Liandra and the Dream Reader Chapter 10


Crossed Part 2

    Roocean looked baffled when he saw Liandra’s page full of details about last night’s dream. He almost lost it when he saw the three page story chronicling what had happened, in sequential order. Liandra felt as if she’d skipped some steps in his recovery program, and with the way he was acting she felt as if she’d done something forbidden.

    He finished reading her journal and asked her to recount the details of her dream again, this time orally and with as many details as she could remember. Even after hearing the same story told again he still looked flabbergasted.
Roocean: “What is this? What is the meaning?”
    He went back to his bookshelf and consulted a few of his old tomes, but he soon put them away, looking concerned and disappointed.
Roocean: “I’m going to call Robert over.”
Liandra: “Should I go?”
Roocean: “No, I think we’ll all need to talk.”
    Now she was confused.
******
    Robert arrived about twenty minutes later and sat at the table near Liandra, at Roocean’s behest. Roocean continued to stand and pace about rather frantically. The lingering silence was beginning to make Liandra nervous.
Roocean: “You have both told me some very interesting things today … things that defy everything I’ve seen, heard, and learned over many decades. This information is so fanciful that I’m forced to conclude that this is a very elaborate prank by the two of you.”
    He smiled and eyed them both in turn.
Roocean: “I’d just like to know how you coordinated this on such short notice. It’s really ingenious.”
    Liandra and Robert looked at each other blankly. Roocean’s weak smile began to fade away.
Roocean: “This cannot be. This isn’t your prank?”
    Robert looked annoyed.
Robert: “I’m here for treatment, Richard, not to play games. You’re my last hope here. If there’s something odd about what happened in our dreams last night, I think you should tell us just what that is and why it has you so shaken.”
Roocean: “Of course. I apologize for my unsettling behavior. This simply unravels much of what I’ve come to believe. I suppose we’ll just have to talk about your dreams.”
    Both of their dream journals sat atop one another on the dining room/kitchen table. Roocean slid them to Liandra and Robert. Liandra complained.
Liandra: “This isn’t mine!”
Roocean: “I know.”
    He quickly flipped through the pages of Robert’s journal to today’s date. She didn’t get a chance to even glimpse the previous pages. He then did the same with her journal in front of Robert. She noticed a page, in Robert’s journal, filled with very similar details as hers was from last night. She even saw her name in it, along with … a description of the blue-eyed shadowy beast, only Robert described it by its name in classical myth: the Minotaur.

    She read over his shockingly similar account of last night’s dream and saw that his version lined up with hers. His kept on longer than hers, as he engaged the beast in bloody combat after she was struck down with a lightning blast from the beast’s mouth. His account ended after the beast strangled him. They both looked at each other when Liandra was done reading, and then back at Roocean.
Liandra: “What does this mean?”
Roocean: “I don’t exactly know. What’s obvious is that you both shared the same dream and perceived those events in the same sequential order. Where yours ended, Liandra, his continued. Same exact continuity. There is no explanation for that. I can’t begin to fathom how this happened.”
    He took a deep breath and closed both of the journals and handed them to their respective owners. He exhaled and was suddenly very clinical.
Roocean: “Okay, there will be no more swapping. We will continue on as I’d originally planned, with the separate sessions and dream journals. I’m sorry that I called you all the way back here, Robert. You may go now.”

Robert: “You gotta be kidding me! Really, Richard? That’s it? Just bye?”
Roocean: “Perhaps I’ve done too much in sharing this with you both. I think it’s best for both of you to continue to keep each session contained, that’s all.”
    Robert shook his head and grumbled.
Robert: “Fine.”
    He got up, rushed out the door and slammed it shut behind him. Roocean winced and looked at Liandra apologetically.
Roocean: “That man is filled with a lot of anger.”

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