Aaron stumbled away from the powerful flash of light, banging into the steps of the door to the jet’s cabin. Only that should have been impossible because the hatch was open; he should’ve fallen back out into the stone labyrinth.
When his surprise from the burst of light wore off, he examined the wall more closely. Sure enough, the hatch was closed. He’d only been in the cabin a few seconds and hadn’t heard anything, but he just shrugged it off.
Dream logic, he figured.
The hooded figure had resumed their previous position — arms tucked in close and body gently rocking — after the light show. The man in the suit, however, shivered in his seat like he’d been doused in cold water. He stood, looked around the cabin, saw Aaron, and positively beamed at him.
“Well, fancy meeting you here, son,” Barrett said, chuckling. “I guess you couldn’t remember the phone number.”
He took a step forward, extending his hand to shake, and Aaron saw that Barrett — who was standing in front of him — was also still seated, his head lolling to one side against his shoulder. The seated Barrett had turned somewhat translucent while the colors of his body and clothes had grown more vivid and almost seemed to glow.
Barrett noticed where Aaron’s attention was directed. “That’s my real body, or waking body if you prefer,” he explained. “And this other me is me in the Dream.”
“In a dream?”
“Not a dream, the Dream,” Barrett said. “It’s the place where dreams take place and dreaming minds go. Usually everyone’s in their own little duck pond and different people’s dreams can’t do much more than brush up against one another, but sometimes more direct contact is possible. That’s how we’ve been meeting.”
“So, kind of like the collective unconscious, only it’s not inherited.”
“It’s much more complicated than that,” Barrett said, chuckling again. “I don’t pretend to understand more than a bit of it, it’s real deep stuff. The important thing is that we’ve finally able to work with it a bit and were able to make contact with you.”
“And you want to help me because we’re related or something, right?”
“We’re not related in that way, but yes, we are as close as kin,” the old man said. “You and I share a very rare kind of heritage, one that’s got a lot more weight to it than something as simple as blood ties.”
Aaron thought back to their last conversation. Barrett had said something about Aaron gaining powers, including being bulletproof, which he proved by shooting Aaron in the chest with a damn shotgun. What Aaron couldn’t figure out was how that fit into his delusions. Was it supposed to create some kind of heroic identity that would allow him to justify hurting people he viewed as threats, saving further damage to an obviously precarious self-image? He needed to know more.
“This heritage comes with power, like supernatural power, and I’m guessing there’s some kind of duty or obligation to fight a nefarious enemy?”
“Shit no,” Barrett laughed. “I mean, yes, our heritage comes with power, but we’re not secretly protecting the world against the forces of evil or anything like that.” He paused for a moment. “There are times when we have to fight things that are objectively bad, but most of our conflicts are with enemies who hate us for the usual reasons — selfishness, ideology, or historical grudges. Mostly, we keep to ourselves.”
That wasn’t what Aaron expected to hear. The conception of madness as chaotic and unpredictable stemmed largely from humanity’s relatively limited understanding of it, but there was generally some kind of method in the madness. Aaron wasn’t an expert, but he hadn’t gone to school for nothing and he knew there should be some kind of internal consistency that would make sense to him, at the very least. If he could figure out those cognitive distortions — the way his delusions were incorrectly interpreting the world — he’d be one step closer to limiting its impact on his life and behavior.
“So what is this shared heritage that gives us both power?” he asked.
“That’s the kind of thing that really needs to be explained face-to-face,” Barrett said. “The Dream is working against us on that front, but that’s alright. You’re here and that means you’re ready to let us help you. So, who are you and how can we reach you?”
Before Aaron could decide how he wanted to respond, the robed figure at the back of the plane called out to them. The voice had a dissonant and hollow quality and it jangled against the nerves in the confined space of the cabin. It was also familiar in a way Aaron couldn’t identify.
“Something is wrong.”
Both men turned their attention to the robed figure. Aaron was pretty sure it was the mystery woman under that deep cowl, but the voice that had come from her had been decidedly masculine, even with the spooky sound effects added to the mix.
“You have to wake up,” the voice intoned.
With a start, Aaron realized why the voice was familiar — it was his voice. He must have muttered those exact words to himself thousands of times trying to motivate himself to get out of bed in the morning.
“What’s going on?” Aaron asked.
The robed figure raised their head towards them and Aaron caught a glimpse of wavy red hair beneath the hood. Barrett started talking to them — her, probably — but Aaron couldn’t hear what was said, only the same two sentences.
“Something is wrong.”
The robed figure pointed at Aaron and Barrett turned to him, grasping him firmly by the shoulders. The old man was saying something, quite emphatically, but Aaron couldn’t make out a single word.
“You have to wake up.”
The pieces of the puzzle fell into place for Aaron as Barrett and the mystery woman became more agitated. The mystery woman was acting as a conduit of some kind between both Aaron and Barrett in the Dream and their waking bodies. That meant the voice Aaron was hearing actually was his voice — or at least his internal monologue — but it was based on things his sleeping body could sense.
So there’s danger or something around my real body, but I’m sleeping through it, he realized. That means I need to wake up. But how?
Aaron looked around the plane, looking for something that would spark an idea about how to force himself to wake from his dream. He looked for anything with liquid in it, thinking he could throw some water on his face and that might pull him out of sleep, but didn’t see anything. Nothing was occurring to him and he was starting to freak out a little. Having no idea what the danger or problem near his sleeping body was did not contribute to his sense of calm.
Suddenly, a voice boomed through the cabin. “Let there be light!”
The entire plane was washed out with white light, so bright it was almost painful. He winced away from it, and…
Aaron had sat up in bed and put his feet on the floor before he was even fully awake. He blinked around the hospital room, his mind half in a daze.
A man was standing near the foot of his bed, close to the drawers against the wall, frozen in a slightly hunched position. Aaron recognized him as the newly-arrived patient from lunch, the one he’d thought was sneaking glances at him. He wasn’t the only other person in the room.
The humongous black man in the custom baseball jersey that Aaron had seen at lunch was standing just inside the door of the room. His hand was on the lightswitch that controlled the overhead fluorescents.
“A little much?” the big man said, voice a deep bass.
Aaron rubbed at his eyes, which were stinging and crusty with sleep, then turned his full attention back to the stranger by the dresser. The stranger’s eyes darted from Aaron to the man in the doorway.
“You lost?” he rumbled, giving the stranger a look that suggested he knew otherwise.
“Sorry,” he replied, shrugging. “I just checked in a little while ago; I must’ve come into the wrong room.”
The giant eyed the new patient up and down, but finally stepped back so he wasn’t blocking the door. That was all the invitation he needed; the stranger headed right for the door. He did glance at Aaron over his shoulder on his way out. The look was innocuous, on the surface, but Aaron felt a jolt of anxiety.
Before he was through the door, the big man blocked his path with one arm. Quietly, he said, “Thine foot shall slide in due time. Consider what comes after if you keep to that path. Thus saith me.”
The other man’s face expressed the same confusion that Aaron felt at the somber pronouncement, but offered no comment. He gave the much larger man a noncommittal nod and then ducked under his arm, leaving the room. The big man strolled into the room, looking Aaron over.
“You look like you seen a ghost,” he said. “Don’t fret too much, there’s all kindsa weirdos and crazies here. Like as not he was looking to rummage through our drawers for something more comfortable than grippy socks.”
Aaron tried to school his face into something that didn’t convey a message of ‘I’m a frightened animal and might lash out.’ The rush of adrenaline from waking to find a stranger near his bed was fading, yet the suspicion of something more sinister than a scavenger hunt for tube socks lingered. He didn’t want to paint as paranoid and, more importantly, he wasn’t keen on pissing off a behemoth in a mental hospital.
“I was just shocked to wake up to someone standing over my bed, I guess,” Aaron said lamely.
Iam — maybe — waved it off. “No harm, no foul; and I’m sorry if I was a bit dramatic earlier. It’s just so tempting to trot out the classics, even if they are a bit cliche.”
“The classics?”
“Yeah, you know… vengeance is mine, thou shalt not, for I so loved the world, all that good stuff.”
Aaron scratched his cheek. “I’m not sure I follow.”
The big man sat down on the other bed, facing Aaron, and extended a massive hand. “You must not’ve had much churchin’ growing up. Pleased to meet you, I’m God.”
The only thing keeping Aaron’s eyebrows on his head was the lack of clearance for departure. He couldn’t think of a good reply to that and keeping his mouth shut seemed like the better part of wisdom, here. He was uncomfortably reminded of his own madness in the form of all that stuff about super powers bouncing around in his head.
“Anyways, the orderlies asked if I would come tell you supper was ready, seeing as I’m your roommate and all. So here I am.” His roommate stood up, which wasn’t impressive but, at the same time, totally was. “Anyways, supper’s ready. And don’t worry, I won’t be offended if you don’t say grace or anything.”
“Oh, well… that’s very, uh, progressive of you. I’m sorry if I don’t refer to you as the Lord or anything; it’s not really something I’ve got experience with.”
The big man waved one hand dismissively. “Pssh! I’m not the hair-trigger, smite-happy deity I get made out to be sometimes. That was just a phase, really.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “Speaking of being progressive, I want to apologize for my language earlier.”
Aaron’s expression must have conveyed the confusion he was feeling, because Iam continued a moment later. “Using terms like ‘weirdos and crazies’ isn’t a very kind or helpful way to refer to people going through a mental health crisis. Especially coming from the person indirectly responsible for mental health crises existing in the first place.”
Aaron nodded politely. He couldn’t think of anything to say because what the hell do you say to something like that? He found himself looking up at the man’s friendly face and thought Iam didn’t seem like the type to take offense being told outright he was full of crap. Still, between the whole ‘in a mental hospital’ thing and the ‘foot or more of height difference between them’ thing, that wasn’t a plan Aaron was going to adopt any time soon, no matter how affable his roommate might be.
“Anyways, it’s chicken parm tonight,” Iam said. “You do not want to miss that.”
Without another word, the huge man strolled right back out of the room. Aaron watched him go, still feeling out of sorts, until his stomach rumbled with hunger and he got up to follow.
Iam — or God; or whatever — was right: if dinner was going to be the same quality the sandwiches at lunch had been, the big man was absolutely right. Aaron wouldn’t want to miss that.
