°??───??8??───??°

  The first day of the journey in which dreamscapes encroach

  °??───???───??°

  A sack hung from her shoulders, filled with supplies. A stick in her hand that was more accustomed to holding a beer. This is what she had agreed to; a long journey to the Traemir. She shook her head in disbelief. She had never even left Crumbledgard before. Yet, she had agreed to this. She thought of Katoia and exhaled. It was fine. What was this treacherous terrain to her, Kally the crumbolian was going on an adventure. Her guide - a man of relative few words and seemingly no name. What could possibly go wrong?

  As if willing misfortune into fruition, Kally stepped on a stray purple infused vine that was wriggling on the floor, a paper fish writhing on a hand. Dust puffed up, and made its way to her hair. Clumps of meat fell off her head, landing at her feet. She ran her fingers through her hair and grimaced as she felt the squelch. As one often does when morbid curiosity creeps in, she raised her finger to her nose and sniffed. She gagged. What did she expect really. The smell was foul and overpowering, but not of meat, of honey, nectar. A sweet funk to it.

  The cloaked man in front stopped.

  Kally panicked. She darted behind a tree. At least, that was her intention. Unfortunately for her, as she turned, the vine that was wrapped snugly around her foot tugged hard and pulled her to the ground. This pull resulted in a twist, and then a shooting pain and a sharp gasp. He turned around to see Kally, face in the ground, leaves in her now completely normal hair, and with a twisted foot. He said nothing as he held out his arm for her to pull herself up with. Mortified, Kally imagined his eyes within the mask were rolling so hard they would hit the back of his skull. Jackpot.

  It had been a silent journey. Just the two of them made little company and little conversation. Karin had been set against it. It took a while for Tommy to talk him round. But talk him round he did, and Karin conceded on the proviso that he could pack Kally’s provisions. This was why her bag was so heavy. It weighed her down as she limped.

  She called out, “Can we stop?”

  The cloaked man turned and grimaced. “Does your foot hurt?”

  “It’s alright. I just want t—” She rummaged through her bag tossing items out. “—lighten the load.” She smiled.

  “That’s better,” she said as she tossed out the wooden flask of beer Karin had packed her. She grumbled to herself, “What does he think of me, insisting I should drink even on a journey such as this. Bartender habits die hard I guess.”

  ???

  They walked for a few more hours, until the day was beginning to settle into night. The cloaked man, upon finding a suitable clearing, stopped and put his satchel down. “We will stop here for the night.”

  Kally’s eyes widened. “Won’t we be too exposed here?”

  He dismissed her question with his hands and raised them again, forming a sigil in the air. It glowed a bright yellow and formed a translucent barrier, a faint yellow glow, around them. At the same time, it succeeded in displacing the purple haze.

  “Oh. Why don’t you do this all the time?”

  “Wasteful,” was the one word response she was given.

  Kally scanned the area within the barrier and found the first task.

  Fire.

  They would need a campfire for this makeshift campsite. She wondered if that man was going to conjure up one out of thin air but felt it was too rude to ask.

  Instead she settled on a general enquiry. “What are we to do about a fire?”

  His mouth looked quizzical. “We will need some logs. Are you capable of this?” His tone to her implied that he thought she was useless. Kally flushed as she recalled the twisted ankle incident. To him, she must have looked like a weak flower wilting to the ground; stem twisted.

  Steely determination brewed and she stalked off, again, walking through the barrier to gather some firewood. She returned shortly after, basking in her success, and they set about making the fire burn. She did not comment on the absence of magic as they struck a flint, like mere humans of bygone times. Karin. Surely Karin should have packed her a fire stick or something. She rolled her eyes; instead, he had packed her beer. She laughed to herself. That is what everyone thinks of her, after all.

  Once they had a satisfactory fire, Kally opened her bag of provisions. Surely Karin would have packed some food. Sure enough, they had snacks and compacted chicken broth cubes. She shared these out to the disgruntled looking stranger before her and they ate in silence. Before long, Kally’s toe throbbed. It had been stuck in that boot all day, putrefying in its own stench. She sighed.

  “Excuse me,” she said, as she removed both her boots and the sock with main character energy passing through it.

  The toe gasped for air once more. This was its unveiling ritual at this point. “You didn’t half leave me in there for ages, Kally,” the toe started to bemoan, before spotting the guest to their conversation.

  “Oh, that man is here,” she loud whispered.

  “Do not mind me.” Arms crossed and leaning back against a rock, he gave off the impression of a day dreamer, or perhaps a night sleeper. Though there was no way of knowing if his eyes were shut or not, nor the direction in which they lay.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Katoia, don’t be rude.”

  “Hmmph.”

  Katoia looked around their surroundings and noticed a startling problem. Kally sensed it too. The barrier was a trifle too small for the three of them to comfortably sleep by the campfire.

  That man now looked to be staring at the flames with a potentially cautious look on his mouth. It is so hard to decipher only a mouth.

  “Erm, don’t you think the barrier—” Kally started, “…”

  He tugged his - assumed - gaze from the flames and settled on Kally’s face. She did not continue.

  “—is a tad small?” Katoia chimed in.

  She received no response.

  “I mean it’s fine for me. I can fit most places. But, for the two of you, I mean. I mean, look… Is there something indecent afoot?”

  Kally purpled and hit her toe.

  The cloaked man looked around bewildered, and with a wry smile but a blustered voice, replied, “Ah, I see. Yes. Quite. I guess I am not accustomed to company…” He paused.

  “A slight miscalculation. Please accept my apologies.”

  He tapped the sigil and the barrier expanded threefold.

  He headed to the other side of the barrier and laid down with his back to them both.

  “Sleep,” was the final conscious word of the night.

  ???

  ~ “No, no, I can help. I will.”

  ~ “The willow faces…”

  ~ “Her task is too great. No. Please no.”

  The strange mutterings of a strange man disturbed Kally throughout the night. He quivered and moaned, sweat glazing his brow, feverish. After a while she made her way to him, his temperature: not hot. Relief swept over her. A true fever at a time like this would not be ideal. An understatement right there.

  “Not death. No,” he pleaded.

  He placed his hands on his head, his mouth scrunched in pain. Was he having a headache in his sleep? Kally rubbed her head. She felt a pierce.

  He shuddered deeply and called out again, “Death.”

  His face hardened. “No. This must not be.”

  He turned, fists clenched into balls.

  “I must stop the willows awakening. Cannot stop.”

  Kally chewed her lip. His body heaved as he tossed and turned in the night. Contorting in his nightmarish hell. His mutterings became more and more incoherent to her. A dull pain ached within her and Katoia seemed disturbed in her sleep. With no company, Kally kept a watchful eye on the tortured man lost within her plentiful thoughts. Death. What hellish dreamscape was he in now? Were the willow trees following his every move?

  “My eyes!” he cried out, cheeks wet. Kally’s heart lurched - his eyes. What had happened to his eyes?

  He convulsed and curled up tight into a protective ball. There he stayed, cheeks wet and breathing laboured, for the remainder of the night. Kally, disturbed, did not drift off to sleep for a long time after that. Instead, she stayed watching him, aware of all his movements, and thinking of the absurdity of her situation.

  Eventually however, slumber took her to her own dreamscape.

  °??───???───??°

  That faraway land. Again. With dancing frivolity and feasts a-plenty. Oh what a wistful place, divine and glorious.

  A stream ripples. Merry bustles of gribble activity lurk within the water. They flow in their transparency. Gribbles are wood suckers; their favourite pastime is to blow and suck on slabs of their tree, despite the intestinal discomfort. The gribbles seem, to Kally, excited as they pulse through the river, darting up and down to witness all the celebrations of the day.

  A particularly excited gribble leaves the security of the water and sits on the bank. He has characteristically large circular eyes, his long eyelashes curling upwards. His thin spindly legs, insect-like, dangle in the water. He sits contentedly watching the activity of his fellows and the animals on the bank. A particular rabbit catches his eye as it peeks out of its hole. Its nose twitches and Kally, in a hallucination brought on by his excitement and her tiredness, projects upon the rhythm of the twitch the rhythm of the music from the celebrations. This has the effect of a choreographed performance, in need of only a few more actors, which Kally’s mind eagerly bestows. Undoubtedly a trick of the night and not a discovery of rabbit theatre, the rabbit soon re-enters its burrow as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

  Kally hears the crunch of leaves underfoot. With fluttering eyelashes acting as wings, in an instant, the young gribble darts away, back into the sanctuary of the stream. Skittish by nature.

  Music overpowers Kally’s senses and she hears a melody faintly reminiscent of one she had heard before. Her attention snaps back to the direction of the crunch of leaves. A figure approaches. Female. Middle-aged, with hollowed eyes and a fatigued expression on her serious face. The trademark slim physique of this unknown clan is exaggerated to the point of being gaunt. She looks as brittle as a dried out twig.

  She approaches. Kally is pulled into her deep blue eyes. Her head throbs as images shift in her minds-eye. Faces, faces, so many faces. They call out, they speak. She hears no sound. A dull ache in her head. A pinch, she feels. She discerns that pain in this dreamscape is real. Like no other dream she has had before. These faces, familiar, vie for her attention, each one urgent and desperate.

  The face of the middle aged female battles to the front. She speaks with great effort, in a quiet voice, barely audible, “It is I, Alena. Alena.”

  °??───???───??°

  ‘Alena’ echoed through Kally’s mind until she awoke. Her mouth was agape forming the name ‘A-le-na’ as if she was afraid this vision would be lost.

  The barrier was still cast above but there was no sign of that man. He must have risen early. Kally smelt the air. Crisp but dew infused, it could hardly have been much past sunrise. Sure enough, the purple haze had flecks of orange within, bursting like solar flares but with the intensity of a dying flame.

  She put out the remaining embers of the campfire and headed out of the barrier’s protection and into the forest.

  °??───? Author’s Note ?───??°

  And so begins the quest through twisted vines, distant dreams, and snarky sentient toes. Kally’s out of the bar and into the woods - armed with nothing but a stick, a heavy bag packed by someone who definitely doesn’t ~not~ believe in her, and a guide who talks like his soul is held together by ellipses.

  We saw clumsy falls, gooey hair, cryptic mutterings, and gribbles with emotional range. As always, comments fuel the purple magic - drop one if you dare.

  +~ ! ?? ! ~+

  ? Coming up - Chapter 9 title ?

  °??───?? The day in which seething tempers are quickly tempered by fear ??───??°

  ?? Vision Watch ??

  ? A faraway land, with blue eyes and pale faces vying for attention (Chapter 5)

  ? Gribbles play as a celebration is happening and Kally wakes up mouthing a name - Alena (Chapter 8)

  ~ SK Payde

  ? ? ?