Dreaming

It was still early morning, around 08:00 am. Vito hadn't fallen asleep yet.

"Whoever's idea it was for us to wake up at 06:00 am to say farewell to Terra is a criminal. No one likes to wake up that early," he groaned as he rolled his face in his pillow.

 He had finally made it to his dormitory after sneaking around past his patron's house. 

It took his body around 30 minutes to finally take in the fact that he would no longer be sleeping on a soft mattress since this mattress was hard and mostly unkept.

"I can't believe they would let this happen in a public boarding school. Whatever happened to keeping the school as tidy as the images online?" he asked.

Initially, the idea of going to a boarding school was that he would get a lot of freedom away from being at home, but it turns out that boarding schools have a lot of rules and regulations just like a household would have.

They were a family apparently.

Boarding schools felt restrictive to his schedule because they would always try to get him to do something by a certain time or have him obey their rules, but Vito was never one to follow the rules and would always find a way to bend them to his needs.

Some call it being mischievous, he calls it talent.

With the mental exhaustion he already had and with the feeling of sleep deprivation closing in on him, it wasn't too hard for him to fall fast asleep despite the bed which he was on.

He closed his eyes sleepily and when he opened them again the next thing he knew was that he was standing on the edge of a hill surrounded by lots and lots of green pasture everywhere.

There is a giant oak tree on another small hill in the direction where he was looking in. It was huge, probably the biggest oak tree he had ever seen in his life.

Its fruits are unripe but they have already started growing big. The tree looks like it gives life to everything around it. The grass, the air, and all things surrounded by this tree seem to receive a strong abundance of energy and endurance. 

And there was a strange sensation to it, like a peaceful energy in the air.

Everything around him seemed quiet. But the wind is the only thing that has the loudest voice in this place, it reminded him of the sound the oceans would make when they would splash around in waves.

There are a multitude of clouds in the air, all of which are shaped like one-half of a circle as there is a space between the second half alongside them. All these clouds and all this moist green grass seem to lead back to the tree that is in the middle of this all.

"Is this a garden?" he wondered to himself before noticing a few tomatoes growing in a spot that seemed to be a distance away from the tree and its dark moist grass but it still looked beautifully kept on its own.

There seemed to be a small cottage near the garden with a chimney on it and a smooth rocky path leading to it.

"Wait, I am lucid dreaming? Is that what this is?" he asked himself as he remembered going to sleep before this. 'Could this be my dream?' he was now super excited as he started jumping around up and down in joy, he had never had a lucid dream before so this was so exciting.

He had heard stories of people being able to control the world however they wanted and to shoot lightning out of their hands or to fly or even teleport. It was finally his turn to be able to do that.

Standing by the edge, he was ready to jump.

"If I remember those videos that I used to watch when I was younger, you can't hurt yourself in your own dream, so if I jump statistically speaking I should be fine right? Yeah, that sounds about right!" he convinced himself.

He reasoned that a place like this couldn't exist in real life and he fell asleep moments before this. So it just couldn't be real.

He prepared himself for a leap of faith.

"1.. 2.. 3!" Running forward after going a few steps back, Vito was about to check the constraints of this dream when a sudden thought entered his mind, "What if this wasn't a dream?" hearing this voice somewhat speak him, he stopped himself quickly before reaching a point of no return.

"Maybe I should try flying normally before I jump off the cliff," he said as he decided to jump off the ground instead of the cliff, still somewhat convinced that this was a dream.

'I'm doing it, I'm flying! Oh my gosh, I am actually flying. This is amazing!! I love lucid dreams-" For a moment Vito was floating in the air longer than he had anticipated and was fully immersed in this being a dream, but then suddenly he fell down hard.

"Ouch! My face, my back! Ow! That hurt so much." I thought this was a lucid dream. "Why did I do that? Why was I about to jump off that cliff? I've got to learn to stop being so impulsive."

"But what was that? Was I actually floating or did I imagine that?" Vito was rubbing his face from the slight pain he felt when it hit the ground, Unbeknownst to him, his shoulder had been glowing from the entire time he woke up in this strange place.

"Turns out, time actually moves slowly when you're about to hurt yourself from falling. Either that or the brain just thinks really fast." This was the conclusion he had left himself with.

He got off the ground. Slowly.

*Argh* "If this isn't a dream then where am I?" he asked.

He took a step closer to the edge of the hill and peeked down. It was a steep fall before hitting the green pasture that is down there. Not knowing where to go or where he was, he decided to go towards the Oak tree.

"At least that might give me some answers as to where I am. Wait isn't there a Cottage over there too? It would be more convenient to go over there than to check out the tree, so why am I feeling drawn to the tree more than anything?"

"I don't know why, maybe it's my intuition, maybe I am imagining it or being silly. But I truly feel, no! I truly desire to touch that tree."

This was when he noticed that his shoulder was glowing again. "Did it heal me again after my fall? No wait... is it pulling me towards, that tree? I knew it, this wasn't an ordinary tree after all!"

"It makes no sense that in a land as beautiful and fertilized as this, there would be no other tree growing in this place. I think it's time to figure this thing out," he said as he decided it was time to get some answers.

 He took a step towards the edge and before he even knew it, the side of the cliff that he was on broke off from the rest of the hill and he began falling down towards what he assumed would be a lot of pain.

*AHHHH! "NOOOOO!" He Screamed.

"Why did it break? Why did the goddamn piece of rock that I was standing on break? Was it the jump!? Did it make things unstable??? That can't be it, if it was it wouldn't have taken 30 seconds for it to fall!'

"What was it trying to do? Build suspense!?"

Vito was falling from what felt like 30 feet in the air. He wasn't too sure because he wasn't good at measuring distance while falling off of a cliff.

He screamed in the air as he swung his hands wildly trying to reach for something, anything to save himself. Maybe a vine or a tree sprout like in those movies where people would jump off a cliff.

He saw the ground getting closer and he was positive that this next fall was probably going to break his face, if not his neck.

He closed his eyes out of fear and the next thing he knew was that he was jumping out of bed and panting deeply as he felt like he had almost had a heart attack. The shake he made as he woke up was so strong and powerful that he could hear his bed move a few inches to the side.

"It really was a dream. But not the lucid one but the one where you fall out of the sky and hit the ground really really hard," he said as he was panting.

"It's my first time experiencing that too."

He did not care anymore and decided that he was way too exhausted to think about it. He was now honestly frustrated at the lack of sleep he had been trying to get since last night.

"I am going to sleep! You hear me world!? Stop intervening," he yelled as he jumped back into his pillow.

He pulled out the soft covers and tucked himself comfortably into the bed. It was so warm that he was sleepy just holding onto it.

"Wait!? Why does it suddenly feel good? As in, comfortable?? No this can't be right!" he realized.

He jumped out of bed to look around.

"This isn't my bed, this isn't my room at all. Where am I!?" he yelled.

Checking the watch he was wearing, he looked at the time, it was 10:00 am.

"10 am? That's not right, it was 08:00 am when I got in bed, where did those two hours just go?" he wondered.

"None of this is making sense and I need to find answers. That dream, was it real or was it not? Maybe it just felt real but it wasn't actually happening. "

"Urgh! Screw it, I'm not going to think I am just getting out of here!"

"It's time to investigate and find an exit."

Stepping out of the bed he took a quick look around the room, the room was dark blue, and there were multiple beds in there. About 5.

The interior of the room was quite attractive to look at and it was designed with an assortment of decorations and lights to bring out its true beauty.

Seeing how well this place looks made him ask himself, "Who designed this?"

He stepped out into the hallway. And there are multiple different doors down both ends of the hall. He figured he might as well take a chance and go down the first one he saw when he opened the door.

To his surprise, this place was much bigger than he thought it would be, as the hall spanned wide into an intersection between different hallways. "So this is the living room."

There are some chandeliers placed around different places in the room he had just entered. There was also a fireplace that was currently lit up as well as some speakers above it to play what he believed was soothing music.

The was a glass door that seemed to lead to an outdoor pool. Inside the living room are two sets of stairs that spiral both upwards and downwards indicating that there is both a top and bottom floor.

The cushions seem fluffy and well decorated too as they are white in color and with gold lining. All in all this place is definitely similar if not better than a mansion.

The glass door seemed to be a back door in this place, but there was a fence right outside as well. And judging from its height, he couldn't jump that even if he wanted to.

"Alright, with my current situation, I do not know where to go but I need to find an exit just in case. I may have been kidnapped and if that were the case then my father wouldn't let me live that down. I mean sure he would come and save me but he would be mad that I let that happen. And how long do I have until then?" Vito continued to talk to himself quietly.

"I'll head for the roof," he told himself as I made his way up the stairs. 

"I might as well get a bird's eye view of the situation so that I know what I am working with. And possibly find a weak point to jump down towards or maybe a general direction to go towards."

He climbed up the stairs as quickly and as fast as he could manage. While trying to be quiet.

As he made it up the staircase he found himself entering a hallway that led to a single red door up there.

"Alright, I was hoping for more of a rooftop so I can see the environment, but if this place doesn't have a balcony or something that I can look out of, then I am sure I am toast because that means my plan has failed."

Taking a breath he opened the door before him.

Swinging it open as quickly as possible but as quietly so as to not make a sound, he knew he had gotten far too used to doors that squeak when you open them slowly so he did this out of an old habit. "Sneaking out of home has never been easy with those types of doors. It takes precision to not get caught."

He stepped inside and didn't believe it. "Is this an auditorium? Not just any auditorium, this is a planetarium. For star gazing," he said as his eyes wandered around the place.

"Why is this, here? This place is, is so beautiful." The dark red curtains that fill the room, the purple seats that range from the front to the back, and the giant glass dome that sits on top of this place serve as a projection screen onto which scenes of stars, planets, and other celestial objects are made to appear.

Marveling at the scenery he half forgot that he was trying to find an exist in this place as he still didn't know what lay here. "Maybe this place belonged to someone friendly, maybe it doesn't. Besides, friendly people don't just kidnap you and tell you nothing."

As he walked down one of the aisles, his child-like wonder went wild and erupted from within, he couldn't help but jump into one of the seats and tuck himself in. "It feels so soft."

He convinced himself that if he was looking for a good place to hide this might as well be as good as nothing. But shamefully, deep down he knew that he just wanted to hang around this place a little longer.

"Alright, no more distractions." With his current goal to get to the rooftop destroyed, he decided that he needed to look for an exit some other way. He contemplated this thought for a while and almost started making his way back down when he felt a slight breeze hit me from behind.

"Could it be?" he turned around and walked up to the purple curtain at the far end of the room and as he pulled it to the side, he gasped as he realized there was a balcony behind it. A very big balcony that goes around the entire side of the top building that he was in.

The air was fresh and had a sweet aroma to it as well.

He took a look and was amazed, 'This is the outside?'

The ground is deeply filled with an assortment of bushes, each shaped like its own animal and even some shaped doing tricks. The grass looks firmly trimmed at the top and smooth and sturdy at the bottom.

The land is also covered with various statues of swarms and birds of the sea-like ducks being used as decorated fountains for all to see in the middle of a stone-paved wall that seems to cover each and every path one would wish to take.

This place looks amazing and well-flourished to its core. He almost wanted to meet the guy who was in charge of this place. Almost.

One unfortunate part about this place is that as beautiful as it was, there didn't seem to be a path that led out a gate of any kind. The was a wall surrounding the building he was in but no exit could be seen.

"It's almost like this place was made by someone who doesn't expect to leave, at all. And besides, even if I could leave over the gate, there is a lot of fog covering the area, it might even be generated on purpose. But that fact is, I can't see past that fog," Vito sighed.

He thought back to how he could have gotten there.

"Alex had taken me to school and then I had a dream, one where I was on a hill, covered by lots of green grass, and had a giant oak tree in its center. There was also a small tomato garden past it and even after that..!"

"There was a cottage!"

"That cottage probably had a person living in there, they probably picked me up and brought me here."

"It can't be Alex who brought me here though because he had just left me at school. Why go through the trouble of dropping me off if he still needed me for something? That doesn't make sense."

"Whatever it is, I still can't give up on finding an exit just in case something were to happen."

"I need a plan B," Vito said as he now convinced himself to keep looking.

He started running around the balcony. "I guess it does go around the entire building."

His idea now was that maybe he could find something around here that could help, maybe give him a clue or even show him how to get out of here.

As he ran he soon found himself losing breath. "This place is huge. I could use a breather."

He stopped running and transitioned into a jog and then quickly transitioned back into a walk and then just took his time strolling. "I am not wasting my energy running, at least not yet."

As he looked around on the other side of the balcony he admired what looked like a green house on the other side of this building. "Wow, this person must live in extravagance."

As he continued walking he noticed something hanging by the side of the balcony, or better yet, he noticed someone leaning on the side of this balcony and scanning the area.

"Wait I know this person," he said softly as he approached them.

"But it can't be, they left didn't they? Well, I didn't see them leave that day but I assume they did."

He took a few steps closer as quietly as he could manage and brought himself to their attention by placing a hand on top of their shoulder.

"Cyrus!? Is that you?" Vito asked with his mouth hanging wide open in disbelief.