Are you awake?

“What?” I laughed at my friend Daniel. He was always the weird one.

“Rose, pay attention. I said lucid dreaming.” He repeated himself. It was his answer to why he had a big red A on the palm of his hand.
“I don’t know how that answers my question.” I said, preparing myself for what I knew was going to be a long explanation.

“So, ya know how you dream, and then you realize you’re in a dream, and then you can do whatever you want in your dream?”

All I could give him as a response was “Uh…” I guess he assumed I knew what he was talking about because he just kept going.

“I’m learning how to do that all the time, every night.” He had a smug kind of smile on his face.

“By drawing a big red A on your hand?”

“Yeah, see, everytime I see the A, I think to myself, am I awake? See, cause awake starts with A. Anyway, if I am awake, then obviously I’ll know I’m awake whenever I look at the A, but if I do it enough, it’ll become routine and I’ll end up having a red A on my hand in my dreams. So when I look at it in my dreams, I’ll think to myself, am I awake? And then I’ll realize I’m not, and then do whatever the hell I want in dreamland.” He finished.


Sure enough, Daniel came to school every day that week with a big red A on the palm of his hand. And oddly, every day that week he became quieter and quieter. By Wednesday, he would only talk to me if I asked him a question, and by Thursday, he wouldn’t even reply no matter what I said to him. He just stood there with a look on his face like he was sad. But also like he was lost in thought. By then I was extremely worried about him. It wasn’t like him at all. On Friday, he didn’t say anything at all to anyone but me. And the only thing he said to me was

“What if I’m not awake?”

I told him that was stupid. Of course he was awake. He was walking around and talking. It was silly to even have to convince someone they we’re awake. He was really scaring me, and I asked him to stop it with this whole red A, lucid dreaming thing. It wasn’t healthy
I tried to call him over the weekend but he wouldn’t answer the phone. And he never returned my texts. He didn’t show up for school on Monday either and by that time, I decided to intervene in this little dreaming experiment he was having. So I went to his house after school.
The front door of his house was open, so I walked in.

“Daniel?” I called out, fairly nervous at how quiet the house was.

“I’m in here” He shouted.

I followed his voice to his room. The door was shut, and I could hear a crackling noise inside. I opened the door, walked in, and screamed.

Daniel was on fire

But he wasn’t in pain. He was just standing there bewildered. He seen how scared I was and the fire immediately vanished. I began to cry. He walked over and consoled me.

“Rose it’s fine, it’s a dream. I’ve finally realized. My whole life. Everything. It’s just been my dream. I’m dreaming, it doesn’t hurt me, see.”
He stepped away and he became on fire again. It was a tormenting sight to see. I screamed

“No!” Half out of fear and half out of anger for some reason. As soon as I stopped screaming the fire stopped again and Daniel looked amazed.

“How did you do that?” He asked. “How did you make the fire go away? This is my dream, you shouldn’t be able to do that!”

“I don’t… I didn’t… I..” I was talking and crying at the same time. But then I collected myself.

“I.. I did that?” I asked myself.

I stood up and like Daniel, willed fire onto myself.

“So it’s my dream? I’m dreaming?” I asked myself again.

“No, it can’t be like that.” Daniel said

He pointed at me and my fire went away.

“We can both control it. Does that mean we’re both dreaming the same dream?” This time my question was directed towards Daniel.

“Maybe… I don’t think it’s just us.” He said. “What if it’s everyone’s dream? What if everyone is dreaming the same collective dream, and we’re just the first two the figured it out?... That’s it. I can feel it. I know it’s true. I’ve always known…”

“I think I did too. I think everyone knows on some level.” My thoughts were racing. If we we’re all just dreaming, what’s the world like on the other side? What do we really look like? Are me and Daniel friends when we’re awake?

I sat on his bed and he followed. We just sat there for a few moments until I got the courage to ask the most important question.

“What now?” I asked him.

I could tell he was thinking about it for a few moments until he came up with the answer.

“Now,” he said, “We find a way to wake up.”