Corazón. He's a really funny guy. Like his nickname, he has a lot of heart. He's kind and has a great voice.
But, I couldn't trust him. Not when he obviously has something to hide. And that was, his face.
I couldn't see his face. Over it, strapped around his head was a nondescript white mask. I wonder how he can even see?
Despite all that, he seems a rather jovial fellow. He played along with many of my whims, and did not disagree to any of my ideas at all.
As such, I think I can trust him, for now at least. After all, I was hiding my own identity too so I couldn't really be saying much.
One thing I noticed though is how he keeps calling where he is a dream. For example; "This is a really realistic dream." Or "I've never met you before, why am I even having dreams about you?"
And, I have to agree. At first when I arrived with a golden lyre in hand, I initially believed I was dreaming. However clearly it was not.
Because the moment I strummed the lyre, a golden holographic screen seemingly only visible to me appeared out of nowhere.
That moment took me by surprise, but with what happened to my body in reality, the shock eventually faded and turned into curiosity.
It was pretty useless at first, having no information that could help me understand where I was. The only thing on the screen was two capitalised words in bold.
[PRESS HERE]
While it was truly suspicious and I was hesitant to do so, I still pressed it anyway. And I am glad that I did.
Since the moment I pressed down on the screen, immediately the field before me changed.
Flowers grew out of nowhere, rising from the earth. Blooming under the moonlight.
As I drank in the sights before me, the moon illuminated my body and soon my mind was flooded with incredible information.
The information that surged into my brain was as vast as the sea. It wasn't a particularly painful process, but it was definitely uncomfortable.
Especially since one nugget of information fed to me was related to the process. And for a brief second I accessed that information and discovered that what was happening to me was known as an Inheritance Transplant Surgery.
Where a person's knowledge is extracted from their memories stored into the mind of another being. In this case, some Godly entities decided to pass down all their knowledge to me. Yay.
Normally it was apparently impossible for a mortal human to withstand billions of years worth of information and memories, but if what the other nuggets of information I gained is telling me the truth, then I'm probably not a human anymore. Double yay.
It was evident to me now that my brain was restructured to deal with any problems that could occur during the process. I have no qualms with having all this knowledge, since it may be useful.
But the fact that they decided to shove it in my arms rather than consulting me about it first was plain rude.
Frustratingly enough, I can't even complain to them since I have no idea where they are.
Moving on. I'm getting off track a bit, but along with this knowledge was amazingly enough, information on all things magic.
And one particular form of magic I saw as intriguing in particular dealt in dreams. Like the one I was in.
With this knowledge I decided to test it out as I knew that I had the qualifications to cast some of them.
More importantly, according to the information given, my body was modified to directly handle and adapt to things much more than a human normally could.
And that meant evolving to enable my body to access the mystical energies of the universe.
Since Dream Magic was much more easier when one was actually inside a dream, I did not have to do any other preparations.
Only thing I needed to do was focus on the spell I wanted to cast and my intentions. The rest could be left to intuition.
There wasn't much to it, all I did was attempt the Shared Dream Spell that links one's dreamscape to another person's dream.
There was no specific incantation to it as it was a somewhat unique spell in that in exchange for the vulnerability of one's body, one could intuitively craft a focal intonation that works for them.
In my case, with my lyre, I was able to use a song to cast the spell. The song was actually quite in line with the spell I casted.
A Million Dreams from that one movie about P. T. Barnum. What was it? The Greatest Showman, I think?
Can't remember much about it, but the songs were very memorable. So it was easy for me to recall the lyrics.
As for the chords on the lyre; well that was supplied by the screen right before me.
And over the course of just four minutes, as I lightly pulled on the strings of the miniature harp, light started shimmer on the strings, emitting outwards as dozens of sparkling light blue threads materialised and spun themselves into a ball before me.
In the reflection of the screen, I could see my own eyes shimmering with golden light. It felt strange to me, seeing myself like that. But, it didn't matter much at the moment.
All I had the urge to do was to pull one of the threads in, reel it towards me and see what was on the other end.
But by the briefest description of the spell I casted, it was most probably another person's dream.
And I was right. Because the moment I randomly pulled on the longest one, all of a sudden the dreamscape before me warped and glitched in and out of existence.
Rapidly merging with the dream of the other party. Prior to this, the night sky was without a moon, and yet now a lustrous silver moon shone down on me like a spotlight.
That, is how I met Corazón and why he was here. I spoke nothing of it, and merely alluded to the fact that he was not just in a dream.
But it did not seem like he picked up on any of my hints. He did question over how incredibly detailed the dream was, but nothing more.
We talked for what felt like hours, he confided to me what his life is like in the real world. Joking around about how more realistic the dream was than the real world.
I said nothing. I merely sat there, listening. I have none of my opinions. I was merely someone who was listening to his problems.
To make sure I don't break the illusion. I wanted to tell him, how he doesn't need to tell me everything about himself. About how all of that needed to be addressed with his friends instead of a total stranger.
But then I remembered that he believed all this to be a dream, so I refrained from speaking and merely observed.
How he spoke, how his inflections rise and fall as his emotions do. The contagious laughs of his, the way he saw it all as not real.
It almost broke me as I came to the startling realisation that, without his consent, I fused his dream to mine and unintentionally gathered information about him without even knowing; me and him both.
At that point, I felt anxious. So I strummed my lyre. Cutting him off midway as he was talking about how fame has its pros and cons.
"Are you playing music again? Already?" Corazón merely chuckled the moment I started playing the lyre, preparing himself to listen to another song.
'I close my eyes and I can see...'
As I was about to tell him the truth, I swallowed those words of mine down, "Time has run out. Till we meet again."
Clearly, these were not the words he wanted to hear, for just a brief second it took him to process my words, the next moment he stood up abruptly and stuttered our in confusion, "What? What- what do you mean by that?"
My hands sped up, accelerating the spell reversal. "It means, I'll see you again. Because it's time for me and you to wake up."
"Wake up? Why would you wake up? Wait- who are you?"
Those comments of pure bewilderment echoed in my mind. The moment I rose from my slumber, I awoke to the peals of thunder.
I glanced over to the windows and saw grey skies overcasting the city.
I sighed. It was going to be a bad day.