Leaving Dreamland [Book One]

17~ Gone In A Flash

"Tell him I wish him a happy birthday," the stranger said.

"What, you aren't going to come?" another voice asked, seeming disappointed.

"I-I can't. Not right now. I-I... I just..." the stranger began to sob.

"It's okay. I'm sure he'll understand."

"I'm so sorry..." the stranger whispered hopelessly, seeming to be speaking to more than just the person that he had been previously talking to.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

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My eyes fluttered open to find a very anxious-looking Paul hovering over me.

What the hell? I thought to myself. Why am I lying down on a couch? What happened? Why...?

It was then that everything came flooding back to me. The old dream, the new dream, the stranger. His mangled voice as he screamed in agony in the old dream. His inability to go say happy birthday to his friend in the new dream. But most of all, the song that he sang in the first dream. That song. The one that sounded way too familiar to the one that I had heard the lads recording just seconds ago... or... was it minutes? Hours? I didn't know. The tears that I had been crying earlier just started to spill again, and there wasn't much that I could do to stop them.

Seeing this, Paul sat me back up and pulled me in for a hug, and I gratefully cried into his shoulder. He patted my back soothingly, and after a couple moments, I finally found my voice again.

"How long was I out for?" I croaked.

He released me and looked down at his wrist, checking his watch. "Just about four hours," he said matter-of-factly. I forgot all about the dreams for a second and just stared at him, gaping.

I shook my head, thinking I must have heard him wrong. "Four hours?!"

"Yep."

"Wait, so what exactly happened? What's going on now?" I asked, completely confused.

"Well, I saw you fall out of your chair out of the corner of my eye, and then all of the sudden we were all just around you, trying to figure out what to do. Louis was freaking out, and he immediately took out his phone and called the EMS, thinking you were about to die or something. I knew it wasn't that serious, but he wouldn't listen to me. Anyways, so the EMS showed up and they just told us that you were perfectly healthy and you had just passed out, probably from shock or something. They told us that you would be perfectly fine and that you would wake up on your own. And so now, a few hours later, they were right.

"Louis didn't really believe that, though," Paul continued. "He was so worried, and it took a lot of convincing to get him to go back to recording with the rest of the lads. We did finally get him to do it, though, so that's still going on right now."

Louis had been freaking out over me? He... he had cared about me? My heart seemed to explode with happiness. If nothing else, we had at least become good friends. But then, just like always, reality hit me hard. This was all a dream. This was just a dream Louis that my brain was conjuring up to make me happy, and then crush me the moment I woke up. None of this was real.

At that moment, the boys burst through the door, all laughing about some joke. Louis, who was at the front of the group, suddenly stopped in his tracks the instant his eyes fell on me. Zayn, who had been right behind him, ended up running into him.