My body jolted and I hit my knee on the table. I cursed under my breath and Jace was trying not to make a sound while Michael covered his mouth and snorted, not wanting to alert Julia who was in the middle of knocking on Iria's door,"Iria, your friends are here to see you."

When she came out, she looked like a mess. Her hair was all over the place, her clothes were wrinkled, and she had creases on her face from the bed. Then she just glared at us,"You're the guys."

"We're the guys,"I said,"Wanna grab some coffee?"

She nodded, still dazed,"Give me a second."

A second turned into ten minutes. When she came out, her hair was still all over the place and her clothes were less wrinkly and baggier. I would've mistaken her for a guy, albeit a short one. Julia waved as we headed out, hands full dealing with her hair.

We got outside before she hit us with the infamous question,"Why're the guys from my dream here?"

"Coffee, Iria,"I said,"Everything is better explained over coffee. Free coffee for you, in fact.”

Michael groaned,”I hope you’re the one who is paying. I didn’t even want to leave the dorms today.”

“No! You'd keep drinking without me! We're supposed to watch movies later, too,”I pushed him but ended up almost knocking myself over when he didn’t budge.

Jace took a step away,"They fight a lot but they're as close as it gets."

When we got to the coffee shop, the boss waved, motioning to the table closest to the door to the kitchen. He personally came to collect our order,"What can I get for you lovely lads today?"

I went for the regular mint latte, not bothering with the menu plagued with colorful stickers. Michael got some weird caramel drink from the menu that was loaded with buzzwords and covered in special puffy stickers courtesy of our immature boss. Jace got one of the special, limited edition drinks. Iria took a while -a good while- before ordering the most chocolate-loaded drink on the menu.

"Lovely! I'll get your drinks ready and then I'll be here to talk with our guest,"he went through the door and the machines started whirring.

Iria twiddled her thumbs,"So, is he the guy who is going to explain any of this to me?"

“No. He’s our boss and he just manages things in this area,”I said,”This is a surprisingly common event, people falling into Dogmata and all that. He has to keep track of names."

“Hal, she doesn't know what that is,”Michael reminded me.

"I know, let me get to it, geez,"I tapped Jace’s shoulder,”He’ll explain the basics.”

Jace rolled his eyes,”Dogmata is like the world of the mind. It’s not the world of the living or dead. You got there because you were traumatized enough and your perspective of the world was warped enough over time. I bet you can’t remember your nightmare aside from us because we were invading, too.”

“Extracting,”Michael corrected,”Don't make it sound so criminal.”

Iria did not look any less confused nor any more informed,"What?"

“It’s a lot to take in but, if you keep at it, it’s no different than learning where your food comes from. A little disturbing but something that just happened to change,”the boss distributed drinks before sitting down,”Sorry for the wait. My boss pours money into this storefront so I have to at least pretend to care about it."

He slid a slip of paper to her from across the table,"You're not going to try to convince me to join you little whatever this is?"

“No. If you want to do so, you need to come to that decision on your own. No offense, but we don’t want to drag around dead weight,”he said,”Overextending yourself is the easiest way to end up with mind rot. You essentially lose everything that makes you who you are until you’re just a drooling, hollow shell one step above brain dead.”

As rude as it might’ve sounded, it was true. If you’ve been a part of it for even half a year, you’ll have met someone who was taken by mind rot. It’s always the experienced ones, too. One of the new guys gets too chicken and ends up putting themselves in danger one way or another. My mentor was one of them.

After I'd graduated from needing to be monitored, his next mentee caused him to push himself a little too far. His dogma was a tragically beautiful sea, reminiscent of the one that nearly claimed his life when a freak storm hit his ship. It started with spacing out, so no one knew. As the memories started to fade away, we all surrounded him until his last memory left him. It was of his son that he lost on the same ship. I think I cried for an hour when he forgot my name and face. His remaining family threw him into a home and forgot about him until he died and his will was released. In his will, I inherited his son's stuff that he'd locked away in storage.

"I'm going to need time to think about it, is that okay?"Iria asked,"I don't want to say yes or no yet."

"That's fine,"the boss took the piece of paper from her and exchanged it for a card with his information on it,"Just remember, you will pull your weight or you will get someone killed."

Everyone left, all of us paying for our overpriced and underwhelming drinks except Iria. Jace had his hands in his pockets,"I'm not... I'm not making you push too much for me, am I?"

I laughed,"As if. You're more than capable than most people I’ve worked with.”

Iria looked at me,"You're his mentor?"

"Yeah,"I said,"It had nothing to do with age. I've been diving since I was eleven."

“Can you take me into Dogmata? So I can see if I want to?”she asked.

"Nuh uh. No way,"I said,"That's stupid, dangerous, and too much work. Plus, it's against all the rules.”

"You could've just said no!"she kicked my shin,"Why're you so rude?"

Inhale, exhale. Nice and slow. Don't murder a child.

“Because if you take it lightly, you could die,”I explained,”Gates are ranked from S to D because boss is an absolute webcomic-loving nerd. Your gate was easily a D, maybe a C. If we accidentally got bumped into an area ranked too high for you, you’d get crushed under the tides of Dogmata and reduced to nothing but another wisp of thought in a sea of consciousness.”

“Is it that bad?”she asked.

“Yes, Iria. That is very bad.”

Michael patted my back,”Ignore him. He’s an absolute mother hen and professional worry wort. Boss says he’s a rank S diver so he'd find a way to keep you safe no matter what. That is if he's forced to drag anyone along.”

“Don’t use his ridiculous ranking system,”I mumbled.

“What about me?”Jace asked Michael.

He shrugged,”Boss doesn’t talk about you so probably a D or a C.”

“That sucks.”

Once we got back to the dorms, everyone scattered to their rooms. Michael crashed in my room, taking up my whole bed and leaving me nowhere to sit except in the desk chair. Because I was there, I ended up pulling up another piece of paper and attempting to write another speech. More poetics, more dissatisfaction.

“This one bothered you quite a bit, didn’t it?”Michael asked.

I nodded,”It was probably her pa, but it looks like it was a neglect-abuse combo. He held the belt like a whip.”

“Are you okay?”

I lightly kicked his leg,”I’m fine. It just caught me off guard.”

“I can tell,”he sat up,”You forgot to complain about the lack of whipped cream in your latte.”

“That cheapskate got me this time.”