I'm just gonna go sleep now...

For the first time ever, you ate dinner in your room, all by yourself.

Finishing your chicken leg and mashed potato, you set your plate on your bed counter and reminded yourself to put it back in the dishwasher tomorrow. For now though, you don't even want to set foot outside your room on the off chance that you might cross paths with your mom.

God, you don't even want to imagine what she was going to do now. Probably call a mental facility or a therapist or something.

Fuck, you can't deal with this shit right now.

"If the universe has any mercy for me, I hope I **** and die from my own spit before I wake up tomorrow." You grumbled to yourself, settling in for the night.

The stress from today caught up to you quick, and before you know it, you're already asleep.

...

You open your eyes.

Tiffany. Your plan to find out more about your past.

You briskly walked through the hallways of the Labyrinth, hoping to find John popping up soon.

Lo and behold, he showed up right next to you while skating on one of those newfangled two-wheeled electric scooters.

"What a day it has been, hasn't it?" he teased.

More than used to his strange antics, you didn't bother to comment on his dream-gadget and instead said, "John, good timing. You said you could teach me how to enter my own head, right?"

"What, you don't want to talk about what just happened today with Mom and-"

"UHPUHPUHP" You interrupted him and waved him away, "I don't care about that right now! That's a problem I'll let my waking self deal with later. Right now is more important!"

"Gotta admire a man with his priorities straight." He nods respectfully, before leaving his scooter behind. Walking ahead, he gestured you to follow. "Come on. I'll show you where your door is."

He lead you deeper down the hallways of the Labyrinth, something you didn't really think was possible due to the whole... Infinite amount of doors it has going on.

You find it curious how John was actually physically leading you towards the door to your own mind, when usually with other dreams, all he had to do was snap his fingers and summon a nearby door to transport you instead.

"Is it really this far down? I don't understand why we actually have to walk all the way there." You asked.

"Good question, complicated answer." He said vaguely, "Short answer, you did this on purpose to prevent yourself from accidentally messing with your own memories back when you just discovered this place. You kind of figured you were the type to be clumsy enough to wipe your whole mind by pure accident, so you did your best to make your own head as inaccessible as possible."

And that was supposed to be the short answer?

"I sure didn't pull any punches when it comes to making sure I don't remember the Labyrinth..." You muttered in annoyance. Seriously, Past You is an asshole. "If the me from back when I first got here went through all this trouble to hide my own mind door deep in the labyrinth, why are you so willing to help me find it again?"

He shrugged, "I wanted to see what would happened. At the very least, I'd get a kick out of it if you somehow screwed up and accidently changed your sexuality to be gay or something."

"Wow. You are the most unreliable person I've ever put in charge in to take care of myself." You deadpanned. "Remind me to fire you the next time I do something like this."

John playfully stuck his tongue out, and kept on walking.

Eventually, you both reached the door that apparently belonged to you.

It didn't look any different from any of the other doors. Same size and shape, same color and doorknob. If it weren't for John leading you down here, you'd never even have thought that this specific one was yours.

You go to open it, only for John to pull you back.

"What are you doing?" John asked confusedly.

"Uh, going inside my own head?" you raised an eyebrow.

"Where, through that?" He pointed at the door, looking at you like you were a moron. "That's not your door."

"Uh, what?"

He gestured you to turn around.

You do so, and almost became slack-jawed at the unexpected sight.

It was huge. Like, huge huge. You know how Heaven is depicted as this cloudy afterlife and a huge pearly gate door thing with gold decor and angels flying around?

Yeah, what you were seeing was something akin to that.

It was like, this giant behemoth of a monstrosity door, easily reaching up to, like, a three-story building. Gold and ivory engravings decorating it everywhere in a flowery pattern, while the door itself looks like it could be made out of pure marble.

"That's your door." John pointed obviously.

"I figured..." You mumbled absentmindedly.

How in the flying fuck did you not notice this? It was in your field of view this whole time, and you didn't even realized it existed until John pointed it out to you!

"Bet you're wondering why it took you this long to notice it, even though its so huge and glittering, huh?" John cheekily smiled, looking ready to give another long winded exposition.

Nope, not even gonna question it anymore. Dreams are dreams are dreams are dreams.

"You see, back when-" John prepared his explanation, only to be interrupted when you stuff a sock in his mouth that you pulled out of nowhere.

"No time. I need to figure out this deal between me and Tiffany right now, since its my only lead to help me find out how to fix Tiffany's Inner Demon."

You walked up to the glamorous door as John coughed the sock out of his mouth and muttered irritatingly, "Party pooper."

Okay, so, how the fuck were you suppose to open this behemoth of a door? It honestly looked way to heavy to just push or pull open. You're pretty much like an ant compared to the size of this thing.

"Alright John. Teach me how to go inside. There some sort of secret password I set up? Some sort of riddle that only I can solve? How are we opening this thing?" You rubbed your hands in preparation, ready to deal with anything Past You might have set up to get in your way.

John looked at you with a curious brow, before turning the doorknob.

Instead of opening the whole entire door, the doorknob revealed that there was a small mini-door that was actually about the size of a normal regular door. It just popped open like a secret compartment, camoflauged within the scenery.

You stared blankly at the anticlimactic reveal.

The fuck was even the point of having such a huge pretentiously sized door in the first place if it was just going to be for decoration?

No, nevermind. You didn't even care anymore. At this point, you were half sure that all of this was just a way to troll yourself after losing your memories. Not even gonna bother questioning it.

Silently, you briskly walked through the door within a door without another word.

John chuckled as he walked in right behind you as he closed the entrance.

The hallways of the labyrinth would become dead silent for the entire night.

You opened your eyes.

You looked around in confusion as you found yourself sitting on a couch, a TV blaring static at you.

Right next to you was John, staring blankly at the TV like a mindless zombie.

"John, where are we?" You mumbled, rubbing your eyes clear from the sudden transition.

He doesn't respond. In fact, it doesn't even seem like he even heard you at all. His eyes were completely blank and lifeless.

You started reaching out to him in confusion, "Hey, you alive man?"

Before you could even lay a finger on him, another hand suddenly pulled you away and shouted, "NO DON'T TOUCH HIM!"

"JESUS FUCK-"

You got startled to **** as you scrambled back and fell off the couch.

Pulling yourself back up, you saw another John still holding on your hand as he looked at the lifeless John on the couch with nervous wary eyes.

You looked between the two, completely lost as to what the hell is going on.

So now there's another version of you or something? Jesus, two's a party enough in your head, thanks. You don't need a crowd filling up here.

"Mind filling me in?" You asked your subconscious, noticing the difference between their clothing.

The John that you're most familiar with has always been dressed in a snazzy suit, while the John on the couch was wearing a casual white t-shirt and black sweat pants. Something that you would find yourself wearing most of the time on your free time.

"Okay, so, fair warning." Your subconscious turned to you and said in a serious tone, "Don't touch him. For real."

You've never seen him so worked up like this. It's honestly jarring, seeing him act so differently than the carefree son of a bitch that you're usually so used to.

"What would have happened if I touched him?" You asked cautiously.

"So, remember when I made that whole analogy about me being the Id, you being the Ego, and Superego being in charge of your memories when you're awake?" He began explaining, "Well, when it comes to this guy, you can forget that entire metaphor and chuck everything you know right out the window."

Oh god damn it, are you seriously going to have to learn new rules about how your brain works within dreams and the Labyrinth? You can barely wrap your head around what you already know! Now there was something else?!

"That guy right there," John pointed at the lifeless body staring at the static TV, "He's you. Like, he is literally John Doe. The actual John Doe."

"The hell does that mean? Are you saying that I'm not John Doe myself?" You asked with a furrowed brow.

He shakes his head, "Yes and no. What we are, we're something of a unique case. It's hard to explain. Basically though, you and I? We're like avatars or something. Representatives of John Doe within the reality of dreams. That, or the incarnation of his dreams manifest into literal beings."

"You're pretty much just throwing words around, man. I still don't get what you're saying."

"Alright, think of it this way. The reason why you and I exist right now, is because John Doe is asleep. And I'm not talking about how we're asleep in the real world, I'm talking about how this John Doe right here is asleep asleep."

"What, you mean like Inception?"

He snapped his fingers in eureka, "EXACTLY! The us in the real world is asleep, dreaming about the John Doe on that couch. The John Doe on this couch is asleep in this dream, dreaming about us. We are the byproducts of his sleep."

...

You... You are just... So fucking lost.

"Wait, let me get this straight... I'm in a dream of a dream?" You tried to comprehend slowly.

"Sort of, yeah. Technically, you ARE the dream within a dream. That's how we Labyrinth users basically gain access to the labyrinth. A person's dream itself is still grounded to reality in a person's mind. To ascend further beyond, you have to sleep within your dream to remove all attachments of the real world. That's what makes all Labyrinth travelers so special. They're all people who are dreaming in their own dreams."

"This makes literally no sense." You muttered.

"Bitch, you're traversing through a magical realm where you can fuck around with other people's dreams!" John snarked back, "If things didn't make any sense before, then they never will."

You rub your head, figuring that it was better to just accept this new random fact of life.

You don't have time for this anyway. You got to figure out why you have no memories of Tiffany back in middle school.

"Like, seriously, I know I've joked about wanting to see you screw up your head and everything, but don't ever wake this guy up. If you do, we both literally stop existing and forget everything that's happened in the Labyrinth." John warned again.

"Don't see why that's a big deal, considering I forget everything when I wake up all the time."

"Yeah, well, you're a special case. Labyrinth travelers usually don't pull off mind bending shit like we do. You wake that guy up, we never come back to the labyrinth again unless you somehow miraculously come across the same method we discovered to get in here in the first place."

"ALRIGHT, I GET IT, NO TOUCHING THE COMATOSE COUCH POTATO- God, you're like Mom when she gave me permission to use a knife for the first time to help her cook."

"Just making sure." He finally concluded.

You took a deep breath and sighed.

Okay, now that this was over, let's take a look around. You went through the door leading inside your own head, didn't you? So that means...

"This is my head then." You exclaimed.

Taking a better look around, all you could see around you was an empty white void. The only thing that resided in this white abyss was you, your subconscious, and the "real" you on the couch staring at a scrambled TV.

"Alright, so how do I do this then?" You asked.

"What are you trying to do?" John asked.

"Go inside my memories. Sift around there to see what I forgot." You elaborated, before asking, "Do I gotta image a long line of cabinets sliding in, filled with file folders via Matrix style? Will a library into existence and hope it has records of my entire life history?"

"Well, I mean, we could do that. But why not just use this remote and watch it on the television?"

You turned back towards John to find him dangling a familiar remote control. It looked exactly like the one that comtrols the TV in the main living room in your house.

"God, please don't tell me my imagination is this barren and empty." You muttered disappointedly, grabbing the remote from him. "You know, I was expecting something cool when I got in here. Like, a giant castle with dinosaur servants and jetpack maids that use rainbows as fuel or something. You're seriously telling me that a majority of my head comprises of me just sitting on my couch and watching TV all the damn time?"

He shrugs, "Hey man, you're the one with the boring life before all this dream stuff came into our lives."

That's depressing.

Looking over your remote, you asked, "So, what? I flick through the TV and hope a channel pops on about my childhood memories or something?"

"Well, I mean... Give it a try man. It's easier to just go with the flow than to have me explicitly explain how it works. You should have a good sense of what to do already, right?"

Is he asking you or reminding you?

Ugh, whatever.

Improvising on the spot, you thought back to your middle school days and pressed down on the channel button.