Eugene could feel her body was afloat.
<em>‘I’m dreaming.’</em>
It was such a familiar sensation even with her eyes closed. She could feel her body lightened, surrounded by dreamlike feelings.
But she couldn’t help but to flinch by what she saw when she slowly opened her eyes. Air bubbles streamed from her mouth and traveled all the way up to the surface.
This wasn’t her usual dream as there was no sign of clear blue sky nor endless horizon where sky met the sea. All that she could make out was the flow of blue water, like how waves heave and set. After turning her head around, she realized that she was indeed surrounded all around by water. Which indicated that she was somewhere deep in the water and not on the surface of the water like usual.
But it didn’t scare her much as she knew that this was only her lucid dream. And the water in her dream would never hurt her. As a matter of fact, she had no difficulty in breathing underwater nor was she pressed by water or shuddered in cold.
Eugene stretched out her arms and began to swim like a mermaid in water. Swimming through the water felt instinctive and fluid as she could move her body to whichever direction she wanted, feeling the water shing past. She continued to explore in deep waters, like a whale swimming deeper into the bottom of the ocean without knowing her bounds.
Instead of being resisted by the force of water, the water gave her a slight push in the back so she could keep going on forward. The water surrounding her was gentle enough so that she never felt out of her breath no matter how fast she swam. Eugene kept swimming for a while until she burst into aughter of pure joy.
She raised her head up as she stopped swimming and felt her body tilted up until she looked as if she was lying face up. She couldn’t imagine how far she must swim to go back onto the surface as water stretched out endlessly above her body. She couldn’t even make out where the bottom of the sea is as it was so dark around her to actually see the seagrasses.
‘Ah….’ Eugene closed her eyes as she let out a long sigh. Although it was impossible to touch the water in a lucid dream, she could still vividly feel that the water was tickling at her soul.
Before today, she had only regarded that she was invited into Jin’s lucid dream. Ramita may be a power of one’s soul, but she didn’t really think that soul was more important than the body itself as a soul alone was meaningless if there weren’t a body to contain it.
But now she finally got the rity that both the body and soul was hers by right from the start. Which means that she was now actually inside her own lucid dream.
<em>‘My Ramita…’</em>
This whole bottomless ocean was her Ramita indeed.
Eugene opened her eyes again when she felt a sudden shiver, that was different from anything she ever experienced in her life. With that, water swirled into a vortex as they rushed into her body. And the next time she opened her eyes, she found herself lying on the bed once again.
Bright sunlight filtered through the window as the curtain was now drawn halfway. The brightness in the room indicated that it’s been long since dawn broke. She remembered how she had talked the night away with her mother before dozing off in the middle. Dana must have got up early as Eugene found herself lying all alone on the wide bed when she opened her eyes.
Eugene did a stretch as she sat up in bed. After that, she looked down to her hands and clenched them into a firm fist. The force surrounding her body felt so strange yet familiar at the same time. She was then reminded of a time when she had asked Kasser a question.
[Can you actually feel the Praz inside you?]
And his answer was this.
[I can feel it. I just know.]
When she first heard him say that, she regarded him inconsiderate as his answer sounded so vague to her. But now she can finally understand what he was trying to convey.
<em>‘I can feel it.’ </em>Eugene broke into a smile as she stared into her tight fists. She could feel her Ramita which had already be a part of herself now. She just knew it.