I didn’t feel the exact moment I fell asleep, but I did fall asleep. That faint awareness slowly grew until my mind felt the grasp of unreality weaken. Like wearing a new set of glasses everything suddenly came into focus and I was real again.

  The same old flat surrounded me, with its familiar smells and comforting sights. Sitting on a comfortable bed, I let myself bask in comfort. I was familiar with lucid dreaming, had a few of those dreams, but this was on a new level. My mind was wide awake even within this unreal place.

  As I breathed in the air and touched the surfaces – a way to center yourself in a dream, it all turned even sharper, more vivid, even more visceral than reality. Standing up I stretched, each movement was weightless and relaxed.

  Welcome to the Mindscape

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  The letters constantly shifted as if trying to escape from my perception, changing from one to another. I waved away the annoying notification and cleared my throat.

  “Kory! Come out, Kory!” Even my voice sounded better, no longer childish.

  While I wasn’t looking the bed disappeared, replaced by a familiar girl… She was so tiny.

  “Magnus? Why are you so tall? What is this place?” Her facial features were precise and exact, sharper than the surrounding dream, as if she didn’t belong.

  “Hey, Kory.” I waved at her and snapped my fingers. A chair appeared underneath her.

  “Huh?” Her eyes darted around and she flinched and backed down, falling into the chair. “T-this… Is this a geist attack.” She pointed her palm at me. “Stay away!”

  “Relax, I am Magnus it’s just how I am in dreams.” I willed a cup of tea to appear on the table. It smelled wonderful. “Want some Earl Grey?” I took a sip, it tasted exactly the same as in my memories.

  “This never happened before… Steel doesn’t do.” She pointed at me. “That!”

  I sighed and took a seat. “Ignore the dream shenanigans and let’s get to business. How will you heal me?”

  She panted, trying to calm herself, unable to focus on one thing. I tried my best to keep the room stable focusing on sensations and trying to anchor myself. “W-well usually I just do a form and I can look at the soul projection, but this is… This looks too real.”

  “Yeah, good dreams do that. Get on with the form it’s hard to keep everything stable.”

  She shivered, averting her eyes. “I see… I’ll do my best.” Kory stood up, trying to remain calm. I sipped some more tea observing her. She could be a dream construct… That’s an annoying thought, which I vanquished as to not alter the dream.

  With flowing movements, she started dancing. Her legs and arms moved in those asynchronous patters that made the dance strangely mesmerizing. On Kory’s body blue lines started appearing, converging into her head as the girl tried her best to dance. I was so distracted the room turned muddier.

  The lines of light flickered, with incredible speed they got sucked right into her head, leaving behind only a massive knot of light. Kory stopped dancing. Pressing a palm to her head, she scratched it with precise rhythm and the world exploded into light.

  When it receded every inch of the room was covered in blue lines. Soon the lights disappeared too. I took a deep breath and spun around. Everything rapidly returned to focus, but Kory looked dizzy.

  “D-don’t do that… That hurt.” Her hands shook and her legs nearly gave out.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a red potion. “Here have some of this.”

  She stared confused, and opened the bottle. The sweet smell of strawberry tickled my nostrils. “O-okay…” Quickly she drank it. “Bleh… It’s so sweet.”

  “It’s a healing potion.” I said absentmindedly trying to reaffirm myself.

  “I don’t think it works on me.” She massaged her temples. “We need to find your soul projection… It should be somewhere.”

  Shrugging I walked towards the door outside. With a smile I jerked the door open. Instead of the dirty old hallway with the stairs, the city opened up in front of me. The foul smelling streets. They shouldn’t be smelling like that, but it didn’t matter.

  It wasn’t the entrance to my flat, it was a shitty alley I often wondered when I got drunk during my university days. “Follow me, Kory.”

  “Y-yes…” Sneaking from behind me, the tiny girl, looked around in awe and scrunched her nose. “Is this a human city?”

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  “It’s the human city.” I waved away the foul, odor, calmly walking out of the alley.

  It wasn’t Berlin in front of me, but a crazed amalgamation of streets, skyscrapers and twisting halls. The silence was deafening and the foul odor got stronger. The buildings didn’t even look good compared to the actual city. It was as if they were designed by a first year student…

  “Fuck.” They were designed by me. I remember drawing that skyscraper, how I wanted to make something showy only to be told that it was a terrible idea. All of these were made my one and only.

  “I don’t think this is a human city.” She pinched her nose, looking at the especially unfortunately shaped house.

  “I think the city was made by me.” I approached Kory. “We’re going to see it from up high.”

  “How?” She tilted her head.

  Without hesitation I scooped her up, holding the girl. She was far too light. “By flying obviously.”

  “Let me go! You can’t fly-” I jumped letting the sensation of freedom lift me. As I lost contact with the ground only my willpower moved us higher. This city was a mess torn buildings, unfinished sketches posing as reality, drawings that I did in the corner of my notebooks setting the ridiculousness higher. It was all very idiotic. And yet it brought a smile on my face.

  I ignored Kory’s shriek, observing the place. She huddled closer to me.

  “Can you stop screaming? You are ruining the atmosphere.”

  “There! There!”

  It was getting on my nerves. “What sort of dragon is afraid of flying? It should be-”

  “Look up!” I craned my neck. There, amidst the sea of stars was it… The Betrayer. Nine wings, seven heads million-phalanged fingers, it didn’t look right. It was like a mirror broken into pieces twisting in on itself.

  “Yeah, I see the guy. He won’t do anything.” I was certain. Removing doubts was crucial for lucid dreaming.

  She coughed. With a shaking voice she spoke, “No. I-I mean we need to fix it…”

  Of course my amazing dreamscape just had to be marred by that fucker. So long as it fixed my soul… “Fine. Let me get closer.”

  “G-good.” She shivered, looking away from the monster.

  Distance wasn’t a constant thing in dreams, only my perception mattered. So I flew faster and soon the massive monster was in front of me. The disgusting smell hit my nose. Like a mix of vomit, shit and rotten eggs, the bile immediately rose in my throat, making the dream fade slightly.

  I spun around. “Nooo!” Kory screamed, but it was necessary to return clarity. And so it did. The smell got worse, but now I could see every small detail of the monster. It was truly cracked.

  I snapped my fingers and stood on a platform. “Here you go.” I gently put the shivering girl there. “How do I fix this?”

  “I-i… This is impossible. Dreams aren’t like that. I-it’s…” Her heaving was getting worse.

  “Calm yourself. You’re a dragon and this is just a dream. And as anyone knows in dreams you are invulnerable.” I nodded to myself.

  “No! No you aren’t. T-this is not how anything works.” Obviously she was wrong.

  “You said you won’t be a burden! Stop freaking out and get it together.” I made the platform approach the Betrayer. It smelled even worse closer. The cracks… The smell was coming from them.

  “I-i…” Kory took a deep breath and started coughing. The smell didn’t help her. “I’ll use a technique.” She spat out the words.

  Her back straightened as she looked over the cracks. She covered her mouth as her face grew paler. “This is bad. This is really bad. You shouldn’t be alive.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that bad.” I stared at the cracks, willing them to close. It didn’t happen. “Oh… Well I guess it is bad, but I am alive and I refuse to stop.” Chuckling, I tried my best to ignore the smell.

  “You don’t understand, these cracks, they shouldn’t be here. A soul is strong, but it can’t handle being pierced.” Gently she poked the crack. My ears tickled.

  I shook my head. There were absolutely zero problems with me. She must be overestimating the severity. “Alright, so if you compare this little guy to the city, it’s basically half of a percent. Nothing close to encompassing the whole dreamscape. I should be fine.”

  Kory stared down at the city. It looked ridiculous, but it was my city. “I guess I’ve never been to a dream this… Physical.”

  A suspicion rose in my head. “Say, does species affect the way a dreamscape is shaped?”

  “O-of course it does.” She walked away from the edge of the platform, inspecting the crack again. “B-but this doesn’t match with description of other humans.”

  I nodded. “What about evolution or severe genetic engineering. Can that affect the dreamscape?”

  “I think it does. I didn’t read much about biocrafting.” Her shivering finally stopped, replaced with calm rationality.

  “Well, here’s my suspicion. You see my parents ordered excessive modification to me by someone really powerful.” I gulped, it was probably Vogelgesang. “They could’ve modified my genome to make my dreamscape really cool and durable.” My actual suspicion was different.

  “I… I never read about something like that, but it doesn’t sound impossible.” She scratched at the corner of the crack, it tickled.

  “Exactly.” My actual hypothesis was different. Humanity back on Earth had no access to starpower. It could be possible that the lack of the energy shaped our evolution. Sudden unexplained deaths in sleep still happened, but those were really rare. They could be explained by hidden geists… Maybe, just maybe my soul affected the dreamscape in a way that made it very durable. “It’s still just a conjecture though. So long as I’m alive that’s all that matters.”

  “I guess. I’ll try healing.” Her fingers started moving weirdly. I couldn’t see it precisely but they multiplied, doing movements that would be impossible outside of a dream without breaking bones. A soft glow emerged from them and the crack started closing.

  “What?!” She pressed her hands closer and the speed accelerated. “This is too fast…”

  “Fast is good!” I said, smiling. There was a weird moist sensation in the back of my head. Like having a little bit of water beneath my skull.

  “What!?” She screamed even louder. “M-my technique reached Baron…” The light intensified and the wetness spread beneath my bones. I felt like a liquid. I ran my fingers across the stony surface of the platform, trying to restore clarity. The big crack closed, revealing one of screaming faces, frozen in time.

  “L-let’s go to another one. There are so many to heal.” She tried her best not to look at the Betrayer. Without its booming voice it wasn’t even that scary.

  I willed the platform to move to another one. Her hands danced again, and the healing continued.

  “This will take a while.”

  It did. Kory was a tireless worker moving from one to another, the weird feeling of wetness did annoy me, but I ignored it. The ticklishness didn’t make me happy, but it had to be done for healing.

  Time didn’t mean anything in a dream, but crack by crack soon we reached the last one. The split leading to the core of my soul closed just as quick. When two ends met, the space became one.

  Then church bells rang. Once, twice, thrice. “W-what’s happening?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Four, five, six. I moved the platform away. Betrayer… it moved.

  Something smelled of burnt shit. I looked down. The city was on fire. Seven, eight, nine. The world shook as the monster screamed. Kory was gone that instant and I held back the urge to scream.