Vivi-Dream.

This was a world that existed only in the realm of deep sleep. Not everyone could reach it. For those select few who could, they would be able to delve into a fantastic world that constantly changed according to what each dreamer brought with them. Their life experiences, personalities, interests – their [i]identity[/i] came with them. This could manifest within Vivi-Dream in several ways.

First, the dreamer’s appearance was radically different from their real world persona. The residents of Vivi-Dream called themselves ‘Oneiros’ and they ranged from all kinds of appearances, not just humanoid. Whether monstrous or human-like, these haphazard-looking citizens functioned as a tight-knit community and could interact with each other like regular people. The main clues that the dreamer could reach Vivi-Dream were if they fully remembered their experience after waking, and if they experienced a flash of déjà vu upon meeting a fellow Oneiros in the real world. Whether they liked it or not, these people were inexorably connected through their minds.

Another way the dreamers could affect Vivi-Dream was by integrating their identities into the very landscape itself. These manifested as locations that the Oneiros could then explore to find clues either about the person’s inner conflicts, or to find small pieces of the puzzle surrounding Vivi-Dream’s mysterious existence. Some locations were permanent, especially the hub city the Oneiros have dubbed Remniche. From here, different pathways led to these short-term locations. The closer a location was to Remniche, the more likely it was a permanent fixture in Vivi-Dream. Conversely, temporary locations were a bit further away from this imaginary capital city and required some adventuring.

Regardless of where these spots were situated, there was one thing in common; they barely made any sense by real world standards. For the Oneiros, Remniche was ‘constructed’ to resemble the real world the strongest, being a modern world-like metropolis with some fantastic elements, but at least it made sense. This functioned as a safe zone for the Oneiros to find companions and begin their adventures. Upon leaving Remniche, they would drift further away from reality and into the realm of illogical fantasy, science fiction, western, puzzles, magic, horror, or whatever was created. Nothing could be comprehended logically; a cavern in a sweltering desert led into a freezing glacier, or the area surrounding a pond had inverted colors, or Chinese characters on a sign could be read as German, and many, [i]many[/i] other similar phenomena. Some spots had unusual monsters to fend off, others did not.

To be an Oneiros meant to disregard all logic and investigate these locations with an open mind. As each person manifested their identities as these locations as well, everyone also needed to be accepting of that person’s personality and inherent flaws. They would need to cooperate to find an ‘artifact’ that created the location and extract it before the location’s ‘identity’ could spread out too far into Vivi-Dream. The stronger the Oneiros’ emotions, the more the location their mind created could infect the world, which could then harm the other dreamers’ minds in the real world. If this happened, sudden mental ailments and/or suicides could become more frequent in actual life.

As mentioned before, finding the artifact would solve a lingering problem in that person’s mind, or it could be a clue to discovering what Vivi-Dream was. No one knew what it really was, and the community discussed plenty of theories both in the dream world and in real life. Some of these people met at a little restaurant called Reverie Bakery and Café, a quaint coffee and dessert shop where they could quietly discuss what they found the previous night. Not everyone could meet for a variety of reasons; mental health, comas, social phobias, and the like.

Regardless, their common goal was to solve the mysteries surrounding Vivi-Dream. Was it a benevolent world that brought these troubled people together in their time of need? Was it a malicious experiment by some outside persons to investigate the mind against their will? Was it the result of aliens implanting chips into their brains? Was it a video game they were unknowingly logging on to? Was it their spirits temporarily leaving their bodies and entering a spiritual realm? Were these people just overanalyzing what Vivi-Dream was, or was there something critical involved in its existence? Why were some people able to access it and not others? How were they able to remember everything and know who their fellow dreamers were? What was the one commonality these random folks had that allowed them to reach this real yet imaginary world?

These were the huge unknowns surrounding Vivi-Dream. Only the Oneiros could find pieces of this massive puzzle through their myriad investigations and hopefully discover the truth before the real world could be affected.

**

Remniche was a regular modern-like town, complete with homes, restaurants, facilities, roads, cars and streetlights. In this safe zone, logic could still be used to navigate the area. This didn’t mean that it replicated every exact facet of reality. For example, the streetlights were colored blue, white and orange rather than red, yellow and green; some buildings resembled pieces from the game [i]Tetris[/i], with even one shaped like an upside-down L and the jutted end sticking out into the air without any visible support; and what would be a gasoline station filled vehicles with tree sap extending from large trees in the park.

Even so, at least up was still up, red could still be perceived as red, and plants smelled the same as they did in reality. Remniche’s layout was nothing compared to the smaller ‘locations’ that branched away from the city, much like small organs connected to a larger heart via intricately interweaving blood vessels. That wasn’t exactly what it was, but this comparison was often used by the resident Oneiros.

In this bustling imaginary city, there existed a huge museum curated by two girls. It was for public display, but it mostly functioned as a warehouse for the owner’s hoarder obsession, showcasing countless artifacts that the duo collected and providing short backstories behind each piece. At the moment, the girls were arranging a shelf to make room for a bag of chips they found in a temporary location they just returned from.

“There we go. Perfect!” the owner, a bubbly girl named Lin exclaimed. She had short blue hair fanned out like wings and one blue eye, while the other was covered with a grey flower and blue ribbon. Otherwise, she wore a simple blue dress, grey bolero and slippers. “Wow, this is amazing! We could almost run a restaurant out of here! Think this is some kind of a trend, Hez?”

The other girl observed their handiwork and scratched her head curiously. Hez was shorter than Lin and had short silver hair tied up into two pigtails with pom pom bobbles. She wore a large white shawl hoodie and cape that covered her upper body, a black velvet skirt and black-and-white sneakers. Hez always appeared timid and bashful, rarely ever smiling and seeking to converse with new people.

“Yeah, I agree with you. Maybe there’s something going on in the real world,” Lin replied. Hez was unable to talk, yet somehow Lin could understand her. It was like their minds were interconnected for some reason. The duo always had to stay together so Lin could translate what Hez wanted to say to other Oneiros.

They couldn’t spend a lot of time pondering about their discoveries when an alarm blared over a green chalkboard with a rough map of Vivi-Dream scribbled on with white chalk. Remniche was drawn in the middle, always unchanging, while other locations were drawn attached with strings. The external locations always shifted, appeared and/or disappeared, and this scribbled map kept track of things.

“What’s happening now?” Lin asked, analyzing the chalkboard with a computer and old-fashioned typewriter attached to it. Hez stood back and watched because the contraption was too complicated for her to use.