by Giorgio Berbatiotis

I. APOPHENIA

Oneira woke up sitting cross-legged in the shower once more. She could still hear the soft somber toiling of a piano’s strings ringing in her ears, as her eyes adjusted back to the brightness of her bathroom. She was waking from the calming serenity of a dream, and though the contemplative sadness that accompanied it was washing off her now, it seemed only a second ago that she had been immersed in peace, not the organized chaos of her morning routine.

Every morning had always been the same for Oneira, but ever since her father suffered a stroke, she had been unable to stay awake long. She had always been enthusiastic in the mornings; she would turn off the alarm, rush to the bathroom, grab her toothbrush and hop in the shower. Lately though, as soon as she turned on the water, and had time to think, she of course thought of her father. His doctor stated plainly he saw no scenario in which a man with her father’s kind of brain damage could have survived a stroke, let alone wake from a coma. For him, having survived was miracle enough. Not for Oneira. As soon as she would think of her father lying there, she would start hearing the soft keystrokes of the sorrowful piano from her dream, and start to fall asleep, and now, as she had thought of just that, she heard the piano toil once more. The slow, sustained sorrow, that did not stop but lingered.

It was such an intense piece, moving and beautiful. Where others might have heard sadness, Oneira heard strength. The piece seemed like it had a chance, a hope for a happy ending. As she listened to the mournfull procession of notes, Oneira realized that she had fallen asleep again, she was dreaming. The music stopped suddenly. She was alone in darkness, standing on some flat, cold hard surface.

Oneira had never experienced a dream this terrifyingly real before, yet she knew clearly that it was not. There was no way she could have been transported from her shower into this cold empty darkness. For a moment she panicked that she had in fact died, and that this was a sort of purgatory or punishment. At first, she nervously reached out into the darkness, taking small steps. After what seemed like far too long of feeling no change in the hard surface beneath her feet, and encountering only an eery emptiness, she felt anxious and started to run. She ran until she could hardly breathe. After the first couple minutes of running scared, she had yet to encounter anything in the vast emptiness of the dream. She had only been afraid. Now she was on her hands and knees, trying to regain her breath. She wished for water and felt a stream begin to pour past her hand. She drank from it, and reflecting off it came the light she sought. The beginnings of a skyline appeared in the distance, at first a dim red glow, then a slowly rising star, shining brightly into the sky above. Oneira realized she had created both the water and the shining star that lit up the dream like day, and had created with her mind, the vivid landscape that sprung up around her.

As soon as Oneira realized she could do anything in this world her mind created, her first instinct was to fly. So she jumped, and when she did, she flew. She soared through clouds, pushing herself faster and faster, watching her mind bring a whole world into existence. All it took was the will to do it, and she was in awe of what she could do in her dream. After some time however, her mind strayed from the initial shock and novelty, and she thought again of her father. She had not stopped flying at the time and fell, hitting hard into the earth of her own minds creation. There was a lot of pain. Time stretched out endlessly and the dream was dark again, a creeping malaise fell upon her. She seemed to shrivel up and felt something begin eating her from the inside. A slow death. Then she heard the slow, sustained sorrow of the piano, that did not stop but lingered, and it reminded her of her father’s strength.

Oneira woke up, but this time did not forget her dream, and she could hear the music continue playing as she finished her shower and dressed. She could not stop thinking about the pain she’d been in when she fell from the sky. The dream had been so beautiful until then, and if not for the mysterious music, that she would have usually forgotten by now along with the dreams, she believed she could have died then, even knowing she was only dreaming.

II. APOTHEOSIS

In the last few months Eric had taken to smiling and nodding every time he passed Oneira. She had known Eric for years, but never well. He was an anti-social type, and a certain crowd enjoyed making his life miserable, which only hardened him to the rest of his classmates.

A group of boys sitting near the back of Oneira’s class were mocking him that day, apparently he’d been punched in the face, and was bleeding rather badly. “Sadly that’s pretty standard”, thought Oneira. It usually started with Eric defending himself, and ended with some self-righteous asshole “teaching him a lesson” about the way high-school hierarchy works. As she sat thinking of Eric’s plight, the piano returned, and it was louder than ever before. Each stroke of the keys resonated in her mind, making her visibly shake, she felt a great pain in her heart and fell asleep right there in class.

She awoke inside a dream again, but this time the music kept playing. There was heavy rain, but the storm could hardly be heard over the sound of the piano’s lamentations. Lightning flashed and a heavy wind began blowing. When Oneira turned to shield her face from it all, she saw Eric, in the middle of the storm, playing the piano. The song was at its most intense, he struck each key with an intensity and anguish that again resonated so loudly within her that Oneira was visibly shaking. He did not notice her. As she slowly approached him through the rain and the wind, she saw that he was horribly disfigured in this dream. Where his eyes should have been there seemed to be only blood, which streaked down his cheeks. Parts of his face and hands were burnt to ash. His clothes were torn and burnt and scars that stretched out several inches peppered his body. He swayed as he kept playing the sorrowful tune manically. In one moment, where he seemingly threw his entire weight into a keystroke, a bolt of lightning struck him, but he kept playing, bloodied and broken, as his clothes burned in the storm. She screamed as loud as she could, and everything stopped.

Oneira woke again in class, it seemed like no time had passed. She was overwhelmed by what she’d just seen and couldn’t bear to stay. Without concern for anything she picked up her bag, and left the room without explanation. As she ran down the hall she heard a piano, but this was not in her mind, it was coming from the music room, and it was playing the same song. She stopped instantly, almost falling as she hunched over, shocked and breathing heavily.

After taking a moment to let the reality of what was happening sink in, she walked slowly over to the door, as the song continued playing, and peered into the room. She saw Eric there playing the piano, with a bit of tissue sticking out of his bloodied nose and black eye to go with it. She could not believe that this was happening, “What the hell are you playing?” she almost yelled at him. He looked up at her, surprised.

“The adagio sostenuto,” said Eric. “Your favourite.”

“What?” exclaimed Oneira, surprised to hear him say that. The piece he’d been playing had become her favourite since she started hearing it in her dreams, but how he could know that was a mystery to her.

“You said it reminds you of your dad,” answered Eric. He looked confused. “You still can’t remember?”

“What the hell is going on?” asked Oneira. “How do you know these things?”

Eric paused for a moment, breathing deeply and exhaling. “I thought for a second that maybe you would actually remember today.” Oneira stared at him blankly, she didn’t know what to say.

Eric looked at her with concern. “Well since you asked, I’ll just go ahead and tell you,” he said. “We can consciously travel the landscape of our dreams, and go into other people’s dreams, you’ve even gone into the minds of people who are awake, it’s incredible. We’ve been doing it together every night since your fathers stroke, although you didn’t tell me about that right away.”

Oneira couldn’t believe it. What he said was insane, but it also felt true. Now that she thought of it, his face seemed too familiar for how little she knew him, as if a portrait she’d studied her whole life had sprung to life, and she seemed to have a sense of his personality, yet couldn’t remember talking to him at school. But she was scared. “Your fucked up Eric,” she said, then left the class and ran home.

When she got home, she slept for hours, and for the longest time she had no dreams. She slept undisturbed, for once at peace, refreshed, free from the haunting sounds of the piano. After some time though, she woke in her sleep into a conscious dream. She was in the hospital, beside her father, only he was awake, in this dream, with her. “Is it really you dad?” she asked. He looked up at her and smiled, reaching out and holding her face in his hand, and she held his hand there against it. Then he spoke. “I’m going to die tomorrow Oneira,” he said. “You don’t understand what your a part of, the power you hold. You shouldn’t be able to enter the minds of others and certainly not mine here, at death’s door.”

Oneira was stunned. “What are you talking about dad?” she asked, her eyes tearing up.

“What you can do, it’s the only reason I’m still here, you’ve been keeping me here, in your mind, hoping to put me back, but even you can’t stop me if I want to go Oneira, and it’s time. I’ve got to go. I can’t keep talking to you here. I’m going to die tomorrow,” he said to her, staring her in the eyes. “I love you Nira.” She was sinking again into the darkness of a dreamless sleep.

She slept eighteen hours that day and night, and when she woke, she found her mother crying, her father had indeed died, and she now knew that all Eric had said was true. She could enter the minds of others at will. Through her dreams, even if another was awake, she could control their bodies. She’d found Eric in a dream, and tried teaching him to do the same, but Eric did his own things mostly, he’d learned the piano in his sleep, he said there was endless time to practice and it was true, she remembered everything now.

III. APOPLEXY

It was a long time before Oneira was comfortable around anyone again. She went back to school two weeks later, and except for a couple close friends, no one really knew anything. She didn’t talk about anything to anyone. She had taken refuge in her dreams, and in her power, which had grown incredibly since she began to understand it. She didn’t even have to be asleep anymore, she could bypass dreaming entirely and simply take control of someone’s body. Essentially she would put a person to sleep by sending their conscious mind into a dream. When she entered the dream, she could effortlessly lead them on any adventure she dreamt up for them, disguised as anything, and get any information from them she wanted. Or, she could just leave them there, and send the dormant mind instructions for their sleeping body, and they would become her sleepwalking servants. But she never went that far, at most she’d make a person fall asleep for a split second, enough to make them trip and she’d chuckle. One day she made her friend fall asleep during a quiz, and asked her for the answer in her dream. Her friend later told her about it, saying “isn’t that so funny? I literally dream of the the quiz during the quiz, and you’re there asking me all these questions!”

She hadn’t seen Eric in her dreams again, but she knew that to be her own doing. He had been trying to help her realize her power in her waking life, but now she pushed out any thought of him or his music which had comforted her so much in the past, and she didn’t see him at school. Apparently when she’d been gone he had taken a particularly rough beating and was skipping classes to take time off himself. She didn’t understand why people were so merciless towards him, even kids who weren’t usually bullies seemed to think Eric was fair game. Knowing that he suffered like that only made her feel more guilty for ignoring him since her father died. Part of her wanted to blame him, even though this power was her own all along, he’d only wanted to show her.

Months went by and Oneira graduated with honours. She was ready for university, and getting ready for a final summer party in her hometown before moving away. Eric never came back to school, and she couldn’t find him in her dreams either. She did try for weeks to find him, focusing so intensely that at one point, she had opened her eyes to find objects from her room telekinetically floating around her, but he had recessed so deep into his own mind that trying to access it was impossible, she’d given up. His loss. She regressed further into her own powers, often ignoring friends to spend nights making a tea kettle serve tea and watching the cup float across the room to her. She even brought the water to boil herself.

After a long and wild night, Oneira found herself walking home alone, rather drunk, when she saw Eric again for the first time. There was a crowd, a group of people from the party chanting, relishing the sadistic scene before them. Some drunken man, smiling stupidly down at the helpless boy before him, was holding what was left of a vodka bottle. He’d been fighting Eric and smashed it over his head, even from where she stood Oneira could see little shards shining in Eric’s face, under the street lamp. She rushed over, and tried to push her way through the crowd, but saw that something was happening.

Eric’s eyes had rolled into the back of his head, and the man’s stupid smirk was gone, he stood there frozen. Everyone wondered what was happening, but Oneira understood. Eric had entered the man’s mind, and stopped him. But Eric was still laying on the ground, eyes rolled back into his head, convulsing, and he did not come out of it. The man continued to stand there frozen, and the crowd murmured, questioning what was going on. Oneira felt the man’s mind call out to her from behind his empty, deathlike stare.

“Help me! Please! Oh God! Stop him!”

She had a vision of a fire and screaming. She felt the heat of his anguish. Outside their minds, the crowd saw a stream of blood begin to flow profusely from the man’s nose, then trickle from his eyes, before gushing out his gaping mouth as he fell, dead, into a puddle of his own blood. Finally, Eric stopped twitching. The crowd ran away. Oneira walked up to Eric hurriedly. She knelt beside him in the dead man’s blood, and put her head against his, willing herself into his mind.

She found herself in a burnt out clearing of a forest. In the epicentre of the hot coals and ash lay Eric, burnt, flayed, bleeding, broken. They were in total darkness, and total silence, there was no life in this world but the silent trees, whispering with the wind. She approached and knelt down once more beside him, and grabbed his hand. His face was charred by flame, and sitting there looking at its macabre elegance, she saw his beauty. In that moment his eyes opened and they found themselves in a shining light.

“Did I die?” Eric asked.

“Maybe,” replied Oneira, she could see that he was healing under the light, and she smiled. “Even if you had, I could bring you back, I,” she paused, taking a moment to think, “I don’t think I can die.”

“Are you going to take me back?” he asked.

“No,” she said, holding his head in her lap, and gently brushing the ashes off his healed face. She realized that the light had been coming from her, in Eric’s mind, she was an angel, glowing, with great feathered wings and the sun behind her head. She explained, “why go back, we can go anywhere, do anything, any world, see anyone. Let me take you to my world.”

“Okay,” he smiled. “I’m ready.”

Back on the street a third body fell, and Oneira joined Eric and the man. She, like them, was dead. Their bodies laid there in the street, soaking in a pool of their own blood.