Author’s Note: These Dream Sequence stories each start with an actual vivid dream I had. After I finish writing the details of each dream, I use Sudowrite artificial intelligence as a collaborator to continue the story in an attempt to connect all of the dream sequences somehow. Each story is a mix of human dreams, artificial intelligence, and conscious storytelling.
Previous dream sequence: Ancient Portal
The hills were covered with grass all the way to the horizon. Near the horizon, the green of the grass met the blue of the ocean. It rustled in the sea breeze. I did not recognize this place.
I scanned the fields of grass writhing in the wind. No bodies. I was looking for bodies. A catastrophe had come, and many died. But I didn’t see any bodies here.
I trudged up one of the hills. My partner lagged behind. A bird fluttered awkwardly overhead, flapping its wings quickly and diving down toward the sea. A puffin. Now I knew where I was. The Isle of West, in the Sea on the Treetops.
As I reached the top of the hill, I saw a man-made line of rocks set in a straight line going from left to right, as if it were a boundary. On the line stood a tall black man, standing completely still, his rich dark skin glinting majestically in the sunlight. He looked like a Masai warrior, wearing a cloak of beige feathers and holding a spear. He stood unmoving, like a realistic manakin planted in the field of grass.
I walked toward the warrior and my partner hurried to catch up. The warrior looked at me. A scowl came over his face and he began walking toward my partner, who I just realized was a version of my wife. Not exactly my wife, but a version of her. Like a cheap copy that had the basic appearance of my wife, but was not my wife.
The warrior came forward, taking long, angry strides toward my wife-clone. Then he began shouting in a deep voice and gesturing toward my wife. “Kill him.” A wave of fear came over me. “Kill him,” he repeated. I looked at my wife and my fears were confirmed. The warrior seemed to have persuasive power over my partner. “Kill him,” he kept repeating as he strode toward us. As he came upon us, he handed his spear to my wife while angrily shouting one last time, “kill him.”
Terror washed over me as I stood there, frozen, wondering if I should run or say something.
My wife, influenced by the warrior, took the spear from him and lifted it toward me. Her face was contorted with rage. There was no doubt in my mind that she was about to plunge the spear into my chest. I had to do something. We stood there, my wife furious with me and me frozen in fear, me looking at her and her looking at me, me pleading with my eyes and her with the spear.
And then, somehow, I was able to move. I had the fortitude to move and speak again. I said gently, raising my palms to show I was no threat, “She’s not you. Don’t be her.”
Then, from behind me, I heard another voice, very low, a voice that somehow I recognized, a man’s voice. It sounded almost like an echo. “I’m not you. Don’t be me.”
Hesitantly, and fully aware that there was still a spear pointed at my chest, I turned my head toward the voice behind me. It was… me… or at least a version of myself. Not exactly me, but a version of me. It was the counterpart of my wife-clone.
And then the spear hit me.
I fell backward, then lay on my back looking upward, staring up into a deep blue of the cloudless sky. I lay there, my entire body burning with the pain of my wound. I looked down and saw my spear-wound… and saw my blood starting to pour out of it. All the while I could hear my blood as pulsed out of my body and spattered onto the blades of grass, my heart as it beat its final beats, and my breath as it came and went, dissipating in strength.
I sensed that I was born and that my time on the earth was now ending, and that I no longer had a reason to live. And I welcomed it. And I embraced it with eagerness and joy.
And then the pain went away and I was no longer thinking of dying, but of living. And I was no longer thinking of dying, but of living.
I opened my eyes and drew a deep, gasping breath. Life.
I suddenly became aware of my heartbeats, pounding vigorously in my chest. I felt each breath filling my lungs with air, and hope. Thoughts returned to my consciousness like a deluge of raindrops. “To earn your soul, save a soul,” the voice in my head said, over and over again.
I knew what I had to do. I was reborn, but not as the same person I was before. The old me had been replaced, and there was no longer a place in this world for two of me. But my new self was better. I had metamorphized and transcended my old self. There was no longer a purpose for my old self, and I could discard it like a cicada discards its old, inferior exoskeleton. I now had a new past, a new purpose, and a new name.
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