//------------------------------// // Forgotten Dreams // Story: The Last Dreamer // by Mlpfimguy //------------------------------// Chapter 4 Forgotten Dreams I jolted myself awake. Man, I hated those types of dreams. You know, the type of dream where you feel like you are falling? Those types of dreams rarely happened to me, and so it shocked me. The thing that really jumped me, however, was the fact that when I opened my eyes, the doctor was above me and was staring at me. ''Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't scare you did I?" "No! Of course not!" I thought to myself." I just jumped twice in a row, and I swear my heart felt like it was about to stop! But noooo..... of course he didn't scare me!" "Uh, well anyway, I have something to show you." He said. "Here we go..." I thought to myself. He walked up to a desk and picked up a folder sitting on it. "Right here I have-" Riiing! "Ugh, sorry, just a second, the phone..." Riiing! He threw the folder back on the desk and headed to the phone. "Hmm, I don't know this number..." he thought for a second. Riiing! "Oh right, your parents!" he said. "Leave it!" "What? But they're your parents..." Riiing! "I don't care," I said. "Just leave it." "Okay..." he let the phone ring until it became silent. "You really should give them a chance. Maybe they can explain." "They have nothing to say; they proven everything already, they said it all yesterday. My mother trusts a stranger over me, and my father is too stupid to get out of work to come see me at the hospital. As I said, they have no way to justify what they've done. Now, what were you saying before the phone call?" "Right. Last night, while you were asleep, I took a few x-rays of this tumour of yours," he searched his folder and pulled out a picture. "This picture was taken about five minutes after you fell asleep." He passed me an x-rayed picture of my chest with a neatly drawn red circle at one specific part. "Now, inside the circle is-" he started. "I know what it is!" "Yeah..." There was a short pause, before he continued. "Now here is a picture of the same tumour fifteen minutes after you fell asleep. He searched through the folder some more before pulling out another picture and passing it to me. The picture looked the same, for the most part, except for one detail. The same tumour had grown significantly in size. "My theory," said my doctor. " Is that the more you are asleep, the more this tumour grows. I am assuming this because this is practically the exact thing that happened yesterday when you were very still, and I thought I had lost you. So I have reason to believe that these 'dreams' that you have are connected in some way with the tumour." "Great, that's good for you. You apparently have all the proof you need, so why have you not started the procedure yet? Can't you remove it?" "Yes, removing it would be easy enough to do, but the problem is that I need to know the main thing that causes the dreams to start. I don't want to guess and risk putting you in danger." "What do you want to know." "Why don't you just tell me the last thing you remember in your dream before waking up?" ''Uh...'' ''Never mind, ignore that question. Just in general, what do you remember about your dream?'' he asked. ''I woke up hungry...'' ''Hungry. Good, good! Keep going.'' ''I had no food available to eat, so I had to go shopping. On the way, I met... Lightning, he offered to buy me breakfast at a restaurant.'' ''Lightning is the one with the accent?'' ''Yeah... ever since the day I met h...hey! How do you know that?'' I asked. ''You told me about him already. He seems nice.'' ''Oh, did I? Well anyway, he chose to go shopping with me, then dropped me off at my place.'' ''Is there anything going on between you two?'' ''Uh, ew?'' ''Good, that makes things a bit easier.'' ''What?'' ''Keep going.'' ''Right... so then I went to Twilight's house, and she told me that she would do some research on the weird dr... ow!'' ''The weird what?'' ''I... don't know...'' ''I'm pretty sure you said 'the weird dreams'.'' ''Oh, did I?'' ''Keep going.'' ''Well, there was not much after that. I met Rainbow Dash, then went over to Applejack's for a drinking competition. I lost I think... then I passed out. After that I saw... wait! That's why it felt like I was falling down when I woke up.'' ''What did you see after that?'' ''Nothing, that's it.'' ''Are you sure? It seemed like you were going to tell me what you saw after you pass out.'' ''Uh, no... no I don't think so, it seems like your not the best at remembering things, which is odd considering you're a doctor, and you should not be forgetting things this often.'' ''Okay.'' he let out a sigh. ''Are you sure that's all you remember?'' ''Yes, that's pretty much it.'' ''All right, in that case I will ask you a few questions about your friends. Tell me about this Twilight character of yours. Who is she?'' ''She's the town's librarian. There are also rumours that she is the personal student of Princess Celestia.'' ''And you went up to her to ask about your dreams, right? Now my real question is this. Why would you go to her to ask her about your dreams?'' ''Dreams? Oh yeah! I guess I had dreams in my dreams, and those dreams were stressing out my daily life there. Dream-Ception, much? I think another reason I went to her is because I trusted those rumours about her, and realized that if there was anyone who could help me, it would be Twilight.'' ''And tell me about the dreams within your dreams. What were they about?'' ''Oh boy, we're going big here... um... I... oh, I don't know. Thinking is giving me a headache!'' ''Did you tell Twilight about your dream?'' ''I, uh... yeah... yes I did.'' ''Good, now try to remember, what did you tell her? Think as hard as you can. Picture yourself back in your dream. You are in her house, you told Twilight, and she asked you what your dreams were about. What do you say?'' ''I told her something like... yeah, it always continues at the same place as the night before... I said it's... always in some horrible hospital and... there is a docto- Holy shit!'' ''I know...'' ''But how could I have been having those dreams, in my dreams?! I thought that my dreams were real and that the dream, that's not really a dream, that I'm living now is... my brain hurts!'' ''Calm down! I know... reality is leaking into your dreams. Let's not think about it for now any more. Did Twilight find anything out?'' ''Nothing.'' ''Good, let talk a bit about Lightning now.'' ''Lightning is a friend of mine that I've had for years. He often stops by my house at random hours where I'm unprepared and sees me for completely random reasons.'' ''What I find interesting is the use of the present tense in your sentence. It's almost as if you are saying that your friend comes and visits you every day.'' ''Like I said, they seem like realistic memories.'' ''Yeah, but you speak about these 'memories' as if they are an actual part of your life." He said. There was a long minute of silence in the room. I was closely examining the doctor; I knew something was not right. His head was hanging lower than usual, and he looked like he was in deep thought. Finally, he lifted his head up, turned to me and spoke. ''I'm very sorry, there is no way to approach this subject nicely.'' ''Tell me, what is it?'' ''I'm pretty sure you know what I am going to ask you.'' ''It doesn't matter, ask me it anyway.'' ''This world of yours...'' he took a pause and thought carefully about the words he was about to say. ''Would you be willing to let go of this fantasy world to save your life?'' I was expecting the question for a while now, but him actually saying it caught me off guard. ''I... I don't know...'' ''I know what you are thinking right now. Getting rid of this world that you've grown so attached to, is like removing a big part of you. However, if I leave you to your dreams, then you'll just keep on getting worse... I hate to say this, I really do, but at the rate this is going, I don't expect you to have much more than a month left. It saddens me greatly in a way, but at the same time, it makes me happy that I'll... uh, that I'll know you'll be fine.'' I was instantly faced with a big, life-changing decision. If I chose to keep this world, then I would have grown weaker every day until the cancer got so big that it would kill me, but if I had removed it, then I would have never seen my wonderful friends again. This whole life that I had grown so used to and worked so hard to achieve would be gone forever. It was a really hard decision, but it was better than dying. ''I accept.'' ''Great! You'll be given a series of five treatments over the next few days that will target different aspects of your dream world. However, first I need you to think. Really think. Is there anything else that you remember from your dream? Anything at all?'' ''No, uh wait... come to think about it, Lightning did lose his accent at one point.'' ''Oh, uh... that's strange, but that's not exactly what I meant. It's probably just your subconscious playing tricks on you. The best would be to ignore him for now.'' ''Maybe... oh my gosh! The light!'' ''Light?'' ''Yes! There is this weird light in all of my dreams. Just after I fall asleep and right before I wake up... I go to... no! You see; I fall asleep, and I feel like I'm getting pulled... yes! No... I...'' ''Keep going, concentrate hard on it! If you forget about it, you probably won't remember it again! Just like earlier when you had trouble remembering!'' ''I'm getting pulled by this... light and... then as I get closer to this light, I... ouch! This hurts! Why does it hurt trying to remember?'' ''Because you were never supposed to remember this, yet you are trying to remember an otherwise inaccessible memory. Keep going!'' ''The... light! I get closer and... I-I see it! I go up to this window-ish thing and it has a picture of my bedroom in the dream and I ugh! I don't know; I go to it and. Ugh! This hurts, it freaking hurts! I give up!'' I breathe heavily for a few minutes. ''That information will do well for now." "So what does this mean for me?" I asked. "What's the next step going to be?" "It won't be any different than what I said," he replied. "This treatment is going to be set to target the light that starts the dream. What I hope it will do is make it more difficult to pass through the 'window', as you call it. It will also try to resist you from being pulled, so that you may examine your surroundings with much more ease. Finally, it should help you to remember more of your dream. Now I shall go and get this treatment ready for you. I have the equipment needed down here, so it should be done within the hour. In the meantime, is there anything I can get you, like food or something?'' "How about moving me to a better room?" I asked. "I would have maybe allowed you to go back because of good behaviour, but now that I more-or-less know what this is, it is no longer possible." He explained. "Besides, I'm not even sure that I would move you back if I could. You've tried to escape, and I have found you passed out on the floor in the middle of the hospital room. I fear that if I put you back, you would just attempt to escape again." "That reminds me..." I lifted an eyebrow with curiosity. "Tell me about this place here. Why do you have it, what is it used for and why is it in the condition that it is currently in?" His eyes widened in surprise at the question and thought about his answer for a second. "This place is in its current condition because it is not used very often." "I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it." I replied impatiently. "Well, what do you want me to say? I gave you the answer." "While I don't entirely doubt that it's one of the reasons, I can't help feeling that there's more..." "You should not base your arguments on 'feelings' you may have." He gave me a quizzing look. "Go on though, give me your theories and arguments on your reasoning." "Well, if this place is hardly used, why would you put the most expensive equipment down here? You said it yourself, that the things needed to get the treatments done were down here. Not to mention the fact that you just said it was one of the reasons that I could not go back to my previous hospital room." "That's actually a good point Évalière. No, you're actually right though, there is something more. The reason as to why the machines are actually down here is a longer story though. It basically involves the fact that ponies did not like them because they were much too advanced for back when they were made. The machines had a very high success rate of 89.7% of curing the certain disease that the patients had. Rumours began to form about the machines saying that they were too good to be true. Due to popular demand, we told the public that we had taken the machines away, but in reality, we just hid them down here. I don't consider it much of a bad thing though. "Why are you trusting me with this information?" I asked the doctor. "You probably would have tried to find out anyway." "True." There was a short time where we did not say a word. The doctor was staring at a clipboard, and I was thinking about what I had just been told. "So, am I going to be treated with this machine then?" I asked him. "Oh, haha! No! That would be most inefficient. You can't just zap away cancer with the machine you, know! Goodness, if it were that simple, people would not still be d-... The thing that you must understand is that your cancer is different from the most, and I think... I hope, you know that by now." "So... I'm, not going to be treated by this machine?" "Nope." "All-right." "Not that one at least." "Ah." "Yup." "This puts me all the way back to square one." I told him in a slightly more annoyed tone. "This machine, is there any known side effects?" "Up until now, there has never been an unsuccessful attempt. It also has no known side effects." "I'm the first one to try it aren't I?" "Yes. Well, not exactly... A few years ago there was a girl who had a similar problem as you." "What do you mean? This girl had dreams about an alternate life? "Um, well, sort of like that. She was a strong, confident girl and had a strong mind. She had a bit of a temper at times too, but she never gave up..." "So, what happened to her?" I noticed a small tear in his eye; it slowly grew and slid down his cheek. After a short pause, he spoke. "What do you think happened to her?! Every day! Unable to do anything to help her! Every day watching her die a bit more inside! What started off as completely unnoticeable, got more visible every day. Here mane fell off from so many treatments and she became visibly weaker. She had times when she had intense pain that came and then went away. The pain was so intense she said that she would never wish that pain onto anyone, not even her worst enemy! That'll tell you. She went from looking perfectly healthy to being hardly more than skin and weak bones. There was a long pause. The doctor tried to speak, but no words came out. He tried to let go of some of his pain before carrying forward with his story. "On one of her unavoidable concluding days before her death... she knew, I think... she had a feeling that something was not right. She softly called out for a doctor. I was the closest one to where she was staying at the time. It was hard on us all and I did not want to see her in her condition. I honestly wanted another doctor to see her, but I wanted to show some respect to her in her final days before she went." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I heard her soft words and the pain hidden behind them. I slowly walked up to the door and placed my hoof on the cold doorknob. I hesitated to turn it, but I had a better plan. I would play along, hide the truth and show no sign that anything was wrong. I shakily turned the doorknob and open the door while slowly trying to straighten my posture and force myself to stop shaking so much. She was in one of the worst states she would ever be in. She was weak in life and trying to make the least amount of movement as possible to prevent much further pain. "I..." I coughed to clear my throat. "I heard you calling for a doctor, is everything all right?" "I don't know, doctor... is it?" she coughed, causing her whole body to twitch and grabbing her chest in pain. She started to cry softly. "I..." I was at a loss for words. Nothing that I could say seemed like it would help. "Just tell me this, and please... don't hide anything from me... I'm not going to make it, am I?" "Don't think like that! You don't know for sure." "But I know that you do, doctor... please... don't hide anything from me am I going to make it?" I was holding back tears. My mind was flooded with things and ideas of what I could say. I could have told her the truth, and if I had told her the truth, she would have lived her last days with fear and misery, but if I had lied to her, she might have lived them with hope and happiness, but only false hope. I mentally kicked myself for the decision I had made, but her wish was to know the truth, so I decided to do that. Tears fell down my cheek as I told her. "I'm so sorry! There was nothing we could do, we tried everything that we could! We just did not know how to tell you. As a hospital, we can give you anything, tell me something that you've always wanted to do in your life and then we will try our best to make it a reality." "Thanks for telling me the truth, I really appreciate it... I kind of figured it would be that way. All I really want is a promise." "Anything." "Nopony deserves to go through the pain that I have to go though. All I want you to promise me is that you will never let another victim with this same thing... die. Focus your research on cancer, if you could. I know that my case is very strange... but... you know... Thank you, if it weren't for your care, I would probably not even be here any more. My dream friends did play a part though. I'll say good-bye to them for you." "Thank you..." She reached for me, and we met each other in a small hug. All the tears that I was previously trying to hold in broke through, she started to cry as well. "I'm counting on you, doctor. Thank you for coming to see me, everyone around here has been trying to avoid seeing me, but you still came to me. You are different from the other doctors, a great inspiration and most of all, a good friend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "She was such a nice, generous young girl... The next day I talked it over with the staff as to what we could do for her. We sent her and her family to a beach and a few days later, she died happily in the hooves of her family. One of the most peaceful deaths we could have given her." I was at a loss for words, that was a heartbreaking story. That must have been torture to go through, this story could have also been one of the reasons as to why he was so desperate to get information out of me yesterday. I chose to stay silent for a while. "At first, I was mad and avoid conversation whenever I could. I started blaming myself for not being able to do the task of saving a girl's life. We hardly had any patients back then so it was a big deal for me. The other doctors seemed to understand what I was feeling and gave me my space, I must have been unbearable to put up with. A few days later, I remembered the promise I had made her, and I realised that my grumpy attitude, avoiding people and treating people like garbage was not something that she wanted me to do. I studied for quite a bit on my free time and poured myself into my research, analysing all the information that I had gotten off of the patient. I then built a machine with complex mechanics to help me further analyze the cancer and stop. It would have theoretically worked on her, and it would work on you. Unfortunately, I hit a dead end in an area I had not even begun to consider at the time. Can you guess the part that I had forgotten about?" "The dreams?" "Bingo," he replied. "So basically what you are trying to tell me is that without this information, the machine is useless?" " 'Basically', the machine can't do anything while the cancer is fully active, which is why we have to slowly kill parts of it one-by-one. After that, there should be no problems with it removing what remains." "So you've explained to me a bit about the treatments, but after that, what 'exactly' does this machine do?" "It will absorb your dream... Shit!" "What?" "Sorry, it will take your already dead dream it, kill what parts of it may have survived, then remove what's left. I'm going to get this treatment prepared now. I shall be back within the hour." "Um... okay?" The doctor left the room in a hurry, leaving a confused and curious me behind. After so long, everything started to become boring... I should have asked the doctor for some sort of entertainment when he offered. I didn't dare to go to sleep after the story he had told me in fear that it would do more harm than good. For the longest time, nothing happened until the doctor came back smiling. He was happy... too happy. My eyes slowly drifted down to see what he was holding. To my surprise, in his hooves was a very sharp and long-ass needle! I HATED needles back then, and I still do! The fear came when I was still in school. The idea of having a needle put into my hoof wasn't the most pleasant. I tried everything to avoid it; I let everyone pass me in the line, attempted to escape twice. They finally convinced me to take it by forcing me down and holding a funny picture to make me laugh. When the time came to put the needle in, she slowly inserted the needle close to my shoulder then pressed the button down. I was screaming at this point, then she proceeds to turn to the desk, leaving the damned needle in there, to pick up some papers before finally removing it. She took it out and slapped a fluff-ball with tape on the spot she had basically ripped. This situation with the doctor was not any more reassuring, so I spoke. "The buck is that?!" "Oh, it's a needle." "I can see it's a needle! What are you going to do, fight off an army with that thing? Surely you're not thinking of shoving that thing inside of me?!" You may now write all your naughty jokes on a piece of paper, fold it up and keep in your pocket forever, you glimmering genius. But in all honesty, that thing was huge (-_-) and with my fear of ordinary needles, and this one being 5 times as big, you can tell why I was afraid! "Oh, come on, you're just exaggerating. It's not that bad..." "Not that bad, what? Are you crazy?!" "Look-" "I am! That's why I'm freaking out!" "Okay, then listen to me for a second," he told me. " The faster you cooperate, the faster this will be over." "Like I haven't heard that one before! I wasn't born yesterday you know?" "Just loosen up your muscles, it will hurt less." He walked over to me. "What are you doing? I'm not going to let you do this!" He grabbed my hoof and attempted to put in the needle, but I pulled it away at full force. "You know the alternative..." "Ugh, fine!" He tried to put the needle back into my muscle again, but I pulled it back again, almost causing the doctor to drop it. "Sorry... I just need to go to the wash-room." "Fine, but I'm coming with you just in case you feel the need to escape again." "What?! No! I am fully capable of going on my own!" "I'm not going INTO the bathroom with you, I'm escorting you, also to lend you a shoulder in case you feel like you're going to collapse." One minute later, there we were in the hallway. I was trying my best to stand up strait to not look weak. After I did my business, we started walking back. On our way back to the room, I heard a noise coming from the other end of the hallway in one of the rooms, but that wasn't really important. What was, was the fact that we were back at phase one. We stared at each other for a while without saying a word. we both knew that this would be complicated for the other. Unfortunately, we both know I was the better adversary. Vs. Doctor (boss battle) 3! 2! 1! FIGHT! "We're not going to do this again, are we?" "I'm not getting that needle inside of me! Is there not a smaller one or something?" I asked in worry. "No, this is the full, first treatment. It cannot get any smaller than it currently is." "FIRST?! As in there's more! No! We're not doing this!" "There's the easy way or the hard way, one of them hurts more." "I dare you to try!" I yelled. The doctor started to come with his special plan of attack. He charged by running to the side of the bed and grabbed my arm tightly. In a very anti-climactic turn of events, I realised that I was weak and had hardly any means to attack. However, I still had a few brilliant tricks up my sleeve. In no way could these fail. "I need to use the bathroom again!! For a very long time!" "My flank! Keep your flank still!" "I'll bite you!" I then tried to grab his arm, which he pulled away hurriedly. He then went to the drawer and grabbed some black thing. Curse me for being near-sighted because I had realised too late that it was tape! He took a long piece and attempted to to put it over my mouth. He then proceeded to hold down my left hoof with a strap. "Like I said! This area is used to keep escaping patients restrained. I'm prepared for every possible thing that you could throw at me." "hrugh hruh wuu hu wruhugh..." "I'm sorry, what?" He removed the tape from my mouth. "... so I still have my right arm!" I then tried to push him away to no avail. He then grabbed the arm and slowly approached the needle to my skin. "Nooo!!! Please stop! Wait!" I yelled in horror. "Just try to relax your muscle. Like I said, there's the easy way and the hard way. It probably won't hurt as much if you soften up your muscle, it allows the needle to get in easier." I gave up and closed my eyes. "I don't even care any more... just get it over with." "It's all ready done." He replied. I opened my eyes to see the doctor put a fluff-ball in a smiley face band-aid before placing it on me. "Oh... well this all went better than expected." "It'll take about an hour before the treatment takes effect. Try not to fall asleep before then." "I won't try to." I replied. "Good, in the meantime is there anything I can get you?" "Just some food and something to do." "I can get you some paper and crayon?" "Sure..." Thirty minutes later he finally showed up again. He brought me a nice salad and some paper. After I had eaten, I chose to put my creative mind to the test for the last little bit I had to wait. I then came up with this MASTERPIECE. "Hey doctor. You see this? this is art." I showed him the picture I had drew. "Oh... that's... that's great! Clearly art of this level must be shown to the world." He then proceeded to hang it up on the wall. "I think it's been about an hour by now. You may go to sleep now if you want." "All right, I think I will." ''I must remind you though that you will still have this dream of yours, but I want you to do two things. Firstly, I want you to closely examine Twilight and Lightning for me and tell me what they do. The other thing I want you to do is examine this light of yours as much as you can. If you can manage to do these two things, it will help the process immensely." "I'll try my best." End of chapter 4