Oneironaut (dream traveller)

Chapter 1

The Earth slowly rotated away from the blinding sun as I was walking home. I walk the same pale road every day, yet it feels so different every time. It was the only part of the oblivious day, that I had to myself and to think about my pitiful life that seemed to be without a purpose. Every single day was like a never ending movie with a broken player repeatedly playing one scene again and again. Coming home felt like I was the world’s most dangerous criminal interrogated by my parents who were fighting and drinking as usually like it was some sort of a habit, involving me as their punching bag. Whenever something went wrong I was the one to be blamed. I was always trying and searching for ways to escape this world. I thought about killing myself, but I don’t want to give up that easily. I know that there is more to this life than just living one seemingly pointless life. I always believed that we are capable of things beyond our imagination, we are just not aware of that. The one thing I found very interesting were dreams. I already knew a lot about dreams, because I did a lot of research on that subject, but recently I came across something that caught my eye, something called ‘’dream control’’.
I immediately started searching for as much information about it as I could. I found a lot of ways and techniques on how to do it and I was just amazed, a whole new world in my hands, a world that I could fully control. This   also seemed a great idea to get rid of my dreadful nightmares that were dwelling in my head for so long.
I was but a simple girl with a rough life aged only 18 and living in a small cloudy town that always seemed so gray, so lifeless. Occasionally there were amazing golden sunsets, but gold isn’t always so innocent.  That same poisonous colour turned into a bloody red tone that soon devoured the majority of the clear blue sky and filled my body with fear and anxiety. Lucid dreaming just seemed a good way to escape all that. I’ve also read that you have to take it slowly and persistently, and so I did. I started writing down my dreams and because of that they slowly became more vivid than ever, and they were much easier to remember. I could easily tell what I was dreaming, what I saw, what it felt like... The second part was a bit trickier; I needed to figure out what my dream signs were, and these were basically the things that appear in my dreams more often. So in order to be conscious within a dream I first needed to realize that I am in a dream.
It was Monday again, that dreadful day that even hearing the word makes you sick. School was awful as well, but home was even worse. Standing in front of the door, I didn’t even dare to enter. Nothing could stop those screaming, shouting sounds from reaching my ears. The cold was cutting my skin and biting my bones so I had no other choice but to enter. As I took the first step inside, everything went quiet and all the raging fiery hell came down upon me. My heart started beating rapidly and all that icy coldness was suddenly gone as if I never even felt it. I went straight to the only place that I could think of; my room. I shut the door as fiercely as I could and sat on the floor, hoping that that hell outside would go away. After a few moments which seemed like long hours, it finally stopped. I lay on the floor and gazed at my ceiling, drowned in my thoughts I unintentionally fell asleep.
I started dreaming, but it was different. I had that same nightmare as I usually do, but this time I wasn’t scared, I didn’t panic I was just observing the moving blackness that was surrounding me, and at that point I realised that I was dreaming. I kept observing, but all the excitement woke me up. I quickly stood up, realising that I fell asleep. I looked at the time and it was 2 in the morning, I went to change my clothes, but just as I was about to lay down, I saw this white shining dot. Its light was piercing through the curtains, drifted in curiosity I went to check what it was. I moved the curtains and saw an amazing display of stars on the clear night sky. It was like a battle between darkness and light in which the darkness won and revealed the beautiful starry sky. It was that exact moment that made me realise, that life itself is so wonderful and beautiful, but we’re just to blind and busy to see it. I then stopped gazing at the impeccable winter sky and went to bed in hope that I’ll manage to lucid dream again.
I woke up the next day in disappointment that I didn’t manage to lucid dream. The day went on as usually, I quickly got ready, had some delightful breakfast and went to the train station in the fresh cold winter morning. It takes approximately 45min to get to the city in which I study and I mostly spend that time getting some extra sleep. School was boring as always, but as I was walking back home I saw this old shop. It had some beautiful energy stones. I already had a few at home, but i just couldn’t resist. I decided to go in and look around a bit and suddenly I came across this mysterious dragon pendant that had a stone in the middle that I never saw before. I went to have a closer look and as I touched it the stone gave away a brief glow. I also noticed that it had a moon like shimmer that looked like the essence of the moons light. There was an old lady working there and she smelled like this place, old but still pleasant. Her hair was white, but still seemed so alive because it reflected light like it was made of pure pearls. Her face was full of wavy lines that screamed out old age. She then looked at me and saw that I grew found of the pendant and said, ‘’ah, so it is you, who the dragon chose’’. I just stood there not knowing what to do or say. ‘’It contains the lunar stone, also known as the travellers stone, dream travellers stone.’’ She continued. She put the pendant in a little beautiful wooden box that had ‘’Those who have awakened’’ written on it.  Just when I was about to give her the money, she put on a warm smile and asked ‘’what is your name young traveller?’’. ‘’Luna’’ I answered quietly and she smiled again, ‘’No need to pay my dear, it was not on sale anyway. It was waiting for somebody and it choose you.’’ Different thoughts flooded my head but I simply smiled back and said thank you then went straight home.
Later when I was just about to go to sleep, I remembered about the pendant. I took it out of the box and firstly wondered what the writing  ‘’Those who have awakened’’ means. Something in my head was persistently telling me to put the pendant on and without hesitation I did. I was exhausted and went to my bed but strangely it didn’t take me long to fall asleep. I then started dreaming, but these dreams were even so different from the first lucid dreams that I had, even excitement didn’t wake me up. I noticed that even though that this was the dream world I still had my pendant on and it started softly glowing. I then heard this weird noise and the dragon on it started moving. It moved slowly out of the pendant, shook his head and body as if it just awakened from a thousand years long sleep. It looked me in the eyes and started speaking. ‘’So, we finally met after all these long years of waiting. Welcome to the dream realm, I am your guardian. Everyone in this world has his own guardian, but only 3 of them have a dragon, one of them being you. First of all, you have to keep in mind that this is a world and it does have a few rules to keep order within it’’. He kept explaining and I was just trying to process all this information. It was like a completely new life and it was so real. ‘’ This is your dream body, you can change it however you desire, but some practice and experience is required. You can do whatever you imagine; your imagination is your limit. Time is also slowed down drastically. I am here to help you and to train you and to keep order within this realm’’. I didn’t know what to do, what to say, I was just so amazed so astonished. I stared in his bright moonlike eyes. After a brief moment of silence, he said ‘’ Heh, young traveller, you have much to learn’’, he put on a warm smile and continued ‘’oh and where are my dragon manners, Erannor was I named.’’ He looked away and started crawling back into the pendant. ‘’ I think that this will be enough for today young traveller, we shall start with the training tomorrow...and don’t...forg...et to put on...the....pen...dan...t..’’