Shasta County, California

XYLER DASCHUND

I woke suddenly, every thought in high definition. My eyes took in every ray of light and I knew without a doubt that I had wronged. I had allowed myself to sleep. I shivered in the realness of the dream and the disgust of my imagination.

"Wake u -"

"I am", I grumbled, "awake." I turned over to who had been prodding me with her finger. It was Molly sitting on a lounge chair next to my bed, barely awake herself. Valery and Jennifer weren't in their beds or the room or on the balcony. "Where are they?"

"They left a note." She held up a piece of paper. "They've gone exploring." She slapped it down on the coffee table. Speaking of coffee, that coffee I ordered never came. It was because of the staff's incompetence to bring me one cup of black coffee during the night that had course-corrected me into falling asleep instead of staying awake.

Who knows the destruction I had caused? But I could remember. The rainbow, swirling wall. I had removed it from my dream which meant it was here. Somewhere.

"Did they say where they were going?" I asked Molly.

"That barrier outside." I didn't bother putting on clothes. I ran out onto the balcony and as my dream contained it, reality had it even bigger in scale. The moving wall was spread out over the horizon. I wished it was a happenstance that we had come upon an image in my dream, but it wasn't to be. Molly walked up next to me. "What? Do you know what it is?"

"It's a manifestation of my dream," I explained. "If I remember correctly, the dream placed this wall to block me. It wanted me to release it to the world. It's dangerous. I'll tell you more on the way there, but we've got to warn them. Now."

We took the elevator down once we were dressed. We ran to hail an impossible taxi outside, it must have been a slow day. When in the car, I told her everything about my "powers" and that my transformation into a dragon was a result of them. It was a curse disguised as a blessing.

We didn't have any money so we were chased down by the taxi driver until he lost us up in the hills. Up where the barrier met the earth and was hidden by the tall pine trees.

Molly and I were exhausted when we got to the base of the wall. Sweat funneled from our heads and armpits. We had to share the air or else our lungs would start to hurt. We could see Valery and Jennifer walking into a crack in the barrier.

We ran towards them with as much might as we had left in us, yelling their names.

"Valery! Jennifer! Don't go in!" It became an alarm of sounds mixed in with our wading footsteps, rustling long grass. We were so caught up in catching them that we absent-mindedly followed them into the unknown.

My eyes flickered to life, my body itching to move and my nerves functioning. I had already felt this motion of waking up recently. Did I dream again? I tried to remember but nothing came to mind. I could barely remember my last dream. Normal people are scared of nightmares. I am frightened by the concept of a dream.

I was lying in the soft grass. There was a burnt-out campfire to my right. I got to my feet. Everyone - Valery, Jennifer, Molly - had woken up at the same time as if we had been activated. I couldn't remember how we had gotten here.

Based on the confused grumblings of the others, they too felt the same way. I looked around at our surroundings. It was a natural environment but it wasn't the tall woods we had seen before. This place was more of a jungle or a swamp. What was this biome doing in Shasta County?

All of us exploded with questions.

"Where are we?"

"Why did you go in?"

"Why did you follow us in?"

"We just wanted to see what it was."

"Guys, why is there already a campfire here?"

"It's my fault," I said. "My demons. My terrible imagination, the sort that will get us killed."

"What are you talking about?" Jennifer asked. I paced back and forth with grace and my hand rubbing at my chin.

"A few months ago, I saved the Earth. You weren't here, clearly, but there was an outbreak of - let's say - mammals. My dragon form killed all of them. The outbreak was not my doing, that remains a mystery to me that I one day wish to solve. But I was not a dragon morpher to begin with. The night before, I had chosen to have a lucid dream to get a better sense of the world I was to create in my game."

"Games," Valery interrupted. "I've played them."

"Yes, back to the discussion at hand," I said. "While in my dreams, I realized I could bring physical objects from my fantasies into the real world. But I have to remove them from the dream entirely. I can usually remove only one object from each vision. Last time, I had refused a dragon transfiguration potion, now I have brought this otherworldly structure unto the plain of existence."

"That's crazy," Jennifer gasped.

"But having two people return from a different world with an inhabitant of said world, isn't?" I had no idea why I was trying to prove my amenable tirade to this girl. It had worked with Molly. "Wait no - three people. Your mysterious man on the phone."

"His name is Ben."

"Well, now he's our only hope of getting out of here," I said. "Wait a second, do you still have your phone?" Jennifer stared at me with realization but hopped into a defensive stance. She clutched at her pants pocket.

"No," she said. "No!"

"What do you mean no?"

"Just no! Ben is occupied at the moment. I can't tell him, out of nowhere, to run to Redding which is out in the middle of nowhere."

"Occupied!?" I shouted. "Occupied? Are you serious? What could he possibly be doing?" Jennifer loosened up a little bit but still kept a strong hold on the phone. Molly and Valery were merely witnesses of our short-handed disagreement.

"Seeing if my mother is still alive or not," Jennifer explained. "She probably thought I died in the snow." I sighed and reluctantly backed down due to her use of the tragic story card. That was a trick I could never learn.

"If Ben doesn't get here fast enough, you won't have to worry about that anymore."