The Three Paths

I woke up a few minutes before my alarm with my head aching. I was back in my bed in my room and in my house. I quickly turned off the alarm before it could make me jump. The screen told me it was Friday and I had two lectures to attend. There were also messages from my friend Abbey and a couple from my male friends.

Abbey: I’m free Saturday after lunch.

I read through hers and the other messages as my head pounded. I yawned and got lightheaded. My head was aching quite a bit this morning, just as it was yesterday. I wasn’t sure if it was better or worse than before.

I replied to Abbey and told her that my part time job hadn’t asked me to work so I was likely free. We made plans to meet in the library tomorrow after lunch.

I got up and set about prepping for the day. The things I had gotten up to in my dreams were still fresh in my mind. So, my mood was more cheerful than it usually was in the morning, despite the headache.

I had a shower and a small breakfast and headed out. The day was like any other at college. I sat and listened to the professors, did the work and hung out with friends between classes. I did an hour of study in the library with a friend, Noah. I saw a couple other friends and even met up with Abbey briefly. She was with a few friends and had some plans with them so she couldn’t stay for long.

As I watched her walk off with her friends, I had the smallest idea to maybe ask her a few questions in the dreamworld. Like, make a version of her like I had with Britney Spears, but instead of sex, I would ask her some things I had been curious about. The thought was brief, and I shook my head. Even just asking her questions was a huge breach of trust.

Anyway, the day passed as it would usually. Classes ended and I made progress on assignments. I socialized a little and then headed home. I went for another jog after changing into running clothes and showered when I got back home. My mother and I had dinner, and I exercised and stretched in my room for a bit.

My muscles were still a little achy from the previous day, but I felt like I had gotten used to some of the burn. I finished off the day with some relaxing chamomile tea and listened to some relaxing asmr with sounds of rain and thunder, while lying in bed and scrolling on my phone.

I was excited to do more in the dreamworld. It very quickly became my favorite thing to do. Video games no longer interested me. Nor did movies. I could literally live any experience I wanted, even those found in games and movies. I could even re-enact scenes if I wanted to.

The sounds of rain and thunder filtered into my ears from the track I was listening to. The rain sounded like it was falling on a tent roof which made me feel like I was camping out under a thunderstorm. That gave me an idea to try and intrude on a school’s camping trip in the dreamworld. The sounds were both relaxing and exciting with the potential it invoked.

Eventually, after laying there and passing the time, I grew tired and settled in to sleep. I set my alarm for a couple hours before I had to meet Abbey, then put my headphones on the side table. I turned off the light and pulled the covers over me.

I had much the same issue getting to sleep as I did the previous night. It took a while for drowsiness to take me down into the depths of sleep. However, it felt a little faster of a process this time. Though, it was difficult to really tell.

Gradually, I fell deeper into sleep.

My mind wandered and grew sluggish. Thoughts came to me slower and slower and eventually I saw the three doors again.

I was somewhere between asleep and awake, so I didn’t act with surprise or suspicion. I remembered being here and facing these odd impressions before. They were like lights, but also pathways.

In this odd between place, I couldn’t register if I even had a body. I was just a bundle of limited consciousness.

I remembered taking the middle path and finding myself in the dreamworld last night, but now I was curious what the other paths led to. I glanced at the right path, then looked to the left path. They were identical to the middle. All three were like pinpricks of light in the darkness that expanded to look like tunnels of light.

I picked the left one.

---

An alarm rang and pulled me out of a restful sleep.

I opened my bleary eyes and squinted at nothing. I turned onto my back and stretched. I lazily pulled my phone from the side table and tapped the screen. The alarm ended and I yawned, then stretched again. The tightness and burning in my muscles helped to wake me up from what felt like an incredible sleep.

I let my eyes wander around my ceiling and looked about my room. I then looked at my phone and saw the notification to remind me about meeting up with Abbey.

Then it hit me.

My hand came down on the bed, looking for something. I looked around with alarm. I was in my room again. There was no sign of a girl anywhere. Mia wasn’t in my bed. None of her things were in the room.

It was my room.

But... wasn’t this supposed to be the dreamworld?

Did something go wrong?

Or was it just a fluke that I managed to dream of that place twice in a row?

I fell back onto my pillow in disbelief.

What the actual fuck?

---

Stepping out of the shower but feeling refreshed didn’t stop the feelings of disappointment from permeating through my being. I couldn’t help but feel as if a night was wasted. I could have been fucking a woman by now. Or at the least, a dream woman.

So, what went wrong?

I still thought about it with no small measure of resentment as I dried off and got ready for my little study “date”.

I got dressed and checked that I had everything. I patted my phone and wallet and took my laptop bag off the desk chair. I took my keys and checked myself in the mirror of the bathroom one more time before letting my mother know where I was headed.

I left the house and made my way to the college library.

---

Jacob: You at the library already?

Abbey: Just in one of the study rooms.

Abbey: A6

She was referring to the room number. A6 was on the first floor of the library. I walked through the entrance and turned to the left towards a few rooms that were labelled A1, A2 and so on. On the way, I looked around to see if there was anyone I recognized but only saw passing acquaintances.

I found room A6 and looked through the rectangular glass in the door and saw Abbey at a table. She was already poring over a textbook and taking notes on her own laptop. I knocked on the door and she looked up to see me looking in. I opened the door and poked my head in.

“This is room service. Did you order the study partner with too much time on his hands?” I said in my soft library voice with a slight Spanish accent.

She smirked at my joke and tapped the table next to her.

“Yeah. That sounds about right. Now get in here and put your time to good use.” She replied.

“Yes Ma’am. Right away Ma’am.”

---

We got stuck into the assignment for the next hour. It wasn’t all that difficult but did require a lot of research. Occasionally one of us would get up to find a particular book to help us. Other times the internet helped us find some good information.

We made good progress and were taking a small break when I felt like asking her some questions. With all the dreams I had been having and all the adventures I went on, a part of me wanted to brag, but also to glean a second opinion from someone else. I also briefly thought once again to try and create Abbey in the Dreamworld and ask some more personal questions. My curiosity was really getting to me.

“Have you ever had a lucid dream?” I asked, while watching a random cat video on my laptop. I needed the serotonin fix after all that work. Plus, the whole confusing affair with my dreams not happening last night was still frustrating.

“Where did that come from?” She was watching the video with me as she tried to multitask that with reading an article related to our assignment on her laptop.

“Had one recently.”

“Oh, yeah? Was it full control?”

“Yeah, it was pretty wild.”

“That’s nice. I wish I could have had one at least once in my life. Anything sexy happen in yours?” She asked him with a knowing tone and a smirk that I could hear loud and clear.

I glanced at her with my own smirk. “Of course. Who do you take me for?”

“Nice.”

“It’s about the only action I’ll be getting, so I’m almost obligated to, right?”

Abbey laughed quietly as her eyes twinkled at me. “So, what was the scenario? I’m guessing it was something unhinged.”

“It was kinda unhinged, sure. Imagine a world where there were no men. None whatsoever. Just women everywhere you went, and all of them were hot.” I described to her.

She sucked in a breath and bit her lower lip. “Ooooh, don’t tease me like that.”

“It gets better. Imagine that you could do anything you wanted with them, and they just saw it as another normal part of their day. They would barely acknowledge you or what you did to them.”

“That... oh shit. That sounds hot....” Her eyes flicked back and forth as she tried to imagine a scene.

“Yeah. Imagine the scenarios. The places you could go and all the silly fun you could have in public settings.”

Abbey blew out a breath. “Damn... I wasn’t expecting you to awaken a new fetish in me today, but I ain’t mad.”

I laughed with her.

“You're welcome.”

She shook her head as she tried to imagine some things.

“How much did you get to do though? How long did the dream last?”

“Surprisingly long. I managed to do quite a bit before waking up.” I said and held up a finger to list things off. “I visited an office, a gym, a club...”

“Wait, wait! It was that long?!” She asked with incredulity. “I was thinking about it being long enough to just do one woman, but you went and fucked a bunch?”

I laughed at the clear jealousy in her tone.

“Yeah, the dream was a long one. That might have been why I woke up with a headache.”

“Oh... yeah, I don’t know how the brain works but that sounds like you were pushing it.”

“Worth it though.”

She smiled in agreement.

“So, did you wake up to a mess under the sheets?”

“Surprisingly, no.”

“Huh. You would think that would constitute a wet dream though.”

I shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell ya. I had all the fun and none of the clean-up duty.”

“Okay, okay, stop making me jealous. God damn.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“Sure. So, enough about my fake dream fun. What about you? Any luck finding someone?” I asked her.

“...I... no, no, not really.” She said with a sigh. “Honestly, you might have had more action with your dream than I have.”

“Really? Aren’t there a few lesbians around here?”

“There are... but they’re either taken or...”

“Not your type?”

“Yeaaaah...”

“What about that friend from yesterday?”

“Alicia? No, she’s not into girls. At least that's what she told me.” She shook her head. “It’s tough cause some of these girls either hide what they are or don’t know until later.”

“Sounds to me like the excuses of a useless lesbian.”

“Hey, I’m bi. Not full lez.” She smirked at me. She could tell that I was just joking. “But honestly, it’s way easier to get a guy’s attention than these girls.”

“True. We are quite starved for the females.”

“It’s just about finding quality. Some guys are just...” She explained.

“Yeah, I guess at this age us guys are just trying to figure everything out and deal with our Super Horniness. You’re not going to find someone well put together here.”

“That “just trying to figure everything out” part is fine. It’s just the... selfish... thoughtlessness... and the impatience that get to me.”

“So, the Super Horniness?”

“You make it sound like a superpower.”

“No. It would be a superpower if we could turn it off whenever we wanted to. That would be a godsend.”

“Is... is it really that tough to control? For guys I mean.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“The... desire for sex is like a hunger for food. When you don’t get to eat often, all you can think about is eating food. But when you finally get to eat food, do you fantasize about food afterwards?”

She tilted her head in thought over that.

“Hmm... it almost sounded like you just compared women to food.”

“Close, but no cigar. I compared sex to food. Women aren’t sex, they are just capable of it. Heck, even gay guys feel the hunger.”

“Okay...” She nodded, conceding the point.

“Men still want all the cute fuzzy stuff that comes with relationships, but the hunger can get really... loud. Distracting. Like that one friend that tries to get you to go out to a party and won’t let up until you give in, in some way.” I tried to use an analogy. “Giving into the hunger is often just us trying to appease that annoying friend so that we can try and get some peace and quiet. Of course, that doesn’t excuse bad behavior. Don’t get me wrong.”

Abbey listened and nodded to show she was taking that in, but I could tell that she was having trouble coming to grips with it.

“If that is the case and men feel that way really strongly, then why didn’t women evolve in the same way?”

“Are you saying you don’t feel hungry for sex? After all those talks about your favourite anime waifus? After talking about awakening a new fetish from my lucid dream? And after having trouble finding a girlfriend you don’t feel the onset of hunger and starvation? Really?”

“...I... maybe? Yeah... actually. Now that I think about it... it's kinda rough.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. The first step to recovery is admitting that you’re a horny bitch like the rest of us pigs.”

That had her bursting out with a surprise laugh. She playfully smacked my arm.

“Okay, okay. You win. I’m lonely and horny.”

“I appreciate your honesty.”

We laughed together before I noticed the time.

“Now, we should probably finish up for today.” I said while clicking off of the cat video.

“Yeah. Enough talk of sex.”

“Distracting right?”

She smiled and shook her head. We got back to work and finished up our session and made plans to meet up again next week.

Just before parting ways outside the library I had to give her one last cheeky comment.

“I will pray that you will one day have a lucid dream, so that you can fuck all the bitches you want.” I said with hands pressed together in mock prayer.

“Sure. Thanks. I’ll see you next week.” She grinned and walked back a couple steps.

“See ya.”

I left the campus soon after and headed home. I even tried my new exercise routine once again after changing. By the end of my run my legs were burning. I stretched and worked on my arms and abs at home before taking a shower. Once I had dinner I decided to do some meditation in my room.

---

I was sat in the middle of my room on a cushion.

The curtains were partially drawn and the speaker on my laptop was playing some soothing soundtracks. I was as relaxed as I could be while my mind floated around various topics. I deliberately avoided thinking of the dreamworld as I knew that would be a stressful subject.

I didn’t know what had gone wrong and there was no real way for me to even figure it out. So, I let my mind wander onto other things.

One thing I thought about was my new exercise habit. I hadn’t been at it long and I don’t know if it was going to stick, but the idea was nice. Maybe I would actually take it further and see some results with my weight. I wasn’t heavy or anything, but I was definitely lazy a lot of the time and it showed. My stomach wasn’t exactly flat, and my muscles weren’t much to look at. So, if I kept going with this then maybe I’d be more comfortable in my own skin. I might even be more confident in getting a date.

Although, if I could get back to the dreamworld, then I wouldn’t really need a date.

My thoughts drifted to Abbey then. She was cute in an alternative punk sort of way. She was fun to talk to... but she had sworn off men. I didn’t know what had happened to get her to make such a choice and I didn’t think it was my place to ask. Which made me think once more of the possibility of asking her in the Dreamworld.

No, no. I needed to avoid thinking of the Dreamworld.

I thought about other things like my future and possible careers, but my mind did keep coming back to the dreamworld. It was hard not to come back to that. It was the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. Even if it was just a dream.

Though, it was difficult to think of it as just a dream. I couldn’t help but think there was more to it than being a simple dream. It had too many rules. It was consistent. It was detailed and precise. I doubted that my sleeping mind could conjure that place up all on its own.

I managed to go to that place twice in a row. And I had picked up where I had left off from the first time. So that meant that the dreamworld remembered me. That was definitely not normal.

It made me think I could go there for a third time, so I had prepared myself for last night. But then I just slept normally.

What was different?

What changed?

The relaxing bubble I was floating in turned to frustration. I couldn’t think of a reason for why I couldn’t visit the dreamworld for a third time. I kept coming up with a blank.

My meditation felt like it had come to an end, so I switched over to doing some more light exercise and stretches before bed.

---

My head sank into the pillow as I turned in for the night. I settled in under the blanket and wondered if tonight would be another dud.

This night, sleep came faster. In a few short minutes I was straddling the line between sleep and being awake. Once again, I floated in a dark void and felt the presence of the three doorways. It was in this moment that I remembered seeing them the last two nights. How I didn’t remember them when I was fully awake somehow escaped me. Here and now, it clicked with me how this place might be connected to my dream escapades.

One night I picked the middle path, and I visited the dreamworld. The next night I picked the left path and found normal sleep. This night I looked to the right path and wondered what this branch offered.

I wanted to go to the dreamworld again, but curiosity pulled me in.

I picked the right path.

---

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