Episode 27: Powers of the Upholding Dreams
The whole class groaned with complaint. Shirley Cao slammed the book onto the table, “Are you serious? We have to read this thing?!”
The teacher became sad, “Now, now, it’s not a thing. It’s an important Greek Mythology that you students will take two months to read. Heck, we might even go through Winter Break for this! Oh boy!”
The whole class groaned again. Matt said to himself, loud enough for Santi to hear, “This is going to be two long months that I’ll regret living through. Eh…” Santi smiled from grief.
~~~
After sixth period, Matt was peacefully walking to the public library. He saw Yessenia enter and Matt tried to call for her but it was too late. He wiped his forehead, “Boy, it sure is hot out here. I wonder what’s going on.” As Matt reached the doorway, Yessenia barged out and accidentally pushed Matt with her right shoulder. She fell and Matt was knocked over against the glass door. Matt regained his balance and said in anger, “Hey what was that for?!”
Yessenia stood up and said in a panic, “Hurry up! There’s a house on fire nearby. You have to help me on this!” Matt was surprised from the sudden news as he decided to follow her down the street between the library and the school. She pointed at the flames, “This one!” There were about twenty people watching and four cars crowded on the street to watch. Matt looked around for a spot where no one could see him.
“There’s no safe spot to use my fire powers!”
An old woman cried, “Somebody, please help! My baby is still in there!”
Matt and Yessenia became even more surprised. Yessenia pushed Matt to the side yard, “No one will see you from here. Come on, you’ve got to use your fire powers. I’ll try to blow the wind away.”
Matt came closer to the fire. Soon enough, he was right next to the flames. However, he was sweating and tired. He began to cough from the excess of smoke, “Yes…senia…!”
Yessenia screamed, “What are you doing?!”
His eyes were closing and his mind was becoming blank. “I can’t…! Argh!” Matt had finally fainted…
~~~
His eyes were slowly widening. Matt sat up and he examined the place around him. He stood up and tapped on his pants. “Where am I?” asked Matt. More places were appearing quickly as it became some strange town that was not familiar to Matt. He noticed a man was hammering steel outside an old-styled building. Some people were wearing a toga which seemed strange to Matt since no one would do that from where he lived. He tapped the man’s shoulder, “Um, excuse me, where am I?”
The man turned around. He had a bushy beard along with a sash wrapped around his forehead, “Brother, why must you bother me yet once more?”
Matt became completely confused, “You talk weird…”
“Why, ‘weird’ should not be a term you should use on me. It is insulting. Please, scurry on as I continue with my tactics.”
“What are you talking about? Who are you?” Matt said in annoyance.
“Do not be so hasty, young child. Have a seat while I complete this monument.”
Matt looked closely, “It’s just some sword thing. Seriously though, I think I’m lost.”
A female voice was heard, rushing towards the man. “Hephaestus, Hephaestus! Do you not have trouble coming with me to the herd? I have important business to take care of.”
“Eurynome, what do you need to do at this moment?”
“It’s an important decision for me. You must follow!” She rushed away and Hephaestus placed his hammer on the table.
“Young man, pardon me. May you be my substitution for the hammer? Two civilians are awaiting in line for their new forgery.”
Matt scratched his head, “I don’t get it…” Hephaestus pointed at two large-sized men nearby.
“If you do not do this on time, they will become vicious and take you down in an instant.”
Matt panicked, “What?! B-But I have to save a baby from a fire!”
“Fire? There are no such reports of fire in this city. Now, I will be excused from this workplace at the moment. Please be extra careful, young child!” He disappeared from Matt’s view.
Matt looked at the table, “What the heck is going on here?” He noticed the two bigger men waiting for their weapons. Matt began to sweat, “Ergh, I don’t even know how to do this…” He thought of how a blacksmith would usually work, “Ah! This won’t be so bad after all.”
Matt rose up both his arms with a hammer, “Here goes nothing!” His arms came rushing down as it slammed against the weapon. He closed his eyes from the force. As he opened his eyes again, the sword was broke in half! Two of the bigger built men started getting angry. Matt panicked, “W-Wait, this isn’t supposed to happen! How is this possible?! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no!” One of the men came up to Matt with a clenching fist. He held back to increase his strength as his fist rushed forward towards Matt’s face. Matt closed his eyes again in fear.
~~~
“Agh!” He sat up from his bed. He was huffing and puffing from the strange happenings that he had gone through. Matt began touching his face but he felt neither dysfunctional parts nor any pain. “What just happened?” He jumped out of his bed and rushed to the bathroom for a mirror. He blinked twice to make sure nothing went wrong, “That was just a dream…” He said to himself in confusion, “The heck is a ‘Hephaestus’ anyway? It was strange of me to be able to see his face clearly too. I never get dreams where I can image a stranger very clear like that before. Oh well.”
~~~
It was the morning on a school day. Matt checked the clock in the car before he took a step out, “7:52… Eh, I have P.E. I won’t be late.” He took a detour towards the library and noticed that the same house was perfectly fine. “I guess that was a dream too. Strange…” He suddenly froze, “Wait a minute. Waking up from a strange dream, dealing with fire… The past two months had been a complete dream?!” He clenched his teeth and ran towards the school.
As Matt reached the men’s locker, he saw Santi stuffing his backpack. Matt gave a sigh, “Santi, you’re still here!”
“Hm? Fine, I’ll leave.”
“Wait, wait! I just had the weirdest dream. There was this old guy named Hephaestus and some girl named Eury… Er… anyways, do you still have your powers?!”
“Yes.” Santi suddenly gave a surprised expression.
“Phew, so it’s not a dream.” Matt wiped his forehead.
“I had a dream about Chronos.” Santi took out his backpack again.
Matt joked, “Chronos? Haha! That sounds like the main character, Chrono, from Chrono Trigger. It’s such a fun game. I didn’t know you played it too.”
Santi shook his head, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but Chronos is a character in the Greek Mythology book that we are reading.”
“…Really?”
“And so is Hephaestus. I am guessing you did not read the next section last night?”
Matt scratched his head, “Eheh… I was planning to read it during SSR.” [Note: SSR stands for Silent Sustained Reading which is a fifteen-minute reading time for all students after first period and before second period.]
Santi explained his dream, “Some goddess named Eidothea, which isn’t in the novel yet, was about to jump off a cliff and I had to use my time powers to slow her down so I could stop her but it was not working. Shirley was there to tell me to be careful.”
~~~
Throughout the day, ShirleyC, Yessenia, and Danny began telling their dreams as well. Shirley said with confusion, “Some nymph was singing beautifully on stage when suddenly I saw a rope ripping apart. I tried to use my ice powers to freeze that spot but I couldn’t use it for some reason! Danny tried to warn me but it was too late. I couldn’t do anything about it. Thank goodness it was all a dream though.”
Danny said in wonder, “I didn’t know what was going on. It was a scary dream!! Some girl in green was drowning at the sea place and I tried to use my ground powers. I thought if I could raise the level under her feet maybe I could save her! But noo~, I couldn’t use my powers! Matt was there too. He asked for my help because he saw her drowning and stuff. It was too scary. I don’t wanna dream of that ever again!”
Yessenia was the last to explain her dream. “A dream, you say? Ah, yes I might have. A man was running up to a young woman near the pier. I thought if only I was able to use my powers, I could push him away with wind. Sadly, I could not use my powers. This was a strange happening for me because I was always prepared to use my wind powers, just this time it did not work. Why do you ask?”
Matt and Santi were sitting near Yessenia so that the three of them could discuss this. Danny was usually not there with them after sixth period and Shirley had to go home early. Santi spoke, “Don’t you find this weird? Each of us had a dream about a certain woman at near death. However, each of us five was in each others’ dreams, telling the dreamer that the woman is in danger.”
Yessenia added, “And the people telling us that the woman is in danger was simply… just people who could not save her. Just like in my dream, I also noticed Santi was there. If he stopped time or slowed down, it would still be obvious that the man was running up to her.”
Matt asked them, “Then what does this mean?”
Santi answered him, “Well we can simply claim that this is all just some random dream and a big coincidence at that. Or, you can start thinking too much about that. What would it be?”
“Wow, both choices sound bad.” Matt rolled his eyes.
Yessenia thought of an idea. She told them, “If only there was a way for us to choose when we could enter our dreams again, then we would be able to find out more of what is going on. We just have to wait every night for the next dream to come.”
Matt joked, “We should just enter the dream world. Hah!”
“Actually, that does not sound like a bad idea at all.” Yessenia took out her cellphone. She walked around while raising the phone in the air for signal, “Let me see…”
Santi took out his cellphone as well, “Let me check the list.”
Matt crossed his arms as he murmured to himself, “This is not going to work. The name isn’t just gonna pop out of nowhere and-…”
“Ah! Look at this. Olympia!” Santi exclaimed.
Matt and Yessenia rushed to see Santi’s cellphone. Yessenia viewed her list, “Mine says Olympia as well.”
Matt frowned, “Aw man! That’s not our dream. What place is that anyway?”
Santi and Yessenia glared at Matt for his stupidity. Santi responded to him, “This place IS our dreams. Olympia is where the ancient Gods took action. I believe your dream was in Olympia since you saw Hephaestus.”
Matt laughed, “Hah, how do you know that Olympia is the place in our dreams?”
Yessenia turned to the second section, “Did you read this section last night? The word Olympia is everywhere.”
Santi said in suspicion, “And I thought you said you were going to read this during SSR.”
Matt sighed, “Eheh, I kinda… skimmed through it.” There was a short silence. “Hey, I only had fifteen minutes to read it, okay?!”
“Anyways, Olympia is just moments away from us now that it is on our cellphone.” Santi said. “Shall we go check it out?” Yessenia agreed with him. They both pressed the button for Olympia as they started to vanish away. Matt quickly poked Yessenia since she was closer to him as they all vanished.
~~~
Santi fell from midair at first. He shook his head and stood up, “Is this the place?” He asked himself.
Matt fell from midair and slammed himself on his stomach, “Ah, argh! Ow…”
Yessenia was the last to fall but she fell right on top of Matt, “Phew, I didn’t know Olympia provided cushion. Although it’s a little rough.”
Matt coughed, “…It’s not cushion!”
Yessenia stood up with a blank expression, “Oh, my bad. Has anyone ever told you that you are skinny as hell?” Matt looked away in annoyance and Yessenia pointed at the city, “We are at the entrance to Olympia. Let’s check it out, shall we?”
On the old street-like path of the city of Olympia, Matt began to feel irritated. “Hey you guys, is it me… or are these people ignoring us?”
“Let’s find out.” Yessenia said. She used her wind powers on a wind chime on one of the houses but a person nearby did not feel a thing. “How about this?” She summoned her blunt sword.
Matt whispered in fear, “H-Hey, don’t do that!”
Yessenia laughed, “Ohoh, you wanted an answer didn’t you? Well fine. I guess we are invisible to them.”
Santi was disappointed. He said sadly, “It’s a shame though. They cannot see us. Why don’t we just wait it out? Tonight, we can dream about this again. Maybe we’ll get something.”
Yessenia nodded, “Agreed. Let’s go then…”
~~~
---- Next chapter preview:
ShirleyC: This is going to be one huge step in our powers.
Danny: Lots of stages are coming, and Matt is first! Matt is first!
Matt: What?! And what if I don't make it?!
Santi: Our lives can be at stake. So if you don't pass through your stage, everything in life will go haywire.
Yessenia: Oh my. Should I say goodbye to all of my friends and family first?
Matt: Oh you be quiet. Next chapter, The Origins of Saving a Child!
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