I wasn’t fond of dreams, at least not usually. They were always full of inane nonsense. Usually it was something about being late to work, or I would dream that I had gotten up, brushed my teeth, showered, ate, and gone through my day before my alarm would sound and I would really wake up.

It was annoying.

Recently, though, my dreams had begun to change. I’d wake up screaming in the middle of the night and scare my cat, but the content of the dreams would escape and fade away almost immediately. They always left me with a cold knot of dread in my chest, or a light-headed feeling of freedom in my head. It was making me lose sleep.

Which was why, at this very moment, I was holding a mop and standing in front of a large, foul-smelling assistant manager named Omar. Omar never bathed, nor did he eat anything green, leafy, or otherwise naturally occurring in fields or orchards. He smoked cigars in the basement of the store and always looked angry. Today was no exception.

“Snyder, you’re gonna have to sign the warning.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong!” Sometimes this argument worked on the oaf, and sometimes it didn’t. I alway tried it, just in case.

“You’ve been late for the third time this week. I have to give you a written warning. Just sign the damn thing and finish mopping your section!” Omar shoved the paper in my face, along with a pen. On the paper were the words “Official Reprimand” along with “consistently late” and “under-achieving,” which I thought was a little unfair. Retail was about the most underpaid and overworked job to have, and they had the gall to call me “underachieving” for mopping floors and restocking the shelves of the automotive section all day? It wasn’t like it was rocket science.

Apparently, I also wasn’t a “team player.”

I hated this job.

Omar continued to wave the notice in my face until I finally snatched it out of the air in front of me. “Fine!” I signed it vindictively. I hoped it was possible to actually sign something vindictively or i’d just be stabbing through the page for no reason. Pointless waste of energy, that would be. I shoved the paper back. “There. Now move so I can mop.”

Omar lumbered away, leaving behind a stale aroma of cheeseburgers and beer. I took one of the cans of aerosol car air freshener and gave a quick spritz in the general area. Now it smelled like Mountain Meadows.

I rubbed my forehead. I’d been on my shift for seven hours, and Omar had only come by now, during my closing duties, to issue the reprimand. I’d be out of here late. Again. I sloshed the mop back into the bucket before setting it back on the floor. Two more isles to go.

----

Finally, I clocked out and threw on my leather jacket and grabbed my helmet. The only good thing about this job was that my route to and from work was a hell of a lot of fun on my motorcycle. The sun was just setting and there were clouds rolling in from the east. There would be a storm tonight for sure.

Damn, and I was going to let the cat stay outside tonight.

The streets of downtown Ridgeport were lit up at night with neon signs and car headlights. It was the only section of town that offered any 24-hour establishments. One was the Wal-Mart where I worked, and the other two were a Waffle House and a small gas station. Luckily, most of the other places in downtown were open till at least midnight. I pulled into the Waffle House parking lot.

“Hey, Snyder!” Al, the night shift manager, was just getting in. “How’ve you been?”

This was why I liked the place. The atmosphere was pleasant and the staff knew me by name at this point. “Eh, another day...”

“Yeah, I hear ya.” Al grabbed a place setting. “Usual table?”

Once I was settled with a cup of coffee and a waffle, I got my notebook out of my bag that I carried with me. One thing about college was that I had started to carry what my sister affectionately dubbed a “murse” or man-purse. It couldn’t be helped, though. I had too much crap to carry around all the time without a bag, and backpacks were too cumbersome.

This notebook wasn’t full of class notes or homework, however. This was a notebook of creativity. Sketches, bits of my dreams, half-hearted attempts at poetry, it was all in this book. I thumbed through it to a blank page and pulled out a pencil. Soon, my waffle was gone, my coffee cold, and what had started out as a simple doodle to pass the time was turning into the portrait of a horse and rider. The horse was jet black, except for a white mark on his neck. The rider was cloaked in black and had a silver sword at his hip. The steed was rearing up with his front two hooves in the air and the rider’s head was thrown back, mouth open, in an bout of insane laughter. The full moon was filtering through the winter-dead trees in the background. I was putting some detailed shading on the rider’s cloak when someone sat in the booth across from me.

“I’ve always said you should sell your artwork, kiddo,” said a feminine voice, “It’d make you a fortune. Keep you from having to work in that hell-hole all the time.”

“Hey, Grace,” I pushed my coffee cup aside. “How’re mom and dad?”

“Eh, they’re still there.” She flagged down the server and asked for coffee. I took the opportunity to order a refill. “They asked about you today.”

“Really? Is that a good sign or is it a one-time thing?”

“Dr. Zimmerman isn’t sure, but he’s hesitant to call anything ‘improvement.’ You know how he is.”

“Yeah.” We sipped our coffee in silence for a few minutes before Grace snatched the notebook from me in between pencil strokes. “Hey! Give that back!”

“Just a sec,” she said sweetly. “I wanna see what you’ve been up to. I never get to see your work anymore.”

The horse and rider was almost finished, so Grace paged past it to look at my other sketches. I watched the expression on her face turn to amusement at one point before she turned the book around and pointed to a rough pencil sketch. “What’s this, little brother? Getting delusions of grandeur?”

“Only in my dreams, apparently.” I knew why she was laughing. The sketch depicted myself on a horse, casting a stream of something out of my palm toward a wolf. The stream hit the wolf in the chest, and the creature’s face was contorted in pain while I bore a look of triumph and concentration. I had sketched it that morning, for once remembering an image from my dream before it was shattered by daylight.

“Hmm.” Grace pawed through my notebook for a while longer. I only ever let her look at my work under close supervision since the time she had ripped out a page in high school and entered it in an art competition under my name. It hadn’t mattered that I’d won. I was embarrassed that anyone had seen my
artwork.

We sat and chatted for a while longer before Grace’s watch chimed. “I need to go home. It’s nearly nine, and I want to help Evan put Charity to bed.”

“Give my love to the family.”

“Will do.” She gave me a hug and a kiss on the top of my head. “Don’t get into too much trouble, little brother.”

“Humph. I’m only ‘little’ by ten minutes. Seriously, we’re in our twenties. Just let it go.”
Grace laughed. “But it annoys you so easily! Why would I give that up?”

“Go home, Grace.”

She skipped out the door with a cheery “Goodnight!” thrown over her shoulder.

 I grabbed my jacket and helmet before leaving a moment later.

I got back to my apartment to find my cat, Willow, meowing desperately at the door. It had started to rain heavily by the time I arrived, and both of us were drenched. Willow darted ahead of me inside, and had the good sense to shake the water out of her fur in the kitchen instead of the carpeted living room. I filled her bowl with food and put some bread in the toaster before collapsing on the couch and flipping on the TV. The news was on, and I let the anchorwoman’s voice drift over me while I laid my head back and closed my eyes.

---

When I opened them again, I knew I was dreaming. I knew it within my very bones. And it was easy to figure out, really, because there was no way in hell I was really looking at a...what the hell was this thing, anyway?

“It’s a phoenix, Master Ian.”

I turned to find a young woman of about my own age standing to my left. Aila. The name drifted out of the shadows. Her name is Aila.

“Of course,” I said sarcastically, “What else would it be?” I felt the ground beneath me, solid like myself, and looked up at the clear night sky. These weren’t my stars. Where were my constellations that I knew so well?

I was back in my realm of dreams. It had happened every night for the last two weeks with the same cast. Aila was always beside me while I looked at some strange mythical creature, and behind me there usually stood...“Where’s Lovewell?”

“He’s gone home for the evening. I said you wouldn’t want to be disturbed by his presence this night.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and I noticed, as I always did, her striking appearance. Aina’s hair was long, straight and a deep, fiery red. Not coppery like any of the redheads in reality, but the color of pomegranate seeds or blood. She always left it down, but with two silver combs sweeping it up and out of her face. She dressed in a medieval-style black dress with long bell sleeves and her eyes were a deep, startling blue. She was always the same in every dream, but her image never stayed with me long enough to sketch her upon waking.

Slowly, the details of my nightly dream came back to me. It was always the same, and I had been slowly developing the ability to live it out in vivid clarity. Odd, because every other time I had been aware that I was dreaming, I had woken up. This dream held me in its sway until I woke up naturally or until I accomplished whatever task Aila or Lovewell, her friend, set for me.

“The phoenix’s name is Fuego, Ian. It is your task this night night to learn from him. Fire is a necessary part of any Seeker’s arsenal.”

And of course it made sense, in that maddening way that dreams always seemed to follow a path of unknown logic. I knew somehow what to do. I made eye contact with the bright orange bird and nodded my head. What the hell am I doing?

The phoenix seemed to know what was going on, however, because in an instant it had leaped onto my shoulder and engulfed us both in flames. I screamed in pain as the fire licked at my clothing and skin, and I could smell my skin burning. This was torture at its finest, and I knew the pain would not stop, not
until I mastered the fire around me. But dear god! It burned! It hurt so much! Please, just let it stop...

---

And in an instant I was awake on my couch, the smoke alarm was going off, and I knew that my toast had been ruined. Damn. That was a good loaf of bread, too. I unplugged the toaster and fished out the charred bread with fork. I threw it away and scowled at the toaster. Even the kitchen appliances were out to get me tonight.