dad-” I started to scream, assuming this was an intruder, but they jumped forward and put their hand over my mouth. With terrified eyes, I looked closer to see it was…

“Relax, Milo,” Liz said to me, not easing her hand from my mouth. “We need to talk. If I move my hand, are you going to scream?” I shook my head, and she let go.

“How did you get in here?” I asked in a whisper. Her eyes dashed from one corner of the room to the other in a panic, making me wonder what she was so worried of.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said, barely making eye contact with me.

“What’s wrong? You look scared-”

“Do you remember when we shook hands? At the fencing place?” She leaned closer to me, eyes now intense. “You saw something, right? What have you found out?”

“What?” I racked my brain in wonder of what she was asking me, but that’s when it hit me.

The dreams. She knows about them.

“Have you had any flashbacks of a kingdom or a faraway land? Someplace you don’t recognize?”

I nodded.

Her eyes widened. “Do you know who I am? Like...” She faltered. “Who I really am?”

It took me a moment, but I eventually put the pieces together. The girl who was always wearing the crimson bracelet, the one with the snowy white hair. What was her name?

“The girl… Are you the girl?”

She nodded. “Doesn’t sound like you remember everything, but it’s a start. Listen, whatever dreams or visions you might have had recently, they’re all true. Every bit of it. From the years of you being locked in a farm to learning how to fight with a sword and becoming a knight. All of it.”

“What if this is another dream,” I asked, shaking underneath my blankets, “how do I know you aren’t in my head right now?”

Liz - or whatever her real name may be - looked away for a second.

“Liz?”

I looked up, and Dad was looming over both of us, anger in his eyes. “How did you get in here?” He asked. “I’m going to need to take you back to your parents, kid.”

“No!” She screamed, and she leaped forward to grab me. “The bracelet, he has the crimson bracelet! I don’t know where it is, but you need to find it!”

With that, she lifted me up off of the couch and threw me to the ground with a slam that made my back pound to the ground.

- -

I burst awake with a gasp.

Jumping up from the couch in a sweat, I couldn’t stop a small stream of tears from leaving my shivering face. Sniffling, I wiped away my fear and took a deep breath. I crawled out of my blankets with new eyes and felt something on my arm.

Somehow, red markings were written onto my arm in a glowing cursive.

Proof that you aren’t dreaming. - Elaine

Elaine.

I tried to wipe the marks off with my other arm, but my attempts left the writing in a faint glow, illuminating the dark room.

The dark room. I looked around to see it was still nighttime, so I must have woken up a couple hours after what happened with Elaine. Did Dad take her?

From the other side of the house, I heard the door open and Dad walked into the living room. With the same plastic bag that was carrying the same cup of tomato soup.

“Hey kid,” he said, slowing down when he saw I was off of the couch. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” I said, eyeing him suspiciously. Something I never noticed until then was there was a dim red glow coming from his right pant pocket. Small, but noticeable when I knew what I was looking for.

He seemed to ignore me noticing the bracelet in his pocket because he just dropped the soup cup on the desk as he did before. “Try to get some of that in your system. Let me know if you need anything.”

As he left the room, my moment of deja vu concluded as I was left in the darkness again.

I need to find her.