How To Catch a Dream

Wellar is convinced it’s all connected—his father’s “accident,” the word Ophiuchus, and the fragments from a damaged tape only he’s heard. Ella and Shep push back (and roast his dying Walkman), but they dive in anyway: library research on dreamcatchers, crystals, astral lore, Tesla coils, and the idea that thoughts—maybe dreams—can be “photographed.” At the microfilm reader, Ella finds a thirteen-year-old obituary with a blurry funeral photo. It looks like Principal Miller is there, though no names are listed. Shep stays skeptical; Ella warns against jumping to conclusions. Wellar doubles down: Miller’s hiding something about his dad. In class, numbers and symbols seem to vibrate off the board. In his head, patterns snap into place—constellation shapes, triangle clusters, and a song/word index. Back in the basement, the jukebox yields a lyric fragment about a “magic land,” pointing them toward a plan that must be completed. That night they split roles. Ella shadows Miller on campus; Shep and Wellar quietly enter Miller’s house. An alarm is muted, drawers ransacked—nothing. Then Wellar notices hairline seams in a bedroom wall. His father’s crystal fits a hidden keyway. A low hum swells; veins of light thread across the plaster. The wall opens like a wound in reality to reveal a bronze serpent mirror whose surface crawls with living symbols. “Crystallized.” Chapter 3 shifts the story from suspicion to revelation: grief becomes motive, code becomes map, and a door finally appears. The echo of Hamlet’s ghost hangs over it all—truth demanding to be seen—while the first steps toward a dream-catching device draw the trio into a secret others will do anything to control.

How to Catch a Dream Chapter I begins with a simple question: what if you could capture your dreams like memories on tape? This first chapter introduces Wellar, a gifted teen haunted by the loss of his father. Determined to hold onto his fading memories, he begins building a strange device—a dream-catching machine. The inspiration comes from a theory about the “silver cord,” a thread said to connect our physical body to our astral self. Wellar believes it can record what we see and feel while dreaming. At first, the machine seems to work. But soon, strange images appear. Wellar sees a message he didn’t write—and it’s not meant just for him. Something is hiding in the dreams. Something watching. As he digs deeper, he realizes he’s not just remembering the past—he may be unlocking a secret someone wants to keep buried. This opening chapter blends mystery, sci-fi, and emotional storytelling. It’s retro yet timeless. Think Stranger Things meets Inception, with a dash of Paper Girls.