Chapter 2 - Only in Dreams

LOG NCTX002

The vehicle careened into the side of the cab; the fiery chaos of debris that remained of the two transports made an image becoming of hell itself. The passengers, remarkably thrown quite a distance from the car. Driver, man and woman.

All unconscious it would seem. The man started to come to, only overcome with bewilderment and terror at the sight before him. Residents and onlookers gathered along sidewalks across from the wreckage.

"Oh dear god, -------! Where are you -------!?" he cried out in fright.

Had he stopped to look beside him, he would have noticed that just before the crash, he pulled her close into his arm. They'd been throw together; his head bleeding, leg gashed, her in pristine condition.

"Oh thank god," he cried out in relief, "I thought I'd lost you -------, and I don't know what I'd do without you."

Sounds of sirens wailing, another explosion from the wreckage, and people screaming drowning his head which could barely keep itself up from the blood loss.

"Julius!..." he heard faintly as he passed out again, holding her close. "...get...togeth...hospit...save -------..." Fading in in out of verbal consciousness.

"HOLY SHIT!" He woke up in a frantic panic, his bedroom dreary and empty, a bottle of Sky on his desk quarter filled. "God damnit, not that fucking dream again...what the hell are you trying to tell me, huh?..."

The fire, the accident, the woman: most of what he saw was a recurring dream; a dream he wrote into a story once, before he washed himself out.

He believed that dreams were God's way of communicating with him; he was always told as a child 'only angels can fathom the true voice of God'. Because of this, his delusion of dream-communications was bred.

He sat up in his bed, leg stretched out, sheets soaked and salted. He sweat the fear out in his sleep.

"...and why that one again? You never even tell me her name," he pleaded to Heaven, hoping to solve his riddles. "And what about him? Is he me? Am I HardLuck?"

I suppose we should clarify: in his story, the one based on this nightmarish vision he has, he'd nicknamed the main character HardLuck; Julius Lucius, a retired police lieutenant gone PI.

All that aside, we're not permitted to tell you anymore about this dream than what has been demonstrated. He rolled himself out of bed, and cringed from head pangs.

"No more vod before bed ol' boy. You don't even like this stuff anyway, " he coached himself.

After a bit of coaxing, he realized the little icon on the bottom right corner of his computer screen was blinking. S tiny red envelope.

"...what the hell? Email?"

He didn't recognize the address, but the subject line read 'on elm st' which caught his interest.

He read it aloud -

"Nobody checked for passenger of the other vehicle did they? What about her? She was chasing the love of her life, with just one hour remaining before her pumpkin died; Where did the winds carry his scent, and why did she follow? nobody check on her did they?

-Cassius"

His breathing fettered, his heart raced, and he sent himself into a panic. He looked around the room frantically, trying to find an answer to his confusion...anything to ail the rush.

When he turned back at the screen, the message was gone. In it's place, a MySpace bulletin-

"SkyGoddess has posted a new blog. Click here to read."

LOG NCTX003

On the other side of the world she woke up tossing and turning, tears in her eyes. It took a lot to draw her to tears, and only her own imagination could do so readily.

She grasped at any ounce of sleep she could still hold, trying desperately to finish her dream. Nothing. She lay there for a minute in quiet contemplation, her thoughts booming loud:

"I could smell him...taste him...HEAR him!...why? One glimpse of him, one minute more of sleep and I could have found out what it was about..."

She looked at her watch. Conditioned to wake up in regimen fashion, she'd woken up just in time to head out to work.

"...so that's why I couldn't see the ending? To keep a schedule on time?...whatever," she conceded to herself.

Still, she sat down in front of her screen, and typed her heart out. Every ion of her nightmare, she flashed onto the page before her, and with all the drops on her dreams she could still recall, she painted a picture of words. No justice to what she really felt, but it would have to do.

"For some reason the only face I knew in it was my own; I felt everything in it though. My senses were so very alive. This has to be important," she stammered to herself.

Thirty seconds late to work, but not enough to be noticed.

"It will be worth it. I'll figure it out," she thought.

LOG NCTX004

"...tragically poetic," he said to himself. "But what the fuck does it mean? It has to be coincidence...and I have to be delusional."

He was talking out loud again, and not quietly.

"I coulda swore I saw a different email. I've got to lay off the sleep aids...even if I pull all nighters for exams," he grumbled.

The wreck stumbled to his bathroom, opened his medicine cabinet and threw away a box of OTC Benadryl. Not exactly sleep aid material, but he used it in a pinch.

He dragged himself to the kitchen, boiled some water on the stove, and made a fresh cup on black tea with honey and lemon. He sat down in the middle of his living room in surrounding silence, and drank. While there he recited to himself:

"Ichigo ichie. Sono kochya to inori no kotoba wa watashi no tsumi o araimasuyo. Soshite, boku no megami-sama ga daisuki wa watashi ni annaishite kudasaimasenka...arigatou gozaimasu kami-sama."

What we're aloud to translate is as follows:
"For this time only. This black tea and this prayer wash away my sins. Also, --- ------- - ---- lead back to me if you would please...thank you much dear Lord God."

He drowned himself in his self-proclaimed humility, though he lead a life of true redemption at times; He never asked for anything but a clean slate, but the nightmares kept coming. He figured it was because he was asking for a selfish request when he prayed, but he persisted.

After about half an hour, he stood up. His leg had fallen asleep, and he shook it sporadically to awaken it.

"I hope she's OK over there," he said regarding his friend's journal entry. "that's a hell of a dream to wake up from in such a crazy situation. Maybe I should leave her a comment...make sure she's alright."

We've been informed to clarify one more detail: The main protagonist in the stories based off of his dream sequence was a corrupt police officer, Sergeant Mark Cassius, best friend of Julius through most of what he'd written to date.

LOG NCTX005

The next day she slept dreamless. She woke mundane, on schedule, and proceeded to follow her day's work routine. In the fields of war, there's not much room for anything out of routine.

When she had the opportunity later, she checked her email. A a MySpace bulletin-

"HardLuck has posted a comment to your blog entry. Click here to read and respond."

She read the brief squabble he left in a rush before class, and she stared blandly, as though in disappointment.

"Sounds like a line," she thought, "I mean 'tragically poetic', how much tackier does it get?" She sighed softly. "At least someone responded."

She was a bit happy after reading it, though she had trouble convincing herself of that. She smirked a bit. She remembered the note he wrote her, and figured he was at least well intentioned.

"Dork," she thought, "If I can't know the ending, neither can you...I guess we can find it only in dreams."

It always seemed like both their stories remained without endings. Their villains never vanquished, and their lives never changed. All they'd been through (separate and together) was a chain of non-connecting links; oddly enough, each link read:

"------- has sent you a new message. Click here to read it."