Sweat trickled across their foreheads and they tried harder and harder.
"Push it, you two!" the doctor ordered, watching them from the outside the experiment room bound on all four sides by protective glass. At one point, the female gave up and let go of the male's hand and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She ripped the connector wires from her head and threw them to the side.
"I can't…" she whimpered and got up from her bed and walked out of the glass room. The male stopped trying too and looked at the doctor through the glass in defeat.
The doctor clicked his tongue and looked at the screen monitors which showed zero success rate at their 57th trial of Partnered Dreaming into Dimension Zero, the currently invisible dimension where all the hidden energies of the world were concentrated. In there, the different levels of energies morphed into different forms, creating illusions of things imaginable and unimaginable. Just like how average humans sleep and see what we call 'dreams.'
"Arghh!" he yelled and swiped his hand across all the instruments on the table in a rage and it all clattered to the floor altogether. His hair was unkempt and his half-broken glasses lay carelessly on his bent nose.
He looked up and saw the adult male and female tests subjects walk out of the room and return their syringes to the assistant doctors. The female looked at the doctor with a sad smile, "I'm sorry, I did all I could. Maybe it's my weak yin. I think it will work with another test subject, there's probably nothing wrong with your invention."
The doctor looked at the male who was playing with his feet.
"What about you? What do you have to say?" The doctor asked.
"To be honest, I…I don't think this will ever work. Partnered Dreaming is a linking of the inner Qi of two different people. Unless they are in a higher stage of cultivation and has more control over themselves, this is hopeless. The Yin of a female and the Yang of a male are two sacred things. Trying to fuse them both through scientific methods and exploiting it… it can even bring down the Hells upon those who try it."
The doctor nodded his head and stood up straight, calming himself down, "Go then. Go and never return." He couldn't reprimand them for their naïve thoughts on this project. They didn't have the years of experience on this topic like he did. But if there was one thing necessary for the success of this project, it was just one thing, even though it sounds outlandish: Faith.
The two nodded and made their way out of the room. They were paid a fixed amount according to the hours they devoted to the experiments. Once they were gone, the doctor's assistant came in and asked whether they should call in the next male-female pair of test subjects. He shook his head and glanced towards the exit through which the previous two had walked through.
"Assistant."
"Yes, doctor?"
"Kill them both."
The assistant did a double take, "Those two? But they didn't do anything wrong."
"They know too much about my invention. I can't risk them turning against us. We've come too far," the doctor finalized and walked out of the testing room, removing his lab coat and gloves. The assistant was convinced the doctor had reached a state called Madness.
The doctor's phone rang when he was at the recreation room of the research building and he picked up the call. It was the head of investors of the Project Dream System.
"Any progress? Did they Dream?"
"No. It failed."
"What? But I thought you assured that going into the Dream with a pair will yield more results, then what is the meaning of this?"
Doctor thought about what the man had said and thought that maybe a hint of truth was hidden among his blunt words. Dreaming was an elaborate process where two minds fuse together to travel into Dimension Zero. If the two minds clashed, the connection would have cut off halfway.
"What is your next experiment going to look like?" the head asked in his throaty old man voice.
The doctor thought for a while, looking up at the intricate designs of the lab's ceiling. He thought of the human mind and how long it took to have it fully developed. Adult minds were hard to alter as there were too many neural connections inside them at that age…
The doctor's eyes widened. 'But if it was a kid's mind, raw and undeveloped, maybe connecting would be easy as the boy and girl's minds would be flexible over each other's and link effortlessly!' the doctor smiled at the hypothesis. It was clear that the doctor was finding ways by how one could enter Dimension Zero without being a cultivator.
"I have an idea, but it will be risky."
The head hummed a yes, "No matter. I'm not investing in some kid's play. I'm investing on the end result of a future of a better, longer lasting mankind."
Doctor chuckled, "Yes, yes," and he cut the phone, zings of excitement rushing through his veins. Now where to find worthy kids?
…
Tiara stood at the side of the church aisle and yawned, the morning sunlight entering her as she saw this stupid propaganda play in front of her.
Her mom entered in her white wedding dress and the wedding music started playing in its traditional rhythm. A lot of people were there and everyone was smiling and laughing at the ceremony.
Tiara watched in disgust as the clergy said the vows and her mom exchanged rings with that stranger. "Ugh," she told herself, "I can't take any more of this."
She looked around and decided to sneak out of the place. It was not like anyone would notice. Her red dress trailed behind her as she walked out into the refreshments area. It was only then she could finally breathe.
She heard footsteps behind her and turned around.
"Little sis!"
She narrowed her eyes, "Mitchell. What are you doing here?"
"Come on. I hate this too, you know that."
Tiara rolled her eyes and looked around Mitchell, "Where is the rest of your 'gang'?"
Mitchell laughed, "Speak of the devil. They're on their way." Not even a second passed after he had said that and the gang emerged from the restroom, waving their mouths to dispel the smoke.
Tiara looked at her brother with wide eyes and whispered, "You were smoking?! In the church," She couldn't believe it. Her brother was only 13.
Tiara had had enough of this place. She felt suffocated in here. Her family had all the luxuries in the world and a huge house. She was supposed to be happy. But everything around her was driving her crazy.
Her underage brother was smoking, a stranger had taken a move on her mom two weeks ago and now they were getting married.
She turned around and went back to her room at the top of the house and sat by the window, looking out at the lush front garden.
"Damn the male system," she swore and felt like a burden had been lifted off her chest as she uttered those words.
And that was it, she had decided. She was an impulsive person so she didn't have to think about anything. Before the wedding ceremony was over, she was outside the house gates, her bag packed and ready to go.
She was running away from home.
Before she walked out of the gates, her brother stepped out of the bushes and stopped her.
"Are you doing what I think you're doing?" he asked, a smirk on his face.
"And you're not going to stop me," she snapped back.
Mitchell stepped out of the way and cleared the road for her, "Run along then. But girls are weak, you know? You won't go far. I'll see you at today's dinner."
"I'm not coming back."
Mitchell laughed and shook his head and walked away. His gang members were also lurking behind the bushes and the followed Mitchell as he walked away.
But their gang leader, a tall boy of 15, didn't move.
"V, you coming?" Mitchell called him when he saw him fixated on the ground.
"No, I'm going back home," V lied and walked away. Mitchell looked at him in confusion and he watched V walk out the same gate his sister walked out of and Mitchell bit his cheek.
"She'll never love you, brother," Mitchell said to himself because telling V that would only cause him to rage.
…
Tiara hadn't taken the wedding make up off her face and she was still in her red gown as she ran away. She thought she could live on her own. Get a part time job, rent and apartment with the huge stash of money she had taken from under her mom's bed and grow old alone and happy.
But she too, was a princess in her own way. She had never stepped out of the house for serious purposes. Her caretakers brought in customized clothes for her, did her chores and all things hard.
So when she stepped out to cross the crowded road during the morning rush hour, she forgot to check for the green lights.
Her torso collided with the front of a car, throwing her aside onto the road, blood pooling around her head the same color of her dress.
All she could hear was silence. All she could see was black.
And all V could see was the crowded road and her wrecked body lying in front of him. Tears fell from his eyes. He had followed her all along so that he could look out for her.
But here she was, showing that he had failed. Unable to take it in, V walked away from her, swearing not to enter her life again.
Tiara's eyes had closed that day of the accident and it didn't open for a long, long time.
…
8 years later, the nurses rushed out of the hospital ward and called the doctor in.
"Doctor! She opened her eyes!"