There was a bang. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw a mirror frame stuck in the sand at the edge of the seashore.

I moved closer, and it turned out that it wasn’t a mirror. What I bore witness to was an actual portal.

It rippled every time a sea wave hit it, sucking the water inside of it. There must have been a lower atmospheric pressure in the other dimension.

I wondered if I could make a power generator using the pressure difference, but I didn’t seem to have any tools with me. There was just a checklist laying on the stony shore by my hooves. It only had one unchecked line: ‘Torture Trixie!’.

Something felt off. I was used to having longer lists than the one I was seeing, and they usually started with: “Stop lucid dreaming and wake up!”

A mental mechanism triggered in my thought patterns. It was time for the reality check.

Horn—shut down. Wings—folded. Proceed with the flying test.

I focused my mind on the stones beneath me and mentally pushed against them.

I floated up. None of my feet touched the ground anymore.

“Check complete. This is a dream!” I landed back on the beach.

“What should I do now?” I looked toward the portal.

Perhaps I could make that generator. An enthusiastic smile formed on my face. I lifted up a hoof and created a bent metal plate, from thin air, that would serve me as a chassis for my device.

A horseshoe landed hard against the stones beside me.

I looked up.

There was a flock of birds flying in a circle over me. Another one fell from the cloud of flying critters and smashed against the stones. And another and another.

The flock moved further away and dropped horseshoes in rapid succession. It flew above the cottage at the seaside. They fell on the wooden roof.

The sounds of falling horseshoes silenced as the flock flew beyond the cottage.

I looked back at the portal and my metal. It was futile. Everything I make will just vanish when I wake up.

I looked at my list again, and it changed. “Stop lucid dreaming and wake up!”

It was better to invent something in the real world. What I made in reality could survive all my sleeping cycles. Such wasn’t the case with any of my dream productivity.

I made a pen appear out of thin air and checked the empty box on my list. It was time to wake up.

Looking up at the sky, I tensed up and shattered the fake reality around me. Breaking through!

I opened my eyes.

I lay on the platform in my basement.

After noticing an empty changeling holding construction, I scoured the basement for any bluish tinge.

The room was empty. Trixie was gone.

“Fuck!”

Author's Note

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