Why Are My Dreams Realistic?

Chapter 3 : Falsum Domum : (part 2)

I’ve looked around with the plate still in my hands. Eating this unusual yet delicious food. It was sweet and also tasty. Dunking it in the white liquid gives an exotic taste and a sense of relief.

As I drank it, a slurping sound was made. It was delicious. The exquisite taste left me struck in finding the taste more. I continued to drank it until it refilled itself.

“Hmm…” 

I stared for a long time at one of the library's shelves. Some text written on the book's side caught my attention. I wanted to know why it has the same title in every book inside this library. 

“A Tale Of You In Different Worlds: Book Of Life. Vol 859.”

I raised my eyebrow, trying to understand what volume means.

The book was covered with a blue leather engraved with unknown symbols in every corner. The author’s name was partially blurred with an unknown ethereal force. Even though the book has a lot of pages, it was actually too light to hold. I was amazed at how that kind of thing was possible. 

“Huff…” 

With my excitement, I accidentally throw the book upwards. The book emitted a sound like the flapping wings of the bird. While the book was opened in the air, I saw a glimpse of light inside it. Then it disappeared as I grabbed it.

“Phew…!” 

Thankfully, I could catch the book while using the top of the glass cup. It spilled some of it on the back of the book, but overall, it landed without any damage, though I regret doing that to a precious material. If the voice ever saw me do this, he might laugh at me for doing something stupid.

“Heh.” 

From that point, I returned the book to its corresponding place and looked for the first volume. It is only plausible action to start on the starting chapter of a book rather than just starting near its end. As I found the book, I sat in the middle of the room, set aside my food, and gently placed the book in the middle.

My hand was trembling with excitement even though my hands had already touched it. Opening it feels different for some reason. I started to shed some sweat as I gently raised the book's cover. 

“Haa… Haaa…. Haaa….”

I cower in fear. I laugh and laugh until it bursts out of my mouth. “Hahahaha!!!” It was excruciatingly painful to look for the unknown.

I couldn’t muster the courage to face the unknown inside the book. This happens to me every time I enter a new room. There’s like an emotion deep inside me, stopping me, pricking the back of my neck. Voices inside my head saying, “You can’t do it just yet.”

“Aggghhh!!!!” 

I closed my eyes and opened it as I screamed from the top of my lungs.

Then, as I opened the book, a wind blew at the same time as I opened it. A twinkling sound emitted from the book. The lights it had created were mesmerizing, leaving my mouth agape and my hand trembling as I slowly placed it near where the twinkling lights fell.

I could hear a whistling sound for a second and instantly disappeared. I covered my face with my left hand, slowly opened my fingers, and took a quick peek at the book.

I could see a faint afterimage of the stars from the opened book. I was amazed at how beautiful it was. A starlight that flickers and disperses like fireworks from the inside of a book.

“Woah…”

My little mind couldn’t say anything but be amazed at what was before me. Removing the covering of my hand in my face, I couldn’t help but lay my head inside the book.

I smelled the ink and paper with a hint of an unknown substance. The scent has an exhilarating feeling that makes my heart tingle.

“Haa…”

As I laid my head inside the book, I couldn’t help but wonder why I was doing this particular thing. Is this really what I am supposed to do? Isn’t there a new wonder inside the book?

“Am I stupid?” 

My thoughts were coming out of my mouth. Blurting out what I don’t really want to say, it keeps on doing so. I don’t really have an answer for this particular sense of stupidity that lingers in me.

I removed my head from the inside of the book. Sit back straight and adequately open the book with care in my mind.

Using my index finger, I carefully read every text like it was sacred. I had a smile on my face as I happily read the book, although the context of the book felt weird to what the voice had told me.

The book feels weird as the concept centers around a particular character; its early page starts with a young boy's story about his sad and lonely life. His family died when he was about the age of four from a car crash.

“Car… crash?” 

He survived that disaster, but it also left a trauma in him. At an early age, he started to ponder whether life was a happy thing. He began to curse his world and the fate that was given to him. He resented that the only thing he had died without even seeing him grow.

His uncle on his mother's side took him after the cremation. Although the shock was severe, he understood that his parents wouldn’t be there for him. He acknowledged that he was already an orphan. 

His uncle was a great man. Although he was only twenty-three years old, he already had his own house. He was a great musician who mainly played the instrument called the piano. His uncle was a renowned musician in the country, and everyone admired his good looks and skills.

The young boy is amazed by his uncle whenever he peeks through the gap where his uncle plays the piano. He doesn’t have the courage or ability to talk to his uncle. He always trembles in fear whenever he says something to his uncle. 

Since the uncle was a great man, he already knew the young boy was looking at him from the gap in the door whenever he practiced. The boy was his inspiration. He wanted the boy to be immersed in music and talk to him more.

It took quite a long time before the boy started slowly opening the door. It took years till the boy could converse appropriately with his uncle without trembling in fear. 

The boy’s relationship with his uncle grew, and his passion for music was developed. He started playing the violin at the age of seven. The boy was considered a prodigy, along with the daughter of his uncle. The daughter of his uncle was one year older than him and played the piano. 

He has a good relationship with his daughter and has started calling her a big sister. He was happy that the trauma that he had experienced had disappeared. The music had removed his fear as he cheerfully played his instrument. Gently placing his fingers between the notes.

There was a smile on the young boy whenever he played with his sister. The music they created was astounding, and his uncle was always left in tears. Although their play had ups and downs, they could recreate a masterpiece.

Sometimes, their notes overlap, or sometimes, the boy plays in a fast tone, leaving behind the piano. 

This particular world also has what you call ‘magic.’ That magic became his foundation in this developed world filled with high-rise skyscrapers. A world with magic and an expanded world was a dream to have.

With magic, he could play his notes with a colorful tone. People were always immersed in his music and always left with tears. His sister was also a magic user; although not strong, she could still capture the audience's hearts. Their music combined plays a melodic tone that reaches above the stars. 

The story then jumped forward to seven years. The boy was already fourteen years old and in middle school. His uncle introduced him when his sister was fifteen and in the same music school.

Although the story was progressing in a good tone. I haven’t learned the names of the characters. 

“Hmm…”

Even though the genre of this story was like a fantasy with magics and world development, for some reason, it felt pretty weird that the story’s main characters didn’t have a name. I wonder whether it was intentional or was just forgotten. Anyways…

He found new friends in his school of music. He had a friend who also plays the same instrument as he is. Then there’s a friend he thinks of as someone he really likes, a best friend. 

This friend suddenly came knocking in his life, asking to be his friend, which he accepted. He was a friend who admired him so profoundly. Every time he played the violin, he was always there looking at him with a broad smile. His eyes glitter with awe. Every time the boy looks at this person, he feels a sudden happiness in his body, and he can’t help but smile at his friend.

They became close, like a guardian that gives him strength by giving him a spell called joy. But all of it changed as his sister died.

All the trauma he had repressed came back like the river's flow. The world became distorted in his vision. His image of the world was filled with constant darkness that lingered in every corner. There was nothing but darkness.

There was also a war between races that lingers in the developed world. In this kind of world, there’s no escape from destruction. There’s always suffering and death. This volume ended with world destruction in volume one. The main character died at the age of seventeen. 

The war between races ended with a cliche of war.

“God, that sucks,” I blurted out.

With the end of volume one ending on a cliche, I started to read every volume on the shelves. I brought out all the volumes of the same book with the same name and placed them in the middle to create a path.

I spent my time reading every volume. The story changes from time to time. Sometimes, the genre doesn’t have magic and is only placed in the setting called the ‘real world.’ Sometimes, it repeats. The characters in the book were always the same. Sometimes, the book changes the plot like it avoided the same fate as the rest of the volumes.

I was amazed by this book's ability to stay the same yet change the setting and worldview, for example. The guardian, his friend, became an angel in other volumes. Sometimes, his family didn’t die; he didn’t become a musician and died happily.

Half of the volume contains the happiness of the main characters. While the other half was filled with sadness, regret, and resentment, the only volume that caught my eye was the final volume.

‘Volume 999.’

In this particular volume, the story didn’t start as a young boy but as a teenage boy. He was already fifteen years old, and the world was already on the brink of destruction. The book was thin compared to the rest of the volumes. It only has ten pages, like a journal.

The book feels like it was talking to me. I feel immersed in it, like it was telling me something.  Then, the final message of the story made me shiver with fear.

“To you who read the story and are stuck inside an unknown world. Listen to me as I describe the world you live in. The story where every one of us put all our hopes in you. The last of us who will change our fate.