LUCID

LUCID Part 1

It was a dark and gloomy night in the city. As the rain beat against my office window, the squeaky ceiling fan overhead did little to ease the oppressive summertime heat. Loosening my tie, I kicked my feet up on the desk and wiped the sweat from my brow.

"Now, what can I do for you, sugar?" I asked.

The mysterious dame, dressed to the nines, sitting across from me did little to lower the temperature in the room.

"I'm in trouble." The attractive woman explained, her eyes narrowing and her voice trembling. "Serious trouble and I desperately need your help. You see... After finishing my usual singing gig at Mister Big's tonight... Well... Anyways, a friend told me you're a man who is used to danger. Tonight, I need such a man. I need you."

I casually touched the .45 caliber pistol resting under my arm in my worn, sweat-stained, leather shoulder holster. Outside, a clap of thunder startled my newest client.

"Dollface, you came to the right gumshoe. Yup, I can handle myself alright. Best private eye in the city. Now what kinda trouble could a pretty bird like you possibly be involved in?"

"Well, detective..."

"Like I already told you. No need for formalities here." I interrupted, reaching across my desk to pour myself the third drink of the night.

Shaking her head violently from side to side as if to clear it, the woman's tone and demeanor instantly changed. "Nash? Is that you? Are you really here?" The woman asked, examining the room as if she had only just arrived. "You're really here with me! Snap out of it! You're dreaming! It's me! It's Mason! Kenzie Mason! Remember who you really are!"

"Look, dumpling..." I countered casually. "You strolled into my office..."

The woman stood, aggressively knocking my feet to the floor before placing her hands on the desk to glare at me. "Nash! Come on! You're not some dumb, noir, 1930s detective trope! You're the Corsair! Now get your head together! I need you! The real you!"

"I'm the Corsair?" I asked, momentarily confused, before my true identity flooded back to me in an instant. "Yes. Yes, I am! What the hell is going on? Where am I? When am I? Who are you?"

"Kenzie Mason. You're in my dream! Remember I asked you to help me? We met in the library? You came to my place to spend the night and watch over me?"

I leaped up out of my chair. "How the hell did I get here?" I exclaimed, darting my head around to examine my strange surroundings, my mind clear but the exact situation I found myself in cloudy.

"I brought you here." Kenzie ineffectually explained. "Into my dream."

"What?"

"Look, sorry about that, but what's important now is that you're here."

"Why's everything in black and white?" I asked.

"I don't know." Kenzie replied. "This's your dream. This's what you wanted to dream about. You tell me."

"Dream?" I asked skeptically, still confused. "This's a dream? Everything is so real. This isn't like any dream I've ever had before. I don't believe you. Where are we?"

"Look, we don't have much time before he finds us. You're lucid dreaming. This is a lucid dream. I brought you here. Into this dream world with me."

"Lucid dreaming?"

"Yeah, it's like regular dreams but you can control everything. It's very realistic, I know. Again, we don't have much time. I need you to..."

"Kenzie Mason!" I raised my voice to cut the younger woman off mid-sentence. "I remember agreeing to help you with a stalker, not this dream crap. I agreed to watch over you as you slept until the police arrested your stalker, not get pulled into whatever this is. Now explain to me how the hell I got here in your lucid dream thing or whatever. I mean... How do I know you're not a dream? Maybe I'm dreaming all this right now. After all, you don't look like Kenzie."

"I didn't lie about that. There's a stalker, but my stalker is in my dreams. In my nightmares, actually. And he's a little bit worse than a stalker, I'm afraid. As to the way I look, we both look different in our dreams. I won't even tell you who or what you look like."

"Where's my body? My real body?" I demanded.

"Still sleeping on the easy chair in my living room." Kenzie explained. "Nash, we don't have time for this. I'm sorry for the subterfuge, but I need you to help me in this place. In my dream."

"Your dream? You want me to help you in a dream?"

"Yes and no."

"Excuse me?"

"Yes, this is a real dream, my dream, and we are both lucid dreaming together." Kenzie poorly explained. "But this world is real. It's called the Dreamlands. And it's a very dangerous place."

"The Dreamlands!" I shouted, remembering an obscure legend I once heard about a mystical place with the same name. "We need to wake up."

"No, Nash!" Kenzie shouted back. "We need to stop the Great."

"Excuse me?" I asked as I walked around my desk. "Did you say 'the great'?"

"That's not his real name!" She excitedly explained. "Now follow me..."

"I'm not following you anywhere." I interrupted the hysterical woman. "If you're telling me the truth, and I'm not sure you are, you need to explain exactly what's going on here and why I'm involved."

"Nash." Kenzie attempted to calm herself down. "I can explain, but because we're here, together, now, the Great will have detected us. We need to get moving. Before he sends one of his spies."

In the hallway outside the cliche private detective's office I found myself in, I noticed shadows out of the corner of my eye. "Get down!" I shouted moments before someone kicked the door open.

No, not someone, something. And they didn't kick the door in as I initially thought because the thing in the doorway didn't have any legs!

Kenzie screamed and leaped back in terror.

Drawing the large framed pistol from under my arm, I aimed at the floating eyeball hovering impossibly in the doorway.

The three-foot by three-foot by three-foot eyeball creature, if not obscenely ridiculous by itself, also sported several appendages, each one of these with an eyeball at the end. The giant floating eye and dozens of lesser eyes scanned everything in the room.

Luckily, I knew exactly what to do.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The three rounds fired center mass into the monster caused it to explode in a mass of green goop. The disgusting mess covered every part of the office, including Kenzie and myself.

"Ew!" Kenzie squealed, reflexively shaking the sticky green mess from her hands.

Are you serious? I thought.

With my mind racing, Kenzie Mason uttered a single word, "Clean." Suddenly the green slime vanished and, apart from the office door remaining open, everything appeared exactly as it had before.

"What the hell just happened?" I shouted in surprise.

Placing her hands on her hips and cocking her head to the side, Kenzie Mason answered me. "I told you. We're in my dream. A dream I can control. Do you believe me now, Corsair?"