Dreamwalker ~ Chapter Two

Brandon raised his head, and stared at the unknown girl dressed in the long white gown. He was truly shocked, yet he was thankful to see her. A few days after they moved to Southern Lake he had stopped sleeping like usual, and from that moment he had spent his nights trapped in that haze that didn’t completely feel like a dream, but he wasn’t sure how to call it either. He was sure something was wrong with his head, even when he didn’t dare mention it to his father, it had been bugging him to no end. He was almost sure that normal people slept through the night without remembering most of things in their dreams, just random odd and pieces from a couple of them in a week.

Dreams were supposed to be crazy and ridiculous, however his were different. He had been dreaming for months that he was in his bedroom, always in his bed like when he fell asleep, only it felt as he was awake. The most confusing thing was that he remembered everything the following morning, but no matter how much he promised to himself that he would try to snap out of that haze the next day, every night he found out that he didn’t remember the promises. It was as if his mind refused to cooperate with him, so he ended up spending night after night submerged in that numb state, sitting on his bed, while his body was sleeping.

He was relieved that at least his body appeared to be doing what was expected, he couldn’t start to imagine how difficult it could be to explain if he slept while standing, or worse than that, if he wasn’t able to rest at all. There was no way he could have hidden that from his family. Fortunately, all the strange situation seemed to be happening inside his mind. He could keep the secret until he figured out what was wrong with him or the mysterious town of Southern Lake.

That’s why when Tiffany stepped in Brandon’s dream room, it made him hopeful for the first time in weeks. His optimism didn’t last long when she saw the girl’s horrified eyes staring back at him.

“Who are you?” He asked hesitantly.

“You...you...can see me..?” Tiff’s soft voice half asked, half gasped.

“Of course I can see you, why? Can’t you see me?” Brandon tried again. When Tiffany nodded, that perplexed expression never leaving her face, he started putting the pieces together. She was able to see him, so that wasn’t what was disturbing her; he could only think of two other possibilities. Either in her eyes he didn’t look like his usual self, or he was the one not supposed to be able to see her. Because Brandon was a little full of himself even when the circumstances weren’t favoring him, he put the idea of looking somehow monstruous or repulsive as his last option, and went for the easiest for his ego. “Are you a ghost?” He asked swallowing hard.

“A ghost?” She couldn’t help but laughing. In all the years she had been wandering in people’s heads the first time another being was able to her, and he thought she was a ghost? Her laugh sounded clear, unplanned, and it startled her. She wasn’t used to laugh, she didn’t remember laughing since she was a young girl, so that sobered her up fast.

Brandon’s grey gaze was on her when she looked up again. He was trying to decide what to make out of her, he had the feeling that he had seen her before, but she couldn’t place her face. Maybe she was a distant relative who died at a young age and that was why her facial structure looked vaguely familiar to him, perhaps somebody he had known long time ago and he couldn’t remember.

“Have I met you, spirit girl?” He asked, and the moment the question left his lips he wanted to kick himself at the sound of it. He felt out of his territory, he had never thought he would have to interrogate a spirit to get the answers he was so desperate needing. He wondered if there was any protocol to interview a ghost.

Tiff, who had been having a hard time biting back the giggles again, couldn’t believe the turn her visit was taking. She had hoped that, once she knew a couple of embarrassing secrets about him, his charm would go away; but instead of that, she was immersed in a ludicrous conversation with an apparently conscient Brandon who was convinced she was a spirit.

She wasn’t sure what had gone wrong, she knew nobody should be able to see her, at least that was what Kay had told her long ago, and she had never found a reason to think the contrary. She couldn’t count on Brandon remembering anything in the morning, but she was thrilled to finally be able to talk to him. It didn’t matter to her that he’d probably forget everything in a few hours, or that she wasn’t technically talking to him.

Suddenly another idea crossed her mind, perhaps the problem wasn’t that he could see her, there was a chance that this was her own dream. Isabella had always considered as a rule that she couldn’t have dreams of her own, but she had no proof to support that theory, so it could have a flaw. She decided she liked the crack in her speculations if that meant she could dream of Brandon Wilson.

She smiled at that thought. Considering her options, making the best she could of that visit was clearly her best shot; she could analyze the situation in the morning, and think of a contingency plan. If that was her dream, she could take the reigns and stir it in whichever direction she wanted.

“Why do you insist in treating me as if I was a ghost?” She asked, amused.

“Are you going to reply all my questions with another question?” Brandon asked back, he was starting to get annoyed, and he had never been good at the anger management department. He was impatient by nature, and he was used to get what he wanted with very little effort from his part.

“Of course you’ve answered all mine so you’re in an excellent position to bark at me, right? Tiff replied cocking an eyebrow. “What are you? Five?” The fact she had determined that it was her dream gave her a determination she didn’t fathom possessing.

“I call truce. White flag!” He said raising his hands in a surrendering gesture. “We’re not getting anywhere like this. I’ll answer one of your questions, and then you’ll answer one of mine, we’ll keep turns until one of us runs out of questions, what do you say?” His tone was a lot more calm than he felt, he was getting restless, but Tiffany was the only change that had happened in his monotonous dreams, and he was willing to bet anything that she was the missing piece of his puzzle. When Tiff nodded, grinning, he took it as a good sign, so he played nice and gave her first reply on his own. “I think you’re a ghost because of how you look like?” His statement sounded hesitant and he intonated as a question, he hoped the girl wouldn’t notice.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” she clicked her tongue shaking her head disapprovingly. Her new discovered confidence was making her saucier. “Are you asking me what you think?”

“Ok, I give up! You’re impossible!” He said, frustrated. “I think you are a ghost because you look like one,” he pointed with his hand up and down in her general direction, and added, “you are pale and you’re dressed like one.” Brandon wasn’t pleased with his explanation, but he didn’t have a better one.

“Awesome!” Tiff clapped her hands. “I’m so honored to be in the presence of an authority in the ghost field! Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got?”

He shrugged unapologetically, but his intent to hide his discomfort wasn’t completely successful. She saw his weakness and pressed.

“So I take it as, in your book, everybody pale or dressed in white must be a ghost then,” she pretended to ponder the situation for a moment, and then said “polar bears and albinos are ghosts. How about an anemic bride? Oh my god! That must be a superghost-”

“Shut up!” He interrupted her, but he was visibly fighting his laugh. “You were surprised I was able to see you. I was only looking for a reasonable explanation.” He tried to sound certain, but he knew he was shooting blindly and hoping to aim, he just wished the mysterious girl started giving him something firmer to work with.

It was Tiffany’s turn to squirm. She wasn’t expecting him to notice that detail, so she decided to deflect the veiled inquiry. “My turn! No, we haven’t met before,” she said answering his earlier question. She was aware that she wasn’t technically lying, but she wasn’t telling all the truth either. She knew him, but he didn’t have the slightest idea who she was, and they haven’t formally been introduced. She mentally rolled her eyes at the absurdity of the situation, not even in her dreams she was other thing than invisible in Brandon Wilson’s world.

He was momentarily distracted contemplating that new piece of information, which helped Tiff to relax and gain control again. I was her turn to ask. There was a million things she would like to know about him, and at the same time she thought sadly that whatever answers he’d give her would be only a product of her own imagination, not the real answers he’d give if she asked the same things when both of them were awake, so she downplayed it. “What’s your name?”

“Brandon Wilson,” he replied without hesitation. Tiff felt the giggles raising in her throat again, so she swallowed heavily, the last thing she wanted was starting laughing like a hyena in front of him, but her thoughts were hilarious. In the last moment, when she had already started to ask him about his name, she realized how horrible it could be if her mind played her tricks and her dream Brandon was named some other thing.

“A rose by any other name...,” she muttered under her breath. She had never paid too much attention to that quote, but now she understood what Juliet was feeling. It didn’t matter what his name was in her dream, it didn’t even matter that he wasn’t the real Brandon, she’d take anything she could get, even that silly banter they had shared meant a lot to her.

If Brandon heard what she whispered, he chose to let it pass, because he didn’t comment, he just jumped to his next question. “What’s your name?”

Tiff haven’t thought what answer to give to him if he asked that, so she felt like an idiot for leaving the possibility at his feet. When she didn’t reply right away, he gained some territory again.

“What happens? Did the cat eat your tongue? You don’t want me to call you Ghost... Would you prefer Anemic Bride? Because if you don’t tell me your name I’ll have to call you one of-”

“Sunjila,” she blurted out without thinking. It was the first thing that crossed her mind, her grandma Kay used to call her Sunjilala, little fox in Lakota. For some strange reason, she didn’t want to give him her real name, and her Lakota name  wasn’t more real than Tiffany. In fact she was Sunjila when she walked in the dreams, so it made sense offering him that name.

Brandon was confused at the way it sounded, but decided not to waste his turn demanding explanations. He didn’t know what much time she had, and he didn’t want to wake up without having shed some light on his problem.

“Why wasn’t I supposed to see you, Sunjila?”

Tiff cursed silently at herself . She felt she was the most incompetent dreamer in the world. How could she be getting into trouble every five minutes? She really didn’t have control over the situation and that made her feel sick, but she tried to calm down convincing her inner self that she wasn’t used to dream.

“It’s complicated,” she offered, wondering whether he would leave it at that or not.

“Listen,” Brandon addressed her curtly, “both of us know that you’re trying to hide something from me, but I happen to need the truth. Why don’t you give me the uncensored version and let me decide if I can handle it myself.”

“It’s not about what you can handle or not, it’s not that simple,” Tiff told him in a tired voice. She was starting to think that the truth wasn’t such a bad idea at that point. “I don’t know why you need to know,” she said, stressing the word, “but I’m quite sure that your problem has nothing to do with me. Let’s make a deal, you tell me what exactly do you need, and I’ll give you that particular answer if I know it. How does it sound, Brandon?”

It was the first time Tiffany said his name out loud, and she paused to savor it, she didn’t know if she’ll ever have the chance to repeat the experience while being awake. Brandon briefly contemplated his options, deciding he didn’t have anything to lose. He was still a little intrigued about the secrets the girl could be keeping, but in his book Brandon Wilson always came first than the rest of the world. He wasn’t used to put anybody’s needs before his own, and much less a stranger’s. That meant that if he could solve his problem with her help, he wouldn’t care much about anything else.

“Ok, deal.” He was getting exasperated so he went directly for what he wanted. “Why can’t I get out of here?”

“Where is here?” Tiff asked, confused, not really noticing that she had replied with another question until she saw Brandon’s angry eyes glaring at her. I’m serious, I need to know where here is to answer that question-”

“Here!” He growled, flapping his arms gesturing the room.

Tiffany was intimidated by his irritated tone and the way he was looking at her, but she asked in her tiny voice “Do you recognize this place?”

“Of course I know this place! Do I look like a moron? Why wouldn’t I recognize my own freaking bedroom?” he jumped from the bed, and he was standing in front of her in a second, his long legs closing the distance in a few strides.

Tiff gasped, and recoiled until her back hit the wall. The terror in her eyes must have brought him to his senses, because his expression softened, and he took a step back from her.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Sunjila,” he told her, and his voice sounded truly apologetic. “I just...I...I’ve been trapped in this room every night for weeks...I think I’m going crazy.” His shoulders were slumped forward, his gaze cast on the floor, and Tiff couldn’t bear to see him so defeated. She was about to try something, anything to help him when she felt the familiar cool air on the nape of her neck. She shuddered, and she knew she was out of time.

“Brandon,” she said, and her voice sounded like honey. He raised his head to lock his eyes with hers. “You have to go back to bed now-” He tried to interrupted, but she went on in a firmer tone. She needed to keep him safe, and explaining him anything then would only get them in trouble. “You can’t go out now, it’s dawn and it’s dangerous. I can’t stay either, but I can promise you one thing: tonight I’ll come back looking for you. Now you need to lie down.”

Brandon didn’t have the energy to protest, suddenly he felt weary, his legs protested and didn’t hold his weight any more. He dragged his feet across the carpeted floor while Tiffany walked to the door and opened it.

As she walked through the light corridor and into the mist, Tiff was praying she could be true to the word she had given to him.

Dreamwalker ~ Chapter One

Tiffany relaxed, and let herself sink in the well known shadows. She had been doing that for almost ten years, and it never ceased to amaze her.

Her mind wandered briefly in the memories of her grandma Kay showing her how to use the family gift when she was nine. It was the week after her mother died in that incongruous accident; Tiffany hadn’t been able  sleep more than a few hours before the nightmares woke her up in the middle of night.


“Listen, Tif, I know this is going to sound strange to you, but all the women in the Fox family are special. We all have a gift, a bit of magic running in our veins,” she told her in the same voice she used to tell her fairy tales before going to bed. Her worn out hands cradling Tiffany’s small ones, while she sat on the edge of her bed in her long white nightgown.

At first Tiffany thought she was telling her another tale, but when Grandma kept on going deeper in her story, she had the feeling that there was something real in what she was telling.

“You’re a special girl, Sunjila, you’ll experience this all through your life, but the first time is very important for the Ijamblamaniyan.” caressed her cheek softly, a sad look lingering in her eyes for a moment. “Wait here, sweetheart, I’ve got something for you.”

She stood up and went to her bedroom, leaving her granddaughter reclined against the headboard of her bed with a big smile in her lips. Her grannie always had that ability to soothe her, she loved listening to her deep voice, moreover when she peppered her sentences with words in lakota. The old lady descended from that tribe, and she had always taken their traditions very scrupulously. Most of Tiffany’s childhood memories where sprinkled with ancient legends and native words.

Kay came back carrying a small feathered ornament in her hands, she sat on the edge of Tiffany’s bed again, and show it to her. Tiffany stared in awe at the little blue dreamcatcher Kay was balancing between her fingers. She had seen those before, her grandma had one hanging from the wall at the head of her bed, and she knew the story too. At least she knew the story Kay had told her so many times since she was a toddler, what she didn’t know was that there was something that legends never talked about.


Tiffany laid on her bed breathing softly, feeling her body lighten,  and her mind becoming the main part of her. She knew that familiar tingling all too well. She gave a last thought to the blue dreamcatcher guarding her dreams, the same one Grandma Kay gave her a few months before her death, and she let the comfort of that thought pull her deeper into the dream realm.

She strolled in the haze, barefoot, enjoying the feeling of the soft hem of her white nightgown caressing her legs as she walked. She never had a real explanation for that, but she knew that whatever she was wearing when she fell asleep, that would be the clothes she’d be in when she got into the dream. Tiffany had never asked Kay if there was a reason for that to happen, when she was a kid she never gave too much consideration to it, and by the time she was old enough to have questions, her grandmother had already passed away.

She felt free when she walked in other people’s dreams, it always gave her sensation of power she didn’t have when she was awake. At night she was in her own reign, she could waltz in the dream of any person she wanted, and watch it like a movie, without being seen by the dreamers. It was overpowering and exhilarating at the same time. She had to bear people thinking they were better than her during the daytime, but at night things were very different. Tiffany knew the inner desires and fears of almost everybody in Southern Lake. They had dreamt of them, and she had watched silently in sidelines. Perhaps that was what gave her the energy to carry away with her invisible life, she knew the truth, they weren’t as different from her as they tried so hard to prove day after day. Everybody had fears, everybody had weakness, and all of them had a secret or two.

Tiffany never learned exactly how her gift worked, or which were her limitations, so she guided herself the best she could using a trial-error method until she knew where she was standing. She knew she could choose whose dream to watch if she fell asleep thinking of a certain person, she also knew that if she didn’t concentrate in anybody in particular she’d end up in a random dream, sometimes one belonging to a stranger. She wasn’t sure of her range, so the stranger could be in Avon Park or in Alaska for all she knew. Of two things she was certain, she never had had dreams of her own after the day her Grandmother initiated her in her gift, and nobody ever had seen her as she skipped in and out of their heads. That was her bigger satisfaction, the only moment in her life in which being invisible wasn’t something she had to work for in order to survive, it was her armour, her effortless safety net.

Sometimes she felt frustrated about it. It wasn’t fair that the only person who could answer her questions wasn’t there for her when she needed her the most, but then again, she knew by personal experience that life was hardly fair.

How could a young girl hope for fairness when she lost her mother at nine, and her grandmother a few months after that? Tiffany’s life had collapsed to the basement in a little over three months, all the family she had left was her uncle Russell who had grudgingly raised her.

Uncle Russ wasn't exactly a bad person, he was just too used to his eternal bachelor life to want to raise a nine year old girl. He liked his silence, and the house all to his own, and Tiffany couldn’t really blame him. The deaths of both his only sister, and then his mother had added layers to his natural taciturn disposition, and although he knew that it was his responsibility to take care of Tiffany, he never made any effort to bond with her in anyway. He considered that his job was done if he provided the girl with the essentials: food, shelter and clothing; and in return, he expected her to leave him alone to live the only kind of life he knew.

Tiffany had leaned pretty soon to tip-toe through the big house, never making too much noise, never laughing out loud. She only talked to the landlady or occasionally to the gardener, always in a low voice, trying to be invisible to his uncle.

School wasn’t any better. She grew so used to the silence during the summer she first moved in there, that she didn’t make any differences when she started going to class. Being the shy new girl who didn’t talk to anybody unless they asked directly, and always replying with clipped sentences didn’t make the most popular girl at school, and as soon as the novelty wore off, she became a wallflower.

The same pattern repeated at high school. She was somehow grateful that the other students didn’t pick at her, she had seen them in action before. Maybe they felt sorry for her in the beginning, or perhaps she didn’t fall clearly in any of the groups they usually targeted, but no matter which their reason was, she was content being ignored. When she was eleven, some of her peers started showing at school wearing braces, and she watched with terrorized eyes how the popular boys and girls made fun of them. She couldn’t sleep well for weeks, dreading that her Uncle Russ would decide to take her to the orthodontist, then she realized that he wasn’t aware of what a normal parent would do, so she settled for keeping her mouth closed as much as possible in his presence. To her relief, Russ never noticed she even had teeth, and on the bright side, her teeth managed considerably well without helping contraptions.

She had never been a straight A’s student, either. Part of it because her mind was always wandering, frequently missing half of her teacher’s explanations or forgetting to take notes, but mostly because she was afraid of being considered a nerd. Those were the other species in danger at her school, so she was determined to avoid that at all costs.

She did a good job at being invisible for years, always leaving a question or two without an answer in every test, always sitting in the middle of the classroom, sandwiched between the smarty pants in the first rows and the troublemakers who hid in the back.

Just average. Average everything. Average student, average height, plain jane looks, no friends. She dressed in jeans, and loose T-shirts and sweaters, grey and beige being the dominant colors in her closet. Sometimes she felt that if she started squeaking and gnawing the woodwork, she’d take the last step to become a mouse.

However, all her well planned non-existence came to a halt at the beginning of her senior year.

A new family moved into the old Hammond Manor during the last month of the summer. The Wilsons. A young doctor, his wife, and their teenage twins came from New York to the almost deserted town looking for purer air.

The inhabitants of Southern Lake, capital city of nothing-interesting-ever-happened, took it as their own personal assignment to dig into the story of the newly arrived family. Tiffany hated that particular hobby of her neighbors with a passion, having been herself a target of their interrogations and nosey remarks at a very young age, but even she was growing bored of good old Southern Lake, so she indulged herself with scraps of gossip here and there every time she went shopping.

After a few trips to the grocery store, the bakery, and the gas station’s mart she learned that Ingrid, Dr. Wilson’s wife, suffered of an uncommon bronquial condition. His husband had decided to move away from New York considering that the urban air pollution was only making her health status more delicate. They had planned their relocation fairly well. Dr. Wilson bought  Hammond Manor as soon as he assured himself permanent place at the local hospital, and he was counting that their kids would only have one year of high school left in Southern Lake before they moved to whatever College they got accepted in.

Abby Hammond had became the gossip’s flag bearer. She had been a nurse at Southern Lake Community Hospital since her youth years before she had to take some personal time off to take care of her sick parents, but both of them had passed away by last spring, and she felt lonely in the old mammoth of a house they used to lived in. When she got an offer to work as the high school’s nurse, she didn’t look back, she put her house on sale and moved to a small modern apartment across the street from the school building. To her delight, the Wilsons went directly to her clutches when they started searching for a place to buy, so had the dubious privilege to interrogate them relentlessly until she gathered all the information she wanted. Of course, her status as a former nurse in the Hospital also contributed to have her updated with the finest details of the family. Abby was a bored spinster on vacation, the Wilsons only gave her a reason to live until they school started again.

Tiffany knew Ms. Hammond like she knew all the rest of the inhabitants of Southern Lake, somewhere-between-Arcadia-and-Avon-Park, Florida. She didn’t usually talk to her, so when her curiosity got the best of her, she was praying that Abby didn’t find it odd. Fortunately, the old nurse was so eager to distribute her news that she started talking to Tiff as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

She felt slightly bad when she approached her on purpose in the cashiers line at the store, but it only took a half-hearted good morning from her part to set Abby talking non stop.

“Oh, I’m just here buying some ingredients to make my famous rhubarb and strawberry pie, honey. I told Dr. Wilson that I made the best pie in the state and he insisted so much that I baked one for him that I couldn’t say no,” she said toying with the packet of dry fruit in her hand. “I know it’s a lot of work, ever more with the almond crumb, but he stared at me with those puppy dog eyes of his, and I just couldn’t deny it to him. Surely you understand me, dear, Have you seen the blue eyes that man has?” She asked dreamily, and Tiffany had to restrain from cringing.

She shook her head willing the thought of Abby having a crush on the young doctor to leave her mind, and she replied in her low tone. “I didn’t have the chance to meet any of them yet.”

“Oh, my dear! You’re surely missing something! Anyway, now that I think of it, you’d probably be  more around the age of his children...” She paused for a moment, her inquisitive gaze going up and down, looking at Tiffany in a way she made her feel like a zoo animal. She shifted on her feet uncomfortably, but Mr. Hammond didn’t seem to notice as she went on. “How old are you, Fox kid?”

Tiff wanted to scream, she hated when people called her that, and to her dismay it was quite a regular occurrence in Southern Lake, they had known her uncle for a long time, and she was just an attachment to the Fox house. “I’m seventeen,” she finally answered, her voice a little over a murmur.

“Perfect!,” Abby said rolling the ‘r’ in a strange way, Tiffany was starting to think it had been a mistake placing herself anywhere near her, but what the old nurse told her next changed her opinion. “Trevor’s kids are the same age as you! They’re twins, a boy and girl. Madison is tiny, and pretty as a little doll; Brandon is tall and he has his father’s looks,” she informed her, leaning close as if she was about to share a secret. “Between you and me, that boy is going to be headache unleashed in S.L. High!” She nodded in emphasys. “I have the feeling that one is a heartthrob, my dear. He seemed polite and gentlemanly when I talked to him, but I know that naughty smile of his, I’ve seen that before. Be careful with that boy, honey,” she warned with a knowing grin.

Tiffany wasn’t sure what to make out of that, so she was glad that it was Ms. Hammond’s turn at the cashier’s desk. She waved Abby goodbye and hurried to get her items checked to go home. She spent all the way back thinking of what the nurse told her. Finally she decided she was being silly. As if two new students at school could change anything. They were pretty, and wealthy, and a novelty; she was still the wallflower. They would jump directly to the popular group, and they would fit right in, never even looking in her way long enough to notice she wasn’t part of the hallway decorations.

From that day on, she perked her ears every time somebody was talking about the Wilsons, she wasn’t hopeful, she was closer to bitter, but the insane need to know more about them always seemed to win.

Once the school began, she realized sadly that she didn’t have any classes in common with Madison, and only one with Brandon. Both came from a prestigious private school, and they took all the ones advanced  to her level. She regretted her low marks for the first time since she decided to downplay her intelligence, but she convinced herself that it was for the best. Once they started going to school every day, they’d lose their mystery, and she’d forget about the sick infatuation she had for them from the distance.

Little did she know that seeing Brandom for the first time would  only fuel her interest. His face was attractive, yet manly enough to distance him from the cute boyish looks she was used to. She thought that Kevin Thomas was the most handsome boy at her school, but compared to him, his surfer boy appearance made him look like a Ken doll. Brandon was beyond gorgeous, with deep grey eyes which seem to sparkle when he laughed, a head full of dark hair that stuck in every direction, and somehow managed to look hot, and a lopsided grin that made her want to stare at him for hours. However, what she couldn’t erase from her mind was the weird sensation she felt whenever she saw him. He was like a magnet, pulling her towards him. Tiffany chalked it to her silly crush, but deep inside she knew there was something else she wasn’t acknowledging.


She had silently stalked him during the daytime for months. Hoping against hope that he’d notice her one day, but as the weeks passed by, she started losing her last bit of hope. She was afraid to become resentful, she didn’t want that for her. She had already suffered enough, she didn’t need to add unrequited love to the list. Maybe that was the reason why she decided to visit his dreams that day. She wanted to see through her own eyes that Brandon wasn’t that extraordinary, she silently prayed he had stupid fears, and lame dreams, perhaps even a shameful secret to help her knock him down from his pedestal. She felt horrible for wishing those things, but that didn’t make them less desirable.

Tiffany breathed deeply before walking through the familiar corridor. It was the one thing that always had amazed her about the dreams. Common people usually thought that the dream realm was somewhat foggy and ethereal; movies always showed dream scenes blurry and vague. She knew instead that the initial haze only lasted until she was truly focused, once she put the idea in her mind and cleared it from all the rest of random bits, the luminescent corridor always appeared, taking away the mist surrounding her, then she only had to walk along the passage and open a door. There was always something in her heart that pointed her to the right door, she had tried before randomly opening one, and she had found out they lead to strangers’ dreams. Only one door was the right one, the one that opened the dreams of the chosen person to her.

She felt the familiar tug indicating her which way to go; she smiled and opened it.