The Gift: A TAWOG Story

Chapter 28: The Sleepwalk

Gumball stepped outside through the front door as his family put down their frozen custard bowls and followed suit behind him, careful not to wake him up. He proceeded down the steps and towards the sidewalk on the street. Richard, Darwin, and Anais all followed behind him as Nicole closed and locked the door, as she felt they were going to be out for a while.

It was around midnight when Gumball began his sleepwalking journey. He turned right and proceeded down the sidewalk. This tripped up memories in Anais as she recalled when this similar scenario happened to her when she dreamt she roamed around Elmore after facepalming herself too much. Nevertheless, they persisted to keep up with her sleepwalking brother.

"Come on, guys!" said Nicole, signaling them to follow. "We are gonna follow him!"

What followed was what Nicole was afraid of: he struggled to navigate through his sleepwalking. As he crossed the street, a delivery truck came barreling towards him yet he did not notice. Nicole had to jump out and shove him as the truck swerved and honked.

"Sorry!" Nicole shouted to the driver. "He's sleepwalking!" The truck driver just rolled his eyes and kept driving.

"Who's making these deliveries in the middle of the night?" said Anais.

"As long as your brother is safe, that's all that matters," said Nicole. She released her son to let him proceed with his sleepwalking, surprised that her shoving him to the side of the road did not wake him up. He continued his stroll in a trance as if nothing happened. Nicole had to guide him a little on the sidewalk as not to trip over cracks or bump into lamp and sign posts. Richard managed to trip and bump into everything, making Darwin and Anais laugh. Gumball was of course completely unaware of anything that was actually happening around him.

Gumball walked past the Elmore Shopping, the Elmore Mall, and the park, all closed and eerie looking in the foggy midnight hours. The moon was full with some clouds streaming over it as it shined down on the little blue cat. Nicole briefly wondered if it was the moon that was leading her son, but she remembered the powerful forces of the Dreamscaper machine in the hospital.

"Where do you think he's going, Mrs. Mom?" asked Darwin as they continued to follow him at the slow pace he was sleepwalking.

"I have the strongest suspicion that he's heading for the hospital," said the big blue cat.

"What makes you say that?" asked the goldfish with legs.

"It's straight ahead," said Anais, pointing up the road at Elmore Hospital, looking dark and eerie in the night with only a few lights on. Nicole trusted her instinct to keep letting Gumball guide his own way to whatever was attracting him.

The little blue cat sleepwalked up the front driveway, through the front door, and into the lobby. The rest of the family followed him in. Unlike any of Gumball's dreams he had about the hospital, the lobby was well lit and there were staff present, specifically a nurse at the front desk and a security guard.

"Hold it!" said the security guard abrasively to Gumball. "Where do you think you're going?" The nurse looked up and spoke up immediately.

"He is expected down in the basement," said the nurse, who then held up a piece of paper. "There is a note saying so right here."

"Um okay," said the security guard, now baffled as to what was going on. "He let the little blue cat sleepwalk past him, who did not acknowledge him once.

"We're his family," said Nicole to the security guard, who let them pass too, as he just rolled with whatever the situation was.

Gumball sleepwalked down the corridor behind the front desk to a bank of three elevators, with signage indicating they were the "red" elevators. Nicole began to realize that all of Gumball's dreams were finally reality, as if what was going on was destiny for the little blue cat. However, not everything in his recurring dreams played itself out, as Gumball stood for about a minute waiting for an elevator to open despite not pressing the button. He had a subtle expectation that an elevator was going to open by itself and take him down to the floor. He kept shifting his head back and forth at all three elevators doors, yet none of them opened.

"Um... does somebody wanna press the button?" said Anais nervously.

"I'll do it," said Nicole. She walked over and pressed her paw on the 'down' button, since she concluded Gumball's sleepwalking was taking him to the basement. Within a second, one of the elevators opened up.

"Lobby level," said the elevator voice. "This elevator is going down."

Gumball stepped in still in a trance as the rest of the family followed him in. Nicole pressed the button for the basement level and the doors closed. For a moment, they stood in awkward silence with an entranced Gumball, who continued to stare blankly forward at the door.

"Basement level," said the elevator voice as the doors opened up. To Nicole, what laid outside the doors reflected what her son had told her about in his dreams, and what she already saw in one of them. Unlike the lobby up above, the corridor was dark and dingy, with several lights burned out. The walls were grimy and there were puddles of water on the floor. Gumball stepped outside the elevator and began making his way down the hallway, while the rest of the family followed closely behind.

At the end of the hallway was the double doors Nicole immediately recognized, Room 0004. Her heart started racing as Gumball reached out his arm to pull the door open. 'This was it,' she thought, the fact that after numerous failed attempts in both reality and his dreams, that her son was finally going to get to see inside the room. There was no turning back now.

Gumball pulled the door open to reveal to his sleepwalking self and his siblings and father what laid inside the room that centered the focus on the two blue cats. As they all stepped inside, Gumball suddenly awoke from his trance while the rest of the family was speechless.