Why do people dream?
Some say it's because we think too much during the day, and dreams naturally come when we sleep. Others say it's because we can't move past the human experiences we've lived through, so we return again and again to those places that left deep impressions. And some dream simply to escape truths they cannot accept...
No matter why we dream, there always comes a moment of awakening. In that instant, no matter how much we cling to the illusions of the dream, no matter how hard we try to remember her, the dreamer can only watch helplessly as she dissipates like morning mist, leaving no trace behind.
Breakfast was only some bread and jam, but at least there was enough bread. Lappland, who had woken up first, didn't eat but ran to a small room behind the kitchen, dragged out three or four sealed wooden boxes, and opened them one by one in the living room, rummaging through them. Meanwhile, she muttered to herself: "Time to take everything out. The time is coming. What must come will come."
I sat at the dining table eating bread, watching Lappland squatting on the floor packing the things she found into a white backpack and a gray one, and couldn't help asking. "So, where exactly are we going?"
"We," Lappland turned around and smiled slightly, "we're going to an island today."
"An island?" Not understanding what she meant, I held my plate with half a piece of bread left, walked over and sat down next to Lappland, silently gazing at her profile. The restlessness of not finding what she was looking for, the surprise of finding something unexpected, and the faint smile that appeared when she found what she wanted—ordinary expressions seemed to bloom with a different charm on that flawless face. I liked it.
Suddenly, a soft drowsiness came from all directions, my eyes kept trembling, but I couldn't take my eyes off that face. I didn't know what power it was, but every change on it tugged at my heart. Yet I felt strange. Both emotionally and physically, I could feel the drowsiness eroding my nerves like poison, constantly pulling me into that addictive sleep. My eyes had closed slightly, but the scene before me remained. I didn't know why I wanted to look at this face so much, why I cared about her so deeply.
Think, keep thinking. I could faintly feel my consciousness peeling away from my body, that consciousness that makes me human and awake, leaving my head little by little, not far away, just slightly shifted backward from its original position. But in this body, emotions still arose. Even the reason that was once unaffected was slowly surrounded, forced to submit to physical comfort and that inexplicable care from the bottom of my heart.
Am I sick? I asked myself, but at the same time, I didn't ask anything, because I couldn't get an answer.
One body, two selves. Which one is me, and which one is not? Or are they both me, but I just can't realize it? I don't know, but it doesn't matter anymore. I know my eyes have closed, and sleep has swallowed me.
"Hey? Wake up, little Texas? You just got up, how did you fall asleep again?"
"Huh?" I woke up with a start. Although my body was still slightly tired, and my joints were as dry and hard to move as an un-oiled machine. When I opened my eyes, Lappland was squatting next to me, holding her hand, looking slightly anxious.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, I accidentally cut my hand just now. I was about to go treat it when I saw you sitting next to me, holding a plate and half a piece of bread, leaning against the chair leg and falling asleep." Seeing that I had woken up, she stood up. "Get ready. Change your clothes, get your equipment. We're leaving." Then she pointed to the two shoulder bags and a suitcase placed beside, and a set of seemingly special windbreakers on the sofa.
I nodded silently. Watching Lappland walk to the bathroom, I also stretched and stood up. Although I had no memory of wearing such clothes, I could skillfully put on the jacket with several strange buckles and straps. Then, out of curiosity, I opened the dark gray backpack. Not wanting to mess up the items already inside, I only picked up the ones on top and examined them roughly.
Seasickness medicine, Originium batteries, a small signal generator, emergency medical supplies, two folded Originium Light Blades, and some food. There were also some strangely shaped steel materials that seemed to be parts of a larger object taken apart, but I couldn't recognize what it was.
"Are you ready? Let's go." At this moment, Lappland also came out of the kitchen with her wound bandaged. She walked straight over, put on her coat, picked up the white backpack, took my hand, and walked toward the door.
I held Lappland back. "Let me see your hand."
"Huh? It's nothing, just a cut. The shell of something inside somehow didn't rust at all, but became extremely sharp instead, and I accidentally cut myself. It's fine, let's go." Seeming to guess what I wanted to ask, she explained quickly, waving her left hand wrapped in a bandage.
"Let me see."
"Ah." Sensing the firmness in my tone, Lappland had to extend her hand for me to look at carefully. I lifted her arm, and through the gauze, I could faintly see a bloodstain running across her tiger's mouth. "That's serious." I looked up and asked Lappland with a hint of reproach. "It's not deep. I also applied medicine. It'll heal soon." Lappland waved her hand indifferently, withdrew her arm, and walked outside.
There was nothing more to say at this point, so I had to follow her out. But strangely, after seeing the wound on her hand, I also started to feel some vague phantom pain on my own left hand. The pain wasn't obvious, but it was real. Just as I closed the door, I looked at this old house again, and for some reason, an indescribable reluctance welled up in my heart. It seemed to carry half my life's memories, and I had a feeling that I might not be able to come back here.
This is... a dock?
The inexplicable transition was so abrupt. I vaguely remembered that I just turned my head, and the scene in front of me changed and shaped like melting cheese. When I could see clearly again, I was already standing with Lappland on a dock eroded beyond recognition by the tides.
The dock was small and dilapidated. Just by its appearance and the few rusted small boats moored beside it, it could be concluded that no one had been here for a long time. We walked silently on the creaking planks, which had been severely corroded by the tides and seemed ready to break at any moment.
At the end of the dock was a small house. A figure sat in a rocking chair at the door, a hunched body like an elderly woman, but she was wearing a bright red cotton-padded jacket. However, the originally bright color seemed to have been eroded by time, turning black and turbid.
Lappland was saying something to her, but for some reason I couldn't hear. And when I walked in front of her, I couldn't see her face. It seemed to be hidden deep under the hat of the cotton-padded jacket, leaving only a void for me.
"Let's go." Lappland shouted to me. A wooden boat had been pulled to the dock, and Lappland was already loading those strange metal parts from her bag onto the boat.
"Alright, let's get on the boat first." No longer dwelling on the faceless old woman, I stepped onto the wooden boat. But just as I was about to sit down, the person in the rocking chair suddenly reacted, pointed at me and said: "Red. Remember." At that moment, Lappland started the motor, and the wooden boat left the dock under extremely strong power.
I sat on the boat, watching the small house and the person in the rocking chair looking at me. Soon, the dock, the small house, and the person were all swallowed up by the mist on the water. All that was left was the endless mist and water all around, and Lappland rowing the boat.
The motor stopped working. I didn't know how long we had been rowing. The oars and spare energy from both bags had been used up, and now we could only return to tradition, rowing by hand, and the speed was much slower than before. The seasickness medicine and the dry food we brought had also been exhausted, and the signal generator that I thought would be useful had turned into scrap metal shortly after leaving land.
I asked Lappland several times, but she refused to say where we were going. To be precise, she hadn't said a word since we got on the boat. She just kept looking at the water, rowing silently, as if waiting for something.
I leaned against the side of the boat, muttering unconsciously: "Water surface, water surface, water noodles? Water surface, water? Water!" Suddenly realizing a terrible conjecture, I quickly turned to look into the water. My conjecture became reality. The sound of water waves all along hadn't been caused by the boat at all, but by some giant creature moving under the water. Separated by only a layer of water, the abyssal blackness below seemed to notice my gaze, and its response was to stir its body, pushing the entire surface of the water to a boil.
"Texas, get your weapons! The gatekeeper is here!" Still in shock, I turned to look at Lappland at the bow. She was already holding her dual blades ready, the smile on her lips so bright, faintly tinged with madness.
Chaos quickly occupied this small world. Countless pitch-black tentacles, weapons, and even enemies we had once killed emerged from the water, wanting to kill us, wanting to drag us into the bottomless terrifying abyss.
At first, the situation was manageable. Everything that surfaced was quickly cut down and kicked back into the water. But soon, their numbers exceeded our killing speed. The draining stamina and the increasing number of wounds became steel nails driven into the coffin, one by one, nailing the faintly visible tragic end more and more firmly.
In the end, the premonition became reality. My right arm was controlled by an enemy, and other evil things took the opportunity to grab me, pulling me into the water. Lappland, however, slipped and lost her balance, falling into the water first. The boat capsized. The water embraced me, claiming everything on its surface as its own.
In the black seawater, I couldn't feel anything. The evil things that had been holding me like shackles disappeared. There was only darkness and the burning sensation in my lungs caused by gradual oxygen deprivation. I tried hard to open my eyes. I seemed to see Lappland. She was swimming toward me. When she reached me, she somehow found my lost dual swords and handed them to me. She smiled at me, then was dragged into the abyss by the darkness. Watching that spot of white being swallowed by darkness, I seemed to have become numb. Emotions seemed completely absent, but my body kept rising until it reached the surface, grabbed the righted boat, and climbed onto it.
The mist around had dispersed. In the distance, an island came into view, seemingly purple-blue.
On the small island, a sea of purple-blue velvet flowers flooded all the grassland within sight. Texas stood on the boat holding her long sword, staring blankly at the beautiful scenery in front of her. The breeze brushed her face, soothing her exhausted spirit and body beyond measure.
Kicking off her already soaked shoes, she stepped out of the boat and walked barefoot onto the grass. "Crash!" The moment her feet touched the grass, the boat behind her was swallowed by the tide. Faint sounds of wooden planks and steel plates being bent and crushed by brute force came from under the water.
'The way back is cut off.' She turned expressionlessly to watch the wooden blocks that occasionally floated to the surface being swept away again by the fear under the black water, thinking that this wasn't a good sign, but Texas no longer cared. Or rather, rather than not caring, Texas's remaining reason could still distinguish that her body, which was on the verge of falling apart, and her spirit, worn down by fatigue and pressure, had deprived her of the ability to think. Now she could only respond to reality's interrogation according to her subconscious reactions.
Looking again at the purple-blue sea of flowers in front of her, a faint bitterness welled up in her heart. This strange emotion seemed to tell her that she had been here before, that she had personally planted every velvet flower here, but she couldn't remember.
'This place is safe.' A nameless voice sounded from behind her head, seeming far away yet near, illusory and unfathomable. Without thinking much, she just accepted that the voice was telling the truth, sheathed her long sword, took off her still dripping coat, and walked toward the depths of the sea of flowers wearing only a vest.
'It's warm.' The voice sounded again, only this time it seemed more real, as if it had come from her own mouth, but she could still distinguish her own voice. She looked up at the sky. Although the sun was covered by clouds, the sea of flowers was unexpectedly warm, even though she was only wearing a slightly damp vest and quick-drying pants.
Continuing to walk, her feet felt the relaxation of the grass and soil. Her arms unconsciously spread outward, brushing past the endless sea of flowers beside her. Her tense spirit and stiff nape slowly began to relax, and the fatigue that had been suppressed under her consciousness, like released prisoners, ran rampant to invade her remaining will.
She casually picked a flower. Its overlapping petals grew in layers like a pagoda from top to bottom, with the still greenish stamens at the top in bud. Bringing it close to her face, a faint fragrance drifted into her nose. The scent was not strong or intense, faint and indistinct, like an old friend looking back at her from a distance. But why did that shadow look so much like her?
Suddenly, a stabbing pain exploded from the back of her nose through her entire brain. "Hiss!" This flower is problematic. The biological passive reaction drove her body to throw away the flower in her hand, and her other hand covered her mouth and nose to block more fragrance from rushing in.
Bracing against the increasingly severe stabbing pain in her head, she turned to look around. The weather, which had been clear just a moment ago, had darkened in the blink of an eye. A strong wind blew, swirling the sea of flowers on the ground until a relatively sparse path appeared.
Her brows furrowed tightly. She shook the hilts of her swords violently, and the orange blades appeared again. "Something's wrong." A strange sense of incongruity arose in her hands. Wasn't I covering my mouth and nose? She looked down. Both hands were already holding the long swords, and her face was exposed to the air.
"AAAAAAAH!"
A pain that seemed capable of shattering her skull exploded in her brain, making her gasp for breath. That eerie fragrance grew stronger and stronger. The reason I still had wanted me to stop, but my consciousness was beginning to lose control of my body. I couldn't stop. Consciousness was peeled away from the body like a sticker. I could still see, still feel, but it was no longer real. The originally faint fragrance became more and more intense until it turned into something like a cake with an unknown amount of sugar added, making people nauseous.
My eyes began to fog, tears welling up, and my last vision gradually became cloudy. Fatigue, pain, and a host of unknown emotions corroded my strength, scattering my consciousness until I finally closed my eyes.
"!"
Consciousness gathered again. The feeling of matter had disappeared. I could only be sure that I could see and hear. But not through my eyes or ears, but a pure cognitive perception of things.
I could see figures flickering before my eyes. Some I recognized, some I didn't. They seemed to be saying something, but I couldn't understand.
"I'm sorry..." A tall, thin man wearing a strange mask said to me in a slightly sad voice. Before I could react, the figure had dissipated. My perspective flipped, and before me again was outlined a girl with wine-red long hair, blood on her face. She seemed to be crying, but I couldn't see clearly. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but I no longer had a physical body. And before I could focus my vision, she was gone too.
"Let's go."
"You're not wrong."
"You did everything you could."
"Miss ****, don't push yourself anymore."
"Let it go."
Figures appeared one by one, and this time they didn't dissipate. They gathered in front of me one by one, some with compassionate faces, some with sympathy but also a trace of confusion, and some I couldn't see. They began to walk toward me, oppressing my fragile will.
My perspective inexplicably moved forward. I should be running forward, but a drowning feeling—like a person sinking in water with only their head above the surface—grew worse and worse. My nape became stiff, and my consciousness, which was about to shatter, was forcibly held together by an external force.
I saw it. As my perspective moved forward, I saw it. Me.
Why? Why would I be in front? Although I couldn't see the front face, that hair with reddish tips was definitely mine.
I pushed forward desperately. My already fragile will became incomparably hard under the instant stimulation. I had to know why I was in front of myself, what this bizarre dream was.
In an instant, I was already in front of myself. 'I' slowly turned around to look at me. A beam of unknown light suddenly lit up. I tried to look directly at the dazzling light, but my eyes suddenly became extremely sensitive to light, and I couldn't open them no matter how hard I tried.
"Who are you?" A clear voice came over, with indescribable pity and sadness in the tone. "What do you mean, who am I? I'm Texas!" The physical discomfort made me shout impatiently.
"Who am I?" Suddenly, completely involuntarily, I repeated 'my' words in a voice that shouldn't have come from my mouth.
"Crack." A crisp sound rang in my mind, like unlocking a lock, opening something.
"Who am I?"
The voice came from my mouth, constantly asking the question just now, but that voice didn't belong to me.
"WHO AM I!"
The voice gradually became irritable. I wanted to speak, I wanted to answer, but I couldn't make a sound. My consciousness couldn't gather, my throat was dry as a bone, and severe pain all over my body accompanied by the discomfort of weightlessness was destroying the very foundation of my existence.
In this sinking process, I seemed to be able to feel reality again. I was running, but not really. It was more like crawling forward desperately, holding onto the flower branches on both sides, as if there was something very important ahead. My vision was flickering. I must be exhausted, but in the flickering images like an old movie projector, I seemed to see an unusual stone.
It was a stone tablet, higher than the grass beneath me and higher than the sea of flowers on both sides. The grass under it was also slightly bulging, for some unknown reason.
The ability to think had been lost. After not coming to any conclusion, I wanted to give up and let my consciousness drift away, but the question that had turned into a roar didn't seem to want to let me go. Anger began to accumulate. The wildness from my blood was aroused again, and beast-like roars began to faintly sound from the back of my throat, until finally the towering anger turned into strength, breaking through the shackles of my throat.
"I AM TEXAS! I AM TEXAS!" I screamed hysterically. At this point, I didn't know if I was answering that question or giving a little comfort to my collapsing will.
"No." My vision suddenly returned, and the 'me' in front of me had turned into a blood-covered, ghost-like figure glaring at me furiously. Under those blood-red eyes was endless madness, and that madness was infecting me. It was drinking my blood, chewing my skull!
I wasn't afraid. I had no fear. All I had was overwhelming sadness and reluctance. Finally, I understood.
Consciousness returned to reality. I was already kneeling in front of the stone tablet with my hands covering my face. Tears streamed down my face, soaking the white gauntlets on my hands and melting the scabs on the wounds on my left hand. Slowly raising my head, the cold wind blew on my face, cold and icy, blowing my pale hair, but it couldn't move the sea of velvet flowers beside me.
"I... am not Texas." A strange voice trembled from my mouth, but I could already recognize who it was. The tears that had blocked my vision finally dispersed, and my sight was clear as day. Only then did I see the name engraved on this stone tablet—no, this tombstone.
Texas
The End.
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