"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED," Naoki demanded as the five of them sat down on a large boulder. "I don't want any sugarcoating or anything. Tell me, cold and straight." 

"What's the last thing you remember?" Xandra returned. 

They were sitting under the shade of a green tree, sunlight falling in dappled patterns along the grey of the rock. Paris held up a hand to block a patch of light that fell right into his eye. Dexter passed him his baseball cap. Behind them, kids screamed and ran along a playground bridge, thundering past, giving them good sound coverage. 

"Kasper Daniels," she said. "We were stalking him down to remove the damia." 

"Main character moment," Paris sang quietly. Dexter smacked him. "What? Naoki killed it." 

Xandra leaned back, blowing air out of her mouth. "That was so long ago." 

Theo nodded. "Like, I forgot it happened." 

"Kasper Daniels, Jesus," Dexter rubbed his forehead. "You know he graduated to become a baseball player?" 

Naoki blinked. "He graduated?" 

"Okay, look," Xandra said, leaning forward. "That happened. We followed Kasper, killed his damia. But that's where your memory splits from reality, right?" 

Naoki scrunched her forehead, a headache coming on. "...I got kidnapped." 

"And then you and the Queen of Shadows fight, right? You find out she's your mother, Illias comes to save you, but she catches you both, and you fight her to the death," Xandra supplied. 

Naoki looked lost, shutting her eyes. "Yes, yes that's what happened. You're saying that it didn't?" 

"Well, it didn't happen quite like that," Theo said haltingly, wincing. 

Naoki steeled herself. "So then what?" 

Xandra raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?" 

She nodded. "Yes. Tell me." 

Xandra rattled them off, and with every word, Naoki grew paler. "Your biological mother is Jazira Mae, a convicted criminal currently residing in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, nearly at the end of her sentence. She was a former triad member, caught on a drug bust. Your biological father is Kiernan Rox. A while ago, Jazira and Kiernan had met in the dream world, she an unregistered Walker and he a budding Keeper." 

Naoki barely registered Theo's hand on her arm, she shook him off like a fly. 

"Jazira was caught while pregnant, and gave birth to you in the facility hospital. You were almost put up for adoption, but Kiernan convinced Jazira to allow Rosa and Hannah to take you in. Rosa was the Keeper general at the time, Hannah was the combat trainer. Kiernan wasn't able to care for you. Mirage was in upheaval, something about psychedelic drugs influencing the world, and he had to live in Mirage full time." 

"If you thought the seventies were crazy, this shit was nuts," Paris mused.

"So who is the Queen of Shadows?" Naoki demanded. "How is she not real?" 

"She's real," Xandra and Theo exchanged looks. "She's very real." 

"Who is she?" Naoki slapped her hand down on the grass. 

"She is you," Theo said quietly. 

Naoki sat in the silence of her shock, trees rustling around them. Her friends watched her, concerned, but all she could see was her vision tunnelling, the world swirling around her. 

"The Queen of Shadows was your code name. Because in Mirage, you can manipulate darkness. It's... terrifying."

Was anything she knew real?

"Keep going," she said faintly. 

"Naoki, you don't look--" Xandra fretted. 

"Keep. Going." Naoki gritted her teeth against the dizzying whirl of her head. "I need to know." 

Theo picked up the thread for her. "Well, you know what happens next. You grew up. You had strange dreams that were way too fucking real to be dreams. You met this man in your dreams, he trained you, played with you, and you thought it was just a figment of your overactive imagination. You find out he's real, it's General Rox, and you're a solider in his army. You go to high school. You meet Illias Cross." 

Xandra made a hissing sound. 

"You and him fell in love. You worked with Illias and Kiernan to protect the high schoolers from drug-warps." 

"Drug-warps?" Naoki repeated. 

"Drugs can cause your dream reality to warp around you," Paris explained. "If you take too many, or too strong a dose, you can cause your dreamscape to literally collapse in on you. It destroys your ability to dream and rips a huge hole in Mirage." 

Naoki nodded faintly. "Drug-warp." 

"A few months later, you and Illias broke up," Xandra said. "He was toxic and way too possessive. And you liked Theo anyway." 

"Hells yeah," Theo flexed. 

They stared at him. 

"Sorry," he amended. 

"Then something happened. We thought you fell in a hole, and Illias barely fished you out," Dexter fidgeted. "You lost your memories. You were fuzzy, confused, and super... Well, you were..." 

"Clingy," Xandra cut to the chase. "You wouldn't let go of Illias for a second." 

"Damn near broke my heart," Theo attempted to crack a joke, but it came out watery and hurt instead. Naoki felt something wet on her cheeks. 

"One day you woke up completely terrified of Illias," Xandra said, her voice dipping with emotion. "Ran to my house. Told me you broke up with him. It was so fucking weird. You went to bed texting me about how much you loved him, and you woke up begging me to pick you up." 

"I came over and tried to help," Theo said softly. "You were unintelligible. Had no memories, just... terror. Like this." 

"Whatever he did, he messed with your head," Paris said, shoulders tensing with anger. "He's a psycho, and we need to figure out how to fix it. You've got too much missing from your brain." 

"London is right," Theo nodded affectionately. "We need to figure out what Illias did." 

"Clearly it was something bad," Dexter reasoned. "He got locked up in the Keeper's prison. His body's been in a coma at the hospital, but his consciousness is stuck in Mirage." 

Naoki took a shaky breath in. Nodded, her memories colouring back in. She had begun to recall bits and pieces of her time in Mirage, the fake-reality. But there was nothing from the real world. Her head spun. 

How could she tell them that she didn't know them? She had no idea who they were now. Theo had become focused, Paris was content to watch the world go by, Dexter had a quiet aura of power, and Xandra looked so confident in her own skin. They were nothing like the small, mean kids she used to know. She didn't love Theo, she barely knew the girl who was supposed to be her best friend. 

She was a stranger among her family, an outsider among friends, and nothing about this felt right anymore. 

"I need to talk to Illias," Naoki said. Straightened her shoulders, took a deeper, more confident breath. They needed Naoki in this moment. They always had. If she fell apart, so did everyone else. That was the burden of leadership. 

"We can go tonight," Dexter nodded. "You..." he searched for the words. "You replaced Kiernan when he retired." 

Naoki wasn't surprised anymore. This world was so different than her own, but her head's spinning became the rotation of the Earth, unnoticeable, but drastically important in the course of the world. 

"Tonight," Naoki said, her voice high and uncertain. 

"Are you s--" Theo began. 

"Tonight," she tried again, infusing her voice with steel. "We go tonight." 

Then she got up, brushing them away, and walked solitary down the Central Park path. 

DIARY OF [REDACTED] 

The world is full of layers. Thin sheets of silk that build the ruffle of reality. Cut a layer away, and there is still more beneath it. Perhaps it is a different colour, or a new texture, but it forms the ruffle all the same. Just... different. 

Layers within layers. An interesting thing to consider. 

Freud believed in the unconscious mind, the way dreams reflect our innermost motivations. When ones dreams change, something inside you has changed as well. Imagine the possibilities if we could control one's dreams. We don't have to imagine. We very well know. Or, at least, [REDACTED] does. 

She's done it. She [REDACTED] and she found the answer. I am living proof. 

Little does she know, I've managed something more impossible, more powerful. Layers within layers, yes? A dream within a dream. 

Her mind will break, I can assure you of that. It is only fair after she [REDACTED] with me.

author's note!

hello! long time no update!

we're drawing close to the end of sweet dreams, and that's something i'd never thought i'd say. hope you guys enjoyed, and can't wait to get this book done!!