I rushed the Astral ant out of the anthill. The army of ghost ants converged on us from all directions. I had no idea how the hive noticed what I was doing, but they were definitely targeting us now.

[Eat this!] Delta released a hundred Astral spores into the void behind us. Her spores rushed away from us, scattering in all directions and distracting the Astral ants.

The red ghosts came from the front, their jaws open to strike our ghostly carrier. I tried to manoeuvre the ant away from them, but there were far too many enemies in the way.

Delta’s astral phantom threads emerged from within our ant, striking at nearby enemies and slicing them apart. Infoscopes and lymphagons began firing Sectus as our ant came apart around us.

Delta flashed forward, clearing the way with her blades like a spiralling drill. I followed behind.

We emerged from the hive followed by countless astral ants. I turned all of the lymphagons, firing behind us, slicing apart the hive defenders.

Our bodies weren’t far.

I leapt into myself, followed by my lymphagons, while Delta's soul merged into her body. The astral ants scattered against our flesh, unable to penetrate the natural defences of the human body.

They felt like tiny, stinging sparks dancing across me as I opened my eyes.

"Kliss! Repulsor!" I ordered and the Overseer pressed the trigger scattering the Astral ants away from us.

“Phew. That was scary,” Delta commented, “but fun.”

“It was close,” I muttered.

I noted that the ants managed to damage a few of my lymphagons and even nip off a bit of my soul, increasing the soul decay. My ghost ant was barely alive, with a .5 of a soul left in him.

“Let's not do that again," I rubbed the ghost-stings on my arms.

“How long will it take for new queens to be born?” My twin asked as she sent the bees back into her backpack hive.

“The life cycle of an ant queen from egg to maturity typically spans about three weeks. The workers will feed the select queens an exclusive diet consisting of crystalline remnants of other queens,” I explained. “In this manner the new queens gain the knowledge of previous generations. Afterward, the ant larva spins a cocoon around itself and begins the process of metamorphosis. The transformation from larva to pupa takes another week, during which the new queen develops her wings.”

“Uh-huh,” Delta nodded.

“And when she’s ready, the mature queen then chews her way out of the cell,” I finished, standing up and stretching.

“Are we done here?” Kliss asked me, wearily eyeing the anthill.

“We’re done,” I nodded. "Let's head back home."

. . .

When we arrived back in our tower base, I set my sights on finishing off a special skill that would hopefully block nightmares from my head and prevent Sasha from manifesting in my dreams.

I called this skill [Lucid Dreamer]. Most of its design was based on [NeuroVista].

When I closed my eyes, heading to bed and initiated [Lucid Dreamer] to test it, the skill sent my mind into a pure white room.

As I quickly levelled up the skill by adding more data fractals to it, it allowed me to leave the boring white room with nothing in it and let my mind write the dream around my best memories, with near-total immersion.

I didn’t have absolute control over the environment yet, so it switched at random, one place seamlessly blending into the other. For the most part it was a tapestry of my life - all I had to do was think of the general theme and I was suddenly there.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Delta flashed into existence beside me, using our connection in the Astral to invade my dreams. Together, we began to explore my memories.

We sat together by a campfire in the Ural mountains, watching the stars spin slowly overhead.

We took a boat along the shore of Kamchatka beneath the massive, glacier-covered volcanoes as sleet poured down onto our faces from low-flying clouds.

We hid amidst the yellow fields of grain, observing farmers as they exchanged pleasantries, heading off to work.

We joined in on the merriment of my childhood, watching my parents celebrating someone's birthday.

We casually walked together down the wide avenues of 1950’s Moscow.

My dreams of Moscow were particularly special and vibrant. They showcased the brightest memories from my time as a student there, woven from endless summers of the 1950’s, filled with post-war hope for a brighter future. In them, I was young again. I was twenty!

Delta looked about twenty too. She was wearing a student uniform from the Computer Engineering Institute.

"So that's what you used to look like, Slava," my twin sister examined my appearance.

"Yep," I nodded, readjusting my thick glasses.

"You're absolutely adorkable!" Delta declared, brushing a hand through my hair to mess it up.

The dreams of the streets and avenues weren’t perfect, they were akin to walking through painting-like, labyrinthine scenes. In places the world around us looked indistinct, akin to smudged oil paintings.

Delta and I knew that this wasn’t reality, but we experienced, enjoyed my dreams together as if they were real. I felt that walking together with her through the streets of Moscow where I had once been alone brought us closer as soul-siblings.

It was as if she was really there to begin with, always a big part of my life.

An enormous, noisy crowd of people suddenly emerged from the side street.

“Is that… what I think it is?” She gasped excitedly.

“May 1st parade demonstration,” I nodded. “International Workers' Day!”

Thousands of merry Soviet citizens, young and old, dressed in their best with happy smiles on their faces, lugged huge portraits of Soviet leaders down the avenue. Workers waved banners with political slogans, shouting things. Secretaries carried enormous bouquets of flowers. The Internationale was being played by a live band.

Trucks filled with far too many people decorated in red flags and colorful drawings honked their horns. People waved at the parade from the balconies. It was beautiful, inspiring pandemonium.

Delta grabbed my hand, laughing merrily. We joined in the parade.

As I looked at my face in the reflection of the truck window, I noticed that my hair was pure white. I guessed that some of my Skyisle self had bled over into my dream of the USSR.

Slowly the day flowed into night and brilliant fireworks ignited in the sky, painting Moscow in a thousand colors.

We sat in a café.

Delta was chewing a potato cake. A few people sat in front of us, enjoying their meals as well.

“This is great stuff. Your dreams are aweshwome,” my twin mumbled with her mouth full of sweets. “I can really taste this! You’re way better than me at remembering all this stuff!”

I smiled back at her.

“Damn it, now I want to dream forever and ever just so I can eat sweets. Was this your evil plan? To win me over with cake? You fiend!”

“Sure, let's go with that,” I commented. “It’s nice not to have bad dreams for once. I should have done this sooner!”

“Yep,” she nodded. “You know, Skyisle doesn’t have nice cafes like this. I should open a café with a view of one of the waterfalls and make cakes and hot chocolate. We’d make a lot of rubles!”

Delta drowned the rest of the cake with a large cup of hot chocolate.

“Pretty sure that nobody uses rubles in Skyisle,” I noted idly, observing the colorful fireworks suspended in the dark sky.

“Coppers. Silvers. Whatever! We’re not that rich, you know,” she mulled, stuffing another cake in her mouth. “We need money to buy nice things.”

“Things like what?” I inquired curiously.

“I don’t know. Pretty things, things that make a place beautiful and worth protecting,” Delta insisted, her hair dancing with blue and silver threads. “I’ve experienced a lot of interesting things in these vivid dreams of yours. I want all of this… everything, but in real life. Let's make it happen!”

She waved her arms at the cafe around us.

“Doubt that anyone makes Soviet snacks, camping supplies or tools in Novazem,” I commented.

“We’ll buy materials, finish renovating the tower, make a workshop inside and forge the necessary tools and then make nice things then!” She waved me off. “Let me dream big, damn it.”

“You are dreaming,” I winked at her.

“I know and it's the best.” She smiled. “I want this to last… forever.”

I nodded in agreement and then I thought of something.

"I want to bring Kliss here," I said.

"Say what?!" Delta's head snapped to me, her triangular silver-blue eyes boring into my soul.