Chapter 2//Recalibration

It’s nighttime now. I know this because the light that comes out of that hole in the roof is gone. I’ve had my eye lights on full blast because fuck the darkness. This is some creepy shit, no joke I thought I saw a pair of yellow eyes looking at me from around one of those pointy rock thingies. I kind of got used to it when I found out I could scrap up pieces of rock from the ground, mold it into tiny pellets, and fling them at the pointy rock things so hard they explode and break in half.

In other news, I’m super fucking strong apparently. That’s not gonna matter though. I mean I could climb my way out of here and look for help, but then what? I find a civilization of people who’ve most likely never seen a walking, talking, suit of armor with lights for eyes, and expect them to be cool with that? Hell no, they’d chase me back into this goddamn hole. So I’m just gonna wait here, just wait for another memory, just wait and everything will be-

Click. A lamp turns on and Doc is sitting in his chair,

"Having some trouble?"

The ground explodes in front of him.

I flicked a pellet at him.

He scared me.

Motherfucker.

The dust settles, as does the echo of the boom, and he’s sitting there as if nothing happened, and I answer,

"Yeah, some."

I raise my index finger,

"Firstly, don’t you ever fucking do that again. I am completely on edge, I am super strong, and I’m not afraid to pellet the shit out of a hallucination."

He writes something down on his tablet,

"So you think I’m a hallucination? That’s interesting."

"Cut the crap, Doc,"

I’m tired of his shit,

"I’m tired of your shit."

I get up off the floor and walk towards him,

"Where are the memories, Doc? Huh? Where the fuck are they?"

I start pacing around in a circle,

"I mean I saw Jac fall off that cliff with that board under him, but I was just down there, and guess what? It’s fucking dark as shit down there. So fuck that!"

I sigh and sit down on the red couch with my head in my hands.

Wait, what the fuck?

"Wait, what the fuck?!"

I jolt up from the red couch that always fucking shows up.

"Secondly, don’t ever fucking do THAT again!"

Doc puts his tablet on his lap and his pen on the tablet.

"I understand this must be really hard for you at this stage, but I assure you, you are making progress."

"What do you mean progress?! I almost died!"

My yelling echoes out into the cavern.

Fucking spooky.

Doc gestures to the couch,

"Please, lie down, so we can continue with the exercise."

With a sigh of reluctance I go to the couch and lie down. This is still the comfiest couch ever, even if it is spooky.

"Now, just as before, with the breathing I taught yo-"

"I know, I know,"

I cut him off mid-sentence,

"Five seconds in, then five seconds out."

I do the breathing exercise. The hollow roaring of cavern is slowly replaced with the shrieking sounds of traffic. I open my eyes and I’m back on that rooftop.

"Okay, back to square one. Now what?"

Doc walks out from behind me,

"You’ve been trying to traverse the dream by walking in it, haven’t you?"

I jolt forward, "You’re so lucky I don’t have a pellet on me right now."

He stands there and looks at me,

"Well, have you? Been walking?"

I nod,

"Well, yeah, that’s how beings with two legs get around, right? One foot in front of the other. You know? Like how you’re supposed to ’traverse’? "

Doc smirks,

"Then there is your problem. You aren’t traversing the dream properly."

Perplexed I say,

"Uh, what?"

He starts walking around me,

"In reality, you use your motor skills, you walk, run, climb with your arms, legs, and body. In dreams, you use your mind."

Again, perplexed, I say,

"Again, uh, what?"

Doc gestures toward the big orb in the sky,"You see that orb there? You think you can’t reach that because it’s too far away don’t you?"

I shrug,

"Well, yeah, that’s kind of obvious."

"But that’s the problem. You believe there is an obvious exactitude to the world of dream. When, really, there is none,"

He walks next to me, and gestures again to the orb,

"Stop thinking that that’s too far away and you can’t reach it; instead think that that’s too far away, so why not bring it closer to you."

I look up at the orb through the clouds, and I picture the entire city moving around me, as if I’m shifting the world under my feet.

I keep my eyes fixed on the orb and watch it become bigger and bigger. I think to myself that this shit is pretty incredible.

I look over to Doc and say,

"Hey, Doc, this is actually pretty-"

Doc’s not there.

The buildings not there.

It’s way below me.

I’m standing in mid air.

I’m standing on nothing.

Calmly, I look back at the orb, then back at the city below me then back at the orb.

With all the calm I have left in me, I gently, and softly scream at the top of my lungs,

"Holy fucking shit balls!!!"

I am shaking.

I am scared.

"You see? It worked."

"Doc! You gotta stop walking out from behind me like that!"

He’s walking on nothing.

"Especially when you’re walking on nothing! What the fuck!"

He continues to walk, "I understand this is terrifying, but this is how you traverse through the dream. You think of where you want to go and bring it to yourself. Now you have a way of following Jacamo, without plummeting to your death."

I take a few breaths, and try to stop shaking.

"So, uh, let’s say, I don’t know where he is in this city, do I just think the words take me to Jacamo and then-"

The world jolts us down towards the city as Doc and I stand still and feel the world move us through traffic, intersections, through buildings, shopping centres, and through platforms crowded with people. Then moves us upward through platforms, towards the rooftops, where we slowly come to a halt and watch as Jacamo is about to step off the roof on his board.

If I had a bladder I’d be pissing myself right now.

"Doc. That. Was awesome."

"Now that you know how to traverse, it will be easy to follow Jacamo. And I do suggest you follow him."

I watch as Jacamo steps on his board and falls forward.

I think the words ’follow him’ and the world tilts and falls as Jacamo falls, and I find myself flying close behind him as he falls with his board pointed to the platform far below.

I think to myself, “I may be able to shift the world, but he can’t, what does this kid think he’s doing?”

Jacamo them shifts his heels on his back foot, and steps down onto a button on the board. A blue light shines underneath the board and pushed Jacamo slightly off the side of the building.

Jacamo looks at his wrist and watches a gauge fill up.

He talks to himself saying,

"Get there!"

The meter is in the red.

"Come on get there!"

Now to yellow,

"That pavement is getting really close!" I tell myself.

To green,

"Now!"

Jacamo steps on the button again, pushes off of the building, and starts to glide above the pedestrians on the platform at the speed he was falling. Which was fast as fuck.

I watch as Jacamo rides his hoverboard in mid air, yelling out of pure happiness and glee.

He approaches an intersection and is on a collision course with a box truck trying to park next to a platform.

"Oh fuck!" Jacamo yells as he quickly maneuvers his board to face the building to his right and quickly taps on the button with his heel, and boosts him off the building wall; breaking a window in the processes.

Glass shatters and falls on to the platform beneath it. A girl with short brown hair is yelling at the top of her lungs saying something like, "Fuck you! That was my fucking window!!"

Jacamo yells, "Sorry!" But is way too far into the traffic that the sound of horns and angry drivers drown out his words.

Jacamo weaves under and over cars and trucks trying not to get hit by the cars flying over him going the opposite way, while dodging cars in front of him, which decide to stop and go and change lanes.

A beeping sound starts up on Jacamo’s wrist; it’s the gauge that filled up before. It’s going into the red now.

"Shit fuck!"

Jacamo carefully starts leaning the underside of his board toward cars that he passes; the more the board passes over something the more the meter seems to increase.

This trick doesn’t last too long as the meter then dips into the red. The board starts to point downward.

"No! No, no, no! Never cross the roads, never cross the roads!!"

Jacamo starts gliding straight through the lanes beneath him diagonally, trying desperately to regain control on his board.

"Okay! Let’s try this!"

Jacamo heel presses the button on the board, and the light underneath it dims. He continues to fall through the lanes trying his best not to get hit.

He then sees a truck in a distant lane that is driving towards him.

"That’s it!"

He carefully positions his heel above the button and when the truck passes by him positions the board against the side of it and hits the button launching him away from the truck, across a lane of traffic, and underneath the corner of a platform.

Still falling downward Jacamo positions the board against the building and builds up the meter in his wrist.

Red.

Yellow.

Green.

And then hits the button again turning the corner on the next street.

He looks up towards a platform with a building very different from the others, as this had a greenish blue dome as a roof and had a gate around it. It seemed much older than the rest of the buildings.

Jacamo shifts his heel passed the button and steps down on a rectangular button on the very back of the board.

As he lifts off the button the board then tilts back and Jacamo soars upwards towards the domed building, speeding passed all manner of flying vehicles.

Jacamo flies over the gate, quickly steps on the rectangular button and then steps and holds the smaller button, positioning the board lengthwise trying to stop the board from moving. The meter goes from green to yellow to red, and the board starts scraping against the gravel on the pathway leading up to the main stairs.

The board catches the ground and Jacamo goes flying forward rolling several times before knocking into the last step on the main stairs.

In a tired, out of breath voice he says, ”I did it!”

A girl standing near the stairs runs down towards Jacamo,

"Jesus, Mo! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

With pain in his voice Jacamo says,

"Not more than usual."

I giggle.

Fucking asshole.

The girl yells,"Fucking asshole!"

Hey, that’s what I said!

"You know there are easier ways to kill yourself."

She says as she helps pick Jacamo off the floor.

Jacamo laughs and smiles, "Oh, for sure! But do any of those include a custom modded hoverboard?"

She leans him against the hand railing, "What? You mean that thing hanging off your foot?"

Jacamo looks toward his foot as he realizes his board is broken in half with wires barely keeping the two halves together.

"Shhhhhit."

"Well, what did you expect?"

"To be honest, I expected to have more broken bones,"

he turns and nearly falls off the handrail,

"Oh, well, a concussion will do."

The girl tries to hold him up and keep him from falling over again.

"What am I gonna do with you, Mo?"

"Take me to the club room, lay me on a moderately comfortable, absolutely disgusting couch, and let me go to dreamland?"

She puts his arm over her head and around the back of her neck and helps him up the stairs,

"No fucking way, mister. You say you may have a concussion you aren’t doing any sleeping. You’re as fucked up as it is, don’t need you anymore fucked up."

Jacamo laughs, "Aw, thanks Lei! I love you too!"

This fucking kid.

He’s a fucking mess.

I love him.