Although of course, sleep is very rarely truly dreamless. On average, you dream three to five times per night, and sometimes more, and you just don’t remember much of any of them.
But Will wasn’t exactly dreaming so much as he was experiencing someone else’s dream. It was, in fact, someone else’s nightmare.
Someone who was not Will but who Will was experiencing the dream through felt himself sink below the surface of a dark lake.
Hands stretched out to grab him, to pull him back to the surface, but they couldn’t reach. Will felt the stranger’s raw terror, and the slightly more subtle fear that he was beyond saving.
The current pulled him deeper and deeper, so deep that sunlight failed to reach.
And yet, below him, there was light. Will was spun around to face it, and he knew that if he could only reach out and touch it he would be saved.
He swam for it, lungs screaming for air, but the cold water was beginning to freeze around him, chunks of ice clinging to him like leeches.
An encrusted hand reached, stretching as far as Will could manage, but it wasn’t enough. Ice encased him, and he began to float back to the surface.
Though he still felt the lack of air, Will didn’t suffocate in the icy tomb.
When he returned to the surface, he had a perfect view of… someone. People he didn’t recognize as Will but knew had been close to the dreamer.
They were crying, wracked with shame and sadness and guilt at having lost their friend. This made it all the more difficult that not one of them realized Will was still in the ice. Still able to be saved, if one of them would just look… his… way…
Dumbasses was the first thing Will thought as he woke up. It was not a thought of Will’s but an echo of the dreamer’s. The annoyance and spite in the word lingered in his mind like a bad taste on his tongue.
He remembered little of the stranger’s dream, only the emotions he had vicariously felt through it. The sensation of drowning made him feel like he needed fresh air, and so he got out of bed.
Cool wind rushed by him, laced with the scent of decaying leaves and rain. The weather looked like it would soon rain, though it hadn’t actually started yet.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Will took deep breaths, unsure of why he so desperately needed to get out of his stuffy, but cozy cabin.
“Note to self; no more trains for a while,” he said to the empty air. He looked across the edge of the car down to the cavalcade of centipedes below him.
“Don’t fall,” said Virgil, who was somehow a few feet behind him.
Will hadn’t heard anyone approach or even the door to the car open, and jumped in surprise. Thankfully, away from the edge of the train.
“Christ on a bike, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“Sorry,” Virgil said meekly, backing very slightly away from Will as he steadied himself. “You had just left without a trace. I was worried.”
“It’s not like I could’ve gotten too far,” Will said flatly. “The train is big but not getting-lost-on big.”
“You’re right,” Virgil said. “I should trust you to stick around.”
“Well, it’s not like… Oh.” Will said, putting together what Virgil meant. “I’m not leaving. I don’t even have the damn flower.”
Virgil started to say something but Will cut him off. “Why can’t you guys just trust me? I’m not just gonna leave, okay? You guys are all such…” Will paused, choosing his final word carefully, “worrywarts. All such worrywarts.”
“Sorry. You’re right,” Virgil said, sitting down on a piece of railing. “I do trust you. I know you want to do the right thing.”
“Thank you,” said Will. “Is there a dining car on this train? I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since… woof, I don’t even know.”
“Yeah, it’s near the back,” Virgil said. “Maybe this one has cinnamon rolls.”
“Why cinnamon rolls?” Will asked. “Is that important?”
“The train company makes the best ones ever. Fresh from the bird.”
“The… the bird…?” Will asked.
“Yeah, you know, the cinnamon bird. The bird that makes cinnamon.”
“Cinnamon grows on trees, I think. It’s like, the inner layer of bark of a cinnamon tree.” Will said, vaguely recalling something he had watched on TV decades ago.
“That’s where cinnamon birds live, yeah,” Virgil said. He started walking down the train, causing Will to follow.
“And the birds harvest the cinnamon?” Will asked.
“Yeah, they make their nests out of it.”
“Gross,” Will said. “Although I did once have bird's-nest soup in Vietnam, and it was pretty good.”
“And that's made out of peeled bark, too?” Virgil asked.
“No,” Will said. “It’s made from the bird’s dried saliva.”