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*
the dream scribe
*
The dreams aren’t real—or so that was what Taeyong was told.
“It’s an interpretation of the mind,” he explains, reciting the handbook word-for-word, “a diagnosis of your thoughts and your well-being.”
It’s the kind of mantra he recites to soothe the anxious souls that come in the room because he knows the way the sight of the pens, clipboards, recording devices and the pendulum on his desk unsettles them.
“Have a seat,” he invites, “let me scribe your dream.”
So Mark walks in—his steps slow, his eyes wide and alert.
*
Sicheng is flying in the sky.
It’s the same sky as the previous dream—the same clouds, the same distant stars, the same dull moon, the same birds and the same city underneath him. There’s the ruined fort atop the hill, there’s a lighthouse a foot from the shore, there’s a wharf and then there’s a humble little town by the sea.
He’s feeling like there’s someone he has to meet and that someone is waiting below but he doesn’t know where or anything about the someone except that they have to be somewhere.
So he spreads his wings further and hovers again and again and again—please, he thinks, whoever you are.
*
There’s water all over Sungchan, but he’s not drowning.
He’s going to have to see with his ears because his eyelids are weighing his body down: the sounds of fingers knocking on glasses, the indiscreet murmurs, the beeping of machines, the zapping of electricity.
This one, says a voice, can’t dream yet.
Sungchan doesn’t know what it means.
*
The piano that he’s seeing is old, dusty and eerie, John writes in his dream diary. He doesn’t remember passing through any gates or entering any building—just him appearing inside a vast grey hall with nothing but the piano.
He still needs to scribe it even if it has been written in the diary form, so Taeyong reads on.
For some reason, John continues, he’s terrified of the piano. There’s no concrete reason why—he just is. Maybe because the antiquity is intimidating, he theorises in the diary. Maybe because the piano seems to have a history of its own; maybe because he feels small in the large hall; maybe because he isn’t sure if he is supposed to touch it.
What would you have done? John writes to conclude his dream diary of the day.
Indeed, Taeyong thinks. What would he have done.
*
They are going to build a treehouse.
Him and Chenle will be tying the ropes for the stairs because Jeno and Mark will be taking charge building the house while Jaemin takes care of the foundations with Haechan and Jisung making small things to fit inside the house and making it more of a home than just a place to rest.
They are going to make good use of the tree, Renjun thinks.
He has faith in them.
“Do you,” Taeyong asks.
“I do,” Renjun answers. “We are a team made of people who share the same dream.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Renjun confirms. “Me and Chenle and Mark and Haechan and Jeno and Jaemin and Jisung.”
Taeyong sees the determined eyes and nods.
“Yes you are,” he agrees with Renjun. “The seven of you.”
The Dream team.
*
Once upon a time, Yuta muses, there was a war waged right at the place where he’s at.
It’s a town by the sea so it must be a battle with the pirates, he’s thinking. Either that or an invading foreign force.
It would have been a fierce battle with many casualties; the cannons roaring and the guns blaring and the fires burning; homes would have been destroyed, many of them; women and children and the elderly running away as fast as they could, some fallen before the escape while the rest might have not survived the run; castles would have been burned, fortresses would have been attacked; the bells would have been tolling manically, smokes rising and suffocating those who inhaled it, babies screaming and mothers crying, blood spilling and limbs splattering.
There would have been death all over—of humans, of animals, of towns, of history.
I dream of being haunted, Yuta writes in his letter, with the only sign of life being a bird flying in the sky above him.
*
The stars in the sky are all made of rocks, Hendery tells Taeyong.
“Really?”
“Really,” Hendery insists. “Rocks and stones of different kinds—some big, some small, some fiery, some icy, some shiny, some built with even more rocks.”
“I see,” Taeyong says. “Did you see anything else?”
“I don’t—but Yangyang said something about the moon.”
“What about the moon?”
“He said that he dreamt about standing on the moon.”
“Standing and?”
“Just standing—and waiting.”
“Nothing else?”
“Well,” Hendery gives a little laugh, “he said it was a boring, dreadful dream.”
Taeyong clicks his pen. “We should focus on your dream.”
Hendery gives him an amicable smile, even if his eyes can’t hide the bitter emptiness inside his mind.
“Roger.”
*
Jeno’s finger is bleeding.
It must be Mark’s fault, Renjun screams. Jeno knows that Renjun isn’t angry—Renjun is hardly ever angry—because it’s what he does when he gets annoyed and right now he’s annoyed at Jeno who has a bleeding finger, annoyed at Mark whose clumsiness startled Jeno into hammering his finger, annoyed at Haechan who’s persistently asking what is he annoyed about, annoyed at Jaemin whose attempts at making peace is only adding to the noise, annoyed at Chenle whose laughter is aggravating his annoyance and finally, also extremely annoyed at Jisung who’s failure to keep Chenle at bay is going to to send Renjun to the motherfucking moon.
“Speaking of the moon,” Jeno says to Taeyong, looking like he finally remembers something.
“Yes?”
“I think I saw someone there.”
Taeyong pushes his glasses upwards to stare into Jeno’s face.
“Who did you think you saw?”
“Someone familiar.”
“How familiar?”
“Very familiar.”
“Again,” Taeyong presses on. “How familiar?”
Jeno’s lips form a small upwards curve as he sighs.
“Like he used to be a part of me.”
“A part of you?”
“A part of us.”
“Us?”
Jeno nods. “Us , yes.”
Taeyong stops scribing.
“Us—the dream team.”
*
Taeil doesn’t have a dream to tell, so his diary entries are all about how he stays awake.
You’re never really asleep, he writes. The brain is conscious all the time; thinking and remembering and imagining and observing and decoding and pondering and whistling and singing and doing a little thought dance and so on.
The brain is always awake—and that’s why, he informs Taeyong, I never sleep deep enough to enter the dream stage.
Taeyong holds his breath before reading on.
Because people like us—like me, like you, like all 23 of us—we can’t dream.
Something always happens when we dream.
*
Jaehyun can see the fort from the lighthouse he’s at and the bird that keeps hovering above it.
He tells Taeyong that someone at the fort is calling for his name—Jaehyun-ah, the voice keeps saying, there once was a war waged right in this place.
The recording plays for a while without Jaehyun saying anything. He must have been struggling, Taeyong thinks, because connecting dreams can be a little of a bitch.
He wants to reach to the voice calling for him, a sound as sweet as a ringing chime. Jaehyun-ah, Jaehyun-ah, it keeps calling and he keeps hearing it.
Then there’s the bird that keeps flying above them, he adds. That poor bird, turning round and round and also struggling with the sameness of the sky.
But I’m bound, he concludes sadly. Bound and tortured and silenced.
Someone doesn’t want me to seek out the voice, he says, determined to break the spell and Taeyong shudders in fear.
*
The heavy chains are weighing Shotaro down and he can’t move.
There’s a boy immersed in water across him and he feels like he should know who he is, but the name has escaped his mind.
A girl rushes over and presses a button—then Shotaro’s mind goes blank.
*
The stars—they are all so fucking ugly.
“Language,” Taeyong admonishes. He doesn’t usually mind profanities, but after accidentally scribing “damn” into his previous report for Yangyang, he would rather that they maintain some sort of civility during the scribing sessions.
“Fine, fine,” Yangyang shrugs before continuing. “Basically I’m floating in the air, outside the earth.”
“Floating?” Taeyong asks, remembering what Hendery told him.
“Just sometimes.”
“I see.”
“Sometimes I float in the air, sometimes I stand on the moon, but always looking at the stars.”
“That’s why you think they are ugly.”
“Yes, that’s why I look back at the earth.”
“Any specific point you’re looking at?”
Yangyang pauses to ponder.
“Maybe—”
“Yes?”
“Some few friends. I think I saw some friendly faces.”
“I see.”
“I think they are building a treehouse.”
*
More than anything, Doyoung wants to sing, because there’s someone playing piano.
He doesn’t hear the music itself—just the echoes.
His diary entries are written in lyric stanzas, of songs of the yesteryears, of songs about faraway lights—blinking and flickering and powered by the lull of his singing voice.
So I keep singing, Doyoung writes, I keep singing and singing and the echoes of the piano keep playing and playing.
Taeyong’s thoughts immediately go to John, who’s probably playing with the piano with just the power of his mind.
*
Ten hasn’t woken up, so it’s the lab assistant who brings Taeyong the report from the ECG ultrasound machine and he stares at the graph of lines and dots, wondering how has this come to represent the most artistic person he has known.
Some of them write in diaries, some of them see him in person, some of them record their dreams—but Ten is just this.
Lines and dots representing the electricity emitted by his brain.
It makes Taeyong sad somehow to think of Taeil and Ten: one couldn’t sleep and another couldn’t wake up.
*
Sicheng finally flies downwards and lands on a man standing in the lighthouse.
Take me away, the man says desperately. I’m looking for a voice.
Please, he begs—and Taeyong jolts awake in cold sweat.
He’s not supposed to be seeing those dreams.
*
Jisung doesn’t know what to do now that the treehouse they are making is breaking apart.
Jeno wouldn’t stop bleeding, Renjun wouldn’t stop trying to fix things, Mark doesn’t know what else can be done, Haechan isn’t much of a help because he knows nothing, Jaemin is trying to fix things that Renjun can’t fix and Chenle’s wondering why can’t they just buy a treehouse instead of building it.
Chenle-yah, he says, can you say something useful for a change. Why are you talking about money here.
Why not? Chenle asks. Looking at how they are doing right now, are we sure they can even fix it.
Chenle is being logical, if Jisung were to be honest, but something inside him is objecting against it.
Something is saying that nothing is right, none of them is ok, the hyungs aren’t ok—
Hyung, Jisung shakes Taeyong in the dream.
Save us.
*
The chains binding Shotaro’s hand are starting to break.
Wait for me, Sungchan, he thinks. I’m going to take you out of there.
*
His back will heal soon, Lucas believes. It will heal so that his wings can grow again because he’s sick and tired of lying around in this godforsaken place here.
“What about your dreams,” Taeyong asks from outside his confinement.
“I once dreamt about flying again, that’s it.”
“Won’t you want to dream again?”
“No,” Lucas says decisively.
“Why?”
“Because in my dream, they are all over the place.”
“Who is?”
“Yangyang, Hendery, Dejun...they are all over everywhere.”
“Anyone else?”
“I can’t find Sicheng.”
“And?”
“I don’t know where Ten is.”
By now Taeyong has fully understood why none of the assistants would religiously tend to Lucas and would prefer leaving him alone.
“You need to start dreaming again.”
“Says who?”
“Says the ones who are holding the keys to your freedom.”
Lucas sits upright and looks at him directly in the eyes.
“What about yours?”
“What about mine?”
Lucas takes a deep breath and gives him an ominously serene smile.
“I think you need to talk to Kun-ge.”
*
Yuta finally hears it—someone answering him back.
Someone whom he knew—I’m coming for you, the voice says, wait for me—and a bird coming over.
Then his eyes meet Taeyong’s.
“Are you still not coming for us?”
Then Taeyong gasps into consciousness.
*
Jisung is useless, Chenle says, because Jisung doesn’t want to tell you the truth.
We aren’t building a treehouse—we’re making a signal.
Hyung, he says to Taeyong. Yangyang is out there.
Taeyong doesn’t know what’s happening except that he’s no longer scribing the dreams.
*
Jungwoo thinks that there's a connection between all of the dreamers.
“Johnny-hyung is playing the piano, isn’t he? Then there’s Doyoung-hyung who’s singing. Then there’s Ten-hyung and Taeil-hyung who are sharing the same mind, then there’s Yangyang in the moon and Hendery in the galaxy and the Dream kids...aren’t they cute trying to build a treehouse?”
“How do you know all of those?” Taeyong asks. His notes are getting thinner and thinner, because the dreams he’s scribing are getting more and more unpresentable. You’re supposed to make sure that they all stay disconnected, Taeyong remembers the instruction.
They aren’t supposed to come together—why did you think you scribe them for?
“Hyung,” Jungwoo says. “Come back to us.”
*
Sicheng goes back to being a man when Jaehyun and Yuta meet again.
There was once a war waged right where they were at, Yuta reiterates to Jaehyun. This is a town by the sea so it definitely was a battle with the pirates, because a foreign invader would have at least rebuilt the fort. It was loud and violent and there was cannons roaring all over and the guns were shooting down children and the elderly were all crying while the widows wailed—
—do you really not remember any of these, Sicheng asks.
Taeyong shakes his head, because this can’t be happening, the dreams aren’t real, nothing is real, he’s here to scribe the dreams and not be a part of it and—
“You were the one who told us about it,” Jaehyun says as Yuta touches Taeyong with the electric from their linked hands.
You told us about the war that was waged right where we are standing—and how they took all of us from you.
*
Jaemin isn’t going to give up.
The treehouse is working, he insists. Look at this little thing here. Look at how complete it is.
The night has started to fall when he finishes it, a quaint little structure that barely resembles a treehouse perched in between the giant branches. It’s not strong at all but it can carry all 7 of them.
So don’t worry, Taeyong-hyung.
We’ll get connected somehow.
*
Dejun sees almost everything from the top of the world, how things are all connected.
They were once together, all 23 of them, even Shotaro and Sungchan even if they barely dreamt. There was once a place for them to safely dream and play and sing and dance and everything they ever wanted.
Until they took you away—Taeyong-hyung, come back to us.
*
Hyung, Haechan writes. He loves being with the kids.
He loves being with Jisung, he has gotten so big but still so mousey inside. He loves being with Chenle because together they could produce a sound loud enough to break glasses. He loves being with Jaemin because Jaemin is weak for him, isn’t he, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. He loves being with Jeno, because Jeno is kind and nice and a handyman and what do they do without Jeno, seriously. He loves being with Renjun because Renjun is his soulmate and together they will rule the world.
There’s still Yangyang out there, poor Yangyang who’s still stuck at the moon. There’s also Shotaro and Sungchan, still caged and bound.
Hyung, please come find us—but for now, Mark-hyung will fill you in.
*
Kun walks over to the place where they have Ten—thank goodness they don’t put a lock on the door for Ten.
He’s trying to reach Doyoung and John, but they are still searching the hallways for each other. Jaehyun and Yuta and Sicheng are still at the sea, figuring out each other. The Dream kids are still watching the stars from the treehouse. Shotaro and Sungchan are still out there, waiting for him. Yangyang, Hendery and Dejun are still outside the earth, floating and standing on random rocks. Lucas still has his wings clipped, Jungwoo still trying to connect the dreams.
There’s just him, Ten, Taeil and they need to do something before Taeyong ends up losing himself for real.
Right away, Ten opens his eyes.
*
The dreams are real, Mark says, it’s the reason why they fear us.
We are the kind of people who make the world burn when our dreams are connected—or so they said.
He has no time to soothe Taeyong’s anxious soul because he knows that his unwitting presence in all their dreams unsettle him but there’s nothing left to be done.
Hyung, save us. “Come here,” he invites Taeyong. “Get some sleep and then.”
Taeyong walks in, slow steps and alert eyes.
“Let me scribe your dream.”
*