Page 8 of Ex Somnis

I’m lucid in a dream. I know that, but the dream is steering me, not the other way around.

“Paul.”

“Lennon, darling,” I say to the mirror, my reflection mouthing it back. “I can hear you. Tell me where…”

“Plea—”

Her plea cuts off, followed by radio silence. I stand with my palm flat against the glass and breathe through the absence of her voice, which is somehow louder than her voice was. I run through it the way I always do when a nightmare tries to take me with it.

You are asleep, you are aware, you know where your body is.

I am in the armchair in Tessa’s room. I am…

Am I?

No, no, I am.

I fell asleep in it again, for the third night running, because I’m not leaving. I know where my body is. This is a dream.

Knowing where your body is doesn’t help much when someone is screaming your name from inside the walls.

That is not how this works.

I know where her body is as well, so is this her subconscious pleading for me?

Or is it mine torturing me for all the ways I fucked up with her?

“Paul, help me. Paul…”

“I’m here.” Both palms now. “I’m right here.”

Silence.

I have studied the architecture of nightmares for twenty years. I know this room was built to keep me moving without ever letting me arrive. This Man knows me well enough to know that. He tortured me long enough with my worst fears, but this one is worse than the street and the car hitting a stranger I know belongs to me.

Because now I know what I’ve lost.

I move, and the corridor of mirrors shifts and replicates itself with every step. Every time I think I’ve found the edge of a seam, a wall, or a door, I find more glass. More of me. I don’t run because running feeds the urgency, and urgency feeds the architecture. I am trying very hard to be someone who does not run from things, but it’s taking everything I have right now.

“Paul. Please. Help me!”

Ahead. For the first time, her voice is directly ahead, coming from one mirror and not everywhere at once. I walk toward it because what else can I do?

My reflection in the mirror changes to someone else as I step in front of it, and now he’s looking back at me.

“Dr. Bennett, good to see you.” This Man is standing with his hands in his pockets, and he looks the same as he always does, as if absolutely nothing is wrong with him, and yet, everything is wrong with him.

“Let her go. Take me instead.” I don’t know why I said that.

I do.

“No hello?” He chuckles. “Where are your manners?”

“Let Lennon go, and we can exchange all the niceties you want.”

“Why would you think she’s with me?”

“Lennon…” I stop and try to reset my brain, which seems to turn more and more to mush. “Lennon joined Tessa.”