Of course. Why not? Flying, gliding through the air. It's every human's fantasy, and here I could be doing it in my dream.
All I had to do was close my eyes and want it.
I shut my eyes and spread my arms slightly outward.
"I want to fly," I whispered to myself, visualizing myself soaring in my imagination.
There wasn't much I needed to imagine. Just picturing myself in the air, above the ground, floating and gliding.
Slowly, I felt my body grow lighter. The weight on my legs began to lift, slowly, as if the burden were being stripped away. I sensed a faint breeze brushing over my head in a windless day.
Slowly, I decided to open my eyes.
As my eyelids parted, I couldn't believe what I saw. I was in the air, hovering high above the ground. I was flying!
This was one of humanity's greatest desires, to travel without gadgets or machinery, to glide like a bird.
And here, I was doing it. Sure, it was a dream, meaning I wasn't actually flying. But even so, how many billions of people would never experience this, even in their wildest dreams?
I felt a surge of excitement again. This was my first time experiencing flight, and honestly, it was far more thrilling than driving a car.
First, I looked down. How high was I?
I was on the same height as my apartment building, which stood roughly 20 meters tall. That is the height of a five-story building.
Peering downward, I could see the car I'd driven earlier, other cars, benches. Everything looked small, like they were made for ants, not humans..
"I need to be quick," I muttered to myself.
I was right. I could wake up at any moment. Who'd want to wake up in the middle of a dream's most beautiful moment? Especially since I could control this dream.
I had to learn how to fly properly. If I kept closing my eyes and wishing every time, it'd be too slow, and I'd crash into a building before changing direction. After my recent accident, I didn't need another.
So, I had to practically test and learn how to move in every direction.
First, I leaned forward slightly, as if tilting my head ahead. My intention was to move forward and it worked. Gradually, I felt myself drifting forward. To confirm, I immediately looked down.
Ha! I'd moved forward, even if just a little. This meant something: whichever direction I leaned, I'd go that way.
I needed to test it all directions to be sure. So, I leaned to the left. This time, I didn't need to look down. The rush of air against my face told me everything I needed.
In the same way, I experimented with moving up and down. Lifting my head made me ascend; lowering it made me descend. I learned how to move already. Only one problem remained.
Where should I fly?
I didn't have a specific destination in mind. Sure, I'd always wanted to go to Paris, check out the Louvre Museum, maybe eat croissant while watching the Eiffel Tower, but I might wake up before getting there. I would take long time to fly there on my own. Maybe teleportation or a plane could work but not flying. Would I even have time for all of them?
"I can do both if I hurry" I began muttering to myself.
"Maybe head to the city park? It's a large park, ideal for flying."
I pulled my phone from my pocket to check which direction to fly. Sure, I knew the route by bus, but flying meant cutting straight over buildings.
The park was north.
I turned my face to north, leaned forward, and began moving. I flew through the heart of the city. Since there were some tall buildings, I tried slipping between them, careful not to collide. My speed wasn't exactly Brugati-level, but at least I could fly.
For a better view and smoother flight, I'd risen higher, roughly 100 meters up, well above most of the city's buildings.
After passing several buildings, the city's tallest structure was ahead of me. I began veering left to skirt around it. That's when I felt a strong gust of wind from my right. The air had been calm earlier, but suddenly, a wind blew from the east. I didn't pay much attention to it.
Just as I was about to clear the building, the wind's direction began shifting. Now it blew from the north, opposing my forward motion. I leaned further forward, trying to speed up, but the wind only intensified. It grew so strong that I could barely move forward, even drifting backward slightly.
Panicking, I decided to fly lower. Maybe weaving between buildings would reduce the wind's impact. Slowly, I began descending. But the wind kept strengthening, becoming nearly unstoppable. I shut my eyes and imagined the wind stopping. Taking deep breaths, I opened them two seconds later.
The wind hadn't stopped, it had even grown fiercer. Now I couldn't fly as I wanted. I tried descending faster, thinking if the wind hurled me somewhere, I might just wake up.
Then I started to hear a strange sound. Rustling paper. Where was it coming from? I'd never heard this in real life, only in movies when papers scatter in the wind.
Ignoring it, I focused on moving forward.
The wind roared so violently I couldn't see ahead, but something nagged at me: How could paper rustle in this chaos?
As I wondered, the rustling grew louder, closer. Slowly, I realized the sound came from the north, carried by the wind.
I tried tilting my head up to look—
A sheet of paper smacked my face.