Chapter Twenty Eight - The Supreme Illusion
Project 86Chapter Twenty Eight - The Supreme Illusion
Regardless of the downcast atmosphere and the loss of the cities iconic building, there was a new spring and lightness to the step of the people. Everybody had expected that the show would be cancelled and that the criminals that were responsible for this would get away with their treacherous acts, but it had been recently announced that the show would continue and that the investigation was running fast with new important leads leading them to the right track.
Sunny Illusoré and Chic Sooyoung would perform their last grand finale at the cities major Castle Park, a central and open location that would fit thousands of people to watch. The event was also free to enter for all; the grounds filled with food stalls for munching and trinket tents full of wondrous items to purchase. It would be a festival day that would bring the whole city together for a cause, something that both Sunny and Sooyoung hoped could become a regular thing; to turn the tragedy into joy.
The day after the fire Sunny and Sooyoung had requested to have a meeting with the Governor of the city and Sir Isaac Isambard. At the meeting they had suggested an idea that had pulled both of them in immediately; hook, line and sinker.
They would hold a festival day at Castle Park where various performances, food and stalls could be brought. It would be free entry for all to come see and the grand finale for the night would be Sunny’s knew illusion she had been working on. All the profits after covering the cost from the city run stalls would go towards the rebuilding of the Hippodrome and citizens could willingly donate to the cause. Private citizens would be allowed to rent sales slots and stalls at the park and get to keep their profits, but all stall rents would also go towards the rebuilding of the icon of the city.
The idea of this charity event had both of them onboard at once; the Governor for gathering the people and lifting the cities spirits all the while reducing the spending of tax money on the rebuilding of the Hippodrome. Equally Sir Isambard was enticed by this idea for reduced reconstruction cost of the Hippodrome. Sunny and Sooyoung also suggested that once the construction was funded, this same event could be held every year for various charitable causes; building of new schools and hospitals and homes for the elderly. It could become something larger, a chance for everyone to join together to give to one another and contribute to the betterment of everyone.
The posters, news articles, flyers and criers began to spread the news of the festival day and the city was immediately full of buzz and excitement in ever increasing amounts as the days counted down to it. It lifted the spirits and brought people together showing that they would not be deterred and that they would find justice.
For the famous magical duo of Sunny and Sooyoung it was a busy time, doing their best to construct the few implements that they could for the grand finale that they had planned for the end of the festival day. What had looked like an impossible task was now looking like something even greater than they had originally imagined or hoped for. Although their final show of the season wouldn’t have all the world wonder tricks they had performed so far, they had now started a movement and event that could even transcend them beyond their time.
Once Sunny had shown the new trick she had been working on to Sooyoung there had been no doubt that it would be the grandest of finales that had ever existed. They didn’t quite understand how the trick was possible but at this point they weren’t going to question it; it would mark them down in history as would the charity event at Castle Park.
The day of the festival arrived and the duo along with the city personnel waited for people to arrive. They weren’t certain that people would come or if this would be popular at all, but they didn’t have to wait long as droves of people were arriving to the grand day. The streams were ever growing and eventually the whole place was packed with thousands of people, the food and merchandise vendors selling non-stop as people came to celebrate by the hundreds.
There were smaller other independent acts on the stage first and the crowds were generous with their applause and kind with their compliments. There was a general consensus and feeling of sharing and being kind to one another, something Sunny and Sooyoung had hoped would be the theme of the day; togetherness with your neighbours and sharing happiness and joy.
Food and merriment marked the day and it felt like the whole city had come to Castle Park to enjoy and celebrate together. Finally, as the sun was making its trek down and the sky was painted in its beautiful yellow and orange hue, it was time for Sunny and Sooyoung to take stage for their final act of the night and their season.
With the crowd finally settled around them and the stage built on stilts, two flowery and ornamental lounge chairs had been brought to sit on pedestals of their own. Sooyoung was first to appear from their little dressing room tent that was perched at the foot of the stage, protected by the barriers that were set up all around them. She elegantly stepped up to the platform dressed in a dazzling golden one piece that glittered in the stage lights, a generous strip down her back revealing her milky skin. Her long brown hair was wavy and airy, topped with three bright daffodils on the right side. Her appearance alone hushed the crowd immediately. She was a showstopper.
“Ladies,” Sooyoung began giving a wink to the front row crowd before twisting around to walk the stage all around her, to present to everyone, ”and gentlefolk. We are so pleased to see such an amazing turnout. We are also humbled by it and are so thankful that you have all participated in this event. What started out as us wanting to give our beloved fans that so faithfully have come to our shows a final grand end for the season has turned into something much larger.”
There were a few cheers and gentle claps in the crowd as Sooyoung twisted herself, flipping her hair in the light breeze.
“We hope that we can come back next year for an even bigger event, and that other performers could join us. We want this to be a platform for everyone, not just us. Of course, hopefully we can also keep joining in if you’ll have us,” Sooyoung gave a gentle laugh and beaming smile getting an equal chuckle as a response.
“While most of our possessions and show was destroyed in the tragic fire of the Hippodrome, we have one new trick to unveil that has never been seen before in the world of magic and illusion. We would like to leave you with this one last gift both as a thank you and hopefully as a calling card to come see us next year when we have recuperated and can start a new season.
“Without further explanation from me, it is my greatest pleasure to introduce the star of tonight’s grand final show and illusion, Sunny Illusoré!”
Lights beamed up and smoke puffs appeared centre stage where Sooyoung had moved at the end of her speech. True to their fashion of presenting; the mist, smoke and lights covered and distracted the crowd while a trap door dropped Sooyoung out of sight and a second door lifted Sunny in place.
As the smoke began to dissipate and the high beams of light lessened their harshness, the crowd witnessed Sunny emerge centre stage in place of Sooyoung. She was in her usual dazzling outfit but with a little extra pomp and flair added to the hems and shoulders, her lips a deeper luscious red than usual. She captivated the audience immediately.
“I have learned of a new magic, something never seen or heard of. Something that will bend the very nature of time and reality around me and us. Something that even the great sages only know in theory and the scientists wish they could understand; teleportation.”
Her steps echoing on the wood stage, Sunny stepped towards one of the floral chairs that sat on their own platform. The platform upon which the chair stood spun very slowly around in place so as to give everyone in this circular stage a view. She sat down on the chair with her back straight, her legs to the side, crossed, and smiled at the anticipating crowd as her hands lay cupped on top of her thighs.
“All that is required is a little love and concentration and before you know it, I will no longer be here, but there,” Sunny nodded at the second chair sat fifteen metres away from her spinning slowly on its own.
The crowd was enthralled and completely captured by her words and presence, only mild cheers and shouts faintly reached from somewhere among the crowd. Sunny closed her eyes and heaved out a huge sigh. It was time.
The light refracted and bent around her, the air shimmering similar to the faint distortion of a mirage in a desert, the air and light around Sunny distorted and shifted like a wave that engulfed and surrounded her. Soon she was completely engulfed in this distorted space that swirled like smoke in the wind. It finally coalesced into a single spot and Sunny vanished with it.
The crowd gasped as she disappeared and there were silent cries of worry and astonishment before the spotlight flashed in the second empty chair and suddenly Sunny appeared, a gust of wind streaming with it pushing back the hats and hair of the nearest spectators. The torrent quickly calmed down and everybody could see Sunny Illusoré sitting on the second flower chair in the same outfit, legs crossed and hands on her thighs smiling brightly as she leaned to her right shoulder and winked at the crowd in front of her.
All of Castle Park erupted into loud cheers and whistles of amazement and wonder, the sound so loud it echoed across the farthest reaches of the city. Every man, woman and child was completely flabbergasted and perplexed at the impossible situation of how she had done it. Any conscious thought was lost and all that was left was bewilderment and awe.
Sooyoung had seen this trick performed many times already as they had practiced, but it still caught her by surprise and in complete awe much like the rest of the crowd. The sheer unimaginable talent and skill to perform it and pull it off was, if she was completely honest, pure magic. Unmitigated, unequivocally magic. Sunny hadn’t even explained what the mechanism to the trick was, she said there was no equipment or trick to it, she just did it. As far as Sooyoung knew and had seen this really was the case and preparing for the show they had built no equipment or no setup to pull this trick off. All there was were the two elaborate flower lounge chairs that were completely regular chairs and that was it. Sunny apparated from chair to chair.
Calling her on stage Sooyoung walked up from the side and joined Sunny centre stage to give a bow and receive the applause. The shouting and cheering was unimaginable and deafening, both Sunny and Sooyoung struggling to even hear themselves think. Sooyoung especially, as there was a little worm in her brain that had started to dig deeper. She felt like she had witnessed something like this before besides seeing Sunny practicing it. Wasn’t she able to do the same thing? Why did it feel that as amazing as this skill was, it was something that was rather normal to her?
The rest of the night was filled with mirth and celebration, meeting fans and the people, renegotiating new deals and plans for next year’s celebration and for sponsors for the coming season. The festival day at Castle Park was a huge success and the governor and city had promised to once again sponsor it next year, depending on the financing of the theatre possibly retargeting the finances to other noble and worthy causes.
It was early morning when the party finally died down and Sunny and Sooyoung retired to their apartment both exhausted to the bone but thoroughly fulfilled and happy. The night had been beyond anything they could have imagined. Even though they were tired their mind was still abuzz and they drank some more wine, sitting on their arm chairs and began planning ahead for the coming season full of amazing ideas and fantastic visions.
“Maybe we could take some influence from some Far Eastern shrine! I’ll be one of those shrine maidens. There’s something so beautiful and pure about their outfits,” Sunny said as she glanced off into the distance thinking about the red skirt and white pleated haori of a shrine maiden.
“Hey, that sounds pretty good! Would you believe it but I’ve had some dreams about a shrine and shrine maiden,” Sooyoung said laughing along with Sunny’s proposal.
“No way me too! Mine was on top of a mountain surrounded by trees, up a winding set of over three hundred steps…”
Sooyoung stared at Sunny with surprise. This dream Sunny was explaining sounded exactly like the one she had seen.
“A single young maiden living alone in the shrine and her name is Jessica,” Sooyoung continued Sunny’s explanation, the latter looking over at Sooyoung in equal surprise at what she had just said.
“How did you know?”
“Because I’ve seen that same dream too,” Sooyoung replied, stopping to think and recall the dream even further. “But she wasn’t alone, there were other friends. Hyoyeon. That was her name.”
“Yeah, and there was this beautiful troubled young lady too. What was her name again…”
Sooyoung’s eyes were like plates as the little stream of recognition and memory that had been slipping through the cracks of the blockage in her brain broke free. There was a flood of thoughts and memories rushing in at once filling her up and making her realize the reality of everything. They were in a dream.
“Yoona. Her name is Yoona,” Sooyoung said in a whisper as her eyes looked over at Sunny. She realized who this girl that was with her was; that she was a close friend of Hyoyeon who had lost her body to Yoona and disappeared into the dream world. Who Sooyoung had found at the oasis alone and had fought against Saebyuk there.
Given her previous experiences of the dream world and seeing that only Sunny was physically manifested in this dream the rest of her friends being merely memories and dreams, Sooyoung knew that only she and Sunny were stuck in the same dream together.
“So incredible that we share the same dreams. It just goes to show how in sync and perfect we are as a duo,” Sunny winked at Sooyoung as she sunk further into her armchair. “The funniest thing though is that these are the same names as my imaginary childhood friends. I guess my mind just picked the names up form my memories and reused them in dreams.”
Calming her mind and concentrating on what the reality was Sooyoung realized that she would have to wake Sunny up in this dream world before they could escape. She would need to make Sunny realise the reality and know that this wasn't the real world.
“Think deep in your mind, I know that you know Yoona, Jessica, but definitely Hyoyeon. Think and concentrate on that name,” Sooyoung said with a sudden intensity, a complete reversal of her aloof and relaxed countenance.
“Wha- why do I need to concentrate on them? They’re just my imaginary friends from childhood,” Sunny stared at Sooyoung in astonishment. She hadn’t really thought about those names and characters in many years. They had been her best friends in times of loneliness as a child, but she hadn’t given them much thought since even if some of the names had reappeared in her memory recently.
“Those people are real, you haven’t had a childhood in this world it’s all a dream. We are both dreaming. That’s why you can do actual magic; it’s why you are able to teleport between two locations. There’s no trick, you aren’t fooling people with a gimmick, you are really doing it right?”
“Yeah…”
“So trust me! Just please think on them hard. On Yoona, and especially on Hyoyeon who you work with at the day-care,” Sooyoung pleaded, now crouched at the feet of Sunny holding her hands staring with a look of urgency.
“I- okay. Okay let me think on them,” Sunny said taken aback by this sudden outburst and change in behaviour from Sooyoung, her voice a little shaky and unsure. The two of them were so close now, best of friends and business partners so the least she could do was take Sooyoung seriously when she was really requesting it. Sooyoung had never tried to fool her even once during their time together. She was also correct that Sunny didn’t know how she was able to teleport; she just could and did it. It really was magic.
Thinking hard on these few names particularly on Hyoyeon at first, she could remember the first time she had played with her in her mind as a child. How when Hyoyeon became wild and fierce she would turn into a tiger, but the tiger was always still loving and caring and protected her. The times in her loneliness that she was there to hug her, the times when at work it got tough and the parents of the kids had been unreasonable for some perceived wrongdoing towards their kids, Hyoyeon had been there.
She had been there for her when Sunny had been feeling sick and confused before she lost her body to Yoona, but had still searched non-stop for her until they were reunited.
Sunny’s pupils dilated as the first cracks in the blockage in her brain appeared, tiny flakes of a wall in her mind chipped away revealing some hidden memory behind it. Sooyoung could see the change in Sunny’s demeanour but kept silent holding onto her hands.
“She… I lost my body to Yoona, I was in a perpetual dream I…,” she stared right into Sooyoung’s eyes who nodded back at her with encouragement. “Hyoyeon is my real friend; we work together at the kindergarten I…”
Tears had appeared all of a sudden on her cheeks as her mind was beginning to remember, the memories resurfacing and the pain of the week’s events leading up to her recovery being brought forth. She had barely managed to reunite with Hyoyeon before the dark cloud of the collapse of a dream world had swallowed them whole. Sunny realised that although she had thought she had lived a full life in here and experienced the past half a year together with Sooyoung, it was all a dream.
“It all just felt so real; this all feels so real…” Sunny whispered still trying to come to terms with the shock of this news.
“I know, and truth be told even if all of this is a dream and the real reality is out there, all that we experienced together has been as real as reality. I feel closer to you and that won’t change what we did here, what we felt. That won’t change even if we wake up.”
Still holding Sunny’s hands Sooyoung squeezed them tight finally getting a smile out of Sunny.
“I’m glad that you’re here with me at least, I wouldn’t know what to do if I had had this revelation on my own, or even worse if I could have ever managed to wake up from this dream. The past week I’ve just been caught in the winds of the dream world without my own agency. Finally here I had full control... it’s so wonderful here after all,” Sunny looked around their shared apartment accrued with beautiful and fancy furniture, memorabilia from their time together and all the trinkets and clothes for their shows. It had really been a fantastic six months.
Heaving a heavy sigh at the loss of this reality and this life, she responded to Sooyoung’s hold with a gentle squeeze and a smile. “So what do we do now? How do we get out?”
Sooyoung’s forehead creased as she pondered on this question. Usually they had to find the door, a traumatic event or challenge that they had to overcome before their mind would be willing to release them from the dream. The more Sooyoung thought the more she came to realize that right now as they were they didn’t have any lingering traumas to overcome, in fact they had already overcome it just this night. They had risen from the shadow of Malone, had made a successful show and after the destruction of their theatre they had overcome it and created something even greater, everlasting.
Then it hit her, the realization almost knocking her mind out of loop and she looked at Sunny who tilted her head in question. They had already found their door; all they needed to do was just to walk through it.
“Your teleportation.”
“What?”
“That’s how we get out; we will ‘teleport’ out of the dream.”
“But, uhhh what? How do I even do that? I only know how to move from one location to another within the dream.”
“Just hold my hand and concentrate together with me,” Sooyoung said as she pulled Sunny out of her chair and they stood right up next to each other with their hands holding and cupped in between their chests.
“Concentrate on what?”
“Trust me,” Sooyoung whispered closer to Sunny’s ear, “Focus on those friends, focus especially on Hyoyeon. We’ll focus on them together and when you feel in your mind that you are so focused you could almost touch her, then use your teleportation while still focusing on her.”
“I…” Sunny looked at Sooyoung’s eyes, hopeful and determined, “Okay, let’s do this.”
Holding each other’s hands up against their chest, hugged in tight and standing in the dimly lit interior of their apartment living room, Sunny and Sooyoung closed their eyes and concentrated on the people they were missing. Sunny focused on Hyoyeon, imagining her face, her laugh and smile, imagining them working together with the little critters of their kindergarten. Sooyoung focused on the shrine, on Jessica leading it and her mother preparing dinner for them as kids, focusing on the happy memories of that place.
Finding a link and connection with the ones they were thinking about, feeling that the memory they were holding onto right now was solid, Sooyoung whispered to Sunny, “I’m ready.”
Her mind still focused on Hyoyeon, Sunny felt she was so close that she could touch her and feel her and with that image in mind Sunny summoned from deep within her the familiar feeling she had grown accustomed to with her teleportation. Her fingertips felt a tingling sensation within Sooyoung’s grasp as cold shivers ran through her spine, the feeling soon shifting into static. She could feel her hair rising and knew that Sooyoung was also feeling this electric feeling running through them as the two held onto each other as close as possible to make sure they would both be transported together.
Air around them began to shiver, light being distorted and bending as the electrical static of the air rattled in their ears and she knew that soon they would go. Focusing on Hyoyeon harder, squeezing her eyes shut hard the room and its lights began to turn on and off, all the glass in their living room rattled and Sunny gave one final push to slip into the void of her teleportation. Like a black hole into itself all light and matter, the distortion in the air seized as Sunny and Sooyoung warped and imploded into a tiny dot within space and time leaving their shared apartment empty.
There was darkness, cold and hot, there was nothing. Sooyoung and Sunny individually floated in a state of non-existence. They were no longer touching each other; they didn’t have a clue where either of them was, where they were. For a moment in time they weren’t even certain that they existed themselves, that they were even real. A confusing state of nothing.
She’s awake!
That voice sounded really familiar to Sooyoung and as the feeling of immaterial existence in a void faded and there was solid ground underneath her she heard the same voice speak, but this time right next to her close by.
“Hey there.”
Opening her eyes, Sooyoung was graced by the smiling face of Yoona who was hunched over her brushing the few strands of hair from her face.
“You’re back!” Sooyoung shouted attempting to fling her arms up for a hug but they felt heavy as sin, her muscles screaming in pain. She winced as her arms fought her commands and quickly succumbed to her fate letting them rest at her side a little while.
“Yes I am, and I remember now. I remember how we were and… and I never got to say it back then or since then, but thank you. You helped me escape the day of the incident eleven years ago and were there for me when I was sad and lonely.”
Tears had already formed at the corners of Yoona’s eyes before she had noticed and a few drops fell on to Sooyoung’s face.
“What’s this?” Yoona gave a chuckle and wiped the tears, “sorry I’m crying all over you.”
“It’s alright Yoona. I’m just glad you are back to yourself in your own body. When I saw you up there, in that dark blackness and empty void I…” Sooyoung paused, thinking back to when she had searched for Yoona in the dream world before the collapse and had found her through the weird black tear and anomaly that had let her see a glimpse of The End. Sooyoung shook her head, the overbearing dread and fear of that place risking to creep back into her thoughts. The cold, empty void, “Ahh anyway, you’re welcome doofus, I told you way back then that you could come live with us after all.”
“Sooyoung, did you adopt a child of your own age, as a child, before asking my mother if she would?”
Over to her left Sooyoung heard the familiar voice of Jessica pipe up as they had only moments earlier woken up and were still laying on the ground recovering from the rude awakening.
“As expected of her,” Hyoyeon chuckled.
“Oh shut up you two!”
Feeling a shift in the air and change in the consciousness of the room, Yoona looked next to Sooyoung to the sleeping figure who just now had stirred awake.
“Hey, Sunny.”
“Yoona? Is it really you?” Sunny whispered seeing the face of Yoona hunched over Sooyoung, looking at her. Further to the side she could see at her periphery both Jessica and Hyoyeon and at that moment Seohyun walked into the room from the kitchen with the special herbal tea that Jessica had requested to help with the recovery. “Ah, I really was dreaming then. You weren’t lying, Sooyoung.”
To her left she heard a chuckle and felt a hand snake to hold hers before she heard Sooyoung’s voice which had become so familiar during their time in the dream world, an existence that had felt like month’s to them. They had become illusionist partners together, had performed for a whole season together. Even though it was a dream which had in reality lasted mere hours, they had now forged a bond that transcended the dream and those feelings and that friendship was brought over to the real world.
“Yeah, we were dreaming. But it wasn’t all bad was it? We did pretty good I’d say, Sunny Illusoré.”
Sunny chuckled along with Sooyoung and squeezed her hand in response, “Ain’t that right, Chic Sooyoung.”
Walking first to the recently awoken Sunny, Seohyun dropped down to her knees before placing the tray to the side. With the assistance of Yoona the two helped Sunny up into a slight sitting position so it would be easier to drink.
“Here, this should help with the recovery,” Seohyun said before assisting her to take the first few sips, “I’ll leave the drink here to the side so once you can move your arms you can drink some more.”
Thanking her Sunny focused on the rest of the group who all were now looking at her as Seohyun made her rounds to share the herb tea and assist everybody with their drinking. Hyoyeon being in good physical condition, the first to wake up and used to these effects was already well enough to sit herself up and drink unaided. She thanked Seohyun as she sipped on the tea carefully blowing on it to cool it down.
“So what exactly is the situation right now, does anybody know?” Sooyoung asked the group.
“Well, there’s a lot to share but the basic gist of it is the dream world collapsed and everybody on earth is in a coma,” Seohyun said in a very succinct manner.
“Damn… well that’s heavy.”
“We still have three more sleeping beauties over here,” Yoona said as she pointed at the last three dreaming in blissful ignorance of the reality of things. Completely oblivious that whatever world they were now living in and experiencing was, in fact, a fake dream world. ”I’ll travel into their dreams to try to wake them up. I think I know how to do it.”
“Hey, you’ve regained your talents!” Sooyoung chirped from her place, once again attempting to lift her hand up for a high five but was stopped by the burn of her arm muscles. Still needed a little more time to recover.
“I… have. Kind of. Still learning,” Yoona replied sheepishly. She still hadn’t tried to actually dive into someone’s dream ever since returning from the Anchor and Sinuhe. She knew that the power was within her and she technically knew how to start using it, but there was a case of loss of muscle memory. It was a skill that needed to be practiced and used.
“I believe you will be able to do it for certain, I trust you,” Sooyoung said smiling brightly at Yoona, encouraging her and lifting her confidence. She had seen what Yoona could do as a child all those years ago; she remembered how it had been. If she had regained any of that memory and power then diving into others dreams to wake them up was just the tip of the iceberg.
Eyeing the two people who had awoken first, Hyoyeon and Jessica nodded towards her in acknowledgement. They had now regained enough strength in their muscles to at least sit upright and were sipping on the herb tea that Seohyun had provided them.
“Who will you wake up first?” Jessica asked as she took another sip from her tea. It tasted of something between green tea and chamomile, a very earthy taste, as if she was lying in the mossy forest floor of the mountainside the shrine was built on.
Yoona looked over at the three still asleep. There really wasn’t any particular order she had thought of waking them up, “I guess we’ll go in order of who is closest to me.”
She stood up from her kneeling position in front of Sunny and walked over to one of the free pillows next to Hyoyeon, laying down to rest on the ground next to her. Everyone’s eyes were focused on her now as Yoona was finally going to attempt to flex her powers. She would attempt to dive into a dream with her own power for the first time in over a decade.
Seohyun walked over and took hold of Yoona’s hands. She could feel the trembling in her fingers and hold and looked over at Yoona with a smile. “You can do it, I believe in you. We all do.”
Closing her eyes, Yoona took a deep breath and focused on the memories she had acquired with the help of Sinuhe. She focused on the feelings that the usage of the power had, the way it tickled her mind and soul. The warmth of Seohyun’s hands in hers eased the tension and she began to relax, her tense shoulders dropping down and she released her hold on her neck muscles letting her head rest naturally. She was ready.
“Well, here goes nothing.”
----
Loud clunking and humming echoed in the dead silent spaces of the laboratory as backup generators sprung to life filling the air with its low humdrum above the careful whispers of the ventilation. The flashing images of dream creatures, the illusory vines wrapped around the dream machine and the wailing screams of the faceless banshee all vanished in a puff as lights flickered on the screens and machines of the lab.
The generator had brought life to the apparatus in the laboratory, turning on a machine that acted as a shield from the dream world but which had malfunctioned at the moment of the calamity. As it it immediately expelled the effects of the crashed dream world creating a safe space of reality where the dream world couldn’t interact.
For a sweet moment or two longer the laboratory was completely silent save for the humming and of the machines and ventilation. One by one it was filled with groans and cries of confusion as all the laboratory staff woke up from their dreams, the laboratories dream shield purging them all from their coma’s and the dream world as it had done with the illusory entities that had filled the halls not moments ago.
As with every dream coma patient so far, nobody was able to move for the first minutes after waking up as all of their muscles had lost strength and were in severe pain. Within these shambling attempts of movement and mumbling and whining of pain, Thomas Hwang opened his eyes to find himself on his back in the middle of the laboratory halfway to the kill switch.
Realising himself that he was unable to move he began to wonder what exactly had gone wrong with their experiment. They had calibrated the machine with hundreds if not thousands of tests, they had Saebyuk as a guide and link between reality and dreams, and they had a dream world shield to protect the lab from its effects. The only untested and unaccounted factor in all of this had been Seohyun. How had it failed?
“Thomas?” A familiar voice called out from the laboratories central stage and main consoles.
“Yes Luna, I’m here.”
“Are we still alive?”
“Yes we are alive; the backup generator of the backup generator finally kicked in and turned everything back on.”
“Good good. I… I saw things, I’m glad to be awake and here in reality,” Luna replied with a shakier than usual voice, her confident and straightforward attitude and tone was softer and apprehensive. Scared.
Luna must have witnessed something terrible and horrible in her coma dream. They couldn’t control what they saw and sometimes the subconscious and their memories conjured something vile and horrifying. They had all seen things and Thomas knew that some of his employees would be unable to work properly immediately after waking up. Some dreamers would have enjoyed a peaceful reverie while others might have had a hellish dream, maybe even literally been to hell. It would leave a scar on anybody and he was certain that some of them would quit or be forced to quit if they couldn’t get over their comatose dream.
“All is not lost, we can still salvage this.”
“Thomas… Thomas! Why can’t I move?!” Luna cried once again from her place on the elevated platform. The dreams she had seen were bad enough but now she was paralyzed from the neck down?
“Calm down! Relax; the forced coma state has put a huge toll on our bodies so our muscles feel tired, as if we have been exercising for days on end. Just relax and it’ll come back to you.”
He could hear the heavy breathing and attempt at calming down from the platform. This was the first time that Thomas had heard Luna sound so frightened, without control. It must have been an unfamiliar and scary feeling to her and coupled with whatever horrible things she had experienced in her dream it was no surprise that she was a little shaken.
Straining to the best of his capabilities Thomas turned his head around ever so slightly to see his surroundings better. Looking around everywhere he found that two people were absent; Seohyun and Saebyuk were nowhere to be found. They would have to track them down first; that was priority number one.
How the two of them had survived the malfunction of the machine was a mystery to him. What on earth had happened?
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