Lior. A sixteen-year-old boy who lives a relatively normal life.
He has a family that loves him, and he is fully functional. He is a good student who attends high school and has no romantic interests at the moment. He works part-time at a small business near his home. He is both responsible and irresponsible when he wants to be. He gets obsessed and has ambitions like any young person his age, and he almost always fulfills his duties at home. He is quite shy when it comes to socializing. He is very geeky when it comes to video games and TV series.
He is, without a doubt, just a young man like any other, with no desire to change his life.
He has hobbies such as playing the guitar, playing video games, exercising, listening to music, and more. He hates reading and prefers salty food over sweet.
He has a younger sister who is in elementary school. He has a father with a stable job as a history teacher at the same high school Lior attends. He has a mother who also works as a teacher, although she teaches English and works at her daughter's elementary school. He has a cat named Venus, with black fur and both brown and white spots, as she is a tortoiseshell cat.
He is a young man like any other, with a family that loves him, living a completely happy life.
[Lior: What an exhausting day]
He said as he arrived home. There was no one there, since his sister stayed after school with their mother, and his father remained in the teachers' lounge at the high school to finish grading his students' exams.
He went up to his room, just as he always did after coming back from classes.
"What a perfect moment to sleep," he thought as he touched his bed. He was quite tired, having studied a lot during the past week. Today had been the math test, which was the most difficult subject for him.
Aside from that mental excuse, he was extremely sleepy mainly because he had slept very little the night before.
[Lior: Even so, the ending was incredible]
For the past month, he had been watching an extremely good series about a chemistry teacher, and he was left deeply shaken and satisfied by its ending.
[Lior: Aaaaaaahhhmmmm~~~~]
He was very sleepy. So sleepy that he didn't even notice he was already lying on his bed. After letting out a big yawn, he realized he was drifting off.
[Lior: I'll sleep just a little~~~]
He said, almost murmuring, tightly hugging his pillow.
Little by little, he began to lose consciousness, falling into a very deep sleep that slowly pulled him away from the reality he knew. A sleep that felt eternal. So beautiful. So gentle. His mind began to work—no, more accurately, his mind generated memories, and those memories turned into a dream. He began to see his life pass before his eyes.
He remembered that time when he and his friend Carlos climbed onto a bicycle just to fool around. They decided to go down a very steep street. His friend Carlos, along with him—who was half-standing, supported on the protruding back part above the wheels—did it. They went down at full speed. He remembered that day they crashed horribly, and because of that incident, he developed a fear of heights that lasted several years, until he eventually overcame it.
He also remembered another moment. The day he met his friend Julia. He remembered finding a girl sitting alone during recess, on a swing in the playground of his kindergarten. The girl looked tired and sad. He spoke to her, but she didn't even look at him.
"Leave me alone," the girl replied, distant and sad.
"What? Why are you like that?" he asked, confused.
"What do you care," she replied coldly.
After that, he looked to the side. He saw a girl holding a koala plush while surrounded by her friends. Then he looked back at the girl beside him. She had dried tears on her face, and she was staring intensely at that plush. He understood what was happening.
"Wait here," he told her.
The girl didn't even look at him.
He went over to the group of girls and started talking to them. The girl watched him with no emotion on her face. Until, at some point, the other girls mysteriously got angry, and the boy snatched the plush out of one girl's hands. Quickly, the group of girls walked away, and little by little, he approached with the plush in his hands.
"Here," he said.
The girl opened her eyes wide and grabbed the koala plush that was in front of her. She began to cry and hugged it tightly. He looked at her with a smile. She stood up from the swing and hugged the boy in front of her. He hugged her back, and she immediately began to cry on his shoulder. That was how he met his best friend, Julia.
"Why am I remembering this?" he thought within his own dream.
He continued to recall both happy and sad moments from his life. He felt uncomfortable facing these events, as he didn't understand why he was remembering each and every one of them.
These memories felt so real, as if he were truly still there. He felt them—and yet didn't—because in some way, he knew they were past experiences. Memories stored somewhere in his mind. Memories he lived through, memories that were already years old.
He spent a long time remembering. A long while. A very long while. Remembering and remembering. Memories and memories. He felt, and didn't feel. Until…
He felt something new. A real sensation—from the real world. Soon, he felt all his senses returning. He began to regain strength, a strength that meant something.
He was waking up.
Little by little. Slowly and gently. Calmly and coldly. He began to wake up once more.
And then he felt and saw something he never, ever expected.
Never.
Never, never.
Never, never, never.
Never ever.