Endless Dream

Sliver of a Soul

Dream followed to where the cleaners had been. Lucienne's directions were accurate as always. He placed his bare feet onto the sand and felt its soft crunch and curl with each step. He breathed deeply, soaking in his realm's warm, welcoming air. He prided himself in his beautiful oasis, its fluid ability to change and shape itself to any desire of its dreamer. It could provide comfort and safety to any traveller in his world.

Something shuffled in the distance. Dream's finger twitched as though a tiny thread had been tied around it and pulled towards the shape. He surmised this was the disturbance the cleaners reported.

He was cautious in his stride, keeping slow and low as he approached the shape. Whatever it was was something inhuman. Whatever form it once held was warped and crumbling; with each movement, he could see more and more sand falling off of it.

The landscape changed as he crossed the thin barrier of the threshold. The walls separated each individual dream, protecting the architect from the dangers of others and encapsulating the scene of whatever would unfold. But it shouldn't be there; there was no dreamer here.

The sand beneath his feet turned to dry, barren earth. It was harder and rougher than the soft sand, feeling like scorched ground. He could tell it had once been something green, thin sprouts of yellowed straw sticking up in patches. His chest ached. He felt the loss that languished here. He could feel the pain of the dreamer; it hung like a fog in the air. It made his throat dry and tight.

The figure in the distance cowered from him, and he stopped. The form had gaping holes, thin black veins lining each hole. He recognised the work of the cleaners. It looked like the work of their polearms. The cleaner's weapons were covered in a deep black goo that could melt a dream, peeling it apart and returning it to its natural state. It was brutal, but it meant the sand could be remoulded and reused for another dream.

Dream gritted his teeth. He could see the pathetic look in the creature's eye, the other now buried under pitch. It barely had any limbs left to fight back. It probably lost them in the struggle against the cleaners. He pitied it. The shape's eye welled with fear, and the stumps where hands had once been were clinging to a derelict archway to hide from him.

"You do not need to fear me," he said, waiting for a reply. The shape didn't move. It stayed still with its one beady eye watching him warily, "I mean you no harm," he said again. The shape blinked with a heavy eyelid.

The sand did not know the stranger. It feared him. Other strangers had come; the sand had gone to them willingly and innocently, believing them to be friendly. It rejoiced as it would no longer be alone in the desolate garden. Its ignorance had been met with pain. They had lunged at it with large sharp spears that melted away its arm and eye. It tried to beg them to stop, the sand screaming but not letting sound escape from it. It wanted to tell them how they'd hurt it and to ask them to stop, but they continued with grim laughter. It had managed to evade them, pulling back from the field to the safety of the archway. It had curled up behind it, praying to be left alone again, wishing for loneliness again. The strangers had tried to chase after it, but something stopped them. It sheltered the sand, creating a barrier they couldn't break. It had remained there since, its chest pounding with fear.

"You can come out," he said. He knelt in the field. He hoped to coax it out, to make its dispersal as gentle as possible without harming the sand further. The sand shuffled further back and lost more of its hair. Dream could see the strands falling from its lopsided head and separating into grains on the floor.

He looked at them curiously. Whatever the dreamer had conjured had come from a powerful emotion, so powerful that the dream transcended the dreamer's life. It was extremely rare, and never had he witnessed a case like this. The sand had been imbued with a piece of the dreamer, a sliver of a soul that allowed it to live on.

The sand watched him. His voice was familiar. It had heard it before, perhaps in its own dreams or heard it carried on the winds. It was a deep yet soft voice, promising the sand safety. It fought back the urge to go to him, to reach out to him. It watched him curiously, captivated at the sight of him. The stranger's eyes were the most captivating. They weren't like the other strangers. They swirled with all the hues of the night as if someone had bottled the night and shook it wildly. There was a golden glint to them; it looked like home to the sand, as though grains flowed from the realm around them and through his eyes.

Dream crept closer. Each step was minute, so he didn't frighten the sand further. The shape didn't retreat but stayed tense and fearful. He decided that creeping closer was his best option. His hands brushed the straw, giving him glimpses into the dreamer's emotions. Pain, love, despair, hope. The series of emotions was almost overwhelming and violently chaotic, like a room full of speakers trying to talk over each other. He hissed as he tried to sort through them, flashes of memory colliding in his head. They roared and batted against him, pulling him under like powerful waves against sharp rocks. He was helplessly caught in the tide.

The shape saw the stranger's pain and leant closer; it recognised pain. The first face it had seen wore it so often and so heavily. It wanted to help him, to ease his pain. It was an instinctual, compulsive desire to help. It reached out to him, forcing itself to make the shape of a hand and struggling to even form fingers.

Dream gasped as more emotions and memories entered him; he felt like he couldn't breathe. They suffocated him and squeezed his throat tighter.

The sand stretched further and further, its body melting away and pushing all of the energy it had left into the unnaturally long limb.

Dream bit back a yelp. He breathed as deeply as he could and urged every fibre of his being to order the memories. He caught only glimpses of coherence; long hair through an ornate brush, the soft brush of lips, a sweet melodic laugh, bright green eyes on an autumn evening.

The dreamer had loved this person so intensely, had felt so powerfully that even Dream felt himself mourning her loss. A tear rolled out from his tightly shut eyelids.