A/N: This one-shot is based on the idea of what would happen if a subconscious projection intercepted the whole process of inception and forced Robert to wake up earlier than planned. Let me know what you guys think about it. 

I also want to know your theories about what happened at the end of the movie and of course about what you think happened at the end of this one-shot.

PLAYLIST

Numb by Linkin Park. 

Seasons by Bebe Rexha and Dolly Parton. 

Bridges by Calum Scott.

•••

"Never make a cage you can't get out of."

A faint voice rings in his head, fighting through the cloudy white that engulfs him.

"You've been trained for this, Robert. You know what to do when someone tries to break through. Don't let them in."

He looks around frantically but sees no one. Only a plain white stretches out in front of him, enveloping him from all sides—closing in on him.

"Wake up," that voice urges him, "You must wake up."

A sharp blow convulses him and his eyes fly open, disoriented and blurred. He still can't see anything in front of him, head spinning from the shock of just being jolted awake.

He feels awake and yet the whole world around him is tipped on an axis. His hands are bound, he can hear the sound of wheels, and his face is covered with what seems to be a thick fabric. Struggling to breathe, he somehow removes the covering on his face, his wrists aching from the tight bounds.

When he finally takes in his surroundings, he inhales sharply. The van is tilted and every person inside is suspended in the air, including the driver. Much to his shock, every single person is asleep, eyes closed and limbs hanging.

It can't be real, he thinks, his hands turning cold. It must be a dream.

"You're still asleep, Robert. Wake up."

The voice rings in his head again, chilling him to the bone. Was he asleep before he woke up from that jolt or was he asleep now with the van tilted and the world slowed down?

"Wake up... You must wake up."

"But how?" He wants to scream out but his voice betrays him, the words captive in the cage of his throat.

"If you die in a dream, you wake up."

The voice fades and the van he is in goes off the bridge, plunging deep under the water. His hands flail to reach for the door as he struggles to open it.

Hurling himself at the door doesn't work and when the water starts seeping in through an open window, there's not much he can do.

He knows he's going to die, stuck there with five of those sleeping passengers. Whether he would wake up or not is something he has no inkling about.

•••

The last thing he remembered was sitting on the shore with his father's old friend and trusted confidante, Peter Browning. The last words he remembered uttering were telling him that he would build his own legacy instead of blindly following the path his father had laid out for him.

He had been so confident when he said it, unaware that the thought he had just given words to was planted in his brain through a careful process of inception. 

"Come, Uncle. Let's go home." He helped the old man off the ground, intending to find help for both of them. They were soaked from head to toe, having miraculously escaped from the sinking van. 

But when he turned back, he found no one behind him.

He was there alone.

"Uncle?" He muttered, looking around for the man he had just been talking to, "Uncle Peter, where did you go?"

His heartbeat quickened, an unsettling realization taking hold of him. Peter Browning had just been behind him but he was nowhere to be seen—almost as if he had faded into thin air.

Had he truly woken up or was he still in a dream?

He spun around, taking in the surroundings in alarm. 

Everything around him was bleaching out—losing all color and form to blend into a ghastly white. He held his hand out and much to his shock, found himself drifting away too in white wisps.

"What the hell is going on?" His brow furrowed in alarm and he is unable to grasp the blinding white expanse unfolding before him.

"You are in limbo, Robert." 

The voice he had heard earlier broke through the deafening silence and he struggles to find the source of the sound.

There was nothing around him that could give him any indication of where the voice was coming from. All he knew was that he had heard that voice multiple times before—when and how, he did not remember.

"Is this a dream?" He asked at last, calming himself down by taking in deep breaths. Panicking in that situation would only make things worse, that much he knew well himself. "Am I still sleeping?"

"No, this is worse. You are suspended in dream and reality. If you don't find a way out soon, you could be trapped here forever."

"What?" 

He swallowed but his throat felt lined with sandpaper. He was surrounded by an unearthly white—a void that terrified him beyond belief.

But then, when it came to dreams, almost everything defied belief, much similar to his present circumstances. One would think standing in an empty room would be liberating, but to him, it only crushed his lungs in. Sheer emptiness was terrifying in itself. 

"We trained for this. Focus." 

Those words somehow extended a lifeline to him and he trained all his focus on that familiar voice. He didn't want to be suspended between dreams and reality forever. He didn't even remember where he had been when he was put into that deep sleep with layers upon layers of dreams.

But then slight wisps of memory fluttered to him. He had been in a plane, he was going to see his father for one last time. What happened after he boarded the plane was a hazy mess.

The reason he was engulfed in white was his own inability to remember and recognize where he was. If only he could remember, he might be able to get out.

"You are in your own subconscious. You are the only one who can manipulate it. You must take control before it takes control of you."

That voice... He had to remember who exactly was talking to him, whether he could trust the words of warning or not. 

Nothing around him made sense except for the haunting familiarity of that fading voice.

He took in a shaky breath, trying to silence the clamor in his head. The white noise in his head had materialized into that suffocating white expanse—he had to think of something that could root him to his life before he fell in that deep slumber.

Closing his eyes, he pictured a fading cherry blossom wallpaper, a cozy little room that he hadn't visited in years. He didn't even know if that room still existed in his family home just as he remembered it. But when he used to live there, it was the one place that could provide him comfort.

Focusing on the details, the warm mahogany furniture and the flimsy curtains, when he opened his eyes, the white around him had taken shape of that room. The tightening in his chest released and he collapsed on the floor by the bed, holding onto the soft comforter.

Something pierced through his left hand and he looked down, seeing a shattered picture frame. Picking it up, he saw a woman he could no longer see again.

A lump rose in his throat, hands enveloping the shattered frame as his finger traced the almost forgotten features of his mother who had died long ago. Seeing that face again, the pieces in his fragmented memory started to click together akin to a secret code put in an old vault to open it. 

That voice he had been hearing belonged to his mother, the same woman who's last photograph he was clutching close, not caring that the shards were piercing through him.

"Mother," he whispered, tears welling up in his eyes. 

The room was starting to blur but he rooted himself to the moment, recalling all his memories from the past that he had spent in those four walls, lamenting a life he never got to live.

"It's alright, Robert. Everything will be alright soon."

The pain from the shattered picture frame jolted him out of that limbo, and the walls around him spun, eventually fading into nothing. Heart racing and breaths uneven, he sat up, finding himself in the airplane.

His hands were shaking, clutching the armrests of his seat tightly. He still felt the pain of the shard of glass from the frame puncturing his skin so he turned his palm upward.

A splinter from the seat was lodged into his skin, a drop of red swirling around it. With a slight wince, he took it out, thumb pressing onto the small wound.

Pain stabbed through his nerves, and he dropped his head onto his hands, his temples hammered out by the heavy after effects of the sedatives he had been given.

"Mister Fischer, are you okay?"

His head snapped up to see the flight attendant, standing there with a concerned expression.

"Uh, yes... Yes, I'm fine," he mumbled, looking around him to take clear note of his surroundings.

Recognition flickered on his face to see the man sitting behind him, the same man he had seen consistently in his dream. But at the moment, that man was asleep and so was the man behind him.

It reminded him of that scene in the tilted van when all the passengers and the driver excluding him had been unconscious as it went off the bridge.

An unnerving sense of dread gripped him and he turned back to face the flight attendant. At least, not everyone around him was asleep.

"How long is it left to Los Angeles?" He asked, unable to hide the tremor in his fingers, caused by the impending dread of people following him in real life and subjecting him to an altered reality in his dream.

"We're about to land within half an hour."

"Is it possible for me to change my seat?" He asked, furtively looking back at the man who was still asleep.

If he could infiltrate his subconscious to such a deeper level while they were both asleep, he certainly didn't want to interact with that man in their waking moments.

The attendant looked at him in surprise, "I'm sorry but First class and Business is full. We do have a few seats in economy..."

"Economy, then. I don't care. I just need to get away from them..." He stood up immediately, holding onto the seat to steady himself as his mind was still reeling from just waking up.

She reached out to steady him, but he refused, holding his hand up. His brain had switched into a primitive survival mode and he couldn't trust anyone.

All he wanted was to get off the plane somehow and make sure that he was no longer trapped in a dream.

She led the way to the economy class and he followed, his eyes sweeping over the passengers who were looking at him in curiosity. Any person he saw asleep, he felt he could have encountered in his dream and it filled him up with an unshakeable dread.

He found a seat at the end and he made sure there were no sleeping passengers around him when he sat down.

"Do you need anything else, Sir?" The attendant asked but he shook his head.

She left and he looked down at his hand again, the sting of the splinter still there. He pressed his index finger harshly over the small cut, making it hurt on purpose. If he was still asleep, the pain should have jolted him awake.

But nothing changed, his surroundings remained steady, assuring him that he was finally awake. But he would only feel safe once he was on the firm ground and able to reach the safety of his house.

His thoughts were disrupted by the pilot's voice crackling over the intercom.

"Attention passengers, this is your captain speaking. We are beginning our descent into Los Angeles International Airport. Local time is 6:15 PM and the weather is partly cloudy with a temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit. We ask that you please return your seats and ensure your seatbelts are fastened as we prepare for landing. Thank you for flying with us today, and we hope you enjoyed your journey. Welcome to Los Angeles."

He looked out the small oval window as the plane began its descent, the familiar skyline of Los Angeles coming into view. Releasing a shaky breath, he removed his crimson fingertip from the wound and covered it gently with his palm.

The seconds ticked by and he kept count in his head, until the jolt of the plane's tires hitting the runway shook him. Nothing in his surroundings changed, he looked around twice to make sure of that.

He was awake. He tried to assure himself. Soon, he would be out on the Los Angeles International Airport where someone from his father's company would be waiting to receive him.

Though one thing was for certain, he was never going to sit in a plane with other passengers. He couldn't take that risk again.

Amid the crowd of passengers, he forced his way out of the plane, cautious of each hand or arm brushing against him. He still feared someone from the sleeping people he had seen in the van when he had woken up on the third layer of the dream sequence would pull him back into limbo.

But nothing of the sort happened and at last he was out on the airport, his feet on firm ground. He spotted a man holding a board with the name Fischer on it and taking in a deep breath to calm himself down, he proceeded toward him.

"Good evening, Mister Fischer," the man smiled, showing him his card and identification.

He nodded, his brain urging him to find someplace to sit before his legs gave way and he collapsed on the floor. 

"Send someone to fetch my luggage," he mumbled. But then recalling something, he added, "I also have to make a call."

The man nodded, handing him a phone while he went to retrieve the luggage. Robert punched in the digits he remembered, placing the phone next to his ear. 

Soon, the unmistakable voice of his godfather, Peter Browning, broke through the silence, sending a wave of relief over him.

Peter was safe and at home, waiting for him. He hadn't been involved in that dream, all he had seen was a projection of him or someone pretending to be him. 

With that realization, Robert steadied himself, holding onto the metal rail beside him. He turned to see the rest of the passengers filing out, but barely saw a stretcher being moved out as he looked away, slowly accepting his reality.

He was in Los Angeles and he was awake.

The dream had ended for him.

But it hadn't ended for all the people involved in his inception.

Some were still stuck, such as that man on the stretcher, who was being wheeled out to an ambulance, two armed policemen beside him.

***