Contrary to the outside’s appearance, the interior of his apartment looked largely the same, only much bigger. And like the real version, inside the apartment was... Daniel. Many Daniels, in fact. Daniel was washing dishes in the sink, holding an oversized brush to scrub an oversized pot. Daniel was at the microwave, waiting for something to finish heating. Several Daniels were pushing around a massive vacuum cleaner; 3 pushing the machine from behind while 3 on top held and directed the nozzle. Many other Daniels busied themselves around the room, carrying various things and going God knew where.

  “...This is some dream, alright.” Disembodied voice though she was, it was clear that Penelope was trying to stop herself from laughing.

  Although it was a little comical, when he was the one experiencing it, he could only be unsettled. He got the opportunity to get a closer look at one of his... clones, when he passed by one carrying an errant piece of dry macaroni over his head. It looked exactly like him, down to the last detail – decked out in his signature blue business suit and red tie with an impassive expression on his face, it was like looking into a mirror. A mirror where he was lifting a giant chunk of pasta.

  Daniel watched him go and turned his attention to the rest of them. Some of them were terrestrial in nature, walking on their own two legs, while others had wings similar to what was on his back right now. The flying Daniels performed what seemed to be supervisory tasks, while the grounded Daniels performed manual labor-

  “Ugh.” He said suddenly, shaking his head vigorously.

  Thinking like this was hurting his brain. Daniel watched the land-bound drones ferrying food over to his bedroom, the massive door wide open. When he followed them he found his goal – the creature. It was normal sized (compared to the building, so it was huge), and it was lounging on his bed with an energy pouch on the end of its proboscis, being cleaned by multiple Danie- Drones. As he watched, another set of drones entered the room and walked a bowl full of prawns up a makeshift staircase by the bed, setting down by the creature’s mouth. Its strange mouth tore apart the shellfish while its proboscis drank the energy pouch.

  Daniel frowned. It really shouldn’t eat this much.

  Ignoring that, he willed himself upwards and hovered towards the colossal creature. He needed to get out of this dream somehow, and the best way to do it was to wake it up. For that, he decided to first try conversation. He floated up to its eyes, and it took a glance at him before going back to eating.

  “Tabitha, it’s me.” He said to the creature.

  The creature looked at him in confusion. It looked to the other drones nearby working diligently, as if comparing the specimen before it to them.

  “They aren’t real. This is a dream.”

  The creature only became more confused. Daniel scratched his head. This wasn’t really working.

  “Ok, so basically, I need you to get off the bed and-”

  The creature suddenly became irate and rose from its seat. The working drones all simultaneously stopped moving and looked at him in unison. Daniel instinctively backed away.

  “Uh...”

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  All of the drones advanced towards him.

  “Get out of there, Daniel!” Penelope yelled.

  That galvanized him into action, and he willed himself out of the way of 2 flying drones hurtling towards him. The ground-bound drones amassed below him, unable to meaningfully attack him, but the winged ones had no such restrictions. Dodging the flying assault, he backed out of the bedroom only to find himself surrounded by himself. They floated threateningly around him and carpeted the floor beneath him, like a living hall of mirrors. An endless sea of identical faces.

  “Behind you, the door’s open!”

  Daniel didn’t even look as he hovered backwards, bumping into the door before awkwardly sliding into the slightly ajar opening. Instantly he was met with a white sterile environment, and the drones were reluctant to come inside.

  “What the- why'd they back off?”

  “Bathroom. It hates water.” Daniel explained, looking around.

  Despite its recent adaptations, the creature still wasn’t very fond of the liquid, and apparently that extended to the minions it dreamt up. That gave him an idea.

  “If I remember right, it should be somewhere here...” He said, heading over to bathroom sink.

  He floated down and dragged the cabinet door open, searching inside the cavernous space in search of a specific item. Soon enough, he found his weapon.

  “Hey, can you shrink this down for me?”

  The Daniels guarding the door were anxious, although they didn’t show it. The target had disappeared into the forbidden zone. Why it was forbidden was unknown to them, but it was the queen’s decree, and they had to follow. Unfortunately for them, they were about to find out why it was forbidden. The imposter suddenly burst out of the bathroom. The flying ones spotted him quickly and swarmed towards him, but he pointed his device towards them and pulled the trigger. A cloud of liquid sprayed out from the device and coated the drones, causing them to spiral out of the air. A few more puffs kept the others at bay, and the imposter rocketed into the queen’s room.

  The queen had returned to her idle life of gluttony. On seeing the intruder return, it pulled the pouch off its proboscis and rose to its feet angrily. However, upon seeing what was in the intruder’s hands, it shrunk back in fear. Ignoring the swarming drones gathering to defend the queen, Daniel revealed the spray bottle in his hand and mercilessly sprayed the creature with water. One spray forced the creature to recoil; two sprays and the bedroom dissolved into white nothingness.

  The spray bottle disappeared out of Daniel’s hand, and the wings from his back. The creature returned to its normal size, running around in heedless panic. Through the trauma of reality, he had pulled it away from the dream, but it was really overacting a little.

  “Oh, come on, quit being such a baby.” He said to it disapprovingly.

  Soon enough it noticed that the water was gone and stopped, eyes darting around to inspect its new environment. The sound of footsteps came from behind him, and Daniel turned to find Penelope walking towards him, an expression of bafflement and amazement on her face.

  “...I don’t know how, but you did it.” She said after a pause.

  “Pet owner tricks.” He said, shrugging. “Where are we?”

  “We’re in my mind right now.”

  He looked around at the pristine white background.

  “A little boring, isn’t it?”

  “I’m controlling myself, obviously.” She said, rolling her eyes. “Originally, I was going to send you directly to Penny’s brain, but things happened, so I need to send you through the link she and I share. She is my partner, after all, and our senses are linked somewhat.

  “What that means is that you won’t arrive in your original form. She’s never met you before, so you’ll appear as a person she’s familiar with. But... That might actually be better for us, since you should be able to get closer to her without alerting her.

  “So, are you ready?”

  Daniel looked down at the creature. It no longer looked panicked, instead seeming rather sulky as it jabbed him in the leg with its proboscis. It was otherwise in good health, by all accounts, so he nodded. Penelope stretched out her hand and he took it. The girl looked serious, but also nervous.

  “I have to warn you, it’s not going to be easy to really talk to her. It’ll probably be harder than both of these dreams combined.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Daniel said, shrugging.

  He had already gone through a nightmare and an alien dream, what was the worst that could happen? The girl closed her eyes, and the three of them vanished from the white void.