When he opened his eyes, Park Chung-Ho felt 2 hands pressing his shoulder, and he saw the headmistress of his faculty staring at him.
He turned to his left and saw Aislinn there. She was the one touching his shoulder.
"What happened?" he asked. "I remember what I saw, but nothing else. It seemed that I couldn't remember anything more than what I said. Maybe I felt unconscious when this happened to me as a baby."
"I think you have seen enough," Aislinn said. "At least, I have a theory."
Diane Nottdottir looked at her daughter.
"What are you thinking about?"
"There was a Dreamcatcher. A black one. The second knife strike broke it, especially a glass bead. I think there are shards of this bead that entered the cut and are stuck in his shoulder. Emprisoning the memory of that day. It could easily be seen as a nightmare, right?"
"This WAS a nightmare." The young woman looked at her mother with surprise.
"What do you mean, Mom?"
The headmistress had a sorrowful look as she watched the young man facing her.
"The night your parents disappeared was the night that's haunting you. It's a nightmare that caused all this. The dreamcatcher you saw was a very powerful protection. But it imprisoned the nightmare in it, and the parts that are inside your shoulder still contain this whole night. That's what's been blocking you in your dreams since that day. We need to extract it, but it will be difficult. I will search for someone who can operate as soon as possible. Is that ok for you?"
"I wanna be free from this nightmare. So the sooner the better, Madam headmistress."
A silence fell in the room, and someone knocked at the door.
"Headmistress? May I come in? I have a delicate matter to discuss."
"Give me a minute, Svenson, please."
Diane Nottdottir showed the windows to the two youngsters, and they opened the window blinds.
They sat in front of the desk while the headmistress opened the door.
"Ivar, what may I do for you?"
The professor entered the room and saw the two students.
"Oh, I'm sorry I disturbed you. I came to speak about a matter that concerns Mr. Park."
Aislinn looked at her friend questioningly. The young man stood up.
"There is no subject to discuss as far as I'm concerned, Professor. I think I should leave now, I have already taken too much of your time, Madam Headmistress."
Diane Nottdottir invited Ivar Svenson in as Park Chung-Ho was leaving the room. Aislinn followed him.
"What's going on?" she muttered once the door was closed behind them.
"Nothing, just Jake and his friends being jerks."
"They are always jerks, but if a professor comes into my mother's office to discuss it, I bet there has been something going on. And I'm talking about a serious issue. But I understand it's none of my business. Sorry."
"No… I can tell you, but that's something that shouldn't need anyone's intervention but common sense. They decided to mock me like this." He replicated the gesture the boys had toward him.
The young woman was horrified.
"They didn't…" Her reaction changed to anger. "I'm gonna…"
"You're gonna do nothing, Aislinn. Please. Let it go. They don't deserve your attention. And we have better things to do. We have work to realise, remember?"
She looked at him in disbelief.
"Are you sure?"
"I am."
"We'll work together tomorrow if you want. As of now, maybe you want to talk about the hypnosis? I think this might have been a difficult experience."
He stopped in the middle of the corridor.
"May I ask you a question?"
"Of course, what?"
"Why didn't you tell me that it was you yesterday in my nightmare?"
"What do you mean?"
"I remember your voice now. When I was in my memory, I heard it. The same thing that I heard before waking up this morning. Why were you there?"
"Because I saw you struggling with your nightmare. You tried to escape it, and I saw you when you crossed that fire line. I wanted to help you. I'm sorry if I created an uncomfortable situation."
"You did not. I'm happy you were there, and without you, I would have been very late this morning."
"You WERE very late!" She said, laughing.
They sat by a tree in the central courtyard and talked a bit longer before they headed back to their rooms.
Park Chung-Ho worked on his sleeping pills until it was past midnight, but he wasn't efficient, his thoughts being troubled by the events of the day. He felt sleepy and fell on his desk.
The fire, the heat, the smoke.
"Here we go again." He said it out loud.
He was alone in this cradle. And everything was burning around him. He stood up and watched across the fire and in the corridor. He was alone. He jumped through the flames. Everything was dark, and he felt lost. It seemed like there were no more walls around him, except for the fire in his back. But it wasn't lighting anything except for the room he came out of.
"Where am I?" He thought. "Shouldn't I be blocked in my memory or nightmare? I'm in nothingness here. Let's wake up."
It felt like minutes, but it had been hours, considering what his cellphone indicated. He saw he had several messages from Aislinn.
"9.00 : let's meet at the library, ok?"
"9.30 : Are you up?"
"9.35 : Why aren't you answering ?"
"9.40 : Mom just called, we have to go to the hospital for you."
"9.43 : Coming to your dorm."
"9.46 : I called your phone; it seems to be in silence mode."
"9.47 : I know you're not reading, but I'll keep writing."
"9.50 : Come on… wake up!"
"9.55 : …"
He heard knocking at his door.
"Park Chung-Ho! Get out! We gotta go!"
The good point of having fallen asleep on his desk was that he didn't need to dress up.
"Sorry!" he said while opening the door.
Aislinn grabbed him out of his room.
"We've got to go now!"
*****************************************************************************
The scanner was displaying multiple fragments of a glass bead that was located in Park Chung-Ho's shoulder area.
"This will take a few hours, Diane, but we can do it." The doctor said.
"This operation will need an active dream from him, and it could be dangerous, this means that we should be here if possible."
"Of course. We have a special room for surgeries under a dream status."
The young man was only spectating the discussion, even if this was about him. Everything was going so fast that his head was spinning.
Aislinn was looking at him with a sad smile.
"Are you feeling ok?" she asked.
"Everything is going so fast. I'm lost. And I'll have to undergo surgery now. But afterall… this shoulder has always been kind of a burden…" He looked at her. "I just hope that everything is going to be ok."
"It will. We will watch over you. And after this, you'll be able to explore dreams like you wanted."
Park Chung-Ho stood silent as he watched Diane Nòttdottir talking with the doctor.
"When do you think this can be done?" She asked the surgeon.
"Is this an urgent matter?"
The young man stood up.
"It is. The more I wait, the more I'm trapped in my own memories."
"Get ready in two days, then. I'll organise everything for this operation."
Two days. It meant two nights.
Two more nights where he'll be in this burning room.
"Is it possible to do it earlier, like… today?"
Aislinn and her mother looked at the young man with disbelief.
"I can make it happen. But I need you to be fasting for twelve hours first."
"I haven't eaten anything since last night."
"Chung-Ho…" Aislinn started in a muted voice. "Are you sure?"
"Thanks to you and your mother, I've been able to project myself outside of the same nightmare over and over again. I have to break out of this cycle and start exploring dreams."
In his mind, a dark figure with a knife was drawing. "I'm gonna find him," he thought.
************************************
The smoke, the heat, the fire.
He was back in this place. For the last time, hopefully. He waited patiently. This was just a matter of time. Slowly, he felt the heat growing up, the smoke becoming thicker. The fire seemed to roar
"What the fuck is going on?" There was a twist in the Nightmare. This wasn't what he had lived so many times before.
"Wake up," he thought, but nothing happened. "Wake up!" Still nothing. What was going on?
This never happened before, and the heat was going higher; the air was becoming thicker and thicker. He knew that this situation was making him a bit anxious and that this wouldn't help the breathing. But he also knew that this was just a dream. He tried to relax and thought.
"It's just a dream, you know it perfectly; nothing will happen, just calm down and wait for it to disappear like every time." He pictured the dream. He knew how everything would go. But something wasn't like every time. First of all, he was unable to wake up like he usually did. Light and bright, Aislinn's voice echoed.
"You're under anesthesia. You can't awaken from this dream like this. But don't worry, the surgery is almost done. That's what makes me able to manifest here."
He looked to his right at the wall of flames and saw the green eyes just behind it.
Suddenly, something fell from the roof. It happened two more times.
"I think those are the last shards of the bead that are extracted. This nightmare is gonna be destroyed." The young woman said.
The wall was cracking, the ground was shaking. The whole nightmare was collapsing.
"Follow me; you must get out as soon as possible!"
He got up and stared at the wall of flames.
"Hurry up and come through this fire. We need to get you out of this NOW !"
He knew this was possible, as he had already done it before. He closed his eyes, crouched to take a good breath with the least smoke possible, and then he jumped as far as possible. When he touched the ground, his right foot slipped, and he fell, banging his shoulder against the wall. He let a small sound come out of his mouth from the pain, and looked around him. This was the same dark corridor he had already seen before. He could still feel the heat behind him, but there was no fire in front of him, just a little less smoke. He could almost breathe normally again. Aislinn placed her hand on his wrist.
"Follow me," she said.
He listened to her, and they started to run in this dark corridor. Far away, there seemed to be some light.
"We must get there, but believe me, you need to never look behind; something is coming."
They rushed the fastest they could. But he could hear something chasing them. The sound of their footsteps was echoing in the corridor, but what was following them seemed like it was floating. It was as if the wind was blowing. He felt this thing was getting closer and closer.
They were almost at the end of this path; he could see that this light came from a garden. That was at that moment that he felt it. 2 hands on his shoulders, slowing him, and the voice echoing again
"TURN TO ME!"
His steps were harder and harder to make.
There was a sound behind him, the breath of someone or something.
It felt like going slower and slower, like he was trying to run in a kind of mud that was getting thicker and thicker.
He was exhausted, he couldn't go further, and the garden was just one meter away.
"Keep going forward!" As she entered the garden.
But he was pulled in his back, and he was exhausted; he couldn't endure it anymore. He closed his eyes as he felt himself being dragged in the dark mist. He fell backwards and thought he needed to face what was blocking him. He opened his eyes as Aislinn was screaming.
"Noooooooooooo !"
Her voice seemed to be getting further and further. He looked into the darkness and so 2 yellow eyes staring back at him. And the voice echoed in his head, and it was scarier than ever as he felt 2 hands pulling him to the darkness.
"I GOT YOU!"