"And then he made the coins go back into the pouch!" Jenny explained with a guilty face. "Also, I think he might be addicted to cigarettes and lying about it."
It was lunchtime, and Jenny was recounting her dream to Saturn and Plural in a park close to the office. Jenny was lying on her back, looking at the clouds. The other two were sitting and eating their sandwiches.
"You remember all of that?" Saturn asked.
Jenny nodded.
"I never remember anything about my dreams," Plural said.
"Same," Saturn added.
Jenny grabbed her phone and searched for a certain figure's online encyclopedia page, then handed the phone to Saturn.
"Nyar… Lat… Ho… Tep…" Saturn mumbled.
"He was in my dream, too, looking exactly like that!" Jenny said, referring to the picture featured on the page. "I'd never even seen that before!"
Saturn looked at the picture and tilted the phone towards Plural so she could see too.
"So what?" Plural asked skeptically.
"Isn't it weird that I'd dream something up before seeing it for real?" Jenny asked.
"I don't know… if anyone could do that, it'd be you," Saturn said.
Jenny took her eyes back to the clouds and wondered if maybe she had in fact seen the picture before and just forgot about it.
"You gonna dream again tonight? Can you do it at will?" Plural asked.
"I don't know, it hasn't happened every night," Jenny responded.
"How long do they last?" Plural asked.
"All night. Last time I woke up ten minutes before my alarm," Jenny responded.
Her latest dream lasted all night, and Jenny wondered what would've happened if it had continued for ten more minutes.
"I wonder if the next one continues where I left off," she mumbled.
"Whatever happens, you probably shouldn't pick a fight with this guy," Saturn said while chewing on a piece of his sandwich, still reading the page.
"Or do, it's just a dream," Plural said.
Just a dream… It didn't feel like one when she was in it, which made Jenny wonder…
"Have you guys ever… died… in a dream?"
Saturn and Plural looked at each other for a second before Plural spoke up.
"Sometimes I fall to my death, but I wake up before I hit the ground."
"Same," Saturn added.
As her two human friends so easily agreed on their dream experiences, Jenny considered if hers was really a dream at all. If she were to believe everything Top Moments said at face value, that meant the dreamlands really existed and she popped into existence there whenever she dreamt, and she would even be able to meet other dreamers that shared the same dream world.
She was prodded out of her thoughts by Saturn's finger poking her cheek. He was lying down in the grass next to her and smiled at her. Jenny tilted her head to face him, pushing her own cheek back into his fingertip in the process.
"You're worrying. I can tell," he said.
"O-Oh," Jenny said blushingly.
"You should enjoy your dreams. Especially if you know you're dreaming when you're in them," Plural suggested.
Lucid dreaming: a state of being aware that one is dreaming, usually allowing them to control what happens next, something normal humans rarely get to experience. Yet, Jenny was always aware that she was dreaming right from the beginning, and if her dreams were anything like those of humans, that would mean she could control what happens, too.
Of course, Plural wasn't talking about that.
"I'm—" Jenny stuttered and met Plural's naughty gaze, then pinched her eyes shut and yelled. "I'm not doing crime!"
♦
On the nights that followed, Jenny excitedly went into hibernation mode, ready to resume her dream-quest with her sock puppet companion in a world where she didn't have to worry about anything—as per Plural's advice.
But it didn't come. Night after night, Jenny went into hibernation mode, just to wake up the next morning, having had no recollection of a dream.
Tonight, Jenny lay on her bed, plugged in, ready to enter hibernation mode once more. Yet, she had her eyes wide open and fiddled with her fingers, nervous, hesitant to close her eyes and surrender to sleep on this important night.
After all, tomorrow morning was the big hearing, and she couldn't afford to miss it and leave her friends to fend for themselves. So far, her dreams had been unpredictable in length, suggesting her next dream could be her longest one yet, and she'd risk sleeping through her alarm.
Alternatively, she could just fly around all night, but pulling an all-nighter always left her in a bit of a silly mood, even if her state of charge was high enough.
"Agh! Get a grip!" Jenny violently shook herself back and forth across her bed.
Whatever happened, it was out of her control now, and all she could do was trust that her alarm would pull her out of it on time…
Jenny closed her eyes and prepared to enter hibernation mode.
Three.
Two.
One.
…
♦
And there it was: a night sky with floating debris on the horizon. Jenny woke up lying in a field of grass and immediately sprung up into a sitting position. Her alarm spun again, and she snoozed it without a second thought.
Looking around, she was not where she last left off. If her memories were correct, that was by the statues on the mainland. This meadow was…
"The prologue island," Jenny mumbled to herself.
She appeared to be in the exact same spot where she started her dream last time, only it was nighttime now. When she examined her own body, she found that she wasn't in possession of the cloak and wooden sword anymore, either. Yet the chest next to her was open and empty, just the way she left it.
Jenny took to the sky and hurried to the nearby location where she freed Top Moments the first time.
But instead of finding the creature there, she only found unbound shackles—again, exactly the way she left them. This fact, and the fact that it was night, suggested the state of the world was not reset. That meant she could find her companion right where she left off, in that plaza by the statue.
Jenny flew off in the direction of the mainland at much higher speed than last time and made it there in no time.
When she did, she made a sliding landing across the plaza, stumbling at the end and almost losing her balance, then firmly put her foot down and enthusiastically pointed at the creature she was hoping to find.
"Found you!"
Top Moments was there, still floating around the statues. He turned to her in confusion.
"I didn't go anywhere," he said.
Jenny excitedly ran over to him.
"You waited for me here all this time?" she asked.
"Yes," he said as he spun around, "the whole minute you were gone."
Jenny gave him a look of surprise, then made a thinking face.
"Interesting…"
Top Moments stopped his spinning and approached her.
"You went back to your world?"
"Uhuh. For almost a week."
"Fascinating," Top Moments said. "From my perspective, you disappeared into thin air a minute ago."
Jenny walked over to the spot she'd previously disappeared at. The cloak and wooden sword were right there on the ground, and Jenny equipped them once again.
It was safe to conclude that time effectively stopped here when she left. But if that was the case, and the dreamlands really existed, then how could more than one dreamer share the same dream? Jenny was deep in thought, trying to reason about this cosmic mystery.
"Jenny? Hello? Are you broken?" Top Moments asked while bumping her head.
"All is relative…" Jenny mumbled.
Next, she walked over to the statues, ignoring her companion's comment.
On second viewing, that depiction of Nyarlathotep matched the online artwork from the real world meticulously, so much so that she was starting to doubt herself. Did it look the exact same before? Or did she change it in her head to match closer now that she'd seen the image?
She recalled the thoughts she'd had about lucid dreaming before and tried to change the way the statue looked with her mind.
…
Nothing.
Maybe that was too weird, and she couldn't imagine it happening. What about a lightning strike instead?
…
"What are you doing?" Top Moments asked her.
Jenny was making a strained face at the statue.
"I don't think I'm a Great One," Jenny replied with a cryptic answer.
"I think you are broken…" Top Moments said.
♦
Jenny sat down on the ground, looking deeply focused with her tongue slightly poking out of her mouth. She was drawing in a notebook she'd "purchased" from the market. Top Moments was pleasantly surprised at the change of heart, which was extremely sudden from his perspective.
She did not take long to finish her drawing and flipped the book around to show him a detailed drawing of a city, covering two pages of the book side by side. It was… good. Jenny didn't even spend fifteen seconds on the drawing, but it looked like someone had taken fifteen hours on it instead.
"I don't, uh…" Top Moments stuttered, "goodness…"
Jenny moved her head next to the book, which she was holding at the seam, to check if she wasn't accidentally showing him two blank pages.
"Recognize it?" Jenny asked him.
Top Moments moved closer to the book to check it out, looking like he wasn't considering her question so much as he was admiring the immaculate details of the piece.
"Is this in a cave?" he asked.
"Yep! And this is a theater!" she said, pointing her finger to the building that was aesthetically framed to be in the exact center of the drawing.
"Why would all this be underground?" he asked in response.
Jenny gave him a disappointed frown.
"Guess you don't recognize it, then…"
She turned the book back to look at the drawing herself.
"No, I don't," Top Moments said as he flew around to Jenny's side. "Why do you want to know? Are you saying you drew this from memory?"
"Uhuh," Jenny nodded.
Top Moments turned to look at Jenny's expression, to see if she was joking.
"My first dream was here. This is what I saw when I flew into the air," Jenny said, still looking at the drawing.
"And you still remember every little detail?" Top Moments asked.
"I have all my memories saved. Kinda like a…" Jenny said and turned to look at her low-tech companion. "Like a picture book."
Top Moments tilted himself to the side.
"Like a film?"
"Right!" Jenny said as she closed the book. "Like a film."
Jenny stood up again.
"That quest I said I wanted to go on? I wanna find this city!" she said as she waved the book around. "Are you in?"
Jenny raised her fist at him.
"Quite the task," Top Moments replied as he bumped his head into her fist. "Where do we even begin?"
♦
Jenny had never looked more out of place than here in the tavern. The moment they stepped through the door, everybody looked at the girl playing dress-up with her flying sock puppet like they were two children at a liquor store. The patrons were mostly old men, and mostly human like at the market.
But Jenny didn't let that bother her and immediately started asking around with surprising bravado. She moved and talked with confidence, yet at the same time looked like she'd order a glass of milk at the bar later.
Top Moments was still floating near the entrance as Jenny looked back at him and shook her head to indicate the first person she asked didn't know anything. She tried another table and pulled up the book again, pointing at the drawing. The patron said something to her that Top Moments couldn't hear, but his facial expression said enough.
The bartender had been eyeing Jenny ever since they entered, and he looked pleased when she finally approached him to ask him the same question. Top Moments joined her at the bar.
"Rings a bell, yeah," the bartender said as he clicked his tongue. This excited Jenny, who made herself comfortable on a bar stool. "But whaddaya got for my trouble?" the bartender asked.
Jenny didn't seem like she'd prepared for this scenario and looked at Top Moments for help. She was right to turn to him, because he always had his good old trick that never failed him.
Top Moments ducked under the bar so the bartender could no longer see him, then, he transformed into coins and flew back onto the counter. Jenny looked at the spectacle and caught on pretty fast.
"Y-You're lucky I'm feeling generous today!" she said with a seductive look in her eyes.
The bartender looked at the coins, then back at Jenny, and he did not look impressed.
"Not interested in that…" he said, looking at Jenny with dreamy eyes.
"W-What then?" Jenny asked worriedly.
The bartender couldn't make his gaze towards Jenny any clearer.
"Don't get too many cuties like you in here…" he said.
Say no more! Top Moments knew exactly what to do.
Coins-Moments floated back down under the bar and transformed into a pillow instead. Jenny looked down at him with a confused look, until he used his pillow-self to bump into her stool, signaling her to come down with him.
When she did, Jenny examined the pillow, which was slightly taller and slightly wider than she was. Her face turned into shock when she flipped it around and saw what was depicted on the front. It was her. A life size, seductive Jenny giving the observer a blow kiss.
"Are you serious!?" she whisper-yelled at him.
"What? This is perfect! Did I get anything wrong?" body pillow-Moments replied.
"I—" Jenny didn't finish her sentence and instead examined the pillow's print up close. Her eyes were wide and she was so close her eyeball may as well have been touching it. "N-No…"
"I've seen these at the market! Give it to him and he will fold!" body pillow-Moments replied.
Jenny looked red and embarrassed.
"What's the matter? Humans do these things all the time!" body pillow-Moments said.
"I… I'm not…" an embarrassed Jenny tried to argue. "This is never gonna work!" she whispered.
Nevertheless, she took the pillow with both arms and popped up from under the bar again. The bartender was patiently waiting with his arms crossed. He chuckled when he saw Jenny holding the comically oversized pillow that was larger than herself with both hands.
"I'm sorry… you're not my type… Please accept this!" Jenny said as she placed the pillow on the bar counter.
The bartender maintained his composure relatively well, but one could tell he'd never seen anybody do this before. He had a look of surprise on him, perhaps at the sudden appearance of this enormous object from underneath the bar, or maybe at the contents of the print. He appeared to be unaware that the coins or pillow were not real.
"Wow… You… carry these around with you?" he asked Jenny.
One of the patrons that was sitting closest to the bar started laughing, causing some others to do the same. One by one, everybody in the tavern came to look at what had just happened and started laughing. Although they appeared to be laughing at the bartender, not at Jenny.
"Still have room on your bed for another?" one patron jokingly asked him.
"Not her type! Nicest thing a woman's ever said to you!"
One of the patrons stepped towards the bar to look at the print on the pillow, saw the drawing on the counter and grabbed the book to take a closer look at it.
"You drew this, little lass? You've actually visited the tunnel cities?"
The bartender rolled his eyes and gave the patron who'd apparently spilled the beans he was holding onto an annoyed look. Jenny forgot all about the pillow and stepped towards the man who gave her a new clue. Top Moments also immediately undid his transformation and joined Jenny in his normal form.
Upon seeing this, the bartender gestured his hands as if he was asking the universe if he was being pranked by everyone present.
"No! But I wanna! Do you know where they are?" Jenny excitedly asked.
"Oh, well… I'm not sure if anyone knows. They're just stories. This guy'll tell you," the patron said, nodding at the bartender.
The bartender was giving the patron a tired look, with his mouth slightly open and his tongue poking his cheek.
"Yeah…" he remarked with feigned excitement.
He turned to Jenny and Top Moments, and ping-ponged his eyes between the two, then looked at the drawing one more time.
"It's good," he said. "That act just now was, uh…" He held up his hand and gave them a confused look. "Are you two performers?"
Jenny turned to him and gave him a smug grin.
"Whaddaya got for my trouble?"
The bartender chuckled at her, and some patrons at the bar laughed.
"That's good," the bartender said.
He slid the book closer to take a better look at the drawing, then continued.
"I don't really care, but… It's said that a tunnel exists between the core of the world and the surface, lined with cities like this one here." He flipped the drawing around so Jenny could see it the correct way up. "It's like the man said, they're stories. Nobody knows where it is. I don't really think the cities are real."
Jenny looked disheartened.
"Besides," the bartender continued. "I doubt you'll find anyone—or anything—friendly in a place like that," he said as he tapped the drawing.
"That I agree with," Top Moments said.
"Uhuh…" the bartender dismissed the sock puppet without breaking eye contact with Jenny.
He stared at Jenny as she looked at the drawing, looking focused.
"You really are beautiful…" he said, making Jenny yelp and blush. "Let me offer you a drink on the house."
Jenny turned to Top Moments for help, but when he had none to offer, she turned back to the bartender with red cheeks and a conflicted look on her face.
"T-Thanks, but I can't drink… I'm a robot…"
A screeching laugh came from one of the patrons behind her. The bartender swallowed, looking doubtful and heartbroken.
"That's… nice," he said.
"Thanks for the information! I'm sorry I couldn't offer you anything meaningful," Jenny said with a guilty look.
The bartender leaned forward with his elbows on the bar and gestured with his finger for Jenny to lean closer.
"Tell you what," he spoke into Jenny's ear so no one else could hear. "You ever find that tunnel… draw me a map, okay?"
Jenny retreated to the bar stool again and gave him a thumbs up and an excited smile. The bartender gave her a thumbs up and an exaggerated smile back.