Staring at his almost empty bank account, Nathan couldn’t help frowning. His life savings consisted of 54 pounds in total. Basically speaking, he was dirt poor. ‘Should I really do this...’ Looking over the article, he couldn’t help hesitating.

Nathan wasn’t a miser or anything; it's just that having lived frugally for most of his life, he knew better than anyone how hard things could get if something went wrong.

‘Oh, well. It better be useful,’ left with no other choice, he clicked the confirmation button and, almost instantly, there was a 20-pound reduction in his bank account. Nathan’s heart bled but he thought it was for the better. With a single click, a new thread appeared below the previous one.

“First of all, thank you for your patronage.

Now, back to the problem. Complete paralysis represents one of the worst possible nightmares you can find yourself in. Those particular nightmares can be hard to escape from; however, escaping wouldn’t be too far-fetched if you follow my exact instructions.

Once you regain your sense of self, the next step would be to regain freedom of movement. Panicking won’t help for this step, so you should remain as calm as possible. You first need to understand that nightmares are not that different from dreams, they are just another part of our subconscious. The only difference to dreams is that we can’t control them as easily.

Take things one step at a time, don’t try to force your whole body in one motion, but rather focus on something simpler first, like your toes or fingers. Once these are freed from paralysis, you can and should start building up from there.

Remember, the most important part is to understand this is your subconscious. You make the rules there. The nightmare wants you to believe you have no control over it. Once you realize you are the one in charge here, dealing with it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. After all, all you have to do is run away from it.

Dream Specialist, Elliot Goodsky”

After thoroughly reading through the thread’s information, Nathan couldn’t help feeling a little anxious. He couldn’t know whether this Elliot guy’s words were truthful or not, but he did have a way to find out. All he had to do was wait until night fell and he would be able to check for himself.

So far, the first tip Elliot Goodsky, the self-proclaimed dream specialist had given, turned out to be on point. Even though Nathan confirmed it accidentally when he cut himself with the mirror, that didn’t change the information’s validity.

Looking downwards, the wound on his left hand wouldn’t fully heal any time soon. It wasn’t a good thing, but at least he wouldn’t have to prickle himself for a while. Letting out a tired yawn due to sleepiness, Nathan lied in bed knowing full well he would have to experience the nightmare twice in a row if he fell asleep.

~~~

Inside the dream,

Having just regained clarity, Nathan took a moment to calm down and assess the situation. Different from his expectations, the monster haunting him turned out to be quite a distance away. Thinking this was his chance, Nathan tried to clench his fingers into a fist.

It was such a simple action, and yet it felt like ages before he could barely make them twitch a little.

*Tap tap*

In his attempt to free himself, Nathan was so engrossed that he failed to realize how close the monster had gotten. ‘When did it get so close?!’ He couldn’t help thinking as the light bulb went off. Cold sweat emerged on the back of his neck as the monster edged closer. His eyeballs darted around frantically in an attempt to see what it was but, sadly, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t look behind him.

“Agh!” The pair of icy-cold hands had once more grasped tightly around his neck. This wasn’t the first time he felt that excruciating pain and it would most probably not be the last one either. Being unable to breathe caused Nathan’s vision to start getting blurry. This signified the inevitable outcome and yet, he didn’t want it to end like that again.

‘Move! Damn it!’ Feeling frustrated at yet another failure, Nathan let out a silent scream as yet another nightmare came to an end. The only difference? His fists were tightly clasped together.

~~~

Supporting his head upright with his arms, Nathan tried hard to concentrate on Ms. Lexie’s lesson. Having had to endure two nightmares in one night turned out to be far more taxing than he originally expected. His bloodshot eyes and the unapproachable aura emanating out of him were more than enough to keep any people three rows away.

‘It’s useless… I can’t focus at all,’ thought Nathan; as he tried to make out the words on the blackboard, it felt like the words shifted every time he looked at them. Sighing for the hundredth time that day, Nathan endured two hours of pointless lecturing, trying to absorb whatever he could.

*Driiing!*

The university’s bell rang, signifying the end of today’s lecture, the class instantly became rowdy as some students were cheerfully discussing today’s lesson, while others focused more on how pretty Ms. Lexie was. But who could fault them for that? Ms. Lexie was rumored to be the prettiest woman on campus. Like a witch from the middle ages, her enchanting azure green eyes accompanying her bright red hair were more than enough to drive most of the male students crazy. Add her perfect figure to the equation, and even the female students were head over heels for her.

With a teacher like that, it wasn’t strange that almost 70% of Oakwell Uni chose to major in psychology. If not for her cold and indifferent nature around everyone, maybe the whole university would have been overtaken by Ms. Lexie’s lectures. It would then have to be renamed Oakwell’s Institute of Psychology.

Just thinking about it sent chills down Nathan’s spine, feeling his gaze was glued on her figure for a tad too long, he averted his eyes and began packing up. His next destination was the university’s library, where it was nice and quiet, making it the perfect spot for studying.

While Nathan was busying himself with his stuff, a blonde man in his twenties approached him from amidst the crowd.

“Yo, Natha… Geh, you look like sh*t man,” this was Roger, Roger Aberleigh. One of the few friends Nathan had made throughout the first year of his university studies. Similar to him, Roger was part of the go-home-early club during their first year, so the two naturally stuck together.

Unlike Nathan though, Roger wasn’t going through financial troubles. So, why was he part of the go-home-early club, you might ask? Well…

“Turn off the glitters Roger, it hurts my eyes,” joked Nathan as he glanced at his friend.

“You think so?! Well, what do you know? I finally beat that raid boss I‘ve been telling ya all week!” That’s right, Roger was an avid gamer. No, ‘avid’ is too simple a term to describe him. A hardcore gamer would fit better in his situation.

“Really? Well, good for you, I guess.” Nathan’s tired voice echoed as he looked back at his friend. Roger’s expression turned into a frown as he further inspected Nathan. “No, seriously dude. Maybe it’s time you visited a doctor or something?” he said worriedly, inching closer to him.

“Nah, don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control,” feeling this conversation would never come to an end, Nathan tried to soothe him, but it only ended up having the opposite effect, making Roger worry even more.

“Speaking of which… What are those? Bruise marks?” He asked while pulling at Nathan’s jacket. Having broken the mirror back home, Nathan was naturally unaware of the bruise marks left behind by the creature in his nightmares. He instead decided to play it cool. “Hmm, it must have happened when I wasn’t paying attention. Don’t worry about it, it isn’t anything serious.”

Having said that, Nathan could clearly see the worry in Roger’s eyes, but what could he do? Tell him the monster haunting his dreams did it? Roger would think him crazy!

The last of Nathan’s textbooks were neatly placed inside his bag, so he decided this was a great time to make a run for it. He already had quite a few things to worry about, and didn’t wish for Roger to get involved in his mess.

“Seriously, don’t worry about it! I have everything under control!” Nathan said while waving goodbye from a distance. Roger was left speechless as he saw Nathan’s figure leaving class but couldn’t do much more than think to himself. ‘What am I gonna do about you? If you need money you should just ask. We are friends, aren’t we Nathan?’ Feeling frustrated at all the wrong reasons, Roger groaned anxiously before heading back to the crowd of leaving students.

~~~

The following few days were a matter of routine for Nathan. University in the mornings, working in the evenings, and torturing nightmares in the night. He could feel the energy seeping out of his body quite clearly by now. Not only had his facial features sunken inwards, making him look like a walking zombie, but his already thin body was now turned into just skin and bones. This nightmare was taking a toll on him and unwilling as he was, he had to face it once and for all at some point.

It wasn’t only bad news though, inside the dream, he could already freely move his hands and feet around. It had taken Nathan almost a week to achieve this; even so, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit of relief, knowing there was a way out.

Exhausted, Nathan looked at his phone’s clock. It was still 5 am, a little early he thought but he might as well start preparing for the next day. Since that one time, he didn’t dare go through two nightmares in one night again, the toll on his body the following day was too much to handle and his worsening condition didn’t allow for any more mishaps.

‘At last, it’s Friday,’ mused Nathan as tiredness took the better of him. Today marked the last day of the week, meaning he wouldn’t have to attend lessons for the following two days. Feeling this was a great chance to make some extra cash, Nathan planned to ask the mini-market’s boss for an extra shift this weekend. He had to somehow close the hole left by the information he had bought and since money didn’t grow on trees, the second-best option was more work. Whether the boss would agree to this or not was an entirely different story though.

~~~

A few days ago,

Inside a dark alley, in a place that people would rather ignore and make a full circle around just to get to the other side, a small conspicuous shop existed. The sign at the front of the store read ‘Goodsky Delivery Service’ as if to clarify this was really a shop, and yet, no customers could be seen anywhere nearby.

If anyone looked inside the shop, they would instantly associate it with an antique shop more than anything else. And yet, this was supposedly meant to be a post office.

“Master!” A young female voice echoed from behind an old computer screen. She didn’t raise her head from the screen when shouting, so only a little bit of her ambery brown hair could be seen above the screen’s edge.

“What is it, Mei Mei?” answered a man sitting behind the counter. The man was quite tall, enough that, even when he sat, you could still make out the difference. He looked to be in his forties, sporting brown hair and eyes with a well-trimmed mustache, a sharp straight nose, and a golden monocle on his left eye. Even though he asked the girl, his attention was still on the small round bead he had been polishing since a while ago.

“No, it’s nothing important. Just that, someone bought the information you posted online,” said Mei Mei as her small round face was tilted to the side. Judging by the sound of her voice alone, the girl couldn’t be any older than ten or twelve years old.

“Which one?” Asked the man in question, and to that, the girl answered. “The one about repeating nightmares.” His hands ceased polishing the bead for a moment before moving in action once more. “Just let it be,” he said and closed his eyes.

“But, Master. Is it okay to leave it like that? He could die if he didn’t find the thread early enough. Besides, don’t we need a new postman? The last one vanished and Mei Mei has to do their work,” the girl was quite talkative. However, the man showed no signs of changing his mind.

“Well, Mei Mei will search up his information just in case Master changes his mind.” Unhindered, the girl excitedly searched up the buyer’s information. “Do as you wish,” added the man before letting out a small grumble. He then stood up, dusted off his pants, and picked one of the coats resting at the coat stand before moving towards the building’s entrance.

“Wait a minute! Where are you going, Master?” Asked the girl from behind the screen. “Just taking a stroll. I’ll be back shortly,” he said and left the bead on top of a shelf before making his exit.

‘Looks like there is going to be a new postman in town.’ He thought, lighting up a cigarette he fished from his coat’s pocket.