Life of the Strange

Believe in One's Dreams

Aardy lay in bed, starring at the ceiling. Her mind whirred like an everlasting machine from the Factory Room. The new girl, the one that she saw in her dream just a few nights before, Gazelle--she was real. And she hadn't even looked up at Aardy once throughout the entire ordeal over dinner.

No, it couldn't be real.

But...

Aardy thought about how scared Gazelle looked in the dream she had.

She thought about her emerging out from the trees, the glow from the fire in the middle of the clearing feeling so real as it crackled the decaying wood.

She thought about the smell of smoke and earth and the other girl's look on her face as she saw Aardy, shocked but relieved, like she had been expecting something else.

What had Gazelle been expecting?

Aardy remembered the monster.

But it couldn't be real, could it?

The girl that had sat at the dinning table as an unexpected visitor was the spitting image of the mystery vision girl. The same hair, the same height, the same—

Well, Aardy didn't know about the girl's eyes. Gazelle didn't look at anyone, especially not Aardy, and had kept her face to the ground the entire evening. Like she knew she would be recognized.

But why would that be a bad thing?

Aardy remembered the monster.

"I like how you didn't bring the monster." She had said. "Your new here so you didn't bring the monster. But she'll soon know your here."

Was it still...after them, the monster? Was it after Gazelle? But all the monsters were outside, and it was all just a dream—so why would Gazelle be worried about such things in the Dinning Hall? In the dream, at least, the monster knew when there was unwelcome company.

Sometimes even everlasting machines could finally slow to a stop, because soon Aardy's whirring brain turned to a gentle hum, and soon that gentle hum blurred to the darkness of her eyelids and the sounds of the wilds outside as she let it take her to sleep. She hung on to visions of sharp claws and guilty, everted eyes for as long as she could before she let it take her away too.

...Aardy was running as fast as she could in the forest. She didn't even know if there was anything behind her.

Every part of her heart and mind told her to run—something her heart and mind could finally agree on for once—run run run run run.

Trees scratched at her, and vines pulled her hair as she whizzed past. Her dress caught on the spiny fingers of branches, which nearly made her trip over her aching feet.

Her pulse was beating in her temples when she briefly pondered if this is what Snow White felt when she was running from her evil step mother and the hired hunter when they were trying to track her down.

Although, Snow White didn't look nearly as good as Aardy did running for her life, the girl concluded half-heartedly with an absent minded smile.

She saw the light in the trees. The one that reminded her of a sharp paleness in a dead person's face, the kind of light that flared harshly while looking for prisoners. It wasn't natural. That stupid light that burned one's eyes, nitpicking all the flaws in the world.

It broke the tranquil darkness of the forest and made her skid to a halt, the limbs of plants silently begging for her not to go any further as they brushed against her sliding figure.

She didn't want to stop running, everything told her to do so. But she stopped anyway. Her eyes were drawn to the stinging glow far into the forest. If Aardy kept running... She'd end up over there, wouldn't she? Near the light.

Why was she running?

Slowly, thoughts and memories started trickling back into her adrenaline-sopped mind. Aardy dug her feet into the rich, dark earth, rooting herself to the ground.

This is the place where she met Gazelle. Or no, it was over there by the light. Where the ground was bleached of life and the fire burned steadily, the moon casting a spotlight to whatever was at play. The light place, the bad place. The place where the monster got up to chase.

Aardy shook her head of such thoughts. This is just a dream, no need to get carried away, right? She wouldn't let it scare her.

"Gazelle!" She called into dark, quiet forest. A bug chattered close by her ear. "Hello? Anyone?"

Why was she here? In this dream land?

Aardy thought of the monster again. What if it heard her? What if it tried to eat her?

The girl shook her head for the second time. She wouldn't let monsters scare her, not in her dreams.

"Gazelle!" She yelled at the top of her lugs. "Are you there?! Or am I here alone?! Can anyone hear me?!"

Silence. The forest breathed, animals skittering across bark and wind brushing leaves together, the darkness a blur of one living, surging organism.

The light. Devoid of all sympathy it called to her.

She wandered on over it, not minding the mounting scratches she got from thorns the farther she went.

She found Gazelle in the middle of the bleached clearing. Right by the fire. Her eyes were downcast as she was sitting on the ground, hunch over the small blaze as if she were freezing.

Gazelle looked up. Her eyes looked as empty as the clearing.

"Why are we here Gazelle?" Aardy asked, reaching out her hand for the other girl to take. "Why are you here? What have you been doing?"

Gazelle stood up. "I didn't want to hurt anything." She said it so quietly Aardy almost thought it was the wind. "I didn't want to make anything change so horribly. I'm not going to turn you." She didn't take Aardy's hand, and that's when Aardy saw the red print on Gazelle's chest. Like she was bleeding. A red hand print right above where her heart is.

"It's not your fault." The words formed off Aardy's tongue on their own accord. She didn't know what she was saying, but there was enough feeling behind it. "I came into this dream, remember? I don't think you summoned me this time or...whatever you did, but just look! I'm here now, so it doesn't matter. And I want to help—I don't know what's going on here— but I want to help. Take my hand, let's be friends ok?"

Gazelle didn't take her hand. Soon she even stopped looking at her, as her gaze moved to somewhere over Aardy's shoulder.

"You can't help a monster." The angsty words came out  surprisingly loud from the girl. "You can only run."

At that, the roar of a real monster screeched behind them in the forest as it came crashing down upon them, leaving the young Aardy upright in her bed, eyes wide open as she was flung awake.