Part One- Connor

Tonight is dream night. The information was leaked at school, and it’s all anyone can talk about. This is the first dream night we’ve had in months, and no one can stand the wait.
I hurriedly chow down my dinner and head into my room, collapsing into my bed and pulling the covers around me. I’m not tired, but I’m determined to go to bed early. I haven’t dreamed in months.
Some people at school chose to go the drug route- they get addicted to the Dream Inducers. We’re warned to stay away from the Inducers, since the effects aren’t worth the destruction it causes. I’ve never done Inducers, but I can’t say I haven’t been tempted. I love dreaming; I love the way it makes me feel.
There have been talks about the government upping the number of dreams they send, since they think this will reduce the number of Inducer users. It probably would.
My mind keeps wondering through all these different paths- that cute girl in math, the test I have in biology tomorrow, how I need to mow the lawn after school. I can’t seem to fall asleep, even though that’s all I want to do.
I try to calm my mind down. I take deep, long breaths. Eventually, sleep takes me away and the dreaming begins.
I’m standing in a plane. Not sitting in a seat, but standing and waiting for something. There are people around me, but all of their faces are blurred out.
Some kind of official in a bright orange jumpsuit approaches me. “Take this, strap it on and get ready,” he instructs, thrusting a bright orange package into my hands.
“Get ready to do what?” I ask.
“Watch this,” he says. He straps on a backpack. A hatch in the side of the plane opens up, and he goes leaping out. I watch as he plummets to the ground. It looks like he’s going to crash into the ground, but then a parachute pops up and his rate of falling slows.
“Your turn, kid,” someone says to me. I strap my own pack on and head over to hatch, where I look down. The ground seems so far down, but I’m not scared- there is no fear in dreams.

I leap out of the plane and plunge towards the earth. I can feel adrenaline pumping through my veins. I pull the parachute at exactly the right time, and I glide towards the earth like a bird.

And then I’m awake. The dream is over, but the remnants of the rush it gave me are still coursing through my veins. I go back to sleep. But I know that this time, there will be no dreams.

Part Two- Miranda


My family and I live in the poor sector of town. And because of that, my parents are desperate to get money. I think they feel bad that we have to live in a place like this, where we hear police sirens all night long and can’t walk down the street alone.

So, in order to make extra money, my parents have enrolled our family in a research program. DreamWave, the government program that controls dreaming, is trying out something new- they’re putting ads in dreams.

I’m just about to fall asleep now. Honestly, I’m curious to see what these ads will be like. Will the ads be blatantly obvious? Or will they be hidden?

I fall asleep, and I get my answer.

I’m on a raft of some type. There are other people with me, but I can’t make out any of their faces. We’re travelling downstream.

The force of the water starts to pick up, and soon enough, we’re zipping through the water. It splashes up and hits me in the face, and I let out a laugh.

We get to the edge of a waterfall, and the raft goes spilling over the side just like the water. But we seem to fall in slow motion, and we hit the water below slowly.

I’m craving a Dr. Smithson Choco Bar. That’s the first thought I have upon waking. But the chocolate bars were never mentioned in the dream, so the message must have been subconscious. But it definitely worked. All I want to do right now is go out and buy one of those chocolate bars.

I think we have some downstairs, in the cabinet. When I get down there, I see my parents and both of my brothers. My mom is passing around something- Dr. Smithson Choco Bars. They must have been delivered the same message as me.

Apparently, the ad worked well. We all got the message we were meant to. Will DreamWave start using these subliminal ads in everyone’s dreams? Will they even tell people about them? I shudder as I think about the power DreamWave has with this new division of dreaming.

Part Three- Baron

You take the pill, you get your fix. You take the pill, you get to dream again.
I know what they say about Dream Inducers- they’re bad, they ruin your life, you can get addicted to them. None of that is true. They’ve done nothing but help my life, and I’m not addicted to the drug. I just enjoy the feeling it gives me.
See, in the DreamWave dreams, you don’t control what happens. But in the Inducer dreams, you do. I like the feeling of complete control I get, and that’s why I continue taking Inducers.
I’ve been saving for weeks. I don’t want just a simple pill that lets you dream for a few seconds. No, I want to go all out.
The school always teaches us that the sellers of Inducers are bad, awful people who just want to hurt you. That’s not true, either. The people I’m buying from now go to my school, and they aren’t that bad.
I buy my pill and quickly head home. If I was caught by the police buying Inducers, my life would be ruined. I’d probably be kicked out of school and sent to juvie. DreamWave doesn’t like when people take their powers away. They don’t like the fact that Inducers can take over their job, and that’s why they’re so adamant in stopping people from using them.
I head into my room and lock the door. My parents aren’t home, but I can’t risk them finding me after I take the Inducer. They’re both employed by DreamWave, so I know they’re against Inducer usage.
I pop the pill in my mouth and swallow. One of the good things about Inducers is that they knock you out almost instantly. They….they….
I’m standing at the top of the moment. I look around, surveying the area. There’s no one else around.
I can control what happens here. There’s no chance of getting hurt or dying. I just do what I want, and there are no consequences.
I leap off the side of the mountain. I plummet towards the earth, and I can feel the wind whipping against my face. I can see the ground getting ever closer. Just before I crash into it, I pull myself up and fly into the air. The rules of gravity don’t exist in dreams.
I fly around for a while, looking around at everything. Then, I decide that I want to go swimming. And the second I decide this, an ocean appears beneath me and I dive in.
And then I wake up. The effects of the drug have worn off. I’m craving more. I want to dream again.

Part Four- Blaine


I’m strapped down to a table, and I can barely move my arms. I know what’s about to happen to me, since I’ve heard stories about it. What I’m about to experience will be a nightmare. Literally.

I made some mistakes, I’ll admit that. I don’t think that what I did was a mistake; I think being careless enough to get caught was.

I like to hack computers. I’m good at it, and it’s always fun. I started off small, first just to steal my neighbor’s Wi-Fi, and then to change people’s grades on the school computer. But I wanted to do something important, something with meaning. So I hacked into the computers at DreamWave. And they found out.

So here I am, strapped down to this table, awaiting my punishment from DreamWave themselves. A man comes over to me, needle in hand. He stabs it into my arm, and then the whole world starts to turn fuzzy.

I’m lying in a bed. I can’t move at all, Around me, I hear noises. Growls from under the bed. Scratching against the closet door.

And then I hear a scream. I immediately know it’s my little sister. I try to get out of the bed so I can help her, but it’s like I’m glued in place.

She keeps screaming, screaming, screaming. Tears are rolling down my cheeks.

I’m not even worried about the growling or the scratching. I’m only worried about my sister. Nothing else matters but helping her. She screams in agony, and I try in vain to move once again.

I lay there in a paralyzed state, listening to my sister’s torturous screams. I can’t take it anymore. I scream out. But the second I do, something pops out of the closet.

It heads straight towards me. I feel something beneath the bed, shaking me. And then I feel hands grab me. The hands are green and scaly. They wrap around my arms, pulling. A wolf-like creature, the one from in the closet, advances towards me, pulling on my legs.

I scream, and so does my sister. I can’t see her, but I can hear her.

“Stop it!” I scream. “Stop!”

I awake in a sweat. I’m no longer strapped to a table. Instead, I’m in my regular juvie cell. I must have been moved while having my nightmare.

DreamWave doesn’t just create dreams. They create nightmares too. I’ll do anything to stop them. But how can you stop the most powerful company in the world? I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. DreamWave hasn’t heard the last of me.