Prologue
There is a moment before waking from a dream that always feels strange. Two realities clash together, one obliterating the other. The mind lingers in that void for a while, suspended between one reality and the next, caught between the subconscious world of dreams and the conscious waking world waiting just beyond the edges of awareness.
Falling asleep is no different. You close your eyes, pretending to sleep, waiting for unconsciousness to take hold. And then, at some imperceptible moment, it does. But there is no threshold, no clear boundary marking the transition. No single point where wakefulness ends, and sleep begins. Only the slow unraveling of thoughts, like threads slipping through your fingers.
Yet, despite this seamless descent, you never truly know you’re asleep until you wake. Dreams dissolve into absurdity the instant consciousness reasserts itself. It’s only in the fleeting seconds before waking, when the remnants of dreams cling stubbornly to reality, that the two states overlap. A delicate moment where you exist in both worlds at once, where the dream still makes sense, and waking life feels just as distant. It is then, and only then, that you might pause and wonder, just for a heartbeat, if the dream was ever the illusion at all.
When a person dreams, the mind turns inward and forgets itself as it drifts into unconsciousness. It constructs a world from within, shaping landscapes, people, and events out of thought alone. But the mind doesn’t observe this world from the outside. Instead, it steps inside, embedding itself within the dream, assuming the role of a singular presence through which the dream is experienced. From this perspective, the inner workings of the mind no longer appear as thoughts but as an external reality, a world that feels as tangible as waking life.
Unlike the conscious mind, which anchors itself to a single point of awareness, the subconscious is not bound by such limitations. It manifests across multiple perspectives at once, inhabiting different figures within the dream, experiencing its own imagined world from multiple vantage points simultaneously. In this way, the dreamer becomes both the observer and the observed, the architect and the inhabitants, scattered across the vast terrain of their own unconscious creation. The only limitation exists in the wisdom of the individual, as neither the conscious nor subconscious mind can imagine something it has not experienced beforehand.
An Eskimo can’t dream of palm trees - Marshall McLuhan
1
The air was thick, heavy with the weight of something unseen, pressing in like the hush before a storm. A faint metallic tang clung to the silent room, mixing with the stale scent of sweat and damp fabric. Sheets twisted around a restless body, clinging to the wet skin, ensnaring the body in a firm grip, unwilling to release its grasp.
The presence that felt like a thought without form or meaning conceptualized in the mind of the man wrapped tightly in the soaked prison. An idea that didn’t truly belong. It pressed against the edges of awareness, shifting like a half-remembered dream, bleeding into the waking world.
The moment he tried to focus on it, it retreated, dissolving into the shadows pooling at the edges of the room. Yet, its presence remained, not fully gone, yet never fully real. It lingered, pressing against his mind like an unfinished thought, like a task left incomplete before sleep. Something pulling at the edges of him, faint as a breath against the skin, an intangible pressure on his being, just beneath perception.
Come with me
Lucien sprang awake, his chest heaving, sweat trickling down his suntanned skin, pooling into the damp mattress beneath him. The cooling moisture clung to his back as he sat up, breath ragged.
Shadows twisted in the corners of his room, retreating the moment he tried to focus on them. Only now did he realize he was still screaming.
A sharp gasp tore from his throat as he forced air into his lungs. Trembling, he ran a hand through his curly brown hair, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
His fingers cramped as he reached for the bedside lamp, flipping it on with a shaky breath. The dim light spilled lazily across the cluttered room, its glow barely enough to push back the remnants of his nightmare.
His bed was soaked, his throat parched, his head pounding like a war drum.
With a sigh, he swung his legs over the edge and stood, peeling the damp sheets away from his skin.
He could never remember the dreams, not fully. But the terror always lingered, an aftershock that left his muscles aching, his lungs tight, the phantom weight of something crushing his chest.
Even now, awake, he could still feel them lurking just beyond his vision, as if watching from the shadows, waiting.
The door creaked open, spilling a sliver of warm light from the living room into his nightmarish tomb of a bedroom. The shadows hesitated, clinging stubbornly to the edges of the walls.
"God damn, man," came the familiar, teasing voice of his roommate, thick with sleep. "With a voice like that, they should station you as an air raid siren." A yawn followed, then a pause. "Did you piss the bed or what?" His tone carried the usual mix of playfulness and mild disgust.
Lucien rubbed his eyes and looked up, meeting Jan’s perpetually drowsy gaze.
"Shut up, Jan," he muttered, voice rough. "It’s just sweat."
Janus—though no one ever called him that, not even his parents—leaned against the doorframe, his smartwatch flashing briefly as he checked the time. The glow washed over his pale face, highlighting the exhaustion there.
His blond brows lifted slightly.
"Ah, fuck it. It’s already half past six. Get ready; I’ll make some coffee. Come out when you’re done, bedwetter." He yawned again, turning toward the kitchen.
Lucien grabbed his balled-up sheet and threw it at him, but it unfurled midair, drifting uselessly to the floor like a deflated ghost.
His room was as uninspiring as ever—boring white walls, a mass-produced gray closet, a black desk, a chair, and his stationary PC, which he barely used anymore.
The only real signs of life were the ever-growing tower of empty energy drink cans and the mountain of unwashed clothes in the corner, both silently begging for attention.
With fresh linens on the bed, he got dressed, only to realize he was out of clean socks.
He sighed, dug through the pile, and settled on the least offensive used pair he could find, and got into the living room. Getting handed a tumbler filled with freshly brewed coffee.
“Thanks man, it’s just what I need” Lucien said with a smile. “We really need to clean up the apartment though”. He looked around at the cluttered living room. “It smells like something died in here”.
Jan looked up from his own cup “I think that’s just the smell of your socks dude”.
Not long after, they were heading out of the apartment.
As they passed the blue screen at the foot of the stairs, they both beeped themselves out. The scanner chirped in acknowledgment.
"Maybe you should talk to someone about these dreams," Jan said in deep thought. "I mean, you’ve had them as long as I’ve known you. And that’s been a while."
Lucien scoffed, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "And who exactly would that be?" he shot back, sharper than intended. "What’s a shrink gonna do about nightmares I can barely remember?"
The automatic doors whispered shut behind them. Outside, the city moved like clockwork, pedestrians hurrying toward the train, shoulders hunched against the light drizzle. Their conversation stalled as they stepped into the flow of bodies, swallowed by the steady hum of morning life. They turned left and walked to catch the NS line.
"There’s no need to get pissed," Jan said, nudging him with his elbow. "I’m just trying to help."
"I know, man, I know. I’ve just slept like shit…"
"For four years," Jan finished for him with a smirk.
Lucien let out a short, tired laugh. "Yeah, more or less." He took a sip of his coffee mid stride, savoring the bitter warmth.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, passing what appeared to be the same apartment building again and again, in between each building, a park or another recreational area was strategically placed. As they came closer to the train station, Jan picked up the conversation again. "I wasn’t actually talking about a shrink," he said.
Lucien, lost in his own thoughts, barely registered the words. "Huh?"
Jan grinned. "Before, you said, what’s a shrink gonna do—" He twisted his voice into an exaggerated, slow-witted imitation of Lucien.
Lucien snorted. "Oh, right”. They began walking up the stairs, while a long line of people stood idle on the escalator right next to the staircase, looking into their phones, or simply staring right ahead, as if they were long away in thought.
"What I meant was, maybe you could talk to one of the professors or students working on those sleep studies at the university." Jan was taking two steps at a time as he ascended towards the platform.
Lucien raised an eyebrow in hot pursuit of Jan. "That’s… actually not a bad idea. When did you develop a brain?"
"Fuck you," Jan shot back with a grin, stepping over the platform into the train cabin that would take them to the university.
“Stand clear of the platform,” an automated female voice said in a flat, emotionless tone.
After a brief delay, the cabin surged forward and attached itself to the back of the main tram. Lucien and Jan moved quickly through the first cabin and into the next, finally finding an empty spot to sit down.
It was less crowded than usual, but just as grimy. They found seats in one of the cubicle containers, facing each other. Lucien hated riding backwards—it made his stomach churn—but it was still better than standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers for fifteen minutes.
Across from them, two women in their mid-twenties whispered gossip with voices laced in judgment, the kind meant to be overheard.
Lucien leaned against the window, staring out at the city. Parks, walkways, and apartment buildings with porcelain-white facades and obsidian-black windows slid past in a seamless blur of design and greenery as the train raced through the second circle toward the city center.
“Cabin detaching to Circle One, Outer Perimeter North, in one minute,” the same automated voice announced over the speaker system.
A few passengers rose and hurried to the rear of the train. A soft hiss and the metallic click of decoupling followed, just as a new cabin attached itself to the back, filling quickly with commuters preparing to exit at the next junction.
The train curved left, continuing clockwise around the city. From his seat, Lucien could see the graceful arcs of buildings and parks encircling the Central Hub, all framed by the deep green of the surrounding forest. Mansions dotted the terrain, standing apart from the hydroponic towers near the Inner Perimeter of Circle One. The view was breathtaking. The entire landscape looked like a massive bowl of forest and light, with sleek structures rising like polished stones from within.
Lucien could make out three of the four massive gates leading into the inner circle as the train hurtled toward the eastern platform. They passed the jagged scar cutting across the pristine symmetry of the structure at the very center of the city—Edu-4’s town hall. Though only a small part of the Central Hub, its once-immaculate white surface was now scorched black and gray from the bombing. Drones hovered around it, already repairing the damage, efficient and silent.
Lucien and Jan had always insisted they weren’t political, that this was just another war between people too consumed by their own righteousness. But wars had a way of pulling everyone in, whether they wanted it or not.
A little over two decades ago, the old political system had been dismantled, replaced with a direct technocratic governance designed to eliminate inefficiency, bureaucracy, and corruption. It was supposed to mark the end of political deadlock, the end of endless debates that led nowhere, the beginning of a system where progress would no longer be strangled by self-interest and stagnation.
Yet what should have been the death of bureaucracy became its final mutation. A hegemonic remnant, a power structure with no purpose beyond its own preservation. A system run by those unwilling to let the past die, propped up by a populace either too invested in the illusion of their last democratic choice to admit it had failed, or too distracted to realize the truth.
Dissent had started quietly, voices rising in protest against a government that had outlived its necessity. At first, demonstrations flooded the streets—marches, speeches, carefully orchestrated rallies intended to demand reform. They were ignored by the majority. The government refused to acknowledge them, as did the media, brushing them aside like the empty cries of a misguided few. But when the protests persisted, when their numbers grew and their message spread, the first signs of fear rippled through the establishment.
Determined to stamp out the movement before it could take hold, the government acted swiftly. Crackdowns became routine. Protesters were beaten and arrested. The message was clear, there would be no revolution, no correction, no grand course adjustment to put governance back in the hands of the people.
But suppression does not erase resistance; it only reshapes it. What had begun as a public outcry dissolved into something far more dangerous—a hidden war waged in the shadows. Those who had once stood in the streets now moved unseen through the city''s underbelly, exchanging banners for explosives, chants for whispered plans.
The government-controlled media referred to them only as a terror cell, stripping them of their cause and painting them as radicals without purpose beyond destruction. But to those who still believed in the fight, they had become something more. No longer a gathering of disgruntled citizens demanding change, but a force willing to take it.
Their first strike shattered the illusion of control the establishment so desperately clung to. A bomb, planted within the central hub’s town hall, tore through the department floor, sending debris and fire through the administrative heart of the city. The attack left forty-two dead and twice as many wounded, most of them officials, figures of power, architects of the very system that had refused to listen.
In a single moment, the balance had shifted. What had once been a simmering conflict of words and policies had erupted into something far more permanent and the name of The brotherhood was on everyone''s lips.
Jan let out a slow breath, flicking his head toward the window. "It’s getting really crazy out there," he muttered. "You’d think by now, as a species, we’d have figured out how to stop killing each other."
Lucien glanced at his friend’s despondent face. "I don’t know, man," he said, voice low. "I guess, in the end, we’re all kind of savage.. given the right reason. Or if you step on someone long enough."
Jan lifted his head from where he’d been staring at his shoes, meeting Lucien’s gaze with narrowed eyes. It made him look both intense and, somehow, even sleepier than usual.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, this isn’t just about that one night," Lucien said, shifting in his seat. "It’s a reaction—something building for decades. That attack was just the spark, but the fire was already there. Years of oppression, inequality. You can only push people so far before they push back."
Jan exhaled through his nose. "We had it pretty good before this war broke out, man. It wasn’t perfect, but at least we felt safe."
"Sure," Lucien admitted. "But feeling safe and being free aren’t the same thing. Just because life was livable doesn’t mean it was good. And let’s be real—there’s no guarantee it’ll be better even if the Brotherhood wins in the end. But for now—"
"Tickets."
The sharp voice cut through their conversation like a knife.
Lucien and Jan snapped out of their thoughts, looking up to see the conductor standing over them, arm outstretched. A scanning device sat in his palm, a rectangular sensor glowing at the center.
One after another, they pressed their wrists to the scanner. A soft beep signaled the transaction. The word "tickets" was a relic of the past—no one bought them anymore, in fact nothing could be bought at all. Travel was simply registered by the conductor. It could easily have been handled digitally when passengers boarded, but the system kept conductors employed. A job with no real purpose, just another cog in a machine designed to keep running.
Something felt off, as the old man’s stomps left their immediate surroundings, the train compartment felt eerily quiet.
Lucien glanced around. The other passengers were staring at them, eyes narrowed, expressions tense. They had been listening.
"Let’s get out of here before we get in trouble for talking" he said under his breath, looking at Jan, while pointing at the other passengers using his eyes.
They both stood and headed for the exit. The next stop wasn’t theirs, but walking the last 30 minutes was preferable to dealing with unnecessary questioning. They rushed to the cabin in the back, barely missing the detach. The cabin swayed gently to the left deaccelerating at a decent pace, till it came to a stop on the Circle 1, East platform.
Lucien and Jan rose from their seats. The next stop wasn’t theirs, but walking the last thirty minutes was preferable to enduring another round of unnecessary questioning. They pushed to the rear just in time for the detach. The cabin swayed gently left, decelerating at a steady pace until it came to a smooth stop at Circle One, East Platform.
The city stretched before them—a masterpiece of design, engineered for seamless living. Getting lost was almost impossible; as long as you knew where north was, everything else aligned with logic and purpose.
At its heart lay the Central Hub, a vast circular district spanning 650 meters in radius, where everything essential to life was within reach. City hall, research institutes, libraries, sanitation centers, and logistics nodes wove together with sprawling education complexes and vibrant public spaces. If you needed something, it was there—designed to be part of your daily flow.
Beneath the surface, four massive underground logistics highways funneled industrial supplies inward from the city’s outskirts. Above, four concentric, pedestrian-friendly rings layered the surface, each one seamlessly connected to the subterranean road system. From the sky, the city looked like a perfect circuit—an endless loop of controlled, intelligent design.
Suspended above the rings, elevated maglev rails sliced cleanly through the air, carving the city into quadrants. Sleek, silent trains floated along them, bridging the distance from the outer rings to the Central Hub in minutes. Beneath these tracks, shaded walkways offered cool relief in summer, bordered by pocket parks, open plazas, and communal gathering zones.
The innermost ring housed the city’s officials—those responsible for maintaining the illusion of control. Their homes encircled the hydroponic towers, vertical farms that supplied a steady flow of locally grown produce.
The second ring, where Lucien and Jan lived, held modern high-rises, their glass facades catching the shifting hues of daylight. These towers were designed for seamless access to learning centers, entertainment districts, and communal workspaces—all of it tied to the heartbeat of the Central Hub.
Families and essential employees lived in the third ring, where white modular homes sat in peaceful symmetry. Expansive parks wove between them, blending into rewilded zones—urban permaculture forests designed for biodiversity, food production, and natural carbon filtering. These extended beyond the final residential belt, creating a living, breathing buffer between humanity and the world beyond.
Outside the city’s ten-kilometer radius, the landscape transitioned again—vast industrial sectors divided by function: fabrication, energy production, water treatment, waste management, transportation. Beyond even that stretched the automated farms and forest reserves, maintained by swarms of drones and AI-run agrisystems.
Spanning over 300 square kilometers, the city operated with such precision that distance felt irrelevant. Housing 2.5 million young minds, Edu-4 was a place of learning, innovation, and boundless technological promise.
It was also the product of a long-forgotten dream.
In the mid-21st century, a collective of engineers and architects conceived the circular city model—a blueprint refined over decades until it became the global standard. Now, each city stood as a self-contained, sovereign state, managing its own infrastructure, governance, and future. Tied together only by a threadbare framework of common law and a handful of aging global regulators, they were islands of efficiency drifting in a fractured world.
Edu-4 was no different. It was built as a training ground, where youth were shaped, slotted into predetermined fields, and polished into tools for global progress.
The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
At least—that was the original idea.
Lucien had seen pictures and videos of the old cities. He had never visited one. They were relics of another era, vast stretches of abandoned buildings with roads that were either rigidly linear or a chaotic maze of twisting streets, depending on when they had been built. After they had been stripped of valuable materials, nature reclaimed them, vines weaving through concrete ruins, trees splitting asphalt.
"Ah, shit, man!" Jan suddenly blurted as they bolted down a side street, rain pounding the pavement as they ran toward the Central Hub.
"The fucking conductor has our info now. If he’s with the establishment, we could be in real trouble."
"Relax," Lucien panted, dodging puddles as they sprinted forward. "No one in a position like his is an establishment sympathizer."
"Yeah, I hope you’re right," Jan muttered between heavy breaths. "Let’s slow down—I need to catch my breath."
They had no choice but to run to their intended station, beep themselves out as usual, and then double back toward the university. It was the only way to avoid raising suspicion—the system tracked normal travel patterns, and any deviations could flag their movements.
By the time they reached the university, they were only twenty minutes late. They went in on the southern side of the central hub, which was the shortest route to the University grounds.
The massive arched entrance swallowed them whole, its transparent smartglass doors parting without a sound. Inside, the Central Hub unfolded like the atrium of a cathedral designed by algorithms—fluid, vast, and impossibly clean. The lobby stretched upward in a dizzying display of architectural ambition, five stories of open air framed by curved walkways and terraced platforms, each layered with soft lighting and embedded green walls.
Polished white floors shimmered beneath their feet, interrupted by long black veins of basalt and pearlescent inlays that caught the overhead light. Sculptures rose like frozen waves from the floor—metallic, semi-organic forms that shifted subtly with their perspective. One near the entrance appeared to be a dancer, another like a spiraling equation rendered in copper and glass. Interactive art installations hovered nearby, displaying bursts of kinetic movement in response to biometric data as people passed.
To the left, a series of escalators and stairs curled along the wall like strands of DNA, ferrying people between floors with serene efficiency. Transparent walkways hung overhead, their undersides glowing faintly with each passing step. The quiet hum of the maglev lifts came and went like breath.
There were no advertisements, no kiosks shouting for attention. The few alcoves built into the walls housed practical amenities—automated dispensers that produced clean clothing, footwear, or hygiene items on request, all synthesized from shared stockpiles. A young man stood barefoot before one, watching as a new pair of shoes took shape beneath a translucent shell. Another alcove dispensed hot nutrient-rich drinks in biodegradable cups to a cluster of students chatting quietly.
Despite the scale, the space felt calm. Intentionally so. Every sound was dampened, every movement gracefully guided. The ambient lighting adjusted subtly to match the natural rhythm of the sun outside, easing the senses into a state of focus.
Lucien and Jan moved fast, cutting across the grand hall with long strides. The southern wing loomed ahead, marked by a vertical panel displaying a soft blue arc—the symbol of the University.
The University spanned the first five levels of the Central Hub’s southern quadrant, integrated directly into the structure like a root system fused with a machine. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the lower levels, Lucien could already see clusters of students moving between lecture halls and open workspaces. Beyond them, clean-lined study pods, collaborative platforms, and tiered gardens climbed the inner curve of the building, all connected by quiet elevators and looping hallways.
They slipped into the lecture hall unnoticed, settling into the back row. The professor didn’t even acknowledge them—he was too caught up explaining how to multiply two 4x4 matrices in 47 steps without AI and why this was crucial to optimizing program operations.
Lucien barely heard a word.
Not because he didn’t understand or found it boring, but because he couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep professor.
Somehow, Jan’s suggestion had embedded itself into his mind, and now he couldn’t shake the thought. He needed answers.
When lunch finally arrived, Lucien wasted no time, he set of on a direct route for the reception desk. Located directly at the center of the central hubs ground floor.
The front office was enormous, yet quieter than the rest of the building, tucked away from the chaos of the half million people employed at the central hub. The front offices housed the secretaries of all the different departments, ranging from administrative to higher education and everything in between. Yet no one rarely went here unless they were new to the city, or had gotten lost on there way to a meeting or class. Behind the sleek counter, at the department of education, a middle-aged woman sat with effortless composure, her long brown hair neatly pulled back, fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes giving her an air of quiet wisdom. She barely glanced up as he approached, too absorbed in the glowing interface of her console.
Lucien cleared his throat.
"Excuse me," he said, trying to sound casual. "I’m looking for a professor. I—uh, I don’t know his name, but he studies sleep."
The receptionist smirked. "Oh, you mean Miss Moea?"
Lucien blinked. Miss?
"Yeah, exactly," he stammered. "Uh… I’ve been having these, uh, dreams, and I was hoping to… you know, discuss them with her."
As he spoke, he felt his face burn, why did he suddenly feel embarrassed? He wasn’t interested in her, yet he always struggled talking to women. Words tripped over themselves, his brain jammed, and the best solution was usually just to avoid conversation altogether.
The receptionist leaned forward slightly, typing something into her terminal, and in doing so, revealed a frankly distracting amount of cleavage.
Lucien tried not to look but failed, looking up, the receptionist caught his eyes, and quickly covered her swollen bosom.
"She should be in room 303 after lunch dear," she said casually, holding a hand to clamp her beige colored cardigan together, choosing to ignore the scarlet color rising on Luciens chins.
"Room 303. Thanks," Lucien muttered, taking a careful step backward, determined not to look and yet, his eyes betrayed him for half a second.
Shit.
He turned to leave. Only to slam straight into the door-frame.
A stupid, involuntary noise escaped his throat as he stumbled forward, catching himself just in time before breaking into a full sprint toward the stairs.
Room 303 was empty when he arrived.
Lucien slid into a seat, peeling open the biodegradable plastic wrap around his chicken bacon sandwich, his thumb mindlessly scrolling through memes on his phone.
Now all he had to do was wait.
Lucien had just finished his sandwich and was absentmindedly scrolling through memes, his thumb hovering over a re-posted classic—Elmo from Sesame Street holding a mirror up to a child, the caption reading:
Elmo shows Ethan why his parents got divorced.
He smirked, even though he’d seen it at least a hundred times.
That’s when the door burst open.
A woman, not much older than him, strode in at such a pace that she was one step away from running. She didn’t even notice him sitting there. Instead, she hurled her shoulder bag onto the teacher’s desk, where it landed with a heavy clunk, followed by the slithering scrape of leather against wood. Then, with a sharp exhale, she collapsed into a chair, covering her face with her hands.
Her blond hair, slightly disheveled, cascaded down her back, its golden hue catching the artificial light. Through her fingers, a perfect nose protruded, its curve so naturally precise that Lucien found himself staring longer than necessary. When she finally dragged her hands down her face, revealing striking, ice-blue eyes, he realized the rest of her features were just as flawless.
And then, those eyes lazily locked onto him.
She jolted upright, startled, letting out a small, sharp yelp.
"Oh.. I thought I was alone. You’re not in my class. What do you want?"
Her tone was sharp, borderline aggressive, but Lucien chose to ignore it.
"A-are, you Professor Moea?" he asked, unable to break away from her gaze.
"I am," she said flatly, each syllable crisp and deliberate. "I’ll ask again.. what, are, you, doing here?"
Lucien swallowed.
"Oh, uh—sorry, I’m Lucien, ma’am.”
Professor Moea clearly found the “ma’am” part hilarious, as her face lit up and she moved her hand to cover her mouth.
I’ve been looking for you because, uh, well—you see, I’ve been having these vivid nightmares for as long as I can remember, and I—uh—was hoping you’d, um, maybe give me some advice on how to, you know, counter them."
The words rushed out, tangled and messy.
Professor Moea let out a slow breath, her posture relaxing slightly.
"Oh. Well... I don’t know what to tell you." She folded her arms, leaning back in her chair. "Dreams are nothing more than fragments of the subconscious. They hold no deeper meaning, it’s just your brain sorting through data, like mental maintenance."
She clearly was just going through the text-book stuff, already bored with Lucien predicament.
"That’s not what I was asking at all," Lucien interrupted, his usual hesitation towards women replaced by frustration. "I don’t care what dreams ‘mean’, I want to control them. These nightmares have been ruining my sleep for so long I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t tired."
His voice cracked slightly.
He hadn’t meant to sound so desperate. Hadn’t realized just how much this was weighing on him until now.
Years of perpetual exhaustion clawed at his sanity, fraying the edges of his patience. He could feel tears pressing at the back of his eyes, but he refused to let them spill.
Professor Moea’s expression shifted.
"Well..." she said, pressing her long spread out fingers together so they cracked. "We are looking for volunteers for a sleep experiment we’ve been developing. The goal is to observe dreams in real-time, essentially, watching them like a movie."
She studied him as she spoke, as if gauging his reaction.
"If we can see what’s happening in your dreams, we might be able to come up with a way to help you gain lucidity during REM sleep."
Lucien blinked. "How exactly?"
"The procedure is nearly non-invasive, but it does require direct access to your main RFID."
Her voice was calm, but her eyes were locked onto his, watching for a reaction.
Lucien stiffened.
"What do you mean ‘direct access’?"
Moea tilted her head slightly. "You already know what that means."
The air between them felt heavier now.
"We insert electrodes into the base of your neck and connect directly to the chip. It’s completely safe, so don’t you worry, we use a local anesthetic. You won’t feel a thing."
She mimicked a quick syringe motion, then for the first time, flashed a small, wry smile trying to cover up her own desperation.
Lucien felt a slight chill crawl up his spine.
"Can’t you just hook up through the cloud?" he asked, hoping for a less invasive alternative.
Professor Moea shook her head, strands of golden hair swaying with the motion. "No can do. We don’t have access to the security protocol. That’s restricted to official use—we barely got clearance for direct connections as it is."
Lucien sighed, rubbing his forehead.
"Yeah... I figured. I’m a senior programmer. I already knew that."
Moea raised an eyebrow. "Then why did you ask?"
"Because I was hoping I was wrong."
He exhaled slowly, staring at the desk. "I’ll have to think about it. But... as far as I understand, you can’t really help me today, can you?"
"You understood correctly," she said simply.
She reached into her bag, pulling out a sleek laptop, her earlier tension now fully dissipated. "And now, you have to leave. Class is starting soon."
Lucien hesitated for a moment before nodding.
"Thank you for your time, Miss Moea," he said politely. "Do you have a way for me to contact you when I’ve made up my mind?"
Moea’s lips curled into another knowing smile. "I think you’ve already made up your mind” she blinked. “I’ll be seeing you again soon”.
She reached out her hand. As Lucien shook it, his phone buzzed.
New Contact Added: Professor Moea
Lucien glanced up, just in time to see a quick, playful wink before she turned her attention to her screen.
"That’s crazy!" Jan blurted out, far too loud, waving his arms like a madman. Heads turned in the classroom, students glancing over with mild curiosity.
"No one in their right mind would do that voluntarily!"
"Will you relax? It’s a minor procedure. What’s the worst that could happen?" Lucien shot back, his voice lowered to a harsh whisper.
"Yeah, for one, they could fuck it up! Mess with your electricals.. hell, they could damage your actual brain!" Jan hissed, his temper escalating.
"You two, in the back—shut it!"
"Sorry, Mr. Metis," they both muttered in unison.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Lucien slumped slightly in his chair, absently spinning a pen between his fingers. There’s always that, I guess.
But deep down, he already knew the truth. Professor Moea had been right.
He had already made up his mind.
The nightmares had tormented him for so long, an endless loop of exhaustion. Even if the procedure was risky, the alternative was worse.
"I think I’ll go through with it anyway."
Jan exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "You’re a fucking idiot, man." Then, a grin crept onto his face. "But do what you gotta do, just know that if you go full retard, I’m finding a new roommate."
"Yeah, yeah."
Both turned their attention back to Professor Metis, who was still half-watching them while lecturing on the proper way to shut down a program in case of a crash.
Later, at the local food dispensary, Jan shoved another slice of pizza into his mouth, speaking around it.
"Maybe we can hack it." he said with a muffled voice.
Lucien barely looked up from his half-eaten durum wrap. "Hack what?"
"The FID Wi-Fi protocol, obviously." Jan rolled his eyes but kept shoveling food into his mouth.
Lucien arched a brow. "Now who''s the dumb one?" he said, shaking his head, taking another delicious bite.
"Oh, come on. If we crack the protocol, you don’t have to risk getting even stupider." Jan finally swallowed, grinning.
"Even if we could, we’d be breaking at least half a dozen laws."
"Two dozen."
Lucien gave him a flat look, his mind pondering the option "it is outdated government tech though. How hard can it be?"
"Exactly!, that’s what I’m saying!" Jan slammed Lucien hard on the back making him choke on his food, coughing bits of half-chewed durum onto the table.
Jan reeled back, laughing. "Gross, man. Swallow properly."
Lucien turned toward him, eyes narrowing. Then with zero warning, he spewed bits of chewed-up food straight in Jan’s direction.
"Aargh!" Jan yelped, hurling himself out of his seat and onto the pristine floor.
For a moment the room was silent, then they both burst into laughter.
Lucien extended a hand to help Jan up, but Jan swatted it away.
"I can get up just fine without your help!" he proclaimed, puffing up with mock dignity as he scrambled to his feet.
They stood, heading toward the exit. At the blue monitor, they tapped their wrists against the scanner.
Beep.
Lucien sighed. "I swear, couldn’t they have made these things silent? Just turn green if it worked, red if it failed. Simple."
Jan smirked. "What about the blind?"
Lucien snorted. "Fuck the blind."
Jan gasped in exaggerated horror. "Wow, ableist much?"
"They’re choosing to be blind. Just get a cyber-optics installed."
Jan side-eyed him. "You’re joking, right? I heard cyber-optic implants are the most painful experience imaginable, it takes literal years of agony to get used to."
Lucien glanced at him as they crossed an empty bicycle path toward their apartment.
"If I had to lose a sense, I''d rather lose touch than hearing or sight."
Jan raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yeah. Smell, taste, even feeling, you can live without that. But hearing and seeing? Those are essential to life."
Jan nodded thoughtfully—then, with perfect deadpan delivery, said, "Eh, I guess you don’t really need to feel much when all you do is jack off."
Lucien broke into laughter. "Oh my fucking god, man."
After a short pause he went "You know, when I masturbate, I always think of yo moma.”
Jan rolled his eyes, but he was grinning now as well. "Oh, real mature, you fucking child."
"Keeping the classics alive is a virtue, and truth be told, she is better than porn"
Still laughing and insulting each other, they entered their apartment building, beeped in, and climbed the six flights of stairs to their unit.
They always took the stairs. It was a small ritual—a way to feel less guilty about hours spent gaming or binge-watching AI-generated entertainment.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, they dragged their PCs into the living room, setting up for something far more daring.
They were going to attempt to jailbreak the RFID lodged in the back of literally everyone’s skull.
The chip was installed within the first few weeks after birth—a standard procedure. It required no maintenance, drawing power through heat exchange with the body.
There were a handful of recorded accidents per year—almost always kids, usually elementary or preschoolers, who leaned too far back in their chairs and smashed their heads against the wall, damaging the implant.
In those rare cases, the chip had to be replaced.
"Hey, you wanna see something cool?" Jan asked, pulling open a drawer in his desk.
Lucien sighed. "If this is your midget porn collection, I’m really not interested."
"No! Not that, but I know you want it—this."
Jan pulled out an old plastic case—the kind that once held circular discs.
Lucien raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, wow. A DVD. So interesting.." Lucien said dryly.
"Shut up and look," Jan muttered, eyes locked on the case as he opened it.
Inside, nestled against cracked plastic, was an old, charred RFID chip.
"It was my father’s," Jan said, his voice carrying an uncharacteristic weight. "When he died, they cremated him, and we kept the ashes. After I moved out, my mom gave me the urn to remember him by."
Lucien watched as Jan stared at the chip, his expression unreadable, his eyes distant.
"When I moved here, I dropped the damn thing," Jan continued. "The urn shattered. But inside… I found this. They must’ve forgotten to sieve it."
Lucien swallowed.
"That’s… amazing. But are you sure you want to hack your father’s chip? I mean, does it even work?" The words came out weird, tangled somewhere between excitement and unease. He quickly added, "I mean—it was your father’s, after all."
Jan exhaled slowly, his grip tightening on the case.
"Oh, it’ll work," he said, his voice low but resolute. "And it’s exactly what he would’ve wanted me to do. Being a programmer and all. Let’s do it."
-----
Lucien was walking forward, through a vast corridor, though he had no memory of how or why he was here.
The corridor stretched before him, bathed in a sickly green glow, the walls slick with moisture and the ceiling sagging under years of decay. The air hung thick with mildew, yet there was something else beneath it—something metallic, something rotten.
However Lucien was sure he had a specific purpose here, he just needed to remember what it was, yet every time he thought he had figured it out, his train of thought slipped, sending his mind back into oblivion.
His boots echoed too loudly against the floor. The sound bounced back at him, distorted, as if the corridor were much larger—or smaller—than it appeared.
Ahead, an archway loomed, leading into a grand entrance hall. What had once been a beautiful entryway, with a masterfully hand-carved balustrade staircase, now stood in eerie decay as the staircase rose at the far end, winding its way up into the darkness.
Above, the ceiling had caved in long ago, exposing a jagged hole to the night sky. Rain poured through the gaping wound, drumming against the ruined marble floor, forming puddles that reflected the warped architecture.
A faint sound of metal clanking from above, made Lucien stop in his tracks and listen. A sharp, deliberate sound. Not the wind. Not water. It was too rhythmic, like a piece of metal being dragged over the wooden floor, something was definitely up there.
A deep sense of wrongness slithered up his spine. His breath caught in his throat, and his danger sense spiked, putting him into flight mode immediately.
He turned to run, but the corridor he had just walked through was gone. In fact, the hallway that had stretched endlessly behind him moments ago was now a solid wall, cracked and covered in peeling wallpaper. there was no way out except the broken staircase.
Lucien swallowed. His pulse thundered in his ears, he had no choice but to move forward up the stairs, towards whatever was making the rhythmical noise.
He stepped onto the first stair, wincing at the groan of rotten wood beneath his weight. His hand brushed against the rail, feeling the splinters bite into his skin. Step by step, he climbed, eyes fixed on the stairs, too afraid to look up.
Halfway up, the stairway made a sharp U-turn. To his left, a window frame jutted out from the wall, but there was no glass but even more terrifying, there was no outside at all! no fog, no darkness, just a complete indescribable void.
Lucien’s stomach twisted at the eerie sight. He hurried past, focusing on the stairs, trying to block out the eerie feeling of being watched by an empty void. Then without warning, his foot went straight through the musty floorboards.
The wood snapped like brittle bone, and pain flared through his right leg as splintered edges tore through flesh. He gasped, staring at his own blood pooling beneath him. The skin hung in loose, wet ribbons, but the pain was distant, dulled, as though the injury belonged to someone else.
A deep groan of anger rolled through the stairwell, following by deafening grunting as something began moving towards the him. Lucien froze up, unwilling to look up to the top of the stairs, yet forced to as the light was blocked by something.
He stared at a massive shape of gray flesh, with chains protruding from various holes, excreting puss that ran down the sides of the bloated human figure. It took in a deep grunting breath, then barreled towards him, thundering down the stairs at an impossible speed.
The abomination enormous body bolted towards Lucien, its entire bloated body pulsating with, purple blood veins, it wasn’t slowing down, it was going to ram into him any second now.
Lucien’s body reacted before his mind did. He wrenched his leg free, skin peeling like wet paper, turned on his heel and bolted down the stairs and ran straight down a winding corridor.
Why hadn’t he noticed this before?
Lucien stumbled down the hall, heavy footsteps and horrid grunts rattled just behind him, the dim lights in front of him blinking in and out for every stomp the creature made.
The walls were covered in a slimy fluid, lazily dripping from the ceiling like saliva running out the mouth of a starving beast, ready to set it teeth into prey.
The corridor suddenly ended in a doorway, a massive black door blocking his escape. He threw himself against the door with all momentum and might, yet it refused to budge.
“come on! please open you piece of shit!” every word smeared with pure dread, the trampling of heavy footsteps and the guttural grunting getting closer, and closer. The color of the corridor switching to an angry red color, the dripping turning into a cascade of slimy liquid.
“Fucking open!!” he screamed as he expected to get squashed to pulp between the heavy door and the monster behind him. He finally managed to turn the black metallic doorknob, and fell through the door into an abyss of absolute darkness.
Lucien’s eyes snapped open.
The first thing he felt was cold stone against his back, damp and rough. His fingers twitched, brushing against deep grooves carved into the cobblestone—marks left by something dragging across the surface.
He quickly pushed himself up, his breath coming fast and uneven. Where was the monster?!
He scanned the area, but the monstrosity was no where to be seen, only the massive black door he had fallen through.
Luciens concept of time was a completely shot, he could have laid here on the cobbles for a minute, maybe hours, he had no way of telling.
The square around him was covered in silence. It was somehow illuminated in a sharp white light. Like the lighting in the homes of psychopaths, that used florescent light fixtures in their kitchens.
Yet, there were no stars, no moon. The sky was completely devoid of anything. Towering walls boxed him in on all sides, ancient and cracked, covered in black stains that looked too much like dried black blood.
At the center of it all, a stone fountain loomed, long since dried up, its basin filled only with dust and decay. Lucien’s gaze was drawn to it immediately, mostly due to the serene beauty of the female figure.
He slowly got to his feet and moved closer. Yet as he did and the angle changed, the statue seemed to morph from the beautiful female figure, into an immense beast.
The creature was frozen mid-violence, talons buried deep in the torso of a man beneath it, his face oddly calm and accepting of his fate, The creatures lips were pulled back, exposing sharp teeth, and its body bulged with unnatural musculature.
As he stood there and marveled at the beautifully carved statue, a sudden dread suddenly took hold in his entire being. Looking up, he locked eyes with the statue, and it moved.
Lucien was completely frozen in place, unable to move, unable to process what was happening.
Then, instinct kicked in. He turned and shot off in the direction of the massive door he’d used to escape the abomination. But there was no exit.
No door. No alleys. Just solid, black, bleeding stones, stretching infinitely high, as if the world beyond had never existed at all.
A sense of dread clawed up his spine. He needed to hide, there had to be somewhere he could cower away.
Lucien turned, sprinting toward the fountain, crouching behind its wide, cracked base. His chest heaved. He risked a glance over the edge. The statue was gone.
His stomach lurched violently and before he could react a massive entity rammed him with impossible force.
Lucien’s body slammed against the cobblestone, hard enough to rattle his ribs. A sharp, crushing weight pressed into him, something hot and damp breathing against his skin.
Talons drove straight through his arms, out on the other side and into his rib cage, perforating his lungs.
Pain exploded through him, raw and white-hot. His body instinctively convulsed, but he couldn’t move—he was pinned. Blood quickly pooled onto the broken slick cobblestones beneath him.
Lucien gasped, but no sound came out. Like his voice had been stolen from him.
Above him, metal cracked—split apart in long, jagged fissures. Pieces of hardened steel flaked off, exposing something wet, red, and pulsing underneath.
The outer shell fell away in chunks, revealing exposed muscle, glossy with viscous fluids and entrails, twitching and shifting under the heavy plated armored surface.
Lucien’s writhed as the creature leaned in, pressing closer, the stench of rotting meat and damp iron filling his nose and mouth. He could taste a combination of his own blood and the metallic smell from the colossus draconian figure lurching on his chest.
Its face was bare flesh, stretched too tight over the shape of the former beautiful human skull, which now bared no resemblance to its former allure, and instead portrayed a macabre mixture of sinew, metal, bone and saggy flesh. Yet the icy blue eyes were completely unchanged and locked his gaze to its own.
Lucien couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The thing’s ribs expanded violently, its chest rattling like giant metal chimes.
Then Lucien felt it, a wrenching pull from inside his chest, like something was reaching down his throat, clawing at his insides. His mouth was being writhed open from the inside. a thin stream of glowing purple liquid, siphoned into the creature’s gaping maw.
He tried to resist, tried to force his mouth shut, and managed to make his lips meet, cutting off the flow.
The creature sneered, as it ripped it’s arm out of his chest and arm, just to tear his jaw clean off like it was nothing. Blood gushed down his throat, warm and thick, drowning him from the inside out.
He tried to scream, but his throat was already filled to the brim with his own fluids. His vision blurred, his limbs unable to do anything but spastically jitter.
On top of him, the creature started shaking in joy, its deep, rattling inhale sending more glowing liquid streaming from his body into its own open maw
Lucien could feel himself unraveling, piece by piece, being drained into something else. It wasn’t just killing him, it was taking his soul apart. Piece by piece. He closed his eyes, accepting that he was going to die here, on the dark cobblestones in a pool of his own blood. A tranquil feeling went over him. Maybe death wasn’t so bad after all. At least the pain would be gone.
Lucien opened his eyes at the sound of a slap and someone yelling, “Wake up!”
His cheek burned, and he stared into a pair of wild, blue eyes.
Another slap struck his other cheek, but he was unable to speak or move. He could only stare straight up into the blinding light that encircled his friend''s face.
His arms ached, and he could barely breathe. As he tried to move again, a sharp pain shot through his back.
Jan moved out of the way, and the ceiling lamp’s glare completely blinded him. He closed his eyes to shield them.
“Holy shit, man, I’ve been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes” Jan panted, his voice hoarse. “What the hell happened?”
Lucien tried to remember, but all he could focus on was his aching muscles.
“I can’t remember” he stuttered, still lying on his back, his voice barely audible. “Can you turn off the light? My eyes are burning”.
Jan went over and flicked the switch off.
A huge black figure stood right next to him, swallowing the glow of the light that had poured in from the living room, making it look like a black hole.
Lucien screamed in terror.
Jan rushed to him, running straight through the translucent figure as if it wasn’t there, and pulled him into a sitting position. The motion sent a violent wave through Lucien’s stomach, and he puked up his half-digested dinner.
With his throat and eyes burning and the taste of vomit still thick in his mouth, he frantically searched the room for the figure, but it was nowhere to be seen.
Looking at Jan, he saw vomit smeared on his friend’s bare arm and T-shirt.
“Sorry, man,” he stammered, defeat written all over his face.