One ~ Elana
Buzzing. My head is buzzing. Darkness. I looked around—an empty void. Absolute nothingness. Here he is again, looking at something across from him. This time, he was sitting on the ground. I found myself walking toward him. Slowly, everything around us took shape. I felt my feet walking on something light. I looked down. It was sand.
As my eyes drifted back up, he was still sitting, but not on the sand. The sea glowed like molten glass, even in the night light. The moon shone over the clear water, lighting everything around it.
Is that a cove? Where am I?
I didn’t waste time looking around. My eyes found him again. Still sitting on that beach, he looked relaxed. Even though I could only see his back, somehow he still looked calm.
I stepped closer. This is new. Something was glowing on his arm. Slightly visible threads curled across his left arm, wrapping over his skin and ending at his ring finger, glowing like flaming fire. It didn’t look painful. It looked like a tattoo beneath his flesh. I felt like I should panic, but the closer I got, the more peaceful I became.
My eyes drifted down to my own left arm. An identical tattoo spread across my skin, but mine was dark—absolute darkness—ending with the same curl over my ring finger. I felt his body stand and move toward mine.
My eyes slowly raised. The moonlight still hadn’t shown him clearly, yet this time I was able to see a little more. Tall, muscular body... dark curls and something else I—
I heard myself trying to speak. His name was right on my tongue. Him getting closer, me feeling calmer and—
A loud noise came from my phone on the nightstand, vibrating hard against the glass surface, almost making me jump out of bed. I lazily slammed my hand over the phone to stop the alarm. I was lying on my stomach, my face fully buried in the pillow. I was always a heavy sleeper. Even that annoying alarm only woke me up after buzzing for a full ten minutes.
That was confirmed by Valeria’s screaming voice.
I finally woke up enough to sit up when a loud knock on the wooden window startled me. I cringed, already knowing the person behind it.
“What!” I yelled, moving my hair off my face.
Another loud knock came, annoying me even more. I went to the window, opening it swiftly in the middle of yet another knock.
“What?!”
“If you don’t change that fucked up alarm tone of yours, I will punch you! You woke me up early for no reason!” Valeria said, looking annoyed, her hair up in a messy bun and her long curtain bangs flying everywhere.
I looked over at her house, then back at her. She had walked out of her room and climbed the back stairs to get to mine—the house next to hers—just to say that nonsense.
“My alarm is not that loud to keep doing that!” I pointed at her standing on the outside balcony of my room.
“It’s not loud, but your fucking mind woke me up!” she said, pushing me aside to get in. I sighed as she let herself flop onto my bed.
“Stop getting in, then.” I shoved her lightly and laid back down.
“Elana, as fun as it is being your best friend and also sharing a mind bond, waking up through the bond is so fucking annoying!”
I looked at her, thinking.
We had been friends since we were toddlers. Our parents had been friends since they were teenagers. We grew up together like sisters, both sets of parents having us later in life, already in their forties, leaving us with huge age gaps between us and our siblings. Me and Valeria bonded over it.
I mean, why wouldn’t we?
In this world, where our true selves are hidden from mundane humans, turning eighteen and entering college means officially being introduced to the Astral world. I was told stories by my grandparents about how almost identical both worlds are, except the Astral one has more magical aspects, making the impossible simply possible there.
Valeria and I shared more than just a similar upbringing. I remember on our fourth birthday, Aunt Erika—her mother—figured out that we might share a passive bond. It was rare between friends, but possible. Mum once told me I carried her passive power genes, and because Valeria had a strong passive ability, she was able to unlock it for me.
Since that day, we’ve been mind-bond, sharing access to each other’s minds. It’s strange how she’s the only person I’ve ever been able to use my passive powers with.
“Now you’re blocking it,” Valeria said, resting on her side facing me.
“I was thinking about how weird all of this is.” I looked up at the ceiling, breathing deeply.
“I was reading about bondings before I slept. What we have is rare.” She mimicked my position and sighed loudly.
“Why are you being so dramatic at ten in the morning? Same dream?”
I nodded.
“The weird thing is waking me up through the bond every time.”
“I don’t know, but it gives more details each time. And even though I feel calm and safe in it, my mind starts panicking, waking me up every time I get close to him.”
“We must know that guy... or you just need to get laid.”
“It’s not a sex dream!” She laughed.
“Then why are you blocking me from seeing it? We’ve shared dreams before.”
“It wasn’t regular dreams. It was your grandpa’s gift!”
“It was a great birthday!”
I agreed with her. Her grandfather is a dream master. Dr. Dean Matsumoto, in the mundane world, is a psychiatrist—a very well-known one. He owns psychiatric hospitals all across the US. And in the Astral world, he’s a dream master. Just like we were told, both worlds mirror each other. He mastered psychiatry in one world and weaving dreams as a method of treatment in the other.
Two years ago, he gifted us a series of dreams we could navigate together using our mind bond. It was such a cool gift.
“What happened this time?”
I was almost tired of explaining it. For the past year, I’d been dreaming about some guy in a void of darkness. Each dream unlocked a new piece. It started with just darkness, then a guy sitting on the ground. Then a sea breeze rushed through, carrying a salty fresh smell mixed with man perfume. For the last three dreams, the scene fully unlocked—a beach at night with crystal clear water and huge stones scattered through it.
It took me two weeks to figure out where the beach was.
It was Arco Magno in Italy.
“I got closer to him... you have to see it.”
I reached for her hand. She learned that trick from her grandpa. Strong passive genes ran through her family, making them one of the few families able to use their powers in the mundane world. Unlike people like me and my family, where active powers are the dominant genes, almost blocking passive abilities from appearing in the mundane world.
At least until we go to college.
We closed our eyes. A few seconds later, she was inside my mind, rewatching the dream. I saw her standing beside my dream self, reliving what I had seen minutes ago.
The loud alarm hit our ears, and we both opened our eyes, breaking our hand grasp.
“What the hell was that?” Valeria asked, fully sitting up.
“I don’t know. You felt it too, right?”
We locked eyes, both silently agreeing on the same thought.
“That wasn’t a dream.”
