Dream and Reality: Chapter 4

Chapter 4
Dream
“You got it,” Maya says to me. I fall to the ground. “Damn,” I say. “How do they do it?” She helps me up and gestures to Med, who is sitting nearby. He gets up and walks to me. I watch as he waves his hand near my scraped leg. The bruises and cuts fade away along with the pain.
“You will adapt to it. You will struggle at first, but it will click soon. Once it does, you can fly to your heart's content.” Med was always a nice guy. He came and healed even the smallest papercut. “Thanks,” I say. Once I’m fully upright, I stretch out my wings. The look at me with two completely different expressions. Maya looks excited to see me try again, and I admit that my previous attempts were pretty entertaining, so I get it. Med, on the other hand, has a serious expression, wanting me to just succeed already.
I take a deep breath, and both wings flap down, up, down, up, ect. I bump up into the air a few times before I get myself fully up. Each fall, I flap up before I hit the ground. Maya and Med watch, waiting for me to stop and fall to the ground, but I keep going. Sweat starts to form on my forehead. Birds make this look easy, but it's exhausting as hell. Each flap feels like I'm doing a pull-up, but I’ve literally had never used these arms before.
I keep it up for about thirty seconds, and it feels like my someone lit my whole body on fire. Finally, my wings give out, and I fall to the ground. My knee scrapes across the cement and my head hits down. Hard. “Ow,” I grunt. Med waves over me and all the pain disappears. “Your doing better each time. You lasted four more seconds there.” Great. Just a few hundred more attempts and I can fly for a few minutes before falling to my death. Despite my negative thoughts, I say “Great, thanks!”
Maya reaches out her hand and I grab it. She pulls me up. “You're doing great.” I give her a smile. “Thanks.” I turn around toward the door. “Imma take a break.” I reach for the handle, but as my hand curls over it, there’s a knock from the other side. The second it comes, me and Maya both pull out what we call “K.T.T’s.” It's just a handgun. The first thing we did after yesterday was going to find guns. These were the best things we could afford.
I slowly put my hand back on the handle and jerk the door open. I pull the gun up level to the man's head. “Wait no!” He screams. I lower the gun when I realize who it is. Evan. He was my first dream friend that my brain didn’t base on someone in the real world. He was friendly and loved to chat if you said you should. Unless you ask to talk to him, he is the quietest person you’ll know. Behind him is a girl, Zoe. Zoe is- sorry was his girlfriend. I can’t fully remember why they broke up. I think it had something to do with Zoe’s dead brother. It’s surprising to see them together.
“Sorry,” I say putting the gun down. “What are you doing here?”
“Well… I heard someone tried to kill you, and I had something for you.” Evan turns to Zoe, who sighs and hands him a long sword. He pulls it out of the casing, showing the silver-white blade and golden handle. “In battle, as you know, people can win “medals,” and I had an idea. What normally happens with medals is developing a new power, but, in some situations where it would be more useful, it helps you learn to use your old ones.”
I begin to understand what he's saying. “Last Battle,” he continues, “twenty Light soldiers were taken captive. It would guarantee a medal if we got them back safely. The Dark’s want a Manufacturing city in return for them. Saving them would be saving not only their lives but one of our cities as well.” I smile. Ya. This is perfect. Save people. Become a hero. Instantly learn to use my wings. If I can learn to use my wings, I may have a chance at whoever is trying to kill me. My smile drops.
“You expect me to run in with a sword and free twenty people when I have no combat experience, AND they’re being held in the middle of the main Dark military city,” I say almost too fast to understand. “Not just you,” he says. I look around. Everyone looks to me expectantly. They’re all are here because the want to help me. Maya and Med have both saved my life. Evan and Zoe are here to save my life. And Lance… wait. Lance is standing in the doorway. “Wassup,” he says. We all look at him confused. “I’ve been listening, and I want to help.” And I guess Lance is also here to help. I smile.
“Well,” I say breaking the silence. “If we're gonna do this, we gotta get ready.” I walk to the door. “Let's go”



We’re all walking down the street of the civilian city I live in, looking for the right store. Maya runs to me at the front of the pack. “How do you do it?”
“Hm?”
“These people barely know you. Med was just doing you a favor while you practiced, Evan and Lance were just some buddies, and you don’t even know Zoe, so how? How do you get them to follow you?” I had noticed it was strange everyone was so willing to risk their lives to try to help me. “I don’t know,” I say. “I think that it's pity. They must have seen what happened yesterday and took pity on me.”
“No. It's more than that. People don’t go on suicide missions for pity.”
I think about that. She’s right. People wouldn’t attempt to infiltrate a military base because they feel bad for someone. The question lingers in my mind.
“Here it is!” Lance yells breaking the silence. He walks through the open door of a small building. We all follow him inside. He walks to the front desk, where a young man in a black suit sits. We seem to be standing in a Barbershop. “Did you check in online?” The man at the desk asks. “No” Lance responds calmly. “We just wish to see the Barber.” The man at the front nods to the back wall. The door shuts and the blinds fall on their own. The room is now in complete darkness. I jump back and hear a yelp come from Evan.
“Good evening” I hear a raspy voice say from where the desk was. The voice sounds like it came from an old man, I don’t know how old. We still can’t see anything. “Who are you?” I ask. “You may not know my name. Call me the Barber.” Seriously?
Lance is the next to speak. “Henry here has someone out to get him. We have a plan to try to save his life, but we need some supplies. We want to free the captive soldiers.” Now I'm even more confused. Who is this guy?
“Jay,” the “Barber” says. “Get the info.” I hear footsteps walk by me, and then return back to the old man. We sit in silence for a few moments. “The supplies will be at your house in an hour,” he says. “Don’t die.” There is more shuffling around in the room than the blinds and door open. The young man is back at the desk. “Thank you,” Lance says. He turns and walks us out the door.
“Who was that?” I ask as we walk down the street. “Not even I know, but he got us what he thinks we’ll need. That's all that matters.” It’s not though, but I don’t say anything. “We can strike tomorrow,” Lance says. “I wish I could do it during the night here, but I have school.” Wait. Did he. I turn to him and grab his arm. Oh my god. He looks at me wide-eyed.
“You’re real,” I say. “Henry?” He responds. He’s also dreaming. “You're alive?” I look at him confused. “What do you mean?” I ask. “Are you in a dream right now Henry?” It’s true. He has always been here as well. “Yes”
“In the real world, you went missing and was said to be dead.” Shit. I guess there is no going back. “Well I’m not” is all I can muster.
A sharp pain goes through my body. I look and see blood coming from my arm. “Henry!” Everyone yells. This wound wasn’t from in the dream. “Maya, we need to wake up!” I yell. “They found us.