With that, Lucy imagined the clouds nearest to her coming together into the chamber’s empty space, where the King had been just moments ago before floating aside. And the clouds did just that—their leisurely direction across the horizon halted, then they floated at a much faster pace in Lucy’s direction. Lucy almost jumped, but then all she had to do was decide where the clouds would stop—where would be the boundary of the “stage” she was presumably about to create—and the clouds stopped at a reasonable distance. They had all pooled together into a large ball, like an enormous handful of clay waiting to be molded.

  Lucy was taken aback at first, for this more than anything proved that she was truly in a dream. A “lucid” dream, a dear friend had once told her about excitedly back when they were children. Perhaps it was this memory reigniting some forgotten corner of childhood wonder, but Lucy quickly acted again without knowing for certain if this was the right thing to do:

  Show me what I was doing before I fell asleep, she thought in a directed manner toward the ball of cloud, as if speaking to it.

  In response, the accumulated clouds flattened into a rectangular platform. Walls formed along three of the edges, leaving the fourth one, which faced Lucy, open. Clearly, this was a stage—all that was missing was a theatrical curtain. From the platform sprung another smaller rectangular platform, which Lucy assumed to be a bed because there was a woman—or rather, a cloud shaped as a woman—lying on top of it. The clouds’ depiction of this woman was rather detailed, to the point that it was clear she was wearing a long dress or gown, but strangely, the clouds had not given this cloud woman any hair. Perhaps the clouds had abstracted that detail away due to irrelevancy, or it was because this woman truly didn’t have any hair.

  It was then Lucy knew that, with almost striking certainty, that the woman on the bed was herself, and that there was no longer any room to doubt that this was her Final Dream.

  Lucy’s assumption was proven correct moments later when a knocking sounded far to the right, off-stage, and the woman on the bed looked toward the noise and said, “Come in!”—in Lucy’s voice.

  Another woman walked in from stage right. From her uniform and the shape of her hat, Lucy guessed she was a nurse. In her hand was a small rod-shaped item, which she held up toward Cloud Lucy while saying, “Here’s the pen you asked for.”

  “Oh, thank you so much.”

  The nurse walked over to hand it to her, but when Cloud Lucy reached up to take it, her hand fumbled and then her entire body nearly collapsed onto the floor, if not for the nurse moving swiftly to grab her by the shoulders.

  “Lucy!” said the nurse. After a moment in which the nurse appeared to settle down from her alarm, she helped Cloud Lucy back up into a seated position. “There, there, take it easy…Are you sure you should be pushing yourself to write? You ought to get some bed rest.”

  “Thank you…” Cloud Lucy’s voice was feeble. Some time passed as she stared at the nurse silently. Then she said, in a surprisingly firm voice, “I need to write. What if…what if I don’t wake up…”

  “Lucy…” The nurse knelt down and placed her hands on Cloud Lucy’s shoulders. A piercing silence filled the stage, as it was clear the nurse had her work cut out for her thinking of an appropriate response.

  High above the stage and the entire chamber, the sun dimmed, but in a leisurely manner, as if recalling those quiet hours of early dawn when the light was faint enough for one to fall back asleep.

  At last, the nurse said: “Whatever it is you’re looking to write, you’ll write it superbly. I know it. But first, you should treat yourself to a nice, relaxing dream, one that’ll give you more words and ideas to work with. Okay?”

  Lucy, watching all of this from afar, felt a pinprick of tears forming in her eyes. For it was clear that the warmth in the nurse’s voice didn’t just come from professionalism.

  Cloud Lucy remained quiet for some time, before saying, “Yeah, you’re right…Thank you. Thank you so much.” She repeated herself effusively, as if to make sure she had said it and hadn’t missed what could be her very least opportunity to speak such gratitude.

  The nurse nodded, stood up, and made for stage right. Just before exiting, she looked over her shoulder and said, “I’ll check on you in the morning. Have a good night.”

  Cloud Lucy nodded and watched as the nurse left the stage. She looked at the pen in her hand and sat motionlessly for a while, appearing to be in deep contemplation.

  Then, without warning, a box formed out of the platform right beside the bed. Lucy guessed it was a kind of a side table, and it appeared to have handles for different drawers.

  Cloud Lucy climbed out of bed. Once she was on her feet, she hesitated, as if momentarily finding her balance. Her steps were sluggish but sure as she turned and went to the side table. She rummaged through the top drawer, eventually taking out a pocket book. She gazed at it for some time before returning to her bed with both the book and pen in hand.

  With her knees up in bed and the book held up to her face, Cloud Lucy turned to the very first page and began writing. This came as a surprise to Lucy, who had assumed it was a kind of diary or journal she’d been keeping during her hospital stay. Was this diary brand new? But then she thought back to how adamant Cloud Lucy had sounded about getting something written down. Perhaps she was writing at the front of the book because whatever she was writing was meant to be read by others, sometime in the future.

  Unfortunately, there was no way for Lucy to read what was being written into that small pocket book from so far away. Cloud Lucy’s hand movements were so small from this distance that it almost appeared as if she wasn’t writing anything at all. But Lucy needed to see, for she knew that whatever words were being poured into that book were almost certainly the reason why the King had said she was fit to be a knight.

  Show me what’s being written down in that book.

  It had come so naturally to Lucy: surveying the surrounding clouds near the stage as if recruiting them and then thinking her desires clearly and resolutely as a command. Immediately, the nearby clouds swirled together above the stage, becoming a large flat plane that resembled a projected sheet of paper, facing Lucy as the sole audience member. Gaps appeared in the cloud sheet—gaps shaped as letters, appearing one after the other as if the sheet were loaded into a celestial typewriter.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Dear Thomas,

  Watching this was incredible: what had once been tiny strokes of ink on a page that could be seen by none except Cloud Lucy herself, had now been transformed into a grand message that filled the infinite backdrop of the sky. Each letter appeared as if manifested by some higher power.

  But the letters had stopped there. Down below, onstage, Cloud Lucy had stopped, pressing one end of the pen against her chin, seemingly deep in thought. Watching her, then looking back up at the clouds’ message, Lucy pondered the name they mentioned.

  Thomas…

  Lucy hadn’t forgotten her own younger brother. How could she, when he spent every waking second ensuring that his presence was known with a voice far louder than his short stature would suggest, and words that proudly proclaimed his own self-importance? The two siblings had never gotten along, as even something as small as cooking breakfast for their mother together involved Thomas’s impassioned speeches and endless barrage of demands, whereas Lucy very much preferred the peace and quiet of working on each task alone. He was overbearing, and one often felt the desire to pull Thomas off his high horse, but Lucy ultimately couldn’t say that she hated her brother. Based on that, it wasn’t particularly odd that Cloud Lucy would be writing to him, but the formal address (“Dear Thomas”) and her deep pondering over her words led Lucy to anxiously await whatever circumstance about Thomas she couldn’t remember—that her own mind hadn’t wanted her to remember, until now.

  Just a few moments later, Cloud Lucy raised her pen to the book again, and the cloud sheet gave way to more words:

  I know we didn’t always get along, and that I wasn’t the best older sister. I couldn’t help getting annoyed with the way you are. Or, well, the way you used to be up until recently. I know that telling me about what you’re going through couldn’t have been easy, so you should be proud of having the courage to do that.

  As soon as you told me, I wished I could make the bullying stop. I’m not sure how, but I really want to. Even if the two of us never got along well, I still value having had you in my life, and

  The words stopped as Cloud Lucy went still with her writing hand. Some moments later, she continued:

  …and I want you to value your own life, too. Don’t listen to what they say. Your life is worth so much more than those tenth-graders’ words.

  So please, Thomas. Keep living on. As yourself.

  Your sister always,

  Lucy

  As Cloud Lucy brought her writing hand down to her side and sat up with her head against her knees, a lump formed in Lucy’s throat. She still couldn’t recall her recent memories of Thomas, likely because of what the King had said about her memories being scattered throughout this world. But the large words in the sky, while not spelling things out explicitly, had made Thomas’s predicament awfully clear.

  Cloud Lucy looked up from where her head had been resting on her knees, gazing toward a wall, upon which a square gap—a window—quickly formed. Was she yearning to be free of these four walls, of her inevitable fate? No…While that sounded logical, Lucy got the sense that the apparition of herself had a more focused, directed gaze. Perhaps she was hoping to look out in Thomas’s direction, to wherever he was in the middle of his unfinished story, still suffering.

  And, Lucy thought, she would have liked to be able to gaze out across this sky and see Thomas, the real Thomas, as well, one last time.

  Cloud Lucy, who had been motionlessly staring at the diary page for some time, suddenly stirred. Grasping the opposite page, she took it between her fingers, flipped to a new page, and began writing.

  Dear Mom,

  Again, Cloud Lucy paused with pen in hand, appearing to take a deep breath in and out.

  Although Lucy’s recent memories of her mother were also hazy, she could understand why her likeness needed to do that. It hadn’t been very long since her father had passed away, and though her mother had weathered the initial storm, she had not emerged from it unscathed; to anyone who’d known her mother, it was clear that she had changed. Her smiles had become a thing of rarity, even when tending to her small but precious garden. And where her mother had once been the sporty type that went hiking and jogging and kayaking (often urging Lucy and Thomas to come with her, with mixed results), now she had become a quiet shadow, an apparition floating in and out of work and the solitude of her—and now it was just her—bedroom.

  The change had been disheartening to watch, but Lucy had eventually come to accept that coming to terms with that kind of grief could take an inordinate amount of time. She had pitied her mother at first, then come to dislike her inactivity and the terse interactions she would have with her own children. But later on, Lucy had come to admire how her mother was still strong and resilient in her own way, how she had slowly but surely been finding reason to smile again. From what last Lucy could remember, her mother had begun putting the grunt of effort and delight into her gardening again, which had given Lucy hope.

  So then what worries about her mother was Cloud Lucy about to address?

  Of course, it didn’t have to be worries; it could just be a normal message to her mother. But given how the page about Thomas’s situation had completely blind-sided Lucy, she couldn’t help giving into the rising wave of anxiety.

  Cloud Lucy also seemed shaken, as she fumbled and nearly dropped her pen. After catching it and taking another deep breath, she continued adding words to the page.

  I’m sorry for being so ignorant back when you were still grieving. I was afraid, because I thought I was losing the last strong person I had in my life. But I know now that just because you have moments of weakness, times when you just can’t handle everything, that doesn’t mean you weren’t a strong mother for me and Thomas. I wish I could pay you back a thousand times over, because I appreciate having had you as my mother so, so much.

  But

  Cloud Lucy paused again, but instead of staring off into the distance, the pen shook, and Lucy could see that it was from tightening her grip. Then the words continued:

  But no matter how terrible things are, no matter how inescapable the situation looks, please, please don’t give into Uncle’s demands. That inheritance is yours just as much as it is his, and I’m sure grandma would never have let him do what he’s trying right now. I know you feel like you owe him, but that doesn’t give him the right to screw you over when you’re already struggling to make ends meet. I

  She paused yet again, took another deep breath, and added:

  I wish I could have done something, anything, to help you with money. I could have focused on working for now instead of doing part-time and school. I wish I could have told Uncle off. There’s so much I wish I could have done, because I knew you were suffering. Sorry, Mom. Sorry for having been an ignorant daughter. I hope you’ll forgive me.

  Cloud Lucy’s shoulders rose and fell on the last few sentences, which she wrote in a hurry. After taking her pen off the page, she set the pen down beside her on the bed, then used her now free hand to wipe at her cheeks.

  Lucy wasn’t crying, but she wiped at her own cheeks as if those tears were there. She had known her uncle was crooked—so much so that she didn’t want to remember him more than necessary—but if she really was going to be leaving her mother in the middle of a conflict with him, then she could see why Cloud Lucy was crying. She found herself looking down at the lands below, wishing she could find her house and fly down there to be at her mother’s side, even if only briefly, to give her the support Lucy had been unable to give.

  Cloud Lucy stopped wiping at her cheeks and sat still, chest rising and falling, the pen still laying on the bed away from her hand. She must have been emotionally exhausted after that, and Lucy couldn’t blame her likeness for putting the pen down for the night. Lucy herself wasn’t even the one in the hospital bed writing these heavy words, and yet she was feeling weak and vulnerable despite how this show from the clouds was being orchestrated by her whims. As painful as it was to think about, surely this was where Cloud Lucy would give into resignation and do the only thing she could do, which was sleep.

  But to Lucy’s surprise, Cloud Lucy reached for the pen at her side, clutching it firmly between her fingers. She brought it up to the diary once more, and after turning yet another page, she wrote…