Kobold Life

Chapter 16: Into Darkness

" I told you it was a good idea to gag him," Gabriel said from somewhere beside me. I tried to look over but found myself unable to turn significantly.

I was bound in tightly in sheets, rolled around me, and then tied with a wound-up sheet curled into a rope and then knotted in front of me. The gag in question was likely a pillow case or something similar balled up and placed in my maw.

Jitra walked over and quickly kneeled at my side, while I came down from my nightmare into a near heart attack of wakefulness.

"You were sleepwalking again, we didn't want you breaking anything, but we also know waking you didn't work well."

"Get this thing off of me," I tried to say, but what emerged was likely more akin to, "Ghm hmm hmmph hmph fmph mh!"

Yeah, that sounded about right.

"Gabriel added the gag when you started chanting something in another language. You had us worried," Jitra said.

She reached down and began to untie the gag, letting the saliva-soaked pillow case fall free. The muscles in the back of my jaw relaxed letting the lower portion rise back into its natural place.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack Jitra," I said.

"A what?" She asked.

"Never mind, just untie me," I said.

"Not until you explain what the hell's going on in that head of yours," Gabriel said, " This isn't normal in the slightest."

Jitra nodded, "Sorry, but we want to make sure you calm down first, what happened in the dream this time?"

I had explained my prior dreams as best as I could, but they were hazy most of the time, this one remained as clear as day and somehow in its lucidity, I could remember several others, at least in pieces. I oft had short dreams and small discussions with otherworldly entities. But the longer dreams were the curse. In these dreams, there was often nothing but self-reflection, literally in the case of my dreams in front of the mirror. Apparently, during each of these dreams, I would sleepwalk, and Jitra and Gabriel would have to stop me from going too far. I wondered if I had ever done that at Rose's jungle home, since she and I had slept in separate rooms, it might have gone unnoticed by anyone but Opal.

By the time I explained this dream, and the others as best as I could, the pain had subsided, and my heart rate slowed.

"Do you think this entity in your dreams is the same one that's been chasing us?" Gabriel asked.

"No, definitely not," I said, "when we were in each other's heads I didn't see anything of him. Everything was in this world, not the empty voidscape I see this thing in."

"That's worse then," Jitra said, "you have two different things after you, one in your head and one in the dreams."

"I don't think this one is after me," I said.

"Then why is he there in the first place?" Gabriel asked.

" I don't know. He just seemed, apathetic. He watched me struggle and eventually fail, and when I was trapped there in excruciating pain, he seemed surprised by it. He asked me if I wanted out, and he said that he did too." I said.

"And this makes you think he doesn't want you because?" Jitra questioned.

"Because it didn't seem to care what happened to me beyond curiosity. The jungle creature has failed to win multiple times because he seems unwilling to hurt me seriously. Every time one of his minions has gotten to me, they've tried to stun me or grapple me, but it holds back from killing me. Hence I know it wants something that I need to be alive for. This thing in my dreams seems merely amused at my existence."