A man stands before me. No, sits before me. He looks like he’s in his 20’s, wearing a formal jacket and black pants. His hair is brown and sharp, and his feet are bare. His eyes have an odd glow to them. He’s sitting on thin air at first, but then a chair materializes under him. Suddenly, we’re given a table, and a room too. Another chair appears, presumably for me. Two cups of wine appear, and the bland room suddenly becomes a lively restaurant filled with joyful people. I take a seat across the strange man. I feel a pleasant warmth in my stomach. “Enjoy it while it lasts.” He chuckles contently, leaning back into his chair. “Some call this heaven, but I just call it comfortable. You’ll never be able to come back here again, so I’ll give you some time to soak it all in.” I sit back in my chair and relax. I’m never tempted to say anything, because everything is perfect. A waitress delivers our food, a gourmet dish of Lobster Newburg, my favorite. “You happy?” The man asks with a grin. I nod. “Great.” He says. “It’s time we talk business. In a few minutes you’ll wake up in a laboratory. Doctors and scientists will ask you many questions. Do not answer any of them. Eventually they’ll take you to a bedroom. I’ll be waiting for you there.” I try to say something, anything, but my airway is completely blocked by something think and solid. I give up and manage to relax my muscles, and breath slightly. For some reason the room doesn’t feel nearly as pleasant as it did before. I feel uneasy in my chair. Everyone stares at me wobbling out of my chair. I hit the ground hard, and squirm back up to my feet. Just as I do, the man gets up and kicks me in the gut, causing me to fall down again. “Don’t fight it.” He says. “When you die, you wake up. So let’s get this over with.” I feel a sharp pain in my stomach, and another in my arm. I shake uncontrollably as more sharp pains hit. The man opens up his formal jacket, revealing a giant flail, pulsing with some sort of energy. “Don’t panic. This is merely a dream, and I’m just going to help you escape.” He says. I’m in so much pain my vision begins to blur. I can barely make out the man pulling his flail over his head, and then hammering it down between my eyes. Everything goes black. “Nocturna! Nocturna can you hear me? Nocturna!” I open my eyes and find myself in a glass capsule. It’s tiny and uncomfortable, like a coffin. Doctors and scientists are huddled over it, like the man predicted. They open the capsule and let me out. The group of doctors direct me to a chair and gives me a blanket to cover up my naked body. Everyone seems relieved and happy for some reason. One doctor walks towards me and sits in a chair facing me. “Hello Nocturna.” He says. “I know this is very weird for you, but you’re going to need to tell us everything you just saw in your dream.” I sit back in my chair and look into the doctor’s concerned eyes. Then I remember the man from my dream telling me not to say anything. I ponder over who I should trust, and decide to keep my mouth shut. A full minute of silence passes. All the doctors and scientists are staring at me, waiting for a response. “No.” I say. The doctor looks perplexed.“You have to speak Nocturna. This is extremely important.” He says.“Why?” I ask.“Nocturna, you just witnessed a phenomenon we cannot yet explain. This doesn’t happen very

often, so we need you to speak.” He says. I still don’t want to lend my trust to anyone, but the doctor seems to be telling the truth. I can see it in his eyes.“Take me to my room. I need to think this over alone.” I say.“Your room? How do you know you even have a room?” The doctor asks. I don’t answer and instead just look away. “Fine, take him to his room.” He orders. A girl gets up and takes my arm. She’s tall and beautiful, and she doesn’t resemble a doctor or scientist. She seems different for some reason; everyone else seems foreign to me, but she looks oddly familiar. She takes me down the hall and we stop at the end, by a door. “This is it. Don’t take too long; we’ll be checking up on you soon.” She says, before walking away. The door looks like a hotel door, compared to the hospital-like hallway. When I walk in, I’m taken back by the beauty of the room. Although it’s small, the bed blankets look like a red suede, and the floor is mahogany hard-wood. I walk over to the bed and sit down. That man said he’d be here. I wait a minute, doubting that he’ll show up. But out of nowhere, he materializes. “Hello, Noc. Sorry I’m late, I was working on a little something. Anyways, good job heeding my advice.” He takes a seat next to me. “You know Noc, you are just the kind of person I’ve been waiting for. I’m going to need your help with something very important. I can help you too. For instance, I can help you get out of here alive, which doesn’t happen to many people. And I can help you stay alive for quite a while, which happens to practically nobody around here. So, I’ll help you if you help me. Deal?” He says. “I…I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?” I ask.“Don’t worry about that right now. Let’s just worry about getting you out of here alive, okay? When the doctor asks you what you saw in that dream of yours, just tell him you were in a restaurant alone, and you were happy. Don’t mention me, or the earthquake, or the needles. Just say you were alone, and happy. Alright?”“Alright.”“By the way Noc, you’re the only one who can see or hear me. I’m sort of a ghost, if you want to think of it that way. Now go out there and say what I told you to say. I’ll be back in the laboratory waiting for you. Oh, and my name is Stone.” The man named Stone disintegrated, leaving nothing behind. I reach out and touch the space he was occupying. How strange. I decide to lend my trust to the man, at least temporarily, because he seems to want me alive. The name Stone sounds familiar, too. I can’t exactly remember where I heard it but I know I’ve heard it before. Allot of things seem familiar, but sadly I can’t remember anything specific before the dream I had. My head instinctively turns to the door. I get a weird feeling somebody’s on the other side, so I walk over and open it, revealing the girl waiting for me. “Oh, sorry I was just coming to take you back. Umm, were you just talking to someone back there?” She says. I realize she could hear me talking to Stone, even though I only said a word or two.“No, no one. I was just thinking out loud, I guess.” The girl looks down and back up. She blushes.“Umm, you should probably get some clothes on, it’s generally considered rude to walk around naked.” I blush too, realizing my mistake. “Sorry, I…forgot. I don’t really remember anything.” I say, embarrassed, but not sure why.

“Don’t worry, that’s common. Just, get some clothes on and come back when you’re dressed.” She shuts the door, and I look around for clothes. After opening a bunch of drawers, I finally find the one I need. I put on some clothes and leave the room. When I get back to the laboratory, I see Stone sitting down in the far corner of the room. The room is cleared of scientists, and only occupied by a couple doctors and the girl. “Nocturna, are you ready to talk?” The doctor asks.“Yes, I just needed some time to gather my thoughts.” “Okay then. Well tell me everything you remember as vividly as you can.” “There was a restaurant. I had a nice big table to myself, with a delicious lobster dish and beautiful music playing in the background.” I see Stone sitting in one of the chairs, listening. He gives me a thumbs up and smiles. “Nobody else was there, but I didn’t feel lonely. In fact I felt rather happy. That’s all I remember.” The girl seems to be writing down everything I said word for word. Her hand moves faster than I ever thought possible. The doctor calls my attention back to himself with his suspicious eyes.“Tell me Nocturna, did you eat the lobster meal?” He asks. Stone gets up and says, “No. Tell him you didn’t eat or say anything.”“I didn’t eat anything.” I emulate.The doctor looks disappointed, like he expected to catch me in a lie. “Okay then. How long did this experience last?” He questions.Stone guides me again. “Tell him it lasted around four minutes.”“About four minutes.” I repeat.I’m relieved to see the doctor’s eyes have lost all trace of suspicion. Stone seems less worried too.“Thank you for your honesty.” He seems like he knows I was lying, but has no evidence to back it up. “Now relax for a second Nocturna. We’re going to explain everything in just a second. I just need to know a couple things. Do you know what a human is?” He inquires. “Yeah. Like the species of me and you, right?” He frowns. “No, you are not a human Nocturna. Do you know what a Gladiator is?” The word sounds familiar, but again I can’t remember what it means. “No, not really.” I say. Stone gets up and walks over to me. The doctor talks again.“Nocturna, you are a gladiator. For some unknown reason somebody tried to invade your birth dream and destroy your collective knowledge of your own species. Nothing like this has ever happened before.” The doctor tells me, with no traces of a lie in his voice. “Noc, I know what you’re thinking, but that wasn’t me. I was only in your dream to stop the criminal.” Stone says.“We think there was something that you knew that somebody else didn’t want you to know. We’re trying to find out what that is. So tell me Nocturna, what did happen in that dream of yours?” The doctor demands. “Do not tell him! Do not tell him or he will kill you! Keep your mouth shut about the dream, or you’ll be dead.” Stone yells. Again I have to decide who I should trust.“Doctor, can you tell me if you know a man named Stone?” I ask. The doctor looks surprised and Stone looks less than happy.