Image courtesy of Clayton Tonna via Unsplash.
There’s no sanctuary quite like a lucid dream. For me, they’re as steadfast and reliable as an old friend. This is extremely rare, I’ve heard. Having one dream like that is uncommon enough, let alone having them on a regular basis. Why I’m so exceptionally prone to them is a mystery. There must be something about my brain that’s different from everybody else’s. Maybe a defect. Maybe just a genetic quirk. Up until recently, it didn’t really matter. I was just another plain, middle-aged office worker, in love with a man who hadn’t spoken a dozen words to me in the three years we’d shared a subway car.
You’ll find this strange, I’m sure. You’ll wonder how I can love you when you’re only peripherally aware that I exist. But there’s so much I learned about you during those long and tedious commutes. You’re handsome. You’re well read. You’re always the first to give up your seat for the elderly. Other things I had to do a little detective work for, but once I had your name and a few other key details, it wasn’t so hard to track you down. You’ll also wonder why I didn’t introduce myself, preferring to watch you from afar. Honestly, I was afraid I would ruin it, as I’ve already done time and time again. I wanted our first meeting to be perfect. Worthy of a man like you.
It’s ironic that you first introduced me to the Blackwater Project and not the other way around. I guess I’d just never really tried to do anything with my odd little gift. Why you were willing to give up six months of your life to become Elysium’s guinea pig, I never learned. I just happened to see the application open on your laptop one day and thought it might be worth looking into. Based on your later call to your brother about subletting your apartment for six months, I presumed that you had been accepted.
Originally, I had no plan to follow your lead. Really. I just wanted to understand what you were subjecting yourself to. The whole thing made me skeptical, at least at first. Immortality through dreaming? As if you could dream yourself a new body just by thinking hard enough about it! Even now, I don’t know if I believe that part or not. For my purposes, it doesn’t really matter. What I saw was an opportunity. A chance to finally introduce myself properly, just the way I’d always imagined. Shared dreams have been documented for thousands of years, after all. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re possible. And if I had any chance to meet you there, surely it would be under Elysium’s care, where we would be connected by both proximity and the experiment we were in. No more watching you shyly from across the aisle. No more awkward exchanges or stammered apologies, as with all my other infatuations. I could meet you not as the woman I was now but as the woman I could be. What was another six months of dreary temp work in exchange for the love of a lifetime? The choice was clear.
I made a bold claim in my application, and fully expected both curiosity and skepticism. Lucid dreaming is rare enough on its own, but someone like me is practically unheard of. The nurse who interviewed me—Jenny, I think her name was—read off a barrage of questions probably intended to catch me in a lie. I likely wasn’t the first to make such a claim. However, either my answers were the ones they wanted or my omissions were intriguing. I got the acceptance email within 24 hours of my last interview. As far as Elysium knows, I was interested in the study because I wanted to see what my subconscious was capable of, and because my waking life had been a disappointment so far. That was all they needed to know, and it was even true. I was careful to cover my tracks though, just in case they had access to my Internet history. Let them consider you a crush from my younger years. Exactly the kind of person who might show up in my subconscious.
They settled me into a clean white bed, surprisingly comfy given the setting. The room was kept cold, but there was no shortage of blankets here in case I needed them. The nurse strapped me into a device she called a “life vest”, but it looked more like an enormous parasite than something meant to keep you afloat. It hurt like hell going in—pardon the language—but in a few minutes I could barely feel it. Localized anesthesia, I guessed. The famous Dr. Karasevdas must have been skeptical of my abilities because he declined to meet me personally. I was told he was watching from the observation room, but they probably tell everybody that.
Instead, I got a hologram. The production value was high, but there was something a little too reassuring about that unnatural, white-toothed smile. If I had been here for my own sake, I might have been tempted to back out. There was something odd about the whole thing, something that I felt less in my mind and more in the pit of my stomach. But when I thought of you, lying in an identical hospital bed and listening to the same hologram ramble about gods and apples, I knew I wouldn’t. What did I have to go back to?
—
The elevator picked up speed as it went along, making my stomach lurch. It was one of those birdcage elevators like you see in old movies, but this one hadn’t been repaired for a long time. The carpet stank of cigarette smoke, and the panel with all the buttons was held together mostly by grime and duct tape. Thankfully, the lobby button was already lit; I didn’t really want to touch it, even if the germs were just imaginary. The nurse said everybody started in the elevator and made their way down to the lobby. How exactly they got so many different brains to follow the same pattern is beyond me.
Down and down I went. Most of what I saw outside was empty blackness. The fluorescent glare of an overhead light would occasionally shoot past, but then it was gone before I had a chance to see much. I started watching for them and eventually caught sight of an old-fashioned office, with beige cubicles and too much wood paneling. This was my subconscious, so it all had to something. Or maybe it was just the specter of some past job I’d had, conjured up for reasons unknown.
The elevator lurched and came to a sudden halt. I waited for the doors to open. They did not. I pushed the button with the “open door” hieroglyphics on it. Still shut.
Was this supposed to happen?
That was when I noticed the padlock on the inside of the elevator doors. It was a plain combination lock, like the one on my high school locker. This was probably a test. My price of admission, so to speak. I checked my pockets for anything that might help me get through the lock. A piece of paper with the combination, or even a pair of bolt cutters. I was wearing sweatpants and a college hoodie I had lost at least twenty years ago. That meant something or other about my mental state. Maybe Dr. Karasevdas (or his lackeys) were puzzling over that detail right now. More likely though, they were waiting to see what I could do. As my grandma used to say, no pressure.
Getting the combination seemed too complicated. Sure, my mind could come up with a piece of paper with three numbers on it, but that wouldn’t help if Elysium wanted a specific combination. If they could make us all start off in an elevator, they could probably influence my dreams in other ways too. Bolt cutters would be simpler. I checked my pockets again, including the big pouch at the front of my hoodie. Empty. Maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right place, though.
Where do you usually find bolt cutters, Julia?
Honestly, I wasn’t sure. In a toolbox? Well, it didn’t have to be accurate to real life. The important thing was that it was reasonably believable. Closing my eyes, I thought about a toolbox on the floor of the elevator. After a few moments I checked the floor. No toolbox. Nothing.
It was clear I was dreaming. That knowledge usually let me do whatever I wanted, but things might be different here. They had given me who knows what drugs before putting me under. Worse, I had let them! I could wake up blind and deaf at the end of this session and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Assuming I’d wake up at all. I’d already signed the paperwork. Like an idiot, I’d signed their liability and maybe even my own life away.
I had to figure this out. These did not seem like forgiving people. They might not give me a second chance. Closing my eyes again, I knelt down and felt around for the toolbox. I had to believe it would be there. Did I believe? Keeping my eyes shut was the best way to let my brain catch up. It was my best and only solution. It had to work. If it didn’t, would they let me go afterwards? What was this place, this Elysium? What did they do to people who failed the test? No, I couldn’t think about that now. I had to focus. The toolbox would be there, and the bolt cutters inside it. Just as I imagined it. I felt my way around the bottom of the elevator, going in a circle to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Nothing. Still nothing. It would be here, I would MAKE it be here. Another circle. The carpet felt gritty under my palms. I went on. Another full circle. It couldn’t have been less than that. How many more times would I have to—
My hand brushed against something with a cold metal edge. Yes. There it was. I fumbled with the latch, not wanting to open my eyes and risk the box being empty. When I reached inside, I found something heavy and cool to the touch. Finally, I opened my eyes. I had started crying at some point during the ordeal, but that didn’t matter. I had my bolt cutters. I passed the test.
—
They told me to expect a lobby, but this place didn’t look like it had been used as one for decades. You could see the bones of an elegant Art Deco building, but everything was coated with a thick layer of grime. The furniture had been shredded, and the floor was covered with garbage and broken glass. The back wall was all windows, but most of them were broken. Sunlight streamed in from the overgrown garden beyond. After the ordeal of the elevator, it was all I could do not to throw myself onto one of the broken sofas and sob. Instead, I dried my tears and took a few tentative steps into the lobby.
You weren’t there, thank God. I needed to get cleaned up before we met. In other dreams this would have been trivial, but I had learned the hard way that things worked differently here. I needed to make sure the changes stuck, and for that I needed a mirror. After so many years of staring at all my imperfections, I would have thought my subconscious would give me one. However, there was nothing on the walls but peeling wallpaper.
Closing my eyes again, I pictured a large mirror and myself reflected in the glass. I concentrated as hard as I could, imagining the gilded frame and even the little dark spots where the reflective coating had faded. Sometimes it worked better if you imagined something so it matched the environment you were in. I was a little afraid to open my eyes, in case I found just a blank wall waiting for me. Much to my surprise, the mirror appeared on the first try. I thought the woman staring back at me in it was a stranger, but there was something unnervingly familiar about her too. Then I recognized her features as my own, but altered somehow. She was a little taller than me and about fifteen pounds slimmer, with hair that was a glossy chestnut instead of my salt and pepper gray. Her face was slimmer too, with high cheekbones and a youthful complexion. She wore a long white dress dotted with tiny purple flowers and a broad-brimmed hat. I looked down and found myself in the same dress, my stomach now perfectly flat like hers was. Who knew where my brain had dredged all this up from? Probably the brief Gunne Sax revival of the late 2020s, or some historical romance novel I’d consumed and then forgotten about.
I got back in the elevator and looked at the rows upon rows of buttons to push. Most of them were numbered in the normal way, but some had symbols or other strange pictures I couldn’t identify. In a dream, one often knows things without knowing why, so when I pressed the button for floor 17, I had a good feeling about finding you there. As I made my way further downward, I began to concentrate on my destination, imagining it as clearly as I could. It was ambitious of me, but I couldn’t have us meet just anywhere. The mood, the setting, all of it had to be just right.
The elevator came to a halt, then slowly opened its doors. The scene unfolded before me like a flower. It was beautiful, more than even I could have imagined. A brilliant sunset stretched high above a beach of flawless white sand. Behind me was a large and brightly lit mansion, where the sounds of guests and orchestral music melded into a pleasant undercurrent. And there you were, a silhouette against the dying light.
My skirt whipped up behind me in the wind as I approached. I had decided long ago what I would say, but it all seemed so trite now. What words could express the depth of love I feel for you?
“Where am I?” you asked, confusion overtaking your handsome face. “I was just in the lobby, and—”
“This is a special place. Just for us.”
“But I don’t know who you are.”
I smiled and took his hand in mine.
“Of course not, dearest. We’ve only just met.”
This story is part of the Blackwater Files shared universe. There have been some really interesting stories written in this setting, so I’d recommend checking them out!
I love the idea of familiar strangers. We see them all the time. Commuting, or in our neighborhoods. If you're a people watcher, you can know these people intimately pretty quickly. I've thought about writing a story on this for a long time. I'm happy you captured it here and cross polinated it with her dream world and the Blackwater universe. Super well done. Thank you.
Oh that's very very good. Hooked me right from the beginning.