"Boy, did you hit your head on one of the machines?" Dreja asked, his head shook censoriously.
There was a pregnant pause as they stared at each other, the awkwardness between them making the already small room even smaller.
Through their staring contest, Zach found something unusual. It was that instead of looking down at the man who sat on his bed, he was facing almost face-to-face with him, only a few inches taller, almost as if he had shrunk smaller than usual.
Dreja was the first to break his stare, but as he did, he gave Zach another shake of his head to show his censure of him.
Zach swallowed the lump in his throat and found himself looking down at himself, and when he did, he noticed that he wore some sort of pants that were rough on his skin. The distance between his torso and legs seemed shorter, too, which was bizarre. His feet were also smaller in size.
"This dream has to be the weirdest one I've ever had!" Zach said out loud, perturbed by the ambiguous vibes of the dream; it was neither good nor bad. It's just strange, in a way, that nothing made sense.
"Are you sleepwalking or something?" Dreja asked him
"Nope, I'm dreaming, and right now I'm lucid; in fact, I'm dreaming you up right now!" he explained to the man. He felt stupid doing so when he realised he was talking to no one but his own subconsciousness.
"Ha! Yeah, right, and I believe I'm a king living in some palace!" Dreja gave out a bellow before covering his mouth to stifle it down.
"And do ye think yourself the prince?!" Dreja said, his eyes glistening with joyous tears.
Zach stared at the man, his mind conjured up, feeling offended that his own mind would use his own sarcasm on itself. It must have been the stress from work; Zach found himself justifying it all.
"I know life is tough, kid, but this is real life! You gotta face it now, or you'll never grow up to be a man," said earnestly this time, as if giving sound advice.
Zach was initially confused but figured this was his subconscious trying to teach him about life.
He said, "Yeah, yeah, I suppose that's all true-" he said almost in a dismissive manner before exasperatedly adding, "Even in my dream, I'm being reprimanded."
"Dream, dream, dream! Ye fool, exhaustion seems to have killed your brain. This is all real." Dreja exaggerated the last word, obviously fatigued by the conversation they were having in the middle of the night.
"Well, this can't be real since you-" Zach also exaggerated, "are part of my unconscious subconscious! Meaning you're not real!" Maybe this Dreja dream-man was right, and fatigue has killed his brain. Here, he was arguing with himself.
"If I'm not real, then dragons aren't real too!" Dreja countered, "I need to sleep, so keep the cuckoo down and to yourself!"
"Why are you bringing dragons into this?" Completely thrown off, Zach adds, "And yes, that was the point. There aren't such things as dragons."
"Dragons are more likely to be in existence than ye and me, nobodies with nothing to our names and no family", Dreja said, taking a sip of whatever was in the cup that he pulled out from beside his bed.
"Now you're bringing up my family; this man is weird!" Zach said, but mostly to himself. His head shook in disbelief.
"Ya done now?" Dreja said, looking somewhat relieved.
Zach stood there wanting to argue back, but reminded himself to be rational and smart. This was all in his head, and he was in control, so he needed to let it go since he knew that whatever rubbish Dreja said was his mind thinking whatever it wanted. The thought almost reassured him, almost.
But somehow, in that moment of silence between the two of them. A feeling swelled in Zach that made him panic.
"No, no, no, this really can't be real. Can it?" Zach stammered, shaking his head profusely, denying it all, marking it as impossible.
"You've really gone bonkers, haven't you?" Dreja said more as a statement than a question, not answering Zach. He followed with, "I'll need to wake up in the wee hours, so ye better quiet down and go on and sleep. I'm deadbeat."
He sounded so resigned that even Zach felt a tinge of guilt for having been the reason for the old man's poor sleep. Me too, buddy, me too! Zach added, though only in his mind.
Still, Zach didn't want to believe this whole thing wasn't a dream. But there, in the pit of his stomach, he felt an unabashed knot of dread sitting heavy and stifling. So, with that thought, he got the courage and walked towards the corner of the room where he could see a small hand basin and an even smaller mirror.
He could feel and hear his heartbeat loud and heavy with each beat, and as he got to the basin, he had to force himself to look up at the mirror to see himself.
And there it was, the irrevocable truth he had been avoiding since he had woken—up within this lucid dream, avoiding the question that was truly plaguing him; the person that stared back at him in the mirror was not himself.
Instead of the buff, at least that was how he saw himself, man who was in his mid-twenties, above average height, though he only measured using a ruler whilst gliding it over his body, alright looking, that, his mother would vouch for, was now but a scrawny, emaciated bag of bones with long shaggy hair touseled like a nest and to top it off he looked like he had found a pile of dirt and rolled around it.
The reflection that stared at him was a young boy with chapped lips, hollowed cheeks, and even more hollowed eyes. A boy who had seen too much too soon.
"Nope-" he started to say out loud when a rough gruff sounded from Dreja's corner, so instead, he said it inside his head. Nope, I'm not doing this! Imma go back to sleep and hope this weird freaky Friday fuckery is all but a dream.
Dreja, shaking his head, blew out the lantern, leaving Zach in the corner, still staring at the mirror he could no longer see. Zach pondered for a moment what he should do and came up with only one solution.
With conviction, he rushed to his bed, threw himself under the covers and closed his eyes tight. He took a calming breath, and as he did, he smelled himself for the first time since waking in his dream, and he smelled of sweat and rotting sewage. His eyes flicked wide open while his nose scrunched up, his lips curling downward in disgust. He could deny it no longer. This was not a dream.