(Tanner's POV)

Today feels like it’s been too long before I walk back into my home. It’s already dark as the days have been getting darker fast.

“Hey, baby, how was your day?” Mom greets me as she is cooking something when I walk through the door.

I know that once again, there is too much that I can’t tell her, so I give her the same script I have for the past few weeks. Even though she knows about the clinic, she doesn’t know the exact depth of it, nor of what they’ve made me into.

“It’s been good. It got busy today, so Nick was thankful that I went back today."

She’s quiet for a moment before responding as she stirs something that takes me a few seconds longer to register as macaroni.

Ooo, my favorite.

Did she make that for me?

‘Not everything is about you.’

Okay, but still, she might have? That’s not too unreasonable to think.

I try to push the negative thoughts out of my head before I hear Callie come into the kitchen.

“Oh, hey, Tanner, great, I was wondering if maybe-"

“Callie, how bout we let your brother come in and give him a moment before we ask him for anything, yeah?" Mom cuts her off, and she looks down guiltily for a moment.

“Right, uh, sorry. I’ll ask you later.”

I feel bad because even though, yeah, I want to take a moment for myself, I know that whatever she wanted to ask probably has been bouncing around her head all day. We’re very much the same in that way to where we have a tendency to have a thought nag at us, and forget to let someone breathe before we shove that same thought onto them to get it off of us. It’s not meant to be selfish or mean, though it comes off that way often.

“No, it’s fine, Mom. What is it, Callie?”

“I was, uh, I just wanted to know if maybe you’d be okay taking Sinka and I to a concert in March. I know it’s pretty far off, but I figured it would make it easier for you to tell Nick, and we’re trying to figure things out so that we can book our tickets soon before the passes run out. Sinka is trying to get her mom to help out with hers, but she said she would only do it if we can find a chaperone, and I need to pick up extra babysitting to pay for mine. Mom, do you know if Catrina is needing help with Seth soon?” She looks at Mom, and it almost makes me laugh because her thoughts really are from one thing to the next at the moment.

“I’ll take you, yeah. Thank you for the heads up.” I respond before Mom does.

“Not that I know of at the moment, but I’ll ask her. I do think, though, that Abeth is looking for a new babysitter if you want me to ask her. She has two daughters, and a son. About Seth’s same age.”

“Ooo, yeah, I’d love to and let her know that I’m CPR registered if that helps her any.”

The rest of the night goes by like it usually does as I help Mom with dishes after we eat and Callie with some of her homework before I work a little on story boarding a comic I’ve been working on the past couple of years with my friend Micheal. Someone I didn’t know I knew longer than we realized until recently. Somehow, many of us seem to keep crossing paths in each other's lives unknowingly.

It takes me longer than Callie and Mom to get to sleep, and though I contemplate if I should still be following orders from the clinic, I decide, at least for tonight, not to, and just go to sleep. No rituals, no anchors, no anything that should make me try to be lucid or pull me to Madison like I’ve been told to do. I let my dreams be dreams.

I find myself in a place full of doors. I can’t place where I know it from, just that I know I’ve been here before. I walk up to a door and open it to notice that it leads outside during the night before I close it.

No, that’s not right.

I’m not sure how I know it’s not or even what I’m looking for beyond that I do. I skip the next door as it has this deep sense of fear radiating off of it and go to the next one instead. This door leads to a forest full of laughing that turns into what sounds like monkeys cackling.

Nope.

I’m about to open the one across from it before I stop just shy from touching the handle and close my eyes instead to feel where the right door is. I picture one at the very end of the hall and head straight to it when I open my eyes back. I don’t even question it as I open the door and walk straight through.

Something feels wrong here. Not like it’s the wrong place, but that even though I’m supposed to be here, there is something here that doesn’t want me to be. I can’t place where the feeling is coming from. It’s as if it’s in the air.

I walk through a grassy field as I notice purple flowers with multiple heads sprouting up from the ground. As I go to pick one out of the grass, I hear laughter and look up to see two kids running around while laughing. I know them but am not sure how. Something else that, just is.

There’s a boy with black hair chasing a girl with long blond hair. The boy tags the girl before she starts chasing him and trips. She starts crying, and I rush over to her to help her. I want to make sure she’s okay.

“Hey, it’s okay.” I don’t know how old I am, but I feel as if we are the same age, so I must be a kid too.

She’s crying as she holds up her elbow, and I see that she scraped it pretty bad and try to think of how to help her feel better before I remember that I have a first aid kit in my backpack that I didn’t have a moment ago.

“Here, I can help.” I tell her before the other boy comes running back to us.

“Are you okay?”

I know she nods as I can picture it in my head while I grab the first aid kit out of my bag.

“Here.” I say as I begin to pull out a bandaid and some ointment to help her not get infected.

“Thank you.” she tells me before the boy chimes in too.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.

“It wasn’t you; I tripped.”

I nod as I remember seeing her trip.

“It wasn’t your fault. Accidents happen.” I tell him as I put the band aid on the girl and she smiles.

Once she is all better, I help her up, and this time as they play, I join them. I’m not sure how long it is before I start to walk off hiding when we play hide and seek. I get distracted when I find a path that leads somewhere else. It makes me forget where I was but remember that I’m supposed to be going to the park that I see not too far away.

As I head that way, I watch the clouds and notice something off about them. Almost as if something about them is off which makes me look around me to see if something else is wrong. I notice a butterfly as instead of flying like it should be, it’s almost gliding instead.

That’s not right.

But it’s the fact that I notice that I’m wearing a bracelet that my dad gave me, but I lost two years ago that finally makes me lucid.

I’m dreaming.

And then I notice someone on the swings at the playground in front of me that is unmistakably Madison, which is saying something because sometimes even if someone is right in front of you, they aren’t always wearing their face. Whether it be sometimes your mind putting a glimmer on them, or they do to purposely try and deceive you.

But I can tell that it’s Madison by face, and by instinct.

When I get to the swings, I take the one next to her.

“You know, they say that if you close your eyes, it’s almost like you're actually flying.” I tell her trying to see if she recognizes me, or even where she’s at mentally.

“I know, and I love the way it sometimes makes my stomach flip. Is that weird?”

When she says that, it seems like maybe she’s still unaware at the moment. Which makes sense since I have never known her to be.

I try to keep things playful to still figure things out.

“Really weird, but there’s nothing wrong with being a little weird.”

But that’s when I see it.

I thought that I fixed you?

There’s a string that comes out of her chest, or more so, two, but the one in particular I’m concerned with was cut from her the last time she was awake. It’s a soul tie she has with Liam. Only this time, it seems to be weirdly tangled to the one she has with Peter more so than it was before.

“What is it?”

She asks me as I walk closer to her to see more so the pinkish string tangled into the red one. We often have ties to those we are close to that seemingly pull us to each other… I’m realizing now that it’s probably why we all often find ourselves crossing paths even when we are oblivious to each other. Madison and I even had a tie together that I had to cut last time to free her from me, but Liam's and Peter’s are the only ones I’ve ever seen tangled. Last time and now.

But why? And how is it back?

“Do you mind?”

I ask her knowing that she can’t even see it. You have to have a specially trained sense to see the spiritual that bleeds into the dream realm that I know she wasn’t trained for. It starts out with a strong sense before sight eventually breaks through that’s similar to seeing the spiritual realm when you're awake. Out of all of us, though, Madison was the most reluctant to let the clinic manipulate her.

“Sure.” I can feel the confusion in her voice but take it enough as permission to grab the soul tie.

I can picture memories that run through it and wonder how they are filling it when like I said, I cut it already. It feels weird to experience someone else's memories, and even weirder to experience her memories with Liam, but I know that I need to cut it again.

I won’t lie, there was a time before I was jealous, but now, I want her to heal from this. To be able to move on like she deserves to.

She deserves to be happy.

And after last time, I know that this is only going to make her miserable.

‘No.’ (GOld)

The thought is clear enough for me to know it’s God, and that only confuses me.

What? Why?

I don’t understand why He would want me to leave it. But still I drop it anyway before Madison jumps in confused.

“What is it?”

“It’s just… Nothing, don’t worry about it.” I try to play it off realizing that she won't understand, and we should be able to move on in a second or two.

Only, she doesn’t forget and move on like I expect and instead picks up the soul tie.

“What is this?”

I look at her confused at how she even knew enough to pick it up. This makes me watch her more carefully

But, how?

“It’s uh, it’s nothing.” I still try to play it off even though I can see it clearly in her hands but am uncertain if she does as she seems to have trouble focusing on it.

“Tanner! Just, tell me. I’m tired of everyone lying to me all the time.” 

I notice someone next to her that seems to come out of nowhere. Peter, but not the right one. I don’t understand what fully is happening, but I am starting to wonder if maybe she is awake like the clinic suspects she is.

“It’s a soul tie…” I tell her, reluctantly.

“How do you know that?” Her eyes narrow at me, and I know that there is more happening with her than I know.

“Madison, are you awake because the clinic thinks that you might be.” I ask instead of answering because right now, it’s more important that I know the answer than she does.

“Are you working for them?” She accuses me, and though it’s the truth, it still hurts.

“We all are one way or another. But… you can trust me. I’m not going to tell them if you're awake. But you also can’t let anyone else know, and this is the only place that has ever been safe from them” I want to protect her because we are still friends, no matter how little she might remember of me.

“And how do I know this isn’t all just a dream? I mean, that is what this is, isn’t it?” her question confuses me of if she is lucid or not because she seems like she is, but also like she might only partially be?

I think of the flower I saw a moment ago and use it to be a sign. It can be hard to tell sometimes as most anything can be manipulated or forgotten, so I’m hoping if I have one steady thought that I give her now and when I see her awake, she’ll remember, and I pray that it won't be replicated by her attachment or any other.

“How about every time we meet, I’ll give you one of these, and you'll know that just because it’s a dream doesn’t mean that it’s not also real.”

“Okay?” She looks at me puzzled as I hand her the purple flower.

“I think it’s about time for you to wake up.”

Instinctually I know that it’s about the time she normally wakes up. Because even though this is the first time we’ve dreamt together in a while, I have been linking my schedule to hers for when we did.