What is going on . . . ?

  Proto stared, unsure what to say. Astrid’s clenched fist trembled at her side.

  Finally, she turned toward him and reached for his hand, grasping it—no, clasping the Breath Tokens. “Thank you, Proto.” Her voice quavered.

  ”Proto?” he mused. “I think that’s the first time—”

  Astrid cut him off, rushing forward and hugging him. She buried her head in his shoulder.

  Eyes wide and unsure what to do, he clasped an arm around her back. After a moment, he felt tears wettening his shoulder beneath his tracksuit.

  Sometimes, Proto felt he’d come to know this place, bit by bit, day after day. Then, there were moments like this, when he realized all he knew was just one corner of a map bigger than he could see.

  Then again, it also was moments like this—with violet-eyed Astrid pressed against him, arms thrown around him, feeling the swell of her every breath—that Proto realized he didn’t need to know everything in life to live it.

  She eventually withdrew. She wiped her face with her fist, still clasping the Breath Tokens, then pocketed them. “I’ll ask you to forget that little episode.” Her voice’s calmness was belied by its hoarseness. And her puffy eyes.

  “Yeah, I can’t do that. And I wouldn’t if I could,” he replied. That brought a little red glower to her face. “But my lips are sealed,” he quickly went on. “What happens in my dream, stays in my dream.”

  “Your ‘dream.’” She rolled her eyes but smiled. “It had better, Utterflutter. Wyndsack. Shyteman.”

  “My lips are sealed, Miss Geode! Madame Silverwear! Astird!”

  His mentor swatted his rear, eliciting a yowl. “That’s what insubordination gets you!” She resumed walking down the corridor.

  “Okay, but what do I get for being nice?” he grumbled, rubbing his backside as he followed.

  Astrid said nothing and kept walking, apparently ignoring him.

  Suddenly, she stepped in front of him and faced him, seizing both his hands. She peered at him with wide violet eyes. Her lips were pursed with thought. Or . . . ? She was leaning forward now.

  Then, she tapped two fingers to her lips, and touched them softly to his cheek. “That. For now.”

  She turned and walked onward.

  Proto felt his cheek tingling. He followed her with his eyes, the curves of her grey-clad figure swaying into prominence with each step. He smiled dumbly.

  Then, he realized he should probably follow her with his feet too. He half-jogged to catch up.

  A minute later, Astrid tapped a sliding white doorway. It slid open, revealing a mirky passage. “Let’s see what you’ve learned.”

  “Hm?” He was still feeling slaphappy. “A test?”

  She just gestured him onward. And on he walked into the swirling blue mists.

  He emerged into the woods in late Summer. Stars peeked through the canopy of leaves overhead. A cool breeze rustled through the elms and ashes. Shadow-branches shifted on the ground.

  Snapping twigs and scuffed grass behind him signaled that Astrid had arrived. He inhaled, savoring the musky scent of fallen leaves and the brisk night wind.

  Wondering where the dreamer was, he scanned his surroundings. Everything looked a bit dark and washed out. The horizon trailed off into mist.

  Somehow, Proto felt he knew where he should be going. He let instinct guide him, rustling and brushing through the foliage, until a dirt path appeared before him.

  He started to step onto the trail, until a glimpse of red movement in the darkness made him hesitate. He stayed in the brush and peered down the path toward its source.

  After a moment, a young man in a red coat came into view. He was stepping slowly and halting sometimes, like he was lost in thought and barely had any wherewithal left for walking.

  Proto suddenly realized what was going on. He turned and looked at Astrid. But she just raised her brow and pointed toward the dreamer.

  It was the same guy as in Proto’s very first dream visit. The one who’d been robbed in the woods. Proto had jumped in to stop the robber and rescue him, but instead had woken him up.

  Excitement thrilled through Proto. For once, his work here as a visitor reminded him of his day job, where he’d worked at a marketing firm doing A/B testing—that is, running sample ads with slight variations on test groups of customers, with the various ads known as version A, version B, and so forth. His whole job had been finding ways to make tweaks that resulted in better outcomes.

  And that’s exactly what he had to do right now. He had to find a way to make this dream turn out better.

  With his mind racing, Proto peered at the red-jacketed dreamer. So, if this dream is anything like the last one, this guy should get robbed any minute now.

  That earlier dream replayed in his head over the next few seconds: How the robber had sprung from the brush and tackled the dreamer. How Proto had darted forward, cane in hand, and smacked the robber to the ground. How the robber had stood and drawn a gun on him. How they’d ended up struggling on the forest floor. And how Proto couldn’t beat him—not until he’d turned himself into some sort of anime superhero, startling the dreamer awake in the process.

  In retrospect, this seemed to be one of those situations where the dreamer was firmly steering the dream in a certain direction—the robber would win. Proto had been able to change that only by doing something totally unrealistic. And that had sent the whole dream swerving awry, irrevocably off-course.

  How can I beat that robber without waking this guy up? Maybe if I hit him harder at the start? What if I draw a gun? He’s not gonna get up from that, right?

  Somehow, it didn’t feel right. “Do you have one subtle bone in your body?” he recalled Astrid asking him, on one of those early visits. He stared for another second at the red-jacketed dreamer.

  Then, Proto smiled. He stepped onto the path. “Hey there,” he called to the dreamer.

  The dreamer stepped backward and raised a hand defensively. Mists swirled up from the leaf cover to knee level. “Who—?” His eyes flicked back and forth, like both his mind and feet had been wandering and left him somewhere unfamiliar. “I mean, uh, hi.” He eyed Proto like he might draw a jackknife and spring forward at any moment.

  That, at least, was something Proto could keep from happening.

  “This will sound weird,” said Proto, “but any chance you want some company? I’m kind of lost out here. Trying to find my way back to a campsite.”

  “Uh. I guess that’s fine,” the man slowly replied. He glanced down at Proto’s waist, as though checking if there was a gun or knife there.

  Proto made sure there wasn’t. “Great.” He gestured forward along the path, and the dreamer fell into stride beside him. “I guess I should’ve asked, is this the right way?”

  The dreamer tilted his head thoughtfully, as the mists rose a bit more. “Yeah. Yeah, I think the camping grounds are this way,” he finally nodded.

  “Good.”

  They walked for a while down the leafy moonlit trail. The world emerged from far off mists as they moved, like it were being created from that ambiguity on the fly.

  Meanwhile, the robber never appeared. It seemed Proto’s sudden appearance had satisfied this guy’s psychological need for someone unexpected to show up.

  “So, uh, how’d you end up lost in the forest after midnight?” asked the red-coated man.

  “I wish I had some cool story,” replied Proto, improvising as he spoke. “But I actually just sleepwalk. I was camping with some friends out here. Went to sleep in my tent. Woke up in the middle of nowhere.”

  “No joke?” The man stared at him. “Is that normal for you?”

  “I wouldn’t say normal,” said Proto. “Not these days. But I used to do it all the time. Definitely not the first time I woke up outside.” All of this was actually true. “Once, I woke up in the back of my friend’s station wagon.”

  “No way.” The guy’s lips curved up. “The kind with the backward seats?”

  Proto nodded. “The best kind.”

  “Man. Even sleepwalkers can see how cool those are,” the man mused. “I’m Emil, by the way.”

  “I’m Proto.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Immediately after saying that, he wondered if he should’ve used an alibi. What if he eventually woke up and met this Emil in real life? What if Emil looked up Proto online and found out he was real?

  Proto felt like he’d just broken the time-space continuum and was about to start disintegrating Marty McFly-style.

  But he didn’t. They walked onward.

  “So, I take it you’re not a fellow sleepwalker?” asked Proto.

  “Nope. Just an insomniac,” said Emil. “May as well get some exercise while I’m failing to sleep.”

  “You could always try doing that while sleeping. Kill two birds with one stone,” suggested Proto. “Might wake up in some weird places though.”

  “Say, a station wagon,” chuckled Emil.

  “So, what’s keeping you sleepless?” Proto didn’t miss the irony of asking a dreamer this question.

  “Eh. Got some big decisions coming up,” the man said. “Just graduated the other day. Now, I have to decide what to do with my life.”

  “Well. What are the options?” asked Proto.

  The mists swirled up to belly-level as Emil glanced at him—perhaps wondering what, exactly, he was doing talking to a stranger in the woods at night about his potential career paths. “One option,” he finally said, “is to accept a consulting job offer I got recently. The other is . . . something different.”

  “Different?” repeated Proto.

  “Oh, I have an idea for something. Very secretive.” Emil grinned and rolled his eyes self-deprecatingly. “But I mean, realistically, there’s zero chance—”

  “This consulting job,” interrupted Proto, feeling a sudden sense that this conversation was on the verge of swerving off-course. “Is it like your dream job or something?”

  “Heh. Who would say consulting is his dream job?” asked Emil. “I mean, call me a nerd and a geek, sure. But ‘consulting is my dream job’ takes it to a whole new level.”

  “Fair,” grinned Proto, absently noting that the mists were sinking now. “But probably a dream salary at least.”

  “That’s the tradeoff, isn’t it?” sighed the red-jacketed man. “Salary. Reliability. Some certainty about my future. Just do what I’m supposed to do, and life will go right. Or at least, life won’t go too wrong.” He seemed to be half-talking to himself by the end.

  A quiet laugh slipped from Proto before he could catch it.

  “Hm? What?” asked Emil.

  “Oh, nothing. ‘Do what I’m supposed to do, and life won’t go too wrong,’” repeated Proto. “That sums up 27 years of my life. And look where that left me!”

  Emil looked at him. “Sleepwalking in the woods in a tracksuit?”

  “Nope! At a reliable job. Working 8 to 6. And using my spare time and money to play video games,” replied Proto. “Where I could pretend to lead the interesting life I’d chosen not to live.”

  Emil eyed him sidelong, as the mists swelled back up to waist level. “You and our whole generation.”

  “Yeah, for the most part,” he agreed.

  They walked in silence for several seconds.

  “And yet here you are, sleepwalking in the woods,” the red-coated man observed.

  “Here I am!” nodded Proto. “I’ve messed up more the last few months than in ten years before that. For every time I’ve made the right decision, I’ve made a wrong one. Maybe two or three.”

  “What changed?” asked Emil.

  “It’s complicated,” mused Proto. “For a while, I thought it was just a change of mentality. I’d started living life like a dream. Like it wasn’t quite real. Like you could take risks rather than avoiding them.”

  “But . . . ?” the man said.

  “But everything just ended up feeling more real.” Proto had only half-worked out what he was saying as it came out. “When I took risks, and things went wrong, I felt it more than ever. It hurt. And when things went right—well, I have more memories these last few months than in ten years before that.”

  “So what do you think now?” asked Emil.

  “I think,” said Proto slowly, “the reason that approach worked for me—the reason my life has been a dream lately, and not a nightmare—is that I’ve made friends who’ve helped make it that way. Friends and—well, anyway.”

  Proto was not sure why he was saying all this right now—thoughts he’d been hesitant to think, much less voice aloud. But somehow, it felt like the time was right.

  “It’s funny though,” he went on. “Sometimes, I feel like all my friends have some secret that I’m not in on. And they’re all leading me along toward doing something for reasons they’re not telling me. And I wonder, ‘Can they be trusted? Or should I back away from it all?’”

  “But then, another voice in me says, ‘Dude. You can’t be trusted. You failed without them. Your life sucked. Who cares if they’re concealing something? You need them. You should be asking yourself, how can I make my future with them as good as it can be? Because there’s nothing worthwhile left of you without your friends. Friends and . . . ’”

  Proto’s lips pressed together. He suddenly was acutely aware that he and Emil were not the only two people in this dream.

  “‘Friends and . . . ’?” repeated Emil.

  Proto firmed himself up. “Friends and—”

  “There you are!” called Astrid, strolling into view from around a bend. “Bloody hell, Proto, we thought a bear ate you.”

  “Did I ever tell you I sleepwalk sometimes?” he asked her.

  “Oh? Gonna have to tie you down, huh,” mused Astrid.

  “I suppose you will!” he replied enthusiastically.

  She tilted her head at him. Then, frowning and glancing at Emil, she flicked Proto’s ear.

  “So. You came for me!” he observed merrily.

  Astrid rolled her eyes. “That’s what he said,” she mumbled.

  “ . . . wait, what?” Proto beamed. “Am I dreaming? Who is this standing before me, looking like Astrid, yet speaking such words? This must be . . . Nastrid.”

  She swatted his head, mussing up his hair.

  Like a fly hit by a hand in midflight, he kept going. “What’s next? Will pigs fly? No point rolling in dirty filth anymore—leave that nastiness to Nastrid!”

  This time, she swung low.

  But he’d come to expect this. He had a hand in place as he dodged aside, so her fist slapped him a high-five. “Oh yeah,” said Proto like the Kool Aid man.

  Astrid’s violet eyes flared with fury. But her lips curved up too.

  Meanwhile, the mists had sunk so low they’d almost disappeared. And Emil was barely suppressing laughter. “Friends and,” he murmured.

  Astrid blinked and looked at him, apparently remembering where she was. She flushed faintly.

  “A . . . friend of yours?” Emil asked Proto.

  “Emil, meet Astrid,” he replied. “She may look like a 1960s Russian cosmonaut Bond girl, but she’s our Astrid.”

  “A pleasure!” She clasped Emil’s hand. “As for Slow Bro here, his tracksuit and dumb grin may make him look like a mafioso’s loser son who’s had too much hard seltzer. But he’s our loser.”

  Emil looked back and forth at them and chuckled quietly.

  Astrid ran a hand through her hair, glancing at Proto before looking away. On her cheeks was . . . a blush?

  “Anyway,” said Proto, his breast swelling with a tingling warmth, “it seems I’m not lost anymore. But if you still want to hang out, you can come to our campsite. Play some cards or something.”

  Emil started to laugh it off, then tilted his head at Proto’s serious face. “Really? I mean, I guess it’s a weekend, right?” He shrugged. “What do you play?”

  “Euchre?” suggested Proto.

  “Never heard of it,” replied Emil. “How about wild rummy?”

  “Yes!” cried Astrid. “I haven’t gotten to play that in fifty years!” Then, she blushed again as she realized what she’d just said.

  Meanwhile, Emil blinked at her, as the mists swirled up to their knees. “Uh, ha. Yeah, it’s an old game. Must be older than you look, huh!” he joked.

  “1960s Bond girl,” shrugged Proto.

  She flicked his ear. “Older than that!”

  Emil smiled, apparently having concluded this was some inside joke. “Well, lead the way, Nastrid!”

  She spun to him, her violet glare wide, as Proto cackled.

  Then, her lips curved up too. She turned and led the way.

  After a few minutes, they reached a campsite. It had a food table, a still-smoldering fire pit, and a couple large tents a ways off. Astrid got a fire going, and they started playing atop a flannel blanket.

  “Nice setup,” observed Emil. “Wish I’d brought drinks.”

  “Here, we can share Proto’s flask.” Astrid reached behind a tree stump and retrieved a huge, canteen-like flask, blazoned with an ornate image of the planet Saturn.

  Proto raised an eyebrow.

  “Wow. Where’d you find that thing, Proto? Local temple holding an auction?” asked Emil. “Also, does that match your tracksuit?”

  Proto gave a sidelong glance to Astrid, who was beaming. “I don’t remember where I got it. I must’ve tested it out too much afterward, huh.”

  “Hope you don’t mind strong whisky,” said Astrid, pouring a dram into a red Solo cup.

  “If I’m going into consulting,” replied Emil, “I’d better get used to it.”

  They played wild rummy. Astrid was a master of the game—even after fifty years, apparently. Proto, in contrast, had to be reminded of the rules, so it took a while to get started. But things went smoothly after a couple rounds. Soon, it felt like their many card nights back at Somnus’ Palace.

  “This is fun,” remarked Emil, sipping some whisky. “Makes me feel less bad about missing that other camping trip.”

  “Other camping trip?” asked Proto absently, focused on his hand.

  “Yeah. Friend of mine, Yemos, invited me. Would’ve left with them yesterday,” replied Emil. “He and his girlfriend and brother are going to see some huge tree you can walk inside. Big as a house in there. When it was discovered, they say there was a Viking axe inside. Which is pretty weird. And pretty cool.”

  “Wait, Yemos?” Proto stared. “With his twin brother, Mannus?”

  “That’s the one. What, you know them?” asked the red-jacketed man, drawing a bemused nod from Proto. “Small world. Yep, those two and Yemos’ girlfriend, Ausrine. I feel sorry for Mannus—I was supposed to be the fourth wheel.”

  “How do you know Yemos?” asked Proto. Emil had just graduated college, which made him considerably younger than Yemos and Proto.

  “Oh, we met last year at the university museum. Medieval weaponry exhibition,” recalled Emil. “We were both admiring some huge halberd. At least, they called it a halberd—it was really a bardiche, I looked it up later. Anyway, we hung out a few times after that. And then he invited me on this trip. Thought I’d be interested because of that Viking axe. Which, of course, was right.”

  Proto exchanged a glance with Astrid. Her violet eyes were narrowed with thought.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence that Yemos’ name kept popping up like this. Was this Lady Luck’s doing? And if so, why?

  “But I don’t feel so bad now,” waved Emil. “If I’d gone, I would’ve missed this.”

  “This excellent night of sleepwalking, old card games, old Astrids, and whisky from a chalice-flask?” asked Proto.

  “That’s the one,” confirmed Emil.

  “Many things have improved since the 1960s,” remarked Astrid, “but not hair, jumpsuits and card games.”

  “Cheers to that!” Emil raised his red Solo cup. They tapped all three and drank.

  “To Slow Bro, Red-Jacket Guy, and Nastrid!” declared Proto, raising his cup. Emil tapped it and drank.

  Astrid flicked his ear.

  “One of these times,” observed Proto, rubbing his ear, “it’s just going to come off.”

  “You’re lucky! Could be worse,” retorted Astrid.

  Proto looked at her a moment. “And . . . Nastrid’s back!”

  Her face flushed. “That is not what I meant!”

  Emil laughed quietly. “Friends and,” he murmured.

  Proto smiled. This was a weird night—befriending a random guy in a dream and playing dream-cards with dream-whisky—but a good night. And not just for the dreamer.

  He glanced over at Astrid. Strands of silvery-blue hair hung in front of her face. One finger was over her lips in thought. She was peering upon her cards with narrowed eyes. They reflected the dancing flame in violet hues.

  He felt that warm tingling in his breast again. Yes, a good night.

  They finished their game—with Astrid narrowly beating Emil—and then basked in the flames’ waning light and warmth.

  “Suppose I should get going soon. But this was good,” yawned Emil, stretching his arms, as the others nodded. “Had a lot on my mind lately. I’d been worried about striking my own path, going it alone. But maybe I don’t have to do it alone. Maybe . . . ” He shook his head after a moment and smiled self-deprecatingly. “That whisky’s strong, Proto!”

  Proto and Astrid exchanged their own smiles, which said all that needed saying.

  The world had started turning faintly shadowy and translucent, taking on an air of half-reality. In the distance, clouds of whitish-grey were bulging and burgeoning toward them.

  Emil didn’t seem to notice. He was facing the starry heavens.

  Suddenly, Astrid turned to Proto with wide violet eyes. She blinked twice at him.

  He realized he had just clasped her hand. Too much dream-whisky . . . ! He felt her slender fingers between his, smooth and cool with the night air. His thumb slipped over one of her violet nails. And yet . . . He gave her hand a squeeze.

  She eyed his hand, then squeezed it back. Their intertwined hands glowed golden for a second. “You did it, Goko.” Her lips quirked up.

  As they stared at each other, everything around them was growing more ghostly and semilucent by the second.

  Then, it went red—starting with the skies, and then everything underneath. All three of them looked up at a nightscape going blood-hued, drowning away the spangled stars.