Falling Star.

The Craters Edge

Crater's Edge stood on the outer rim of a sprawling crater, where, over centuries, a deep lake had pooled. The town was precariously perched at the crater's edge, buildings clustered around paths that wound down toward the lake, and rope bridges stretched from one side of town to the other, swaying gently in the breeze. To the west, fields rolled out in chaotic patterns. Once, these fields had been infested with a nightmare of man-eating flowers; now, they provided surprisingly fertile soil for crops.

The crops themselves were as strange as the land that nourished them. Aleksander moved through rows of berries with speckled teeth protruding from their thin skins. He carefully plucked a berry, picking it clean of its teeth before popping it into his mouth. The berry tasted unexpectedly sweet, with a hint of spice that lingered at the back of his throat. Aleks had grown up around these unusual plants—he knew their flavors, their habits, and even their dangers.

He reached the section of the field where rows of corn grew. The "screaming corn," as they called it, was quiet in the early morning, its green husks curled peacefully around rows of jagged yellow kernels. But Aleks knew that peace wouldn't last. By his third stalk, his hand slipped just slightly, and he missed clamping the husk shut in time. The stalk split down the middle, releasing a scream that echoed across the fields. It was like a chain reaction; one stalk's scream set off others in the field, each one shrieking in chorus, and Aleks worked faster, snatching as many ears of corn as he could and stuffing them into his sack before the noise got too overwhelming.

The day was warm, but Aleksander hardly noticed. He was of average height for a resident—around 5'5", a wiry frame with strength hidden beneath his lean build. His pale blond hair fell just past his ears, framing a face etched with determination and sharpened by the kind of life Crater's Edge demanded. His light grey eyes swept over the field as he caught his breath. The landscape beyond him stretched out, shifting in impossible, dreamlike ways.

The Dreaming World was never constant. Every morning, the fields seemed to bend differently. Sometimes, the ground felt unsteady, as if it could tilt upward and send you plummeting at any moment. Past the fields, a forest stood where the trees twisted and shifted as if alive, their branches bending to form gnarled faces. Beyond them lay deserts where sand moved in waves like water, and mountains that floated in the sky, anchored by nothing but the will of dreams. And above it all, a sky full of holes loomed, each darkened pit a gateway for dreams and nightmares to pour through from the distant, fabled "waking world."

The waking world—Aleksander knew about it as much as any resident. It was the birthplace of dreams and nightmares alike, a mysterious place where people lived in strange regularity, giving life to the thoughts and fears that populated Aleks's world. Some claimed that, when a nightmare was defeated, a glimpse of its creator sometimes appeared—a flash of a person from the waking world, gone in an instant. Most townsfolk felt little love for those distant creators, but Aleks barely spared them a thought. He had his own reality to deal with.

Today, that reality was Eveline. She was kneeling a few rows over, gathering crystalline apples into a basket. Their apples sparkled like glass in the sun, catching the light and giving off a faint, prismatic glow. Aleks approached, calling out to her.

"Hey, Eveline," he greeted with a small smile, feeling that familiar, quiet sense of relief that seeing her always brought.

Eveline looked up, her face breaking into a warm smile. "Hey, Aleks. Finished with the berries and corn already?"

She was a couple of inches taller than him, with hair a deep chestnut brown that contrasted sharply against his pale blonde. She had a rugged beauty to her, a hint of smile lines and the shadow of worry beneath her bright eyes. At fifteen, Eveline was only two years younger than Aleks, but responsibility had aged her in small ways, as it had everyone in Crater's Edge.