I got home around the time I’d normally get to bed. Gran was up, walking around the house and busying herself with a broom. For some reason, I felt guilty going past her to get to the shower. I was filthy and even the poor city water was going to be cleaner than my current state.

  The shower felt good even if my skin was slightly itchy afterwards. Once clean, I gave Gran a big hug.

  “Welcome home, sweetheart. Your mom has food on the stove. Everyone else ate already, so help yourself to the rest.” Gran gives the best hugs.

  I took the food from the stove, where there was more than there should have been, considering that I had an older sister and a younger brother, plus my mom. Being the primary breadwinner, I knew they saved some for me. But this was too much.

  “They still aren’t feeling the best,” my mom said from behind me, leaning against the doorway and correctly predicting what I was thinking, as usual. She was thin enough for one to think that she was the one who was ill.

  Something in the water had gotten them sick. We boiled, but apparently that hadn’t been enough in this case, and the unexcused absence had cost my elder sister Alessa her job. What was she supposed to do, go in with it coming out of both ends? Might work well for a fountain installation, but probably not so much for an executive assistant.

  Probably for the best, honestly. Last I’d heard, her boss was getting far too comfortable around her. She’d been considering quitting anyway, but didn’t want all the pressure to fall to me. Gran couldn’t work, and my mom… well, probably best left unsaid. Little brother Liam was too young to do anything even if there was nothing specifically preventing him from doing so.

  Dad was gone, the victim of a violently collapsing rift along with everything else in the entire city block. An illicit operation had been extracting artifacts from it without using anchors or any other kind of precaution.

  He had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. We never found his body.

  I shook my head, clearing the thoughts. Mom was still a mess every time I left, even years later. I could tell her all I wanted that we didn’t do things that way, but it never made a difference. To my mother, rifts were just bombs with an unknown countdown waiting to steal another family member from her.

  As far as the money went, we were okay, although things were about to be worse without Alessa’s significant income. We’d still manage, but it would be rough. I’m sure she’d be looking as soon as she wasn’t bedridden.

  I finished eating while mom wandered back wherever she had come from. She kept to herself now, never really talking much. I think she was avoiding me in the mornings so she wouldn’t have to think about what happened. The words she’d said tonight were the first time I’d heard her voice in a few days. I missed her.

  Washing and drying the dishes, I stacked them all neatly back into the cabinets. Gran made the food, but I wasn’t about to have her clean up after it. For one thing, she was halfway to being a midget and couldn’t reach the shelves without a stool, and that made me feel uncomfortable. For another, just no. She did enough for us already.

  I went to the bedroom, and borderline dived into bed. I was damn tired, and already in my jammies after the shower. They had skulls! And roses! And they were super soft! Top notch stuff, I tell you.

  I’ve always been a quick study when it came to my eyelids - if not much else - and it was lights out pretty much as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  In my dream, I was floating on my back in the pitch darkness. Just kind of looking up at a ceiling that didn’t exist and cringing inwardly about my face comment. Yeah, that’s right, instead of keeping me up, it was invading my dream. Thanks, me.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I held a hand out, the dominant one with the burn. Here in dreamland, the red strip across my palm glowed. I would probably have thought this to be unusual, but this was a dream. Instead I was holding my palm out towards the nonexistent ceiling, hoping to use it as a flashlight. I didn’t need to tread whatever liquid I was in to stay afloat, as it kept me very buoyant. Which I suppose beat a dream about drowning.

  I was shining my hand-flashlight around, reflecting it off the surface of the liquid, off my toes, et cetera, when I noticed a flicker of light that didn’t come from me. I pointed my hand at it before I realized I was an idiot and that’s not how lights work.

  Rolling over onto my chest, I did a lazy overhand stroke towards the sliver of orange until the strobing of my handlight with each stroke bugged me, then switched to a doggy paddle. It seemed to make no difference to my progress speed, and soon I was close enough for the dim glow to resolve into a flame. It was gently undulating, like a candle in a still room, motivated only by the updraft from its own heat. I could feel the same kind of depth the feather had emanating from it. I increased the RPM on my canine swimming style.

  Everything was dead silent, even with the swimming.

  That last bit took as long as the rest combined as the final distance seemed to stretch. I felt like I was sweating by the time I got there, which made no sense. Not that anything else in this dream did. I reached out towards the flame.

  I could feel a gentle warmth coming from it. Nothing like the mark on my hand.

  As I did, my body lifted from the erstwhile “water” I’d been floating in. I floated in the air towards it, and for some reason held my arms wide like I was going to give it a good ol’ squeeze. Might as well spread the burn across maximum surface area.

  The flame seemed to be twitching away from me a bit, like it might make to flee.

  I thought as loudly as I could. Oddly enough, it seemed to have worked, and the flame stabilized.

  I embraced it, wrapping my arms around it.

  It vanished, and an explosion of warmth spread out through my body, starting roughly behind my belly button. The heat faded as quickly as it had come, but a small amount remained in the original location, pulsing in same rhythm.

  I woke up in the morning early, and spent some time staring at the ceiling thinking about the dream.

  Like the one that had gotten me in trouble at work, it felt odd and vivid, more reality than the dissociation I was familiar with - in my normal dreams I always felt like I wasn’t completely inside myself, almost a third person looking over my own shoulder or only able to vaguely influence events.

  Putting a hand on my abdomen, I was a little shocked to realize I could still feel a vague warmth there. Not with the palms of my hands but inside me somewhere. Yeah, that’s totally normal.

  ? I thought, bursting into actual laughter at the irrationality, imagining a scene where I introduced my mom to my baby-daddy ‘Fyre’ as ‘he’ immolated the door frame. I was in tears as my imagination ran away with the scene, conjuring absurdities such using oven gloves for baby clothes, feeding sawdust to my twin babies “Cinder” and “Briquette”.

  It was only once I put my feet on the floor and stood up that reality set back in. Something was definitely different - looking around the room, it all felt a little sharper, a little clearer than it had when I went to sleep.

  Closing my eyes again, I tried to recall the dream itself, and am embarrassed to admit that I backpedaled into my bed in fright when the flame appeared in front of my mind’s eye. I tipped over in what felt like slow motion, throwing my elbow out to catch myself. I heard a crunch and felt some resistance.

  I looked around wildly, seeing nothing.

  At least I thought that for a split-second before realizing I still had my eyes clamped shut and had closed them even harder when I started falling. Opening them again, I realized I had put a hole through the surface of the wall on the far side of the bed, having fallen across it. I’d even cracked the wooden beam behind it a little, somehow. The landlord was going to love that. I looked at my elbow. It looked fine, somehow, and didn’t even hurt.

  More importantly, the skull pajamas had gotten off scot-free. Priorities!

  “Everything alright in there?” I heard Gran call out to me. She was probably the only other person up right now.

  “Yup, fine, just got in a wrestling match with my bed.” I replied, opening the door. I gave her a good morning hug. “I think I even won!”

  “That’s great to hear, my dear,” she said, patting my back like she hadn’t seen me in days. “But you stink, go shower before work. I’ll make you something to eat.”

  Weird. I was sure I did a good job washing up last night. Ah well, Gran knows best. I went and took another one, then grabbed an egg sandwich and another hug on the way out the door, just to make sure I had my supply topped off.

  Gran gives the best hugs.

  someone in the comments based on criteria known only to me* and they've made a decision! You'll find out about it in a couple of chapters depending on how the story flows.