Dreamworms Book 1: The Advent of Dreamtech by Isaac Petrov (drm ebook reader TXT) 📕

is slippery, easy to lose—short-lived without discipline.”

Edda frowns in confusion at those words, but soon loses interest in Rew. Her eyes wander anew. Ximena feels how those copper-colored pyramids below reclaim Edda’s curiosity.

The scene begins to shake, shrinking and contracting in slow waves of surrealism, as Edda’s mind keeps wandering, sliding further into disorder. The bright daylight and colors of the desert begin to wane.

Edda is about to wake up! Ximena realizes.

“Your dream is ending prematurely,” Rew says. “Do not pierce the barrier. Do ground yourself.”

“Huh?” She barely seems to notice Rew. “What?”

“Do you feel the wind, Redeemed van Dolah?” Rew asks, her voice like a roar over the chaos of waking.

“The wind?” She raises her arms and closes her eyes—the breeze moves the tips of her short, curly hair, and the bottom of her gown. “Yeah, I can feel it.”

“Do you hear the wind?”

“Uh, yes—a whisper.”

“Do spin your body and feel the centrifugal force stretching your limbs.”

She obeys, her gown opening like a flower.

“Do kneel and touch the ground.”

She does so, without questioning. The waving has stopped and the scene is slowly recovering its vividness.

“Do feel the warmth on your fingertips, the dryness, the fine texture of the traces of sand.”

Edda rubs her fingers together and closes her eyes as if embracing the sensation. Then she turns to Rew with sudden realization. “I’m dreaming!”

“You are indeed dreaming, Redeemed van Dolah. You did lose your awareness, but you did also ground yourself in the dreamscape and your awareness has come full circle.”

“Yeah…” she says, fingers still rubbing sand, thinking hard about what just happened. “I knew I was dreaming, and then… Whoa! Totally forgot about it. And I almost woke up!”

“Your deep-mind wants you to forget—but a disciplined high-mind can stay aware. You must train your mind to constantly engage your senses, to ground yourself into the dream—like you just did, with your touch, your hearing, your sight.”

Edda looks around, nodding slowly. Ximena feels her engaging all her senses. She approaches the edge of the rock bridge and kneels down, slowly poking her head out.

“I could jump down—I’d just wake up, yeah?”

“An undisciplined mind would. But with awareness, you simply ground yourself to the sensation. A free fall caters for intense feelings. Go ahead, do jump.”

“Uh, why am I scared? I know it’s just a dream.”

“A disciplined mind would not be afraid, because it is indeed a dream.”

“You’re saying I’m not disciplined, yeah?”

Rew regards her in meaningful silence.

Edda laughs.

And jumps.

The scene in the auditorium hastily follows her fall as she dives headfirst. Ximena and many of her fellow students lean back and gape in vertigo as they feel Edda’s body thrusting through the air into the chasm. Mark is laughing like an adrenaline addict. The wind is loud and moody, pushing Edda unpredictably to the sides, never straight down; growing louder the farther she falls—her face stricken with exhilaration, staring down with a grin on her face. Engaged.

“I’M DREAMING!” she screams.

The fall seems to take forever, and yet, the ground is still far away below her, the dunes of the desert and the rocks around the lower mountains still invisible from the distance.

“May I suggest landing next to a pyramid?” A large albino raven—larger than a real raven could ever be—is diving beside her, the deafening noise of the fall weirdly unable to drown her calm voice.

“Can I fly? Or control the fall?”

“You could. But easier is to simply be there. Traveling in dreams does not require the slow movement through space that you must suffer in the wake—that would make your awareness slip of sheer boredom. Dreams are like tales—they skip the needless bits. Just move this dream to the next… chapter.”

“Like a tale. Oookay…”

An instant later Edda and Rew are standing on the soft sand of the desert.

“So sexy!” Edda says, grinning wildly as her eyes slide over the landscape. The sand is bright yellow and orange, thin as to be almost dust, and hot enough to make the air above dance. A few steps beside their short shadows rises a large pyramid. Well, not large. The Great Pyramid of Giza is large. This pyramid is so… gigantic that the edge of the base gets lost beyond the farthest dunes in the horizon. It looms as high as a mountain. Its texture is metallic, shining golden scarlet under the reddish light of the sun, and yet it feels ancient, decrepit. “What in Goah’s Name is this thing?”

“Do not get lost in the sight. Do mind your awareness.”

“Yeah, I know I’m still dreaming, no worries. As long as I, uh, focus, the dream stays, and I know I’m dreaming, yeah?”

“We name it grounding, the second step of the Path, but… Yeah,” Rew says. “Grounding your senses into the dreamscape—engaging them with purpose to remain aware—that is what shall be put to the test in the second trial.”

“The trial, uh… right. I remember. Only twelve of us will pass to the… third step?”

“Very good, Redeemed van Dolah. Your memory pierces the wake barrier with impeccable precision. You truly are mastering the first step already. Now I shall attack your awareness until you equally master the second step.”

“Attack?!” Ximena feels her sudden anxiety. Edda drops the grains of sand and takes a step back.

“Do not fear, Redeemed van Dolah. It is only your awareness that I shall remove.”

“How?” Her eyes flinch nervously. She takes another step back.

“By willing it,” Rew raises an arm towards Edda, and an invisible wave of… something crashes against Edda’s dream body.

She gasps and then looks around in confusion. Her thoughts are tumbling, mixing in a tornado of chaos. She blinks, sees Rew, and smiles. “Oh, hi.”

An abrupt wave of… something rips across the dream. The desert, pyramids and red sun all cease to exist to be replaced by Edda’s bedroom.

“Oh, pure sin! Sorry, must go,” Edda says, as if she had been in this room for too long. Ximena feels her sudden hurry. She walks to the door. “It’s my turn to take Hans to daycare.”

Rew