Of Dreamscapes: G-Arc, pt. 1
The room was spinning again. How many times had he come down this black hole? The number didn’t matter so much as the content he would discover this trip. The blankets slipped effortlessly as his bed slowly gave way beneath him, the room spun in his vision but he did not. As always, the blue-gray darkness of his bedroom was replaced by the impenetrable, suffocating black of this hole. He felt himself falling, but felt no wind beside him, only the deafening silence, and his own breath rasping in his chest.
Down, down he fell, and as always, he never felt the impact of the ground. He always opened his eyes to find himself back in this strange realm of some other’s making, for surely it couldn’t be his own. He sat himself up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and trying to make sense of his surroundings; in the distance a crumbling castle sat atop a mournful hill, the dead, crooked trees stared back at him. The air was cold and smelled of damp earth, a far cry from the cozy blankets back in his bedroom. He realized he was setting atop a small hill in this place, some distance yet from the castle, as well as anywhere else, it seemed. Perhaps in the light of day, in a better season, this might have been a nice spot for a picnic.
“But,” he thought as he stood up, shaking his head gently to stave off the remaining dizziness, “right now this just looks like a good spot to bury a body.”
He began walking, he wasn’t sure why, he was never really sure why he did anything when he came to these places. Some deep part of his brain seemed to understand what needed to happen, even if he consciously did not. Obediently, his feet put themselves one in front of the other. He wasn’t sure at what point it happened, but he found himself in a town, inside a tavern, perhaps an inn. He knew the castle was still nearby, within viewing distance; that this was in fact a village the castle loomed over, if only by the matching decor of misery. It was here he finally saw some people, but they looked strange.. Incomplete. Their faces, while certainly there, were absent at the same time. It was as though he could see and understand the face should be there, but then something was editing it away further inside his mind. Or maybe the reverse was true, and his mind was protecting him from a creature that had no discernible features.
The tavern was small, dirty, and that cold damp air hung about like the roof was missing. The bar itself was made of old, rotting wood, with some five stools sitting in front of it. Tables where other patrons may have once sat lay strewn about the room, some half-destroyed, others crooked and pitched to one side. Broken bits of chair lay discarded on the dirty stone floors, moss growing into the wood, branching out from its neighboring tiles. The place felt, on the whole, discarded; like some forgotten toy in a world full of broken things.
The two patrons at the bar barely moved, hardly registered his presence. The one that did look up, with it’s smeared face and void-filled eyes, simply stared in his direction. Its hand lay firmly wrapped around a mug, its other arm hung lifelessly next to him. It had muscles, and looked like it could easily break bones given the chance, but it sat there, limp, useless.
The boy did not feel uneasy around these things, but remorseful. How long had they been sitting here, creatures bound to a seat in a place that would see no new life? He took a few steps into the tavern, hand resting on the pommel of his blade that sat so easily on his hip. The scabbard bounced gently against his thigh as he approached the bar. The man who had given him a glance slowly turned away, back towards the bar. His mouth had been slowly materializing the more the boy stared. It hung slack, the occasional tooth poking out past the man’s lips. He slowly raised his mug to his mouth and poured some sort of liquid towards it. He made no attempt to drink though, just mechanically rotated the cup, letting the drink spill to the floor from his mouth. Again the boy felt the tug of remorse.
No sooner had he reached the bar than a massive crash forced his attention behind him. A table had been flung into what was left of a wall, splintering the rotting wood and chipping the pockmarked cobblestone walls. A beast was pulling itself through the doorway, and this was perhaps the first thing the boy had recognized since his arrival. The familiar static that emanated from the creature, the constantly shifting outline, the face that looked simplistic, almost childishly drawn, but menacing all the same. This being pulled itself through the broken doorway, it’s arms were black spikes that cracked the stone it plunged into, and it’s rear half was jagged, dripping haunches, with a waist like a wasp. It drew its mouth open wide, wider than was logically possible, and the boy watched as it grew in width at the same time. Rows of daggers glared at him from the other side of this small tavern, but neither of the patrons paid any mind to the horror that had entered. The boy felt his hand tighten on the pommel of his blade, but he felt no need to draw steel yet.
The beast rose on its hind legs to a full 12 feet, towering above the boy, the patrons, and where a roof should have been. It stood nearly as tall as the leaning chimney that was perhaps once attached to a fireplace that held a warm fire, a hearth with mementos and trinkets, a place of comfort and safety. The boy watched as the creature lunged for the patron furthest from him, the spiked arm pierced the man with ease, its mouth came crashing down upon him, from clavicle to abdomen, ripping the man clean in half with nary a bit of effort, like ripping tissue paper. The man spilled blood and entrails, bits of flesh slapped the ground, falling free from the beast’s mouth, but the man never yelled, never screamed agony. He simply ceased to exist, and his fleshy prison was left behind for the taking. What was left of the body fell limp and dangled off the stool, gravity slowly taking over and pulling the rest to the floor with a squelch. The beast never swallowed either, the boy noticed. It tore a body in two and what it had captured seemingly evaporated in its gore smeared mouth, which spread into a slow, Cheshire-wide grin.
The boy’s attention was stolen again by a creaking, followed by soft footsteps that came from behind the curtain, behind the bar. An old hag came creeping out from a wisp thin curtain that had no utility beyond mere existence left. She walked with a small, haggard looking stick, worn smooth from decades of use. She turned her hunched frame to look at the boy, and there he saw yet another strange creature; a deformed face that melded into features he recognized as his own mother, blended with the blurriness of disbelief. The nose in particular was long, jilted to one side, and wrinkled as though it had been burnt in a fire, and was given the unfortunate chance to recover. Her face broke in surprise upon seeing the boy, a wistful grin slowly replaced her shock. She gestured with her cane for him to follow her, and she retreated behind the worthless curtain.
The beast had shrunk now, down to a more manageable height, and it took on a different appearance as well. The haunches it sat on retracted into the waist, its head and arms became more humanoid looking, and it almost had the appearance of floating, the way it slowly rose up and down. It floated next to the boy, the Cheshire-grin still planted firmly in place. Its eyes held no iris, it was all pupil, with an outline that changed and shifted constantly. They were black holes the boy could easily fall into, he imagined he already had.
He turned to follow the old hag, and the dusky thing followed at his heels. Gliding through the stagnant air, keeping that grin all the while.
The woman spoke, her voice grating and slow “We have much to speak of, and little time..”
The creature behind the boy now spoke, its voice halting, deep, rising from the depths of that being, ominous in their existence, “THEN ALLOW ME.”
The creature slid a shadowy appendage onto the boys shoulder, he felt the heat and vibrant life flow out as it touched him. Simultaneously the beast brought himself to the boy’s ear, it spoke to him, in a sense. He heard words, but he felt the beast inside his mind, felt it probing around as it presented to him a world of possibilities. He saw his past and present up to this very moment in a flash, and he saw the span of destiny laid before him. An infinity of paths to choose from, a lifetime of options he would never see, his quests and journeys, his losses, his suffering, his eventual defeat, no matter which option he chose. He saw his loved ones dying in his arms, he saw his family that he would never see again, he saw his own death at the hands of countless assailants, vagabonds, monsters, creatures, and villains.
The beast drew away, and the boy could almost feel the insatiable hunger returning in it. The woman stood horrified, waiting for a reaction from the boy, the look of someone who held a horrible secret that someone else has laid bare.
The creature nudged the boy, “GO ON, TELL HER WHAT YOU SAW.” The boy remained silent for some time, he heard the woman swallow, a click in her throat.
“No,” the boy said finally, “what I saw was for me, and me alone. None of that will deter me from my path.”
He nodded to himself as if confirming his own thoughts. He looked up at the woman one last time, a single tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek, the resemblance to his mother had vanished, along with the other strange deformities. The beast behind him chuckled, he didn’t have to look to know that damned grin was still there.
The chuckle became a steady laugh, then a chortle, then a bellow, then a paced tone that repeated over, and over, and over. The boy opened his eyes, turned off his alarm clock, and tried to shake the sleep from his head. The room had stopped spinning, but it was still dark outside, winter was coming.
He got out of bed, got himself dressed, and headed downstairs for some breakfast, it would be another long day. Sitting in front of his morning meal he felt his limbs getting heavier, his eyes began to droop, with one final effort he tried to get his bearings, but he found he was lying on the floor.
The room was spinning again.
Down, down he fell, and as always, he never felt the impact of the ground. He always opened his eyes to find himself back in this strange realm of some other’s making, for surely it couldn’t be his own. He sat himself up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and trying to make sense of his surroundings; in the distance a crumbling castle sat atop a mournful hill, the dead, crooked trees stared back at him. The air was cold and smelled of damp earth, a far cry from the cozy blankets back in his bedroom. He realized he was setting atop a small hill in this place, some distance yet from the castle, as well as anywhere else, it seemed. Perhaps in the light of day, in a better season, this might have been a nice spot for a picnic.
“But,” he thought as he stood up, shaking his head gently to stave off the remaining dizziness, “right now this just looks like a good spot to bury a body.”
He began walking, he wasn’t sure why, he was never really sure why he did anything when he came to these places. Some deep part of his brain seemed to understand what needed to happen, even if he consciously did not. Obediently, his feet put themselves one in front of the other. He wasn’t sure at what point it happened, but he found himself in a town, inside a tavern, perhaps an inn. He knew the castle was still nearby, within viewing distance; that this was in fact a village the castle loomed over, if only by the matching decor of misery. It was here he finally saw some people, but they looked strange.. Incomplete. Their faces, while certainly there, were absent at the same time. It was as though he could see and understand the face should be there, but then something was editing it away further inside his mind. Or maybe the reverse was true, and his mind was protecting him from a creature that had no discernible features.
The tavern was small, dirty, and that cold damp air hung about like the roof was missing. The bar itself was made of old, rotting wood, with some five stools sitting in front of it. Tables where other patrons may have once sat lay strewn about the room, some half-destroyed, others crooked and pitched to one side. Broken bits of chair lay discarded on the dirty stone floors, moss growing into the wood, branching out from its neighboring tiles. The place felt, on the whole, discarded; like some forgotten toy in a world full of broken things.
The two patrons at the bar barely moved, hardly registered his presence. The one that did look up, with it’s smeared face and void-filled eyes, simply stared in his direction. Its hand lay firmly wrapped around a mug, its other arm hung lifelessly next to him. It had muscles, and looked like it could easily break bones given the chance, but it sat there, limp, useless.
The boy did not feel uneasy around these things, but remorseful. How long had they been sitting here, creatures bound to a seat in a place that would see no new life? He took a few steps into the tavern, hand resting on the pommel of his blade that sat so easily on his hip. The scabbard bounced gently against his thigh as he approached the bar. The man who had given him a glance slowly turned away, back towards the bar. His mouth had been slowly materializing the more the boy stared. It hung slack, the occasional tooth poking out past the man’s lips. He slowly raised his mug to his mouth and poured some sort of liquid towards it. He made no attempt to drink though, just mechanically rotated the cup, letting the drink spill to the floor from his mouth. Again the boy felt the tug of remorse.
No sooner had he reached the bar than a massive crash forced his attention behind him. A table had been flung into what was left of a wall, splintering the rotting wood and chipping the pockmarked cobblestone walls. A beast was pulling itself through the doorway, and this was perhaps the first thing the boy had recognized since his arrival. The familiar static that emanated from the creature, the constantly shifting outline, the face that looked simplistic, almost childishly drawn, but menacing all the same. This being pulled itself through the broken doorway, it’s arms were black spikes that cracked the stone it plunged into, and it’s rear half was jagged, dripping haunches, with a waist like a wasp. It drew its mouth open wide, wider than was logically possible, and the boy watched as it grew in width at the same time. Rows of daggers glared at him from the other side of this small tavern, but neither of the patrons paid any mind to the horror that had entered. The boy felt his hand tighten on the pommel of his blade, but he felt no need to draw steel yet.
The beast rose on its hind legs to a full 12 feet, towering above the boy, the patrons, and where a roof should have been. It stood nearly as tall as the leaning chimney that was perhaps once attached to a fireplace that held a warm fire, a hearth with mementos and trinkets, a place of comfort and safety. The boy watched as the creature lunged for the patron furthest from him, the spiked arm pierced the man with ease, its mouth came crashing down upon him, from clavicle to abdomen, ripping the man clean in half with nary a bit of effort, like ripping tissue paper. The man spilled blood and entrails, bits of flesh slapped the ground, falling free from the beast’s mouth, but the man never yelled, never screamed agony. He simply ceased to exist, and his fleshy prison was left behind for the taking. What was left of the body fell limp and dangled off the stool, gravity slowly taking over and pulling the rest to the floor with a squelch. The beast never swallowed either, the boy noticed. It tore a body in two and what it had captured seemingly evaporated in its gore smeared mouth, which spread into a slow, Cheshire-wide grin.
The boy’s attention was stolen again by a creaking, followed by soft footsteps that came from behind the curtain, behind the bar. An old hag came creeping out from a wisp thin curtain that had no utility beyond mere existence left. She walked with a small, haggard looking stick, worn smooth from decades of use. She turned her hunched frame to look at the boy, and there he saw yet another strange creature; a deformed face that melded into features he recognized as his own mother, blended with the blurriness of disbelief. The nose in particular was long, jilted to one side, and wrinkled as though it had been burnt in a fire, and was given the unfortunate chance to recover. Her face broke in surprise upon seeing the boy, a wistful grin slowly replaced her shock. She gestured with her cane for him to follow her, and she retreated behind the worthless curtain.
The beast had shrunk now, down to a more manageable height, and it took on a different appearance as well. The haunches it sat on retracted into the waist, its head and arms became more humanoid looking, and it almost had the appearance of floating, the way it slowly rose up and down. It floated next to the boy, the Cheshire-grin still planted firmly in place. Its eyes held no iris, it was all pupil, with an outline that changed and shifted constantly. They were black holes the boy could easily fall into, he imagined he already had.
He turned to follow the old hag, and the dusky thing followed at his heels. Gliding through the stagnant air, keeping that grin all the while.
The woman spoke, her voice grating and slow “We have much to speak of, and little time..”
The creature behind the boy now spoke, its voice halting, deep, rising from the depths of that being, ominous in their existence, “THEN ALLOW ME.”
The creature slid a shadowy appendage onto the boys shoulder, he felt the heat and vibrant life flow out as it touched him. Simultaneously the beast brought himself to the boy’s ear, it spoke to him, in a sense. He heard words, but he felt the beast inside his mind, felt it probing around as it presented to him a world of possibilities. He saw his past and present up to this very moment in a flash, and he saw the span of destiny laid before him. An infinity of paths to choose from, a lifetime of options he would never see, his quests and journeys, his losses, his suffering, his eventual defeat, no matter which option he chose. He saw his loved ones dying in his arms, he saw his family that he would never see again, he saw his own death at the hands of countless assailants, vagabonds, monsters, creatures, and villains.
The beast drew away, and the boy could almost feel the insatiable hunger returning in it. The woman stood horrified, waiting for a reaction from the boy, the look of someone who held a horrible secret that someone else has laid bare.
The creature nudged the boy, “GO ON, TELL HER WHAT YOU SAW.” The boy remained silent for some time, he heard the woman swallow, a click in her throat.
“No,” the boy said finally, “what I saw was for me, and me alone. None of that will deter me from my path.”
He nodded to himself as if confirming his own thoughts. He looked up at the woman one last time, a single tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek, the resemblance to his mother had vanished, along with the other strange deformities. The beast behind him chuckled, he didn’t have to look to know that damned grin was still there.
The chuckle became a steady laugh, then a chortle, then a bellow, then a paced tone that repeated over, and over, and over. The boy opened his eyes, turned off his alarm clock, and tried to shake the sleep from his head. The room had stopped spinning, but it was still dark outside, winter was coming.
He got out of bed, got himself dressed, and headed downstairs for some breakfast, it would be another long day. Sitting in front of his morning meal he felt his limbs getting heavier, his eyes began to droop, with one final effort he tried to get his bearings, but he found he was lying on the floor.
The room was spinning again.
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