_“Mayday, mayday, mayday — we’re going down!”_

_ The man pulls desperately on the plane’s controls, but the aircraft only sags towards the unforgiving ground. _

“Stop, stop, stop,” my voice groans. “That stupid and historically inaccurate.”

The short, stout man sitting across the desk from me perks up. 

“Historically inaccurate?” he says incredulously. 

“Historically inaccurate,” I confirm. 

His brow furrows and I bring my hand forward to inspect my fingernails. I’d bitten most of my nails down to the skin, rendering them to bloodied nubs. I stared at them, disgusted. 

His squeaky voice pulls me out of the thought, “Well, I _—_ 20 bucks?” 

“20 bucks!” I practically howl. “You realize that the only saps buying historical dreams are total nerds, right? They don’t want inaccuracies.”

I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling, pretending to consider it. 

“Yeah,” I decide, “I ain’t taking it. Get outta here.”

The man scurries away as silently as he arrived. 

Almost immediately, his chair is filled with a short girl with quick eyes. She regards my dilapidated office with equally curious and frightened eyes. 

She speaks in a whisper, “They do not pay you well?”

Her accent is thick but I can’t place it. 

“You’ve never been here before, I take it?” I ask. 

She meekly nods. 

I lean forward on my desk, my bare elbows against splintering wood, before extending my hand.

  “I am a dreamcatcher,” I explain. She’s young, not even twelve, and she watches me warily before shaking my hand. “Do you know what being a dreamcatcher means?”

She gives a hopeful smile. “You catch dreams?”

“Not quite,” I admit. “It’s a bit deceiving, so I’ll tell you how this industry works. Dreamers, like you, dream, then you sell your best dreams to me. I give you however much I think it’s worth and try to sell it to a buyer. Sometimes I take a loss, sometimes I make a profit.”

She quiet for a long moment, before simply saying, “I dream it… you buy it.” 

“You’ve got it,” I smile. “So, what’d you got for me?”

_ She pushes and prods her way through the bustling town square, trying to catch a glimpse of the excitement happening in the middle. There’s some sort of structure in the center; it is made of two slender pieces of wood. The sunlight flickers gently off the enormous blade in the middle. The girl doesn’t know it yet, but they call it a guillotine. _

“Alright, alright,” I stop her, watching as she weakly blinks herself back into reality. I open up a drawer and pull out some cash. “I’m going to give you twenty for it,” I say gently. I push the wrinkled cash into her palm before she has the chance to say otherwise. “But I’m going to let you know, people like happy dreams. Please, do your best to bring me happy dreams.”

She looks at me, surprised, and soon she is back off into the world. I don’t bother going through the process of actually transferring the dream from her _— _it isn’t worth a cent. 

Before the next dreamer comes in, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The bags under my eyes have grown worse, and with winter having arrived in full force, I’ve grown pale. My boss said this was normal _— _it took time to become acclimated to spending so much time in other people’s heads, but it had grown difficult to believe him. Soon, I hear metal grates clatter beneath my boss’s shoes. He is nose deep in a ledger when he reaches the top of the stairs, and as he passes by, he off-handley asks, “Catch anything good?”

“Nothin’s biting,” I sigh, spinning around in my chair, only to watch him disappear into another room. 

My next client plops down into her seat comfortably. Her name is Anna _—_ she is a lucid-dreamer, and she holds her chin up high and sits upright even in a place as lowly as this. She knows that our buyers are ready to pour grotesque amounts of money into her head if it means producing a personalized dream. 

“Alex”
 “Anna,” I greet. 

We don’t waste time on any more formalities. 

_ A man stands upon the roof of a building that seems to extend to the heavens. When he precariously leans over the edge, all he can see is a smog below. He gives this wide, ghoulish smile, before proceeding stoically towards the center of the building. The man gives a running start before he flings himself off the building, off into the endless abyss. _

_ A few moments later, people walk around the limp body. The dead man has deep purple eye bags, ragged hair, and looks as pale as a ghost as blood leaks out of his limp body. His eyes. His familiar eyes. His face. His clothing. I know this man. His name is Alex and he is me. _

I stare blankly at the desk between us and my fingers and hands shake uncontrollably. 

“W-Why did you show me this?” I manage to get out, but soon I am fighting the urge to vomit. 

“This is what the buyer wanted,” she purrs. 

I can’t meet her gaze and I bury my eyes into my hands, trying to wipe the memory from my mind, but all I can see is that body, my body. 

“Saints,” I plead. “Do not show me that.” 

“I didn’t know it was you,” she trails off. It sounds genuine but I can still see myself at the base of that building, bloody and limp. 

“Who would ask for that?” I ask desperately. “I can’t do this; I can’t do this.”
 Now, I am standing up, pacing hopelessly around the cramped, rotting office, trying to focus on the fact that I am still alive and breathing. My breaths are greedy and quick, as if I’m drowning upright. I grab the sides of my head and I can’t stop myself as I begin to weep. 

“I quit. I can’t do this,” I cry. “I can’t be a dreamcatcher. I can’t do this.”

After a long, agonizing time, my cries grow into faint breaths and Anna leaves.

Eventually, I take my sleeve and run it under my eyes, before pulling myself up and sitting in the chair. 

Soon, a new person replaces Anna, and all I can do is weakly smile. 

“My name is Alex, and I’m a dreamcatcher…”