New York City - Nemo's House
Eating silently at the table, his parents had been talking to themselves for the majority of the dinner about their days, from his fathers meetings to who his mother had met at the grocery stand. As he poked around at his food, his mother saw this.
"Nemo, you haven't barely touched your dinner. Are you feeling alright? Are you coming down with a cold or the flu? I could set up an appointment with the doctor to have him see you."
"No, no... I've just been a bit preoccupied today. A lot of things going on..."
"Hopefully that might have something to do with your grades getting better," said his father, never mincing words with Nemo. Putting the fork down, Nemo tried to calm himself.
"Don't worry about it, dad. I'm working hard as of lately. You don't need to keep an open eye on everything I do."
"Maybe I should be watching you more closely. Your attention hasn't been focused. When I was your age, I was already preparing to look for a job before I even was outside of high school. I am where I am because of diligence, Nemo. That is something you need to work on, instead of always having your head up in the air."
"Is there a problem with that?"
"When it gets in the way of your academics, than yes... You haven't been caring about what's going on in your education. No university will give you a chance of being accepted in. What will you do then? Become a sailor? Work in the industry? You're far better than that, Nemo."
"Maybe I want to do something with my life that makes me happy! I don't know yet what is out there for me, but being what you want me to be doesn't make me happy!"
"And how do you explain that to your family when you have trouble putting food on the table and paying the bills?"
Getting up hastily, he placed his plate in the sink, and then walking away to his bedroom. As he heard his mother and father beginning to argue, he closed the door behind him, opening up one of his books and began writing in it. For the last few months, it had given him some peace to just write.
Sometimes, if his muse was dead, he would just write randomly, but since the dream, he had been focusing on what had happened. After it had occurred, Icarus had told him of the same thing, which meant to Nemo that perhaps we was reentering Slumberland again. Yet, the voice still confused him. He had never heard of it before, and the last time one of the dreams popped up, Professor Genius had come to him.
He was trying to investigate an area that he didn't know how to enter on his own, and even when he was there, much of it didn't make sense. All he knew was that the dream hadn't been a nightmare. He was definite that the Nightmare King was gone for good. So, was it perhaps someone else trying to reach him?
He had remembered during one of his English lessons of reading up on an English poet. by the name of Samuel Coleridge. There had been a quote he had given that seemed to fit in what was happening:
“What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?”
Was this what he needed to do? To go into the dream world and find Slumberland and prove that it was real? As his eyes began to close once more, his head hit the desk and began to snore softly, no longer a trouble in his world.