Prologue

"What if I'm only dreaming?"

He'd heard her, and she knew it. For the moment, though, he only stood there. Suddenly he turned, and she saw he was weary and destitute as she felt. It lasted only an instant; he could not be caught a weakling. He looked her in the eye and laughed, fearless, tireless.

"Well," He laughed. "What if you are? Does it change anything?"

"Of course it does!" What's the point of fighting shadows? This can't be real, none of it. So why do you fight?"

"If I'm dreaming...I should see how much fun I can have before I wake up. I can't die then, can I?"

Silly boy, he never took anything seriously, not even a dream. "But why feel the pain? Why watch friends die, only to wake up to them?"

"What if you don't wake up?"

"If I never wake up...I don't want this dream world anyway. I don't want to live like this."

"Salali, what's so different now from being awake?" He asked, his voice now humorless. "You're dreaming. So what? What happens if you wake up? You still have to fight to survive every day in the real world. Some don't make it, as some won't make it here. You must keep going or you fall. And if you fall, you must pick yourself up and keep on going. Here the risks may be greater, the stakes higher. But whether here or not, if you pretend it all away, reality won't disappear. I don't want to die. I'll conquer this dream world, and any others."

But it was a dream. Could it be anything else? Salali looked down the hill to the battlefield. Their troops had gained ground, but the enemy kept on coming. Flyers took them down in droves, but for each that fell more seemed to rise. Corpses from both sides began to pile where the lines met, and all knew there could be no retreat. From the command station Salali could hear cries for help coming through the radios. "Send to B-9; we'll hold for another hour or so." An hour. An hour before the last troop would fall and the enemy would swarm into the base, killing everything in its path. Could this be real?

She looked around her at others who'd lost hope. They all looked the same, tired eyes with slumped bodies. She looked back to the corpses lying on the battlefield. No difference.

"Kele?"

He was gone. Down to the field, probably.

"Alpha! Alpha! Can you hear me?" Came a cry from an unmanned radio. He was gone too? The cry came again, more strained, more desperate.

At last Salali stood and with a shaking hand touched the button. "This is Alpha. I read you."

"This is B-9! We're being overrun! Please send help!"

"I'm sorry, there's no one we can spare..."

"No! No, no. We...I—I'm all alone. I need help. Please, send someone. They'll find me soon."

The voice cracked, and Salali realized it was that of a child's. "How old are you?"

"What? 12...I'm all alone, please help."

"No one's with you? You should get out of there."

"No. No one." The voice suddenly dropped to a whisper as he gasped. "I think they're inside!"

Salali knew there was nothing she could do for the boy. She could hear him sobbing for a moment. She pressed her hand against the button once more, hoping to offer some word of comfort. Having none, she let it go. She heard a crash and a screeching, and knew it must be over. Salali flipped the switch off as the boy made his final cry.

She stood and walked around. The room was empty. She felt tired again, and headed back to the seat. All at once she remembered Kele and looked to the battlefield. The line of scrimmage had backed far up the hill, a short distance from the base. Terrified, she ran for it. Up in the sky only a few flyers remained, and she could not see him there. But then there he was skimming along the top of the field. She hurried toward him.

Salali was on the ground a moment later, breathing hard. She forced herself onto her hands and knees. A drop of red fell next to her hand. She gasped and looked up to see a monster standing over her. It'd been wounded, but not deeply enough to be weakened; it was only a flesh wound beside its snarling mouth. Salali jumped back, but somehow couldn't turn away and run. She sat trembling at its feet as it reached to kill her.

"I'm not dreaming...." She said.

---

Salali could hardly breathe when she woke up. She calmed herself and settled back to sleep. Then she jerked awake and jumped up. Kele! She wondered if he was still fighting, and hoped he was alive. Had it been a dream? She wondered.

She hurried to get ready and ran out, worrying all the way.

"Hey girl!" Called a friend. "What are you looking for?"

"Kele! Do you know where he is?"

"No, I don't...."

"I have to find him!" She exclaimed, and ran off to ask others.

The bell rang and she hadn't seen or heard of him. Sadly she walked to her classroom door and looked around one last time. For the first time she really saw that there were trees nearby. A squirrel held fast to one, peering intently at the ground like it saw something precious there. It stayed still, afraid to continue but not wanting to look away. Then someone passed by and scared it to the top. A little bird flitted into the bushes after a seed. Salali laid a hand against the wall, and feeling its cool surface, laid her forehead there as well. Something seemed so strange to her, but she did not understand. Where was Kele? Had he died in battle? No, he couldn't be. She was nearly crying when someone approached her.

"Salali? Salali, are you ok?"

She stared at the girl a long time before she could recognize her. "What? Yes, I'm just fine. I have to find Kele. Where is he? I can't find him—is he...gone?"

"Gone? I didn't even know there was a Kele at this school! So who is he? Your new boyfriend?"

"What? No! He is a...I...." Salali had nearly told her Kele was a soldier. But something about that seemed wrong. Because there were no soldiers—there was no war. She was at school, she finally realized, and had the safe reality she'd longed for.

"Salali?"

"It's nothing, nothing at all." She said quickly.

"So, you have met someone!" The girl exclaimed obliviously. "When do I meet him?"

---

So real a dream, and so unlikely a reality. Salali, still unable to clear the dream from her mind, sat alone in the park in the shade of a tree. Not far away she saw another squirrel, clinging indecisively to a tree. Birds chirped, bugs buzzed, and children laughed in the field. If war existed it was far away.

Her mind returned to Kele, the dream that told her to conquer dreams. But how does one conquer dreams in reality? Salali didn't know. She wished to ask him. She imagined him there before her.

"What if this is real?" She asked.

He knelt down and looked her in the eye. "Is anything real?"

"What I see before me...it's real, isn't it? The trees, that squirrel."

"Him? He's as real as I am, that's certain. Salali, everything is real. Everything is dream. Live whatever you are given, and never be afraid to live."

"So that's it? Nothing more? Can't I live knowing something?"

"Yes. Live knowing you."

"Are you real, Kele?"

He was gone. Salali stood and paced a moment, but returned and sat. Then, off on the horizon she saw something, a strange dark sphere rising from the ground. She heard a scream in the distance and knew she should run, back home, back to the safety of reality. The thing had reached the edge of the park now, but she did not want to turn away. Yet she was too frightened to move forward. She knew what the thing was. It was the Rift between dreams and reality. Then off in the distance she thought she glimpsed someone familiar fighting shadows.

The squirrel leapt for the ground and chased its dreams.

---

A bit of background on this: I began a tale about five years ago that I absolutely loved, but was never able to write it. I was able to tell my friends about it, but never did it come so alive on paper. It was not the characters; they were ready. I loved the plot. I loved the settings I created. I could describe them. But never did it come together. It became my greatest fantasy, my retreat when reality was too much. One day tragedy struck my life and even this fantasy was not enough.I began instead to dream that the nightmare didn't exist, and would wake in the mornings not knowing which wastruth. One night I sat there with this feeling, and wrote from what might have been a climax. I finished and said to myself, "That could be a prologue to a brilliant story, or simplya brilliant story." The story lived in my head for five years, and now occupies less than five pages. Yet I think this captures the tale I could never tell. So to anyone interested, I ask you this: am I done?