"What would you like to wear today, Nick?" Nick heard a voice ask from the other side of his room, it was the voice of his nurse. "Just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt." Nick moved his head to look over at his nurse, a woman in her thirties who almost lived at his house at this point. His mom tried to look after him on the weekends to give her time off, but she had to work during the week.
"Just don't pick anything you know I won't like, please."
"Oh come on, your clothes are perfectly fine. Your mom has great taste!"
"She has an odd sense for what a fifteen year old boy would want to wear. I mean seriously, all she buys is stuff she thinks a boy my age would want to wear. How would you feel if your father bought all your clothes and just got you stuff he thought a girl would want to wear, Alyssa?" Alyssa thought on this for a moment, eventually shaking her head in defeat. "I see your point."
Alyssa grabbed a pair of shorts and a t-shirt she thought Nick would like, starting to dress him. Nick was paralyzed from the bottom of his neck down, meaning he couldn't do anything but move his head and breathe by himself. After he was dressed Alyssa moved Nick to his wheelchair, which was just about as awkward for Nick as the dressing was. Luckily, he had gotten used to it. "Alright, time for breakfast! How does pancakes and sausage sound?"
"If those pancakes have chocolate chips in them, it sounds great!" Nick was not a terribly picky eater, but he did not like things like pancakes plain.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chocolate chip pancakes it is then!" Nick smiled as Alyssa wheeled him towards the kitchen. It was almost like torture to Nick having to just sit there motionless as she cooked breakfast. Though, the torture luckily did not last long as sausage and pancakes were both relatively fast and easy things to cook. "How much syrup?"
Nick tried to keep himself from drooling as he answered. "As much as you can without overflowing the plate."
Alyssa nodded, drenching the pancakes and sausage in syrup until the plate could barely contain it before putting the plate down in front of Nick. He wished he could move his arms so he could dig in, but no matter how hard he tried he would never be able to do that. Luckily, Alyssa picked up on the fact he couldn't wait to start eating and cut off and stabbed a bit of pancake with a fork. Nick eagerly took it off the fork with his mouth, chewing it in delight. "Would you like to go for a walk after breakfast?"
Oh, how he would love to go for a walk. What she really meant was she would roll him around the block once or twice before his home school teachers came. Money was no problem for Nick's mom, she was a corporate controller for a large company and was able to pay for him to have many expensive luxuries like home schooling and a visiting nurse. His mother was worried if he went to a public or even private school he would be bullied relentlessly and not have many friends, so she tried her best to give him a good life free from such hardship. Though, he would love to have a couple normal friends and not just the kids he sees at support groups.
"That would be nice." Nick replied, giving Alyssa a cheerful yet also slightly forced smile. Nick has been paralyzed since birth, so he was used to the realities of his disability. However, he was a teenager which would be some of the best years to have full mobility, so the fact he couldn't even move a finger really depressed him. "It would be really, really nice..." Nick continued, staring at his pancakes as he spaced out.
The rest of the day passed by as it usually did, after breakfast he went for a walk with his nurse before his teachers came. When the teachers arrived, they tried their best for an hour and a half each to really make sure Nick understood the material they were teaching him, which was nice. After that it was dinner time, his nurse made steak and mashed potatoes for him and put some leftovers in the fridge for his mother to re-heat. After that, it was time for a bath. It was about as embarrassing and awkward as it would be for someone who was able to actually move their body.
"Have a good night, Nick. I'll be here first thing tomorrow morning to wake you up!" Alyssa smiled and covered up Nick with his blanket.
"Can I have chocolate chip pancakes tomorrow too?"
"Oh, you know your mother would kill me if I let you have that two days in a row! But I will see what I can convince her of. Don't hold your breath on it." Alyssa turned off Nick's light and closing the door. Luckily, Nick was not afraid of the dark. However, it did feel eerie to be in a dark room unable to do anything if something terrible happened. His nurse wasn't allowed to leave Nick alone in the house, so that was comforting at least.
Before Nick knew it, he was asleep and dreaming. Or at least he thought he was. "What in the world?" Nick looked around, he was in the middle of some sort of forest with the early morning sun beating down on him. "Is this... what they call a lucid dream? But i thought you weren't supposed to be able to feel anything in a dream..."
Nick could feel the dirt beneath him along with some small rocks digging into his back. "Hello!?" He began to call out, hoping with his lucid dream powers he could make somebody show up. He waited for a few minutes and then shouted a few more times, each time nothing would change. He was starting to panic slightly, it had been at least an hour at this point judging by the movement of the sun, which he did not actually know much about.
"Somebody!? HELP!" Nick screamed with all the power he could muster, a tear streaming down his cheek as a hopeless feeling set in. He had never been truly scared, but for a dream this felt too real to not feel a true sense of dread. Just when he thought all hope was lost, he heard a faint voice in the distance call out. Though, he couldn't understand anything it said.
The voice, even if talking in a language he had never heard, provided him with a bit of faith. "Hello!? Please, I need help!" After a couple moments a figure came into view, a large man covered head to toe in armor. The man was a giant, easily looking to be over six and a half feet tall. "Hello?"
The man began to talk, though what he was saying was not anything that Nick could understand. He knew English and a little bit of Italian, nothing like this. He tried to explain the situation as best he could, but all he could do was talk and it was like talking to a wall. After a minute of this, the man put up a finger. Nick assumed this meant for him to wait, as that is how he knew it to be used.
The man disappeared back into the forest for a few minutes, but it felt like a few hours. When he returned he was joined by a much smaller woman in elaborate robes who held a book in her hands. Translator? Was all Nick could think, why else would he bring this woman? "Uh, hello? Can you understand me?"
The woman looked towards Nick, then back to the man, and then back to Nick. After a second she held out a hand with her palm facing Nick and began to say something. It was all gibberish to Nick, but it made him feel strange in a way he had never felt before. "What are you doing?" Nick asked, though he knew that they wouldn't know what he said regardless.
"That's much better. What's wrong, boy? Are you injured?" The man spoke, and Nick could understand it. Nick was so confused, up until a moment ago they couldn't understand each other but now its like they spoke and understood perfect English. "You can understand me now?"
"Of course, she cast a spell so you could speak and understand our language like it was your own. Though, this only works for speech." Nick was confused. This talk of spells, strange languages, and people in suits of armor. This was strange even for dreams, though this was his first lucid dream
"Oh, I'm paralyzed from the bottom of my neck down. I'm not sure how I got here, I went to sleep and when I came to I was here." They both seemed skeptical, the armored man looked towards the robed women who just shrugged in response.
"You are in some strange clothes, where do you hail from?" The armored man asked, walking over to Nick.
"I come from New Hampshire..." He responded.
"The Kingdom of New Hampshire? I have never heard of it. Are you trying to fool us?" The man asked as he rested his left hand on the hilt of his sword.
"No, I'm not. My name is Nick, I come from a place called New Hampshire in a country called The United States of America." Nick tried to explain, but this just rose more questions that would be hard to explain to these figments of his imagination.
"Don't joke. We have never heard of such a country and it would take a year for a peasant to reach this place from the farthest away lands. You claim to have come here during a sleep? How could that possibly be so even if we believed all that you have been saying?" The man questioned with a commanding voice.
"Look, if you can be sure of nothing else you must believe that I pose no threat. I have absolutely no use of anything besides my neck and head. If you leave me here I will die and I would really not want that to happen..." Nick tried to appeal to their morals, which seemed to work as the armored man nodded towards the cloaked woman.
The man bent down and began to roughly manhandle Nick's limbs, feeling the muscle and finding that it was extremely weak which supported his claim. "Very well, we will take you with us to the Capitol and find out what to do with you there. We will get one of our healers to examine you and attempt at healing you." The man put his arms under Nick, lifting him in a style a knight in shining armor would lift a princess. Of course, this situation embarrassed Nick to no end.
As they passed through those forest Nick couldn't help but look around in wonder at the amazingly detailed world his mind created, truly something to behold. It was as if he took the world from a fantasy novel and modeled his entire dream world after it. Eventually they came to a small path, several wagons and many more men in armor on horses were halted on it. The armored man brought him to one of the wagons and laid him inside.
"Sylvia, think you can help this boy out? He's not sure how he got here and he is completely paralyzed from his neck down." A concerned woman looked over, so did two men who were in chain mail armor with a tabard. The tabard was impossible to make out in the dark wagon. "Oh, jeez, that might be too much... But I will try my best!"
As the woman came closer he could make her out better, she was in a robe-like blue gown and had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were a deep and beautiful blue color, a color unlike any blue eyes he had ever seen. She began to rummage around in a pack, taking out a few bottles full of strange liquids before placing her palms on his chest and closing her eyes. "There is a deformity in your spinal cord, I should be able to fix that but i will need time more than anything else. We have ten hours until we reach the Capitol, I will see what i can do by then."
Nick was astonished, he assumed she used some kind of examination magic to figure out the problem so she could heal it properly. This dream was almost too real to believe, everything felt as if it was really happening. "I will now begin the healing, drink this. It should help speed up the initial healing." Sylvia said, opening a bottle of red liquid. Is this some kind of healing potion or something?
She put the bottle to his lips, tilting it up and allowing the liquid to flow in so he could slowly drink it. It was a sweet taste unlike the bitter taste he had expected, this only confused him more as taste was another sense you are not supposed to have in a dream. After he drank the entire small glass bottle she placed it down and once again placed her hands on his chest, her eyes closing.
The next ten hours were tortuously slow, though he got to also experience eating in his dream which was another odd experience he did not expect to be possible. "We have arrived at the Capitol, estimated time until we reach the rendezvous is one hour!" He heard a voice call, he couldn't wait to see the sprawling city his mind had concocted for him. He had a lot of things in mind, all which he would love to see while he still got to experience this lucid dream which must be a once in a lifetime experience. It saddened him that the most amazing experience he will ever have is coming in dream form.
While Nick daydreamed he was interrupted by a sudden popping sound, followed by an intense feeling of pain which made him ball up his fists. "Fuck that hurt, what was that?" It did not take more than a second to realize something important... He moved his hand! "Wait.... I can move my hand? How is this possible? What did you do?"
Sylvia smiled brightly, looking Nick in the eyes. "I fixed your deformity. It's not enough to allow full movement, but with time it will be possible for you to gain full mobility!" This was a strange feeling for him, he was able to move his hand even if it was just a dream... He had never had any kind of movement in his dream before. He tried to hold back tears, but he couldn't.
He was crying like someone who had just lost a beloved pet or family member, he could only imagine what the others around him would think of this if they were real people. In time they made it to the rendezvous point where he was informed they would stay the night, he would sleep in the wagon. During the next two hours people were moving around and setting things up before eventually everything went quiet as they all went to sleep. Should I... sleep? In a dream?
He thought on the concept for the next thirty minutes or so until his eyes shot open, his name was being called. "Hey, did you have a bad dream? you were crying..." Nick smiled, another tear rolling from his eyes as he remembered his dream. "No, it was an incredible dream. I think it was a lucid dream, i was even able to move my fingers." He told Alyssa, attempting to move his fingers again with the hope that maybe he could.
Nick's eyes widened in surprise, he could still move his fingers! Nick gasped, lifting his head as much as he could as he continued to move his fingers around. "I-I-I-I can still move them!" Nick shouted, Alyssa's eyes going wide as she ripped the covers off, seeing Nicks moving fingers. She stumbled back into the wall, covering her mouth with both of her hands out of pure shock.
"I....I can't believe it, your doctor said a long time ago you should never be able to move any other part of your body because of a birth defect in your spine!" Nick couldn't believe it either, he thought back to the dream he had. Was... That truly a dream? "I-I have to call your mother! This is an insanely huge development!" Alyssa nearly shouted, running out of the room as Nick continued to cry in silence.