Falling into a knockoff Inception porn parody, I think.

You were falling.

I mean, you were LITERALLY falling.

At somepoint, somehow, you have managed to get yourself high up above the sky, and you were currently on a downward spiral to the grey planes right below you.

"Oh god- Oh GOD- OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD-"

You fluttered around like a fish on dry land, or at least sort of like an extremely retarded bird, as you fell to your inevitable demise. Knowing that **** was coming all to quick, you managed to recite a prayer for yourself before proceeding to apologize for every sin you ever remembered committing.

Mere feet away now from splattering yourself on the grey planes below, you closed your eyes and hoped it would be a sweet and painless ****, embracing yourself of the coming impact.

...

You felt something soft cover your whole body, before you suddenly became airborne again as you bounced right back up.

Opening your eyes in confusion, you looked down again to see a small you-shape dent on the floor, like you just got off of a mattress at an expensive store.

Falling back down, you landed with a loud 'oof' as you felt the soft pillowy impact of the soft-pillowy ground.

You blinked a few times, before standing up and looking yourself over.

Perfectly fine, perfectly alive.

Only now did you realize that you were still in the dream world and that you were never in any danger to begin with. All that screaming and praying earlier was pretty much uncalled for.

With an unbelievably relieved chuckle, you smacked yourself in the forehead. Smiling to yourself, you muttered, "Jesus Christ, I am such an idiot. Of course, I wouldn't get hurt-"

Just then, the remote you were holding just a moment ago landed on your head with a loud thump, causing you to writhe in agony at the unbearable pain.

"AGH, FUCK, WHY THE HELL DID THAT HURT?!" You screamed out, falling over and curling into a ball.

Seemingly spending the next few minutes rolling around to stop the violent head trauma, you were finally able to recover yourself as you stood back up and angrily picked the offending remote off the ground.

Damn this stupid piece of junk that represents how completely boring and unimaginative you are in the real world...

You shake your head with a sigh, calming yourself down as you tried to recollect your memories of what you were supposed to be doing here.

God, why does your head feel so empty and clueless all of a sudden? It was almost like you forgot what you were originally doing.

You were supposed to be doing something... important, right? At least, it felt important to you.

How long has it been already? You felt like almost an entire year has passed since you last did anything. What the hell have you been up to?

Something tells you that whatever caused this extremely long time-lapse was probably the work of an extremely irresponsible, stupid, lazy, and dumb writer who can't manage the time of day to get his life in line or properly work through his writer's block.

...

"Well, that's an oddly specific thing to blame..." You awkwardly scratched your head in thought.

Shaking your head clear of such distracting thoughts, you looked back at the remote in your hand to try to remember what you were originally here for. You know it was for something important, something so that you could possibly use to help somebody close to you.

But what?

Try as hard as you might, no matter what you did, nothing seemed to be coming to you.

In fact, you couldn't seem to remember anything about yourself at all. It only just occurred to you that you don't even remember what your name is, or how you even got here.

"Okay, that... is worrying..." You said slowly, feeling your anxiety rise up.

This seems to be a familiar feeling at least. Apparently, you were very much acquainted with the feeling of anxiety. Almost as if you've been experiencing it for the past few days now, nonstop.

"Okay... okay okay okay- try to focus. If I can't remember anything, there must be a reason for that." You took deep breathes to try to calm yourself down, closing your eyes in concentration. "I came here for an important reason... If I can't remember anything else, then I need to focus on the few things that I do remember..."

You knew that you were in a dream world, which meant you were currently asleep. You also knew that you willingly came here to do something important.

At the very least, you know for a fact that you weren't in any danger while being here. The fact that you couldn't seem to remember anything was slightly worrying, of course, but it didn't seem to be something within your control at the moment. Hopefully, by the time you wake up in this weird dream world, you'll get all of your memories back.

...

"Why do I extremely doubt that?" You muttered to yourself.

Another thing that you knew was that this remote was important to you for the time being. You have no idea why, but it seemed obvious.

Maybe the remote would be able to help you find the answers you need?

You studied the remote for a little bit, finding it eerily familiar to touch and grasp. It was almost as if you've held this remote for the majority of your entire life.

This thought seemingly made you feel extremely disappointed in yourself.

"I need to find different hobbies." You suddenly declared. You have no idea why this was so important to decide now, but apparently it was.

Still, you kept studying the remote in order to find any clues on what you were supposed to do here. In the end, finding no obvious hints, you decided to go with just pressing the play button to see what would happen, seeing how it was a remote and all.

The moment you pressed play, it was like a switch turned on. The grey plane shifted around you, the background turning into different colors as shapes came into existence to form some sort of scenery of a moving picture.

Before you knew it, you found yourself spinning in place before you eventually stood in the middle of a house.

"Uh..." You looked around dumbly, have no idea what just happened. "Okay then..."

The house was... familiar, you think. Yeah, no, you've definitely been here before. This was your house, maybe.

Before you could question the significance of the location, you heard loud crying coming from behind you.

Turning around in surprise, you saw someone holding on to a baby wrapped in a blanket. It was a young man, looking very stressed and depressed as he did his best to hold you and rock you to sleep.

Wait... hold you and rock you to sleep? Why did you refer to this random baby as yourself?

"Shhh, it's okay John... No more crying, please..." The man whispered desperately, holding you close in his arms as he did his best to comfort you.

Despite it all, you still continued to cry out like it was the end of the world.

It was strange, seeing this baby right in front of you and continuing to refer to it as yourself. It was like an almost subconscious tic, like you knew that baby was definitely you and to say otherwise would be a definite lie.

The name John rang a bell though... What was it again? Agh, it was on the tip of your tongue...

Oh yeah, that was it! John Doe! That was your name.

"Christ, I can't believe I forgot my own name..." You mumbled awkwardly.

Well, at least you managed to remember that part of yourself. Why were you watching this scene play out though? What was the point in seeing a baby version of you being comforted by a younger version of your dad?

You continued to stick around, sitting on a nearby chair as you listened to your father whisper and mumble pathetically to himself as he held baby-you in his arms.

"I miss them too... I wish Shelly and your mother didn't leave us here. This is no life for a boy this young... You don't deserve to be stuck in the hands of a stupid father who can't even take care of himself..." Your dad began sobbing as he hugged you, "I'm so sorry, John! I'm so sorry, my baby boy!"

Watching the man pitying himself made you gave an awkward cough as you looked away out of respect.

Honestly, you had no idea what to say to a scene like this. Apparently, your dad was really struggling to come to terms with losing your mom and sister.

Huh, you remembered that you had a mom and a sister. Neato.

Anyway, for some reason, you didn't really seem all that depressed or sad when reacting to seeing this scene. It was depressing to watch, for sure, but it wasn't really that gut-wrenching for you. You'd think you'd be the type to be more empathetic to the plight of others, but it doesn't seem to be that...

It was like watching a sad scene in the middle of a movie. It felt sad and tragic at first, but it stopped having any consequential meaning when you remember something that happens later in the ending of the movie that basically fixes this whole problem entirely. That's basically the feeling you got when watching this.

Looking around, you realize that there didn't seem to be anything left for you to see here. Maybe it was time to move on...

Holding out your magical dandy remote control, you curiously tapped the skip-to-next-section button to see what would happen.

Like flicking a light on and off, the entire scene changed within a blink of an eye.

You were still in the same spot you were, being in the same house and sitting on the same chair. The only difference now was that your father wasn't crying to himself as he held a baby-you in his arms.

Instead, the scene seemed to be much more light-hearted and happier. You saw a younger version of yourself playing checkers with a blonde girl on the sofa in front of the TV.

You looked like you were still in your elementary years, while Shelly looked to be about middle-school age.

Oh hey, Shelly. You instantly knew that it was her, for some reason.

What was the point in forgetting everything about your life in the first place if you were just going to recognize and remember small bits of it the moment you see them play out in front of you? Was this some sort of trial or test or something?

Bah, who knows at this point. Might as well keep going to see what happens.

"C'mon John, it's your turn." Shelly urged you on with an encouraging smile.

Younger-you sat there in deep thought as you looked over the board, trying to figure out the strategy in defeating your older sister. Then, your eyes lit up like a Christmas tree as you proceeded to take one, two, three, four of her checker pieces in one single move.

With a loud cheer, younger you raised your hands up with a triumphant, "I did it!"

Shelly cheered with you, happily clapping to herself, "Yay! You did it! You beat me!"

Moving the checkerboard away, Shelly scooted in to give you a big hug and kissed you on the forehead as a reward.

"You are so smart! I knew you could do it!"

Younger-you had this extremely proud shit-eating grin as you hugged Shelly back.

The scene put a smile on your face. It reminded you of a simpler and more innocent time with your sister, back when your relationship was much more healthy and normal compared to...

Compared to...

Compared to what, exactly?

Ah well. You'll figure that out later.

As cute as this scene was, it definitely wasn't what you were looking for.

Bringing up the remote again, you pressed fast forward to see what would come up next.

The scene changed before your eyes again, as you now find yourself sitting alone in your chair in the living room.

Looking around curiously, you see both younger you and Shelly patiently standing by the front door of the house.

With a raised eyebrow, you stood up and followed after them to see what they were doing this time.

Younger-you looked nervous as you waited patiently by the door. Turning your head over to Shelly, you asked her, "Do you think she'll be nice?"

Shelly gave you a reassuring smile as she held your hand comfortingly, "I'm sure she'll be a great step-mom! Dad wouldn't be stupid enough to fall in love with someone stupidly evil, after all!"

"He did with Mom, though..." Younger-you muttered bitterly.

"Eheh... Fair point... Let's hope that's not his specific type..." Shelly awkwardly chuckled, before resuming their anxious waiting game.

Meanwhile, you were off to the side racking your brain as you tried to remember more about this scene for yourself.

Step-mom... Step-mom...

Right! Glynda, wasn't it? Yeah, that was her name. It felt kinda weird to be calling her Step-Mom though, wasn't it? It felt more natural to call her Mom instead. At least, it felt like that to you.

After a long moment of waiting around, the front door finally crept open as your father walked in with a gentle smile on his face. Seeing the two of you waiting right next to the front door, he asked, "Were you waiting for us?"

Both of you nodded nervously.

Younger-you gulped, before asking, "Is she here?"

Your dad nodded back, before turning around and saying, "Alright, you can come in now. They're excited to meet you!"

As your father steadily open the door wider, both of you finally got to see your stepmother for the first time.

She stood there nervously, looking about as trepid as a mouse. Taking slow steps forward, she entered the house and bent down to her knees to reach your height.

"H-Hello... My name is Glynda Jones. O-Or I guess now, Glynda Doe. I'm going to be your step-mommy soon, once your daddy and I get married..." She nervously stuttered as she showed off her engagement ring. "I... know it must be weird to have a new step-mom that you've never met before, but... um... I promise I'll take care of you properly. So please, let's all get along together, okay?"

Whatever the two of you were expecting, you both clearly didn't expect to see this. Younger-you must have been fully expecting to see some sort of clone of your original mother at the door-step, ready to trash and ruin the family again just like the other one.

Both you and Shelly gave each other a clueless and nervous look, not knowing how to react.

Seeing the two of you hesitating, Glynda seemed to falter a bit as she anxiously looked away in shame, probably figuring that it wouldn't be that easy to be accepted into the family just like that.

To your surprise, as well as your sister's, younger-you took a deep breath as he seemed to bite the bullet and walked towards your new step-mom.

You took careful steps as you slowly stretched your arms out to hug her in the stomach, smushing your tiny head right under her boobies. It was almost comical to watch, to the point that you actually gave a small chuckle.

"Welcome to the family, Step-Mom. Promise to love Dad just as much as he loves you, okay?" Younger-you told her.

Mom looked down at you with wide eyes, shocked to see that she had been accepted so easily. She couldn't help but smile as she carefully hugged you back, "Of course! I promise..."

Shelly gave a relieved sigh, seeing younger-you deciding to do the mature thing for her so that she didn't have to.

Dad never even dropped his confident and happy smile, almost as if he knew this would be how things would turn out in the first place.

It was a heartwarming scene, and you couldn't help but coo at the sight.

"Aw, now isn't that nice." You chuckled.

Sadly, this probably wasn't what you were supposed to be here for. There was something much more important you had to look out for that wasn't relevant to your family life. It was going to be hard to specifically look out for it though since you can't even remember what you were originally supposed to do.

Well, nothing else to do but to keep trudging forward and try your best to remember what you were here for.

Leaving this happy moment in your memory behind, you proceeded to press the fast forward button to skip to the next scene in your timeline.

"Shelly, you come home with me right this instant!"

"NO! YOU'RE NOT MY REAL MOM!"

Oh wow, shit went from 0 to 100 real fast, didn't it?

You looked around at this new scene playing out, finding yourself still in the middle of your house. This time, however, younger-you was currently hiding behind the sofa in front of the TV while crying to yourself as you peeked at the emotional carnage nearby.

Right by the front door, you saw a different woman in a business suit being held back from entering by your father. She was a blonde woman with blue eyes, looking almost exactly like an older adult version of your sister.

"SHELLY! DON'T ARGUE AND LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER!" This woman screamed, trying her best to **** herself into your house.

Shelly was on the other side of the house, hiding behind Mom as she protectively hugged Shelly. Your sister had tears in her eyes as she screamed back, "I DON'T NEED YOU IN MY LIFE! I ALREADY HAVE A MOM AND SHE'S NOT A SKANK LIKE YOU!"

"You're not welcome here anymore, Rea! Leave now!" Your dad shouted firmly, holding back the crazy woman.

"What the hell have you done to my baby girl, you bastard!" She shouted back, "I'm not going anywhere without my daughter!"

"Glynda, dear?! Did you call the police?!" Your dad shouted to your mom.

"I already did, they'll be here any minute now, Johnathon!" Mom shouted back while she did her best to comfort Shelly.

"Shelly! Please, come back home with mommy! You need to come back home to your family!" The woman cried out as she started begging, pushing back against Dad.

"SHUT UP! I have my mom, dad, and little brother here already! This is my family! I don't want to be with you!" Shelly screamed back, "I won't ever love a mom like you ever again!"

"You have no right to be here, Rea! You lost the custody battle already, just leave Shelly and the rest of us to peace!" Dad grunted, holding the woman's arm back from pushing him any further.

"NO! I WON'T ACCEPT THIS! I AM HER MOTHER! YOU CAN'T STOP ME FROM SEEING MY DAUGHTER!"

"You lost all right to be a mother the moment you abandoned your husband and your son, you bitch!" Mom shouted at her in frustration, "How can you just stand there and only think about yourself when you're scaring your own kids?!"

"FUCK YOU, WHORE!" The woman bit back, "You're not even a real mother! You can have both Johns if you fucking want, all I care about is bringing home my daughter!"

Aaaaaand that's a big hard nope for you, thank you very much.

You pressed the fast forward button on your remote control, not willing to stick around to deal with that unopened can of worms.

You feel like this was a repressed memory that you REALLY shouldn't try to remember. Let's just pretend you never saw any of this and move on with your life. Okay? Okay.

Shaking your head clear, you looked around to see where you were now.

The place you were standing in now wasn't the living room of your house, actually! A nice change of pace from the last few memory bits. Instead, you were in your bedroom.

There you were, the younger you, browsing away on the internet like all millennials do when they have access to the internet.

You raised an eyebrow at this scene, wondering why this bared any significance to you. It seemed like just any ordinary boring day, so why would it show up in this weird memory-scape you found yourself in?

You saw your younger self typing out words on google search, as you slowly said out loud to yourself, "Miiighty... Mooorphin... Poweerrr Raaangerrs... free full moviieeee... onliiiine..."

Ah, okay. So you were hoping to look for a free pirated streaming site to look up the original Power Rangers movie. You remembered now how you first got into the series from your time mindlessly watching kids shows on the TV. They never seemed to air any of the movies for some reason, so you must have taken it up to find it yourself without having to shell out money to rent an original copy. What a little scamp you were, performing illegal internet activities.

This still didn't explain why you were seeing this memory play out though. What exactly was so special about this moment? Was the movie itself that impactful to you?

"Ah! Yes! I think I finally got it!" Younger-you exclaimed in excitement, hurriedly clicking on the link provided.

Curious, you walked up behind your younger self to see what you were doing.

The movie poster of the film was advertised front and center on the screen as the buttons "Stream now" and "Download now" were highlighted on the bottom.

Younger-you went to click on "Stream now" as the link leads to a movie player that was loading up the Power Rangers film.

"I wonder if it's any good?" Younger-you muttered curiously, waiting for the video player to stop buffering.

Wait a minute... suddenly you had a bad feeling about this...

There was something eerily familiar about this memory playing out that you couldn't help but feel massive amounts of embarrassment and cringe for.

The video player finally stopped buffering, showing a big play button plastered in the middle of the screen.

Predictably, younger-you went to click on it without a second thought.

Instead of playing the movie like younger-you expected though, it opened up another tab as it loaded.

NO WAIT- YOU REMEMBER NOW!

"DON'T KID! STOP!"

Before you can do anything to stop it, it was already too late.

The tab loaded completely, showcasing one of the most dangerous things to ever happen to a young boy adventuring on the internet.

Malicious porn advertising.

"Woah, whaaaaaat?" Younger-you exclaimed with innocent starry-bright eyes.

"NO KID, DON'T LOOK, YOU'RE TOO YOUNG!" You did your best to cover your younger-self's eyes to prevent your innocence to be shattered, as the tab automatically played out gifs of a bunch of adult women with big tits giving blowjobs and titfucks and all other kinds of debauchery on the screen, advertising a fake porn game that doesn't even exist.

Your actions did nothing to stop your younger-self, as younger-you's head phased past your hands and watched intently at the screen with curiosity.

"Woah, those girls are even bigger than Shelly's!"

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

SKIP SKIP SKIP SKIP SKIP SKIP SKIP

You repeatedly mashed the fast forward button on your remote, unable to maintain the fortitude to watch any further of the day you first discovered what porn was and how it changed your life forever.

Fortunately for you, the memory skipped past the whole event in a flash, allowing you to give a massive sigh of relief.

"Well, that was definitely not cash money." You shuddered, feeling a huge embarrassed blush covering your entire face.

No man should ever be **** to rediscover the day they lost their innocence. Unless they were into that, in which case- different strokes for different folks, yo.

Slapping yourself and shaking your head to clear your mind of the past few minutes, you decided to move on as you looked around to see where your memories have taken you now.

It wasn't your room anymore, thank god, but instead-

Wait... You know this place...

This was... middle school, wasn't it?

Yeah, this was the middle school cafeteria room. You must have skipped forward a huge chunk of your childhood to reach this place.

The whole place was crowded with tweens and kids as they mucked about during their lunch period. Most of them had blurry faces, as if you couldn't properly remember any of them.

Honestly, that would make sense. Who in the world would ever be able to remember the faces of hundreds of classmates, most of which you practically never even met before?

Speaking of which, where was your younger-self anyway? You had to be around here somewhere in this large mess...

Actually, now that you think about it, isn't it weird how you're seeing through these memories in a third-person outsider's perspective when they technically should be in a first-person perspective? How are you seeing the bits that you weren't even there for?

...

You gotta test this theory out.

Out of mild curiosity, you went towards the door of the cafeteria room to see if you could somehow travel beyond the space that your memory provided for you, in an attempt to see if you could somehow transcend space and time itself.

Walking up to the door, you pushed it open to see what would happen. It took you in for a quick shock to reveal that you couldn't actually open the door, only phase through it like a ghost.

Passing your head through the wall on accident, you found yourself mildly disappointed to find that there was nothing but an empty grey void beyond the confines of your memory of the cafeteria room.

"Oh, okay..." You muttered to yourself, "I thought it'd be...- Well I mean...- Yeah, I suppose that would make much more sense."

With your curiosity sated, you pulled your head back in the room and resumed your quest to find your younger middle-school-aged version of yourself.

It took you a bit of hunting, wading through the area of identical blurry faces just to be able to find the one face that you should be able to easily recognize. Eventually, you were able to find the table that your younger self was sitting in, right across the room and sitting next to a friend.

"Augh, finally." You sighed, before hurrying your butt over to where your other self was sitting.

Making your way past the sea of tiny people, you sat down right across where your younger self was sitting, as you were in the middle of a conversation with a familiar face.

It was a boy about your age at this time, you think. What was his name? His name was... Shit, you can't remember at the moment. Either it's been too long since you last saw him, or you simply just can't remember who he was because of your currently lost memories.

Whatever it may be, you and he were currently in a heated topic about something.

"Alright, is no one gonna talk about how turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic? I mean the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute! I mean, obviously hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy trade federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo-"

"Jesus Christ, Conner! I don't freaking care about the Star Wars references you're making! I don't even watch any of the films!" Your younger self groaned in exasperation.

"Well obviously, you would learn more about what I was talking about if you ever watched any of the youtube links I've sent you on skype!"

"HOW CAN I UNDERSTAND THEORIES ABOUT A SERIES THAT I HAVE NEVER WATCHED BEFORE?!"

Wow, this must have been really early on in your childhood, because the present you right now totally understood everything your friend said. You watched all six movies with your family already and watched all six movies again in your own spare time.

Every time you tried to suggest watching the new trilogy from Disney though, your sister kept vehemently denying your attempts to convince the family to watch any of it. Kept saying that it wasn't worth it and that it was worse than the prequel trilogies.

To this day, you still don't see how bad it could possibly be. I mean, it was produced and made by Disney, after all. How would they even be able to mess up a beloved classic franchise in the first place?

Your thoughts were interrupted when something unexpected happened.

As your friend droned on and on about something that your younger self couldn't care less about, you noticed that your younger-self started looking toward a different direction.

The light of the room seemingly dimmed down as all outside noise and distractions were blocked. It was as if it was going in some kind of mental filter in your brain.

The only thing that was discernable was a spotlight shining down on someone from a table half-way across the entire cafeteria room.

You followed the direction to where your younger self was looking at, curious to see what got his attention.

It was at that moment, you saw her.

A cute brunette girl with short messy hair, giggling to herself as she talked with her friends. Her cute smile, and the way she moved the messy bangs from her eyes, it made your heart pound like crazy.

Your younger-self had a small smile as you admired your crush from afar. No matter how many times you remembered trying to convince yourself to just go up and talk to her, you never had the backbone to do it and you always regretted it.

To your surprise, both you and your younger self, the girl turned to look in your direction, almost as if she knew you were staring at her.

It was almost like she was looking at you directly.

She didn't say or do anything to hint that she knew you were staring. She didn't wave, she didn't shout, she didn't even point it out to her friends.

But she did smile. She gave a brief smile, and went back to conversing with her friends as if nothing had happened.

You had no idea if the smile was actually meant for you. Maybe she was looking at something else. Maybe she just turned her head to think about something funny, and it just so happened to be in your general direction.

But seeing her smile like that, it was enough to make your heart skip a beat.

...

You know her name.

How could you have ever forgotten it? You couldn't believe you've forgotten it. How could you have been so careless and stupid?

"Duh, of course. You're John Doe. You and I went to middle school together, remember?"

"John Doe. He's going to be my new boyfriend!"

"I am so sorry about this, John! I didn't mean to get you roped into my mess!"

"I really like your smell. It's like going inside someone's house for the first time and breathing in their air conditioner."

"I appreciate that. I really do. So thank you for still sticking with me. Thank you so much for everything you've done."

"John... I think... I think I might be falling in love-"

Tiffany Brian.

You remembered why you came here now. It was all to find out more out of this moment, right here, right now. What her relationship was to you, how she seemed to remember the two of you being good friends despite your lack of memory of any such events, and to understand how you managed to forget all about it in the first place.

You were John Doe, a boy in high school who suddenly gained the power to travel through the dreams of all the people in the world.

And you were going to use these powers to find out more about Tiffany and how to help get rid of the Inner Demons that have been plaguing her mind.

But you can't do anything, not without understanding how she was connected to you, and not without knowing who she really was.

Finding out who she was might be the key to solve everything.

That was why you decided the only way to figure out who she was, was to dive deep down in your memories by using the Labyrinth as the door. She was the main reason why you stuck yourself here in the first place.

You finally remembered it all now.

"Pause." You motioned the world to stop, not needing the remote anymore now that you remembered who you were and the powers you had over the dream world. Not only was this the dream world, but this was also the center of your mind. Obviously, you should have dominion over everything that happens here.

Time froze to a stop, the entire cafeteria obeying your command like a dog to its master.

You were finally here.

Now, you just need to find out who Tiffany Brian was.

"Let's start over from the beginning." You declared, motioning your fingers in a circle, "Rewind to back to when we first met."