"I've decided all I can do is stop trying to force it."
Junior was seated on a park bench with Millie. It wasn't quite overcast, though it was close. Achilles was nearby, harness off. The dog was allowing himself to be petted by a small child, with the blessing of the child's father and Junior.
Occasionally, Achilles would look back at Junior as if for reassurance; then he'd lean back into her clumsy strokes while she laughed and his tail thumped the ground.
Millie observed with a gentle smile before she responded to Junior's comment.
"That makes sense," she agreed. She had to be careful not to get too much into the details of Reclaimed dreams; the child was oblivious, but the father was close enough to overhear. "Dreams are confusing and unpredictable, let alone trying to pick the ones you want."
The topic was the advice from Orestes.
As frustratingly ambiguous as any ancient Oracle of prophecy.
"Know thyself," Junior mused, trying to give voice to his thoughts in aid of further clarity. "He wouldn't have said it so plainly if he didn't truly believe it himself."
"So how do we put that into practice?" Millie asked with understandable skepticism. "Self-help books? Professional psycho-analysis? A fortune teller at the local fair?"
Junior chuckled a bit darkly. "Maybe that's what the true elites are doing right now. Don't your stories always go on about precious resources and hidden opportunities?"
Millie blew air loudly through her lips, letting them flap rudely. The young child looked at her and giggled while the father looked at her askance, but she ignored both.
"Pfft. Yeah right."
She stopped speaking long enough that Junior allowed his thoughts to drift, but then she spoke up again.
"Actually …" she trailed off with a contemplative, 'mad scientist' tone to her voice that made Junior groan out loud.
"Oh, this should be good."
\ - / - \ - /
Soft chimes pulsed at irregular intervals, like notes struck and allowed to wander. A calm, androgynous voice was already speaking.
" ... You don't need to play every note correctly to belong in the song."
A deliberate pause as the music ebbed and flowed.
"Some melodies are carried by rhythm alone. Others by silence."
A breath, slow and deliberate. The sound of waves and seagulls, inexplicably out of place but just as inevitable, made Junior bury his face in his palms and groan.
"If your thoughts wander, let them. A composition is not ruined by improvisation. Listen for the sound that feels like home - even if you don't recognize it yet."
The chimes faded into a low, sustained hum, more felt than heard.
"What in the hells is this?" Junior asked in sheer disbelief.
"It's a commercially distributed sleep-adjacent mindfulness recording," Athena answered. "Title: Resonant Rest - A Guided Descent Through Musical Presence. Duration: forty-six minutes, thirty-two seconds.
"It combines binaural tones, environmental ambience, and affirmational scripting designed to reduce cognitive resistance before sleep."
She paused, as if evaluating the question more carefully.
"It is not uncommon."
They were back in Junior's condo unit. On their return, Millie had worked with Athena to gather an audio collection while Junior tended to Achilles.
The results were … interesting.
"It's not so bad," Millie tittered nervously. "Don't take it too literally. It's supposed to soothe you to sleep and work subliminally."
"I think you mean subconsciously," Junior muttered snidely.
"What's the difference?"
"Subliminal means we wouldn't hear it. Which would be a blessing."
"Oh, sea-toots, don't be such a downer," Millie said. Junior snorted at the slang she'd insisted she was going to coin. "Listen, okay?"
Millie paused expectantly.
"Fine," Junior agreed reluctantly.
Millie rubbed her hands together. "Okay," she started to explain, "do you remember chaff13signal?"
It took a second for Junior to remember that particular user name from the Galatean Coast Guard forums.
"The stream-of-consciousness user," he eventually nodded.
"They don't seem to believe in punctuation," Millie smiled, "but I've been thinking about their playsty- hmm, I guess I mean dreamstyle?"
"I remember," Junior said. "Chaff13's dreams are about stealth and infiltration."
"Right. Real spycraft stuff. But they still have one of the highest Apeirosis scores on the forums."
"Even after the second Integration?" Junior asked. He wasn't as sore about his lost Apeirosis as he used to be, but it still irked him.
"Yep," Millie confirmed. "By the way, it's still not clear why, but some Reclaimed think those who lost Apeirosis used an ability of some kind to survive. So one theory is that the stronger the ability, the more Apeirosis was lost."
Junior frowned. "But all I did was whistle."
Millie nodded animatedly. "And pulled an armed police officer into your dream to save you. That's pretty awesome if you think about it! Way cooler than sneaky dude or sea-toot guy!"
When he thought of it that way, Junior admitted it almost sounded reasonable.
"But I thought Apeirosis was supposed to be like experience points, or something?" Junior asked for clarification.
"No one knows what it is," Millie shrugged. "Could be XP, mana, or something totally different."
"Alright," he allowed, "but what does that have to do with this Guide to Music, or whatever it's called?" He still wasn't convinced.
"Sorry, I got a little sidetracked." Millie shook her head, then continued. "Chaff13's all about sneaking, not fighting. You tried fighting in your dreams and it didn't work so well. Not your fault, of course, just the way it is. But when you whistled … which, okay, is more like noise than music, but still …"
Junior thought about the first time he'd managed to call on Achilles. Then he thought about Sergeant Dwyer.
" … okay, I think I see where you're going," Junior admitted. "You think if I focus on music or sound or whatever, that's more in tune with myself than trying to fight?"
"Exactly!" Millie pumped her fist. "Know thyself, my dude!"
It was an interesting idea. Only one thing bothered him.
"It's worth a try. But I'm more than just a musician, aren't I?" Junior asked.
He didn't think he'd ever wanted to fight before the System. But given the circumstances, he'd rather be able to fight than not.
What was he going to do?
Sing monsters to sleep?
/ - \ - / - \
Sleep came reluctantly.
Junior drifted down into it the way one sinks into cold water - inch by inch, never quite trusting that it would hold him. When the dream finally took shape, it did so without ceremony.
Junior stands on the Crimson Sands.
That alone should be reassuring. The beach feels familiar in a way few waking places ever do. The blood-red grit presses beneath his boots. The vast ocean stretches ahead. Something important waits behind him, just out of reach of thought.
He can see again. That, too, is expected. His dream-body accepts it without comment.
The spear rests in his hands.
Junior frowns.
It isn't wrong, exactly; the doru feels solid, balanced. The crimson armour rests on his shoulders and chest, weightless and certain. Everything is where it is supposed to be.
And that's the problem.
"Okay," Junior says aloud, testing his voice against the open sky. It carries crisp and clear. "Let's not do this on autopilot."
Nothing responds.
The ocean stays still. No monsters claw their way out of the surf. The sands do not stir.
Junior waits. Then, deliberately, he lowers the spear and lets its butt rest against the ground.
"I'm not here to fight," he says, feeling faintly ridiculous for announcing it. "I just want to try something different."
Still nothing.
A prickle of irritation creeps in. He can feel lucidity slipping at the edges, the dream threatening to slide back into habit. He clenches his jaw and focuses.
Music, Millie said. Or sound. Or whatever fits him better than violence.
Junior purses his lips and whistles.
The note comes out clean and sharp, echoing faintly across the beach. He holds it for as long as his breath allows, then lets it taper off.
He waits.
No answering growl rolls through the sands. No shimmer of impossible colour splits the air. Achilles does not appear in a blaze of gold.
Junior tries again, changing the pitch this time. Then again, shaping the sound into something closer to a tune—simple, almost childlike.
The dream listens. But it doesn't answer.
The ocean finally moves, but not the way it used to. The waves lap forward and retreat, dull and rhythmless, as if mimicking motion without understanding it. The crimson sky feels farther away than before, stretched thin.
A distant rumble makes Junior tense - but it never resolves into anything. No monsters emerge. No threat presents itself.
Instead, the sands beneath his feet begin to lose cohesion. Not collapsing, not swallowing him - just … softening. His boots sink a fraction of an inch, then another, like standing on wet ground that refuses to decide what it is.
"Come on," Junior mutters. "Do something."
The dream wavers.
The armour flickers, its form blurring, then snapping back into place. The spear grows heavier in his hands, awkward and unfamiliar. The sense of purpose that usually anchors him here thins until it is little more than a vague pressure at the back of his mind.
Lucidity fractures.
For a brief, disorienting moment, Junior is not sure where he is supposed to be standing, or why. The beach feels less like a battleground and more like a poorly remembered stage set.
Then the dream simply … lets go.
The Crimson Sands dissolve without drama, the colour draining away as if washed out by rain. The ocean vanishes. The sky folds in on itself.
Junior falls sideways into darkness.
He woke with a sharp intake of breath, heart pounding harder than it should have been.
Achilles shifted, a low rustle as the dog lifted his head. Millie remained asleep on the couch cushions on the other side of his bed; he could hear the gentle rhythm of her breathing.
"That didn't count," Junior murmured to himself. He allowed his heart rate to settle some more, then glanced at his System screen.
Apeirosis: 0.31%
He sighed before rolling over to wake Millie.
Night after night, Junior returned to the dream. Once, the monsters appeared as expected, snapping and clawing at him. Instead of fighting, he tried to resist or negotiate - but nothing changed. Another night, he whistled, shaping the sound into the simplest of tunes, but Achilles remained absent, the beach unmoved, the ocean indifferent. Each attempt felt like trying to grab the end of a rope that kept slipping through his fingers.
"Maybe it's not about fighting or summoning," Millie said. She tried to offer guidance even when she had no more idea of what would work than he did. "Maybe it's about how you … approach it."
It was the night that he successfully reconnected with Achilles that he heard the first edge of desperation enter her voice.
Junior woke in the middle of the night, a wide grin on his face. As a side-effect of all the lucid dreaming exercises, he'd started to grow adept at waking himself when he wanted to.
He squirmed over to the edge of his bed and peered down at his partner. Achilles was still the only thing he could 'see' in the real world; the same blurry outline that was maybe supposed to be shaped like a dog. Had his form grown any brighter? Clearer? Junior hoped so, but couldn't rightly tell.
"Are you awake, boy?" Junior whispered, voice low. He reached down to lay a hand on a furry head when he heard an answering whine. "I think someone deserves a treat!" A repeating thump as a tail began to wag and impact the floor.
Junior quietly padded through from his bedroom, Achilles on his heels. They went to the kitchen, where Junior found the promised doggy treats by memory and touch, then fed them to Achilles.
Apeirosis: 1.56%
Junior grinned proudly.
"Who's my fierce little warrior?" he said as he fed the happy dog one tasty biscuit after another. "You are! Yes, you are!"
While there still wasn't any real way to confirm, based on the experience with Sergeant Dwyer, Junior chose to believe that the dream version of Achilles was still really his loyal companion.
A voice Junior instantly recognized and half expected interjected from the hallway.
"You were able to bring Achilles into your dream again?" Millie asked.
She stood in a different set of sleepwear than on their first night together. Still manically cute, but a little less daring after the accidental camera incident.
Junior oriented to the sound of her voice. He barely kept a frown from his face at the edge of tiredness and desperation he caught in her tone.
"Yeah, no biggie though," he opened cautiously, trying to downplay it. "Same as before, nothing new, right?"
"A success is still a success!" Millie said with cheer that was far from genuine.
Junior was a little worried now. Had she been this on edge before tonight and he just hadn't heard it before? Was her fatigue allowing a mask he hadn't realized she was wearing to drop?
"Millie, are you okay?" he finally decided to ask.
"What? Of course, don't worry about me," she deflected with a scoff. "Actually, I have a bit of a favour to ask. I know - another one. Sorry."
"Sure. What is it?"
"Achilles is your soulbond," she started hesitantly. "But when you called Dwyer into your dream, you were in physical contact. You needed a tether. Maybe you still do. For someone else."
Junior's hand froze just shy of depositing the latest snack into Achilles' mouth. The dog eyed him disapprovingly, then gently snatched the tempting morsel from his fingers.
He didn't notice.
"What do you mean by that. Exactly?" he stressed the last word, heart ticking faster. He felt a small, nagging panic in his chest — not fear, not quite hope, but a dangerous mix of both.