The day burned slower than Beck imagined it would. Normally he would spend his downtime pouring over literature, but after that morning he had no desire to visit the library again. Instead he spent the day in his room, sitting at the desk. He tried to draft a letter to his father, but whenever he glanced down at the words they described none of the thoughts on his mind. After what he’d been told about his father’s involvement in this endeavor, he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to write to him. After a while Beck stopped trying.

Afterwards, all he could do was lay down and be subject to his own thoughts. There was no going back to normal. If what his uncle said was true, wherever he went, the Reverie would follow. On the one hand, it filled him with trepidation. If he couldn’t run away from that other world, it would be safest to be around those knowledgeable on it. On the other hand, it demanded attention. If the only direction was forward, Beck was more than happy to go willingly.

So it was a hesitant optimism that Beck found himself with when he was back in the familiar corridor-like space of the study hall. The afternoon glow coming through the window painted the blackboard a smoldering orange as Fielding scratched a large circle onto it.

“This is where we are now,” Fielding said, writing “us” in the middle of the shape. “A reality connected to the Reverie. For the sake of simplicity, everything else outside of this circle is also the Reverie,” he tapped the space with his chalk.

“Is the implication that there are worlds that are not tied to the Reverie?” Beck asked.

“Yes, what you know as reality used to be separate from all this,” he gestured at the blank space.

Beck paused in contemplation. “How are you certain that was the case? Are you saying that humanity didn’t used to dream?”

“Questions like this are why I didn’t want us to get off topic,” Fielding said with a chuckle. “To keep explanations short, the place where common dreams come from is mutually exclusive from the Reverie, although I can understand why you’d think otherwise. As for how we know —” Uncertainty marred the man’s usually cheerful demeanor, similar to that morning. “That’s something you’ll need to ask your uncle about, he is more versed in that than I.”

“Getting back on track, let’s investigate this area out here,” Fielding gestured to the empty space on the board. “What do we have?”

“We have our own personal spaces in the Reverie.”

“Of course.” He drew several squares underneath the circle, connecting them to it with lines. “Once awoken to the Reverie, whenever you sleep you’ll enter into your own dream world. This acts as a refuge of sorts for you which will build itself up around you. It has a degree of flexibility in your hands, but only to an extent.”

“Uncle mentioned something of the sort. What do you mean by that?” Beck asked.

“Rowan informed me that your space takes the form of this very manor. Now, would it be believable if zoo’s worth of animals were suddenly roaming the halls?”

“The obvious answer you’re going for is ‘no’, but that’s honestly hard to determine at this point.”

A grin returned to Fielding’s face, as well as some of the mirth Beck was used to seeing from him. “Fair. Generally speaking it would seem abnormal, and trying to manifest a stampede in your dream would be ill advised. Smaller changes, however, are more likely to go unnoticed. No one would bat an eye if a cupboard were suddenly locked that was not before. Even though I’m sure the Reverie seems strange to you right now, there is a rigidity to it that must not be overlooked. Rowan will guide you in that regard.”

The man drew a line between two of the squares. “As you’ve experienced, another traveler can enter your space if they have an invitation from you. They create a doorway directly between the two worlds.”

“Would I be able to travel to my uncle’s space in the Reverie then?”

“I should clarify; all of these lines are personally attached to a single person.” Fielding pointed to the line he just drew. “This here is Rowan’s passage between his world and yours. In order for you to travel to his world, you would need an invitation from him. Then it would be like this,” he said, drawing a second line between the two squares. “These doorways not only act as conduits for people, but for objects as well. Your connection between this reality and your own dream space is what allowed the key to transition from one place to the other.”

Fielding tapped his chin. “Now, have you tried sleeping while in the Reverie?”

“It feels like falling asleep when I enter back into my apparition, but I’m assuming that’s not what you mean.”

“No. And if you did, you’ll find that while you can go to sleep, you can’t go deeper. We’ve discovered that there is a level of complexity a world needs for it to allow the creation of personal spaces. Worlds that do allow that, like this one, we call progenitor worlds. This reason is why I refer to this world as a reality; it is complex enough to feel alive.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“My dream world felt real when I was in it,” Beck commented. “Even when I see impossible things like holes in the world and my own reflection sleeping in my room, it doesn’t feel like a dream.”

“The mind is good at convincing us that something physically exists. It’s when the logic breaks down that we realize the illusion. Whereas our own spaces need rules to exist, that’s not the case for all of this area out here,” Fielding said, gesturing to the negative space. “This in-between is where things get weird.”

Beck perked up at that. “Go on.”

“This area is filled with spaces operating on their own internal rules, similar to what you would find in our own personal ones, but they belong to no one. Rowan believes they could just belong to the Reverie itself. Regardless, if our own spaces are where dreams and reality fit together, the in-between is where dreams and reality crash into each other. Like the collective unconscious made manifest, without any filter.

“I can’t understate how vast the in-between is. It goes on and on, personally challenging my definition of forever. So enormous that it touches everything. And that’s where its importance comes in.”

Fielding erased a small portion from the bottom of one of the squares. “Once you are outside of reality, any of these worlds open up to the in-between. And if you are persistent enough,” he drew a dotted line from the opening out to another of the squares. “You can travel through to anywhere else connected to the Reverie.”

Beck rested his chin in his hand, thinking through the information. “Would someone be able to enter into a personal space that way, even if they don’t have an invitation?”

“Are you wondering if the Stranger was able to enter your space this way?”

He nodded. It had been on his mind since the previous night. A discrepancy in how his uncle claimed the Reverie operated.

The man sighed. “I suppose this is where we loop back around to that topic. We are fairly certain this is how the Stranger traverses the Reverie, but even if you make it to someone else’s personal dream space, you are correct in assuming an invitation is still required. You can get to the front door, but it would still be locked.”

“Then how was this Stranger able to get in?”

Fielding raised his arms in a shrug. “Quite honestly, we don’t know.”

Beck let out a breath, matching his instructor’s gaze. “You don’t know.”

“I was asked by Rowan to inform you of the dangers associated with this pursuit, and this is one of them. We have some knowledge of the Reverie, but what we don’t know greatly eclipses that. We wouldn’t be looking for help, otherwise.”

He took a minute before responding with a measured tone, “Like I stated earlier, despite these developments I don’t really have a better option than to move forward. What does the Stranger even want, anyways?”

Fielding tapped the large circle representing reality. “They want this. We are not certain of the why, but we are certain of the how. If they can get in through one of these personal spaces connected to our reality, they can travel along the conduit to enter into our world.”

Beck remained silent for longer this time. “Okay,” he eventually said. “If this figure is trying to break into our reality, where are they from?”

Walking to the other end of the board, Fielding drew another large circle. “This is where they are from. A parallel reality, somewhere out beyond the in-between. Our current goal is to find this place, and thus we venture out into the unknown to find a path to it.”

The prospect of an undiscovered world should have excited him, but instead Beck felt numb to the information. The optimism he’d entered the lesson with was gone. “If someone from this place is so dangerous, why would we want to go there?”

“Besides its existence, we know very little about this other reality. We need to figure out what is going on over there and why they want our own so badly if we hope to permanently put a stop to their activity.”

“Fielding,” he started slowly, “How do we even know this other reality exists? In every case of conjecture, not once would the idea cross my mind that this is the explanation for the Stranger’s origin.”

His teacher looked at him with a placating smile. “That’s something we’ll get into at a later time, once Rowan runs you through some of what he —”

“You will tell me now,” Beck interrupted.

The smile faded from Fielding’s face. “You simply aren’t ready for that information. There is a reason for the ordering of our lessons.”

“We agreed that I would be taught about what to look out for in the Reverie, yet you’re withholding answers still,” he said, frustration lacing his words. “Even if uncle is the one in control of what is and isn’t shared, what purpose would this obfuscation serve?”

“We are trying to protect you,” Fielding said. His expression was one of concerned resignation.

“I can’t protect myself if I don’t know what I’m up against! If you refuse to elaborate on this other reality, then what of this connection between our reality and my personal space,” Beck said pointing to a line between the circle and square. “We can call this a ‘conduit’ all we want, but from my limited knowledge I only know of one entrance to and from the Reverie and that is through my own mind. So what exactly are you worried the Stranger would do to me?”

The man looked profoundly uncomfortable. The receding sunlight cast on to his face, illuminating his irises like glowing embers as he shifted his gaze away from his student. “We are afraid that when you wake up, you won't be the one in the body.”