In the dawn-like morning at the distant mystery place, crimson sky rising up gradually. Amidst the large indigo meadow surrounded by rain forest, there's nothing else except one guy who unconsciously waking up with an antiqued pocket watch on his right hand.
He's around 20 years old with paled blue eyes, wearing wizard-like hat, dressing in old overalls. He curiously standing up, looking at that pocket watch that unsynchronized ticking.
Suddenly, Cam Maidein feels the eyes staring at him from his back at the moment.
He try to see whose eyes it was by searching through the forest as much as he could, but still can't even find anything suspicious.
While He is trying to find the way out of the forest, everything around him had changed. The time is tickling backwardly, the day and night is switching unstoppable. He immediately realizes exactly what's happening.
'Am I traveling in the dream?'
....
7 months ago. His friend, Lunar, disappeared from the world without any traces to find out. Shortly after that, everything about Lunar is gone like they have never existed before. The crew that tried to find Lunar suddenly forgot what they were doing at the moment, even Cam himself.
One night, In the distant darkness place, the echoes of footsteps are advancing toward Cam's back. Lunar came into his dream.
Cam furrowed his eyebrows, confusingly thought to himself.
'why is she so familiar to me?'
"Long time no see, Cam" Lunar chuckles.
"seeing from your face, I assume you still don't remember me, do you?"
'Is she the one who I totally forgot about?…What was her name?'
"You don't have to think about it now. I have more important things to t…"
As Cam figured out his thoughts, he interrupted her conversation, "Lunar???"
"Umm…you sure are not letting what bothers you go away easily, are you?"
"What's really going on with you? I…I don't understand why everything about you is gone like that"
"I just tried something that going to make me moving forward to the endless path where no one could find me", Cam sighed in disbelief of what she said "Are you saying you tried to find a way to just…die?"
"I DID NOT say I wanna die, I just want everyone to forget about my existence forever"
'I don't know you're gonna be this crazy…'
"Crazy or not I literally don't care, as long as I can fulfill my lifetime wishes, I will get rid of anything that comes in my way" Lunar chuckles sneeringly. "To conquer that dream, I have to practice controlling the dream for a while. When I achieved that, I can do whatever I want in the dream"
'Is she hearing my thoughts?'
Cam scratched his head "What about your disappearance, I mean…how does that have something to do with you controlling the dream?"
"That's a thing I can't tell you now, maybe you should find it out yourself"
'Yeah,no…'
"It's none of my business. I don't exactly need to know anything about it"
"Well, perhaps…you could help me get out of this situation"
"By controlling the dream? I mean…you want to leave the world, but you want me to help you out?"
'That's not make any sense at all….'
As Cam finished that thought, the connection between them had torn apart like a mirror breaking into pieces. He feels the pain after that.
The scene in his dream is still the same, but behind Lunar's back, there's a woman with purple eyes, dressed in a tattered uniform with a cloak. She grabbed Lunar's neck, stabbing Lunar's heart with a dagger. The scary woman then look at Cam, smearing blood on Cam's face "You're next, cutie"
As she snaps her finger, Cam feels the huge force pulling him back to the real world. He then wakes up immediately.
'What the actual fxxk? Why does that dream feel so real….'
For a couple minutes, Cam slightly lost his memory about that dream. He tried poking on his head repeatedly, and suddenly he remembered something.
'Lunar…dream…controlling…..huh…Is she in danger? I need to help her out of the dream…right?'
As time goes by, he still totally forgot about Lunar, but one thing he still remember is helping someone out of that dream.
The next night after he did his house shores, he watched a tutorial about traveling the dream. He had to set up a room with a dim light, place an extract to make the room full of dreamy fragrance.
He had to make his head clear, no thought, no sound invading, just empty mind. The best way to do all this is to meditate in the ideal room. Next, he needs to lay down on the bed, thinking about a scene or place he wants to travel. As he goes to sleep, he repeatedly thought.
'I'm traveling the dream…I'm in the dream…I'm controlling the dream…'
As his eyes closed, nothing happening, he normally fell asleep.
The next morning, he wakes up with fully disappointed feelings knowing that he didn't even get into a dream last night. Even though he knows that the chance that one can controlling the dream is rarely possible, but he still hoped to success at the first time.
He tried it again for a few nights, and finally something happening…
After following the full process, as soon as he hit the second REM cycle, the dark gray foggy started spiraling through his thoughts, the reflection of his body popping up in his head, the lighting spread out scattering it apart. Eventually, his mind is full of darkness.
He's entering the dream…
When he entering the dream. At first he still don't know that he had been in the dream already. Everything went through the same as normal dreaming, but after a moment, He will realize that He is already in a dream.
The worst thing is that he can't control the place he want to go, so sometimes the place he got into is inexplicably horrible.
For a while, he learns more about how to control the dream. When he is in a controlling stage, he still has full consciousness. He can control his thoughts, but can't create something in the dream.
When Cam need to come back to the real world, he has to close his eyes, and thinking about anything that make him feel fully dizzy. He always thinks about the reflection inside the kaleidoscope that he hated when he was young because It makes him hallucinated more quickly than other things. Eventually in a few minutes, he is going to awake to the real world.
....
At the forest around the indigo meadow, the time is still ticking backwards, the moon and the sun still switching unstoppable.
After Cam realizes that he is in the dream, he's trying to calm his mind, trying to control the tickling time, but it's out of his limits of controlling.
He decides to find a way off of this forest by using a compass that comes with a pocket watch. Just for a quick hundred steps, he finds an obsolete mirror, handed size, lying on the ground. He grabs it and scrutinizes throughout the back and front. The back of the mirror is full of undecipherable characters. The front is just a normal mirror, but when he touches its glass, the reflection is distorted, the surroundings around Cam are stopped, his heart beats irregularly, making Cam lose his thought.
As time goes by, the forest amidst the indigo meadow has no one left, even a mysterious mirror.