CHAPTER 1

A crash.

A darkness.

A voice.

“Welcome, my name is Palperous Montomelli the Third, but everyone calls me Pal.”

The Boy looked around, “Where am I?! Where am!? Who is everyone!? Where is everyone!?"Pal cleared his throat, he was expecting these questions but was no closer to a concrete response than he was upon his earlier ponderings. "Well, they are around, sort of... I mean, in the relative proximity of the word around, maybe less around here and more around there... but you don't really understand here and there, do you?The Boy shook his head"Right, of course not. My here and your there are quite different I suppose?"The Boy was cowering against the wall behind him, eyes darting with the confusion of it all.

“Frightfully confusing is our English language,  don’t you think?” The Boy didn’t reply, Pal noticed his trembling.  "There, there my Boy, there is nothing to worry about, I'll show you where there is, we'll be there in no time." Pal retreated to his mind momentarily. "I seem to be throwing the word around quite willy-nilly, I can see I've gotten you quite muddled up and we've only just met!"The Boy nodded surreptitiously, as though a more confident motion would have offended the strange man. "Oh goodness!" Pal startled himself. The manual, the mind manual, I almost forgot." He dug around in his back pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a single sheet of folded paper, but when he placed it on the table, which had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, there lay a stack of paper with a numerical content that would have troubled even the most fastidious of readers. "This should summarise the here's and there's better than I surely can."

The Boy was preoccupied with the table, he tapped the top of wood tentatively, withdrawing his hand instantly as one might do when testing the electrification of a fence."Douglas Fur, cost a pretty price that little table, shipped from Oregon and I'll tell you son, shipping trans-reality ain't cheap! It's extortion I tell ya'." Pal laughed, but in realizing what he said, tried to divert the Boy's attention before it settled on the subject matter that shouldn't have been disclosed. "Read son! Read away, it's all in there and here" Pal sprawled through the pages with his thumb. "I'll give you a moment." He stepped back and leant against one of the closed doors in the hallway. There were doors for as far as the eye could see, unremarkable doors, all of them had the look of being well acquainted. Discolored blotches marked the spots where greasy hands had continued to push and some of little golden doorknobs were protruding slightly with the lack of support from screws that were no longer doing their job."I have to read all of this?! There is too much, it'll take years?!" The Boy tried to lift the pile but couldn't, there must have been thousands of pages sitting there; no pocket in the world could cater for that many pages, nor bag or even truck for that matter. He looked quizzically at Pal who had one leg bent perpendicularly against the door, aloof in his appearance. "Do I have to?""All of it? Golly gosh, you'll be here forever!" Just have a look at the cover, that's what most people... agh, rather, that's what I would do..." Fortunately the Boy had already taken it upon himself to start reading, he didn't pick up on the slip of the tounge. He wasn't so much reading however, but trying to make out the letters, they were so small, so barely visible that he could not make sense of them. "It's too small, I can't see a thing?"“Oh golly, silly me, silly silly me. Adjustable text you see, I've got many clients with various eye capabilities" He picked up the wad of paper and shook it with ease, an effort that looked likely to remove dust particles but not one to enlarge text. He placed it down in front of The Boy again. "That looks better, last patient was a hawk I think? Or was it an eagle? Not to worry, it's now fit for the function of the human eye, excuse my tardiness, I've been nothing but sloppy since we've met!"Patient, Eagle, Hawk? These words were impossible to order in the Boys mind, it was all jargon, utter senselessness. But then, what did make sense? His presence in this hallway, the old doors, Palperous Montomelli the Third - these were all foreign to the Boy, but what was familiar? Foreign can only exist alongside the familiar, but what was it? Where was it? The Boy's mind was robbed of any awareness but still he knew this was strange, he knew something without quite knowing it yet.The Boy had many questions and Pal could see it written all over his face, he tapped down on the cover and The Boy's eyes pursued the words obsequiously:

Here’s, There’s and Everywhere's

The Do's, The Don’ts

The Will’s, the Won’ts

Your Cerebral Celebration of  Sleep

An Introduction to Dreams 

“I think they forget it’s for children, whoever wrote that sure wanted to be a poet in a past life.” Pal shook his head before snatching the huge pile of paper up and stuffing it into his back pocket again.

“Hey! I wasn’t finished!” The Boy cried contemptuously before he settled into a calm composure. “So that’s what it is? I’m asleep, I’m dreaming?”

“Da-daaaaaa" Pal threw his arms out in reveal. “Welcome, welcome, I’m glad we’ve finally arrived at awareness, it can be a bumpy ride getting here! My Boy, this is your introduction to the wonderful world of dreaming and I’m so very happy to be your introducer!”

“Woah!” the boy startled. Pal looked disappointed, he was expecting more excitement.

“What’s the matter, too much? I said to much didn’t I?! Oh Palperous you great big floundering fool! You’ve gone and done it again!”

“Your clothes!” Said the Boy, ignoring Pal's indignant mutterings. “Your clothes, they’ve changed! Look!” The Boy pointed at Pal's chest, Pal in turn looked at a mirror on the hallway wall that, like the table before, had magically just appeared. “Ahh yes! This is good, this is wonderful”. He ran his hands down the purple dinosaur costume, inspecting the curves proudly. “Quite complimentary of my voluptuous frame, wouldn’t you say?” Pal laughed, but The Boy just tilted his head, still bewildered by what had occurred. “Your getting comfortable with me, that’s why my clothes change, you're not scared anymore, not like you were when we first met, that’s why I was wearing all black, wasn’t I?” The Boy just stood there motionless with eyes imploring Pal to continue. “Your mind is helping you to associate me with something more friendly, maybe something that made you feel safe or happy in the past? Do you understand?”

The Boy ran his mind over the familiar outfit that Pal was wearing and could feel the ebb and flow of connection, although it was hard to grasp exactly how he knew this costume or why he felt a dragging affinity towards it. “I… I know it, I think I’ve seen it before, but… but I don’t remember?”. In that moment The Boy remembered the feeling that seized upon him when arriving in this hallway, he wanted to say something then but was too confused, to busy acclimatizing to this bizarre place. “Why don’t I remember anything?” that was the only thing he remembered, his only memory was remembering that he couldn’t remember. The thought was dizzying and The Boy held one hand to his forehead and one against the wall to keep him upright. 

“Easy there, easy there! Here sit down, relax!" Pal ushered the boy into the seat, which like the table and the mirror,  was mostly certainly not there before that moment.

“Memory distortion is a common side effect in the Dreamway. Think of it like stepping onto a school bus. There’s a moment when your foot leaves the pavement but has yet to touch the steps, in that split second, your foot hangs in limbo  - it is neither on the floor, nor on the bus; it’s in between. That’s where we are now, the Dreamway, in between awake and asleep.”

The Boy shook his head, not in disagreement, but with disbelief. “Why are you talking like this, you sound like a Robot? I’m a kid, stop talking to me like a grown up! I don’t understand, I don’t understand any of this!?” Pal retreated, appearing forlorn and offended. 

“A robot… I thought those days were gone, they SHOULD be gone… updates, always updates, I can’t keep track of the updates!” Pal banged his head softly against a door, before turning and doing the same against the opposing one. He kept going back and forth doing this, all the while mumbling almost manically to himself.

“I’m sorry Pal, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t think you’re a robot. I don’t think you’re a robot at all!”

Pal ceased his exercise of self harm and turned towards the Boy who had now risen from the chair, which instantly disappeared upon his parting. 

“You don’t? Oh good, thank goodness you don’t! You see I’m a working progress, I’m revolutionary in my production but still heavily, heavily flawed.” He brushed his inflated, purple arms in attempt to cast aside those flaws like insects. “I’m not a perfect science.”

A jolt of remembrance sparked in the boys mind. Nobody is perfect. A voice, it was a voice saying that, but who? Nobody is perfect. It was a faceless voice, a shapeless voice, a flat sound but a sound all the same. Nobody is perfect…Nobody is perfect…Nobody is perfect. 

“But I guess nobody is perfect” Pal continued, completely unaware of the Boy’s thoughts.

“How… How did you know?” The Boy stammered in disbelief.

“How do I know what?”

“I…. those words….I… thought about them…. Nobody is Perfect … they were in my head just before you said them, how did you know?.

“They were? Huh, fascinating,  just fascinating! Isn’t the mind a magical thing. This is more wonderful news my Boy. Don’t you see? We are synching, we are becoming very much alike,  this is great news, the implant is working!”

“We're sinking!? I don’t even know if I can swim? I can’t remember, what do we do? “ In a panic, the Boy ran towards Pal and wrapped his arms around the dinosaur costume and stood up on his dinosaur feet, as though the floor itself were the water. Pal reciprocated tentatively, closing his arms round the boy carefully, like he was made of porcelain that could break under the slightest pressure. 

“We are fine, shhh, we are fine! Synching also means connected, there’s no water, I promise. Sorry, I’m still using grown up words, aren’t I?” The Boy hesitated before tiptoeing back onto the tiles that lined the hallway, well, rather the ‘Dreamway' as Pal has called it. “It’s okay, but you just have to explain them to me, I understand more than you think, I’m eight not a baby”. The Boy crossed his arms to portray both maturity and masculinity, he was neither, but boys like to pretend. 

“Hang on, you’re how old? Eight!?” Pal removed his glasses curiously. The Boy didn’t remember him having glasses before, but he was getting used to strange things occurring of their own accord. 

“Eight years old?” The Boy sounded less sure or himself. He answered confidently the first time but upon reflection was not sure he could validate that claim, for he had no memory of a birthday. “I think that’s right?”

“It can’t be so! Can’t be so! I figured you were a little tall for your age, but eight!?” Pal took the Boy’s face in a pistol grip, examining his jaw structure, tilting his head rather carelessly from side to side, searching for confirmation of his age. “So it seems! Eight! So it seems! This is most peculiar, most peculiar indeed.” He stood back with hands on hips and analyzed the boy thoroughly. 

“Pal, your costume, it’s changed again!” The Boy was massaging his chin, where the flush imprint of a hand could still be lightly seen. Pal turned to the mirror. “White coat, glasses, stethoscope… you’re projecting me as a doctor? Do I remind you of that?” The Boy dropped his gaze, he was embarrassed to be altering Pal’s appearance. “I don’t know, I… I can’t remember. When you grabbed my face everything just changed. It felt like a memory, but it was only flash.” In the moment Pal came to realise how forcefully he acted in his curiosity, “I was too rough, I hurt you, I shouldn’t have done that, I’m not supposed to do that. Updates are supposed to protect that, more updates, there needs to be more updates!” The Boy watched as Pal started his senseless rambling again. He understood that Pal was sorry, but what was his obsession with these updates that he kept going on about? 

“It didn’t really hurt, it just surprised me a little. Here, sit down for a second.” The boy looked around, hoping to summon a chair like Pal had done for him. When he turned back around Pal was helping himself to a seat. “Thank you, you’re too kind. Poor old Palperous just needs a little moment to fathom what’s really going on here.”

Pal rested his head in his hands contemplatively, at the same time The Boy tried one of the door handles, one that looked well and truly warn. The door itself was splintered, with spots of termite damage – one would assume a door of this sort could only lead to an outhouse or somewhere like that, certainly nowhere at all magical. The doorknob creaked but wouldn’t budge. Pal peaked between the gaps in his fingers, “Everyone’s first choice is that one. It’s locked, but don’t worry, we’ll get there soon enough”.

“What’s behind there, what’s behind all the doors? Are they all different dreams?” Pal sat upright, stirred by the Boy’s perspicacity. “Why yes, you’re indeed quite right!  Each door is a set of preconfigured dreams, or should I say, augmented dreams – meaning that we have built them specifically for you. That door there just happens to lead to Fair and Tale, it’s a fantasy based world, full of your favourite characters from books and movies; think of it like Peter Pan's Neverland!” The Boy felt  goosebumps rippling up his body and although he couldn’t pinpoint a single book or movie in that moment, he still retrained the notion that they were both wonderful and imaginative. 

“If the dream is just for me, how come it looks so old? I thought you said this was built for me only?” The Boy's awareness was further confirming his age and Pal knew it. “Well observed son, well observed! See, although the dreams behind the door are uniquely yours, this Dreamway is just a template, one that we use for all of our patients. We have to make sure there is a level of consistency in our operation -  a standardization if you will.” The Boy was trying to decipher the grown up talk. “Basically, this Dreamway is the same for everyone, but the dreams are just for you.” Pal crunched the words down into smaller, more palatable pieces. 

“Then where are the other people, do they come later on? It must get crowded in here?” The Boy tried to imagine hundreds of confused children running around in the Dreamway, suddenly he was glad to be alone. 

“You’ll have to believe when I say they are all here, but you’ll never get to see them.” 

“Why not?” A cold breeze of loneliness past over the Boy. 

“Because this is not a REAL place, well, not in the traditional sense of the word real. This is, and I know this is hard to believe, all happening in your mind. It’s all real, this world is tangible, you can taste and smell, think and feel, just like when you’re awake, but In reality, your eyes are closed right now. Right now you’re tucked into your bed and it’s night time. I know what you’re thinking, this is heavy Doc, as Marty McFly would say, but don’t worry, it will be light, it will be all light soon.”

It no longer concerned the Boy that he didn’t understand references, he had grown accustom to a state of perpetual confusion and this was just another blank dot a map with no compass or key. “You… you’re not real?” The Boy poked Pal right between the eyes, not hard, but enough to feel the solid structure of his skull. Pal didn’t flinch, he had known children to act upon their confusion in the most peculiar of ways, so a finger to the head was a polite examination compared to some.

“I’m real, but just not the real that binds humans together. I’m not the real that you have always known…that you will know again soon.” Pal corrected himself, realizing The Boy's lack of memories. “I’m a program. A program designed by a wonderfully bright and bold scientist by the name of Pierre Mênut, wait one moment, I’ve got a picture of him”.

Pal stood up and raided his back pocket, the same back pocket that the mind manual had come from.

“How do you keep so much in there?” The Boy tried to undercover the mystery with his eyes but Pal wouldn’t allow him to peak. “That’s one of the few differences between your real and my real. Ah huh, here it is!” He held a small passport sized photo and looked at it, smiling proudly as he went on. “They told him it couldn’t be done. Dream assistance was too radical they said, intervened with the brain’s ‘organic process’. We took away nightmares, well, rather he did. Children can now go to sleep every night and never again have to worry about what’s under the bed, or falling from plane. I’m there with them, with you, every night, guiding you through some of the toughest moments that a child has a to face. That’s how we got the name of the company, that’s how ‘Keep Holding My Hand’ was born.” He past the photo carefully to the boy.

The photo was black and white. The man had a  pronounced part in his hair and the rest was slicked dramatically to one side. His mustache blanketed his top lip and entirely submerged the corners of his mouth. His eyes were youthful and friendly but the lines around them harsh and scornful, he looked both young and old at the same time. 

The Boy let his eyes creep back to Pal, who was trying to replicate the well disciplined face in the photo. 

“It’s you…” He held the small photo right next to Pal. “You’re the scientist, it’s you! It’s you!” Pal was blushing proudly. How?! You said you weren’t real?! You said your name was Palperous Montgomery the third!?”

“Montomelli…” Pal corrected.

“Same difference, you lied to me! Is this all a lie?!” The Boy threw the photo on the ground and moved back towards where he started. He didn’t notice the emergency exit that was there. Was it always there? He couldn’t be sure. He banged against the door frantically and tried the two handles, but in vain. “LET ME OUT!! I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE.. I WANT TO WAKE UP!” The Boys desperation conceded to tears, “I just want to wake up!” He turned and saw Pal walking towards him slowly with the palms of his hand showing, as though to infer that he meant no harm. The Boy noticed he was wearing all black again, Pal looked down and noticed too. “You’re scared of me again.” Pal's voice was calm, almost therapeutic.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!!” The Boy smashed harder on the door, but soon gave up and collapsed, nursing his aching hands close to his chest. “Get away, get away..” His voice sounding resigned and weak. 

“Let me explain, please let me explain. My name is Pal, I’m not Dr. Mênut, I only look like him.” Pal, in uttering the words, quickly realised the ambiguity of such a statement. “I’m a program that’s based on him. Other scientists who worked on all this helped to reflect Dr. Mênut’s mind in my system, they took samples, ran data, data that allows me to think like him, but completely free of his will – a separate entity.” His speech was littered with grown up talk, so he instead leant down and  put his hand reassuringly on the boys shoulder. “To use your words of earlier, I’m a Robot.” He smiled, it was a true smile, one that was deeply human and empathetic; one that could be trusted. 

“This is like the movies, isn’t it?” Again, the Boy had no validation for such a claim, just a feeling, the shell of a memory. He was learning now to act upon these sensations, they weren’t an adequate replacement for memory, but they would have to do, at least until the real memories came back; if they ever came back.

“Just like the movies. Only now, thanks to Dr. Mênut, they have come to life.” Pal extended his hand to the Boy who obliged him after a few moments of contemplation. “Now, don’t worry, I’m going to walk you through this, okay?” They both smiled as they noticed Pal’s clothes morph back to the purple dinosaur costume. 

“When you get scared, you must remember one thing.”

“What.?” The Boy stopped, loosening his grip in Pal’s hand. Pal squeezed it tighter again.

“Keep holding my hand.”

CHAPTER 2

“How do you do that?!” The Boy watched as Pal grabbed a file from the wall, a file that appeared magically. 

“Make things appear? Pretty nifty, huh? That’s a particular favourite of my mine when it comes to this program. Impulse Projection, better known as IP, it’s one of the defining features that put KHMH into the spotlight…” Pal paused for a moment, as he could see the Boy's mind unraveling the acronym – it didn’t take him long. All the other children he dealt with had not yet honed their problem solving skills,  for they were a lot younger; hence his surprise at The Boy’s age. “I can bring anything to life with one thought, well,  within reason, there are restrictions… there are always new restrictions, new filters, they come with the…”

“…updates?” The Boy interjected.

“Precisely!” Pal pointed a finger excitedly at the Boy, as a teacher might do towards a student answering a question. They continued to stroll down the never ending Dreamway, Pal, with the file still tucked under his arm. “What do you want to see? I can make the magic happen.” Pal stopped walking and turned to face the Boy. “Anything you want, go wild!” The Boy was overwhelmed, it was an alluring prospect,  but one that flooded his mind. In that moment he couldn’t think of  one thing that he may have wanted,  not one. He kept his chin to his chest, embarrassed to report back. Pal, in noticing his torment, took it upon himself to unveil something that he considered to be universally appreciated. “I know just the thing!” 

The Boy looked at Pal’s hands, and back to his eyes; darting between both as he waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Just as he began to question,  he heard a rumbling from the emergency exit behind them, right back down the Dreamway where they started. It was a less a rumbling and more a scratching. “What is it!?” The Boy sheltered behind Pal. 

“Any second now… any second.” Just like that, the doors flung open, smashing against the walls. Hundreds upon hundreds of birds squawked in a great panic and flew towards them, feathers flailing as they jostled for the best flight path.

“Birds!!” The Boy’s voice was shrill and frightened. ““Don’t worry, don’t worry, they wont hurt you… they cant!” Pal stood back against the wall, his arms outstretched as he marveled at the creatures. They kept flying all the way down the Dreamway, until they were out of sight. The emergency doors slammed shut, making the Boy jump again. “Aren’t they just beautiful?!” Pal leant down and picked up a fallen feather, a long multicolored one that formerly belonged to a rare and exotic parrot. He gave the feather to The Boy who was awestruck by the array of colors. “Woaaaaah, that is awesome!” he popped the feather behind his ear, “Can I keep it, can I?” He looked pleading towards Pal, who had, in that very moment, sneakily conjured a broad brimmed cowboy hat and in one seamless motion he popped it on the Boy’s head and nestled the feather on it's side. “Now that’s more like it!” Pal’s face enlisted a similar smile to the Boy’s, one that looked far removed from the steely face in the photo.

“What? What is it?” Pal stood befuddled as the Boy chuckled at him. He reached his hands above his head, to where the Boy was looking, and brought down a great big, black top hat. He summoned another mirror and they both stood to admire Pal’s new outfit. “A magician! A nice touch their my Boy, jolly good of you! That dinosaur suit was rather cumbersome I must say! I do think this to be more befitting of my character, don’t you?” The Boy believed it so, but was too preoccupied with his own appearance, for he had all but forgotten himself and was only just reminded by the mirror. He tried pinching the black, wetsuit like material away from his skin, but to no effect. “Ah yes, I see you’ve uncovered another remarkable feature of KHMH! The Light-Load. Remember, I told you everything was going to be all light?” The Boy remembered the conversation about heavy, light and the man who once said it, Marty who could fly. “It harnesses your motion and reduces all of the resistance so there is little to no drag. Here, I’ll dial it right down for you.” Pal dug his hand into his bottomless back pocket and rifled through it’s contents. “I know I put it somewhere here… Gotchya!” What he found appeared no more remarkable than a standard TV remote. “And that’s exactly what it is! With a few little personalized tweaks!” The Boy paid no attention to the remote, favoring Pal’s eye contact instead. 

“I didn’t say that?” Pal ceased juggling the remote from hand to hand. “Say what, I don’t understand?” The Boy snatched the remote angrily and shook it in front of Pal’s eyes. “I never said that it looked like a TV remote, I only THOUGHT that. Should I just stop speaking?!

Pal wasn’t trying to deceive the Boy, it was an honest misinterpretation of language, for thoughts and speech were tightly intertwined inside the mind of a patient. “My Boy, this is yet another step in our connection, we are now synced to the point that I can understand your thoughts always! This may seem a little scary and intrusive, but when you enter a door, this will allow me understand your mind and how you are feeling about the certain dream, so that I can make certain adjustments to adhere to your frame of mind. If you like though, I can scramble the signal inside the Dreamway so you can have some privacy?” 

The Boy’s eyebrows receded from their scrunched formation, gently he past the remote back to Pal who smiled reassuringly. “Does scramble mean stop? Because if it does, I think I would like you to scramble them. I want you to be there when I’m dreaming, but I don’t want you to know everything I’m thinking, not in the Dreamway.” 

“I appreciate and respect your decision my Boy, and it comes at the perfect time, for this remote can not only adjust your Light-Load , but scramble thoughts as well – all from the comfort of your lounge!” Pal leant on the Boy’s shoulder encouragingly and they both fell backwards onto a couch that just appeared. “I need a few moments with the remote, this should keep you busy while I fiddle around.” Pal pointed the remote at the wall and pushed a button. A television sized chunk of the wall had dislodged itself and was gravitating towards The Boy's face, he in turn shielded his face with his forearm, just in case the wall decided to keep going. Before it touched his arm, the wall stopped moving and began to retract, rotating slowly to reveal a television on the other side before clicking back into the wall. “That’s a fresh update today, you’re the first one to see that”, Pal didn’t look up, he just went on toying with the remote. “It used to just appear out of nowhere, which was fine too, but you know… bit boring don’t you think?” The Boy thought the word boring was quite out of place in world like this. 

A movie started playing, but not from the start, it was a random scene in which The Boy struggled to deduce anything that was going on. Then one of the characters said:

“This is heavy Doc!”

“That’s Marty who can fly! That’s him! Right Pal?”

Pal put his arm around the Boy and shook him playfully, “McFly… Marty McFly”. He laughed as the boy came to grips with his mistake. “It’s funny you say that though, because you’re not exactly wrong either!” Pal pressed another button and the film skipped forward to a scene with both Marty and Doc in a flying car. “That’s the famous Delorean! Dr. Mênut was quite obsessed with flight when we was growing up and he came to realise he wasn’t alone. The man’s a genius, but he’s also just a big kid!” Pal hadn’t quite finished scrambling the thoughts yet and so he could tell the Boy wasn’t listening, he was transfixed on the Delorean and was extending all of his thoughts to flying. Pal would remember that. He made a mental note of all the wonderful dream rooms that incorporated flying and would be sure to guide the Boy towards them at some stage. He took one last peak at the Boy’s thoughts and saw an emanating happiness that glow within, thoughts rich in pleasure and enjoyment were transmitting heavily from his mind. He smiled and pressed the appropriate combination  of buttons to scramble his thoughts; he felt like he was abandoning the Boy, almost disconnecting somehow, but just then, as the Boy turned his look of sheer joy upon Pal, he felt their connection transcended any language, be it words or thoughts.

“That should do it! Your thoughts are all yours! How does the Light-Load feel? The Boy stood up and flapped his arms like a bird. “Its so easy! I’m not getting tired at all!” He stopped flapping to reflect on that thought.  It was a strange thought, the concept of being tired whilst technically asleep was perplexing. One might be inclined to call such a thought an elastic band moment; for the mind can only venture so far unchecked before snapping back to the grounding reality. More flapping pulled at the Boy’s attention, but not from his arms, nor from Pal's. “Goodness me! This was supposed to be fixed in the last update. Shoo! Shoo! Not that way you floundering fool, follow your friends! Shoo!” A bird had flown back from the end of the Dreamway and was now foolishly trying for the emergency exit from where it first came. “It’s called a tick.” Pal IP'd two nets and past one to the Boy. “Little errors in the program that prove increasingly hard to remove, see, you can’t just pull them from the system, quite often they burrow and embed themselves deep in the coding; so even if you think you’ve yanked it out, chances are there’s still a piece of it hiding in there, making my life miserable!” The Boy was quickly learning to adjust to the grown-up speak. Words like embed might have been foreign to him, but in understanding that a bed was somewhere you slept, he was able to grasp that the error was in some way sleeping  in the system; a notion that wasn’t too far from the truth. “Are there lots of ticks?” The Boy’s query was followed by a failed attempt at the bird. “A few scattered here and there, nothing major.” Pal too struck poorly. “Enough to unsettle my precious equilibrium though! You got him! You got him, easy, easy, easy!” Pal assisted the Boy in lowering his pole to the ground as the bird lay tangled in the netting, trashing violently and only getting itself more caught up. The Boy smiled proudly, he looked to Pal for appraisal but found that he was too busy trying to delicately unravel net from bird. “It’s incredible to think that this is where it all started.” The Parrot had quit arguing, the combination of shock and exhaustion had rendered it passive and Pal cradled it between his two arms. The Boy picked up the file – he hadn’t forgotten about it, but there was just little time for reading between costume changes, flying cars and ticks. 

“What started here? Where are you taking the bird?” 

“I know the perfect door for this little fellow, let’s walk and talk. 

Chapter 3

“KHMH started with birds, can you believe that?” The two walked side by side down the Dreamway. “Dr. Mênut obsession with flight helped contrive the very program that governs this world!” The parrot squawked politely, as thought to honour the praise that was being heaped on it’s species. “All kids dream of flying, it’s a universal fascination but a sensitive desire at the same time. It’s rather capricious, for the excitement and thrill of flying runs parallel to the stomach-churning fear of falling; so if we wanted to incorporate flying so heavily into our dream rooms, we knew we had to be very, very careful, we knew our research would have to go right to the source.” 

The Boy remembered back to the mind manual and to when Pal spoke of hawks and eagles being previous patients. His newly formed memories were slowly binding together and were now strong enough to support partial comprehension; the lack of long term memory was no longing an aching trouble in his mind. 

“You went into a bird’s head?! That’s crazy! What was like? Can you talk to them? How do you talk to them? Do you understand…. bird language!?” The Boy had more questions, but Pal took over before he got too carried away.

 “You have no idea how hard it was in the beginning. The language barrier was impossible, they were too flustered, just like our little friend here. It was a dead-end, we couldn’t extract anything that was remotely helpful,  not until we could bridge the language gap. It nearly sunk the ship before it even sailed. Then a moment of a genius saved us all! One of the Neuro-linguists demoed an Automatic Pulse Detector, genius! Simply genius! The APD didn't focus on the direct translation of sounds after the fact, it worked to identify language before the vocalization, right in the middle of the brain's highway where pulses come and go in milliseconds. The APD somehow managed to slow them down, it was like an orange traffic light; a lot of pulses raced through like hooligans but a cautious few slowed down, just long enough for our team to study. Soon enough we could understand the thoughts of birds! We were never close to fluency, far from it, we were like American tourist in France with a phrase book and little idea of how to use it!” Pal laughed aloud, humoring himself greatly before realizing the complexity of the topic. “The APD allowed us to send our thoughts to birds in pulses that they could understand. Naturally, your friend Palperous here was on hand to help.” Pal was striding forward very proudly, so much so that the Boy had to jog to catch up. “Do they dream? Can birds dream? I bet they dream of walking, like a human would dream of flying!” 

“Hmmm, a shrewd hypothesis my Boy, one I could entertain without the existing knowledge of the facts. Certainly they dream, but their minds lacked the imaginary capacity of humans. Their dreams all incorporated flying, but from what we could deduce, it was more the favorable wind patterns and prey that were being craved.  Oops! Nearly missed it! Here’s where we say goodbye to our feathered friend”. Pal backed up a few strides and turned to a door. “You might want to stand back for this, there’s often a draft. I don’t want to have to go an pull you from the Amazon.”

“The Amazon, I know that place! I swear I know it! I do!” The Boy yanked at Pal’s cuffs, pulling to and fro in attempt to convey his sincerity. 

“I believe you do! Tell me, does it look at all like this?”Pal leant forward and opened the door in harmony with the question. The Boy, still holding onto Pal’s shirt, slowed the jerking motion as his mouth fell agape. They were looking far out over the tree canopies of a lush green rainforest, the door itself was atop a tree, the tallest one in the entire forest. The sun appeared in it’s infancy on the horizon, employing a radiance that painted the sky a colour close to apricot. Small clouds of fog clung nervously to the branches of trees and were desperately trying to avoid dissipation as the breeze reminded them all of a the rising humidity. 

“No shade of green ever looks the same here, all so different, so unique. They stand alone by measure of comparison but will always remain together – isn’t it just beautiful?”

The Boy stepped forward and held himself between the frame of the opened door, allowing a waft of fresh air to settle deep down in his lungs. He held it there for a few seconds and closed his eyes, opening them again as he gently exhaled.

“This is real place, isn’t it? I know it is.”

“It sure is. You just get to see it through a favorable lens, that's all. The real Amazon is littered with fires at the moment, or so I’m told, it's like a war zone!”

“Who would burn a place like this? Who would want to do that!? I hope the police arrest them all!” The Boy looked down between the tree branches, hoping to catch one of the assailants in the act. He would do something if he caught one, he made that promise to himself. He wasn’t sure what exactly could be done from so high up, but he would know when the time came.

“You won’t find them here. Though quite often there is no one directly involved. Mother nature has grown angry in her age and it’s all because humans have provoked her. Sometimes she takes her anger out on the ones she loves most, like all mothers have a tendency to do; caring occupies a big part of a mother’s heart and they hurt more than most when they’re been let down. Fortunately, we don’t have such a problem here.” Pal passed the Parrot  to the Boy  who took it awkwardly in his hands, keeping it at distance from his face. 

“Why not?”

“Because here, you’re Mother Nature!” The Boy felt the power of such a responsibility in that moment.     “And with that being said, I think you best be letting one your children go home.” Pal nodded imperceptibly at the bird. He didn’t need to, for the boy understood his duty from the moment of being handed the rainbow colored parrot. 

“Now you go find your family, okay?” The Boy turned to Pal. “I wish we had the APD machine here right now, I really want to say goodbye to him properly.” Pal just smiled. It was a smile that was learning to understand and a smile that was being understood; the Boy was learning from him so quickly and he felt the warmth of pride around his chest. Only it wasn’t pride he first thought of, initially he thought it might be a tick, a malfunction in his coding. He had plenty to learn himself, plenty to understand – this was just another difference between Pal’s real and the Boy’s real.

The parrot appeared to have grown accustomed to being held and wasn’t attempting to flee in light of temptation, only growing excited as the boy broke the plane with his outstretched arms. “Now Fly!!!” He didn’t have to encourage the parrot,  it dipped down immediately but reappeared in their line of vision a moment later as it took a few seconds to reacquaints itself with flight after a long stint of laziness. It’s path become difficult to track as blazing sun had well and truly awoken. “Goodbye Marty!! We'll miss you!” The Boy closed the door, soaking in every last ray of light until it clicked shut. “I think Dr. Mênut would have liked the name, don’t you?”

“I think he would have loved it!”

Chapter 4

“Now where was I? Bird dreaming, of course!” Without pinpointing their destination, Pal set off down the Dreamway again. “So we sampled the dreams of more than five-hundred  American Bald Eagles, a simply majestic specimen, and what we found was rather startling. 78% of the eagles had reoccurring dreams of a remarkably similar nature; right down to the abundance of trees, presence of lakes and relative locations of their prey. They were hunting dreams, all of them, apart from a  select few who seemed preoccupied with mating simulation, males of course.” Pal nudged the Boy with his elbow, but quickly regretted the decision upon remembering the Boy’s age, he only hoped the Boy wouldn’t ask..

“What is mating?”

But curious minds’ always ask. 

Pal, a normally resolute and unflappable man, flushed bright red in the cheeks; a rather disconcerting sensation for one who is not well acquainted with embarrassment. 

“Well… ahhh… hmmm. Excellent question, hmm.” He searched for a euphemism to blanket it’s mild profanity. “it’s like a friendship. Just a very tightly interwoven friendship, yes.” He was relieved to see the boy had accepted his response without rebuttal. Pal had to wear many hats in his profession, more than just the black top hat that still sat on his head. Having said that, he was not at all prepared to lead a lesson on sex education - there would need to be a lot more updates before that could happen.

“And so we began the arduous task of digitally painting what we saw. Some dreams were vague, just little etches, others were vast and complete, like thick brush strokes. We weren’t accomplished artists at this stage, we were full of aspirations but light on experience. It’s not perfect, even today, it remains largely incomplete, but Dr. Mênut insisted on keeping it in its original form, as a reminder of where it all started, where we all began.” Pal indicated to the upcoming door on the left, as a car might do to let others know it was turning. The door was rickety, but not like that of the Fair and Tale world. The structure still appeared sound, there was certainly age spots lining the wood but this door seemed to have been treated with more care; as you might expect, for this was Dr. Mênut’s baby, his first dream room.

“This is our first dream world. This is our…” Pal paused for dramatic effect. “… Bald Vision!” The Boy lit up with excitement, but the pun had flown over his head. “Ah forget about it” Pal waved it off, slightly offended. “Only 6% of children laugh and 5% of those don’t even know why they do. Funnily enough, of that 5%, all were recorded having unusually high levels of early empathy! Fascinating!” Pal tapered off as he noticed the Boy was laughing again. He surrendered his hurt when he realized why. 

“I sound like a robot again, don’t I?” 

The Boy bobbed his head affirmingly. He understood that Pal loved the analytics of the dream world and he would often get lost in his own mind when talking about it. This was no longer irritable for him, he now thought it charming and rather funny. This world was effectively Pal’s home and he was very proud of it. 

“Are you ready to fly, like few have ever flown before?” Pal took the doorknob in his hand and awaited the Boy’s response.

“You mean we can ACTUALLY go through the door? We’re going to fly?!”

“Like an eagle my boy! Like an eagle!” He pulled the door emphatically. An alpine forest laid before their eyes, pine needles or maybe those of a spruce were slightly impeding  their vision, as though the door were nestled in amongst a tree.

“Where are we?” the Boy fed his hand through the door, only to jerk it back when the needles tickled his fingers. 

“The whereabouts is technically undefinable, as this is merely an amalgamation of many different where's. However, we can closely compare this to the far north of Canada, in the Yukon Territory, close to the border of British Columbia. Our diagnostics have cited it's features to match a little area on Tagish Lake, 48% compatible to be precise, which is a rather high figure when you  consider that we created this world with no prior awareness of such a place!”

“You’re coming with me right? What happens if I don’t know how do fly, I’ve never flown before?” The reality of the situation had stirred up nerves within the Boy’s stomach. They were really going to fly, it was happening.

“I’ll be right there with you, don’t worry. You may find it tough to hold my hand, for birds don’t have such a tool, but trust that I won’t leave you alone. As for flying, it’s easier if I just show you, it’s rather difficult to explain.”

With that, Pal jumped through the door. “Pal! Wait!” but it came too late. The Boy watched as his vision shook up and down slightly. He rightfully assumed that the door was sitting on a branch and that branch was now moving as one of it's inhabitants had fled from it. Out of his left peripheral, he noticed an eagle had entered the frame, flapping it’s long wings furiously to hold its position steady. It’s great yellow beak appeared to open slightly in preparation for speech. “What are you waiting for!? Let's go!” It was Pal, unmistakably so. His words were followed up by three high pitched squeaks that intoned upwards. The natural call of the eagle seemed to inspire the Boy more than the words of Pal. “Alright! Here I come!” he stepped back against the door opposite the Bald Vision, resting his hands against the wood while summoning the courage to leap forward. 

“It’s a lonely forest for just one eagle you know?” The distant words of Pal were mostly ignored as the Boy was taking in deep breaths.

“HERE….. I….. COME!” He roared belligerently, propelling himself forward on commencing the last word. He sprinted towards the door, yelling aloud as he went. His fear was silenced for a few moments, but announced itself just as the boy took his last step, he tried to stop, but the momentum carried him through the door and into his first dream.

******

The transition was seamless, there was virtually no lingering sensation of the Dreamway. The feeling of falling took hold quickly and Boy’s pulse could be felt at numerous points around his body; especially in his chest and temples. A branch thwacked him on the way down and the pain was enough to deviate the throbbing in his head, allowing him to focus slightly as the ground was nearing.

“I’ve seen you flap your arms boy! You can do it!” Pal’s cries were muffled against the imposing breeze that was impeding both the Boy’s hearing and vision. He flapped his arms in short sharp motions, which seemed to slow his falling but not entirely. He looked at his arms only to find out they were no longer that, they were wings, and it was only now that he completely  believed he was a bird. He focused again and was reinvigorated by the reality of no longer being human, but being an eagle. His wings spread wide, channeling the breeze that formerly worked against him.  He flapped slowly and surely, which deviated his trajectory from a downwards freefall and shot him horizontally across towards the trees. “Yeee-haaa!” Pal roared like an American cowboy, but the Boy refused to echo his celebrations, not just yet, he still needed to dodge and weave amongst and pine and spruce in order to get above the tree line and to safety. 

He jerked hard one way then overcompensated by jerking too hard the other, narrowly missing the trunk of one tree and scraping past another. There was an opening up ahead in the forest and the Boy decided it was there he would make a play for the sky. He breached the last of the trees and pulled back hard on the joystick – of course there wasn’t one, but the Boy found he had more control when he imagined there was. “Come on, come on!” He pleaded with his wings to exaggerate the incline that was necessary to avoid the upcoming tree-tops. “Up-up-up-up-up!” He closed his eyes to brace for the impact which looked certain to come, but when felt nothing but sun bathing upon his feathers, he opened them to see a transparent, emerald colored lake sprawled out before a line of dramatic snow-capped mountains. “ARG-WOOOOOOOOO!!!” The Boy let out wolf like cry as he caught up with Pal.

“Now that’s something you don’t hear everyday - an eagle that sounds like a wolf! You’ve created a new species!” The two now glided side by side. You’re quite the flyer, how does it feel?” Pal dipped down and flew under the Boy, popping up on the other side of him, showcasing his very capable flying skills.  

“This is AWESOME!!” It feels so real! The sun, it’s… it’s so warm and the breeze, so cool.. I’m flying Pal, I’m flying!” The Boy, still so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the events, continued to draw back on the well known fact that they were indeed flying. Pal thought there were no two words better for summarizing  such a feeling, for it was well beyond any traditional means of description. All the typical words that one might use to express joy just seem so tired and uninspiring in comparison. The human faculty had no experience with natural flight and therefore all words that could be used were in some way out of their depth, and so resorting back to the simple acknowledgement of the fact had, in Pal’s mind at least, the most baring on the present moment.

“There are no rules here, you can go anywhere that you see. If you go too far beyond that, the implant will just redirect you back towards this area.”

“Woah! Pal! What the hell was that?” Pal was so surprised at the Boy’s language that he barely  stirred at the sight of a piano falling from the sky and crashing into the lake. “Was that a piano?! And…. Is that music playing?” 

“That was a piano! I bet you’ve never seen on like that before!? It’s the alarm for my sleep watch, just in case I don’t hear the music, we’ve incorporated a visual stimulus to remind me that’s it going off. I think a falling piano sends that message quite well, don’t you?”

“It sure got my attention! What does the sleep watch do?”

Suddenly the music ceased playing.

“I’ve just snoozed it. Don’t worry, I’ll explain how it works when we get back to the Dreamway!”

“How do you get back?” The Boy looped around to face the forest from where they had come, he doubted that he could navigate his way back to the door, the trees all looked the same.

“This is where it gets interesting!” Pal flew closer to the Boy so the tips of their wings were nearly touching. “According to our research, the dreams of the real eagles would all finish in the same way, well, mostly all. Never have we known such a consistency in the world of dreaming  where the potentials are seemingly endless. So, we decided to stay true to their path, a little homage to our winged friends. The dream will complete when you catch your prey!” Pal darted down amongst the trees, The Boy, now full of confidence, followed him closely.

“Do I have to eat an animal? I don’t think I can Pal, there must be another way?” They were now low enough to the ground to see the abundance of squirrels and rabbits that were frolicking on the hills. 

“No, no! You don’t need to eat anything, just catch one in your talons and you’ll be back in the Dreamway as soon as you do! The Boy didn’t reply and so Pal assumed his confusion. “Your claws, look beneath you!” 

The Boy waited for a clearing in the forest before looking down to see four razor sharp black talons on each foot. 

“You’re not scared are you?” It wasn’t Pal’s intention to taunt the Boy, but that’s how he was interpreted. “Of course I’m not scared!” Without waiting for Pal, the Boy dived sharply towards the ground. “I think you’re the one who is scared!” Pal admired the Boy’s spirit and follow suit. The catching of the prey had now become a contest.

The Boy lined up a rabbit, one that separated from the rest of it's colony. It jolted from side to side spasmodically, trying to lose the giant eagle that was threatening from behind. The Boy had to pry away thoughts of sympathy, it was a simulation he told himself, only a simulation. He extended his talons wide like his fingers would from a clenched position, then closed them again to assess his dexterity. His reactions were lacking the fluidity that he was used to, they felt slightly mechanical, but there was a enough movement there he thought to swoop up a rabbit. 

The rabbit was now only meters ahead and one final surge would surely be enough. He thrust himself forward but was stifled at the last moment by Pal who came from nowhere and plucked the rabbit like a claw crane at the arcade. “Too scared, too slow!” A very deliberate taunt from Pal this time. “Meet you in the Dreamway, loser!” Pal accentuated his words to sound like a smug teenager, before he disappeared completely. The Boy veered dramatically to avoid a tree stump and doubled backed along the forest floor. “That was mine! You thief!” The Boy wanted to appear frustrated but he couldn’t muzzle his enjoyment. “Doesn’t bother me, I get the whole forest to myself. Plenty of other fish in the sea!” That gave the boy an idea, the lake would surely be full of fish and Pal didn’t specify what prey exactly, just as long as he caught one.  He flew above the tree line and swept low towards the lake. The Boy could see hundreds of fish leaping out of the water! He was amazed at how far and how clearly he could see. He flew just above the water, which was so still and pristine that each flap cause a little ripple on the surface. A fish had jumped above the water right in front of his eyes and the Boy extended his talons and snapped them shut. The fish didn’t feel wet and slimy like he might have expected, it felt more metallic, like a doorknob. “I got one! I got o—”

It was exactly that. As he clenched tightly the door had flung open and he fell into Pal’s arms  who caught him gracefully. The boy instinctively hugged him, peering down at his hands as they closed behind Pal’s back – for they were again the hands of a boy and no longer the talons of a bird. His ear was pressed against Pal’s chest and he could feel the gentle rhythm of his heart, which was soothing and helped to slow his from racing, after all the excitement. He allowed himself to look up at Pal who was expecting him.

“Welcome back!”

His smile brimmed wide.

“We’ll have to work on your landing!”

CHAPTER 5

“That's the song!” the Boy gestured frantically towards Pal’s watch as it sounded, “That’s the song that was playing when the piano fell!” 

Pal let the chorus play out before dialing-down the volume on the crown of his watch, like a radio DJ fading out a song. “Another keen observation my Boy! It appears that very little goes unnoticed past your ears. You’re indeed right, that was the same alarm that you heard in the Bald Vision. Pal paused momentarily, but in premeditating  the Boy’s curiosity, he chose to go on. “This is my sleep watch, well, rather your sleep and my watch, it tracks the different stages of your sleep cycle and let’s me know when it changes.”

“What time is it now?” The Boy looked around the Dreamway, attempting to gauge it, but quickly realised the great difficulty of doing so in a hallway without windows.

“The time we measure whilst you’re asleep doesn’t correspond with traditional clocks; it doesn’t tracks hours, it tracks stages.”

“What stage am I in now?” 

“Are you ready, this is where it gets really interesting!” Pal rubbed his hands together excitedly, eagerly anticipating the lesson. He picked up the file, which was proving to be more inconvenient than informative, and started to walk down the Dreamway again. The Boy now understood that all serious talking should be accompanied by walking.

“From the moment you fall asleep till the moment you wake up, you will enter various stages of sleep. These stages are sub categorized very specifically, but to oversimplify a very complex process, we group these stages in two main sections: Non-REM and REM. REM is rapid eye movement. Is this all making sense so far?”

The Boy, who was now focusing intensely on his own eye movement, started blinking sporadically. “I think so, but how do your eyes move when they are closed?” He closed his eyes and focused on looking around, bumping into Pal clumsily who had to guide him back on path. 

“It’s a difficult phenomenon to wrap your head around,  but they certainly do move, even behind your eyelids. In the early stages of dreaming, your eyes are very inactive and very few dreams occur in this stage, but as the night progresses, you settle into a deep sleep and your eyes will start to come alive!” Pal darted his hands around to imply the intensified activity. “ This is the commencement of  REM-sleep, and it’s here where all the fun happens. When we entered the Amazon, that was the first phase of REM, the second phase was Bald Vision; which was more immersive and more real shall we say. It is now you are verging on phase three, which has been given the very fitting name: The Great Beyond!”

“Ooooh!” The Boy, having thought Bald Vision to be both great and beyond anything imaginable, was very curious about this next phase. “The Great Beyond, that’s what the man was singing about in the song!?”

“CORRECT!” Pal skipped with excitement. “That’s the name of the song! Isn’t that wonderful!? But wait, there’s more, the name of the band...” Pal paused, holding his arm in front of the boy as to brace him for the reveal.

“… R.E.M!” He threw his two hands on the Boy’s shoulders, “The Great Beyond by R.E.M! Ha Haa!” His face was so close that the Boy could feel splashes of spittle against his cheek.

“They’re the same, what are the chances…?” There was little enthusiasm in the Boy's response, he wiped his face with his forearm and cringed vindictively at Pal. 

“Chance!? CHANCE?!” Pal shot back, sounding deeply offended, “This is not the work of CHANCE! This world doesn’t work with CHANCE and nor does it have time for CHANCE!” He sniggered at the word, looking more repulsed with it's repetition. “This here was the work of craftsmen, hand carved by people for a reason and for a purpose; accidents are the work of clumsy people who don’t take the necessary precautions,  we are certainly not those people!”

The Boy was backed up against the wall and tucked his head against his right shoulder, as to directly avoid the verbal barrage that was firing nearer with every word. “Alright! Alright! Not chance! I’m sorry, chill out Pal!” 

Pal holstered his fury and gave the Boy back his personal space. “Oh goodness, I… I seem to have acted without exercising any constraint whatsoever, none at all! Palperous you floundering fool!” He wiped the sweat away from his brow and looked inquiringly at the moisture on his fingertips, “What is the meaning of this chill out?” 

The Boy was well accustomed to being the student and Pal the teacher, the role reversal had caught him very off guard. 

“Umm…. Well… you sorta' just say it to someone when you think they should relax a bit, you know?” 

“Chill out… You there, go on and start a chill out!” Pal practiced aloud and his dramatic annunciation of the words made The Boy laugh. 

“What!? Am I not saying it right?” Pal, who like the Boy, was very unfamiliar with the role reversal, had seldom known the great difficulty that was associated with language acquisition – gaps in his knowledge were amended with updates and not lessons; this was all very new, unfamiliar and a little daunting.

“Not really. You have to say it… umm…  you have to say it like you are also chill. You can’t tell someone to chill out if you are not relaxed as well.

Pal rolled his shoulder blades a few times and lent against the wall lazily; letting his arms hang unimpeded by his side. “I am very much chilled out now, so you should also just chill out…” he searched for the appropriate term, “… dude?” It came out sounding very unsure, but surprisingly chill.

“Yeah! That’s more like it! Now you’re super chill!” The Boy shook Pal’s hand and tried to end with a fist pump, but Pal just preceded to clench and unclench his fist, which to any onlookers would have looked very un-cool.

“I like this mode of relaxation; this chill. Is it a Buddhist interpretation? Hindu?”

The Boy had no idea what Pal was on about. “I don’t know? I don’t think so? Kids just say it at school?”

He instantly reflected upon those words. The memory of school felt so alive when he said it, only to have it scamper off again when he gave it a second thought. Memories appeared to only exist  without the awareness of them, they were embedded within his speech but segregated from his mind.

His deliberation was cut short as the lights shut out in the Dreamway, casting a pitch black darkness upon them. It was only momentary however, the lights above four doors flickered back to life behind them, back towards the emergency exit.

“What’s happening!?” 

The Boy looked to Pal, as he always did in a time of confusion. Pal’s face was partly concealed under the veil of darkness, only the outline of his features could he seen against the distant flicker. The Boy could see he was smiling, for the light glistened on the surface of his teeth. 

“Phase three!” he said emphatically.

“The Great Beyond!”

CHAPTER 6

Round and round it went. From one to the next and so on; never stopping, but giving the impression that it might. It was like a game at a carnival and all it needed was a man in a red and white pinstripe suit to start yelling “step right up! Step right! Behold the magical doors! Which one will it be!? Where will it lead? Come and find out!”

They stood in the middle of the four doors; two on each side of the Dreamway, approximately two meters apart from one another. The Boy followed the light with his eyes, spinning around until he felt too dizzy to continue. 

“Why is it doing that?” He took in a deep breath, which flushed away the hint of nausea. Pal didn’t follow the path of the light from door to door, he just looked down at the ground in preparation for something to happen.

“Your mind is deciding.”

“Deciding what?”

“Deciding which door it wants to enter.”

The Boy stumbled to the one on his left, closest to the emergency exit. He propped himself upright with help from the doorframe as he still felt the remnants of dizziness and proceeded  to try the doorknob —but it wouldn’t give.

“You haven’t chosen yet.” Pal hadn’t moved from his position in the middle of the Dreamway. “You must be patient.”.

The Boy didn’t think this to be a fair request, for he had clearly made up his choice when he turned the doorknob?

“It’s a decision that you make subliminally – one that happens away from all this.” Pal gestured one way down the hall and then the other. “Our understanding of The Great Beyond is, well, sketchy if you like.”

The Boy didn’t like the sound of sketchy.

“Remember when I told you that all the dream rooms were created by us?”

The boy nodded.

“I may have mislead you ever so slightly.” Using the thumb and index fingers of his right hand, Pal pushed them closer together as to represent something small. 

“MOST of these rooms were made by us, the vast majority of them. However, we aren’t exactly the architects of these that belong to The Great Beyond.

“Then who built them?” The Boy brushed his hand across the door that he previously tried to open, trying to find something that might have distinguished it from the others.

“You did!” Pal stepped forward and knocked gently on the door directly opposite the Boy. “You’re the fine craftsman my friend.”

“I…. but… there’s no way!? There’s no way I could have built them? I don’t even know how?”

“Ahh but you do! You do without even knowing! My Boy, the dreams of The Great Beyond are based upon memories of your waking life, real memories. It might be a fraction, a full recreation or it might even be all different memories rolled into one! I can’t say for sure because… “ Pal swallowed uncomfortably, as though to dislodge the stuck words. “well, because I have never been through these doors.”

“You mean I have to go in alone?!” The Boy’s voice jumped up an octave with the fear. “What if I get lost? I don’t even remember my own memories?!”

Pal IP'd a glass of juice and passed it to the Boy, who took and drank it in one motion without questioning. It was the first time he had thought about drinking, or eating for that matter since arriving in the Dreamway. “Chill out my Boy, let me explain.” The words still sounded fragile coming out of his mouth, but the Boy thought Pal was slowly sounding more believable.

“I can’t enter the doors with you and I have tried many times in the past, no amount of updates have ever allowed for my presence in those memories. This technology is strong and has a very far reach when it comes to interaction, but it appears there is a part the human mind that keeps itself barricaded behind an impenetrable wall; one we cannot break down.  What I can do however is access your optics and project them in the Dreamway, and that will allow me to see what you’re seeing whilst also being able to communicate to you via thought; remember, I only scrambled our link up for inside the Dreamway, in there we can still communicate by thought — It will be like I’m inside of your head! Well, even more than I am now!” Pal struggled to wrap his own mind around those words, so he was surprised to hear that the Boy was still following on.”

“And what if I get scared or don’t want to be there, can I leave? Or do I have to stay?”

“Excellent question! It’s here the KHMH wrestles back a little bit of control. The rooms in The Great Beyond are what we call Loose Threads. Our research kept leading us to a dead end when he came to entering the Loose Threads, but we had much more success when it came to exiting them. 100% of patients who have wanted to leave the room have been successfully and safely extracted within three seconds of asking. We call this process pulling the thread. If at any stage you think pull the thread, I will register your command and have you back here and standing next me in seconds!”

The Boy looked reassured and past the empty glass back to Pal. “It sounds crazy, really crazy! Maybe a little scary too, but I trust you Pal.”

Pal tossed the glass against the wall nonchalantly and the Boy plugged his ears with two fingers in expecting a loud shattering of glass; but nothing came. Of course, if Pal could conjure any object using IP, it was very likely he could also make them disappear just as easily.

“Do I have to go? I mean I do… I do want to, but let’s just pretend I didn’t want?” The Boy didn’t want Pal to think of him as being too scared, so he tried to conceal his question.

“You don’t have to go. You can just as easily stay here with me until it’s morning and all will be quite fine, however! ….”

“I want to go!” The Boy jumped in confidently.

“…. A curious mind will always choose to go.” Pal finished off his sentence, smiling mostly to himself as the Boy helped to affirm his theory.

The rotating light suddenly stopped above the door the Pal had previously knocked on.

“Triiiinnnnng!”

A sharp pinging noise sounded and lingered for a few seconds, like a struck gong. The other doors fell into darkness and both Pal and The Boy gravitated towards the chosen one.

‘”It looks like you’ve made a decision.”

The Boy didn’t look back at Pal, choosing instead to hold the doorknob in one hand and placing his palm against the wood with the other. He was trying to get a feeling for what might be behind the door, what memory would reveal itself to him. He had no idea who he was, only that he was a boy that existed alternatively in the sleeping world and in the waking life; with each iteration of himself having no understanding of the other. He didn’t even know his name? He thought about turning back  to ask Pal, for surely Pal knew? But he didn’t, he simply tapped his hand three times against the wood, as if to say “here we go!” He turned the doorknob and went through  the chosen door of The Great Beyond.

CHAPTER 7

Tree, car, building, tree, building, car, car, car, building, tree, car…

They all flew past the Boy’s vision so quickly that he could only note their defining feature before another came zipping past. He was about think pull the thread, the thought stood on the precipice of his mind before being dragged back by a familiar voice.

“I think you’re looking out of a car window, turn your head!” It was Pal, of course. His voice sounded so clear in The Boy’s mind, like he were wearing earphones and listening to it directly. The Boy turned his head very cautiously to the right, his eyes squinting nervously to protect against what he might see.

“Open your eyes Boy, I can’t see a blasted thing when you do that!” Pal whispered demandingly, which was both polite and intrusive at the same time. 

“Shh! This is my memory, you remember that! Just give me a second!” The Boy fired a thought back, lip syncing each word. Of course he didn’t need to do this, it was just as habit that was hard to shake. 

Pal was right, the Boy was sitting in a moving car. His eyes were locked on the plush leather driver’s seat that he was sitting directly behind. To his right, he noticed someone in the passenger’s seat, but felt he needed a moment before introducing his eyes. The Boy only knew one person in this world and that was Pal. He understood that other people existed in his life and of those, two or maybe more would make up his family, but they were strangers to him; all unfamiliar and all rather scary. 

“You’re doing great, I’m right here! Looks like whoever owns this car has a thick wallet, those are rather luxurious seats!” Pal’s voice made the Boy relax and his face reflected a smile.

“How are you feeling back there sweetheart? We’re not too far away now, okay?” A voice, but not Pal’s voice; it was a woman's voice. The Boy felt his stomach churn and his heartrate flickered frantically. He felt the warmth of her hand covering his, which produced a surprisingly calm feeling. He looked further to his right and saw the passenger of who the voice belonged to. She was leaning back and carefully shaking the Boy’s hand in hers, just above his knee where it had previously been resting. The lady had a soft face that was more long than wide. Her eyes were wonderfully round and they overlooked a slightly upturned nose that balanced some freckles on it’s bridge; a few of which had spilled down towards each cheek. Her dark brown hair was scrunched into a semi-organized pile atop her head, with a few rebellious strands draped down her shoulders. The concern sounded genuine and her touch was familiar, she resembled a mother, she was almost certainly the Boy’s mother, but he was too distant to let her play that role; he was too scared to react .

“Mum… that’s her, that’s my Mum, isn’t it Pal?” He chose instead to communicate with the known, leaving the unknown rejected. The woman squeezed his hand before letting go and turning to face the front.

“I’m lead to believe so, and I will hazard to a guess that your Dad is the one driving the car?”

It was an obvious proposal from Pal, but one the Boy had failed to realise himself. Who else could it be? He leant further to his right, examining the central console of the car. Maybe if he saw a taxi meter running he wouldn’t have to face the reality of being introduced to both his Mum and Dad in the same dream. Most children have the luxury of being too young to remember the first moment they met their parents, and so they don’t have to worry about what to say or how to react. The Boy probably went through that moment once before, but he was going through it all again.

“Don’t Ignore your mother Tobias” The Man's voice startled the Boy back into formation and he sat perfectly still with his back unnaturally upright and his hands resting on his knees as they previously were. He rolled his thoughts over the name: Tobias, Tobias, Tobias, Tobias; it was his name, he felt connected to it somehow but not directly, like it were being borrowed as opposed to owned. “Did you know that was my name!?” The Boy’s fired off his interrogation at Pal. 

“No….I didn’t… I …I don’t understand!?….this doesn’t make any sense?!

“Tobias, are you listening to me!?”

“What doesn’t make sense, my name?! Tobias started to worry, focusing entirely on his thought and choosing again to ignore the Man who was now all but confirmed as his father.

“We don’t use names…. We can’t. A name has too much emotional baggage attached to it and we couldn’t risk evoking an unexpected memory. There is suppose to be a blanket name filter across the implant. This doesn’t make any sense? I’m going to chec—”

“TOBY!” The Man’s guttural growl intercepted Pal's response. “What is going on with you in the back!?

Toby opened his mouth in preparation for a response - he wasn’t sure what he would say and worried It might come out as shapeless noise.

“It’s okay, he doesn’t need to talk to me, he’s probably overtired, it’s a long drive sweetheart. Let’s just listen to the radio, shall we?” The woman redirected the Man’s attention, buying Tobias/Toby some time to determine which name he preferred. She fiddled with the volume dial and seemed immediately impressed by her decision.

“Gosh, haven’t heard this one for a while, such a beautiful song!” She seemed unsure of what to do with her hands upon turning the sound up, so she rested them on the man’s lap and nestled her head against his arm and started singing gently.

♪   If you think you've had too much of this life..well hang on…. Cause everybody hurts! ♪

“That’s me right now, hurting!” The Man made himself laugh and the woman playfully slapped his shoulder. “I’m sorry, but you know how I feel about sad songs?!” The Man tried for the volume, the woman stopped him.

“I know you can’t stand them, but I’ve learnt to continue loving you in spite of your imperfections.” The woman leant closer still and kissed the man on the cheek. “Nobody is perfect.”

Toby, who had now settled on the shorter version of his name, was stunned by the words. 

“Nobody is perfect.” His memory dragged him back to the start of the Dreamway; it was easy to retrace the mental steps as very few imprints had been made. Nobody is perfect… it reverberated around his mind… Nobody is perfect… He knew it meant something then… Nobody is perfect…. And it meant something now…. Nobody is perfect… But what?... Nobody is perfect…

“Pal…. What the hell is going on?”

No thoughts came back. The woman, his mother, continued singing.

♪ So hold on, hold on…. Hold on , hold on… ♪

Nobody is perfect… Nobody is perfect.

♪ hold on, hold on…. Hold on , hold on… ♪

Toby froze. He recognized the music.

“it’s R.E.M…. What… what the hell is this?…. Pull the thread, PULL THE THREAD!”

♪ Everybody Hurts…. You’re not alone…. ♪

Nobody is perfect… Nobody is perfect.

“WHAT’S GOING ON PAL, WHERE ARE YOU? PULL THE THREAD, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PULL THE THREAD!” Toby struggled to physically restrain himself, he was rocking back and forward manically.

“PAL! PAL! PAAAAL!!” The last wasn’t a thought, it was a scream. The Man and Woman shot around in a second. “TOBY?!” they shrieked in harmony. 

Nobody is perfect… Nobody is perfect.

He looked at the man, his father.

Nobody is perfect… Nobody is perfect.

“LOOK OUT!!!” The woman screamed.

Nobody is perfect… Nobody is perfect.

A crash.

A darkness.

A voice.

CHAPTER 8

“You’re okay, you’re safe now – it’s all going to be okay!” 

Toby was lying on the Dreamway floor on one side with his arms thrown above his head, which partially impeded his awakening view – it was another rough landing. When realizing his whereabouts, he jerked his body upwards and scuttled backwards like a crap towards the emergency exit. 

“Get away from me!! GET AWAY!” He tried standing upright and turning in one motion, but slipped. 

“Toby, you need to calm down, I’m sorry, I’m s—” Pal attempted to help him up, but was brushed away irreverently.

“You don’t get to call me that! You don’t get to tell me anything anymore!” Toby tried running but only managed to conjure a labored jog – both body and mind were exhausted.

“Toby you must understand that I had no control over…. that!” Pal gestured to the door, but Toby wouldn’t face him to see. “I was jammed… the signal was jammed, I tried to get back in but it wouldn’t let me! Won’t you just listen!?” Pal, who was physically more able, easily caught up to Toby and pleaded by his side. He was trying to hold the boy back with his hands but chose to retract them at the last moment, understanding how fragile he was. 

“I killed them! You didn’t see that! You didn’t get to see me kill them! I yelled out for you and they… they got distracted! They were my parents!” Toby  swung around violently and slapped away Pal’s hands. “My mum, my dad…. My dad!?” Tears welled up his eyes. “You!” He scruffed Pal’s shirt, which was no longer one that belonged to a magician, it was bright red, his entire outfit was; Toby had dressed him in anger, for that’s how felt. “You… My Dad?” It still didn’t make sense to Toby and so it came out as though it were still being conceptualized internally. He turned his head away and allowed his mind to unpack the memory:

Nobody is perfect… the music…. R.E.M…. Nobody is perfect…. “Toby!”…… Mum….. Dad…. Nobody is perfect…. Dad.... Dad….

“It was your face?!” Toby had quelled his anger and looked depleted, his eye’s found Pal’s. “You’re my dad? I don’t understand? How can you be my dad? How can any of this be?” He collapsed to his knees and banged two clenched fists against his temples. Pal fell with him, holding back his wrists from inflicting another blow. “You didn’t kill them, everybody survived that crash.” Pal pried open Toby’s hand and slipped in the file. “I opened it when we lost contact. I should have opened it early, I should have. I’m floundering fool, the biggest fool there is. You need to read it, you won’t hear me say it because you’re angry.” Pal looked down at this new outfit and pulled away at the red buttons. “It suits me. I don’t like it, but it suits me. You have every right to be upset with me Toby but please read that file.” A chair was IP'd for Toby to sit on but was refused. Toby propped himself against a door and opened the file cautiously, it read:

Update 12/08/2031 – 5:30am

Implementation override – authorization: P. Mênut [P2W4467]

REM memory drive configured.

Phase 3

Car accident 

Date  14/07/2031

Person(s): Pierre Mênut, Grace Mênut, Tobias Mênut

Casualties: 0

Notes: He must see this memory.

Toby closed the file and dropped it by his side, staring straight ahead with eyes that were not  focusing. Pal thought about consoling him more, but stifled the words when he realized  how poorly he was equipped to do so, opting instead for the only mode of sympathy he truly understood: analytics.

“Dr. Menut is your father. That will take time to process but you must understand it is true. I had no idea that he was, your past is kept largely secret to me so that we can create a degree of separation between the you that’s awake and the you that’s asleep – it gets messy when you start crossing the two, as you can now see. The car crash was a real memory, but what you need to understand that you were not the cause, think about it, when the real memory took place, you were not in communication with me in your thoughts and so you wouldn’t have had a reason to yell for me? It just so happened by chance that you yelled out at the same time as the inevitable crash was occurring, you see?” Pal placed himself against the wall next to Toby, carefully as to not encroach on his personal space as he done numerous times before. 

“I didn’t think this world worked with chance?” Toby was still looking straight ahead, but seemed slightly more settled now. 

“Circumstances have lead me to rethink what I previously thought possible about this place.  I just don’t understand why? Why would Dr. Mênut want you to see that memory? He live updated it personally, this was deliberately done, without question.”

“Maybe he’s angry with me? Maybe I did something else to make the crash happen in the real life.” Toby understood Pal’s explanation, but was still struggling to rid himself of the blame.

Pal acted against his programmed response fluctuator - a design built to simulate and match the human instinct. He took Toby’s hand in his and let them rest on the Boy’s knee. Toby felt the memory of his Mum doing the same thing wrestle against the desire to withdraw his hand; the prior was stronger than the latter and so the hand stayed. “He’s not angry with you, I promise. You mustn’t give yourself unnecessary grief...” Pal withdrew his hand suddenly and placed it along the line that parted his hair, dragging it across his head and realigning the strands that had strayed. “Grief, that’s it! Palperous you floundering, flabbergasted fool! That’s it!” He stood up and flashed his opened hands before his eyes, as to symbolize the opening of his mind that was previously closed. “Grief! That’s why he showed you! Oh good grief! Good grief indeed!” He seemed encouraged by such words and laughed at the ingenuity of his speech. “Walk with me Toby, walk with me! For we must walk to spur on the right words, and I’ve got them held right here!” He pointed at his head before reaching down and pulling Toby to his feet. 

“Chill out Pal! What is it? Do you know why Da— Dr. Mênut  showed me that memory!?” 

“Yes, yes, a pertinent call on the chill out, this is rather heavy and one should be sufficiently chilled when trying to lift a load of this weight. Pal took a deep breath in, stopped walking, exhaled loudly and started walking again. 

******

“This is yet another oversight on my behalf, but I’m ever so glad to have finally realised what is happening here. I don’t think the implant was, well, implanted for the sole purpose of dream assistance; It was placed there to help you through grief, to overcome a bad memory! It explains your age, why you are so old. Most children who start dream assistance are much younger than you, because they are less equipped to deal with the burden of nightmares. As you get older, you acknowledge them and realise the distinction between them and real life, you see?” 

“But if I were being protected, why would Dr. Mênut show me the car crash? Wouldn’t he try to stop me from seeing that?”

“That’s what was so confusing to me at the start, before I recalled the testing that KHMH did on the steps to overcoming grief. This research was in its infancy before Dr. Mênut  pulled the funding to focus entirely on dream assistance, but there was sufficient information that pointed us in the direction of one angle when confronted with grief, and that was the prevalence of acceptance. Acceptance is a fundamental  stage in overcoming grief and it's principle in relation to dreaming is not so different to how modern psychology faces the same issue of grief in the waking life!” Pal was getting excited with this revelation and so he stopped for a moment to face Toby to ensure he was being understood. “People believe the best way to overcome a bad memory is not just to erase it, but to face it, accept it and move from it! Dr. Mênut was helping you to accept it so that now you can move on from it! To treat the intrusion of grief, you must first go back before you can go forward.” 

“And I just went back..” Toby looked behind, as to physically act our the figurative concept.

“And now you go forward!” Pal grabbed his hands like the two were about to dance, swinging Toby jovially in the other direction. “Ha Haa! Don’t you see Toby, it’s working as it should! The theory is being tested and proven as we speak! The rat has navigated the maze! Ha haa!” Pal let go of Toby’s hands and held one clenched up to the Boy’s nose, slowly opening it to reveal a perfectly triangle piece of camembert  cheese. Toby took it and ate it happily, the cheese was so creamy that he wished there were more. 

“Dad has been trying to help me this whole time.” Toby trialed the new name and was proud to acknowledge the great doctor as his father.

“That’s all your father has ever done, help people.” Pal hugged Toby, for that’s what Dr. Mênut would have wanted, but he was not entirely compelled by the concealed desires of another, he too wanted to hold the Boy for his own selfish reasons. Little did he realise  that such reasons were the product of a feeling that was absent in his programming up until that point; love.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you Pal.”

“You don’t need to be sorry, I do, I left you when I said I wouldn’t…”

 ♪ My bed is pulling me, gravity… Daysleeper… Daysleeper…Daysleeper ♪

The dream watch sounded again. 

“R.E.M?” Toby asked somewhat rhetorically.

“Of course.” Pal wound the crown and silenced the song.

“What does it mean?”

“Just what it says, you’re now a Daysleeper, it is morning time and your mind has successfully navigated the stages of sleep and is ready to wake up!”

“Oh, so it’s time for me to leave?” Toby faced the emergency exit doors, noting the now illuminated Exit sign. He sounded disappointed, for although he wanted to wake up on a few occasions during the dream sequence, he felt now that he was finally warming up to the world, finally he understood his purpose here and all the potentials were laid pit before him. 

“Come, come, let me show you out; I’m a polite host, huh?” Pal smiled, but he too was secretly saddened by the sounding of the alarm to leave. “I think I’ll even let you come back tonight again? How does that sound?”

“I can come back? Please oh please? Can we go to Fair and Tale world please? Maybe there is a door that leads to a rollercoaster park? Or maybe swimming with Dolphins!?” Toby put his ear up against the last line of doors, moving from one  to the other and trying to listen for what exciting worlds may await. 

“All are possible and more! But we will keep them for a surprise!” 

They both stopped in front of the emergency exit, Toby reached for Pal’s hand and squeezed it tight. “Will I remember you when I wake up?” He sounded hopeful, but deep down he knew how Pal would respond. 

“Not in the way that you want remember me. It will all be fuzzy and hard to pinpoint, like a regular dream. You will have some vivid recollections of the dreams themselves, the feeling of flying like an eagle or staring into the Amazon could be triggered during the day, especially just after you wake, but the conversations like we are having now in the Dreamway will never be known while you are awake.

“Why not? I want to remember all this and tell everyone the stories?” 

“Let me put it this way. If you could remember everything, would you spend the entire waking day thinking about the dream world?”

“Of course! All day!” Toby was too excited to understand that he was giving further credence to Pal’s point.

“And so you would be wishing your time away, wouldn’t you? Counting down the minutes until you get to return?”

“I guess so.”

“Toby, the sleeping world and the waking life are both incredible worlds to live in, both so very important but both so radically different. We must nurture their differences and ensure they remain separate from one another. There is a state of balance that we need to look after, it’s our responsibility, our code of ethics; we could never create a world that would detract from the other, there must be harmony for this to function. Not to mention the serious threat of plagiarism that we face from opposing dream-shapers, but we won’t go into that!”

The Boy squeezed Pal’s hand tightly once more and swung it to the door handle where it did the same. He looked at Pal, who had not been bright red for sometime, he was now dressed casually in a pair of jeans with a navy blue t-shirt.

“What am I suppose to be now… a….a—” Pal looked for prop or defining feature but could find nothing.

“A father.” The Boy wiped away at moisture in his eyes before they formed tears. “Well, at least that’s how I imagine one to look.”

“Thank you Toby. It’s my favourite outfit yet.”

“What will you do while waiting for me?”

“A few of these doors need a lick of paint, but I’ve been saying that for a long time now, so I’ll probably just chill out!” He winked at Toby. Toby winked back.

“Goodbye Pal, see you tonight!”

And with that, Toby pulled back on the handle of the emergency exit.

…But it wouldn’t budge.

He tried again…nothing.

Chapter 9

Toby tried the other side of the door, still nothing.

“Pal, it seems to be stuck.”

“Looks like another chore for Palperous! It probably just need a good…” He yanked at both handles expecting them to give, but they refused. “Huh?”

“Do you have a key, it feels locked?” 

“There has never been a key for this door, this is rather strange.” He threw shoulder against the door and still it resisted.

The lights flickered on and off in the Dreamway.

“What is happening? Toby ran to the two closest doors and tried the knobs, but nothing.

“Stand back!” Pal IP'd an axe and took to the emergency exit with all of his might.

“Come on!”    ker-chunk!    “You!”   ker-chunk!   “Heap of!”   ker-chunk!     “Rubbish!!”     ker-chunk!

There was barely a scratch on the wood for all of Pal’s efforts. “Quit with this tomfoolery Doctor!” Pal cast aside the axe and yelled frustratingly at the ceiling. 

“Can Doctor Mênut hear us?! DAD! HELP! WE'RE STUCK!” Toby banged his fist on the wall and yelled.

“That’s enough Toby! I need to think. God! What is happening here!?” Pal kicked this door and rattled it a few more times. “Right, I think it’s time get serious!” Pal reached towards the wall and plucked some bundled dynamite.

“Woah! You’re going to blow it up? I thought there were restrictions on what you could IP” Toby was scared, but slightly reassured by Pal’s alternative strategy.

“When we close old dreams or dysfunctional ones, we have to clear the way for a new ones, now, when I light the fuse and run back,  you crouch down behind me and close your eyes and cover your ears.”

“But I want to watch!?”

“Do what I say Toby!” Pal roared with authority, Toby didn’t argue.

Pal crouched beside the door and struck a match…

“3…

  2…

  1…”

Hissssssssssssss

“Get down!”

BOOOOOM!!!

A cloud of smoke deprived them of the verdict!

“Direct hit! Wooo!” Toby was sure the exit was now clear, what door could possibly withstand a blast like that?

Apparently this one. It remained upright and again, barely a mark to note.

“Argh!! “ Pal hurled the box of matches at the exit, but it just disappeared as usual. 

“What do we do Pal!? Is there another exit?”

Pal tapped his index finger rapidly against his chin.  “There is no other exit, there is only this one, nothing more. I think we must wait. For all know it’s tick and Dr. Mênut is reprogramming as we speak. Let us sit. I’m sorry, I got quite animated there, didn’t I?”

Toby didn’t get the chance to reply as the lights at the other end of the Dreamway began shutting off  and soon the darkness was racing towards the two like falling dominoes. It swallowed them in no time, leaving the exit sign ironically lit up and so Pal and Toby huddled beneath it; they could just see the outline of one another. 

“Get a torch Pal!”

“Good idea!” Pal conjured the image of a flashlight, picturing it's size and intricate details as he normally would when summoning an item. “It….. it’s not working!? IP is down! The Dreamway is powering down!”

“What do you mean powering down? I need to wake up, what happens If I can’t get back!?” 

“You have to get back! We’re going to get you back Toby! It might just take a little longer than expected. You’re a real Daysleeper now!” Pal tried to lighten the mood, but Toby could easily detect the underlying worry. He could sense that Pal had a theory on what might happen if he couldn’t get back and was choosing to keep that secret. 

All of a sudden, the floor shook below. 

“Pal?”

Toby watched as Pal paced one ear and two hands against the floor, he was trying to pinpoint the disturbance. “Shhh!”

Behind them, one light flickered to life in the distance. The floor shook again, more violently this time before falling into silence. It wasn’t a deadly silence though, for a faint grating sound could be heard below their feet. Pal ran his fingers over the area he thought it to be coming from, following the naturally straight lines of the tiles before deviating along a crack that had appeared. Upon realizing, Pal lifted his head tentatively and turned towards Toby who stood against the wall, bracing for another shudder. 

“Run…” It came out as a whisper, lacking any urgency as to not provoke the crack. The Boy darted his eyes back and forward between the light down the Dreamway and Pal.

“RUN!!!!” 

The Boy took off, Pal wasn’t far behind. 

“What’s going on Pal!?” The cracking sound grew angry and when Pal looked back he could see the tiles had begun falling away below the emergency exit.

“FASTER TOBY! THE FLOOR IS COLLAPSING! FASTER!!” Pal had one hand against Toby’s back and was trying to propel him forwards. The light ahead was closing in, but so was the gaping chasm below. 

“We’re nearly there Pal, I can see the door!” Just before reaching it, Pal shoved Toby as to ensure he got there. The Boy fell face forward and slid slightly past the door, dragging his hands to slow down when he could see that the floor was also collapsing from the other direction. All that was left of the Dreamway  was one pillar of tiles before a door that was only just wide enough to support the two of them.

“ARG-WOOOOOOOO!” Toby howled with jubilation. “We made it Pal! We made it!” He picked himself up and turned to hug him. “Pal?.... PAL!!!???” He wasn’t there. 

“No! No! No! PAL!” He sniffled between each desperate cry as tears began to impede. He turned one way and then the other, but there was no where to look, nowhere to hide. Only the faint exit sign could be seen now floating in the distance. 

“Toby! Down here! A voice stole away from over the lip of the cracked tiles. Toby scampered to the edge, he would have fallen himself if not for the doorframe which was used to steady his progress. He looked down and saw Pal clinging to edge of chipped tile with one hand, he was trying desperately to swing the other arm up, but there was not enough grip to support two hands. 

“Pal, hang on! I thought you left me!! Pal!” 

“I always hated these tiles! I thought they looked too much like a cheap bathroom, but oh do I love them now!” Pal laughed, but the tile moaned with the increased movement of his body.

“Chill out Pal! Stay still!.... here, take my hand!” 

“Argh!” Pal swung his free hand towards Toby’s but couldn’t bridge the gap.

“Keep trying! Keep trying!” Toby locked his foot inside the doorframe so he could reach down further. “I…can…almost!” His fingers were tantalizingly close to Pal’s as he made enough effort.

“Toby, don’t come any further, you’ll fall! It’s not going to work, I’m too far down… It’s just too far!!” Toby didn’t appear to be listening, he continued rocking his arm back and forwards, hoping that would stretch it a few more centimeters or so. “Toby! That’s enoug—!”

“You don’t get to say when it’s enough! This is my dream, remember!? Just a little more! Try harder Pal! Pal!?”

Pal was no longer making an attempt with his free arm, it was now resting resolutely by his side. “Listen to me Toby… LISTEN! The door there, it’s going to be an exit, Dr. Mênut must have built it when he noticed the tick, you need to go through, you need to wake up! You don’t need me anymore! Just go!”

Toby looked back at the door and cringed at the thought of leaving Pal. “That’s my decision to make! I still need you!” 

“Not anymore it’s not! This out of your control Toby! This is your mind, but this is not your decision!” Pal let his fingers slip a little from the tile! 

“Don’t you dare let go Pal! Don’t you dare! I don’t want you to die… I don’t want you to die!!” Pal felt a tear drip on his hand. 

“I’m….. I’m a program Toby, I think you’re forgetting that. I can’t die like you fear because I have never been alive. I have the ability to reset but you don’t have that luxury! I care about you, I care about everyone I assist here, but I care because I am told to, not because I can. I’m a program Toby… I’m just a program”. Pal knew that wasn’t true. He knew that his caring for Toby went well beyond the call of duty and he knew those feelings were more than just code. He felt nervous when he should have felt calm, he felt sad when there should only be strength, he felt pride on top of protection and he felt love… he felt love for Toby.

“YOU’RE NOT JUST A PROGRAM!! STOP SAYING THAT!!” Toby withdrew his head from over the edge, but Pal could still hear him crying. “You’re my dad..” Toby nervously peaked his head back out. “You’re my dad and I don’t want you to die!” Toby was fighting away the tears and tried to look strong. He held his hand down towards Pal again. 

Pal was blinking rapidly. He was blinking rapidly because that’s all one can do to fight away tears when hanging from the edge of the Dreamway. 

“When I first came here, you told me to remember one thing when I was scared. Do you remember what that was? Toby no longer looked sad, his smile was wide and could even been seen in the corners of his eyes.

Pal remembered exactly what he said to Toby, but he wanted Toby to say it. He needed to hear Toby say it.

“Keep holding my hand.”

Pal threw up his arm. It was all or nothing.

CHAPTER 10

“I’ve got you! I’ve got you!” Toby managed to pull Pal to the lip of the intact tiles, just enough for him to grip the edge with two hands. Again Toby enlisted the help of the doorframe, wedging his foot and heaving back with one of Pal’s hands in his. “Just a bit more… just a bit more!! And it was enough. Pal used the last of his strength to lift himself above the tiles, like a swimmer does when leaving the pool. He collapsed before the door and Toby swamped him instantly. “We did it! We did it!” Toby rocked him back and forth, like a child would to awaken a parent after a nightmare; the circumstances were remarkably similar. Pal held his hand up to politely direct the Boy to stop. When he did stop, Pal sat up gingerly and hugged the boy tightly, resting his chin on the top of Toby’s head. 

“You did it!... you did it!” Pal didn’t want to let go, but the light above the door hummed uncomfortably and demanded their attention. 

“I guess this is goodbye, again.” Pal patted down Toby’s front, removing the dust like a concerned father would.

“I guess so.” Toby shied away, like an irritated  son would.

Toby tried the door, it clicked open. Relief overcame them both, although Toby was still tending to a feeling of disappointment - It was irrational and he knew that, for what could be done if the door had been locked? 

Then, just as he was about to open the door completely, a file came from below the door and stopped in front of their feet; Toby clicked the door shut. He bent down and picked it up, noting it's similarity to the first file that Pal had IP'd.  He noticed the writing in the center of the page:

        PM 

“It’s for you Pal, it has your name on it!” He passed it over to Pal who took it and held it up to the light so that he could better read it. He opened it and read the following to himself:

        Update 12/08/2031 – 7:43am

        Implemented override

 Authorization: P. Mênut [P2W4467]

 I don’t know if you’re there.  Palperpous, but if you are, you must read this aloud for Tobias to hear. He must hear this while still in...

Palperous closed the file and looked at the front again. “PM doesn’t stand for Palperous Montomelli...” He sounded distant and vague.”

“P… M… Palperous Montomelli!” the Boy ran his finger under each letter to help Pal understand, but he didn’t seem to be listening. “What's wrong Pal?” Pal broke from his trance and looked at Toby.

“PM doesn’t stand for Palperous Montomelli… PM… PM stands for Pre-Mortem…” Pal collapsed against the wall and slid down, still holding the file in both hands.

“Pre-Mortem? What is that Pal? Is that bad? Is that where the door leads? Well… does it!?”

“I…. I have to read you something…. The Doctor… Your…. Father…..wants me….. I need to read this to… you" Pal’s face looked ill in the reflection of the light. He opened the file and cleared his throat. This is what he read, word for word:

Toby, I am Doctor Mênut, your father. You must be so scared and confused and I am so sorry,  I'm sorry about everything you’ve had to see, it’s so hard to make sense of a situation that’s senseless. I tried everything... I want you to know I tried to fix everything, but I just couldn’t this time. You need to know something (Hold his hand Palperous, make sure he’s not scared).

This is going to sound very strange but you need to listen. Right now you are you are sleeping, but not how you normally sleep. On the 12/08/2031... a month ago... we were in a car accident as a family, I know you’ve seen the memory. When the car accident happened, you fell asleep, you fell asleep and you haven’t woken up since. You’re in a medically induced coma – the doctors have been trying to wake you up but they can’t, they’ve tried everything but you want to stay asleep. In my desperation I placed the implant in your mind and showed you the crash again, I thought the shock would wake you up, but it didn’t, you just stayed asleep. When I realised there was nothing left to do, I worked day and night to finish the door you are standing in front of – this is a project I’ve been working on for years in the dark and now it must be brought into the light. 

Pal stopped reading. He held the file to his chest and shook his head, redirecting the consistent flow of tears that had been falling. “ No, no, no!” 

Toby squeezed his hand three times, one for every no that was said – it was his way of saying yes, his way of showing acceptance. The corners of his mouth quivered and he wanted to cave in the face of sadness; but he wiped away the tears and sat bravely, waiting for Pal to continue.

Behind this door your life will go on. Your life will continue and the car crash will  never happen. It’s a simulation of what “could" have been. I’ve sampled your memory, mapped your potential and updated self dispersing scenarios which may or may not happen depending on how you live your life and what you choose to do. You will make decisions, feel pain, regret, smile, frown, laugh and cry; You will do all this because you will be alive. People always say that nobody can hide from death, that we all will meet this fatal end – but death is not going to look for you in there. He may come again, I know he will, but this will buy you some time to grow old and experience everything this beautiful world has to offer. 

Your world behind this door is not perfect, far from it – but someone special once told me that we can still love in spite of these imperfections. These imperfections are what allow us to learn and understand, they shape us and help us grow. I have spent my life trying to rid the mind of the very imperfections that make up the fabric of our universe and I will never forget that... but you will. You will forget. When you walk through that door you will never remember what has happened to you. You will have access to memories that really did occur in your life but you will never have to think about the moment you died and the moment you were brought back to life. 

I don’t want to stop writing, because if I continue, there is a part of me that believes I don’t have to say goodbye – but the doctors are coming and when they do, I’ll have to say goodbye to you again.

Your mother is holding my hand Toby, and Pal is holding yours. We are together right now and we always will be.

We love you so much.

MUM & DAD

P.S.   R.E.M is part of remember

Pal threw the file over the edge and the fluttering of pages resembled the fluttering of his heart in that moment.

“Pal, I’m not dying, I’m not… feel….can’t you feel it!? I’m not dying, I promise!” Toby held Pal’s hand to his chest, his heart was racing with fear,  because even bravery gets tired after a while. “You can feel it!? I don’t want to die, I’m alive right here, right here!” Toby beat his chest to emphasize the point further.

Pal took his hands and rested the Boy’s head against his. “and you will continue to live here.” He tapped his fingers against the top of Toby’s head. “Okay? You will keep living! This is not the end Toby, the door is unlocked and you just keep fighting until it’s not, okay!?” 

“Okay..” it was a wounded response, one that was forced rather than believed.

“We don’t have much time, the doctors will be here… rather there soon.” Toby let his limp body be lifted by Pal, he remembered back to the first conversation they had and thought about all the here’s, there’s and everwhere's; for there were plenty to think about.

“I won’t forget you. I don’t care what my other Dad said, I won’t forget you either, Dad.” Pal let his new name fall upon silence. He knew that remembering was something that neither of them could control, but in light of so many hard truths, he let one soft lie slip through. “I will never forget either… I love you Toby.”

“I love you Dad.”

Pal opened the Door. 

******

They stood before a calm ocean, one that was empty but not at all lonely; for a giant white moon was resting low to greet them. The smell of salt water was calming and the breeze helped to dry away both of their tears. Pal had one arm over Toby’s shoulder, as a father might do when taking his boy to school for the first day. 

“Where do I go? Its just all water, I can’t see any land?” Toby leant out to survey the open ocean. He was right, the door seemed to be placed in the water and there was no land in sight.

“You just need to swim.” Pal closed his eyes and smiled.

“How do you know that?” 

“Listen, the ocean is telling you what to do.”

The Boy leant further out and heard the music.

♪The moon is low tonight…. Nightswimming….Deserves a quiet night ♪

“R.E.M…” Toby just looked straight ahead and now understood what he needed to do.

“Deserves a quiet night…” Pal too held his gaze, marveling at the beautiful sight before them. “Your father is an incredible man Toby.” 

Toby didn’t answer, he dived into the water and bobbed up a few moments later “The water! It’s so warm! Come and feel—” He couldn’t finish because he knew Pal couldn’t.

“I’ll take your word for it, never was much on swimming anyhow, it’s not good for all my circuits and wires!” Pal bent down and pretended to get an electric shock. Toby laughed. Pal had missed Toby’s laugh and realized it was the perfect time to go.

 “I’m going to close the door now, okay Toby?”

Toby was paddling just in front of the door, he didn’t try and stop him.

“Just lay on your back and relax, everything is going to be fine… just chill out!” it came out perfectly believable and Toby simply followed his instructions and laid back.

“Where will you…” Toby looked to door, but it was gone. “Go…”

He laid back and looked at the moon as  the water gently lapped against his face.

“I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!!” He yelled emphatically. “AGH-WOOOOOOOO!”

At the same time, behind the closed door, the tiles of the Dreamway began to shake and Pal closed his eyes. “I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!!” He fell into the darkness.

Toby felt something grab his shirt under the water. “Huh!?” It pulled him under. He fought against the dragging  and tried for the surface, but he was only going further down. 

“PAL!” he screamed, but it only sounded like the blowing of bubbles underwater. Just when it seemed hopeless, the dragging ceased and Toby kicked desperately to get to the surface; the pressure in his lungs was immense and he could feel his vision fading but he breached the surface just as it went dark… he gasped for air…

“TOBY!? Honey pull over, I think Toby is sick!” 

The car stopped.

The doors opened.

His breathing slowed.

CHAPTER 11

“You had us worried there pal, are you sure you’re you’re alright?…  here, have some more water.” Dr. Mênut  leant back and passed Toby the water, Mrs. Mênut meanwhile was rubbing his knee soothingly.

“Lots of kids get carsick in the back, you come sit in the front with your dad for the last bit of the drive, okay sweetheart?” Mrs. Mênut didn’t wait for a reply, she jumped out and took Toby by the hand and helped him into the front seat, clicking in the seatbelts and kissing him on the forehead. “That’s a bit better, now isn’t it?” 

Toby had said nothing up until this stage. He didn’t feel sick upon waking up, he still wasn’t even sure how long he dozed off for?  It was long enough to feel the lingering haze of sleep however. 

Dr. Mênut started the car and merged into the slow moving traffic, waving to the car behind for letting him sneak in. “Well we haven’t lost any time by the looks lf it, nobody is going anywhere fast! There must have been an accident up ahead?”

“Oh poor people, I don’t like thinking about that… let’s just listen to the radio, shall we?”

Toby turned and looked at his mother, he wasn’t sure why he did.

“If that’s okay with you sweetheart? Mrs. Mênut smiled reassuringly.

Toby hovered his hand over the dials, leaning closer to ensure he was adjusting the volume and not the signal. He move the dial clockwise very slowly, in single increments, like someone who had only just encountered a radio.

“Gosh, haven’t heard this one for a while, such a beautiful song!” Mrs. Mênut seemed immediately impressed by her decision.

Dr. Ménut's hand hovered over the dial, like a cowboy threatening to pull his pistol.

“I know you don’t like sad songs, but plea—” Mrs. Mênut stopped herself when she realized that her husband was not turning the volume down, but up.

“But… You hate sad songs?” She looked puzzled and was leaning forward before the seatbelt quelled her.

Dr. Mênut chose not to reply instantly, he appeared deeply immersed in the song.

♪   If you think you've had too much of this life..well hang on…. Cause everybody hurts! ♪

“I’ve had a change of heart.” Dr. Mênut reached his hand to the back seat and held his wife's. “I’ve reevaluated my imperfections”. She squeezed tightly as they both smiled. 

“Nobody is perfect” she leant closer and kissed his cheek. “But you are pretty close.” She leant the other way and kissed Toby as well. “And you too.”

♪ If you feel like you’re alone....

No… No…No… you’re not alone…♪

“R.E.M…” Toby whispered. 

“What was that pal?” Dr. Mênut turned down the volume slightly to let his son talk. 

“R.E.M…” Toby turned the volume back up and rested his head against his father’s shoulder. 

“Is a part of remember…”