Dream

Chapter 16

'So, which one's real?' Said Daisy as we stood up. I had fallen to the floor with my head only millimetres away from the altar.

'Which one do you think is real?' I asked.

'Oh, god, no, don't do that now!' She moaned.

'Do what?'

'Just tell me which one's real!'

'I don't know which one's real, I just think I might know!' I said. 'But, tell me what you think. Just so I can see it from another perspective.'

Daisy sighed. 'Well, I definitely don't know.' But, from the look I gave her, she continued. 'The other one.'

'And why do you think that?'

'Because here, they have creepy mind-controlled weirdos with 24-carat gold! That doesn't happen in reality - the hypnotism, I mean. But we saw that ship crash land. There's a reason behind everything that happened in the other place - but there isn't one for here. Like, how come the people broke out of that trance when we reached the church? They aren't vampires, vampires don't exist, so why would a place of worship affect them? And, we learn about things like this. Slitheen and Daleks exist. Hypnotism doesn't.'

'You're right.'

'Really?' Daisy looked genuinely stunned.

'Course you are!' I said. 'Hypnotism doesn't exist. Daleks and Slitheen do. Vampires don't exist, either. We saw the ship crash into the SGTS. And hypnotism doesn't happen in reality. We don't get 24-carat gold jewellery, either.'

'So, now we have to kill ourselves?' Said Daisy.

'Nope.'

She looked confused again. 'What?'

'This is the real world.'

'But you said...'

'I didn't says you were right about the world, I said you were right about the other things that you said.'

'Then... How can this be real?'

'Well, it's simple really. You said that the hypnotised people stopped following us when we reached the church. Right?'

'Well, yeah.'

'Wrong.' I said. 'They stopped following us when they couldn't see us. Something about us not having necklaces set it of, and once they couldn't see people without necklaces anymore, they snapped out of their daze.'

'But hypnotism doesn't exist...'

'I'll get to that part. Now, in the other world, we met a Dalek in the form of a human, and three Slitheen wearing human skins. That's four human faces and bodies that we saw. Four human bodies and faces that we had never seen before then. Right?'

'Yes...' Said Daisy uncertainly.

'Well, here, we've seen about fifty faces that we've never seen before.'

'So?'

'Oh, God, it's just so obvious!' I exclaimed. 'The human mind can do many things, Daisy, but one thing it can't do is invent human faces. The faces you see in your dreams are those of the people that you have seen before. Faces from a crowd that you think you've forgotten, but haven't. But we've never been in crowds before.'

'So?' Daisy said again. 'We've seen faces in both worlds that we've never seen before. Doesn't that mean that they're both realities?'

'Nope!' I said, jumping up onto the platform behind the altar. 'You've forgotten something - this is a stimulator. The stimulator generates the images of people, so we can see people we've never actually seen. There's no explanation as to why we could see faces we've never seen before in the other world, unless it were real.'

'But, you said this world was real.'

'I think it is.'

'But, you just said that this could be a dream!'

'I know.'

'Don't do that.' Said Daisy, rolling her eyes.

'Do what?'

'Assume I understand you! I really don't!'

I sighed.

'I told you. I don't completely know. There's contradictory evidence for each side. Let's assume for a moment that the other world is real. That Dalek was looking for The Commander. He genuinely needed to see him. So, an educated guess tells me that The Commander was not in touch with the Daleks - and we know that he couldn't be, anyway, from that brief History lesson. His allegiance lies with the SGTS. If The Commander didn't help the Dalek, or the Slitheen, onto the ship, then the shields would have been up. They wouldn't be able to find us, in reality - only in a dream. And, only in a nightmare would the SGTS be destroyed.'

'But what about the faces thing?'

'I wish I knew.' I said quietly. 'But, the longer we spend here, or there - whichever the dream is - the closer we become to the dream world. We'll become attached - and the decision will have been made for us.'

Silence fell as she took in what I had just said.

'So, if we don't choose soon, we'll be stuck?'

'That's why I think we should hurry up and die.' I said. 'Before we end up separated into separate worlds.'