Chameleon ✔️

13 firsts

This chapter introduces a new character, one I have renamed thrice now. If you stumble upon the names Michael or Matthew, please leave me a comment so I can replace them. The correct name should be Ian.

I've always heard about people dreaming in the third person. As in they can see themselves, sort of as a character in a movie scene, and they watch "out-of-body" from the corner of the room. Often in these dreams, the person is aware that they are dreaming — another thing I've never experienced. Until tonight, in which, for the first time, I experience both at once.

I am standing in what I believe to be the corner of the room. My body is laying atop a padded table, and it is dressed in a paper hospital gown. I glance around to see several different things that are telling of a hospital room — a machine that is beeping being the most important. My body is attached to it via various plugs and wires, some sticking to me and some inserted into me. The machine seems to be monitoring me in every way possible — my temperature, my heart rate, my blood pressure, my brain activity, etc. I am unconscious, but I don't seem to be injured.

A door swings open to my left, and a doctor and a nurse walk in. I cannot see their faces, and this makes my out-of-body self's heart pick up its pace. But the monitor indicates no change in my physical dream body's heart. The pair check the monitor. They swap comments, but I can't understand what they're saying; their speech is garbled, muffled, blurred. The only thing I can confidently gather from their speech is their tone — they are concerned.

The nurse writes a few notes down onto her clipboard. She seems nervous, and this makes me nervous. I try to feel for her aura, but somehow I am aware that this is a dream and that I won't be able to feel it. I have the strange inclination that I know these people, but I've yet to see their faces.

Suddenly, the machine starts producing a loud, steady beat like that of an alarm. The doctor rushes to it and presses various buttons on it in attempt to figure out what's wrong. The nurse walks to my side and leans over me. She reaches to my face, and I think she might be about to peel off the sensors stuck to my forehead. But instead she brushes my bangs back and whispers something to me. Something comforting. I can't hear what she says, but I can read one word on her lips: "Penny."

Mom.

"Mom!" I yell to her, but I am out of my body, and this is a dream, and she cannot hear me. I fall to my knees. "Mom," I whimper.

The doctor successfully stops the beeping noise, and now when he speaks I can hear him clearly. "Delia, her brain isn't healing as quickly as we'd hoped. We need to let her rest." His is not a voice I can put a name to, but he has confirmed my suspicions of the woman's identity by calling her by name.

"I know, Ian. I know. I just... I can't keep watching her suffer and not be able to do anything about it."

The doctor moves to my mother and wraps a comforting arm around her. She immediately relaxes beneath his touch. "We don't know that she's suffering. She could be dreaming peacefully, somewhere far away. Some place better."

"Will she come back to me?" she sobs.

"She will come back to us, my love."

And then the two of them turn to leave, and it is now that I can finally see their faces. The nurse is my mother, my beautiful, kind, selfless, wonderful mother. The doctor, however, is a man entirely of my mind's creation. His hair is dark and neat but is silvering at the edges. His skin is clear and ageless except for the creases around his eyes. The sound of his voice had calmed my mother, and therefore it had also calmed me. I have never seen him before, but I can only form warm thoughts about him.

I awaken to a harsh, flat surface, and a jolt of pain to my elbow. The floor beneath my cheek is cool and smooth, the sheet wrapped haphazardly around my ankles warm and scratchy. I pull myself up and take a seat on the edge of my bed in waiting. I'm certain that I'd screamed and that my dad will be here any moment. Two minutes pass, and he doesn't show. I must not've screamed very loud.