Proto found himself upon a barren plain. This place was familiar, from its reddish-brown dirt and star-strewn nightscape to the mist clouds drifting all around him, riddled with forming and unforming passages.

  What was unfamiliar was himself—or, rather, how he was moving about, scanning his surroundings and navigating these mists, all without any conscious involvement in doing so.

  He supposed it was a bit like being drunk and walking home at night, guided by ingrained habit rather than conscious thought. Or like being a sleepwalker, maneuvering his way through the world, without any help from his conscious part.

  Memories were wispy and fleeting. To be sure, Proto knew he was Proto. He knew his general life story and the key people in it—at least, up through age twenty-seven. But when he tried to zoom in on specific memories, they scattered and dissipated, like he were trying to grab some misty form from midair. Recent memories were the haziest of all.

  After a while of roving the wastes, he heard the sound of a far off girl singing. He made no conscious effort to seek her out, but nevertheless found himself traversing mist-tunnels leading toward her.

  Her words became discernible as he drew near. “In every petal, You are there.”

  Moments later, a wall of mist loomed before him. A portion of it thinned to gauzelike wispiness. On the other side, he could see the girl’s figure and the redness of her hair.

  “In every vein of every leaf,” came the girl’s voice.

  Toward the thinning mists he dashed. He wasn’t sure why he was doing so, or why he felt a sense of déjà vu. But he was certain he was meant to do this.

  Good luck, Proto, a familiar queenly voice echoed through his thoughts.

  As he struck the mists, a giddy daze swept over him. It felt like he’d been launched tumbling through the air. As a result, he lost his bearings and tripped to his hands and knees upon landing, his head almost striking the ground.

  “In seeming chaos—” the girl had been singing, but now abruptly cut off and turned to see this new arrival.

  As Proto crouched and breathed, his sense of balance returned within a few seconds. He felt lucid and in control now.

  The first thing he realized was that he was asleep and presumably visiting Mercune’s dream, just as Flua-Sahng had said he would.

  The second thing he realized was that his missing memories had returned. But they weren’t just the memories he’d already had. They now included the end of his time at Somnus’ Palace, when he’d made his choice as to his true love.

  Wait, no. . . . Choices?

  Multiple endings to his time at Somnus’ Palace were playing out in his recollection. Multiple Possibilities. Astrid. Lilac. Dahlia.

  He gaped with wide eyes, and his jaw dropped open. But how . . . ?

  “You . . . ” Mercune was squinting at him, her red head tilted, with blood-red wildflowers in hand. Her green gaze had the blazing sheen of starlight.

  Then, she smiled blithely. “Hello there.”

  But Proto hardly heard her. There was much more on his mind right now.

  Now, he was recalling how he’d declared his love for Astrid and, together, they’d sought the eternal beneath the starry galaxies and swirling nebulae.

  He recalled drinking Lilac’s cocktail by the Sea of Dreams, the one that she had saved only for him, and watching the sakura petals fall forever.

  He recalled chasing Dahlia through the endless stacks of old tomes, laughing beneath the shining stained-glass light.

  Even . . . Anima? He followed his memories to her elysian paradise, and recalled the high-flown wonders he’d experienced there, and his mind failed to fathom it.

  And there were more. Other Possibilities—bizarre, tender and unimaginable. And yet, in some possible future or another, he’d imagined each of them and made it real.

  In each of those futures, Proto had put his whole heart into seeking what he’d found there. And now the memories of its attainment lay before him. Each Possibility was perfect in its own way.

  But this—piling them all into one mind like this—it was too much. Piling suns on top of suns does not create a greater sun; it causes a collapse into a black hole. Likewise, piling together true loves does not create truer love; it makes them all collapse to something false.

  His search for romance had felt meaningful because, in the end, after all the fun and play, he’d have to make a choice. Each choice had felt right and full—like he’d found the one and only secret answer to life. His perfect counterpoint. Perhaps, even, his true love.

  Now, he knew that many paths would have left him feeling that way. How could life’s romance survive such knowledge?

  Indeed, he felt like he’d eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. And now he’d been expelled from not one paradise, but all the many paradises that had been Possibilities for him.

  Once, he’d hoped for one thing that would be his everything. Now, instead, he had everything and nothing.

  Proto almost stopped right there and sat down, in the middle of this barren plain, to stare blankly at the nothing before him. Before long, the wandering mists would blow over him and banish him from this plane. And he would welcome his expulsion to mirky oblivion.

  But, just as Proto started doing so, he recalled that wistful look on Flua-Sahng’s face as she described the many possible outcomes of things. Memories of her drifted into his recollection and mingled like mists:

  “Do think of this like a game, and be childlike enough to enjoy games. It’s my secret for never feeling old. I’ve been doing it since time started, and look at me!”

  Briefly, the smile on her face was so wistful that Proto blinked and wondered what he was missing. But then it was gone, as wistfulness gave way to ironic warmth.

  “Hellooo!” called Mercune. “Anyone in there?”

  Proto’s grim thoughts had felt interminable but, in reality, had spanned no more than several seconds.

  Gritting his teeth and forcing himself back into the moment, he faced the late-teen girl in her gossamer tunic of green. Her eyes of the same hue blinked twice at the expression on his face. She took a half-step backward.

  Yeah, if his face was anywhere near as intensely grim as he felt, it was surprising she wasn’t running away already.

  He managed to muster up a sanguine smile against his underlying melancholy, like sunlight reflecting on a dark sea.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Finally! I was worried I’d never find someone out here,” he declared, just as he had his first time here. “My car broke down back there. I tried to find my way back to the road, but I got lost in these mists.”

  She tilted her head at him. “Why are you saying that? We both know this dream for what it is.”

  Proto took a deep breath—recalling those exact words from his last time here, branded by shock upon his memory—and he exhaled with relief.

  Proto, you see, had a plan. It involved what’s called A/B testing.

  It was something he did at his job. When you’re A/B testing, you create a piece of content, like an advertisement or a logo. Then, you make variations of it, each with just one tweak—versions A and B, at least, and maybe C, D, E and so on. Then, you test them on a bunch of viewers and see which one performs best.

  The number one rule of A/B testing is this: Only include one tweak in each new version. That way, you know definitively whether a tweak is good or bad, depending whether it performs better or worse. In contrast, if you make several tweaks at once, it’s often impossible to tell which ones were good or bad.

  That’s how Proto planned to approach Mercune’s dreams. Each time, he’d tweak just one of his actions from what he’d done in the past. If it got a better result, he’d keep the tweak. Otherwise, he’d drop it.

  “I’m impressed you got here,” Mercune went on. “We’re awfully far into the Mists! They drift far across the dream border around here.”

  Believe it or not, this isn’t my first rodeo, Proto wanted to say.

  Instead, Proto made a point of blinking and tilting his head, as he always did when confused. “I . . . don’t understand what that means.”

  “Hm. Are you sure?” she asked. “Anyway, where are you headed?”

  “Um.” He looked at her. Exactly where you’re headed. To find the Queen of Heaven. “I don’t really know the area.”

  “Okay. Well, you can walk with me then.” She strolled directly toward a wall of mists.

  Proto supposed that he should act concerned. “Wouldn’t those mists wake me up if I touched them?”

  “Sure would. Which is why”—she waved toward the mists with a red-glowing hand—“it’s a good thing I’m here!” The red light shot from her fingers through the mists, which parted into a tunnel before her. “Let’s get going, huh?”

  Proto blinked and tried to act baffled. She chuckled at his discomfiture, then strode ahead of him.

  “So, I tried to clear the Mists earlier and make a passage, but it wouldn’t work,” he observed, following her. “Could you teach me how?”

  “Afraid not!” she winced and smiled. “Leave it to me. I got you covered.”

  “But wait, why can’t I do it?” he asked.

  Proto didn’t like asking questions he already knew the answers to. But to do a valid A/B test, he could only make one tweak to the last version of this dream, and he didn’t want to waste it by changing this part. That was the most frustrating part of A/B testing—even if you thought five things could be improved, you could only tweak one at a time.

  “It’s clear just looking at you. Wrong aura!” she observed. “Wrong ‘affinity,’ as Gramps would put it.”

  “Ah. Understood.” He frowned as though he absolutely didn’t understand.

  “Don’t feel too bad! We can’t all be everything,” she mused. “Me, I’m Mercune and I’m a seer.” She thrust out a hand. “And you?”

  He shook her hand. “Proto. And I’m . . . a visitor, I guess. A visitor of dreams.”

  “Hmph, so I see! I’ve had a few other ‘visitors’ like you,” she recalled. “Always sneaking into my dreams, trying to fit in.” She waved her hand, and the Mists assembled themselves vaguely into the shape of a seven-foot-tall louring creepy man. “Welp, not gonna fool me!” She waved her hand, and the Mist-man was launched airborne, where he dissipated.

  Proto blinked twice. “I take it that towering fellow was me?”

  She giggled. “Yeah, you and all your dreamstalker friends had best be careful!”

  “You know, Somnus does call himself the Darkling Stalker,” mused Proto.

  “Uh-huh. Creepola!” she affirmed. “ . . . wait, Somnus? Like, Flua-Sahng’s son—that Somnus? She says he’s funny. And he wears fancy clothes and drinks too much.”

  “That’s the one,” confirmed Proto.

  The moment had arrived. It was time to make that tweak. Time for Version A to veer off into Version B.

  “Speaking of which,” he went on before she could reply, “how did you get to know Somnus’ mom, the Queen of Heaven?”

  “The ‘Queen of Heaven’!” Mercune smiled and rolled her eyes. “I mean, that’s what she is, I guess. But she’s so modest. So I don’t get why she’s always happy when she hears that title.”

  Not for the first time, Proto seemed to see a shadow of a memory moving through his recollection, only to disappear among other shadows before he could discern it clearly.

  “Anyway, to answer your question,” the redhead girl went on, “it started when I found her Fossil and touched it. Boom! I was out cold. Or so I’ve been told.”

  “From my perspective, everything just went mirky and starry and grey,” she recalled. “Then, suddenly, I was here, together with Flua-Sahng. And she taught me all sorts of stuff.”

  “Huh. Interesting.” Proto meant it. Sometimes he felt like there were two sets of rules—the physical ones everyone was familiar with and the fey and dreamy ones governing everything odd that’d happened to him recently. He was always eager to learn more about the latter. “You just passed out and woke up here?”

  Mercune raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I mean by ‘her Fossil’?” she asked calmly. “Like, ‘What kind of fossil? A bone? A dinosaur fossil?’ Or maybe, ‘Why do you have the Fossil of Flua-Sahng, random redhead girl!’”

  Blinking, Proto started to devise some casual and convincing explanation.

  Then, he saw the mists swirling upward from the ground—first around his ankles, then his thighs and waist.

  His eyes widened, and he went dumb. That can happen even in this dream?

  This dream, most definitely, had veered off on a new path.

  “The Fossil that’s been on the news, of course. The new energy source.” Proto tried to sound nonchalant. But the mists kept rising. “That’s why I’m here. Because you’re Fyrir’s—”

  “Oh? Is that why?” she broke in wide-eyed—wide not with surprise, but with shining intensity. “And not the slightest bit of surprise that it’s Flua-Sahng’s Fossil!”

  “I . . . guess I wasn’t focused—”

  “Uh-huh,” Mercune broke in, scrutinizing him. She tapped him on the chest. “There’s something odd about you. I noticed it the moment you got here—that pause, that look on your face. ‘He’s not being authentic with me!’ I thought. Which is odd. For all your playful insincerity, you strike me as a fairly authentic person.”

  This was getting weird. “Um, I’m not sure what you mean—”

  “Now, now,” she waved. “It’s too late to pretend now! I think you know more than you should. And I’m very curious how!”

  The mists now were swelling past Mercune’s mouth toward his own mouth.

  “Um,” he managed, tilting back his head to avoid inhaling the mists. “I, uh.” Any moment now, he’d breathe the mist in and be flung headlong out of the dream. He’d hurtle through starry grey obscurity back to—where? Not the misty blue hallways of Somnus’ Palace.

  Would he be back home on his couch? Or would he be tossed into oblivion, drifting nowhere and suffocating, like when he’d visited Emil’s dream and the man had died?

  Proto stood on his tiptoes, wincing down at the mists, an inch away.

  “Yes, yes, I see them too!” Mercune remarked impatiently. Almost entirely hidden by the mists, she spoke a word in a foreign but familiar tongue, her voice backed by a toneless power.

  Abruptly, an orb of red burst into being around her and him, blasting back the still-rising mists.

  They now stood in a sphere of roiling mists, stained blood-red with Mercune’s light.

  “So, Proto.” The world was a weltering storm, and at its center stood this redhead girl, beaming upon him blithely. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”

  Proto took a deep breath, then sighed it out, his eyes sinking shut. This was way beyond him now. “I . . . think it would be best if you took me to Flua-Sahng and asked her what to do.”

  At the heart of the dream-tempest, Mercune narrowed her green gaze upon him, her long red hair billowing all about her.

  Then, she waved a hand and shrugged. “Okay.” Her blood-red aura dwindled. The whirling mists melted to nothing, like dew in the morning sun. Only the original drifting walls of mist remained.

  And off she walked. She kept a straight path, not bothering to take the forming and unforming passages. She simply waved a shining red hand, and the mists parted for her, like crowds before a waving princess.

  Proto wasn’t sure what to make of everything that’d happened just now. But one thing seemed near-certain: this new Version B of Mercune’s dream was not an improvement over Version A.

  Back to the drawing board.

  After some minutes striding in silence, they reached their destination.

  “Time for some answers!” Mercune waved at a wall of thick mist looming before them. At once, it was blown away like a straw house confronted by a huffing and puffing wolf.

  Beyond the scattered mists stood Flua-Sahng, radiant amid the wan wastes. The gust blew back her long red hair and rustled through her starry leaf garb.

  She raised her brow, then brushed a stray tress from her face. “Welcome, Daughter of Life. You’ve brought a visitor, I see.”

  “A visitor? I’ll say!” declared Mercune. “What’s up with this guy? Why does he know about your Fossil? Why does he know you? He knows more than he should.”

  “Perhaps. But one might say the same of me, Mercune,” Flua-Sahng bantered.

  “Well, sure. You’re the Consort of the First and the Mother of All! You should know more than you should. But who’s he?” demanded the redhead girl.

  “Oh, Proto, Proto,” sighed the Queen of Heaven, shaking her head at him

  “Right, Proto. That much, I know,” noted Mercune. “But who is Proto?”

  “Why, an old friend of mine,” replied Flua-Sahng.

  Mercune blinked. “What? How old?”

  Flua-Sahng’s lips pursed thoughtfully. “ . . . hm. I think we’ve played this out long enough.” She waved a hand.

  One moment, Mercune was peering at them both in confusion.

  The next, she was melting into mist. In the space of two blinks, she’d become wisps of whitish-grey, dissipating into the air.