My Journey with the Demon King

15 - The First Dream

Zane blinked in nervous surprise. "Wow, okay. I wasn't expecting you to take me up on the offer..." He frowned. "We'll have to do it through dreams though."

"W-what for?"

"Honestly, I'm afraid the way my mind works would just burn yours away."

I flinched a little at that. Part of me desperately wanted to call my words back. Instead I straightened my shoulders and tried to calm down. He laid a warm hand against the side of my face. "I'm doing it through dreams so that it doesn't pose such a risk to you."

I nodded, gulping. "O-okay." He closed his eyes again, whispering softly. I closed my own a few seconds later when blue light began to glow from our marks. I waited, but nothing else happened.

He chuckled softly. "Nothing will happen until we go to sleep. I will warn you though that through the link we have..."

He paused, his face showing how he was struggling to explain. "We will become like one person, in a distant sense. I will be able to read your mind and you mine. But the only contact we will really be able to have is through the dream. This means, that for me at least, you will be looking into my memories, but not just looking. You will be able to feel everything I feel. You will also be able to...sense my thoughts and emotions that I was having at the time. And as such, I will be able to feel you, distantly, through the part of me that is here. I will be able to communicate to you, a little, at least, through that link...I think. I'm not very sure. This is all incredibly complex. Insanely so..."

I gulped again. I could very distinctly sense the distance between our mental capabilities in that moment, so well that I could almost see it. "Okay..." I repeated faintly, trying to stay calm. "Zane, I love you and I trust you."

He flashed a nervous smile. "Thank you for that. Don't worry. Nothing bad will happen to you. Just a crazy amount of confusing things."

I couldn't help but smile at that. He leaned down and kissed me lightly. "I'm going to put the both of us to sleep now, okay, love?" At my nod, he pressed his forehead against mine once more and whispered only one word. "Somnum."

Nearly instantaneously, I felt myself slip into the darkness of exhaustion. I stayed that way for what felt like an eternity, floating in the darkness, before something bizarre happened.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, I could feel what made me...well, me, moving, shifting, and changing. Another presence was abruptly there as well. And then we were melting...merging...

Suddenly, I was Zane and Zane was I. We were ourselves and each other. One and two.

Zane's voice echoed in my mind, only it was my voice as well.

I'm going to show you my past. Well, more accurately my memories. My memories of the world Before, of my life Before. Into my memories we go, love.

It was impossible to nod, so to speak, but I could feel my own sense of assent through Zane.

In our minds, the world and all our senses changed, until I was staring out through the eyes of Zane. We were sitting on a couch, in a room, similar to what I would expect to see in any other home. Only, it was filled with things I had never seen before. Directly in front of me was a large flat object. It wasn't black or grey as I expected from something made of metal. Instead it was bright and colorful, filled with sounds and...people?

I could feel his laughter. It's a TV. Remember, when I told you about it months ago? His voice was the same as before, somehow a bizarre intertwining of ourselves.

Okay, I whispered softly. I'm still confused, but I'll trust you.

Just watch the show, love. It's Sherlock.