It’s hard to go from dreaming straight into consciousness, especially when you were just napping. Unfortunately, it seemed to be even worse for Parker. When she was tired enough, too lethargic to get out of bed or even to keep her eyes open, she would often fall asleep again, but never for long. With her brain open to other influences, such as the dreams of the other world, came the susceptibility to sleep paralysis.

The first time it happened, Parker had thought she had died. It was scary to wake up and be aware of your surroundings but not be able to move an inch. It was kind of like being inside Parker II’s memories, but at least during those she got to feel the movement and feelings that the other Parker did.

She can’t remember what the dream she had been having was about, but suddenly, she was thrown into wakefulness, but still couldn’t move. She laid in her bed until finally, something gave, and she was able to open her eyes.

This time was different than the first, and all the times in-between, because this time, she began to hallucinate. Parker had done a minimal amount of online research and learned that people sometimes had fever dream-like hallucinations when they experienced sleep paralysis. Thankfully, this had not been something she had ever encountered. There’s a first time for everything, right?

The other Parker’s words were still bouncing around in her head, “they’re hunting you,” as she began to crawl towards consciousness. When she tried to force them out and get out of bed, the words only grew into a cacophony of sound and mutated into both a lower and high pitch simultaneously. It was like a horrific nursery rhyme with children’s piercing voices being accompanied by the devil himself. She could feel her chest tightening as she realized that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t move a muscle in her body.

The darkness behind her eyelids began to morph into what her mind thought the room looked like. Instead of her usual brightly lit, clean room she was in a dark and dirty version where everything cast too long of a shadow. The shadows seemed to seep off the wall towards the center of her room as the words began to build even louder than before. But she could still hear the fan in her room, the one that was always left running due to poor circulation in the house.

This isn’t real, I’m still dreaming. I lied down for a nap and now I’m going to wake up.

Her positive mentality seemed to be working ever so slightly, but the shadows only broke apart momentarily before reforming and reaching out towards parker.

The fan is on; I can feel it. I can hear it. Dad will be home soon and he’ll wake me up for dinner.

At the thought of her father the shadows grew darker and more solid, becoming a smoky mass rather than just a wisp.

The shadows can’t touch me. This isn’t real, it’s just a dream. My dad is real. Parker II is real. Emmet is real. Dirk is real. Salma is real. But this is just a dream.

As she thought harder and harder about her dream life, the shadows seemed to be vacuumed back into the walls. The darkness had almost completely overcome the room, and in a moment, it had all but vanished.

Parker came to with a sharp intake of breath as she finally opened her eyes for real. She knows herself well enough that she knows she’ll have to sit up or get out of bed to prevent falling asleep again. She decides on the later and carefully gets out of bed to go check if her father was home yet.

She found her dad in the kitchen, stirring a pot on the stove. When she walked into the room he called out a short, “Hey, kiddo.”

“Hey, dad,” she replied as she took a seat in one of the rickety chairs at the table. The table itself was old and worn down from years of abuse. After moving into a smaller apartment when her mom left, Parker and her dad had to go search for smaller furniture. The family sets weren’t a good fit anymore.

They had found the table and two mismatching chairs at a secondhand shop when they were looking for the cheapest they could find. She loved sitting in the tiny kitchen with her father as he cooked. Every piece of furniture told a different story, of its previous owners, of the grooves and marks that had been worn in since the addition to the Troys’ apartment. Parker usually likes to think up stories that match each mark, but today she couldn’t bring herself to do any more than just staring blankly at a burn mark from when she had set a boiling pot of water down on the table without a hot pad.

Parker II’s mother had taught her how to cook efficiently. She could make almost any boxed meal and so much more. It was hard for Parker to think of those moments lost, especially when she could hardly do more than fry eggs and make instant ramen.

“How was school today?” her father questioned, interrupting her thoughts before she got too deep into the false memories.

“It was okay. Not great, but,” she paused for a moment, wondering how to best describe how drained she felt, “y’know.”

“Yeah, I do know. How were you after this morning? Were you just ‘y’know’?”

Parker let out a quick laugh at her father’s use of her own words.He always seemed to know how to get her out of her head. “I was fine. Worse this afternoon after school actually than this morning.”

“Why is that?” He turned around, spoon still in hand, to finally take a good look at her. She tried to figure out how to explain her dream without sounding like a lunatic to him, but even explaining it at all would require a lot more background.

When she didn’t respond, he set the spoon down and walked over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder and crouching down to her level. “You don’t have to talk about it, especially if it was about him, but I just want to know if you’re doing alright. You haven’t been sleeping much which is typical, but if this isn’t something typical causing it, I want to know if I can help.”

Parker looked into his eyes, his brows were furrowed as he searched her face for clues of a response. She stared him down for a moment deciding to speak, but when she opened her mouth nothing came out. Her thoughts were still a jumbled mess, but she wanted to say something. What ended up coming out was just, “Your pot is boiling over,” as she glanced over his shoulder towards the stove.

He quickly jogged over to the stove and moved the food off the burner before turning it off. While he went about finishing up dinner, Parker realized the moment had passed. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to her dad about her dreams, it was that she didn’t know how. How was she supposed to tell him that she got to see Emmet when he didn’t? How could she tell him that in another life, his wife wouldn’t have left? How could she possibly tell him her secret and break his heart? Children aren’t supposed to be the ones taking care of their parents at such a young age, but it seems the universe or universes had other plans.

This wasn’t the first time she had wanted to tell her dad, it wasn’t even the first time she had come close to spilling everything, but it was the first time she had been this affected by a dream in a while. Her head was torn between thinking about how to tell her dad, thinking about what Parker II had said, and thinking about ways she could get in contact with Dirk or try to find Salma.

In the end, Parker didn’t have enough time to come to a consensus; tell or not tell. Her dad set down a bowl of pasta on the table and grabbed plates and silverware. “Bon appetit.”

“Do you really have to say that every time?” Parker griped as she began spooning pasta onto her plate.

“It’s a tradition!” He defended, “would you rather we say grace before every meal?”

“No no, your butchered French is much better,” Parker replied with a laugh.

They lapsed into silence as they ate. That was typical of dinner, her father would cook and they would chat a bit, but when it came time to eating, they’d both rather get it done quickly with no interruptions. In the other world, her family would sit around the table all four of them and chat as they ate. More often than not, there was laughter and joking that accompanied a meal. Salma and Dirk ate over frequently as well, as did Emmet’s friends.

As Parker sat in silence with her father, she thought about how different things could have been. Instead of an uneasy but sometimes companionable silence around an old, secondhand table, there could be joyous conversation full of life while packed around the first piece of furniture her parents had bought together. Instead of spaghetti and meatballs prepared with just enough time to finish, there could be an almost four course meal with sides, bread, and desert, each family member preparing something different for the night.

It was getting harder and harder for Parker to ignore the truth: she could never be happy here, not truly. With this peephole into a surreal world where everything seemed to be almost magically perfect, her real life could never compare. As the stories always said; magic comes at a price, one she wasn’t sure she was willing to pay.

Parker hadn’t noticed she had stopped eating and only did when her father questioned, “Kiddo?”

She looked up and met his eyes quickly, having to shut hers before they began to water in earnest.

“Sorry,” she muttered as she dug her palms into her eyes.

“Hey,” her dad replied in a soft voice, “let’s go sit on the couch for a bit, yeah?”

She didn’t trust her voice to not come out garbled, so she just nodded and beelined into the TV room. As she sat herself down on one end of the couch, back pressed against the arm and feet resting in the middle cushion, she concentrated on figuring out what to say.

Hey dad, I have consistent dreams of an alternate universe where Emmet is alive and mom is still here and I know they’re real. Also, there’s this girl there that I’m in love with but have no idea who she really is besides my best friend. And oh! There’s this thing that might be coming after me because of this unless I find two other people that can help me stop it. All caught up?

This didn’t seem like a good fit for a serious conversation, but she felt like it was time to finally discuss it. When her dad finally walked in, he took a seat at the other end of the couch, angling his torso to look at her but leaving his feet planted on the ground, giving her an escape if she needed it. It was quiet for a while as he waited for her to say anything and he eventually averted his gaze.

Parker finally found her voice and spoke, “I know I said it wasn’t about him, but it is.”

“Kiddo-” he began but was cut off when Parker continued.

“But it’s not just him, it’s so much more.”

“You can tell me anything, you know that right?”

“I just don’t want you to think less of me after I say this,” Parker responded with a sniffle, rubbing at her eyes again and averting her gaze.

“Kiddo, I would never think less of you for anything. I just want to understand what’s going on to see if there’s any way I can help.”

“Okay I want to tell you, but you can’t say anything until I’m completely done.”

“Why-” he began, eyebrows drawing ever closer together before she cut him off again.

“Because, if you interrupt me, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get through it all again.”

“Alright.”

“Also, can you turn around or look forward,” she asked almost shyly, “I don’t want to see your face when I tell you.”

“Kiddo-”

“Dad, please,” she pleaded, still on the verge of tears. He patted her food once before turning his torso so he was face ninety degrees away from her, his line of peripheral vision only catching the vaguest of shapes on the couch.

“I’m not sure how to explain this at all without sounding insane-”

“Kid-”

“Dad, please don’t.” Again, the room lapped into silence as Parker debated the best way to articulate her situation. I’m thinking too hard; I just need to start talking.

“So here’s the thing, my dreams aren’t just dreams. And when I say that I know you’re thinking ‘well yeah they’re nightmares!’ But dad, they’re so much more than that and they’re not even bad, they’re actually pretty fantastic! But they’re also real. And again I know you’re thinking, ‘they’re dreams, how could they be real?’ but that’s where things get a little weird.” Parker paused to catch her breath. She reveled in what she thought would be one of the last moments she would have with her dad before he thought of her differently, before she would break his heart. But she had to. She couldn’t hold back anymore; most of it was already out anyway.

“So I have these dreams, but they’re not dreams, they’re different. In regular dreams, everything is soft and out of focus and feels fake, but in these dreams, everything feels real, it’s like they’re memories. But they’re not my memories because everything is different. It’s like I get to see into a different universe where he’s still alive and she never left and I have friends and I’m happy. It’s like if everything that ever went wrong in our lives suddenly went right and we got to live the way we were supposed to.” Parker quickly swung her legs off the couch, landing with a soft thud on the ground before standing up and beginning to pace around the room. She finally met her father’s eyes and was met with a pitying gaze.

“And I know, you probably think that this is crazy,” she began before looking away from his gaze, “that it’s just a coping mechanism my subconscious made up to deal with all the shit that’s happened in my life but I know it’s not. Because those friends who I have in this other world, they’re real people. They exist here too. I learned their names and I looked them up on the internet and they’re real people who I have never met. If I’m making this all up, how are they real? How do they exist? How do I know so much about them that’s real here too?”

She stopped in her tracks to catch her breath again, leaving the multitude of questions hanging in the silence between them. She stood in the center of the room breathing heavily with arms crossed waiting for him to say something.

“Are you done?” he finally said, “You said not to interrupt you until you’re done, so can I talk now?” Parker didn’t trust her voice not to break so she merely nodded.

“Okay. Listen, sweetie, I don’t think you’re crazy. A little riled up, sure, but what you’re saying makes sense.”

“Wait, you believe me?” Parker blurted out, inching her way back towards the couch as he went on.

“Yeah, I believe you.”

“Why?”

“Your aunt was the same way, your mother’s sister, Janine,” He said with a forlorn look on his face, “she had dreams of another world too, she said she could even communicate with the people who lived there.”

Parker was astounded. Why is he just telling me this now? Who is that?

“She worked for an agency that your mother set her up with. I don’t know what the organization  did, but after a while, Janine and your mother fought about it all the time. Then one day, Janine went wouldn’t answer her phone, your mother thought it was because of all of the fighting they did. But then her body turned up and your mother was torn apart. This was about a year before you were born.”

“Is that why mom never liked me?”

“Parker, your mother loved you, you have to understand that. But maybe she knew that you were like Janine in some way and wanted to distance herself from that pain. I’m not excusing her, please don’t think I am, but I’m just trying to explain.”

“So you’ve thought about this before,” Parker yelled angrily, “you’ve thought about why my own mother couldn’t stand me and you didn’t think to tell me?”

“I was trying to protect you! I could say the same things about you and your dreams.”

Parker’s brain seemed to be overloaded with information, she couldn’t figure out how to process it all.

“But I wouldn’t, Parker, I would never blame you for not telling me.”

She distanced herself from him again and restarted her nervous pacing.

“Why did you tell me? What changed your mind?”

Parker stopped for a moment, standing facing away from her father. “Normally I can’t take part in the dreams, but this time she talked to me.”

“Who did?”

“The other Parker.”

“What did she say?”

“She said I’m being hunted, and that I need to find help.”

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