To Rhial

28

Brenden

Simultaneous incredible cold infinitely large voids. Simultaneous incredible heat infinitesimally small flashes. Beginendcycle for newoldexisting. Endlessfinite peppering of frigidscalding speckles until slowly consumedenticedaccepted and made warmcoolequilibrium again. No sight. All around is nothingeverything but not tasteseehearsmelltouch except for indistinguishable silvergreenetherealnextbeyond glowgateholepath.

Falling

Or grabbed... pulledbeckoneddrawn(?) to endless darkness. Orbs of decayfinitelifelight dazzled around me. onehundredsthousandsmillionsinnumerableall of them. Around is limitedendlessexplodingexpanding. Orbs risefloatretreat(?) or I felldraggedembraced(?). Directionless, gravityless, AWAYBAD from silvergreenetherealnextbeyond glowgateholepath and decayfinitelifelight orbs. Graspholdseal won't free for guiltfaultsorrowcryyearnpridedesperationlove. Orbs become spectacle of orbiting stars, walledmagnetizedblockedstoreddrawn from silvergreenetherealnextbeyond glowgateholepath, I submergefalllevitatebreathheartbeat. Bathedimprisonedpreserved in blood(?) childbabyessence of growthfinitelifelight in womb(?) warmfreecontained release(?). Blissreleasenothingpeace forbackbeside oneevery (day week month

year

decade

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timeless

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begin

in nothingeverything

I woke up, beads of cold sweat on my forehead and a feeling I could only describe as floating and absent in my own body, like my mind was slowly trickling back to itself. I needed a few moments to breathe, to return mentally from whatever I just experienced.

This dream returned every night, the same dream I had before waking in this world for the first time. The scariest part was how real it all felt. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced, but I was both terrified of it and desperate to know more.

I always woke up disoriented and confused, needing a few minutes to recollect and grasp what was going on. I was restless and groggy, like I didn't sleep at all.

I pondered this dream for hours while silently keeping the corties on the road on our way into Vehfirn. Three more days of travel came and went simply enough. No roadblocks, no bandits, no merchants. We passed one wagon going to Poikla Village, but we only shared a simple nod as we moved along. The corties just kept trotting along, murring louder when they were hungry or tired. Corties were very simple creatures with odd temperaments. They didn't get aggressive at all, but they got prickly at times. They would simply stop moving and grudgingly jerk on the reins if I didn't stop when they wanted to eat. They would also frequently try mounting each other at night, so whoever was up had to whip their backs to stop a fight. This stopped being a problem once we separated them. I was initially uneasy about whipping the corties because I didn't want to hurt them, but corty whips were more like paddles on a string. Like an extended slap. What was odd was how easy they were to manage, because a heavy slap on the back was all it took to get them back to normal. However, when slapped, they'd reflexively kick a leg out in the direction of the slap, explaining why the whip was necessary.

Soon enough, we were passing farmhouse after farmhouse, separated by lush fields of crops and grazing animals. On the farthest outskirts laid pastures of dense shrub fields surrounded with fences constructed out of entire logs of the gigantic trees, easily twenty feet high. Within these sprawling pastures, small herds of those giant mammoths slept in the grass. I noticed that wherever the large ones slept, they kept the end of their satellite shaped trunk on the back of their sleeping young. And one of the herd always had two of its six eyes remaining open, keeping watch over the fields. Compared to the one from the forest, they were fatter, with varying hues of tan to black, long haired bodies. The watcher's mousy ears followed me while I asked a passing farmer how far from the city we were. The farmer kindly answered that it wasn't much longer and bode us well.