Chapter 3: The Writing on the Wall

Isaac awoke in a cold sweat. Then, he immediately grabbed the place where the monster's punch hit him, only to find nothing there. In fact, there wasn't even a bruise, much less a wound. It was almost as if his encounter with the monster was nothing more than a dream.

"So it was all just a dream..." Isaac muttered, rubbing his eyes. However, he felt as if something was...off. 'Oh well, no point dwelling on it now. Let's just get ready for our kinesis awakening today.'

Despite his decision, however, Isaac quickly glanced at his phone.

8:21 AM, June 2, 2024

[One new Message - Levin]

'No...there's no way, right...?' Isaac tapped on the message sent to him by his original body's best friend. What he saw confirmed his suspicions.

[Yo what's up bro? It's your bud, Levin, with his daily check up message! Now that I think about it, it's your birthday today, right? Happy birthday bro! Sorry I wasn't...]

'It...it's the exact same message!' At this point, Isaac was beyond confused. What was going on? It was almost as if Isaac had already dreamt of the events that would be happening today...could it be the case? Then what about his other dream inside that dream? Was it also real?

"What is...going on?" Isaac muttered in confusion.

-----

"Where is it?" A figure with its face hidden between bookshelves mumbled as it searched through shelves in a small library of a house. "He said it would be here..."

The figure, which was wearing a black business suit, was frantically searching for something. "The notebook...the notebook should hold the key...I need to keep searching..."

As it turned the corner, its face was exposed. However, if one saw it, they would be stunned, because the figure didn't have a face. If Isaac were here, he would instantly realize that this monster was the one that killed him in his dream.

As it left the library, it went straight and entered the very next area it saw: a large, open area with many cooking utensils. It had entered the kitchen, mumbling incoherent things. What the monster failed to notice, was tiny, red beam of light, produced by a camera at the corner of the library.

-----

"So it was all real..." Isaac was sitting on his chair, laptop on desk, watching cameras that were showing live footage of the events that were taking place downstairs. Although he had found the fact that the original Isaac planted cameras in every room of his house a little bit strange when he first found it, it ended up being incredibly useful.

"Did the original Isaac...know about this?" Isaac voiced out the thought that had passed through his head, but decided to worry about it later. Right now, he needed to worry about the monster in his house.

'Assuming the monster behaves the same way it did in the dream, I shouldn't be in any danger, since the monster will still be in the kitchen when the Psykers arrive...' Isaac discarded this thought in a heartbeat. Although many signs point towards the dream being accurate, he wasn't willing to risk his life on a gamble. Unless he absolutely had to, that is.

"If he had cameras set up, he should definitely have weapons around here..." Even if Isaac knew that he wouldn't stand a chance against the monster, he still wanted to grab a weapon anyway. Who knows, it could be life saving.

Isaac also decided to not take any chances. He had already died once in his dream and didn't really want to do it in real life.

After looking through the room, Isaac found a small box hidden amidst the pile of clothes in the closet. Inside of it was a black pistol, as well as 3 bullets that shone silver, and a piece of paper that contained some writing. Unfortunately, the writing was in the language of this world, which wasn't something Isaac knew how to read.

'It can't be too hard to figure out how it works.' He quickly look the gun out of the box and swiftly loaded it up with the bullets. Although Isaac had never used a gun before, it wasn't like he had many choices at the moment.

Immediately after he prepared his gun, he went back to his desk to monitor the monster. 'Still searching in the kitchen. Nice. Hopefully it stays there until the Psykers get here. Now, I just need to wait.'

With that, Isaac locked his door, made sure he had easy access to his window, and prepared to sit at his desk for the next 30 minutes. Or at least, that was what he attempted to do.

A purple, crystalline powder slithered out of the AC vent and slowly floated towards him, unnoticed by Isaac due to his focus on the computer screen. When he saw the powder float in front of him, he had very little time left.

Thinking it was some kind of attack, Isaac put his arms up in an X as an attempt to block the attack. However, the powder went right over it and floated into his nose. He tried holding his breath but it was already too late.

Isaac suddenly felt the irresistible urge to go to sleep, an urge he couldn't stop. Without even getting out of his chair, Isaac felt himself slowly dozing off. His brain was filled with panic, but with the forced state of drowsiness he was in, his thoughts became sluggish as they soon got replaced by just one wish: to sleep.

'That...powder...No...' Trying to keep his cool even in this situation, Isaac tried to look around for anything that could fend off the increasing feeling of sleepiness, but he found nothing. He tried getting out of his chair but soon realized that he couldn't.

With no other choice, Isaac sat in his chair as he waited for sleep to come to him. It was far too late for him to force himself awake, nor could he due to the strange power being enforced on him.

-----

Isaac slowly opened his eyes, only to see that the scenery around him had changed. He could see that he was resting on a dirt wall inside of a large, dirt cavern that had many openings into the outside world.

'Wait...where am I?' After being stunned about the sudden shift in environment from his room in his house to a random dirt hole that looked like it could collapse in on itself any minute, Isaac collected his thoughts.

'This must be that dream I had in my dream earlier.' Isaac concluded with ease, feeling a sense of familiarity from the environment around him.

'Alright, lets think about what just happened. That powder. It must have been some sort of sleep inducing dust, but where did it come from? And why wasn't it in the dream?' After figuring out where he was, Isaac turned his entire attention onto what just happened.

'There's two conclusions I can reach from this. Either my dream was real, but the events that happened changed because I didn't leave my room or my dream was fake. Under normal circumstances, the latter would've been what I would've gone with, since dreams obviously can't predict the future. It's just common sense. But seeing as I am literally thinking of this inside of a dream, what I previously thought as common sense might just be wrong.'

"Ughhhhh!" Isaac voiced out as he grabbed his hair in confusion. "This is too confusing! I don't even know what's going on right now!"

After sitting there with a troubled look on his face for a little longer, he let out a short sigh. "Let's just think about this later. I first need to get out of this dream before anything else, especially if the sleeping dust was a direct attack on me. Worse case scenario, there could be another monster that had infiltrated the house and was actively trying to harm or even kill me."

If this were the case, Isaac was confident in surviving, at least for a good while thanks to all the preparations the original Isaac had done.

'With how much he prepared, I almost feel as if he expected something like this to occur...well, other than covering up the vent for some reason. That was a bit dumb of him. Either way, I do wonder how he knew an event like this would happen...what secrets could he be hiding?

'However, that comes later. I'll have to search around the house after I wake up from this dream. Right now, getting back to the real world is a lot more important. I need to make sure that I don't do anything risky like dying in hopes of waking up unless I absolutely have to. I don't know anything about this power and I don't want to die to some stupid mistake.'

Reaching this conclusion, Isaac slowly got up from where he had rested and stretched his body. What Isaac was currently doing was getting a feel for the body. Because Isaac is currently dreaming himself as this world's Isaac, he was a little older than 9 years old. This meant his body had some clear advantages as well as disadvantages.

For the advantages, being so small makes it easier for him squeeze through small spaces. It also allows him to be a lot more swift and nimble than he was in his current body. Of course, these advantages came with their own share of disadvantages, but those weren't as influential in Isaac's current circumstances.

His only power, the one he achieved through many years of hard work back on Earth, was a power that relied on the strength of his mind, not the strength of his body so he could use it regardless of the body.

Of course, different bodies so affect how easily Isaac could capitalize on his ability, but he could work around that. However, he first needed to get used to his current body, or else it could end up being fatal in the middle of a fierce battle. He learned this the hard way from his battle against the faceless man.

And so, to get more used to the body, Isaac wandered around the dirt cavern sometimes walking and sometimes running. Aside from getting used to his body, Isaac also wanted to use this time to explore the cavern that had appeared in his dream.

As Isaac walked around the perimeter, he took in the scent of the wet mud above him, the feeling of blisters on his feet. They all felt so realistic, almost to the point where Isaac couldn't believe that this place was just a dream.

Suddenly, Isaac felt a familiar head-splitting pain plague him. This time, however, the pain was a lot more bearable. Instead of writhing in pain like last time, Isaac was worried about the pain being caused by an enemy attack.

Isaac hysterically look around trying to identify the enemy, but immediately noticed that something was strange. The cave was filled with a majestic, golden light, coming from a small, slightly hidden wall.

He slowly walked towards the wall, trying to ignore the pain aching his head. As he walked closer and closer, he could feel a strange aura envelop him, coating his body with a membrane, as the pain in his head kept increasing in magnitude. However, Isaac continued. He felt strangely...drawn to it.

Step!

A few steps later, Isaac was right in front of the wall, just short of fainting from pain. Suddenly, just as he took the last step and stood in front of the wall, all his pain seamlessly disappeared, leaving him bathing in golden light and a thick aura that was slowly seeping into his body.

However, Isaac couldn't focus on what was going on around him. Despite his current state of perplexity caused by the sudden relief of the pain to his head, Isaac could make out that the large, flat wall in front of him was filled with some strange writing, just tall enough for the first line to be a little bit taller than him.

After a few moments of pulling himself together, Isaac attempted to make out what the text said, which led him to come to a shocking conclusion: the writing that was written on the wall was the exact same writing as the texts that were carved into his brain.