The Mer'hyer

Chapter 3 -- The Dream

The biologist felt a cold wind blowing against his spine. Below him the earth was moving farther away, and he couldn't raise his head to see what was above him. But he felt he was moving upwards, high into the dark night sky. In mere moments he could see his whole town below him. Small lights flickered in the distance, slowly becoming obscured by a cold fog. To his right, as he moved higher and higher into the sky, there was something large and long, perfectly vertical as it stretched high into the sky alongside him. This thing, whatever it was, was breathing. He could tell from its white flesh that it was alive, and that its body seemed to be extending on forever into the sky while he himself was being pulled further and further to its end, away from his home. After a few moments, the earth below him was obscured completely, and he felt so alone up there in the darkness of the sky. He wanted to go back to where he was grounded, to where his home was. It was so cold up here and so alone and infinitely dark all around him.

But Ron could not go back. He was too far now, and this massive and elongated snake beside him had to be seen. He had to find the other end, and really see how long this creature was, and understand why it was impossibly suspended vertically from the earth. Then before he could realize it, his neck unlocked, allowing him to tilt his head upward, and then he could it see there, the end of the snake where the stars and a blue fog of the cosmos gently blended with this great being. Suddenly he was above the beast and he saw that at its end was a head... a human head. Fear started to take control of him, making him recoil as much as possible as the massive human-like face contorted and gagged, stretching out mucous and other flesh-made masses gurgling out from its throat, revealing a deep and dark chasm in the serpent's mouth. Ron wanted to scream, as he felt himself lower towards the creature. But he could not scream. His mouth was sealed shut. The giant human eyes of the snake stared at him, paralyzing him so he couldn't do a thing.

Soon he felt the touch of the wall of the snake's mouth as it engulfed him. He felt trapped and paralyzed and instinct was to get out, to claw his hardest to find some way out of this alive. But there was nothing he could do, and soon the teethless mouth of the great beast closed over him, wrapping him into darkness. He felt warm. The squishiness of the flesh-like walls kept him close and tight into a foetal position that he could not stretch himself out of. The lack of air in his lungs told him he was about to suffocate, for it was tightening and quickly evaporating. That was until he felt a breeze at the top of his head. And so with the last bit of strength he could muster, he looked up, and he found himself suddenly falling.

The walls around him turned from a dark flesh-like substance to a grey wood. Around him was all roots, twisting and folding over one another like snakes of their own. It was as if he was inside a massive, hollowed tree, and he was falling forever down to its very bottom. He felt wind through every inch of his body as he fell for a long time. His insides felt like they were floating inside him, making him feel very uncomfortable and even sick. That was until his falling suddenly slowed, and he could feel a pale sand beneath him. He sat up from the sand. It was wet and had ripples of dark, frothy water between the slight mounds. Before him was a light. He could see an exit from this great massive tree, and so he walked through this door made of roots and stepped outside.

He was on a beach. There was the dark and frothy water to either side of him along this thin, and worm-shaped beach. The water oozed against the shoreline, forming slight bubbles and foam across it. Further ahead, beyond the shore he could see out in the distance a blue fog. And within the fog there were large pillars which stretched high into the sky. Tendrils, like tentacles or roots, spread out from these pillars, clouding whatever was above. And though he couldn't see it, somehow Ron knew what was above this place. Above was home. It was the earth. It was his town, his life, the normal and physical world. But here, this place he was at now, he was not sure about this place.

He took a few steps towards the shore of this grand ocean before him and decided to look deep past the foam into the dark waters. The water was more like a mud. It seemed to be filled with everything. It had every morsel, or bit of matter that ever existed. This was more than just an ocean. It was the most ancient ocean, older than the mountains and sand he stood on. This ocean was imprinted with the oldest dreams and memories of time. This water was him. It was what made up everything. It was his body, the dust of his cloth. It was his very existence—the only difference being that his flesh was organized. It was put together through time. But this mud here, which was of every colour imaginable was completely disorganized—a primordial chaos. He could see in the water; it had no end. It went on forever, deep, into the very bedrock of all existence.

"This is where it all began," he said to himself. "We were once a mud, a celestial fog of dust. And now we can choose to go back to it."

He lowered his head, for he felt a weight slowly press on his skull. He walked further up the beach, down this weaving path of sand that seemed to go on forever. He walked on for hours, and throughout that time he felt like there was something above him. It was staring at him almost like one massive eye. But he dared not look up at it. Instead he walked on along the beach, clinging for some purpose along it. His legs started to grow tired, but he dared not look at the overwhelming power that was growing stronger above him. He wanted to look, that was for sure. But he couldn't. After what seemed like years of walking down this winding and narrow beach, his legs forced him to collapse. His body was dying. He felt no other choice, but to look up at this power, this eye, a dark and dripping mouth above him.

"No..." he whispered to himself while he leaned there on the beach, his shoulders slumped. He forced himself to look to the ocean before him, to the primal waters that made his humanity. "I won't let you take me. I won't allow myself to become nothing. I won't fall into you willingly. I want to be me. I want to stay being myself. And damn you for it all! For all existence, is nothing but you. And damn you further for making me my own! Now I have fear, I have feeling, and torture from you because of what you are, of what everything is. I want only because of what you created. Leave me and allow me to stay as myself! Don't take that from me. It is the only thing you've given after all. Be off with you, forever!"

Then in a sudden moment his reddened eyes opened, bloodshot, and he was drenched in a cold sweat. He looked around his room and sat up from his sofa. The walls were warping and shifting. Dark and light were twisting into each other. Things stretched, and he was starting to see beyond the fabric of reality. "No! I will be me. I will stay as me..." he said again. And in those words, the sound coming to his ears brought him back to this moment in his bedroom, and he felt the slow brooding power fade away. The walls and cupboards and the mirror to the side of the room stopped warping into translucent shapes. Things slowly went to normal, and he felt finally fully awake from that horrid dream.

"Good Heavens," he said to himself, bringing his hands to his head. He felt he was just on the cusp of something extremely horrible from happening. If he allowed anything more to happen, to give up and let the tide take him, absolutely nothing would be the same again. He was fortunate this time—at least he thought he was. But he also was sure that that fortune was not going to last.