His Hooded Dreamworld Hero

Chapter 1

     Yvain jerked awake and wiped the sweat from his face. He was in his bed, in his room, sunlight trickling in through the window, just like any other normal morning. And yet, his head whirled with every thought possible and a few more for good measure. He was going on nineteen, and he'd certainly had his share of inexplicable dreams before, but nothing even in the same league as this. He let his head fall back onto his pillow. Whatever hopes he'd had for a relaxing summer day were dashed. As deep of breaths as he tried to take, his heart kept pounding like it was trying to leap out of his chest. He closed his eyes and did his best to recount the vision he knew he'd be losing soon.

     Flashes of a man came gradually back to him. A great hooded figure, looming over him a hundred yards away, floating toward him in some sort of starry void. A face concealed completely by shadow. Oversized old robes flapping as if from cosmic winds as the figure – ever-powerful but never intimidating – floated closer. A young girl standing to the side, herself hidden under eldritch hood and robes, only flowing golden hair and exposed arms giving hints of an identity. A golden chalice held out in her hands. Some ineffable kind of brightness sitting within. Yvain himself floating still in the void, limbs lifeless like a nightmare but eyes seeing the scene with only wonder twinkling in them.

     The hooded man stopped beside the girl with the chalice. She bowed and handed it over to him. He continued, ever so slowly, only stopping again several feet in front of Yvain. As gently as one picks up a kitten, he lifted an eye of water and fire, earth and air, illuminating all the cosmos, out of the chalice.

     The memory made him shudder in awe. A few more details trickled in. A beard - a vibrant red beard - had glittered in that great cosmic light. Yvain stroked his own red stubble. A voice had boomed through the dreamscape, either of eye or man, maybe both, now slipping, much too quickly, from his memory. He scrambled, brow furrowed, to retrieve whatever notebook he could find first to record what words he could recall. The words. The words were what mattered. Sweat graced the page before any words. Desperation made way for grief as he realized they'd already disappeared.

     It was, of course, only in his moment of defeat that the words of the hooded man came back; drop by drop, at first, before the flood hit and a slew of affirmations came back to him.

     He'd said, with a thick accent that could've only been French, that Yvain had forgotten all the stormy seas and western winds, the flapping manes and soaring feathers, from which he came.

     He'd said that he was not alone; he was unique, and yet, he was connected.

     He'd said that they both were beyond time; both momentary and eternal; both microbial and cosmic; both conjoined and forever far away.

     And he'd said that all his words were true, no matter who'd dispute them and no matter whether Yvain himself thought them true.

     The hooded man had gone silent when he'd returned the cosmic eye to its place of rest. Even standing right in front of him, Yvain couldn't make out a face. He did, however, notice that he and the hooded man stood precisely the same height. He noticed the girl lingered, gazing at him in what could've only been longing, before her hooded mentor led her away.

     He noticed no more. The dream was gone. His scribbled handwriting was all that remained. He collapsed back onto the bed, indescribably tired but undeniably awake.

***

     He shifted through the leftovers in the fridge, looking for anything mildly appealing, to no avail. His mother cooked a mighty breakfast for herself beside him. Neither offered any hello to the other. Eventually, he gave up on finding something good and settled for whatever was edible. She didn't hide her annoyance when he reached over her to get to the microwave, but at least that once, she didn't bother commenting on it.