Chronic Fatigue

Chapter Three

There was something about the 'spider' that Mist hadn't been able to work out until now, but it was occurring to her that something like it had been in her dreams last night; the same, apart from the spindly legs hanging from its mechanical body. Mist looked at it and then at the bed. "Oh, you are joking!" she whispered: the ovoid spider-like device had cut the pillows and duvet to shreds with its sharp metallic legs. Feathers and cotton were flying everywhere. "What a mess! First, Roan spills coffee all over the bed, then wine on the carpet, now this. When will it ever end?"

The thing stopped moving, its red, eye-like button pointed right at her as if examining her, trying to register her next move. Mist started as she noticed the jointed legs extending beneath the oval body - they were growing, stretching out even further than before! In an instant, it charged across the room toward her. Mistletoe let out a scream, jumped back and quickly slammed the door shut behind her. "Phew! Just in time!" She was now on the landing and holding the bedroom door shut. There was a moment of silence. Just her own heaving breaths. She was safe. But the moment was splintered by a sawing, scratching sound at the base of the door. "What's that?" she groaned. Horrified, she realised that the mechanism was attacking the door, trying to get to her.

                                                                                                   *****

The five friends gathered around the doorway to the chamber.

"Dead end," Roan noted, "nothing but junk here. Wait, lamps, matches." Roan's face lit up as he struck a match, "I didn't expect that to light!"

Gum turned from scanning the broken furniture littering the place to face Elmo, "Time you told me about these dreams you've been having," he muttered. Elmo nodded and everyone gathered in the centre of the room whilst Roan burnt his fingers lighting candle stubs in a couple of rusty lamps. Gum slid a suitable box out of the shadows and Elmo sat on the floor, Holi huddling in a corner, Heather hanging back closer to the comforting space of the open doorway. "I'm having a deja-vu," she said. "I've seen this place before."

"I've been having such a jumble of dreams," Elmo began.
"Like the floodgates opened and my brain won't stop. Not just the usual stuff: flying, falling, back in school, unprepared for the exam. No. Dreams of being trapped, portals, secret doorways, dark passages, that device keeps coming up. I remember them when I wake too."

Roan chipped in, as he wandered the room, "Wardrobes, mirrors, deep rabbit holes, storybooks! And who's Rimgumbaldy?"
"Rimgumbaldy?" repeated Elmo thoughtfully. "It was his device."

Heather strained to listen, her attention divided between Elmo's ramblings and the staircase back to normality, to home. She didn't like the gloom of the staircase, but didn't like to be too far from the only route back to normality either.

Gum asked "How come you know this place? How did you find it?"
"I don't know how I know," said Elmo, "Dreams. I told you, someone put stuff in my head! Why am I dreaming about myself wandering around waving a pin? Why does the name Rimgumbaldy sound like something I should know? He sounds like some made-up medieval inventor."

Roan scowled, recalling the phone call earlier that morning. Holi looked disappointed, "Why didn't you tell me any of this?"

Elmo softened. "I didn't know if it was all just... just dreams, you didn't seem interested when I drew that device from my dream. I did show you. I didn't know if it was dangerous - it is pretty weird. I don't know - didn't ever feel like the time was quite right."
"I did want to tell you Hol." Elmo went silent for a while, deep in thought.

Behind, Heather was fighting the urge to look up the stairs, she fancied she heard movement far above them, it was indistinct, but her deja-vu recalled it too and she was getting a little jumpy. Hopefully just nothing.