Far, far away from Junction City, a certain boy with flawless white hair and golden eyes sat on the edge of a rooftop. A nervous sweat dripped down the back of his neck as his legs dangled precariously over the seven story expanse to the pavement below. He sat motionlessly as he imagined his older brother plummeting off of the top of this building only a week previously, his clear golden eyes completely dry for the first time since he had found out what happened. No more crying, he had decided, and he vowed to continue to hold himself to that promise. He didn’t know why Tyler had fallen off the building, but he had already decided that it wasn’t suicide. It couldn’t be suicide, or else Grayson would wonder whether it was his fault. So he simply chose to believe that it wasn’t.

When Grayson thought about it, Tyler wasn’t really the kind of person to commit suicide in the first place. Even if he had been depressed, Grayson knew had felt a need to live his life to the fullest. Especially because of how short it already was. He also wouldn’t choose to leave us. He had always resented Dad for leaving Mom and us the way he did, so he would never do the same thing. Would he? So no, it wasn’t suicide. It couldn’t be. But what if it was? Grayson thought, self-loathing filling his mind. What if it was suicide, and it was my fault? Grayson shook his head violently, then decided he needed a change of pace.

Grayson abruptly stood, pulling away from the gap in the new fence that had been put up. Gray had always had a fear of heights, so he could breathe easy now that he had pulled his legs away from the edge. How Tyler found resting on this roof relaxing I’ll never understand. Grayson began walking down the steps when a deep male voice sounded in his head.

‘Where are you going?’ The voice asked.

“Gah!” Grayson exclaimed aloud, before realizing it was just Lux. “Ugh, get out of my head. I don’t care how messed up I became after Tyler fell, I refuse to be crazy.”

‘But you’re not crazy,’ Lux responded seriously. ‘I’m not some figment of your stressed imagination. I’m real.’

“Yeah, that’s exactly what a voice in my head would say. So I have no reason to believe you.”

‘Why are you talking aloud, anyways? I can hear you if you direct your thoughts to me,’ Lux chuckled. ‘You’d actually sound crazy to onlookers if they hear you.’

“Yeah? Maybe I don’t care,” Gray growled.

‘You’re contradicting yourself.’

‘Ugh, just shut up,’ Gray thought in annoyance, directing his thoughts to the foreign entity in his mind. Lux, who he believed to be some kind of hallucination, had begun to speak to Grayson the same day that Tyler fell. The strange voice had always claimed to be real, but never offered Gray any concrete proof. Luckily, the voice stayed silent as Gray descended the long staircase to the ground floor of the apartment. Gray’s mother was at work right now, so the apartment was empty anyways. Gray decided he would go for a walk.

Grayson Fullman had always been the day for Tyler’s night. Now that Tyler’s gone, though… He didn’t finish the thought. It was a line of thinking that he had gone into far too much over the past week, and he was taking this walk to take his mind off of things.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

At this point, there was only three hours until the sun would peek into the horizon and a new day would begin, so Grayson thought he might find a nice place to watch the sunrise. Before he knew it, though, he was already walking in the direction he had decided on since he backed away from the roof’s edge. I’m going to go visit him again, aren’t I? Gray thought when his conscious mind finally noticed where his unconscious mind was taking him.

Gray looked into the distant street, and he could see the cemetery finally appear in his view through the morning mist.

‘Ugh, that place gives me the creeps,’ Grayson shuddered, directing his thoughts to Lux.

‘Huh, have you finally decided to believe that I’m real?’ Lux asked with sarcasm practically dripping from his voice.

‘Hmm, look who’s grumpy that I don’t believe in him. And for your information, no, I don’t think I have. I simply prefer talking to you than the alternative,’

‘And what is that alternative, may I ask?’ Lux asked curiously.

“Visiting Ty on my own, with no one to talk to. Even if talking to a voice in my head makes me crazy, anything is better than that,’ Gray responded. Lux stayed silent at that.

Grayson finally approached the cemetery, and he felt a watchful gaze fall on him. Ughh, is that some kind of ghost? I really hate this place, Grayson complained inwardly, quickening his step a little. Lux, however, was in a better position to see. Not that he could see much—Lux could only see out of Gray’s eyes, so whatever Gray could see, Lux could see. Even so, Lux was more wary than Gray was, and also looking harder for anything out of place. Because of that focus, he was able to see that the gaze came not from a ghost, like Gray thought, but from something much worse.

A human.

Lux didn’t mention the fact to Gray. He didn’t want to scare the poor boy even more than he was, so he simply vowed to keep watching for whatever it was that he had seen.

Gray soon walked past the cemetery, and in the direction of the hospital where his mom worked. She worked the night shifts in the emergency room, so she wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. He might be able to go see her while he was visiting Tyler, though.

Soon, Gray was stepping into the sterile front desk of the tall hospital building. He didn’t even need to check in anymore—the clerks of every shift at the front desk knew his face at this point, so he skipped the desk after waving hello and walked straight to the elevator.

It only took a moment for the elevator to arrive. It was four in the morning, after all. The hospital, though open for all hours of the day, was practically empty of visitors. When it arrived, Gray pushed a familiar button. Floor 17.

‘What if I show up and he’s awake. Could you imagine that?’ Grayson told Lux as he waited for the elevator to ride. Lux knew better than to respond. Any reassurances were likely to be lies, but being honest would only hurt Gray more. And so, he stayed silent as the elevator slowly reached its chosen destination.

Floor 17. The coma ward. Everyone on this floor was in a coma for one reason or another. Some had been asleep for years, where some—like Tyler—had only been asleep for a few days. Either way, most had family that was anxiously waiting for them to wake up, to practically come back from the dead.

Gray stepped into the door where Tyler lay prone on the hospital bed, hooked up to wires and tubes. In the corner of the room was a screen that glowed a soft green, beeping out the very slow rhythm of Tyler’s heart. The doctors said that when Tyler fell, he had been having some kind of heart attack. This was another reason why Grayson knew that Tyler hadn’t attempted suicide. Why would he want to finish the job that the heart condition had started?

The weirdest thing about Tyler’s condition was what the doctors were saying now. They claimed that Tyler’s heart condition had, seemingly by magic, completely disappeared. Now, the only thing keeping him from waking was the fall itself. Somehow, it had put him into a coma, and he wasn’t likely to wake up until he healed completely.

Oh, big brother… I hope you wake up soon.

End of Arc 1 - The New Dreamer