Sitting on his bench that night, alone in his dream with nothing but his thoughts, Paul reflected on everything Dittrich had told him about Astralis.
It really did sound too good to be true. Others like him? It made sense—of course he wouldn’t be the only one in the world to have this condition. And he did feel lonely. Isolated. Different. To have other people around him that were going through the same thing would be a balm all on its own. Dittrich was certainly right about that.
The fact that a company as heavily funded as Astralis had been working toward a cure for this problem for decades was a sobering thought. Paul had always just assumed that if he could find a doctor that would lend some time and energy to his problem, a cure would be found. In Paul’s world, as in most high school-aged people’s worlds, there was always a solution to every problem—it was just a matter of finding the right pill to take. Paul was having a tough time getting his mind around the idea that an answer simply wasn’t out there yet.
He leaned forward on the bench, propped his elbows onto his knees and put his head into his hands. He stayed that way until someone sat down beside him.
“Why so glum?” she asked.
Paul looked up into a pair of big, brown, beautiful eyes. It was her—the girl from school.
And she was looking right at him. Directly at him. Here, in his dream.
Noticing him.
His stomach began doing back-flips.
“Uh…”
“I had a feeling about you,” she said with a small smile.
“You… did?” he stammered. He had no idea what to say. He was worried that she would vanish or that he would wake up and not be able to talk to her anymore. This was his best dream ever!
She regarded him with amusement. She looked him up and down, her small smile remaining place, as if measuring him. He imagined that he probably looked terrified. And he was—he was terrified that she’d never show up in his dream again.
She gave a little shake of her head and said, “You don’t even know where you are, do you.”
Not a question. A statement.
She was less than a foot from him, so close he could feel the heat of her body.