Missing Pieces of Me

7 UP'S Story

"Told you you'd be back," I heard the voice say. I jumped from the suddenness of the situation. I looked around. It's still all white, kinda like a blank canvass, waiting to be filled.

"I thought I would be waiting for a long time before you showed up, again. No more creepy previews?" I teased.

"Would you rather go back to me staring at you creepily?" it smiled back.

"You promised to tell me where you're from, the last time we met. Now I want answers."

"Okay. I'll answer them but first, you need to learn the basics of the dream world before I let you make a decision. For now, can you make us a scenery? This place seems dull and boring."

"Why can't you do it? I thought you control everything here."

"Just try. Visualize, like this." It was silent for a moment then it snapped its fingers and everything was black.

I felt head spinning. I hated being in the dark. It was like I was falling in a void. I concentrated hard, visualizing about being back in my room, alone but not lonely. I concentrated hard, closed my eyes then snapped my fingers.

The falling stopped and I felt myself sitting on the bed. I opened my eyes and there it was; my companion in this other world. It was sitting opposite of me on the bed. It looked shocked though. I threw a pillow at it.

"What are you staring at?"

"I never thought you could make an entire room that quickly though. I was expecting just a change of color or even just a view of the night sky at most. I was not expecting an entire room, complete with furniture, and such accurate detail. I presume this is your room in reality?"

"Umm yes I-"

"Well, that makes sense since you're already familiar with that. It seems you've spent a lot of time here, especially the bed, do you ever leave your bed except necessary?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Look around you. Really look."

I looked around, stood up, and paced around. At first I couldn't see what it was saying then something caught my eye. Every single inch of my bed was in detail but when I looked around, only outlines of my room can be seen; the row of written numbers by my board were a bit blurry yet I can recognize some formulas; the books were still on the shelf, I can read the titles, but when I picked it up, I saw that the pages were blank; almost like it was an empty shell.

"The only thing you need to remember here is that your brain only chooses which information to retain. The brain removes unnecessary details. That book is an example. I reckon, you can remember the plot because you can still see the title but you don't remember that much about each sentence.

That's because the brain sees those sentences as irrelevant but you remember what the book looks like and its story because the emotions you felt while reading it were relevant. This can also be applied to your bed. You've spent so much time on your bed that you know every part of it."

"Is that how you can make an entire city? That must have taken ages to build. If this IS your dream, don't you ever wake up? Also, why is it very much alike with where I live? Do you live in the same city as me? Maybe we can meet in the real world? I really would like to meet you in person, not in some subconscious stuff."

"Yes. It took me a very long time. I'm sad to say that we can never meet in real life because my reality is not the same as yours and besides, I'm still stuck here because I died a long time ago in a different world," the voice said, hints of sadness in its voice. I was quiet and waited for it to continue.