Fantasy Dreamscape

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

"Good night, Elliott."

Your father's warm and quiet voice sets the tone to a silent welcome from the darkness. The only candle still lit is on the other end of the hallway, in your parents' room.

Surrounded by all you hold dear, you feel a rising comfort as you sink onto the mattress. It's a rough bed, just as how your life has been, but you know that all these years of struggle will pay off when you graduate. You should remember that you are one of the first ever to set foot in an university, and you will be one of the fewer still that step out a master in their degree. Your perseverance has brought you here, accompanied by some talent and a bit of luck. But will it be enough?

Your conscience falls.

You see a man from behind as he draws. He is sitting on a wooden stool, his back arched over the small table. His right hand sweeps the air and the pen it holds shapes lines into abstract forms of life. You do not know how, but your feet are guiding you forward. They are gentle in their stepping, allowing you to approach the man without a sound. Your breathing is quieter than ever, your knees bend slightly to allow you to sneak even better across the large, dark room. You feel something cold held by your left hand. Your fingers wrap perfectly around it. You can't see it through the darkness, but you can try feeling it with your free hand.

Your body stops two feet away from the man, with darkness still veiling your presence completely. You do not know how, but you are growing more and more aware of the dream state and are able to control your actions. What will you do?

 

[benectroon]

Standing behind him, I straighten my posture.
Arms hanging at my sides.
The cold object lying loosely in my left palm, though I don't seem to be really aware of it

I feel as if I'm a spirit.
A third party looking upon a strange scene.
My senses seem dull, though my body and limbs move effortlessly.

My attention is fully drawn to the man, drawing away.
I arch a few paces around the man and his worktable, to the left,
hoping to get a glance of his work.

As I move, I attempt to read his body language.
And his facial expression if given the chance.

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

The man is adamant in finishing his work. The lines he makes are swifter and sharper.

You take notice of some of his work, specifically the pages that are on top of the scattered pile. At first, it seems like jibberish. Triangles and squares are oddly alligned, seemingly random. The circles are what make you think twice about the existence of a meaning behind his abstract drawings.

You take your eyes from the creations and gaze upon the creator.

The man seems to be malnourished. His skin is pale, his lips are dry and his eyes are open wide and focused in the man's work. The trance escalates to a succession of heavy breaths. As you try to read him further, he grows agitated. His upper body begins to swing back and forth as his right arm draws circle upon circle on the sheet of paper. Each circle is larger than the last, the pen begins to graze its edge roughly against the wooden frame of the small table, encouraged by the savage guidance of the man's right hand.

 

[benectroon]

My mouth opens a little.
I want to say something but my thoughts seem to be to busy tangling up to actually come up with words of comfort or whatever could help him.
I put my right hand on his left shoulder.

As I shortly shake his shoulder I bend over and tilt my head trying to make eye contact.
My eyebrows contort into an expression of concern.
I move my left hand to the side of the table trying to get a more stable grip.

My eyes shoot to the left.
They take in a rusty dagger that I'm holding.
In surprise my arms and back tense up. I pull my head back, away in sudden realization of the weapon.
Wisps of hair cover the side of my face facing the man.
I instinctively take a step back from the table.

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

He is not ready for your gaze, let alone your touch. His reaction is the peak of agitation, a bounce away from you and a trip on the treacherous stool that sends him against the ground. The man has not noticed your weapon, but he scurries off into the darkness opposite to where you retreat.

Absolute silence settles in the room. You hear the odd footstep now and then. The man is very weak and frightened, stumbling on the floor. There must be another way.

The candle's flame flickers. You feel your conscience sinking... and your hand holding the rusty dagger tightly on its own.

 

[benectroon]

I think of the man, playing back in my head what exactly just happened.
He seemed surprised and genuinely scared of my presence.
I try peering through the darkness, though my hearing is of more use then my eyes are.
Some scuffling around.
I take a deep breath and calm down "Nothing bad happened" I think to myself.
My left arm raises and I inspect both sides of the rusty dagger, digging for a memory of the object.

I turn to the desk, lay the knife down on it and pick up the fallen stool.
A shrinking glance into the dark.
The geometrical maze on the desk changes the direction of my train of thought.
My hands pick up some pages as I inspect both sides, trying to find anything I can make sense of.

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

You have no recollection of the dagger before this instance. You feel its edge driving you. You use the poor lighting from the flickering flame to see the rusted blade. It is obviously old, but you feel you could cut through anything with it. In the back of your head, there is something pulling you to do just that.

However, your attention is drawn to the spectacle of abstract magic, mad lines shaped into chaotic figures. This has you clinging to the state of control, not the simple awareness you had in the beginning. Your will to inspect the man's drawings and find a reason behind this scene is strong. After a few moments, your gaze begins to make sense of the drawings, or at least you think it does. Several curved lines seem to hop from page to page. Pages have complete forms, and as you swipe through them, you notice that some pages have more forms than others, until it comes down to one very simple circle. This circle, however, has lines moving inward, forming a spiral.

When you take your eyes off the pages and look at the table, you will be surprised at its larger size and how several lines form rectangles the size of the drawn pages. You also realize you don't have enough pages to place in every spot on the table.

Meanwhile, you feel a presence getting closer through the darkness. Perhaps it is the man?

 

[benectroon]

I pull up my eyebrows in surprise when I notice the changed furniture.
My gaze glides over over the new table top, noticing the outlined rectangles.
A quick grin escapes my lips. It's almost as if someone seriously asked me to put together a puzzle for toddlers.
Though I soon come to realize that I don't have all the puzzle pieces.

I look back at the pages.
Put them on the table and start grouping them where I see symmetry or parts of shapes that span over multiple pages.
When I'm busy trying to get a general idea of what the puzzle looks like, I feel a presence creeping in on me.
I turn my head and spin sideways to look at the darkness behind me.
While my eyes slowly adjust, I keep my ears pointed listening for the man.

I got to distracted by the drawings.
He could be anywhere in here.
Hello?
I say, hoping he makes any sound.

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

"Hello?"

You hear a frail voice in the darkness. The pale man appears, looking at you with an expression mixed in confusion and sadness. His skin is stuck to his cheekbones and his crazed glare has settled into a lost gaze.

"Hello? Twirl." He licks his upper lip, then nibbles on the bottom's flesh. "Turn. Hello?"

You can't make much sense of what he's saying, if there's any sense to be made. The puzzle seems to be more important, and even the man walks to your side, watching as the pages you have placed gain form and substance. "Ohhh...." You are doing something right. Maybe.

 

[benectroon]

There he is.
I turn to the direction his voice came from and watch him step into the light.
He seems to have come to the conclusion that I'm no threat to him.
Which is a good thing for me, especially if I want to solve his puzzle.

The pen should be somewhere around here.
I look over the table top, trying to find it so he could complete his work.
There it is, lying on the ground just a few feet away from where the stool had landed.
After hunching over and picking the pen up, I offer it to the man.

He is looking at the table top.
Is he reacting like that because the table changed, or because I placed the pages like that?
Anyway, I turn back to figuring out this puzzle.
Glancing at the man, I hope that, newly armed with his pen, he'll help me solve this.
I smile, going up in the moment of trying to figure this puzzle out

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

As you arrange the pages, the man begins to work on the table itself. A keener observation reveals that there are no more pages for the man to work on. However, as he focuses what little strength he has on his work of art, you could almost swear that the room you're in is getting... bigger.

When you are done placing all of the pages in their respective spot, the man is just about finished drawing the last lines of the crude puzzle. You are looking at a multitude of triangles and squares all merged together, but it is the center piece that brings every gear into motion. The circles the man was so violently drawing before are not circles, just like the center piece was not a circle, but a spiral. This massive chain of spirals begins to twist on itself as it drags some of the shapes along with it. It moves inward, slowly absorbing the squares and the triangles, drinking the ink from each page until they are all blank.

"Ooh..." The man tilts his head to the side. His black eyes are open wide and his lips part to form the shape of a ring.

You do not know what you've done until you feel the expanded room starting to shrink. The dark becomes thick and heavy, and you can feel it wrap its shadowy self around you. The man takes a step towards the table. He places his thin fingers on the table and presses on the frame, pushing himself on top of it. When he places his right palm on the center, you see his flesh being twisted in a downward spiral as it is vaccuumed into the nether. The table itself is deformed and shattered, being folded and dragged into the same dot of neverland. You can count the seconds or try to look for an escape. The inward spiral has snuffed the life out of the only candle and you are now beset by complete darkness.

If only you knew a bit of magic, perhaps you could use a spell. This may also mean that the dream is coming to an end, but something tells you that, wherever the man went, it's not somewhere you want to be.

 

[benectroon]

With a content look on my face I wait for him to finish the puzzle.
I come to the strange conclusion that I completed this, even though we're in such a bizarre place.
Though the dagger still lies there, like a last piece that.
I pick it back up from the table and inspect it further.
When the man stands back up, I look up at the completed puzzle.

The spiral starts moving, swallowing the rest of the puzzle.
It reminds me of one of the animations I had to make for school,
where a brand name came spiraling out of the center of the screen.

The man looks ever so surprised. I smile back at him.
It only then that I notice the room becoming smaller.
The man climbs on the table and I look in shock how he gets contorted and twisted into the spiral.

The table shatters and panic takes over.
In fear I watch the darkness flushing over me and being pulled to the center as if I was in a sugar candy mill.
Hopeless I slash into the dark with my dagger, screaming and clutching for light.

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

The room twists around you. You are hit by the debris, fragments of the world around you being swallowed by the void that grows from the core, where once a table used to rest.

However, in your hopelessness, the dagger vibrates as you slash, tearing at the fabric of this dream's reality. The dagger breaks in your hand, leaving some cuts on your palm. That is the least of your worries. You are sucked by the spiral, although into the tear you created.

You stumble into a strange room full of several drawings. They are all posted on the white walls, one after the other. You recognize many, if not all of them. Some are mere sketches, drafts of what would be your final work. The nature of this room is serene. You find peace of mind here, but no answers to all your questions. Soon enough, you feel uneasy.

"Look around, Elliott."

Your eyes squint, then your pupils twitch. Whatever was trying to subdue you before is now trying to communicate, albeit still trying to take control of your bodily functions. Its voice is but a whisper inside your ear.

 

[benectroon]

I tense and flex my arms and legs a few times.
This place doesn't make sense.
I shouldn't try finding an explanation for everything here.
For now, let's listen to what it meant.

On guard I look around the room.
What should I be seeing? I ask softly.
May gaze flows past the sketches on the walls.

I step over to one of them and try taking it off the wall,
thinking back to the nights I spend drawing sketches to get this as final draft, though it is unfinished.

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

You look around the white room. You screen the place from right to left and left to right.

Apart from the sketches and drawings on the wall, you feel an eery presence. It is not like the one inside of you, as you cannot feel anything but its will when it tries to act on your behalf.

"It wasn't there, you see? That thing."

Your eyes roll up and pupils shift around in circles. You can feel it, though it is no action of your own. After seconds too long to bear in the dizzying spin of your perspective, your gaze falls upon the tiny circle etched on the floor. Just a moment ago, you were in a state of serenity, at one with yourself and everything around you.

"You messed up. Should have left things to me." The whisper becomes the projection of a juvenile voice. It rings louder and true inside your head, though not at all unbearable. It's as if whatever is in front of you, having a conversation with you... Inside your head. "Now it knows. Now it hunts."

As vague as the voice is, you know what it's talking about, don't you? Why did you help the man? Was it casual good will or thirst for knowledge? Did you actually care about him or were you searching to know- about the man, about his work, about the puzzle?

Why did you finish the puzzle?

The tiny circle, you should know, will become a spiral.

You do not have the dagger, but you know that you must escape this world before it is swallowed like the last.

 

[benectroon]

I stare at the circle on the floor.
In chronological order I try going over all the things that happened in the other room.
This force in my head wanted me to cut with that dagger all along.
A dagger that could cut through space? It reminds me of a similar story in the golden compass trilogy.

So is 'it' going to complete the spiral?
No, no more 'knowledge seeking'.
I look down, feeling a tad stupid, as i formulate the most pressing question on my mind.
How do I get out of here?
I try to relax and prepare myself for whatever the force may try

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

"Duh!"

You couldn't ask for a better partner in this. The voice grows quiet for a few moments. If you stare at the ground, the tiny circle will have formed into a spiral. You can barely see it, but its lines are beginning to extend under your feet, getting bigger and quite revealing.

"As strange as it sounds, you created this room. Shouldn't you know how to get out?"

 

[benectroon]

I created this room? Well I do suppose that is true to some extend.
A quick look around the room .
I didn't recognize some of the drawings.
Thinking I've found a lead, I sprint across the room, trying to gather the pages that seem unknown to me.
Maybe I'll be able to find a pattern, or even a dagger, in these.

I have a feeling that if I get swallowed down there, you will too.
How did you know how to escape the previous room?

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

You feel the floor stir as you rush to collect the unknown pages. You should realize a pattern, as you remove a full line of the eastern wall. The gap you made reveals some words written in black.

Find the keyhole.

So many pages to turn, so little time to waste.

"If you say so." It tsks. "This isn't the first time cleaning up after drift-..."

You don't know why or how, but you do not feel the entity anymore. Something else tries to take over, it claws at the back of your mind. Without ever realizing it, the spiral has come full circle with the floor and cracked its way into the walls. You need to find the keyhole.

 

[benectroon]

A keyhole? It must be behind one of those pages.
As the room crumbles from the center I hastily try finding the keyhole behind the drawings
Like a headless chicken I start running along the walls, tearing down pages.

My heart is going to burst out of my chest
and my limbs start feeling so heavy.
In my mind I try pushing away the images of how the man ended up.
"What did I miss?" I think to myself.
It's all too much, I don't have enough time!

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

Sure enough, you do find a keyhole behind one of those pages. However, as the whole room crumbles around you, you are left with one simple question.

Where is the key?

There is no time. The black that swallowed the previous room and the man whole is emerging from the center of the floor. It will undoubtebly suck you into its void, but how much of that will affect you in reality? Did you ever ponder if running away was the correct thing to do from the start? Is this not the dreamworld? Should you not have any care or control of what you create and shape in your own plane of visions and ideas?

Where else would the key be?

"You have it, c'mon!"

The same juvenile voice that has accompanied you speaks from the other side.

"You have no time! Open the door now!"

 

[benectroon]

I hold my left hand up, and look at my empty palm. Some cuts on it.
"If this is my dream, I can control it" I mumble.
I clutch my fist and close my eyes.

"This is so stupid" goes through my head, doubting why I'd even think this would work.
I quickly send that thought down the drain, and try focusing on the keyhole.
With all my might, I try imagining myself holding the key to that keyhole in my left hand.

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

"Heh."

You hear the sliding of metal and a fit from the other side. The key is turned and a section of the wall is pushed and opened. You peer into the darkness in front of you and can only see a glint not far from you.

The room's brightness decays from the brightness of white to the corrupted of black. Many spirals have formed in all sides of the shattered world. The ground splits and you are left alone with the door, the endless void beyond it and a beacon on the horizon.

"This is the part where you run really, REALLY fast!" The voice calls out from the glint. "You better catch up!"

The glint seems to be getting farther away.

You can feel its presence. Not long after the voice left abruptly, it swooped down on you. You don't know when, or how. It doesn't matter. Your mind's taken out of the plane and into another spectrum. You see yourself standing still, but you are unable to move.

It is the same room veiled in darkness, with only one candle at its center, one candle burning on the small table. The same man is drawing ever so entranced, but you can tell that his features are sharper, his body is fit, his eyes hold a purpose's fire higher than the little ember you've met. There is a tray with unfinished food next to the pile of drawings. There is an opened scroll lying on the ground to the right of the man. He glances at it every now and then and smiles, resuming his work with steeled resolve.

He has a family, a lovely wife and three small children. Before taking a seat in front of the small table, the man was good willed, he supported his family, he found work where none could be had. An honest man, perhaps as curious and not as bright as yourself. Or was he?

Instinct pushes the influence of the entity away from you for a moment. This time, you can feel it behind you with crystal clear awareness. Maybe you have been exposed to the dreamworld for a while, or it is this void that helps you attune with a higher sense of things.

What do you do?

 

[benectroon]

After catching my breath and observing the man from a distance,
I quickly check my hands.

No knife this time.

We can try it your way this time. I whisper.
This journey has been going on for a while and doesn't feel like other nightmares I've had.
Al tough, who knows. Maybe I always dream stuff like this but just can't remember it afterwards.
I couldn't even start drawing all those worlds, or rooms, I might have gone through.
But if this entity can help me out so I can have just some time to rest, that would be gladly appreciated at this point.

If I had to take a guess, I'd say I need to stop that man from drawing.
And I have an eerie feeling that's going to be harder then getting him to finish it.

 

[MoonMoonTheWolf]

The entity plucks you out of the room.

You are back in the void, surrounded by black and standing on the remaining floor of your room. The door is still open and the glint continues to distance itself from you. Perhaps your mind has grown dull, or whatever you face keeps a shorter leash of your possibilities.

More voices seem to disturb the world of darkness. The sounds are inaudible at first, but you are sure you recognize one of them. Why you are able to hear these people, you do not know, but they seem agitated, worried.

They are telling you to wake up. They are begging for you to open your eyes.

They can feel your heart, then why can they not hear your voice?

What should you be doing?