Memories (Of Dreams and Demons)

A New King in Town

I have dreams for company. I live a wondrous adventure in a fantasy world far away; free of the boundaries and rules of a restrictive reality. I escape the pain and blood, the bullies and mocking, the violence and the anger. I find someone to share it with. I find happiness. I find love. I am free.

Wait, that fleeting dream is done.

I can feel myself swaying, floating in and out of consciousness. I'm out the front of the library; the wondrous place where a chance encounter let Naoko and I begin our story. Blinking ever so slowly and trying not to vomit, I tilt my head sideways as I painfully try to focus my eyes. Instinctively, I scan the skies for Cale as best I can. He is nowhere in sight. The man of shadow and his suited creature have vanished, and the tides of shadow slowly retreat, sulking around the edges of the library courtyard. My weak body, covered in blood, half grovels in mud.

A tower of rubble implodes before me. Where once the library sat, beckoning us ever onwards into the fantastical Realm, now rests a smoking pile of broken stone. Our little doorway entrance must lie buried, crushed under a weight of abuse. Moloch walks slowly towards the top of the rubble, pausing only a moment to light fires inside the crumbling statues that once decorated the neat front entrance. His barbed leathery back, wet from the rain and sweat, glistens under the moonlight.

He's heading towards the top of the rubble, where a beacon of light still shoots forth into the dark storm. Unlike the shadowy darkness and the man of shadow that drives it, Moloch seems unaffected by the light. It brightens him with a malevolent realness; washes him with form and color just as readily as it does the Realm. So I watch, helpless, unmoving, as he pulls himself to the top of the mountain of ruin, snuffing out puffs of light when they shine from cracks.

"This story is done," Moloch chuckles to himself. "It's ending tastes so delicious."

I see her. Naoko also kneels slumped before me at the base of the stairs. She's only mere meters away from me, but it feels as if an impassable ocean sits between us. Two dark human figures stand on either side of her, their hands gripped tightly on both her shoulders. She is held in place, but puts up no struggle. Her face is hidden from me, downcast, and the heavy rain washes messy hair over the front of her head. She isn't moving. Is she breathing?

Frantic, I shout: "Naoko!"

Moloch's towering figure is charged by flashes of lightning at the tip of the ruins, scowling while surrounded by the light that pours forth from the library remains. He picks up piece after piece of large, broken stone and slams it into the ground, working methodically and effortlessly with the heaped remains of the building. What he is crafting dawns on me, as a base and armrests morphs into what Moloch has forged from the crumbling remains of our dreams. He places a throne upon the top of the artificial mountain, awash with light never intended to give color to hatred. A courthouse rears large behind him, towering over us as a new order imposing laws upon our once-free Realm.

"I rule the Realm now," he says. "As you grow up, you must discard your childish fantasies."

I clench my teeth and shake my head. This isn't real.

"Now here we are," Moloch continues, "with two good-for-nothings fighting against the natural order of things!"

A crowd of silent figures gather around the library courtyard, their dark, humanoid outlines facing us directly.

"You ignored the orders of your parents," he says. "You were told to stay at home; to follow and behave."

The anger and judgment emanating from the crowd becomes a heavy weight, shoving me down. So many figures, they are people without faces staring at me with disdain. Rows of adults with blank faces; they come to witness a proceeding without understanding my story. What are they doing here? What do they want?