I have no idea what to do.
Here I am, sitting on a stool, all alone, and I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'm stuck in some sort of lucid dream that I have no control over, and I need to get out of it. It's been way too long since I left home and I'm getting sick and tired of it all. I have to try to come up with a plan... Maybe it's a good idea to start from the beginning and work from there, as painful as it sounds. I need to figure out how to wake up, and soon. I don't want to be stuck here.
: Weeks earlier :
"You can open your eyes now, Cam."
I opened them. In front of me on the table in the now darkened room was a chocolate cake with strawberries, illuminated with fourteen candles.
"Happy Birthday, Campbell! Make a wish!" Everyone else in the room, Dad and Riley and Lauren, was smiling, each holding a pleasantly wrapped box in their hands.
After blowing out the candles, turning the lights back on and eating some (oh-so-delicious) cake, it was finally time to open some gifts. Lauren, always the crafty one, got me a box of fake flower crowns, which were very much appreciated since they would never go bad unlike the real ones they'd all make together. Riley's box held an assortment of candy and macaroons, along with some cash. I was happy to know that my friends knew me well enough to know what I liked. And now it was Dad's turn to have his gift opened.
I was handed a really small, rectangular box, and I couldn't help but frown as I silently anticipated that this was going to be another case of 'here's-the-fake-present-and-I-wont-give-you-the-real-one-until-you-open-this-one'. Last year, I almost got murdered by one of those peanut brittle cans that shoot a long snake at you when you open them.
"Go ahead," Dad said, excitement lacing their voice. "Open it."
Taking in a deep breath, I picked up the lid of the box slowly, bracing for any in-your-face surprises, and softly gasped. Whatever I had been expecting, it certainly wasn't a necklace with an enchanting crimson red crystal.
"...How?" Dad's business hadn't been doing so great over the past few months, and so not a lot of money had been coming in, even with me working a summer job as a cashier. For him to have gotten his hands on a necklace this expensive looking...
He simply smiled at my concern. "It doesn't matter. You're important, Cam, and I want you to have good things."
That didn't help ease my distress in the slightest, but decided to accept the gift anyway. It was already bought, and I was sure that he already trashed or burned the receipt anyway. Dad took the necklace out of the box and put it around my neck.
"Go look in the mirror real quick, if you don't mind," he said.
Lauren jumped. "Put on a flower crown, too! I wanna see how it looks on you!"
"Yes, yes, I'm going," I said after picking up a flower crown and walking over to the mirror in the living room as the others followed suit. My short brunette hair was currently harmonizing with the different colors of the fake flowers. The red from the crystal contrasted vividly against my brown skin.
"So, how is it?" Dad asked.
"That crown and necklace look so good on you," Lauren blurted out. I think I heard Riley mumbling to himself about outfits and jewelry.
"It's—" I was interrupted by an incoming yawn on my part. "I really like it. Thank you guys so much."
Lauren looked confused. "You're already tired? It's not even ten yet!"
I glared halfheartedly. "Well, unlike a certain someone, I don't stay up into three in the morning every night watching crafting tutorials and Supernatural."
"In my defense," Lauren started, "I don't have time to catch up on my shows during the day with my music lessons and my projects and everything in between."
"Whatever you say." I looked at both Lauren and Riley. "I'm sorry, but I think that I'm going to be the first to go to bed tonight. See you guys tomorrow?"
Riley gave a simple nod while Lauren gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Smiling, I gave everyone a quick hug before turning to walk over to the staircase, up and into my room. It was only when I closed the door that I noticed that the necklace Dad gave me was giving off a small, soft glow in the dark room. I wonder what type of crystal this is...
I jumped into bed without bothering to change. Today had been exhausting, and the bed was too comfy to keep away from right now.
: Yesterday :
"You stink at video games, Riley."
"Hey! I can still murder you in chess!"
"Chess is irrelevant right now. Watch your head."
Just then, I pumped a bullet through his virtual skull, and the game ended. Riley groaned in complaint, while I did a little victory dance, twirling the flower crown around my finger. "Six wins in a row! You really need to step up your game."
"Bite me," he said, but there was playful smirk on his face.
Just then, the home phone rang in the kitchen. "Maybe it's Dad saying he'll be home late?" We both got up and walked over to the phone. Riley, always the competitive one, picked it up before I could. I started humming as Riley talked on the phone. His smile was quickly erased and taken over by a small frown. Then he looked confused. His expression slowly morphed into surprise and stayed that way until he hung up not too long after.
"Who was on the phone?"
Riley looked extremely uneasy and really sad. He averted his eyes and didn't say anything.
"...Did something bad happen?" I was starting to worry. I haven't seen him look this upset in a long time. When he's upset, it's always for a good reason.
Silence.
"Come on, what is it? What's wrong?" My voice sounded panicky. I put my hand on his shoulder. "What did they say?"
He still didn't say anything, so I decided that it was best for him to get his thoughts collected and let him tell me when he was ready. That doesn't mean that I didn't worry for the entire duration, but I was patient. Eventually, he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper, and I had to strain my ears to understand.
"...It was the police. Your dad's in the hospital."
After sitting in the big waiting room of the hospital with Riley and his mom for what felt like an eternity, a doctor came out of a door, clipboard in hand and a stern expression plastered on.
"Family of Isaac Shirvan?"
I stood up and glanced at Riley, and he shot me a weary smile before we began walking towards the doctor, who motioned us into the hallway. He started talking as soon as the door closed behind us.
"Are you Mrs. Shirvan?"
Riley's mom shook her head. "No, I'm just a friend of his. This is my son"—she put an arm around Riley—"and this is Isaac's daughter."
The doctor looked at me, his serious look turning into a more sympathetic one, before looking at this clipboard.
"The car accident that Mr. Isaac Shirvan was in caused traumatic injury to his brain. The car had a defective airbag that didn't inflate when the car got hit. After giving Mr. Shirvan treatment for his injuries, we conducted a couple of scans and tested his response levels. We found damage is some of the pathways to his brain, and he has been completely unresponsive." He paused slightly, seeming to be a bit uncomfortable. "The majority of people in his situation either die or remain in a veg—"
...I'm not sure about what happened after that, but I woke up to see Riley's mom give out a heavy sigh of relief. She started explaining how I oh-so-heroically fainted after I gave her a confused glance. It wasn't until I looked at the bed behind her that I understood why.
There he was, lying in bed, connected to so many different machines. For a striking moment, my heart stopped as I filled with the dreadful fear that he was dead, but the soft rise and fall of his chest let me release a breath that I didn't realize I was holding until then. Still, I could feel my eyes start to sting and my chest wrench.
I got up from the chair, moved it to the side of the bed, and sat down without taking my eyes off of him, as if he'd fade away if I ever did. His head looked like a mess, stitched up and everything, and he donned multiple wounds all over his body. Squeezing his hand, I sat there and cried for who knows how long as Riley tried to comfort me with a hug. My father was in a coma. My father was dying. He was dying.
Curling up in the guest room bed of Riley's house, I lied there, holding the flower crown to my chest. This couldn't be happening. This isn't real. This isn't what is supposed to be happening. Why is this happening? I feel so sick and lost and alone. I don't have any other blood family that I know of except for Dad. Where am I going to go?
My phone read 4:37 AM. I brought a hand up to pull on the red crystal. This was the last gift he gave me. If he died, this would be my last memento of him.
Dad was going to die.
Mind foggy and desperate, I sluggishly sat up onto my knees, put the crown on my head and put my hands in front of me in a prayer to any god out there who may or may not exist. To hell with my pride. If there was a wishing fountain around, I'd dump all of my coins in it, even though I know that it would do nothing but be a waste of spare change. Right now, all I wanted to do was get away. I wanted to get away from everything here and just be able to take my mind off of it all for a while. And that's what I was wishing for. Because staying here was too much, and no god out there would agree to magically heal my dad if they didn't do that for others. I decided to just ask for something small.
When I was done with that, I ended it all by slamming my hands into the bed and bowing my head to the empty room, closing my eyes and thinking about how stupid this all was. Why would a god grant a pathetic wish like this? Why aren't I wishing for something like world peace?
My eyes opened, and I immediately noticed there were red shots of what looked like electricity flying across my hands and around my necklace.
Before I could even make a sound, I blinked and the environment around me changed drastically. It was all white. Over me, under me, at all sides of me. How was I even standing? Where was I? How did I get here? Did I pass out again?
I stood there for I'm not sure how long before I noticed a weird figure. I could easily see the outline of their head, torso, arms, legs, and mouth, but nothing else was defined. They were sitting in a nonchalant manner, I think, and I saw how their mouth was moving. How long has their mouth been moving for?
"—still confused. Where are you from? How do you have that stone?"
...Okay, it's either I've gone insane or this is a really vivid dream. This is still really freaky either way. There's this nagging in the back of my mind, saying, 'This is familiar. You should know where you are. You remember this'. It was annoying. Of course I don't know where I am! Why would I?
"Um..." Wow, Cam, what a smart thing to say. "Are you a god? Or goddess?"
The figure sighed and shook their head. "If that's what you want to call me, whatever. Where did you come from?"
"Um, I was in my friend's house, and my necklace started acting all funny," I stuttered out weakly. There's a god. Or goddess. I'll just use 'god'. There's actually a god. Gods exist. Or is there just one? Is this god nice? Are they merciful? This all could very well just be my first lucid dream. I shut my eyes and silently tried to will the scene around me to my birthday party, where Dad was healthy and everyone was happy and there wasn't a single thing worry in the world.
...
...
...Dang. That didn't work.
The god (or just God?) was quiet for a moment, frowning the whole time. "If I don't know who you are, then you're not from this world, are you? I'm still not sure how you got your hands on a stone then, but I digress. Hand me the stone and leave. There's a gate right behind you."
What? I turned around, and there were two grey doors that definitely weren't there before. They were both huge, and they had some strange writing on them. I eventually processed what God had said.
Home?
"Please don't send me home..." I didn't want to wake up yet. I didn't want to have to face the reality just yet that Dad was probably going to die, and I would have to either go live with a blood relative whom I'd never met before or become an orphan and face the chance of never being adopted or being adopted by horrible caretakers. Either way was horrible, and I didn't want to think about it anymore.
God gave a wide, toothy grin, and I involuntarily shuddered.
"Is that so? I could keep you here if that's what you want, but you'd still have to give up the stone."
"My necklace?" I reached behind my neck with shaky hands and unclasped the chain, putting it all into my palm and staring at the red quartz. Why would this dream god be interested in something like this?
"Are you going to go back to your own world? Or stay here in this one?"
Even now, the thoughts in the back of my head that were telling me that this should be familiar were confusing the heck out of me, but I didn't have the time to figure out why my brain was telling me this. Right now, I had to make a decision.
A very easy decision, nonetheless.
"I'm staying," I said. I don't want this dream to end just yet.
God grinned even wider, which I didn't think was possible until now. They got up and walked towards me casually. I actually ended up taking a few steps backward, startled by the silhouette of a being closing in on me until they stopped a few feet away and reached their hand out.
Hesitantly, I put the crystal and chain into their palm and waited for something to happen.
"Have fun."
Abruptly, I felt something gripping onto my arm. I looked down to see a small, black hand was grabbing me, trying to yank me backward. More and more grabbed my skin and clothing, pulling.
"What's going on? Stop!" I turned around to see that the gate was open, and there was a giant silver eye staring at me from within as the hands dragged me closer and closer towards it. I thrashed and kicked and reached out, but God just stood there, watching, grinning that ever-so-big grin of his. I decided right then and there that this god was not a merciful one.
The gate closed.
: Half an Hour Ago :
I woke up with a start. My back ached as I sat up and realized that I had been sleeping on concrete. But why—?
Oh, right. Coma. Dream god. Necklace. Gate.
I took a deep breath to calm myself down and just stayed there for some time before I decided that it was collected enough to get up to see that I was in an alleyway. Lovely; I must look like some kind of street rat. Walking out of the alley, I scanned the area around me. It looked like the sun going to rise soon (or set, for all I knew), and there were a lot fancy looking buildings around with weird metal chimneys or something. There were also a lot of people walking around, talking to each other.
Great. I have no clue as to where I am. I could always just ask someone where I am, though, right?
As I walked around, I noticed how beautiful everything was. By the looks of it, everyone seemed to be really nice and friendly, and the city was just gorgeous. But I easily got lost, and I didn't know where I was, and I was pretty sure that this is the third time I've passed that lamp post. And the whole time, I was trying to figure out how to wake myself up from this stupid dream. None of my ideas worked. With time, I was able to find an outdoor bar with a stool to sit on. Oh, glorious goddess above, how I thank thee for your mercy.
And here we are. It didn't really help much, other than bringing a bunch of questions to mind that I knew probably won't get answered anytime soon. Well, most of the questions anyway. I can answer one of the questions right now. "Hey, Cam, why did you decide to make a deal with a dream god?" Because I'm an idiot. I didn't think that I'd actually get stuck here! I thought it just meant that I would be forced to wake up earlier than I wanted to!
"Are you a traveler?"
I looked up to the person behind the bar. A cute girl was dark skin and pink bangs.
"Yeah, something like that," I responded. "Where are we?"
She flashed me a smile. "You're in Liore right now. Where did you come from?"
Again, alarms went off in my head. 'This is familiar. You should know where you are. You recognize her.'
"Uh," I said, not really having a story made up yet, "I'm not from this country. I came here a few days ago, and now I'm a little lost."
The girl frowned before going back into the kitchen area and coming back with a bowl of stew.
"I thought you might be hungry, so I brought you some food to keep your energy up!"
My stomach growled as I realized how hungry I was. I was about to start eating, but I paused before taking a bite. "I don't have any money."
She casually waved it off. "It's fine. Just eat; you look tired."
I smiled gratefully and dug in. Mid-way through the bowl, I thought it would be polite to ask for a name. "I should at least know the name of my noble savior, right?"
"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself! My name's Rosé."
Click.
The red crystal. The weird god-like being. The gate. The black hands. The silver eye. Weird buildings. Pink bangs. Liore. Stew. Rosé.
Amestris.
This is Amestris.
I am in Amestris.
I am currently having a conversation with a fictional character from freaking Amestris.
When I got out of my stupor and realized Rosé was giving me a concerned look, I shook my head and grinned. "Sorry. I got lost in thought. My name's Campbell."
"Campbell?" she relayed. "That's a weird name. Where were you born?"
Shoot, shoot, shoot. Don't give me engaging questions while I'm in the middle of a crisis! What's the name of a country near Amestris?
"Uh, I was born in Table City, Creta," I said, holding back a nervous laugh.
"Table City? Then it's no wonder why your Amestrian is so perfect. But isn't that all the way on the other side of the country?"
Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. "I, um, left there a long while ago, so I didn't really come here straight from Creta."
A wave of understanding washed over her profile. "Oh, I get it!"
I gave a heavy sigh of relief and continued eating. This situation is so messed up. When I was done, Rosé took the bowl away and I was about to start thinking about how impossible this all is but she came back and started talking to me again.
"You don't have any money, right? Where are you planning on staying tonight? Or are you leaving town?"
I grimaced. "I'm too tired to travel any more today. I think I'll just go find a nice, warm alley to sleep in tonight."
"You can't do that!" she said. "Sleeping outside on concrete isn't good for you, but I don't have any room in my apartment..."
"Really," I reassured, "it's fine. I've slept outside before. I could just find a nice patch of grass somewhere then. I'm sure it won't be too hard."
"I'm not going to allow you to catch a cold while sleeping outside on grass!" Rosé said persistently, and was silent for a bit. Soon after, her face lit up. "I could ask High Priest Cornello if you could stay at the church for the night. I'm sure that he will not turn away a person in need!"
Oh, I had forgotten all about Cornello, the sly son-of-a-dog. Which got me thinking...
"I've never heard about this religion before, and it seems like everyone here is really devoted to this priest of yours. Do you mind teaching me some about this religion while I'm staying here?"
Rosé smiled widely and nodded. "Of course! I have tomorrow off of work, and Father Cornello will always accept and save those willing to convert any time!"
And so I waited for her to clean up the kitchen and we both made our way to the giant temple that is the shrine of the all-powerful sun god Leto. She went ahead to ask if I could stay and came back to lead me to a guest room of sorts, telling me before she left that she could come by with spare clothes tomorrow to see if they fit. Rosé finally left, and I was alone, just me and my thoughts.
Alrighty then. FMA. Not what I was expecting. This is most definitely a dream. But I'm lucid, right? Shouldn't I at least be able to wake myself up? How long do lucid dreams last? Can I sleep within a dream?
I saw a clock on the wall in front of the bed and remembered Lauren, Ms. I-have-a-lucid-dream-every-night, telling me once that in dreams, it's either hard to read a clock or the hour changes every time you look at it.
8:53.
I looked away for a few seconds before turning my head back.
8:54.
...Does that count?
I look away one more time and looked again.
8:54.
...
...This isn't working. I'm not about to call Lauren a liar, but this should definitely be working. So why isn't it working?
Jumping into bed, I decided one again that I needed to figure out a way to wake up. Thinking back on it, I "woke up" in Liore because I gave Truth a philosopher's stone. In that sense, it should be possible for me to give them another one so that I can wake up, right? The thought of returning home to see Dad dead twisted my stomach. Is it really a good idea to be trying to—?
I stopped myself. Of course it is. What if I'm sleeping right now, and Riley and Lauren are worried sick about me back home because I'm not waking up? I can't just abandon my friends!
...Doesn't that mean that I'm in a coma right now? Ugh, I didn't ask for a headache.
But it's easy to talk about getting a philosopher's stone. How in the world was I going to get one? Cornello's stone is going to break once the Elrics' come, and even if I did manage to salvage it before it broke, it might be too weak to offer to Truth. I'd have to get the stone another way, all while trying to make some money so that I don't starve and trying not to die by letting any homunculi get curious about me. I'm not sure what'll happen if I die within a dream, and I'm pretty sure nothing much will happen, but I don't want to risk anything, as silly as it sounds. And if I can feel exhaustion and hunger, then I'm almost positive that I should also be able to feel pain, right?
Oh dear goddess, how am I going to get out of here!?
A/N: So. I know that there are a lot of these kinds of stories out there, but you know what? I'm writing this story anyway.
How was it? Good? Bad? Amazing? Utter trash? Criticism and compliments are always welcome.
I'll continue this if it gets popular enough, I guess.