Kismet

Thirty Five [The Alleyway]

Are you ready?!

Day 3,861

Alleviation; the action or process of making suffering, deficiency or a problem less severe. To make a situation easier to endure; lessen; mitigate. The feeling is associated with the sight of waves upon waves of celestial, ethereal, heart-crushing homesick clouds. As if Harry had closed his eyes only to open them inside of the world's largest bubble, a flimsy shield of opalescent soap so delicate that it could burst if he breathed too enthusiastically. He knows this type of dream, his most perfect reoccurring platform, the only event in his life that had made it worth living until you'd actually manifested in reality.

He's home. He's nostalgic in half a heartbeat, drifting through the haze of a dream so foggy and surreal that it could only have one meaning. He's been here before - not specifically here in this exact scenario - but in this mindset, engulfed by an electric, rainbow sherbet blanket of love and hope. Drowning in heavenly, divine, gossamer threads that weave through his brain over and over again to muffle every negative vibration in his body. He's sucked under by a tidal wave of sentiment so strong that all he can do is prop his shoulder up on the nearest brick wall and draw in the deepest breath he can manage.

Dreams spotlighting you have historically appeared and felt different. They're in a category of their own, neither color nor black-and-white, but rather transcendental and florid. A motley of emotion and a prism of hues, as if he had stepped into the center of the sun but were immune to the heat. Different in the most divine and holy way possible, like walking into a kitchen that smells richly of his favorite meal cooking in the oven or diving head first into a cool body of water after baking in the sprawling sunshine.

He hasn't had a dream about you in half a year, since the coffee shop premonition that eventually led him right to your fingertips. It could possibly be the longest he's gone since he's had a precognitive visit from you in his whole lifetime and he has wondered in the past if his colored dreams involving you as the subject were meant to slow down or maybe even completely stop because he's been graced by your actual presence. Now that he's been stuck away from you and inside of a laboratory for one day shy of three months, he was hoping that the least the universe could do was acquaint him with your hologram for a mere five minutes. And it seems to have delivered.

His skin prickles and he hisses at the painful but gratifying sting, his sight traveling down to his palm to eye the cluster of four warped stars before suctioning his hand to his chest and gripping his heart tightly. He can't believe it. He can't fucking believe that he is going to see you around any corner at any moment now and he is vibrating from each one of his cells and neurons at the anticipation of being in your presence once again. Each time a premonition has occurred since his arrival here he has quickly woken himself up but this time not even a pack of hungry, wild lions could drag him away. This is where he belongs and he's going to keep his feet rooted here until the image of you fades into the obscure dark corners of his brain.

He's become so comfortably accustomed to lucid dreaming over time that he is now aware of his physical body asleep inside of The Cephalo Initiative as well as his mind having traveled to whatever lies ahead for you, his chest filled with a film of giddiness as he prepares to unfold your future one footstep at a time. He has the wherewithal to fill his lungs with a deep, cleansing breath before pushing himself from the wall and taking note of his surroundings; a dark alleyway illuminated by a single, flickering streetlight. It quivers so rapidly that it almost makes him feel sick to his stomach and reminds him of the strobe lights at the warehouse party, his gaze angling down to his toes for an instant of focus and recovery.

The shoes on his feet are ones that he's never worn before. They're blacker than night, patent and shiny and he's seen them before but he can't place exactly where because his mind is too caught up in the prospect of you lingering in the shadows. He paces several footsteps backwards towards the bustle in search of a street sign or a store front that he recognizes, and when he reaches the end of the alley and pokes his head around the corner, he's stuffed to the brim with relief when he sees that he's just a block or so from Pink Moon. He checks the time on the massive clock tower that lies several blocks from where he stands, taking note of it being just after four in the morning and concluding that you must be getting off of work around now.