Only in your dreams. (Warthog155&StarlitDreams)

[warthog155]

Cody slowly opened his eyes as the real world came into view. Like every morning he just stared at his ceiling for a few minutes, hatting having to leave his dream, hatting having to leave her.

Cody Rongin was a 17 year old boy who lived with his two brothers. 5 weeks after Cody was born both of his parents were killed in a car crash. Cody's oldest brother, John, moved the boys out to the west coast where he worked as a architect. Growing up was different for Cody, in a house full of men and on top of that brothers who were still growing themselves made everyone cope with it in their own way. John the oldest dove into his work, Carry the middle child got in with a bad crowd, and Cody made up a woman. Like any other kid Cody had made up a imaginary friend, but his friend was not like the others, he could only see her in his dreams.

Later in life Cody reasoned that he had a gift for lucid dreaming, a technique used to take full control of your dreams. Even at the age of 17 he was still dreaming of this girl every night. They did what they wanted, saw a movie, talked about his day, play a game. It was so weird but it was the best part of the day for him. What was even weirder is that in lucid dreaming, you were suppose to have complete control of things, and after 13 years of talking with the same girl, you get curious. On his 13th birthday, testosterone was raging and he wanted to run a test. So he decided to tell her to strip, commanding her, but it didn't work. It worked about as well as telling any other girl to strip, he was slapped and didn't see her for two more nights, like she hid from him. He even had to say he was sorry to her, but he really was. This girl was the only person he could talk to and feel like someone actually cared. He was amazed though and in the day would try to research what was happening in his head and at night he would live, like everyone else did in the day. Though he lived in a better world, that was just for two.

Cody threw on a black buttoned up collared shirt leaving it unbuttoned over his white T-shirt. Pulling on his boot cut jeans over his work boots as he checked out himself in the mirror. His short brown hair was a bit messy and his hazel eyes stood out the like nothing else. He was starting to grow some stubble around his chin too but not much. He headed downstairs and grabbed a gatorade out of the fridge, picking up his work belt off the table and strapping it around his waist. He patted John's back as the older brother looked over a blue print. "Hey, you ready?" Cody asked as John rubbed his head. On the weekends Cody joined John's construction crew that worked on his projects. John nodded and picked up the keys as he headed off to the garage. Cody passed by another mirror again, stopping by to look in it. "...Have a good day.." He said, though he wasn't talking to himself.

 

[StarlitDreams]

She was lonely.

Everyone acted like things were just perfect, but they weren’t. In a perfect world, little girls didn’t grow up without families. But Kyra was a 16 year old girl who had done just that. Her parents had been unable to provide for her, and so had given her up to a family who were. They had been unwilling to have their own kids, due to the fact that there were so many children who needed parents… or possibly due to the fact that they simply couldn’t conceive. They had been a loving family at first, a perfect family really. But then she had turned out to be different, something that no one wanted to deal with. She never could pay attention, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. She seemed to live in an entirely different world. And when something bad happened in her imaginary world, bad things would happen in the real one. Rain, disappearing animals, fires, sicknesses. It was always short lived, but people knew that it was her fault. After all, it only happened when she was around and when she was upset.

At first, people had tried to keep her happy, but their efforts were rather pointless and they quit after a very short time. Adults then began to ignore her, children feared her, and even her own family acted as if she didn’t belong. They simply adopted new kids, and those children ignored her. They still fed her, clothed her, and disciplined her… rather harshly too, until she was old enough to do it herself. But they weren’t family. They never even mentioned the fact that she didn’t talk. She didn’t even remember when she could. No one really wanted to listen, and after all these years, she had pretty much forgotten how.

She really was a bit upset about it too. But then Cody came along. The first time she remembered seeing him was when she was five. She had been playing on the swings and everyone was ignoring him too. So she said hi and struck up a conversation. He wasn’t there all the time, but when he was, she was happy. She soon realized that no one else could see or hear him, but she could. And that was all that mattered. After all, he never asked her to say anything to him, he never made fun of her, and he never hurt her in any way. Once, when she was 13, he had tried to make her get naked. The next two days were the worst of her life. She avoided him for a while, trying her best to keep away the bad things that seemed to happen when he wasn’t around. She had failed though, and chosen to reveal herself. He had finally apologized then. And from that day on, it had been normal again.

Kyra washed her face and grabbed a hand-towel from the sink, catching a glimpse of herself as she dried her face. There was nothing special to look at in her opinion. She was just a normal girl with normal brown hair and hazel eyes. She had cut off most of her hair last year, so now it hung just below her ears. Her ‘mother’ had hated it, but Kyra thought that it was rather pretty. It framed her heart-shaped face and made her eyes look wider. She had way too many freckles for her taste, but in reality, they weren’t too bad, just a splattering of tiny dots on the bridge of her nose. The only thing that she really liked about herself was her figure; slender and cute with curves in all the right places. She folded the towel and hung it up, whispering a quick goodnight to herself as she walked back into her room.

 

[warthog155]

Cody worked for hours that day, dreading every second of it. He really did have a problem and he knew it, every moment of the day he was hoping to catch a break so he would be able to doze off. He started to day dream while at work and was greeted by someone yelling, "Watch out!" Cody looked up just in time to see a pillar swinging toward his face. Though before he could move, it was to late. Cody tried to angle to where his hard hat would be the first impact zone and once it did, it knocked him a good 3 feet back and 8 feet down. "Cody! Cody!!" He barely heard someone yelling for him before he fell into blackness.

As if it was only a minute later, Cody had awaken in a hospital bed. "Wh-where am I?" He asked as he saw Carry sitting in a chair next to him barely staying awake. "Holy shit, John! John, he's up!" Carry yelled as he got up and came to Cody's side. "Hey little bro, man you took a hell of a hit. You've been out for 3 days man!" Cody was still coming to as his brother poured this info onto him. "Woah Carry, calm down, let him come to at least." John said as he came into the room. "Hey Cody, listen buddy, you've been out for three days. You took a beam straight to the head, Docs say that you are honestly lucky to still have all your functions." Cody heard what they were saying but he felt weird, he hadn't dreamed at all for 3 days. What happened to Kyra, even weirder, he couldn't picture her, like she was gone. "I....I just need to get home, this is all so much." Cody said as he touched the bandages on his head. He stood with the help of his brothers as they took him home.

That night, Cody stood at the mirror in just a towel around his waist as he stared at himself. He really wanted to see Kyra again but he was afraid, like she wasn't going to be there, or that his hit to the head could have done something. He was just really scared, the one person that he really cared about, might have been gone. "Are...are you in there?" He asked to himself in the mirror. He just shook his head as he talked to himself. "I really am going insane...I just...need to go to bed." He said as he walked down the hall to his room.

 

[StarlitDreams]

When Kyra slept, it was of a world very similar to her own. She was never actually in her dreams, but she could feel what was happening as if it were happening to her. That night she had a very boring dream really. She was doing what she did every day in this world; watching people do a bunch of work. It was odd because back in her world, they never did this type of thing. Sure, people worked in construction, but it was never actually hard work. It was just controlling the machines that did the work. Really, it was boring. But it was still pretty boring here. It was menial labor and it was so incredibly dull. She kind of liked watching one of the boys though… he reminded her of Cody from a distance. He had the same short brown hair, the same comfortable, sturdy look about him.

She was watching him when the giant piece of metal hit him in the head. Despite the fact that it was just a dream, she jumped up, only to snap out of the dream. For some reason, she was nervous that entire day. She paced constantly, cried occasionally, and refused to go to school. The first day, her mother actually yelled at her. She had actually smacked her right across the face when Kyra had refused, something that the 16 year old never, ever did. Immediately after the refusal, she had flinched, however, that hadn’t stopped the hand from coming at her. Yet, Kyra had stood her ground and stayed. The second and third day hadn’t required much effort at all. It had also rained for three days straight. That was one of her reasons for not going out. She feared that the people would know that she was responsible for the weather, and they wouldn’t be happy with her.

For three days, Kyra didn’t sleep either. She tried; it would make the pain go away. But it didn’t work. She closed her eyes, laid on the pillow, and relaxed. But nothing happened. On the fourth day, she began to miss Cody. Something was missing without him. So at four AM, the next morning, she climbed out the window and headed towards the park where her and Cody had just met. She sat on one of the swings and waited.

 

[warthog155]

When Cody laid down for bed, he realized that he was terrified. He was so scared that he wouldn't see Kyra again that he was afraid to go to sleep. The sleepiness caught up with him though and after staying up for a few hours in his bed he slowly drifted off into the framiler world.

When he arrived it was bad, it looked like places were missing in a since. He was on Luther street and as he walked down the street it seemed like there were places that were missing. Just shops or homes that should be on a plot but weren't there. He kept walking as he thought that going toward the park was his best chance. That was a place they both enjoyed and he was hopping he would see her more than anything.

As he got to the park he didn't even care anymore how there were more and more things that seemed to be missing. The only thing he wanted to do was see her, make sure she was ok. Though he wasn't sure he was ok, he felt like his brain was going to shit. As he moved into the park he looked all over for her until he finally saw a bench with a girl on it. He didn't move to her, terrified that it wouldn't be her. "K....Kyra?" He said as he stood behind the bench looking down on the woman.

 

[StarlitDreams]

Kyra stayed on the swings for almost an entire hour, until she almost wanted to get up and go home. Cody wasn’t there, and that made her feel as if a weight was resting on her chest, threatening to suffocate her. He was always with her when she felt lonely or sad. It was his job; to be her friend and talk to her even when she couldn’t respond to him. He wasn’t doing his job. It was silly of her to expect him to be there all the time, but she was used to it and had recently adopted the theory that he was invisible to others because he was her guardian angel… or something of the sort.

She had begun to notice the missing buildings too. They didn’t disappear when she was looking at them, but when she looked away for a second, there were simply gone when she looked back. She tried to ignore it until Ms. Tina went missing. Ms. Tina was a sweet old lady, one who had often defended her when she was younger. She was the closest thing that she had to a real friend… apart from Cody.

A few minutes after Ms. Tina disappeared, Cody did appear. He looked about as confused and afraid as
Kyra did and she was really hoping that he could make her feel better. However, when he face a girl sitting on the bench, a girl who looked a bit like her but not really, and thought that she was him, her hopes where crashed to the ground. The other girl didn’t hear or notice Cody, seeing as nobody apart from Kyra did. As for Kyra herself, she hopped off the swings and walked towards him, tapping his shoulder when she was close enough. She wiped tears from her eyes and crossed her arms, silently demanding an apology for the mistake.

However, that demand was quickly forgotten when the girl on the bench disappeared as well.

 

[warthog155]

When there was no response from the woman on the bench he stood there just staring. He wanted to move an keep looking for Kyra but something was making him stay there, like everything was, broken. He felt the tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Kyra, him now able to move for some reason. "Kyra.." He said with a faint smile as he grabbed her and pulled her in for a huge hug. His head resting in between her neck and shoulder. "Oh Kyra I've missed you. I was hit by this pillar, put me in like, a mini comma. I don't know, I'm just so happy to see you here." He held her in his arms for a while but when he went to let her out of the hug, he couldn't. It was almost like he didn't have any control over this place anymore, over him either.

As he tried to move, he noticed the drug store across the street was gone, and so were two more homes next to it. "What the hell is happening." He was finally able to move again, he broke the hug and held Kyra by the arms as he looked around, things were vanishing faster, more and more things were gone. "Kyra, something is going on, the world is, going away, I don't know. My heads been hurting since the accident and." He stopped as he remembered he'd never told her this was the dream world, or at least for him. He knew that would be just cruel and he wouldn't ruin her life like that.

"Kyra I don't know what's going on, but it's all going to be OK, don't worry alright?" He said as he looked around, the sky loosing the clouds, more and more homes and people gone. Cody could feel his heart rate elevating as he was talking to her. "Kyra, I want you to know, you've ment."

"AHHH!" Cody woke from his dream with a intense start. His body and bed, covered in sweat. His head was pounding like someone was hitting him over and over in the head again with a bat. "Kyra?!" He said as he looked around, but he knew he was in the main world again, the real one. For some reason though, he couldn't remember what had just happened in his dream. It was like all of it besides her face and her name, was gone. He sat in the bed and looked down at the floor as he huffed and puffed trying to catch his breath. "Kyra...." He said as he lightly put his hands on his head.

 

[StarlitDreams]

Kyra broke down when Cody disappeared. She sat down on the ground and hugged her knees tightly to her chest as everything around her disappeared. Tears filled her eyes and spilled over onto the grass, yet no sound came from her mouth. After a few minutes, the ground far off began to turn black, as if it were becoming darkness. The sky began to blacken as well. By this time, Kyra was shaking like a leaf, her body little more than a shell. Her mind was somewhere else, watching all of this happen. Where was her family? Her mom, her dad, her siblings; she had hated them in a way, but if this was her fault (and it must have been, bad things always were), she didn’t want them to die. As the final bit of ground fell from under her, and the sky blacked out completely, Kyra found herself falling. And for the first time in 15 years, she screamed.

When Kyra stopped falling, she was in the middle of the street. Her throat was raw and painful from the strain and her eyes were red as well. If one had seen her, they would have seen a small, skinny girl sitting in the middle of a busy street, crying her eyes out. And they did. She wasn’t oblivious of the yelling and the honking, but it only made her more upset. She kept her eyes down, her body rigid, and tried to block out everything. This wasn’t the park, it wasn’t her home, she wasn’t dreaming. Cody was gone, her family was gone, and she had just seen her entire world fall apart.

Eventually, the noise began to go away. She could still hear a few people, but there was no more honking. A lone voice stood out above the other ones and Kyra felt a warm hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?” The voice said something else, but she didn’t really hear it. The hand left her shoulder. “I think she may be catatonic, we should probably get her down to the hospital.”

Other things happened, but the next thing that really kept her attention was her talking for the first time that she could remember. “Cody,” she muttered, more in memory then in trying to talk to anyone. However, that was the only thing that was put down in her file. For now, she was Jane Doe… with possibly relations to someone named Cody.

 

[warthog155]

As Cody sat at his bed, his brothers came rushing in the room as the sound of his scream. "What is it, what's wrong?" John asked as he came to him, thinking something was causing him pain. "I...I don't know, my head, I woke up from this dream and my head was pounding, so hard. It, really, ugh, hurts!" He said as his hands went to his head and he leaned down, putting his head in his lap as his thoughts of Kyra went wild. "Carry get the car ready, we gotta get him to the hospital." John said as Carry nodded, running downstairs. "..Kyra..." He whispered in between moans. "It's alright buddy, everything is going to be ok." John said as he helped him up and they walked down the stairs. "No it won't..." He said to himself as they got into the car and drove downtown.

At the hospital they had put Cody in a wheel chair and Carry was taking him to a room, Cody lifted his head as they passed one room, thinking he saw Kyra. "Kyra?..." He whispered as Carry patter his shoulder, "Everything's alright man, Docs gonna look at you and maybe get you some meds for them pains, just chill dude." He said as he kept pushing him to a room. Cody shaking his head to himself, knowing that his dream woman couldn't be here, this was the real world.

When he was finally in a room, the doctor came in and ran some basic test on him. "Well Cody, I'm not going to lie to you. That beam did a number on you and it could have had some major effects on your brain. We will run some scans on it in a week but for now I'll give you a prescription to keep the pain away until we can figure out what's going on." Cody just nodded as he starred into his lap, he was to devestated to care what happened to him. As the Doctor was walking out he stopped and turned to Cody. "I'm sorry to keep asking you things but, would you happen to know a girl, short brown hair, hazel eyes, a little bit of freckles across her nose? What was her name again?" Cody looked up to him, wide eyes, his mouth almost on the floor. "K-Kyra?" He asked as the Doctor looked back at him. "Hm? No it was something with a J, Jane Doe! That's right, poor girl doesn't seem to remember a thing, all she can say is Cody." Cody looked back down, not only was the idea of her being here in the real world ridiculous but Kyra couldn't talk, she wouldn't be able to say his name. "No...sorry.." He said as he looked back down and sighed to himself. "Oh, well thank you anyways." He said before walking out.

Cody, even though extremely sad, was also hungry. So he drug himself down to the cafeteria where her grabbed a sandwich and bottle of water. He just sat at a table looking at them, he couldn't believe it, she was gone. The only thing that had held him a little sane over the years was gone, what was he living for now?

 

[StarlitDreams]

“But who are you sweetheart?” The generally kind social worker clenched his fists and sat down at the side of this girl’s bed. This girl simply would not say anything other than Cody. And she shook her head no when asked if her name was Cody. He rested his own head in his hands and wracked his brain for ideas. He would do anything to get out of this white room with chairs that felt like rocks. Hospital rooms reminded him of the rooms that they had in training; where they were shown pictures of children and asked to diagnose their situations based off of nearly no information at all. In other words, hospital rooms were really fucking boring… and just a bit depressing. When she said nothing in response, he shook his head and told her to look at him. She did, and he fought the urge to look away. Her eyes were so… sad. She looked as if she had just witnessed her entire family being murdered in front of her, or something equally as bad. And so he stopped focusing on who she was.

“Did someone hurt you?” He asked, wincing at the question, as he always did. She shook her head no and he let out an audible breath. “Is someone else hurt?” She didn’t answer that; simply turned over and pulled the covers up. He then decided that he should go from that question on. If someone else was hurt, it was his job to take care of notifying the police. However, when he tried to get more information out of her, she was asleep. She muttered something in her sleep, something that sounded like ‘Cody,’ and then something afterwards about being afraid of the dark. It was because of this that he left the lights on when he left.

Despite the fact that his next two rooms were incredibly depressing; a teenager who appeared to be addicted to Methamphetamines and an abused little boy, he was still pretty hungry. He hadn’t eaten breakfast and in his profession, lunch was a very rare treat. Most of his cases lasted through the conventional lunch time, and he was often forced to spend an absurd amount of money on vending machine snacks. However, today was a special day. Every conversation had been very short lived and observations were never too difficult. Once he reached the cafeteria, there were hardly any free tables. Only a partially filled one with a couple and a teenaged boy. The social worker sat down and ate, not paying attention to either of them, or the fact that his observation tablet was open for anyone to see… and it just happened to be opened to the page with all of the information (and a picture) of a certain Jane Doe.

 

[warthog155]

Cody just starred at the food as he sat there. He looked blank, like all of his emotions had just gone away. He sat back and looked around at the people, first to the couple. They made him so sad, he never even got to tell Kyra how he really felt about her, as far as he knew, she thought of them as two friends. That made everything even worse, not only was someone he carred about very very deeply gone, but he never got to tell her how he really felt.

Now he also had to search through his brain to see if he was insane. It was always a idea, explanation about Kyra and the whole world but it was something he didn't want to visit, he didn't want that to be a option and then he get put into a asylum, so high off drugs he'd never be able to go back and see her. Cody pushed the sandwich and water away from him and rubbed his eyes. He then looked over at the other guy. Older man, looked like he was having a hard day. He was reading over some file as he munched on some chips.

"Excuse me sir, I'm sorry to bother you but might you have some asprin?" Cody asked as he reached over to the guy to let him know he was talking to him. "Hm? Oh yes, sure, sure, here you are." He said taking out a small packet with two asprin inside of it. Cody took it with a nod and half ass'd smile as he took of the cap on the water and pop the pills down. "Hell son, looks like you took a beating to the dome." He said nodding to the bandages. Cody nodded slightly, "You have no idea...I work at a construction company, took a support beam to the hard hat, only so much some foam and plastic can do ya know?" Cody said with a smile. "Wow, that's amazing, you're pretty lucky kid." The worker said as he popped another chip in his mouth. "Yea...I'm not so sure. Hey but thanks for the Asprin, names Cod-." Cody extended a hand to thank him but as he did he caught a glimps of the file. As soon as he saw the picture he stood up wide eye'd. He couldn't process what was happening, how she was here. The only thought he had was simply, "What room?" "Uhm, I'm sorry what son?" The social work asked confused, Cody leaned down and grabbed the man by the shirt, lifting him out of the chair a little. "What Room!?!? What room is she in?!" "3B! She's in 3B." The worker replied a little scared. Cody dropped him into the seat and ran out of the cafeteria at full speed. The worker chasing after him. "Wait! Who are you?! You weren't suppose to see that!" He yelled after him, but it was of no use, Cody was already at the staircase, jumping steps to get up a level faster. He bust open the door and looked at the hallway signs, picking the right one and running down until he got to the room marked 3B. He slowly opened the door and walked in. "....Kyra?.." He asked as he slowly walked around the bed, then, he was greeted by that framilier face, and in a beautiful clarity that he had never seen. "K-k-kara?" He said again, tears welding at his eyes. He dropped to his knees and put a hand on her cheek, he felt her stir under him and the tears started to flow as a huge smile came to his face. "Kyra!" He cried as he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight as he cried into her shoulder, even though he was crying, this was the happiest moment of his life.

 

[StarlitDreams]

Kyra tried her best to ignore this man’s questions. Not only did they make no sense to her fragile psyche, but she just wanted to go to sleep. Her throat hurt, her eyes felt heavy, and she couldn’t have been less enthusiastic about life; completely pointless, friendless, Codyless life. It just sucked. So when the man asked her if anyone else was hurt, a knot formed in her chest and she turned over, refusing to listen to anymore of his questions. They were stupid questions anyway. It was very obvious that she wasn’t hurt, and who cared what her name was? She had never spoken it out loud in the first place.

Finally, after he left, Kyra fell asleep. It felt as if she had only been sleeping for a minute when she was woken up by some boy sobbing over her. Her body stiffened and her mind struggled to find an explanation for this, until she realized that he had said her name. Only one person knew her name. “Cody?” She asked unsurely, her voice soft and sweet and filled with a sort of wonder; both at her newfound ability to speak and at the fact that he was here. And if he was here… maybe her family was too. She, not at all used to the type of emotion in this scene, almost pushed him away. But when her hands found his body to push him away, she instead found herself wrapping her own arms around him. She didn’t let go of him for nearly a minute. Apart from the other day, she tried her best not to touch people. Touching them brought them bad luck. However, today she didn’t care. She just wanted to be close to her best friend.

However, this closeness didn’t last long. Soon after she took hold of him, Cody was taken away from her by one of the larger male nurses. “What are you doing?” The older man asked sternly, “Nearly assaulting a member of staff then this. Unless you are related, you’re not allowed to be in her young man.” And due to the fact that the identity of Kyra was unknown, relations were highly unlikely.