Chapter 4: 4 Dreamscape

Once all the teachers had picked their students my teacher led us to the largest building where the classrooms as well as other facilities were.

A few of the students around me talked in excitedly hushed whispers, but there were many others that just walked in silence. Our teacher also didn’t seem to be the overly vocal type, he had only said “Follow me,” and had left. The woman from the Glass Kingdom had done something similar, but the other two teachers had started talking to their students in the gymnasium.

We entered the classroom labeled 1-B. The students awkwardly stood around the room, unsure if they should sit.

“Pick a seat,” the teacher ordered.

I had already been walking to a corner seat in the front row. At my old school I sat in the back. I hated the feeling of other people looking over my shoulder, and most of the lessons had been extremely easy so I didn’t need to pay any special attention.

But just like this was not a typical school, this would not be a typical classroom, sitting in front was worth being uncomfortable. A tall Solarian girl with red hair sat behind me and a ratty looking boy sat to my right.

The boy waved to me.

“Hello I’m-”

“Quiet,” the teacher ordered.

The classroom instantly silenced.

“I am Davin Pure. You can call me Professor Pure, but do not call me Mr. Pure. For the first year you will be in my care, after that it is dependent on your own specialty. First I will go over the schedule for you all.”

He went right into it, which I was thankful for. I had been unsure if I should have waved back first or just started introducing myself back. Maybe a single wave then speaking.

I took out a notebook and a pen to keep my notes.

The first half of the weekdays will usually be with Professor Pure while the latter half will be spent with the whole year and one of the four Professors to teach us about more obscure topics. During the weekends we had the ability to go into the city, but we had a curfew. It seemed like a slightly stricter university.

“As some of you may know Dreamers can be made or they can be naturally born. Most of those that are born as Dreamers come from a long line of Dreamers and are therefore taught by their own families. However sometimes someone with no known Dreamer Bloodline will be born with their Dreamscape already opened. Miss Cystella is one such person I believe,” he said looking to the Skulker girl that sat at the back of the classroom.

She nodded curtly, a frown on her face from all the looks she was getting. I noticed that even the ones sitting around her were keeping their distance, but still sending glances her way.

“Poor girl,” I heard the redhead behind me say.

I was more interested in how she wasn’t a rabid monster like the rest of her people than worrying about how she felt.

“They can be similar to the monsters that inhabit the Layers in some ways. They can be born with abilities instead of having to cultivate them themselves. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage if they do not take advantage of their head start.”

“However you all do not have this advantage. Your potential abilities are a blank canvas right now, no not even that. You do not have the canvas to begin with. That is what this first year will hopefully do, unlock your Intent, open up your Dreamscape.”

“Your Dreamscape is the source of your Intent, as well as the place where your unique Wit will be crafted. Think of it as a world that exists in only your head, and once you can open up the door to that world you can bring the power it holds into this one.”

A girl a few seats away raised her hand.

“Yes?” Professor Pure asked.

“Thank you Professor, I’ve heard that anyone can become a Dreamer, so how come we were the ones chosen? There is the in depth personality test we took, but I don’t see how that could make us stand out if its possible for anyone to become one as well.”

It was a really good question, one that had nagged me for weeks. I had thought it was because weirdo’s were the ones that were accepted, but that had felt wrong in my mind.

“Amazing question, and there are a few answers. It is theoretically possible for anyone to open their Dreamscape, but we like to divide it up into percentages. More than ninty-five percent of people have a less than one percent chance to ever open up their Dreamscape even for a moment. The other four point nine nine percent of people have a one to three percent chance to open it. Then there is the zero point zero zero one, or as close as we can analyze. They have anywhere from a ten to forty percent chance to open it at least once.”

“Then we have to divide you all based on age and filter out anyone that is too old. The younger a person is the easier it is for them to open up their Dreamscape, to an extent. Unless you are born with it a child of four will almost never be able to access such powers reliably, and that is because there is little that the child’s mind is still weak. At the same time a sixty year old man will have next to no chance to ever be able to open up their Dreamscape, and that is because their mind is no longer as pliable as it once was. Fourteen is a very good age, your mind is strong enough that you have begun to have strong individualism, but not so set it its way’s that you reject the new concepts that come your way.”

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“The final reason is simple, at one point in time each of you have already opened up your Dreamscape, if only for a moment. We have a Dreamer that looks over the personality test in which each of you left an imprint of yourself of onto the paper. That Dreamer can then sense the ever so slightly presence of Intent even if you opened up your Dreamscape years ago.”

That shocked me, I don’t remember ever opening a door to a world inside my mind before, how did that even happen? When did it happen?

“When?” Brax asked.

“Raise your hand if you have a question.”

Brax raised his hand with a bit of embarrassment.

“Yes?”

“When… or how?”

“How would I know? There is more than a single way for someone to unlock their Intent. One is in moment of deep fear or stress. This is usually more than just someone holding a knife to your throat. This can be a fear or stress that resonates with you as an individual. People have a thing called fight or flight response, and we consider this way of using Intent as the next step in that response.”

“Of a similar branch is what we call Enlightenment, but these are usually harder to come by in those of younger years because of a lack of focus in the minds of children. Enlightenment can occur because of an internal revelation, a revelation about the world around you, or even from doing a task in which you can fall into a trance with. These things can cause a reaction within your Dreamscape and make it open.”

“Lastly is external inducement, instead of it being your Dreamscape reacting to your own state of mind it is a external force that makes your Dreamscape open. This covers a wide number of things. A contract with a monster, a plant that you ingest, or even from surviving an attack from a Dreamers Wit. External inducement has a few downsides of course though.”

“One is that it is incredibly dangerous, another is that external inducement can cause your Dreamscape to have properties that came from whatever source opened up your Dreamscape. Then there is the fact that the resources to make something like a potion are not only rare but volatile.”

Professor Pure then stayed silent as he let us finish taking notes. I only started taking notes when he finished speaking. I had found that it was easier to comprehend and digest information if I listened first then wrote down what I remembered. Otherwise it felt as thought I would just be regurgitating information I had re-read off a piece of paper rather then something I truly understood.

Once a minute or two had passed he pulled several textbooks from a box near the front of the room and told the students in the front to pass them back. There were two for each students.

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“Since all of you have already accessed your Dreamscape before the techniques in these books can help bring the Dreamscape closer to opening fully. For the rest of class you all will read your books.”

They were not particularly thick books so it wouldn’t take long, but I still didn’t want to start on those right away. Sure they would help but I wanted to think on the lecture Professor Pure had given earlier. Particularly the fact that I had already opened my Dreamscape once before.

The last option, external inducement, was not it. Not only did I not have the habit of putting random things in my mouth, I also had never met a monster outside of the time my parents had taken me to the zoo, and obviously I had never taken the attack from a Dreamer before, I didn’t even know what a Dreamer attack looked like.

That left the fight or flight option or Enlightenment. I could think of a memory that could mean I had used my Dreamscape for either option. The one for fight or flight filled me with shame. The one for Enlightenment however, that one filled me with a sense of… inevitability. As though it was a chronic disease that I could never truly run from.

“You,” a voice in front of me said.

I jumped, looking up. Professor Pure was standing in front of my desk.

“Yes?”

“Read the book.”

“Yes.”

I opened up the book and the teacher walked away, rolling his eyes.

A soft giggle was heard from behind me, no doubt from the redhead, but I ignored it. I wanted to focus on the book, but thoughts of the past were holding me in a vice. Looking around at some of the haunted looks of the other kids it seemed as though I wasn’t the only one.

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