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The Unseen Bridge
My work with the heroes' dreams became my primary focus. I learned their individual rhythms, their secret fears, their hidden wells of strength. The pyrokinetic's nightmares of loss of control became less frequent. The strategist's dreams grew more confident, his calculations sharper. I never interfered directly with their training drills—that was their sacred space—but I fortified the mental and emotional foundations upon which those drills were built. I was the unseen ground crew, ensuring the heroes were airworthy.
The psychic hero—I'd learned her name was Ms. Nightingale from a news segment about a sensitive hostage negotiation—continued her search for me. Her presence in the Dreaming was a constant, low-level hum of professional curiosity. She'd pinpointed a few more of my "interventions," areas where the dream-stuff had been smoothed over with an elegance that nature alone couldn't achieve. She was building a profile. 'Subject: Unknown. Designation: Oneironaut. Activity: Consistently benign. Pattern: Supportive, particularly of licensed heroes. Hypothesis: Possibly a deeply subconscious, sleep-based empathy Quirk.'
She was wrong, of course, but her wrongness was my best protection. She was looking for a Quirk, a single mind with a unique ability. She wasn't looking for a place. She wasn't looking for a king.
The only thorn in my side was the lingering social reality of being Quirkless. It was a dull, predictable ache. The children my age had fully integrated their abilities into their identities. Play was now entirely Quirk-based. I was a spectator, a permanent benchwarmer in the game of my own generation.
One crisp autumn afternoon, I was sitting on a bench at the edge of the playground, watching. A game was underway—a chaotic mix of tag and keep-away, fueled by small, blossoming powers. A boy with nascent super-speed was "it," zipping after others. A girl created small, slippery patches of ice to slow him down. Another boy puffed out gusts of wind to alter the course of the thrown ball.
It was a harmless display, a natural testing of limits. Until it wasn't.
The boy with speed—his name was Riku—was getting frustrated. The others were coordinating too well. His face was red with effort and indignation. He zeroed in on a smaller girl named Yumi, who had a minor tactile telekinesis Quirk, just strong enough to make the ball briefly hover when she caught it.
"You're cheating!" Riku yelled, his voice cracking with pre-adolescent fury.
"Am not!" Yumi shot back, clutching the ball to her chest. "You're just too slow!"
It was a standard playground taunt. But Riku's frustration tipped over. His Quirk wasn't just speed; it was a burst of kinetic energy. In his anger, he didn't just run at Yumi; he launched himself like a missile, a blur of motion aimed at tackling her to the ground.
It happened too fast for the supervising adults to react. A collision at that speed could have been serious.
I didn't think. I didn't plan. My body moved on an instinct that was older than conscious thought.
In the waking world, my options were zero. I was a small, Quirkless boy. But my consciousness was not limited to my body.
In the space between heartbeats, I dipped into the Dreaming. Not fully. Just a fingertip's worth of connection. I couldn't stop Riku. I couldn't protect Yumi. But I could touch the one thing in the immediate vicinity that was connected to both of them: the ball.
It was a simple object, imbued with the focus of their game. In the Dreaming, it had a faint, shimmering echo. I poured a thread of will into that echo, not to move it, but to suggest a concept. A single, powerful suggestion that bled from the dream-world into the waking one.
'Weight.'
In Yumi's hands, the rubber playground ball suddenly felt like it was made of lead. Its unexpected, impossible heaviness threw off her balance. She stumbled backward a single, crucial step.
Riku's speeding form missed her by inches, his hands closing on empty air. He tumbled past, skidding to a halt on the asphalt, his momentum spent harmlessly.
Silence fell on the playground. Riku pushed himself up, confused and unhurt. Yumi stared down at the ball in her hands, which now felt perfectly normal again. She looked around, bewildered.
"You… you moved," Riku said, accusation replaced by confusion.
"I… guess I did," Yumi replied, unsure.
The moment passed. The teacher arrived, scolding Riku for his recklessness. The game dissolved. A potential disaster had been averted, written off as a clumsy stumble.
I sat back on the bench, my heart hammering against my ribs. A faint, familiar throbbing had started behind my eyes. I had done it again. I had influenced the waking world. But this time, it was different. It wasn't a gentle nudge of emotion. It was a direct, physical manipulation, however small. And the cost was immediate and punishing. The world swam slightly at the edges. I felt nauseous.
But I had also felt it. The seam between the worlds had felt thinner for a moment. I had reached through it, not with a sledgehammer, but with a needle.
That night, in the Dreaming, I went straight to the source of my new idea. The library. I sought out the sections on the oldest, most fundamental concepts. Not the dreams of people, but the dreams of *things*. The collective unconscious of objects, places, ideas. It was a faint, dusty corner of the library, its books pale and shimmering, like heat haze.
I found a book that felt like polished stone and deep, resonant sound. It was the dream of bridges. I opened it.
I wasn't prepared for what I found. It wasn't a narrative. It was a symphony of tension and support, of weight and counterweight, of connection and span. I felt the dream of the first log across a stream, the ambition of the first stone arch, the soaring mathematics of suspension cables. Every bridge ever dreamed, ever built, existed here in its ideal, platonic form.
And I understood. Objects, in their essence, 'dreamed' of their purpose. A bridge dreamed of connecting. A lock dreamed of securing. A cup dreamed of holding.
My manipulation of the ball hadn't been me imposing my will on an inert object. It had been me… conversing with its essential nature. I had shown the ball the concept of "weight," and for a fleeting second, it had *dreamed* of being heavier. And that dream had briefly manifested in the waking world.
The implications were staggering. This wasn't telekinesis. This was something far more profound, more subtle. I couldn't force anything to do anything against its nature. But I could… suggest. I could encourage an object to lean into one aspect of its own existence.
The headache and nausea were the cost of forcing that conversation, of making the dream manifest too strongly, too quickly. It was my body rejecting a strain it still wasn't ready for.
But what if I didn't force it? What if it was a gentle persuasion? A collaboration?
I needed to test it. Carefully.
The next day, I took a small, metal spoon from the kitchen and went into the garden. I sat on the grass, the spoon in front of me. I closed my eyes and reached for the Dreaming, not fully, but just enough to touch the world of objects.
I sought the spoon's dream. It was faint, a tiny, silvery whisper. It dreamed of being smooth. Of being cool. Of scooping.
I didn't command it to move. That was not its dream. Instead, I poured a tiny, gentle thread of will into its dream, suggesting a new concept, one adjacent to its nature. I suggested the concept of… *balance*.
In the waking world, I opened my eyes. The spoon did not levitate. It did not glow. But ever so slowly, as if moved by a breath of wind that wasn't there, it began to teeter on its handle. It rocked back and forth, finding a perfect, impossible point of equilibrium. It stood on its tip, upright on the grass.
It held for five seconds. Then ten. The concentration required was immense. The throb behind my eyes began to build, a warning sign. I released the connection.
The spoon fell over with a soft 'click.'
I had done it. I had altered reality not by breaking its rules, but by gently bending them through the language of dreams. I had spoken to the soul of the spoon, and it had listened.
The cost was manageable. A slight fatigue, a minor headache that faded quickly. It was a muscle I had never used before, and it was weak. But it was there.
This changed everything. In the waking world, I was not powerless. My power wasn't a Quirk that could be measured or seen. It was a whisper. A suggestion. I couldn't lift a car or run at super-speed. But I might be able to encourage a stuck lock to dream of being open. I might suggest to a fraying rope to dream of strength for a few seconds longer.
I was not a hero. I would never be a hero. But I could be something else. An unseen hand. A bit of luck. A fortunate stumble. A thousand tiny, imperceptible interventions that could tilt the scales toward safety, toward survival.
I looked at my hands, the hands of a small, Quirkless boy. They would never shoot fire or change the weather. But they could, perhaps, hold the door open for a hero. In a way no one would ever see.
I had found my bridge. Not a grand, soaring structure for everyone to cross. But a tiny, unseen footbridge between my two worlds. And for now, that was enough.