3-Dream of Me, Jackass

Lucian let out the most unholy shriek he had ever had as he jumped away from the window.

"Wow! That is the most deadly scream I ever heard, Lucy!"

Lucian cringed at his childhood nickname before looking at the source of the voice.

"Miles!? What in the world??"

It was Miles again, his dead friend in heaven. Lucian couldn't believe his eyes as he took a cautious step in his direction. He gave a tentative poke at Miles's right shoulder to affirm his presence.

"I'm in heaven again?" Lucian looked around him. He was not in his bed. Instead, he was surrounded by fluffy white clouds. Miles scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"No, look over there." He pointed towards the floor, where there was a pond. Lucian stared at it and saw a reflection of his vampire self slumped over the window lifelessly like someone had knocked him out. "What the hell?!"

"Correction, "what the heaven"," Miles smirked at his funny reactions. He was so going to record them and use them as blackmail material. "Anyway, there's not much time."

"What do you mean? Wha... What exactly is happening?" Lucian felt like his mind was breaking down with all these phenomena. "One moment I was here, the next I was a vampire, now I'm here again... Am I going crazy? Is this actually the psychiatric hospital?"

Miles grabbed the sides of his face so that Lucian could look straight at his eyes. "Look, you are not crazy. You asked for help. I am the help so listen to me. You are in "Night Falls" now. The player hasn't descended upon the world, so you have time to prepare."

"Prepare for what?"

"Prepare for war," Miles answered bluntly. "No matter how you tried, the war would still come. So, you need to get the golden keys."

Lucian's ear immediately perked up at the mention of the "golden keys". He recalled his first successful completion of the game. He had managed to find three golden keys that unlocked the doors to the Universal Library, rumoured to hold answers to the protagonist's questions. The moment the door opened, the end credits rolled, signifying the end of the game.

"But I'm not the protagonist. Having the golden keys is useless because the Universal Library only responded to the player."

Miles shook his head. "Those keys can open other things."

Suddenly, Miles looked around him before hurriedly speaking again.

"There's actually five of them, each coincidentally at each race's territory. The moment this dream ends, time will resume and "your" family will happen to return from a long vacation. When you get the first key, we will meet again."

"How? This is so confusing."

"Just dream of me, jackass," Miles smiled. "You wish you were dreaming of some girl, huh? Well, too bad, I will be plaguing your dreams now. We will meet again, Lucy..."

Wait... Lucian wanted to cry out.

He wanted to grab hold of Miles's hands and asked. He could see the sadness at the rim of Miles's eyes (or did he imagine it?). But like before, his vision blurred out quickly, and he felt like he had fallen into a river.

Dammit! Not again!

Lucian shot up and smacked the carpeted floor of his bedroom. There was wetness on his cheeks, and he wiped it away. It was tears. He curled up into a ball and rocked himself to calm down. It felt like he was being tossed from left to right with no time to process. The sensation was just like five years ago when Miles died mysteriously.

Lucian didn't know how Miles died.

It was just a regular day when he got a phone call. A phone call which made his heart stop, and urged his feet to run to the hospital. When he reached, he could only see a white sheet of cloth over a dead body and the orphanage director there weeping.

"It's Miles..." She nodded while dapping her eyes as the body was taken away. She turned around and saw Lucian. "Oh... Lucian..."

Blood ran cold in his body. His legs buckled under him, and he kneeled there as he watched the body about to be wheeled away. There was a bump on the path, and he saw a hand dropping out. His index finger was wearing a familiar black ring that Lucian remembered he had gotten for Miles on his 17th birthday.

"That can't be Miles." Lucian refused to believe it. He remembered just saying that he was meeting him again after school was over. The day was bright and sunny. It was just like any day. They were... They were going to go out for dinner. They were going to go to the arcade again. "No, it can't be."

He picked himself up and walked forward, trying to grab the white cloth, desperately wishing that the person under it was not Miles. As it slipped away, it slowly revealed his face.

No...

Lucian's hand shooked. His vision blurred, and he found it hard to breathe.

No. No. No. You can't be dead.

"Miles...?" Lucian grasped the shoulder of his dear friend. "Buddy? You're just sleeping. Right? We promised to have dinner later, didn't we? To go to the arcade?"

There was no answer. There was no flutter of Miles's eyes, no sudden opening of his eyes like Miles pranking him. There was absolutely no movement at all. Lucian gently placed the palm of his hand on the side of Miles's face. It was so, so cold.

"Wake up... Miles." Lucian's voice cracked as he slowly slipped to the ground, so his face was close to him. "Please..."

That day, the night did not seem to fall for Lucian. Without Miles, the world was meaningless. Even when finding an answer to his death, the police gave a perfunctory answer that they were still investigating. A day gave way to a week, then a month. A year. Two. Then close to five years.

"Dream of you?" Lucian choked as he sucked in a breath. "Every day, buddy. Every single day, I dream of you."