The sunlight bursts through, attacking your eyes with constant reds and oranges. The brightness pulls you into the waking world, and you find yourself in a strange room. The sun watches you from your left, behind a large window shaped like stained glass. You're lying down, and you're facing a ceiling. It's a beautiful ceiling, a finite painting of the infinite cosmos. Will you choose to [[get to work]], or go back to [[sleep]]?I can't blame you. You must be pretty tired after all. You should get some [[rest]].You choose to get back to work. You don't know what your work is, but it can't possibly be that bad. You get up out of bed, and [[look around]]. You're inside a gorgeous room. The [[cosmos]] in the ceiling are joined by [[skies]] in the walls. The walls are rounded, like a dome. You notice a dancing [[closet]] in the corner, inviting you to open it. You look up, and there's a witch [[hat]] hanging next to you from the wall. You look back down and there's a [[mirror]] on the wall, no, part of the wall. You can see a pristine reflection of the other half of the room. There's a [[desk]] against the wall, with papers circling around like hawks. The desk is flanked by tall tower-like [[bookshelves]] filled to the brim with tomes. The middle of the room features a large brewing [[pot]], surrounded by tables and neatly-assorted boxes and vials of strange ingredients. Out of the ingredients, your eyes are favoring a small [[red bottle]] that's glowing like fire.You walk over to the dancing closet. And it starts dancing with greater intensity with you as the audience. It's inviting you to [[dance]] with it. But should you really dance with a closet? After all, the closet's only form of dancing is tapping its foot on the floor. What would happen if it fell over onto you for example? I'm warning you, this isn't leading to anything pretty. Maybe you should [[look around]] some more.You find yourself next to the mirror. The mirror looks back at you. You find yourself with your own [[reflection]]. The world is behind you, and it's looking back at you at the same time. It's kind of [[cool]], isn't it? You never know who you are, until you face yourself in the mirror.You turn to and walk to the bookshelves. You walk along the long, almost-endless hall of books. Book, after book, after book. They're in green, reds, blues, and they're all sorts of heights and sizes. You feel like you're playing the lottery just thinking of taking out a single book. So why not take a bunch of books? You have time to [[read]], maybe you'll learn something about this place you're in.You walk over to the brewing pot. Your eyes drift over to the nearby table, and you find yourself with several pages in your hands. They're instructions for a sleep potion. How fascinating, a sleep potion!
The flame is roaring underneath the brewing pot, the purple broth inside boiling. You've completed most of the process, discovering one magical ingredient after another. However, the recipe calls for one secret ingredient. Your attention is called to the [[red bottle]], but it seems distracting enough to pull you from your work. Should you [[wait]] to see what happens with your potion?You walk over towards the stash of ingredients, and your eyes glaze over the red bottle. It's like a star, swirling in and around itself. A mass of fire, confined within a tiny glass prison. You could [[pick it up]], or [[look around]] some more. That bottle is pretty, but it could be dangerous.You pick up the witch hat from the wall. You put it in your hands, twirl it around a bit, and look at it. It's just a normal witch hat, with the stripe and belt and crooked end. You don't see anything too remarkable about it, but maybe you should try [[pulling]] something out of it or [[placing]] it on your head?You turn to the right, away from the stars above. You place your back between yourself and the window, turning your back to the morning sunlight. Your eyes don't even bother to check the rest of the room. Before you know it, they're resting peacefully behind closed eyelids, as you drift back to the [[void]] of dreams...You find yourself in a dream. It has to be a dream. How else could you find yourself fallen into a pit of ice-cold LEGOs? Your feet are being bit, bit by living LEGOs! You call to the surface for help, again and again as LEGOs are rallying for your pain. Your third call is answered by a falling package. You catch it, you rip open the wrapping, and you find a report card. Three As, but all A-. This is most definitely a terrible dream, and you hope to [[wake up]] sometime soon...You find yourself at the desk. The desk is smooth, even your reflection is staring back at you, and the wood is of a most pristine rare quality. Above you, the hawk-like papers are circling around like vultures hungry for prey. They keep floating around you, in perfect rhythm. You could try to [[snatch]] one of the papers, or you could just go back and [[look around]] again.You walk around the room, looking up at the ceiling the entire time. Your eyes are glued to the endless vast of stars and planets, painted perfectly to replicate the real deal. The charts start moving, and you find yourself pulled towards the [[sun]], but you could [[look around]] a little more instead.You circle around the room, strolling together with the walls. The skies and clouds depicted, they walk with you. You keep walking around and around, and you feel like you're walking on [[clouds]].You stop walking, and the only thing important to you is that sun. It's beautiful, isn't it? An orange burning star, the torch of day, that keeps life possible. You think about the plants, the animals, the land made possible by that radiant, blinding blaze high above the [[horizon]]. But that's enough admiration, you should [[look around]].You find yourself lost in the room. You don't even think you're in the room anymore. The only floor you can feel are the clouds beneath you. Your walls are the skies, and your ceiling is the infinite [[cosmos]]. You must be in paradise. You reach out towards the [[sun]], and you chase the [[horizon]]. But, something is also telling you to [[wake up]].You are the clouds.
You are the skies.
You are the sun.
You are the horizon that walks with day.
You are the horizon that walks with night.
You are the horizon that keeps us moving towards tomorrow.
You think, how could you ever [[wake up]] from a dream like this?You leave the bookshelves with a heap of books in your arms. You're struggling just to balance them without them falling apart like dominoes. You heave them over to your bed, and you sit down and start flipping through the pages. You find an assortment of interesting reads. You skim through some alchemy and some spellcasting. And then, you find yourself reading about a [[legend]]. You are getting a little tired reading though, you may be about to drift off to [[sleep]]. You slowly flip through the pages, as if you were tenderly caring to a wounded animal. You read, read, and read. The letters are all you can see, everything else a blur. The story, you're inside the story now. You are the legend. You are the heroic wizard summoned by the royal court, sent to slay the evil dragon. Your grand adventure takes you through the highest mountains, with blizzard winds that could knock down an elephant. The darkest of caves, where light is swallowed up like candy. The greatest of foes, clad in fortress armor, are nothing to your knowledge of the supreme arcane arts. You're a wizard, and you are legend. This is something you hope to never [[wake up]] from.Fortune favors the bold! You pick up the bottle in one fell swoop except IT'S HOT!
HOT!
HOT!
HOT!
The bottle's already high up in the air, rejected by your numbed hands like a hot potato. You have little but crucial time to decide, will you [[catch]] the bottle or will you let it [[break]]?You snatch the red bottle out of the air with both of your hands, clapping it like a cat catching a fly. Your hands have gone completely numb, but you've prevented this shady bottle from shattering across the floor. You gently lay it down on the table, and then before you know it, you're already ten steps back. Maybe you should [[look around]]... And look for less trouble too.Your hands are too tired, too numb, too exhausted. You live with the failure of failing to catch the red bottle as it shatters across the floor. Now, to your luck and with your sigh of relief, the bottle doesn't release a tsunami of fire into the house. However, you do feel your eyelids growing heavy as you slowly drift to [[sleep]].You try to snatch the paper out of the sky. But it eludes you! It wraps around your hand, like an escape artist, in the perfect dance of motion. Before you know it, the papers have all left your sight, hidden themselves inside the desk's drawers that you have just discovered. You could call this silly nonsense, and go back to [[look around]], or you could [[investigate]] the drawers.The narrator has forgotten to mention to you. He has set this up as an elaborate ruse, the most extravagant trap, the treacherous trick. The drawers have no handles. You won't be handling those papers anytime soon... So it seems that you should go back to [[look around]] some more! Yes, that sounds like a [[good idea]]!Sure... Sure thing, you think to yourself. Sure, you could trust this sneaky narrator that has decided to appear now out of all times, just to tell you to go back to look around... Or, you could try to pull open the drawers anyway.
No, don't do it. You have no idea what you're doing. Those papers contain a secret, forbidden power sure to doom the world. You wouldn't involve yourself with something like that, would you?
The drawers are already open. You congratulate yourself on your magical genius, and soon to the narrator's dismay, you are reading through papers struggling to fly away. You find yourself reading through records of the narrator's darkest secrets... Like hating the taste of ice cream and cookies. You can't believe this, this can't be true. It has to be a made-up lie, a dream, no one could hate ice cream and cookies.
Oh, but I do.
You must be dreaming, you're hoping to [[wake up]] anytime now!Of course you would dance with a closet! Who wouldn't dance with a closet? You start busting out your best and favorite moves in front of the closet. You're the dancing revolutionary of the century! The closet is in awe, inspired, it is awestruck by your incredible talent. And in its newfound spirit, it trips over itself and falls towards you. You're bonked on the head, and you find yourself drifting to [[sleep]]...You flip the hat upside down and reach inside with your arm. Your arm ends up slamming the hat into the bed, and it seems like you've mistaken the witch hat with a magician's hat. You put the [[hat]] back on the wall. Maybe you should [[look around]] the room?You place the witch hat on your head. Next thing you know, you find yourself in a cafeteria in front of a bunch of students!
"Griffon!"
You don't know what's going on, but before you know it, you're seated with a bunch of red-themed students after an Organizing Hat called out your Cottage. This is some weird magical adventure you've found yourself in. Surely it's just a dream? When will you [[wake up]]?You place your hand against the mirror.
You're falling through the wall, through the floor, through an empty space.
Before you know it, you find yourself on the other side of the mirror, facing the world you came from. You look behind yourself, and there's an empty vast void. There's nothing here, but yourself. You sit down, and ponder, watching the world outside. You fall tired, and find yourself falling to the clutches of [[sleep]].You notice something odd. The reflection's moving. It's not moving as in reflecting, but it's moving by itself. The reflections fade out, and you find yourself watching a meteor shower through space. Then, the rainforest with the animals singing. The river, the endless river. The great plains. The high frozen mountains. The world really is reflected through this mirror, and you find yourself sitting here just watching it go on and on and on... Maybe you should go back to [[look around]]?You decide to wait. You wait in front of the pot for minutes. Very. Long. Minutes. Maybe it's hours? You haven't been keeping track. You've just been waiting for something exciting, something [[magical]] to happen! Otherwise, this is all very tiring work, and maybe you should just go to [[sleep]] and wait for the potion to cook itself.Magical creations require magical solutions. You kick the pot. And as bad as an idea as that sounds, it works! The broth leaps out of the pot and into an empty vial on the desk. It fizzles, it bubbles, and it crackles. And it's complete, the sleep potion is complete! You've done it! The power of [[sleep]] is now yours to control! You think about all of the other possibilities, all of the other magical potions and mixes you could muster and master. The future is vast, and the magic is yours.