CW:

My eyes slowly fluttered open, only for them to fly open a moment later as a gasp escaped me. Even though it's been nearly a decade, I could still recognize this place...

Middle school.

I must be dreaming again. I have to be. The question is, what does she want to show me this time? Another haunting memory that I buried deep inside? While I could think of a few memories of this school that fit the bill, I have a feeling I know which one exactly she’s prepared for me.

Students started to appear around me, their faces were a complete blur. I guess even these dreams aren’t perfect. They were all walking down the hall going to their various classes or towards the lunchroom. 

Among them was a singular student that caught my attention. A boy about thirteen years of age with long brown hair. He wore a white t-shirt with an old-school video game character on the front, and a pair of blue jeans. Out of all the students, he was one of the only ones whose faces weren’t a blur.

Needless to say, he was me, and if I still had long hair then I was right. I know exactly which memory this was.

Though, I do kind of miss the days before I discovered hoodies. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, but sometimes I miss just feeling comfortable running around with something casual like that t-shirt.

I felt myself getting pulled along, as I floated in the air as a spectator. It seems that the younger me was on his way to the cafeteria. He maneuvered his way around the sea of students as he walked, until finally, he made it to the large cafeteria room.

He walked across the tiled floor, passing the many large circular tables as he made his way to the lunch line. After a minute or two of waiting, he finally walked out of the line with a tray in hand. 

This was where my memories started to blur, I guess I couldn’t remember what I had that day. Knowing the school, it was probably some cheap cafeteria pizza or a chicken sandwich.

It wasn’t really important. 

Either way, the younger me finally sat down next to a blonde haired kid at one of the large circular tables. The kid was different from the rest, his face wasn’t blurred and instead was perfectly visible. I kinda figured he’d be the exception, cause I knew this memory was based on him.

His name was Michael.

Young me sighed when he sat down, which caused his friend to turn towards him.

“Hey Jay, Why the long face?” He asked as he leaned on his arm, before sporting a teasing smirk. “I bet I know what it is, you failed Ms.Parker’s history test today didn’t you?”

“Nah that’s not it,” Young me replied with a shake of his head, “If anything, I think I aced that test. History’s one of my best subjects after all.”

“Then what’s got you feeling so down?” 

“Just tired. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, weird dreams and all that.” Young me said as he tried to wave off the question.

“What kind of dreams?” Michael asked as he lifted a milk carton towards his mouth.

“I dunno. There’s always some girl in it, she’s about our age…” Young me mumbled, but Michael heard anyway. His hand with the milk carton paused, before he set it back down and grinned.

“I see, I see.” He said with a nod. “We're at that age after all. Nothing to be ashamed about.”

“Huh?” Young me confusedly asked with a raised eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Michael put his hand around his friend’s shoulders and lightly shook them.

“It’s okay, you don’t need to deny it so badly. I completely understand.” He took his arm back as he continued. “Let me guess, was it Tina from biology?”

“N-no! That’s not it at all!” Young me stammered out with a blush.

“Oh? Then who was it?” 

“I-it was no one! Nobody from our class!” Young me exclaimed, before he tried to calm himself. “I...I think it was me…”

“Huh?”

“I think the girl…was me.” Young me stammered, as he slowly turned towards his friend. “Am...am I weird?”

“You’re saying that she was...you?” He asked with a frown, and young me tentatively nodded towards him. “And...you want that? You want to be a girl?”

Young me started moving his mouth like a fish out of water, but no noise was coming out. He stared down at the table for a few silent moments, before he nodded.

“Y-yeah...I think...I think that’s what I want…”

Young me kept nervously staring at the table, as Michael remained silent. The silence was deafening, but a single noise eventually broke it.

The noise of laughter.

He looked up towards his friend as he heard his laughter, he saw Michael barely able to contain himself from falling onto the floor.

“Michael...?” He asked nervously, as his friend turned around and started calling out to the nearby tables.

“Guys, guys! Jason here just told me he’s a girly boy!” A few of the students at nearby tables looked over and snickered. 

“Michael! Why would you do that!?” Young me asked with a horrified expression. “Aren’t we friends?”

"Not anymore," He leaned in with a disgusting grin. “I have my own reputation to think about, can’t have you dragging me down.”

A few of the tables started to throw names at the younger me, calling him a multitude of swears and slurs. One commented on his long hair being too long for a boy, one made fun of his physique and lack of muscles.

Eventually, it was too much for the young me. He bolted out of his chair, tears streaming down his face, and he ran out of the cafeteria. As he ran, I found myself being left behind. The world started to fade away to black as he got further and further away.

Once the void had fully returned I sighed and waited for her to show up again. I thought back on the memory as I waited, thinking of the things that had changed afterwards.

The first was that I never got near Michael again when I could help it. Our friendship ended that day, and honestly? Good riddance.

I never made a friend at school after that situation, guess nobody wanted to deal with the laughing stock. That was fine by me, I guess, I didn’t need friends that would do that to me. 

The other thing that came out of that embarrassing situation, was that I never let my hair get that long ever again. I figured if I had shortened it then I would stop being made fun of. 

Obviously, that didn’t work.

The girl and the dream I mentioned to Michael was something I buried quickly. Whenever it tried to pop up again I quickly forced it away. Thankfully I had completely stopped getting them at some point, but it didn’t really do much to make me forget those feelings they brought about.

Eventually, the dream me, the feminine one, finally showed up. So I wasted no time at all on letting her have it.

“Why show me this? Where was the message here, what’s the meaning?” I said as I motioned in the direction young me ran. “Are you just here to torture me? Is that it?”

She shook her head. She pointed towards herself as she gently smiled, then she pointed towards me. 

I could understand what she wanted to say, but I wasn’t having it.

“I really don’t get why you continue to show me this stuff. You of all people should know how I feel. You should know that I desperately wanted to be like you, but I gave up on that idea long ago!” I exclaimed as I threw my arms out in anger. “I can’t be you! I’ll never be you! It’s too late for me, I got dealt the wrong hand in life! It’s just something I’ve learned to deal with, and it’s about time that you learned it too!”

She deflated and sighed, but her frustrating smile never broke. She held her hand out as a blue dress, fit for an adult, started to form in her hands. Once it was fully made she pushed it towards me, and it gently floated through the void.

My anger started to lessen as I grabbed the dress. I rubbed my thumb across it, feeling the touch of its soft fabric, before I tightened my grip on it. I tossed it onto the floor, and it burst into thousands of small blue lights that slowly faded away.

“Just let me go. Let me wake up, and let this be our last dream.” I whisper as I stare at the spot where the dress landed. I don’t know what expression the other me had, but I knew that she agreed to my request as the world started to fade away.

I felt myself falling for a brief moment, before I finally woke up.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I sighed and tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes, but failed. I still felt a little exhausted, which I guess is to be expected from that kind of dream. It’s been a week since I last had one, but hopefully, this would be the last.

I groaned and got up out of my bed, and quickly got dressed. I wore one of my hoodies that was about a size too big, but it was what I wanted right now. I wanted to feel lost in its bagginess today.

I eventually found my way downstairs, and asked Tami for a cup of coffee. My words were mumbled and jumbled around, and I had expected her to not understand me. Guess she knew what I meant, as she started preparing a cup.

Once she gave me a cup, I walked over to a booth and collapsed into it. I took a few sips once it cooled down, and it helped me to finally get the drowsiness out of my system.

My mind started to wander back towards the dream, but I stopped it as quickly as I could. Thinking about it will only make things worse. I decided to try and recall the past week as a way to help me keep my mind occupied.

Let’s see...where to start…

Skye’s still in her lab, despite being a week into her research over the stuff we brought back from the sewers. I’ve barely seen her this week, and I’m pretty confident she’s been sleeping in the lab instead of her room.

Eve told me about the Spirits finally, the drugs that the Phantoms were working on. Which baffled me as to how they even created such things. 

The blue one was apparently capable of giving or unlocking latent powers in unpowered people. People who went their whole life without one could take the blue vial and instantly gain a superpower.

The red one was worse, way worse, it was capable of taking away someone's powers entirely. Someone who got theirs taken away could never get it back, even with the blue spirits. To think that the villain I fought last week was holding one...one bad misstep and I could have lost my powers forever…

The worst part was the fact that both of these drugs were highly dangerous. With a full dose, they have a very high chance to cause the body to fatally shut down or cause them to go insane. Only the lucky ones survived without any side effects. I’m really, really glad that I didn’t get stabbed by that needle last week.

Anyway, on a lighter note...

Eve actually told me how her powers worked, and I was able to make some progress in using them since then. Her power was mostly split into three categories, all with varying levels of exhaustion per use.

Her easiest trick was creating a simple object, like say a bat or a pair of handcuffs. They would act as their real-world counterparts and would stay around for a couple of hours at best. She could snap her fingers to get rid of them earlier, but she told me that it wasn’t necessary and mostly just for show.

She said she could use that part of her power maybe a dozen times before she got tired. So it’s something she uses a lot in combat.

Her second trick is the dream-like attack she hit me with back when we met. She can choose to give someone a bunch of different kinds of dreams. Happy dreams, sad dreams, boring dreams, weird dreams, and even *ahem* those kinds of dreams…

Apparently, it takes a lot out of her to even send one person to dreamland. She says she could probably only do it twice on a good day, or three times with breaks in between.

Her final part of her power is the ability to create a permanent illusion or transformation. No matter how long it stays around, or how much damage it takes, it will always keep its form. It could even restore wounds or lost body parts. 

For example, she said she could use the power on Skye and it could give her her arm back in its perfect shape. She offered to use it on her, but the girl refused, saying that ‘It’s a reminder’.

The power is something I found incredible. Imagine the things you could do with that kind of power. You could fix so many people, you could just visit a hospital and cure everyone inside instantly. 

However, it wasn’t as easy or quick as I thought it to be. The power takes everything out of her, making her extremely exhausted and weak for a full week at best. And that week is to just get her back to a healthy enough state to move around in. If she used that power every time she recovers, she said she would quickly drain herself dry to the point she’s afraid it would take her powers away completely. 

I didn’t quite understand how that could happen, but I wasn’t about to tell someone else how to use their powers. I could definitely understand feeling afraid of using your powers to their absolute limit, I don’t think I need to mention how scary it is to copy two powers at once.

Even thinking of copying three…I can’t help but shiver at that. 

Thump.

I was a little startled when I noticed Skye collapsed into the opposite booth, and her head slumped down and hit the table. Guess I was a little too distracted by my thoughts, I hadn’t even heard her come into the cafe.

“Uh, hi…?” I asked as I looked at the girl who was currently face down on the table.

She looked up and- Wow...I didn’t know somebody could look that adorable while giving me the most exhausted face I’d ever seen. 

“...hey cutie.” She slowly mumbled, before she blinked several times as if she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.. “...you’re not...Eve...and you’re red…”

Huh? Red? I brought my hand up to my cheeks, and wow they were hot...Am I seriously blushing, no surely not. It’s just hot in here. Yep.

“So uh- *Ahem* uh...are you all done in the lab?” I said in a desperate attempt to change the topic.

Skye nodded as she started to wake up. “...took a while but... I'm done. Took forever to decipher their code-speak but I did it.”

“So, do we have the location of their next base?”

She nodded once again. “Yep.”

“That’s great!” I exclaimed, excited to do something so I can avoid thinking about my dream, “We can go after them right away and-”

“No.” She interrupted before she let out a yawn. “I’m way too tired for that and I need a day off. Too much work is rotting my brain…”

I nodded as she continued. “I think we all need a day off. How do you feel about going out for some fun today? After I take a power nap, of course.”

“Sounds like fun. I probably need a day off after... never mind. But yeah, I’m down to go out for some fun today.” I responded.

She nodded with a smile.

“It’s a date.”