The world Adrian entered wasn't made of logic or time.
It pulsed with colorless memory. Gray rooms stretching into infinite mirrors. Corridors built from half-forgotten lullabies and fragmented smells — chalk dust, river fog, stale oil.
This was Layer One of the Collective Dream.
And he wasn't alone.
Children drifted like shadows, flickering in and out of coherence. Elders wandered in loops, reciting equations instead of prayers. Every figure bore one common trait:
Hollow eyes.
Eyes that had seen joy — and been told to forget it.
[Dreamwalk Interface Engaged]
Emotion Keys: Active (7)
Stability: 61%
Fragmentation Risk: Medium
Objective: Locate Dream Core Anchor
Warning: Nirvana Protocol Countdown – 67 hours remaining
Adrian clutched the first token — a painted leaf from a girl who dreamed of her grandfather's humming.
He placed it near a flickering corridor.
It shimmered — then opened into a memory:
A sunlit porch. A man carving wood. A little girl dancing.
Adrian stepped through — and the dream pulsed.
Color bled in. The child's laughter echoed.
[Emotional Layer Stabilized: +2% Network Harmony]
But as he pressed deeper, the landscape shifted.
The Forgetting Fields.
Flat plains of cracked cement, where dreamers knelt in rows, endlessly filing papers labeled "Unfelt."
Each was a real memory stripped of context:
A mother smiling at a newborn.
A hand held in silence after loss.
A joke that made someone choke on tea.
All filed. All forgotten.
Adrian wept.
And that's when the Scrubbers came.
They weren't Ministry agents here.
They were forms.
White masks with no mouths.
They glided silently, replacing blooming dreams with grayscale versions. Muting laughter. Editing tears.
One locked eyes with Adrian.
And lunged.
[System Instinct Triggered: Memory Blade Activated]
Trait: "Soulsoil" converted to "Rootblade" in dream-space
Effect: Slice false memories. Release emotional payloads.
Stability: 58%
Adrian slashed — and the blade sang.
Not metal.
Music.
The scrubber shattered into petals.
And from its remains, a child emerged — blinking, holding a kite.
She whispered, "I remember now. My father ran with me."
Adrian gathered more Dream Keys.
A tear-stained book.
A drawing of clouds.
A broken music box.
Each key restored a piece of someone.
But with every use, he lost a bit of himself.
The GNH System blinked urgently:
[Stability at 53% — WARNING]
Dream Echo Saturation Reaching Critical Levels
Risk of Identity Dissociation: HIGH
Just as the dream began to collapse, he found it:
A monolith.
Black. Shimmering. Humming with false calm.
The Nirvana Anchor.
Wires from every scrubbed dream fed into it. It pulsed with the stolen emotions of thousands.
Adrian stepped forward.
Rhea's voice echoed in his mind.
"Bring us back our dreams."
He planted the final Dream Key — a bell etched with the name of a boy who never cried.
The monolith cracked.
And screamed.
[System Directive: Override Triggered]
Counter-Nirvana Protocol Engaged
Dream Echo Unification Process: 12%... 43%... 71%...
System-wide Emotional Restoration Surge Imminent
The Dreamworld exploded into color.
The mirrors shattered — and released their captives.
Children laughed.
Elders wept.
Forgotten dances returned. Forgotten meals. Forgotten selves.
And in the center, Adrian stood — collapsing as the monolith dissolved.
His own memories bleeding out now:
His mother's voice singing at night.
His brother hugging him when he got his first scar.
The first time he realized feeling was not a weakness.
[Dream Collapse: EXITING...]
System Status: Core Realignment Achieved
Stability: 39% — CRITICAL BUT SURVIVABLE
Mission Success: Dream Layer Reclaimed
New Trait Gained: "Dreamkeeper"
Effect: You now carry pieces of others' truths.
Passive: Emotional gravity. People feel safer remembering near you.
Adrian woke beneath the Memory Tree.
It was weeping.
Sap like honey-tears, glowing faintly.
Rhea knelt beside him.
"You did it," she whispered.
"No," Adrian said, his voice hoarse. "We did."
And in that moment, across Drukten, people woke up in their beds — and for the first time in decades, remembered their dreams.
End of Chapter 16