Snippets and Stories: (R) The World Beyond

"Your loss again." he chortled. Neskyii was off to the side, that typical and ever sly Cheshire smile on his face.

I'm scowling at him, I can feel my lip pulling back, though never parting, as if to bare teeth.

His eyes are slanted and narrow, often reminding me of a wily fox. The image suits him well.

It was another one of those dreams. Not a nightmare per se, but a daunting game of cat and mouse. 

When it started I know not, and the bits I could recall are as follows. 

My first awareness that I could remember was amidst a dark city of antique and color. Not quite rustic or bearing the steampunk theme, but like a sleeping toy miniature of a city. I followed a path of train tracks and gradually the sound of footsteps reached me. 

It was another of his games.

Keep out of the shadows.

If there are any rules in the dreamworld, this certainly numbers among the top 5.

Rule two, don't stop running.

I ran, and though I couldn't feel the burn, my body was weakened as it always was in this realm. No matter what corner I turned it all seemed the same. The buildings arched overhead, their twisting shadows splayed across the cobblestone streets.

There was a low din, like the disgruntled mutterings of seething crowd, and I made a mistake of craning around as the whispers rose in volume. 

Three, don't look back.

Behind me something was in the shadows, its monstrous form silent, but no less deadly. Horrifying clawed appendages reached for me, the black talons snagging and rupturing blood from mundane items. 

I'm not sure how a lamppost could bleed, but it did, and the blood that flowed out seemed to become an ocean, thick and murky.

Four, don't go in the water.

Swimming is always a bad idea. Even if I did manage to somehow swim in my dreams, there's always something in the water. 

Though I felt none of the exertion, my dream self was panting, their pace steady as they grasped a railed stairwell and raced up onto the roof.

Five, it's just a dream.

It took a long time, but seeing the world in its entirety, this toy replica of a city with its own steam engine train puffing through the streets, I realized.

From past experiences from an astral's view, my eyes were likely glowing. 

Dark clouds from the steam engine blanketed the city with cloud and fog, a light drizzle showering all beneath it. Yet I could feel none of it.

As I always did upon reaching a state of consciousness, I took for the skies.

It was hard to fly this time around, and my mind felt heavy trying to sustain flight. It was brief, but I relished in the sensation of flight. Something I never dreamed of doing (pun unintended), but enjoyed at its opportunities

With my hands in front of me I willed the clouds to part, and slowly they did. There was no sun, but it was brighter now.

In a rare moment, I admired the field of green beneath me. It would only be much later, in the waking world, that I realized it had transitioned into day. Likely due to my subconscious fear for the dark and all things in it.

It's amazing, the world created within the mind's eye, and now I had the lucidity to fully appreciate it.

The clouds weren't fully dispersed when he appeared, all smiles.

"Conscious are we?" came an amused voice. 

His arrival wasn't unexpected. Being a spectator in that moment I could see and feel more than what my dreamself was restricted to looking at. 

I turn to face him. This wasn't someone you wanted to turn your back to. 

And yet, exposing the front was sometimes more perilous still.

"Ah yes-" his eyes open just a slit as his voice takes on darker tones, "-but not yet awake." 

It's rare for anyone who speaks in my dream to maintain their own enunciation, yet he always speaks with his own voice.

"What are you doing here Neskyii?"

The raven laughs, as if the answer was obvious. And perhaps it was. My dreamself was never all that coherent.

Ah, yes. I forgot one last thing. And perhaps one of the most important.

"To wake you, of course."

Don't trust anyone or anything.

I'm not sure I like the smile on his face, but then again, when have I ever? But what he said was strange, and I voiced it with a matter of fact tone, "You can't touch me while I'm lucid."

"No. I can't." his eyes become slitted again as he narrows them, that smile still lingering. "But neither are you able to maintain it."

And with that a black tendril coils up from somewhere in the slumbering toy city beneath me. I lurch back as it twists around my ankle, and having my concentration broken, forget.

The light dims from my eyes. It was no longer a dream. It was real. 

Neskyii appears in front of me, his own eyes glinting with unmasked mirth. 

As he pulls back a clawed hand, he bids me a final farewell, the last word laced with a mockery and distaste, "It's time to wake up, dear creator."

With that, he plunges it into me. 

And suddenly I'm staring at pastel blue walls and a blanket of maroon and forest green.

The blow doesn't land. It never does. Still I reach up to touch my sternum. His claws were aimed for the soft unprotected flesh right below.

I hear a low laugh and fix him with a jaded glare, "That wasn't funny Neskyii."

"Come now, don't be upset." he chuckles, nonchalantly shrugging off the withering look I sent his way and grinning wider at my glower, "It was only a dream."