“Name?” called out from a frosted window.

“Sable… S-Sable Jennings.”

A clipboard with a pen attached to it slid under the slot with her name printed at the top.

“Please read, sign, and put everything into the drop box by the door.”

Sable skimmed the paperwork and signed the bottom without reading any details. She was grieving. She was desperate for sleep. Everything DreamLogic promised was what she needed. She dropped the clipboard into the box.

“Thank you. Please place all personal items in the bin, slide it through, and walk through the detector.”

After a process that felt more like airport security than therapy, she found herself in a meeting room. She found a seat out of the way tucked against the wall.

The lights dimmed and a projector in the front of the room flickered on. Silence. Only the sound of heels clacking. A woman with dark hair in her early forties approached the front of the room. Her attire was professional and carefully put together. She cleared her throat, a gesture that demanded the room.

“Shall we begin?” she said, her voice was rehearsed.

“Imagine entering a world of your own through technology. Everyone you may have known. Everything you ever wished for. All of it, there. Introducing DreamLogic.”

She turned toward the back wall as the projector flashed a logo. “DreamLogic” stretched across the screen with white letters outlined in black.

“You can call me the administrator. I am the creator of DreamLogic. An experiment where lucid dreams allow emotional healing through subconscious recalibration. In this room, there are ten individuals. But only one of you will be selected to continue. Each night, someone will be removed from the trials and sent home. An indicator that this experiment simply wasn’t for you.”

Whispers made way through the crowd while Sable looked around silently. Everyone in that room had a story. Everyone was searching for healing. That’s why they were brought here.

Sable’s sister died a year ago. It was sudden, and it was quiet. She was told that it was an undetected heart complication while she was away on a writing retreat. Sable hadn’t slept a full night since that phone call. Her therapist recommended DreamLogic after explaining that she was stuck in “emotional purgatory”.

“We will now introduce a demonstration.” the administrator chimed.

An assistant rushed forward with a box of equipment and a chair. She carefully placed the chair down and opened the box. The administrator sat down and strapped herself to the chair. Arms and legs secured, her assistant lowered a VR headset over her eyes.

The projector screen synced to her headset. An AI-generated version of the administrator appeared. She sat there motionless while her generated twin could jump, run, laugh, and interact. After a few demonstrations of movement, the screen went dark. She took off the headset and stood.

“Welcome to the future of therapy.” She said. “You have been hand-selected for this trial, but as mentioned earlier, only one will continue with full therapy from DreamLogic. Each night, you’ll enter the session. Each day, one of you will be removed. I implore you, take this seriously. But more importantly, think about what you stand to gain. Each of you are hurting. Each of you are searching for something better. Allow DreamLogic to give that to you. And remember, this is more than dreaming.”

The lights came up and ten technicians dressed in white scrubs filed into the room. They led the group to the sleeping quarters where they found their bunks. Everyone was expected to sleep in the same room. Each bunk was equipped with straps on beds, monitors, and VR headsets similar to the one used in the demonstration. But Sable noticed that these monitors also had a vital machine attached to them. The machines hummed lightly in the background.

The technicians guided the group out of the room and led them to the dining quarters. During dinner, Sable observed the room quietly. She only saw blurred faces and heard mumbled words. She needed sleep and wasn’t much for conversation. Truthfully, she hadn’t been very vocal since her sister passed.

When it was time for the first session, everyone lay down on their designated bunk. A technician in white scrubs strapped them in and connected them to the system. The steady beeping of vital monitors began as each machine powered up.

“Don’t worry, I’m here for you.” A technician said before putting the headset over her eyes. Confusion fell across Sable’s face before entering her session.

After moments of darkness, she found herself in a beautiful garden. Her mother’s garden from her childhood was filled with the overflow of peppers, herbs, and of course the flowers. She saw the beautiful flowers vibrant and alive. This was the garden she remembered before her father left. Before her mother lost her job.

Suddenly, the smell of homemade gumbo circled her nose. She hadn’t smelt that in years.

She heard the laughter of a little girl from a distance. It was her sister’s laughter and when she turned her head she saw her. There she was, alive. With her curly hair that danced in the wind and hazel eyes that glowed in the golden hour light. She ran towards Sable. A light tap on her shoulder.

“Tag! You’re it!” she giggled while scurrying away.

Sable stood, shocked to realize she was her childhood self. She looked down at her small hands with uncertainty.

“Come on Sable! Let’s play!” her sister shouted while plopping into a sandbox. “Get outta Mama’s garden before she gets that tail!”

Sable glanced at the house. It was a little different. Familiar, but not quite right. Everything was a little different. But her sister… her sister was real. She runs to her and hugged her tight.

“Get off of me!” her sister squirmed and laughed.

They sang and played in the dirt, making mudpies like they were kids again. At this moment, Sable felt whole. But when she smiled at her sister, she noticed the shift in her eyes. Her sister’s eyes grew black. Sable’s sister looked at her and screamed.

“This is not a dream!”

Sable retracted in fear and fell into the sandbox.

Bright lights flashed her awake. Then darkness. Her vision was blocked by the headset. A technician removed it. She was sobbing and her clothes were covered in dirt. She couldn’t move. The technician gently removed her vitals and unstrapped her.

She jumped out of bed.

“That wasn’t my house. That wasn’t my home. It felt like a memory…but it wasn’t a memory!” she shouted, backing into a wall. “How do you explain this? How is there dirt on me? How did I bring this out of my dream?”

“This is all normal, Sabel. Your brain is integrating with the system. Look at your clothes now. There is no dirt. You’re clean.”

She looked down. No dirt, just fabric. She carefully scanned the room. Everyone looked shaken. But instead of ten participants, there were only nine. Someone had been removed.

Later, in the dining quarters, another participant sat beside her. His name was Malik. He wasn’t a man of many words. He was tall with sharp eyes. Malik had course hair, just like her father. Malik explained that he suffered from bipolar PTSD. War trauma. Nightmares. She understood how he felt. Her father had lived through the same trauma. But without mental health support, he turned to other outlets.

DreamLogic told Malik they could “fix him” so that he could return to a normal life.

Over dinner, they exchanged looks of concern. Sable waited for the silence to break.

“They don’t want to help us. This isn’t therapy, this is mapping.” He whispered between bites. “They don’t want to help us. They want to use us.”

Sable didn’t want to believe him. Even though she’d woken in distress deeper than anything she’s ever felt. She wanted to believe this was part of the trial. That it was therapy. But through all of that, something felt off. She decided she wanted out after her conversation with Malik.

She went to the administrator with the intension to leave the experiment.

“I don’t need anymore trauma in my life. Everyone here is delusional. Your technician’s attempts to calm me are failing. I didn’t sign up for this.” She spoke.

The administrator stepped toward her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“You’re too valuable to release. Did you not read the contract? There’s an immersion clause. You stay in this experiment until you’re instructed to leave. And you haven’t been instructed to leave.”

Sable stared at the administrator in disbelief.

A technician walked in and escorted her back to her bunk. She didn’t fight or argue. Something inside her wanted to see it through.

She was strapped in and her vital machine powered up. Faint beeping in the background began. She glanced at Malik. He looked exhausted. Hollow. Like he hadn’t slept in days.

She turned back to the technician.

“Don’t worry, I’m here for you.” The technician said with a smile.

The headset went on, and the room went dark.

Each night, the dreams got darker. More vivid.

After session two, she woke up with bruises and scrapes that didn’t wash off in the shower. On night three, she saw dark figures behind her sister’s smile. She heard whispers under her sister’s singing.

When she told the technician, he smiled. “You’re progressing.”

On night four, she found herself in the DreamLogic building. White hallways. Empty. Cold. It felt like an out-of-body experience.

She saw a woman who resembled her sister. She was at an emergency exit, hysterically clawing at the door. When Sable asked if she was okay, the woman turned to her, eyes wide and black.

“This is not a dream” she whispered.

Suddenly, white lights blind the room. The woman gasped. Like a trapdoor had opened beneath her, the woman dropped through the floor.

Sable screamed as darkness met her eyes.

The technician’s rushed in, disconnecting and unstrapping everyone. Sable sat up. Across the room, technicians rolled the woman’s body out. They announced that that woman died due to heart complications.

The group sat in silence at dinner. Nobody spoke. Nobody had a reaction. Everyone was just… waiting. Malik sat beside her in silence like usual. She leaned into him.

“That woman was in my dream last night.” Sable whispered.

She received no response. Instead, Malik stood with the rest of the group and walked toward the bunks. Like clockwork, a technician escorted Sable back to her bunk. She was strapped in and the beeping from her vitals began.

“Don’t worry, I’m here for you.” The technician said.

“Are you?” chimed Sable. The technician smiled and placed the headset over her eyes.

In session five, she found herself in a lab. Rows of bunks. Familiar, but unkept. As she walks through the alley of bunks, she notices that bodies are hooked up to machines, just like the one in her sleeping quarters. There are ten beds. Five beds are filled. She looks at the faces of all four participants that “left”, including the woman who had died.

As she approached the fifth bed, she saw Malik. She hesitated, then removed his headset. His eyes snapped open. Wide and black. He screamed,

“This is not a dream!”

Sable jolts awake. Everything is dark. No technicians. She squirms out of her headset and straps. She carefully disconnected herself from her vital machine. Everyone else was still attached to their machines, sleeping. She ran over to Malik’s empty bed barefoot.

Sable opens the door to slip silently into the hallway. There was nobody around. She found an emergency exit door. She stopped to brush her fingertips across the scratches. She realized that her dream was real. To her left was the lab from her dreams. She broke in but was stopped by a glowing screen.

Scattered images and a voice clip on a loop caught her attention.

“Imagine entering a world of your own through technology. Everyone you may have known. Everything you ever wished for. All of it, there. Introducing DreamLogic.”

She looks down at the desk. Photos. Files. Names. All past participants.

“This isn’t the first experiment?” Sable whispered to herself.

She flipped through the pictures of endless victims. All dead. Then she sees her sister, smiling. She heard the echo of heels clacking in the background. She looked around for a place to hide as the footsteps approached her. She ducked under a desk. Peaking around the corner, she saw the administrator enter.

She sat down and placed a VR headset over her eyes. The loop ended and the headset synced to the screen. Sable could see everything the administrator saw.

The administrator was humming an old lullaby, walking through a child’s bedroom. A young boy smiled while playing with toy trucks in his denim overalls. She smiled as she watched.

Sable stood with eyes glued to the screen. The young boy had her sister’s eyes.

She looked down at the second headset and took a seat beside the administrator.

She entered a beautiful world that the administrator created. She slowly walked around a beautiful unfamiliar home. She felt the presence of someone approaching her, but did not turn around.

“Meet Sable.” The administrator said softly.

Sable turned around. The administrator stood holding the young boy’s hand.

“Hi Sable!” the boy said.

Sable takes a step back, stunned. The boy seemed familiar, but she didn’t recognize his face. Just his eyes. He had her sister’s eyes.

Then the boy disappeared.

Suddenly, the administrator and Sable were sitting at a round table.

“One day, you two will meet.” The administrator said.

“What does that mean?” Sable begged.

“This will be your home.” says the administrator.

“I don’t know this place. None of this is real.” Sable said.

“If none of this is real, then why did you come here?” asked the administrator.

“What did you do to them? What happened to the woman from my dreams? To Malik? To…my sister?” Sable’s voice crumbled.

“They broke the immersion clause. They left before they were instructed to.”

Tears rolled down Sable’s face.

“How could you work for a place like this? Don’t you have a heart?” She whimpered.

“This is all normal, Sable. Your brain is integrating with the system. Do you know why you’re here?”

Faint beeps echoed in the background. Reality began to break.

“Do you remember everything that led up to this very moment? Do you remember the accident?” the administrator asked between beeps.

The administrator stands up as the beeping grows louder. She walks around the table and puts a hand on Sables shoulder.

“What accident?” Sable asked with glossy eyes.

Suddenly, the system glitched.

Sable was no longer at the table with the administrator, but on a highway.

Tunnel vision, muffled sounds, and screams.

To her left, Malik was fighting the straps on a stretcher in an ambulance. His shirt was soaked with blood.

“You don’t want to help me! You don’t want to help me!” Malik screamed while EMS held him down.

She tried to call out, but her voice was gone. She clutched her throat.

To her right, the woman from her dreams was being wheeled away on a stretcher.

“Don’t worry, I’m here for you!” yelled a man while he pulled people out of totaled vehicles in the distance.

Sable scans the scene, it’s a ten car pileup. She attempted to pull herself out of the wreckage by crawling backward. When she was finally free, she stood up. But the quick motion caused her body collapse, and her head hit the pavement.

Darkness.

She jolted awake to discover herself back at the round table with the administrator. Heavy breathing and wide eyes, she panics in silence.

“You are valuable, just like everyone else from that day. But you’ve been instructed to leave.” Said the administrator.

“But what about the others? Are they dead? Am I dead?” Sable asks.

The faint beeping returns and grows louder.

“You’ve been instructed to leave.” Says the administrator. “Your time here is done.”

Sable puts her palms over her ears to block out the noise as it grows louder.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“I need you to say those words. We need to wake up.” The administrator said.

Tears falling from her eyes, she screams.

“This is not a dream!”

A spotlight fell on the administrator, she gave Sable a smile.

Bright lights. Silence.

This time, Sable opened her eyes to light, not darkness.

She was attached to a vital machine in a hospital bed. Nurses in white scrubs rush in the room.

“She’s awake!”