I was alone, then I wasn't.

I don't dream. I was at the twelfth rank- no thirteenth now and people of my rank don't dream.

People of my rank don't make mistakes either. What was happening? My mind felt- it felt slow. As if I was actually asleep and dreaming.

I avoided dreaming. It was the domain of God-Imperiums. If the Sea of Death was the domain of the death gods then the clouds above them held the Dreaming. The realm of sleep was the place between life and death, something that both gave rest and brought you ever closer to the end.

"What," I spoke. "What's happening?"

I looked around, eyes wide open. I was next to a river. It rushed and flowed and pushed and stopped, but I didn't look at it. I would go insane if I looked at it. I knew I would.

A few feet away was a fisherman. He was old and reminded me of Chin in some ways. His skin was wrinkled and held a rod that dipped into the river's waters. He wore a bamboo hat, an old stained coat, and green pants.

He turned and looked towards me.

"You're a God-Imperium," I stated.

He nodded.

"I hate God-Imperiums."

"I know," he responded.

"Why don't I know about you?"

"You know of me," the fisherman replied.

My mind was hazy. All the panic and some of the rationality had been left behind and my consciousness had been altered.

My eyes squinted. I looked at him, deep into his eyes and at his clothes and fishing rod.

"No, I don't think I do," I replied.

"You know me," he repeated. "Everybody knows me."

I looked at him again, something in my mind screamed for me to be cautious. Something told me to be afraid.

"Come here," the Imperium spoke.

I walked over to him and just like that the feeling went away.

"You're not supposed to be here," he commented.

"I didn't really have a choice."

"The book or the monkey could have prevented this. They should have prevented this," he muttered.

Then he looked down in thought and looked around.

"I see, so they're trying to go around them and that damn thing let them."

Then he looked me dead in the eyes.

"Tell them to talk to me when you awake," he ordered.

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"No," I replied. "They can just read my soul and figure it out themselves."

The God-Imperium looked at me again. His gaze seemed small, it felt like nothing more than a glance, but I knew there was more to it than that.

"Don't look at the river," he told me.

"I know," I responded. "What is it?"

I felt like a child, staring at the dirt brown banks rather than the intriguing rush in front of me. I could hear it scream, I could hear it roar and flow and change. It sounded like secrets and truths, like answers and the pure expression of existence. It sounded like-

"Don't listen to it either," the Fisherman told me.

"What is it?" I asked again.

"Everything."

I sat still and blocked out the noise.

"Who brought me here?"

I looked down at the dirt on the floor, my mind focusing on anything but the noise. The dirt shivered. It didn't bounce or vibrate but shivered as if it too were afraid.

"Everyone dreams," the man stated. "Everyone is connected to the dreaming, more than the place of dreams, it is the place of thought. If the sea below is absolute death then the dreams here are the memories of souls. The empty desires of plants, the calm and persistent minds of insects, the raging waves of beasts, and the chaotic imagination of man. This is where it all meets. It contains entirely nothing yet bits of everything. It is the mirror of existence, the holder of all, and the cauldron of fate. To some it is a cloud, to others it is a ball of yarn, and to me, it is a river."

These guys were allergic to simple answers. I would be panicking and bowing if this had happened before Wukong and the Tome, but there was no use in that. Some God-Imperiums cared about prestige, but most didn't from my little understanding of them.

I simply wasn't powerful enough to offend them.

And this one seemed to not care about words otherwise he would have struck me down instantly.

The best solution seemed to be honesty. It's not like I could lie to these creatures.

"So how did they go around Wukong or the Tome?"

"They didn't," the Fisherman replied. "The Tome let you come here."

"Why?"

"It knew I would be here, or rather it guessed. If it prevented them then it would expose its involvement. It's relying on me to act in its behalf, how irritating."

Everything was so fuzzy. Everything was so strange. It felt like a wet blanket had been draped around my brain as if every thought weighed me down.

"Stop listening to it," the Fisherman repeated.

"I'm not," I argued. Then I heard it, or rather I noticed I had been listening to it this whole time.

I focused, closing out the invading noise once more.

"What is that?"

"The sound of everything."

"Well, can you tell it to shut up?"

The Fisherman looked over, raised a finger, and touched my forehead.

And suddenly I was awake again. Except I wasn't, I was still dreaming, still in this place and still in front of the fisherman, but now my mind raced. I was aware.

And I was terrified.

"Keep together now," the Fisherman said quietly.

This was bad.

There was a reason you weren't fully aware in dreams. There were things there you weren't meant to see, ideas you weren't meant to have. It had been hard to ignore the noises earlier, but now, now it was almost impossible.

"Mortals," the Fisherman spoke. "Aren't able to understand what they're in front of. They come into this place in uncountable infinities and leave their pieces here all the time. But gods are creatures of their own making. They know better than to let themselves dream. The twelfth rank is where you separate yourself from everything and gain a true consciousness for reality. The light is blinding only if you have eyes."

The noise around me screamed, the river roared and I could feel the weight of countless shadows hammering against my soul.

Then the Fisherman put his finger down and everything dulled again. My mind slowed, my thoughts weighed and the noises were all the quieter. It was easier now for some reason. I could block out the noise.

"Fate is the river of action, it is the woven fabric of desire and destiny, it is many things, all things and none. To be here is to witness it, to watch the river from the outside, and to not be the fish within. You are still a fish, yet to leap over the Dragon's Gate."

Again it was harder to think, it was harder to understand but I grasped at what he was saying.

"I'm an immortal, I've achieved godhood. Haven't I jumped over the Dragon's Gate?"

"Mere rapids," he replied. "The gate is the last struggle, the last bearing before true power. The last limit before one touches Imperium."

I listened to the man's words. My mind crept like a snail and my ears burned with rejected noise.

I couldn't help myself. I had to see it.

I lifted my head and looked upstream of the river.

I stared at the Dragon's Gate.

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