I can't believe I have over 350 views and just about 70 votes. This is exciting! We're slowly but surely getting there. This chapter is dedicated to SpaceAdventurer_11 , for following and giving some great feedback on this story. Thanks for the support and thank everyone else reading for, well....reading.
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Max turned his attention back to the tree off to the east, a hundred yards or so in the distance, trying to pretend a small girl hadn't just rocketed off to the distant horizon. Clouds had, at some point, formed above and cast a grey and somber shadow over the field. A single ray of golden sunlight shone down through the dark clouds, directed precisely at the distant arborious monolith.
Max stared in wonder at the dark beauty of it and noticed something visual as well as mental, like the title of a song forgotten long ago and glimpsed vaguely in a memory. A glint of green, the four pointed star of light wavered seductively. He knew then what it was and where he needed to go. To the tree. To the sparkling green beauty. To the emerald.
Max pointed his feet toward the the tree and started to walk. As he approched he notice the field wasn't as flat as he thought from the distance. He saw now a crater, one hundred feet across and no more then twenty deep, the entire thing draped in dead brown grass. He made up his mind to get to the emerald and the tree as quickly as possible which meant straight across the crater. He took a deep breath, his heart pounded loudly in the quiet, the only other sound was the whisper of the grass blades caressing one another in the breeze.
Max focused on the tree, never taking his eyes off of it. The beam of light punctuated the thing like an exclamation point. He walked, the brown, dry grass crackled beneath his feet, adding another note to the growing symphony of his journey.
As he reached the middle of the crater, he stopped. He felt a movement. A slight tremor rise through his body, starting at his feet. Max closed his eyes, controlled his breathing to slow his beating heart and quell his sense of dread. Still he felt it, the slow rhythmic quaking, it added a beat to the song of Max the brave. He cocked his head and could now hear the sound of the quaking. He opened his eyes.
What he saw was frightful. Coming up over the ridge surrounding the crater was an army. Hundreds of soldiers dressed in full samurai armour. Now the slight tremor became a thundering. The sound was a perfect rhythmic stomp.
Boom, Boom, Boom.
He spun around in place and his already pounding heart stopped. They had him surrounded. Max stopped dead when he saw something, or rather nothing. It drew his sight to it, it was dark, completely devoid of any color. He instantly knew what it was....The Black Knight. As it came into full view it stopped, the army kept marching, it parted around the knight like water around an inky, black stone.
The samurai army marched in perfect unison, like robots. As the soldiers grew closer Max could make out more details, and what he saw was another straw added to the already strained camels back, the army wasn't even human. Dressed in their ornate samurai armor, marched animals. Monkeys, dogs, rhinoceros, even birds,walking upright, personified horrors.
The army of zoo samurai was now within fifty paces. Suddenly they all stopped, a well maintained machine just switched off. At the edge of the crater the knight just stood, it seemingly absorbed the light around it, a vortex of darkness and evil.
The army was close, it filled the crater, surrounded Max and a chill ran through him, like a ghost just passed by. A fear like he had never before felt made him wish he could just disappear. Just then the entire retinue, together as one, took one step closer to Max.
He nearly jumped out of his shoes when he heard the knight start to laugh. The sound chilled his spine, a sound like a million souls in hell being tortured. Abruptly the knight seased laughing, much to Max's delight. But then it spoke.
"You lose Max, just give up now!" Its voice was like nothing Max had ever heard, as if it bit off tiny pieces of his soul, chewed them up and spewed them out as words.
Thoom! The army took another step forward and stopped.
"IT'S THE END FOR YOU. YOU WILL FAIL!"
Thoom! Another step.
They were getting closer to Max, crowding around him
Thoom! and another.
This time they drew there katana blades in one fluidly surreal movement. The unmistakable sound of metal sliding across metal was deafening. Shhhlink!
"YOU WILL BE DEFEATED!"
They were within 10 paces now. Max felt hot and claustrophobic, the menagerie of armoured animals standing still as statues, weapons drawn and they stared at one another, never looking at Max.
Again the knight spoke in its terrible, cacophonous voice. "You are worthless Maximillion Briggs, you have failed at everything you have ever attempted in your shitty little life. You couldn't save your men or you marriage and you have truly failed as a father, this will be no different. ATTACK!"
With that the animal army started toward Max once again. The knight just stood there cackling it's evil, soul curdling laugh. Max was no longer afraid, he was just angry. He wasn't so much angry at what the knight had said, beause it was true, but at himself. Angry for being so angry, angry for having drank too much, too often, and most of all angry at not being there for his son. He felt the red hot anger deep, deep down inside him, an anger like none he has ever felt.
As the army bore down on him, getting closer and closer, reaching out with gloved hands, swords held at there sides, Max realized what he had to do. He had to let the anger take over him, just let it flow through him and release it.
He dipped down on one knee and grabbed hand fulls of his hair, tucking his head between his knees. Max opened the floodgates he used to hold the anger at bay. He allowed the heat to flow from every orifice. He felt like he was burning up. The anger boiled inside and clawed at his skin, begging for freedom.
Just then, the first of the samurai was within centimeters of touching him and he felt a sudden weightlessness. He was swept upwards but he stared down at himself below. He watched in horror and excitement as his body exploded, a black mushroom shaped cloud rose from the ground, the base orange and red with fire. A shockwave spread outward, soldiers flew in every direction. Charred limbs and flaming pieces of armor launched, trails of fire tailing behind. All were wiped out.
After a moment Max's soul floated upwards some more until the whole field could be seen. He looked down and saw scrawled in the grass of the field were the words "WAKE UP MAX!"
And he did.
YOU ARE READING
Dream Therapy
General Fiction"Dreams have always expanded our understanding of reality by challenging our boundaries of the real, of the possible." -Henry Reed Ex-army Ranger Max was angry and depressed. Mental illness plagued him. Now he's stuck inside his own dreams with only...
