The Price of a Touch
The blackness that took me was not the welcoming embrace of the Dreaming. It was a suffocating, silent void, a system crash. The last thing I was aware of was the metallic tang of blood in my sinuses and the sound of my mother's scream, sharp and distant, like a bird call from another continent.
Then, nothing.
I didn't travel to my throne. I didn't see the swirling nebulae of dreams. I was simply… absent. For the first time since my unmaking in the primordial void, I did not dream. I was a stone at the bottom of a deep, dark lake.
Consciousness returned in painful, stuttering flickers.
The first was smell. The sharp, astringent scent of antiseptic. The sterile, bleached smell of hospital linens. It was different from the maternity ward. This smell was colder, more urgent.
The second was sound. The steady, electronic beep… beep… beep… of a heart monitor. A sound I had, until recently, only heard in the dreams of doctors. Now it was my own rhythm, broadcast to the room.
The third was feeling. A dull, throbbing ache behind my eyes, deep in the core of my skull. A profound exhaustion that made my limbs feel like lead. An uncomfortable prickle in the crook of my arm. I tried to move my hand and felt the gentle restraint of medical tape securing an IV line.
My eyes fluttered open. The light was dim, but it still sent a fresh spike of pain through my head. I was in a small, private room. The walls were a soft, calming blue, but the equipment surrounding the bed spoke of nothing but clinical concern.
My mother was asleep in a chair next to the bed, her head resting on her arms on the mattress. Even in sleep, her face was etched with worry, tear tracks glistening on her cheeks in the low light. Her hand was wrapped tightly around my foot, as if afraid I would vanish if she let go.
My father was standing by the window, his back to me, staring out at a night sky. His shoulders were hunched, his entire posture a monument to fatigue and fear.
I made a small, weak sound. A croak.
My father turned instantly. His face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed. When he saw I was awake, a wave of relief so powerful it was almost a physical force washed over him. He was at the bedside in two strides, his large hand gently covering my free one.
"Arata," he whispered, his voice rough with emotion. "Hey, little man. Welcome back."
The movement woke my mother. She jerked upright, her eyes wide with panic until they landed on me. A sob escaped her, half-relief, half-terror. She leaned over, pressing her forehead against mine, her tears warm on my skin.
"Oh, baby," she cried softly. "You scared us. You scared us so much."
The doctor came in, a kind-faced woman with tired eyes. She shone a light in my eyes, asked my parents a series of questions they couldn't possibly answer on my behalf, and checked the readings on the monitors.
"The EEG is normal now," she said, her tone carefully neutral. "The nosebleed and syncope—the fainting episode—were likely a one-off event. A severe vasovagal response, perhaps triggered by a sudden spike in blood pressure. It can happen in infants. Their systems are still developing."
She was giving them a textbook answer, a safe, mundane explanation. But I could see the doubt in her eyes, the slight frown as she looked at my chart. It didn't quite fit. The suddenness. The violence of it. The fact that I'd been completely unresponsive for nearly an hour.
"He just… went limp," my mother said, her voice trembling. "There was blood. His eyes rolled back…"
"We'll keep him for observation overnight," the doctor said gently. "Run a few more tests in the morning. But for now, his vitals are strong. Try to get some rest."
After she left, the room was silent except for the beeping of the monitor. The unspoken question hung in the air between my parents. They were thinking it. I could feel their worry, a thick, heavy blanket in the room.
'Was it a Quirk?'
Every parent waited for it, wondered about it. The manifestation of a child's power was a milestone, often unpredictable, sometimes dangerous. Most Quirks appeared between the ages of four and five, but early bloomers were not unheard of. A stress-induced manifestation that caused a nosebleed and loss of consciousness? It was a terrifying possibility.
My father finally voiced it, his voice low. "Do you think…?"
"I don't know," my mother interrupted, her voice tight. She squeezed my foot. "I don't care. I just want him to be okay."
But she did care. They both did. The fear was now twofold: for my health, and for what my health might imply about my place in this world of powers.
I was discharged the next day with a clean bill of health and a diagnosis of "benign infantile syncope." The words were meant to be comforting. They were anything but. I had felt the cost of my action. I had reached into the waking world with the barest whisper of my power, and my infant body had rebelled, shutting down to protect itself.
It was a boundary, stark and unforgiving. The Dreaming was my domain, but this physical world had its own rules, its own limitations. My consciousness might be ancient, but my brain was that of a child, soft and still wiring itself. It could not handle the strain of channeling that kind of power while awake.
The lesson was brutal, and I learned it well: I was not a god here. I was a baby. A fragile, vulnerable, breakable baby.
The incident cast a long shadow over our home. My parents became hyper-vigilant. Every sneeze, every unexplained cry, every time I seemed too quiet, I saw the flicker of fear in their eyes. Their love was a constant, but it was now tinged with a protective anxiety that was almost palpable.
In the Dreaming, their fears took shape. My father's dreams, once of work and family, now often featured me getting hurt in vague, nebulous ways—falling from a great height, getting lost in a crowd. My mother's golden dreams of love were now laced with threads of silver anxiety, where she would search for me endlessly in a familiar house that had become a maze.
I could soothe their dreams at night, gently brushing away the worst of the nightmares. But I could not touch their waking fears. That was beyond my reach. And trying would likely put me back in a hospital bed.
So, I retreated. I became a model infant. I ate, I slept, I babbled, I played with the blocks and soft toys they gave me. I focused on the agonizingly slow process of physical development. I learned to crawl, my body wobbling precariously as I navigated the vast wilderness of the living room rug. Each hard-won milestone—pulling myself up on the coffee table, taking a first, stumbling step—was met with joyous relief from my parents, a momentary lifting of the shadow.
It was during this time of forced normalcy that I began to truly observe the world of Quirks, not as a shocking revelation, but as a mundane reality.
Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Tanaka, had a Quirk that allowed her to make small plants grow slightly faster. Her garden was the envy of the street, a bursting oasis of color. She would often come over with a basket of impossibly perfect strawberries or tomatoes, her fingers perpetually stained with earth.
A boy a few years older than me down the street could emit a faint, citrus scent from his hands when he was nervous. The mail carrier had prehensile feet that could sort mail while his hands tied his shoes. It was all… ordinary. These weren't world-changing powers. They were quirks of biology, little tricks that were woven into the fabric of daily life.
I saw the other side, too. The man at the grocery store with a rocky, hardened skin condition that was clearly his Quirk, who winced when people stared. The news reports on TV that my parents would quickly change, but not before I caught glimpses of flaming buildings and blurred figures moving at superhuman speeds—the darker side of a world with powers.
I was two years old when the conversation happened. I was sitting on the floor, meticulously stacking blocks, pretending to be engrossed in my toddler task while my parents talked at the kitchen table.
"...the Suzuki's boy manifested last week," my mother said, her voice carefully casual. "He can make his teddy bear float. Just a few inches, but still."
My father grunted. "Early bloomer."
"It happens." A pause. "Kenji… what if Arata…"
"Let's not borrow trouble, Hana," he said, but his voice was tense. "The doctor said it was a fainting spell. That's all."
"But what if it wasn't? What if he's…?" She couldn't say it. *What if he's Quirkless?* The word was a specter in our house. In a world where 80% of the population had a power, being Quirkless was a disability. It meant limitations, prejudices, a life on the sidelines.
"Then he's our son," my father said, his voice firm, final. "And we will love him exactly as he is. He's smart. He's kind. You see the way he watches everything, understands more than he should. That's enough. That's more than enough."
The love in his voice was a solid, unwavering thing. It brought a lump to my throat. They were preparing for the possibility that I would have no flashy power, that I would be ordinary in an extraordinary world. They were ready to stand between me and that world to keep me safe.
Their love was my anchor. But it also built a cage of their fear. I couldn't explore my power. I couldn't risk another incident. I was trapped playing a part, the precocious but normal toddler, while the king of dreams sat imprisoned behind his own eyes.
The frustration built until it was a constant, low-grade fever in my soul. In the Dreaming, it manifested as sudden, violent storms over the obsidian sea. Books would fly from the shelves in the library. The calm I had fought so hard to maintain began to fray.
I had to know. I had to test the limits, but safely. In the one place where I had control.
That night, in the Dreaming, I didn't just observe. I decided to create.
I stood on the plain and focused not on a dreamer, but on the stuff of the Dreaming itself. I willed a shape into existence. Not a throne, not a landscape, but a living thing. I pictured the rabbit soft toy I slept with, Mr. Hopper. I poured my will into the concept of him: soft grey fur, black button eyes, one floppy ear.
The air shimmered. Form coalesced. A rabbit sat on the dark plain.
But it was wrong.
It was a statue of a rabbit, carved from grey stone. It didn't move. It didn't breathe. It had no life, no essence. It was an image, not a creation. I had sculpted dream-stuff, but I had not gifted it with the spark of independent existence.
I tried again, pouring more power into it, demanding it live. The stone rabbit shuddered. A web of cracks appeared on its surface. It didn't come to life; it simply fractured, crumbling into a pile of grey dust that vanished on the wind.
I roared my frustration, a sound that echoed across the empty plains. I was the master of this realm! I could bend the dreams of millions! Why couldn't I make a simple rabbit?
The realm shuddered in response to my anger. The silver light above flickered erratically.
I was trying to force it. I was trying to *build* a soul, and a soul was not something that could be built. It had to be… invited. Nurtured. Dreamed into being, not manufactured.
The realization cooled my anger. I had approached it like a task, like stacking my blocks. But this was art. This was magic.
I closed my eyes and let go of the specific image of Mr. Hopper. Instead, I reached for a feeling. The feeling of comfort my toy gave me. The softness, the familiarity, the silent companionship in the dark.
I held that feeling in my mind and offered it to the Dreaming. I didn't command. I invited.
I felt a subtle shift. A warmth grew in the air before me. I opened my eyes.
Sitting there, twitching its nose, was a rabbit. Its fur was the colour of moonlight, and its eyes were not buttons, but pools of deep, intelligent darkness. It looked at me, and I felt a faint, new presence in the realm. A simple, gentle consciousness, born of comfort and companionship.
It wasn't Mr. Hopper. It was something else. Something native to the Dreaming.
It hopped once, twice, then vanished in a soft shimmer of light.
I had done it. I hadn't forced a creation. I had dreamed one into being. The cost was negligible, a gentle dip in my energy, like the feeling after a good laugh. It was sustainable. It was right.
I looked around my realm, seeing it with new eyes. I didn't need to build it like a model. I needed to tend it like a garden. To nurture it. To let it grow.
The frustration bled away, replaced by a patient, steady purpose. The boundaries in the waking world were real, and I would respect them. My body was young and needed time to grow strong enough to bear the weight of my power.
But here, in this place, I had all the time in the world. I could be patient. I could learn. I could grow my strength in the only place where it truly belonged.
I sat down on the cool, smooth ground of my world, no longer a frustrated king, but a gardener. I closed my eyes and began to dream, not of what I wanted to force into being, but of what might naturally grow.
And somewhere in the vast, silent libraries of the Dreaming, a new book appeared on a shelf, its cover blank, its pages pristine, waiting for a story to be written.