Stuff and Things

Dreams

When the ground became fuzzy, when it turned into a blur, there was the Other Place. This particular individual knew that, of course, because they were a resident of the Place. 

They were still surprised at the cloud-like consistency of the ground they were walking on, although it was completely solid, and tried to keep their balance. What a useless activity! Clouds never hit the sky here, they sometimes formed the ground, a solid barrier before the realm of Nightmare, the negative of this positive, the One Beneath.

All humans dreamed, and every blurred face they saw, always formed in this Place. They became dreams, the residents. The population soared here, the individual thought dully. It was crowded and stuffy, but only they seemed to notice. As if, they were self aware? Probably just because they were neither a happy dream or a bad one; simply there, making them think glumly which wasn't bad or good, but sad.

They felt watched. The individual looked around, thoughts crossing they were pursued by something else, but exhaled and reassured themselves it was yet another human dreaming, accidentally seeing them. Clouds stirred amongst the ground.

Again. Piercing. Golden eyes looked around nervously, trying desperately to see SOMETHING in the blurry, shifting landscape. Nothing. Nothing? Clouds shifted and stirred along the ground.

Brows furrowed in confusion and fear, they looked around more. If it truly was nothing, why was it so disturbing? Like a knife through butter, they couldn't concentrate without it being broken. The blurry landscape shivered like a horse's hide against flies.

There! A sketchy shape in the distance- the figure of someone dreaming amongst the first realm. A sigh of relief. The tension was gone, but the landscape was not moving naturally around the dreamer...

They shrugged that off more easily. As they always thought things didn't move naturally near a dreamer. Save for that fin slicing the clouds-

Reality snapped inside them. A razorback, here? Impossible. But if they got to find that dreamer... The golden eyed individual made their way to the dreamer, disturbing the least amount of clouds along the surface as possible. Anything could attract the predator's attention- even a loud breath.

What could they do? You could not simply drag someone into the Other Place, they didn't fit there. Dreams also couldn't let them become defenseless to nightmares OR death itself- so the only thing they could do was to bring them past the door separating their realities from each other.

The dreamer was sluggish, as most were, but unnaturally so. As if they were missing frames of animation, the dreamer moved jaggedly, viciously disturbing the ground, drawing the sharp fin nearer in pursuit of food.

They rushed forward suddenly, reaching out for the dreamer, pulling them out of their realm and into the Place. They were confused and tried to form some kind of words or fight, but gold eyes didn't care, they just hushed them sharply and pointed at a slowly approaching figure, which then sunk into the place below.

"What- who are you? What is happening?" Questions. More questions. Struggle. Resistance. "I can't accept I'm actually talking to anyone real; I was sleeping and thought-"

"You were going to die? You're welcome. Now hush and just follow slowly." They snapped urgently and started back for the edges of the city itself. So far! The human was in disbelief and opened their mouth to protest again. Louder. Clouds had opened behind them, and suddenly closed after a long interval in the process of their demanding nature.

Why was she aware of this? Who were you? Why is everything so...cloudy? Answers were exchanged hastily in grunts and snorts of disapproval and annoyance. Why weren't you listening, you punk? The thing was right behind her. Females, especially humans, had a way of endangering everyone with such demanding egos.

"Listen, you're in my realm acting hoighty toighty and calling me names, while we have a rather large and spiky problem I'm trying to save you from, behind you." 

Should she have actually succeeded in screaming, it would have happened faster. Luckily, our little dream knew exactly what was in store, and hastily threw a hand over her mouth and silenced her. She didn't bother struggling or trying to scream, glad it happened actually.

It was enormous. Only the wide mouth was visible, as the rest of its body was blocked from view. It was large enough to count each scale alongside  its face. An opening upon the face had teeth for sure. But an eye, seemingly farther back, peered through, looking straight into both of its soon to be prey as the creature thought.

"Is that its mouth-" "No." As if on cue, like the shattering of many panes of glass, as if the 1993 Storm had blown in and broken windows, a crack broke its wide face, opening slowly, revealing double rows of long fangs. Not even teeth, they were too sharp and much too long. It had no difference between canines, molars, and incisors. Just fangs. Like the creaking of a thousand door hinges too rusty to operate, it was like a growl from some giant reptile in a movie before it struck.

"When I say run, you run like your life will depend on it. If the wind is sucking you backwards, roll yourself sideways or I cannot help you go back to your home."

It wasn't a verbal word, rather a strong slap of "run for your life" hit her and she geared into action, the other individual sprinting off a different path, hoping that the leviathan would aim for them instead.

The razor back reared, sucked in so much air the two became lightheaded, and screamed like children experiencing fear, screamed like a hurricane's winds, screamed like someone in pain. It then shook its fins angrily, as they began to swirl clockwise, propelling the beast forward rapidly, and it dove below the surface, hoping to catch the girl unawares.