Summary: One year ago, Professor Friede was thrown off the Brave Asagi into a free-fall from 30,000 feet. One year later, an Exceed researcher named Jule struggles with dissociation and dreams of flying he can never quite remember.
Word Count: 8,394
Characters: Friede, Sango, Onyx, Spinel, Agate, Captain Pikachu
Genre: Drama
Additional Tags: Hypnosis, Brainwashing, Amnesia, False Identity
Snippet:
“Oh I could hide ‘neath the wings of the bluebird as she sings. The six o’ clock alarm would never ring . . .”
The melody, sweet and gentle as it was, was enough to snatch him from his free-fall through the air, the wind, the sky, the clouds ice cold and sopping wet—
“But six rings, and I rise—”
The sweet, folksy melody cut off abruptly as his hand—not wet, not cold—smashed the top button on his clock radio. He lay there for a moment, still save for his breathing. He could feel the clock radio beneath his palm. He could feel the warmth of his blankets—a top sheet, and two soft, plush blankets—on top of him. And there was no wind, no trace of screaming on the air.
Jule opened his eyes as his heart evened out, and was met with the cracked ceiling of his studio apartment above him.
His ceiling, in his apartment. He was in his bed, in his apartment. His hand was on his clock radio because it had gone off, because it was 7:00 AM and he needed to get ready for work.
Jule took a deep breath. In through his nose, out through his mouth. It was a dream. It had just been a dream. And now that he lay there, the sweat on his palm sticking his hand to the OFF button on his clock radio, much of it had already seeped away, like rain water into a gutter.
With one more deep breath held and released, Jule pushed himself out of his bed and made his way to the bathroom—one little square of the apartment quartered off by curtains, containing a toilet, sink, and a shower the size of a boutique changing room. Truth be told, his apartment could hardly be called such; it was little more than a small room in the basement of a boarding house in downtown Levincia. The bathroom took up about a third of the space; the other two thirds were shared by his bed, nightstand, and the kitchenette. It had no windows and a host of safety violations, but the rent was cheap (by Levincia standards), and so Jule felt he had no room to complain.
He spat his toothpaste out in the sink, and chanced a glance at the cracked mirror above it. Dull golden eyes curtained by shaggy white hair stared back at him. He frowned, running his finger along the dark circle under his right eye. Well, it made sense; he hadn’t been sleeping the best for a couple weeks now. He kept dreaming of—of—
. . . flying . . .
Jule splashed cold water on his face, and then grabbed his hand towel to rub away both the water from his skin and the last vestiges of the dream from his mind. It was, after all, just a dream; and as a scientist, he knew that dreams weren’t important.
