Lucid (5 page)

Day 4

Morning

I awoke the next morning to my alarm blasting extra loud. I had set it even louder than normal to see if that would wake me up. I did not want to sleep past noon again; my mom would think I was turning into Kyle Jr
.

“Can you shut that thing off
?
” Kyle was pounding on my door. “It's still the weekend!” Like he cared; he didn't have a job. Every day was the weekend for Kyle.

“
Okay
!” My voice was less hoarse this morning. I turned off my alarm and got out of bed. I brushed my teeth, got dressed, and went to the living room for some TV. It wasn't until I flipped through the channels that I realized something was off. I stopped on the news channel — which I would never normally do — when I saw a list of more “human shell” victims.

I didn't go to the spaceship last night
.

I racked my brain trying to remember any dream. I think I had a little of my old nightmare about dinosaurs eating people at school but no space-related dreams at all. Part of me was relieved; I didn't have to deal with remembering those creepy souls or that woman in the blue suit. I was also a little annoyed. Now that Mitch and I caused trouble, were we banned from seeing the ship again? How could we explain to people what was going on if we no longer had proof? Then again, how would we get proof anyway?

I thought back to how Mitch had taken his clipboard into the dream. Could we bring things out of the dream, as well? I wondered if I'd ever have a chance to test my hypothesis.

I decided to cut my TV time short and tell Tiff that I didn't have a dream last night. On my way back to my room, Kyle poked his head out of his door
.

“Mom we
nt to get us donuts.”

That was Kyle's form of good morning
.

“Oh, cool
.
” I shrugged. Mom usually got us donuts on Sunday morning. Kyle hadn't slammed his door shut to hibernate yet. Something was up
.

“She told me to tell you that she got the jam-filled o
nes that you like.”

That was the second sentence Kyle said to me before noon. Things were far from normal
.

“Oh, thanks.” This was getting a little strange for my taste. I started backing away to my room. “I'm gonna go check my e
-
mail—”

“Glad to see you're n
ot getting the flu or something
.
” Kyle cut me off. For a split second I saw what I thought was concern in his eyes. I guess he noticed, because he then sai
d, “
B
ecause my friends are coming over later, and I don't want you puking all over them.”
Then he slammed his door shut
.

Now
that's the Kyle I've grown to know and deal with. Still, the fact that Kyle noticed something was wrong with me wasn't good. That meant those dreams had really shaken me up. I was beginning to think not returning to them would be the best thing
.

By the time I turned on my computer, I already had about fifty messages from Tiff. Evidently, Mitch told her about his dreams first thing in the morning a
fter his rowing team practice. Seriously, rowing was actually a sport? I guess I was still ticked off at Mitch, but that sounded pretty lame to me. He hadn't dreamed about the spaceship either. Both Mitch and Tiff thought that the woman, and whoever else belonged to Chimera
, found a way to keep us from entering the ship
.

Tiff was firing away after she realized I was online. She didn't seem too worried that Mitch and I didn't dream of the ship. In fact, she was anticipating something like this
.

“I mean, if you were secretly putting people into comas and two kids stumbled upon your work, woul
dn't you try to keep them out?”

“I guess
—” I typed back, “
—
b
ut does that mean I can't get back in the ship? They'll keep blocking me, won't they?”

“Not necessarily
.
” Tiff typed a little slower than usual “
Y
ou'll just have to practice lucid dreaming on your own.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course; I've been trying to do it myself.” There was a long pause before Tiff typed again
. “I mean, I haven't had any luck, but since you and Mitch can do it naturally, you might be able to master it quicker. I've been looking up some ways to do it. The best I've found is meditation
.
” S
he stopped typing. I patiently waited for her to continue, because I had no idea how I was going to go about
meditating. I could only sit still if I was working on something interesting, like chemistry or a drawing. Sitting still with my eyes closed muttering some phrase was going to be torture
.

By the time Tiff responded, my mom came home. She knocked on my door before poking her head in. I never had time to say “Come on in!” in my house
.

“I'm back with breakfast!” s
he announced. “Did Kyle wake up to tell you I got your favorite?”

“Yeah, he did, thanks, Mom.”

My mom looked surprised that Kyle had gotten up to talk to me
.

“He went back to sleep, though,” I explained before she was too disappointed to find her eldest son still doing nothing with his life.

“Oh, well, that's more like him.” She smiled a little. I liked my mom best on Sundays. She didn't have work or errands, and she never made plans with her friends. She was much more relaxed and smiled a lot more often. Sundays were our family days and we often did something together
.

“Yeah, I don't know why he talked to me
,
” I said, though I knew it was because of those crazy dreams
.

“I guess he was worried about you
.
” Now my mom was looking concerned. “Apparently you looked
really sick yesterday when you got up. Kyle also told me how the ‘human shell' business on the news really upset you.”

“Oh
.
” I hadn't realized Kyle was worried enough to tell my mom anything. Usually, Kyle and I kept our problems to ourselves. It had been that way since our father left.

I don't really remember my father, but Kyle was old enough to
recall when he left. I just know that my mom was really upset after he left
; she still had brief periods of that sadness. Kyle and I made a silent vow to not upset Mom if we could avoid it. The fact that he broke that vow must've meant he was really worried about me. I had only visited the ship three times. What would I look like after seeing it for weeks? Would my family be even more worried about me? I was beginning to think that not dreaming of that place was a better option. It wasn't my fault those people were turning into shells. Besides, I was practically useless compared to Mitch. He was a better hero.

“I'm fine, Mom,” I assured her
.

“Well, if something's really bothering you, promise me you'll let me know, okay
?” m
y mom asked, raising her eyebrows in concern.

“I promise
,
” I told her. “I'l
l be right down for breakfast.”

“
Good
.
” M
y mom smiled before closing the door. I heard her pounding on Kyle's door, telling him to get up
.

I turned my attention back to my computer screen and saw Tiff had sent me several more IMs. A few of them described meditation.

“So, I gotta practice these steps before bed?” I typed back.

“Finally!” Tiff immediately typed. “I was beginning to think you'd been kidnapped by the lady in the blue suit in real life or something! You have to meditate a couple of times a day to get used to it.”

“Where'd you read this stuff?”

“I didn't
.
” Tiff added a ticked-
off-looking emoticon. “My mom came in and saw I was talking to you about meditation. She added most of the stuff, because she and my dad have been taking these deep calming classes. She naturally thinks she's a meditation master now.”

I smiled to myself. That sounded like something Tiff's parents would get into. My mom was already doing yoga; I bet some sort of relaxation class was the next step.

“My mom also said that learning by example is the best way to get the hang of it.” Tiff continued typing. “She said you can come over later if you want to learn the basics.”

“Um, that's alright
,
” I typed, hoping I didn't sound too rude. I lik
ed Tiff's mom, but I don't think I'd want to practice meditating with anyone. I'd look like such an idiot. “I'll just read these over and try it tonight.”

“
Well, that's good
, but it might help if you look up some videos of people meditating
,” Tiff added. “I gotta go right now, but keep me updated if you dream of the ship again!” She signed off
.

I got out of my chair and stretched. I'd look at the meditation stuff later. For now, I had some jam donuts with my name on them. The ship could wait. In fact, I was already secretly hoping I wasn't going to enter that thing again at all.

.

Day 4

Night

Don't you hate that the best days always go by the quickest? A Monday at school feels like it lasts for a month. On the flip side, the Christmas holidays go by in seconds. Now that I was dreading going to sleep it seemed time had decided to go by five times as fast. Before I knew it, I was coming out of the shower and turning in early to prepare myself for another week as a C.I.T. I also had to prepare myself for the chance of boarding the ship. I might come face-to-face with that creepy woman again.

I tried meditating for about three seconds. The main focus of Tiff's instructions was to monitor my breathing and inhale/exhale for longer periods of time. I don't know if you've tried meditating, but monitoring your breathing is a lot harder if you're paying attention to it. I bet you're timing your breaths right now. Five seconds ago, your body had it under control and you were breathing freely. Now, you're holding your breath unnecessarily and rapidly exhaling after. It's annoying isn't it? I really couldn't see how this was going to help me be in control of my dreams again. I figured I should ask Tiff if she had any tips about how to do it. She was always online at night. As soon as I logged in, someone IM
'
d me. To my surprise it wasn't Tiff.

It was Mitch.

“You're finally on!” Mitch typed to me. “I've kept my laptop on all day so I could catch you. Tiff told me you didn't dream last night, either.”

“No
.
” I didn't know what else to say. I wasn't directly talking to Mitch, but it still made me feel bad about messing up on the bus. I wondered if Mitch was thinking about that, too
.

“Weird, I bet that woman has something to do with that
.
” Mitch was typing again. “Did Tiff tell you about meditating to get back into the ship?”

“Yeah, I was trying it earlier.” I wanted him to make sure I was still trying to help out, though not very well. “How are you doing with it?”

“I tried it too, but my housemates were making fun of me,” Mitch admitted. “I kinda feel stupid doing it, you know?”

“Yeah, it's weird.” I was glad I wasn't the only one having problems. “Tiff said to look up videos of people meditating. She said it might help us get an idea of what we're supposed to do.”

“Hopefully,” Mitch replied. “But, I kind of don't want to go back… I mean I feel bad for all those people on the ship, but it was nice to just sleep for once. I've been tired after the dreams, like I wasn't really sleeping.”

“Yeah, me too.” I was surprised Mitch admitted all of this to me. Maybe he felt bad for bossing me around last time
.

“But if we do end up on the ship, we should have a plan.” Mitch typed a little more quickly. “I'm going to bed in a hoodie tonight, so I can hide my face if I need to. I think disguising ourselves would give us more time to look around the ship. Maybe we could even find out where those people are being taken.”

I didn't know how to respond to that. The ship was scary enough, but the idea of going somewhere else was completely insane. If we did manage to sneak past that woman and get into some sort of headquarters, what would we do next? Should I try to dream my baseball bat into the ship for extra protection, too?

“What do you think?” Mitch was typing again. “I mean, I think we should still help those people out. We're the only two people who are conscious in the dream
. We're lucid for a reason, and we should use that to help.”

Even through typing, Mitch was a persuasive speaker. It was no wonder the souls were so willing to write their names on his clipboard. He was a natural leader, and he wanted to make a difference
.

“I'll sleep with my hoodie,” I assured him
. “
A
nd I'll practice meditation.” I didn't add that I doubted it would do any good
.

“
Well
, hope to see you in your dreams.” Mitch signed off.

I was glad I didn't have to agree with that one
.