Helium ( DNF )

Daydream

A canopy of webbing black looms over Dream's spine, branches punched through by deep purple sky. His eyes cross in wild snaps from trunks to shadows, thickets to soil, and back to the sparse holes overhead. Yellow-green specks of light fade in and out of existence in the faraway atmosphere, and he reaches shaky fingers towards the fireflies.

Leaves curl in an open caress against his face. Waxy blades brush his rough jaw, grazing bare skin—and his outstretched palm plummets to his cheekbone.Bare.

He stumbles back. Twigs scrape through his hair. Drumming blood heats the flesh of his face, and exhales pour into his hands.

Maskless.

Foliage churns beneath the soles of his shoes as his heels brace the dirt. His weight shifts towards his toes.

Run.

A sharp yank tears him back by the fabric of his hood, and his shoulder blades slam into solid warmth. Dream coughs raggedly, neckline burning, and he swings back his elbow in a blind collision.

Cold steel slots underneath his jaw. His chin tips; his lungs seize. He grips the forearm pinning across his chest and claws at leather-wrapped skin. Similar hyde snarls up his own wrists, worn and bloodstained, resemblance barely visible without the glint of the moon.

Words of another world ring between his ears.

"Have you ever tried speaking to him?"

Blade threatens to bite flesh. His lips split open in a ragged inhale.

No, no, no.

"All he knows is violence."

A head hangs low by his ear. He strains to catch a steady glimpse of the assailant, and a rounded profile protrudes where features should be—unfeeling, protected, masked. Dream remembers standing on the soft-sanded shore and calling to the woods, voice echoing; the shadowed silhouette mirroring every motion towards freeing his unknown face.

"You—" Vibrations stinging on the edge of the axe, Dream spits, "—lied."

The hold trapping Dream's shoulders tightens, sharpness pressing against his jaw and forcing his head to turn. Exhales tumble from his nose and fog the clean, polished weaponry as he bores into the suffocating woods. Leaves begin to shiver, wooden limbs snapping through the silence, and a rip slowly forms to a view of sand and sea.

Dream's stomach seizes, and he pulls on the unbudging forearm as his breath shallows in hot puffs. The gap yearns wider until the promise of a gentle hellscape is all his eyes can see—lagoon, tide, darkness—run.

"Look," the masked double rasps, and his words sound like the wind. "Someone is in the water."

The axe drops from Dream's throat, and he lurches forward in a frantic heave. Rocks and mud spit up from snarled roots beneath his shoes as he runs, and runs, and runs—the furious burn in his lungs fueling the push of thighs over knees, calves over ankles through the dark underbrush. His ears catch a whisper of the lapping shore.

Trees bend and break around him until his feet carry onto sand, shoving down white mounds, and a sky of fireflies yawns freely over his head. Wind touches his face. He loses ground at the water's edge, and his eyes cut back.

The forest is gone from him. Barred only by the ring of sand preserving the lagoon, water is everywhere, stretching out on all sides into an infinite horizon of ocean and blending sky.

A crawl shivers across his upper back.

Look.

His wired shoulders lower away from his neck, and he turns to face forward.