Soul Song

As his eyes stick in, he rubs his eyes with his hands. The eyes are red, tongue is dry. His whole white face is red because of his poor sleep last night.

He picks up his phone and texts in a group chat "SHINE FOREVER" stating

"I won't be attending scl today."

"Why bro?" A guy named Harry replied.

"I didn't sleep enough and update wht's going in scl." Luke answered.

"Ofc dude, take care."

"Thanks, man!!"

 Luke kept his phone down and relaxed his neck and shoulders back on the sofa by closing his eyes.

Two hours gone it's 10 am Luke gasps and wakes from a nightmare. He hits his head with his palm. He still feels tired. He stood from the sofa walked to the restroom, and splashed the water on his face by himself. Then he gulps a glass of water and comes back to the sofa, picks up his phone, and walks to his room upstairs by scrolling through his phone. He enters his room, and gets comfortable with his bed, scrolling through a music-listening app called "Musicia" for a soothing, comfortable playlist to listen all over the day.

After thirty minutes of scrolling, Luke finally found a playlist to satisfy him with a good sleep. The playlist is named "Shine Begins!!"

Somehow the word "shine" impressed Luke, which dragged him to this playlist.

Luke closes his eyes as the playlist lulls him to sleep. After a couple of hours, Luke gasps again and wakes from sleep, he picks up his phone and looks at the time it's 1:16 pm, but now he's not as tired as before. Luke runs downstairs, Luke's conscious attracted to the meal that his mom prepared for him. He had his delicious lunch, savoring every bit of it. He completes his lunch, praising his mom and that's the time he remembers why he was in a hurry after the sleep. Luke quickly moved from the dining table and took a pen and paper to write about his dream experiences.

He writes as far as he remembers but unfortunately, he forgot most of his visuals. He couldn't write his dream as a sentence but as some words.

Luke's words.

Music, colorful solar eclipse,

 the waning crescent moon,

 desert, muddy mountains,

 purple, nebula, galaxies, and night

Luke then browses about the dream he got and gathers some information about it.

He does this because that specific dream he got felt so real compared to other dreams he had in the past, and this one was the most fun-filled.

It's 3:15 pm now, Luke texts his friends.

"Guys let's have a meet-up today, immediately."

"why tho." Raven replied.

"Just to talk." Luke texted.

"talk abt?" Vixen asked.

"I'll explain there," Luke replied.

"No problm dude, let's meet in my home, my parents are out." Remus texted.

"Yeah good, I'll be there in thirty mins" Luke said

"Maybe, I'm not." Raven texted.

"I'll join u guys" Harry texted.

"No work after scl for me, maybe I'll come, I'm bored" Vixen said

"So you're the only one not gonna come Raven??" Remus texted

"Nah! I think there's no way" Raven replied.

"Awesome! Everyone should be there around 4 pm, CHEERS MATE!!" Luke texted.

It's 4:16 pm everyone arrives and settles in Remus's living room

"So what's the matter?" Raven asks detachedly.

"Guys hear me, it may feel a little unreal but trust me," Luke says looking at everyone.

"Yeah I'm here bro, you may open," said Remus.

"Guys I had a dream today that was so realistic compared to my other dreams and more than that, it was enthusiastic but unfortunately I forgot most of them, but fortunately I remembered some visuals that I wrote in a paper, look at this guys," Luke said and pulled out the paper from his bag that he wrote. 

Everyone stares at the paper for a minute 

"Bruh, what do you mean by a colorful solar eclipse," Harry asked.

"I know you guys won't believe me, but I got some proof," Luke pulled out his laptop and placed it on the tea table. Luke opened some websites and started to explain to his friends.

"There's a specific unique song for everyone which is connected to our soul when we hear that specific song, there's a possibility for us to get into that world I dreamt about," Luke said.

"You mean a song connected to our soul will get us into a different world, if it's true then what's your soul's song?" Remus asked Luke. 

"Yeah you're right, what's mine?" Luke said by questioning himself.

"Alright, this's dump, even you didn't know that" Raven shouted.

"I'm not a child to say these stories to you guys, look here there's a whole Reddit page about this, hundreds of people discussing their dreams. A lot of these phrases are actually related to my dream, this's not a joke guys!" Luke exclaimed in exasperation.

"So, what do you conclude?" Vixen asks Luke.

"There's a playlist that made me sleep, I slept for two hours, if I'm right the song must have played after ninety minutes, If I found which song played after ninety minutes, I could find my soul song," Luke said in excitement.

"Oh, so you're gonna find a single song in a playlist that contains hundreds of songs," Raven said in desperation.

"I got it!!" Luke shouted looking at his phone.

"That song must be in one of these five songs," Luke said.

"Okay, then play it, let's see where are you going," Remus said.

"Nah bro, it doesn't work like that. When the song plays you must be in deep sleep, that way, you'll enter that world"

"What you gonna do now?" Vixen asked Luke.

"There's nothing to do, I'll hear these five songs tonight while sleeping. If something happened as I thought, I'll discuss it with you guys tomorrow in school" Luke said. 

The time is 9 pm Luke went to bed early. He kept his phone near him. He adjusted the phone's settings to play five songs after three hours. Luke slowly closed his eyes

Unexpectedly Luke wakes up, his eyes blurred, he rubs his eyes with his palm. He feels something strange, he has torn muddy cotton gloves on his hands, and the room doesn't feel cold it's hot, and his forehead is completely wet. He turns his neck left and right, it's not even his room it's a desert, he stands up and stretches back his backbone. Everywhere he saw was covered with dunes and there were some long mountains at a long distance he looked up at the sky, there wasn't even a sky, there was a nebula, a half-crescent moon, and the horizon emitted purple light. He realized where he was, this is it, the Music Realm.

Music Realm is ruled by music. Soul music is the key to enter the music realm. The soul music must be played when you're sleeping in order to get into the music realm. Soul music need not to be played repeatedly to stay in the realm, the music helps you to enter the realm, to stay there, you must be asleep in the real world. If you wake up in the real world, you'll exit the music realm. After you wake up you won't remember what you did in the realm but there'll be some visuals in your mind. If you enter the music realm again, your memory will only return within the realm and you will usually return to the same place you left last time, but on rare occasions, your location may change. When you're in the realm your soul music would be constantly heard only in your ears. Your avatar in the realm depends on your soul and sometimes the realm gifts you a vehicle to travel, according to your soul.

Usually, the memory will be back when you return to the music realm but for some reason, Luke remembers nothing except his horse which was gifted by the realm. Luke's back head hurts so hard. He grunts due to pain and starts to walk toward the north.

As his soul song is heard through his ears, Luke walks for some minutes, then he sees a village in the distance, his face gives a smile but soon his smile drops. He feels a strong wind blowing in the direction west, when he looks there, there's a small mud storm heading towards him. Luke checks his packets if there's anything to cover his face, he feels something in his right pant packet, and he pulls it out, it is a red cloth that came into his hand but simultaneously some gold coins fall out from his packet. Luke picks one and looks into it closely, he notices that the coin has a symbol of a skull and two beam notes (♫) in the skull's eyes. He takes all the coins, puts them in his pocket, ties the red cloth around his face, and starts to walk toward the village.

After some time of walking, he finally reached the village

The village was covered in dust, there were more shops than houses, and every shop had a large billboard above the building. He starts to walk through the village, he notices the buildings are completely constructed of wood and rocks. Luke is currently walking on a mud road where all these buildings are on both sides, the road has a width of twenty feet. The village was almost empty except for the man who pulling his wooden goods cart by himself, Luke felt that the man pulling the cart was strange, so he didn't want to ask his doubts to that man but he saw another old man wearing a hat was sitting in a chair in the house's veranda. Luke went near to that man and the first question that came out of his mouth was "What place is this?"

The old man stared at him for a second and said "This town is called Davestone and may I ask why you tied that red cloth around your face?" 

"uhh, there was a storm coming that's why," Luke said.

"Are you from the outer world?" the old man asked.

Luke doesn't get it but soon he understands that the outer world means it's the real world where he's currently sleeping.

"Yes sir, " Luke said and proceeded to ask much questions

"Sir we need a soul song to enter this realm right? I found mine but it'll be better if my friends are here, is there any way to find my friend's soul song" Luke asked the old man.

"A soul song will cost you ten Oaker gold." The old man said by laughing.

"What does it mean?" Luke questioned.

"If you got ten Oaker gold you can buy ten towns like this, a single Oaker gold equals a lakh of normal gold coin," The old man said and pulled a gold coin out of his packet.

"Look this, this's normal gold, there's groove on the edges of the coin, and it got the symbol of a circle on its front and back. When it's Oaker gold coin, it's slightly bigger, it contains a symbol of a skull and two beam notes in its eyes." The old man said.

"I think, this's what you're talking about," Luke replied by pulling a gold coin from his packet.

The old man was aghast by seeing that gold coin.

"This's what I'm talking about, I didn't expect you'll be rich." The old man said.

Luke got lightheaded. "Does this town got any medical clinic? My back head pains so hard."

"Yeah, you walk straight and take a left then walk for two hundred meters, you will find a clinic there." The old man said.

"Thank you, sir, may I know your name," Luke said.

"I'm Abner, Abner Wesson" The old man said.

"I'm Luke, nice to meet you" Luke greeted Abner and started to walk to the clinic.

After minutes of walking Luke almost reached the clinic there he saw a tall wooden lamp near the clinic. As Luke gets nearer, he sees a poster that is hung on the lamp, the poster says 'WANTED, REWARD: ONE OAKER GOLD COIN' in big bold letters.

Now Luke stands in front of that clinic. Luke stares at that poster carefully, there is a picture of a man in it. That man is no one but it's Luke himself. Luke lifts his eyebrows, he's in a panic before he can think of anything he suddenly wakes up from his bed.

Luke said, "What the...?"