Sweet Dreams

He falls and falls. He’s been falling for a long time, actually. So long he can’t remember when it was that gravity started pulling him down. Hell, he can’t even remember how it started doing so, in the first place. All he recalls is the panic of feeling himself slip, the way his stomach dropped and braced itself for the impact.

He’s pretty bored, now. No fear, no adrenaline. His body’s gotten used to the absence of ground under his feet. He craves for some company. No one’s around, though. He’ll soon fall asleep mid-fall. What a sad way of crashing back into reality.

His eyelids start feeling heavy. He’s almost in dreamland when a voice rings through the air, startling him back awake. There’s a person falling right next to him. Well, not really falling. While he’s an uncoordinated mass of limbs spinning without control, the stranger just… sort of floats downstairs from the sky. Or at least keeps himself straight.

It’s a tan boy. He looks taller than him, though he can’t be sure without a solid surface nearby. He feels familiar.

-Hey!- he calls again. That must’ve been what woke him. The boy grins and extends a hand. He wonders briefly if he’s stupid. He’s falling. Upside down. There’s no way he can shake that hand. So he settles for a wave before spinning again.

The stranger introduces himself. –Tai- he says. He doesn’t try the handshake again. Dae tells him his name, too. An awkward silence follows.

It stays for a couple of minutes, until Tai breaks it, bombarding him with questions.

They fall and fall together, broken conversation hanging between them, because Dae still hasn't got the hand of this whole rollercoaster and talking at the same time thingy, and it's difficult, especially when there are little clouds waiting in the air for him to swallow when he's not paying attention, effectively making him choke a few times.

How embarrassing.

At soon point he deems it safer to hold hands, stating that “You’re going to get sick if you keep falling like a drunk elephant” (hey!) His protests fall on deaf ears, and Dae finds himself falling like a normal person, instead.

He looks down, at the seemingly never ending abyss that awaits them.

-Aren’t you afraid?- He doesn’t need to turn to know it’s Tai. There’s no other soul up here.

–It’s just a dream- The words sit heavily in his tongue, because, what happens when you die in a dream? He’s never dreamed such a thing.

-Want to find out?- Tai now sports a crooked grin that can’t be good.

The tan boy doesn’t even wait for an answer. He lets go of his hand, and then pushes.

The floor lunges forward to meet him, and Dae wakes up startled on the cold tiles of his bedroom, drenched in sweat.