A World Of Dreams Read online

Sam’s house was big with nice wooden furniture and carpet everywhere. I politely took off my shoes. Even though I can generally be rude and obnoxious, I’m always polite when in someone else’s home. Nick walked in and wiped his shoes all over the carpet, but left no mark. I rolled my eyes at him and stomped down to the basement with my sleeping bag, warning everyone of my arrival with my never quiet steps.

  “Hey.” I said when I saw then all lounging on the leather couches drinking Pepsi and munching on chips.

  “Can we watch the movie and get this over with already?” I asked, putting my hand on my hip.

  “Relaaax Savy. Come on this’ll be fun” He said in his voice that had the ability to say anything in the world calmly and composed. “Sam’s mom made cookies.”

  In unison with the word cookies, Sam frisbeed one to me. And if frisbeed isn’t a word, too bad. I managed to catch it and sat down, we started the movie. Sam’s dad worked in the movie industry, which is why Sam always had the latest movies. Two hours of excitement, fright and horror until the main character realised he wouldn’t get another chance of escape until he served his penance in hell.

  If you like watching movie quietly, don’t watch them with my friends, Kate was speaking the whole time about how stupid she though horror movie were and Sam kept yelling out spoilers, frustrating the hell out of everyone. I hit him upside the head every time he opened his mouth, which only made him hit me back even though he claims he doesn’t want to hurt girls. Plus, if that wasn’t enough to keep me from watching the movie peacefully, my dead brother Nick kept commenting on every single aspect of the movie and evaluating the hotness of the girls in it.

  “You’d be hot if you weren’t my sister.” He said.

  “What?” He gave him a “what the fuck”.

  “What, what?” Sam said. “Still talking to your fucking dead brother no one else sees.”

  The was the end of the movie and we were just talking. Everyone froze. No one ever brought Nick up anymore.

  I leaned forward slowly until my face was inches from his and raised one eye brow. “Yes, you’ve got a problem with that?”

  He laughed and slapped my back. “Come one, just teasing, here, have some tea.” He said passing me a cup.

  I wasn’t really sure where it came from.

  “Don’t drink it, it’s poisoned.” Nick said with a wry smile.

  I flashed him my middle finger where no one could see it while red rose to my cheeks. The only thing that got to me was when I got caught talking to my brother.

  “She isn’t asleep yet.” Kate said, worrying, her guardian stomping the ground like it did whenever she was upset or worried. The unicorn’s rainbow mane was flaming more than usual and its eyes were darting. Brent was merely sitting Indian style in their tower headquarters, his guardian sniffing around sweeping the ground with its clawed foot. Sam was petting his tiger’s head, which was the only time he ever seemed to be calm.

  “I’ll take care of it.” Sam said, “I feel myself waking up anyways. Can’t sleep whenever she’s around.”

  “No!” Kate yelled, “Last time you made her fall asleep she got a concussion!” She yelled as Sam’s image faded into the background.

  They all looked at each other as his guardian began to fade as well. Kate’s guardian began getting more and more agitated. Brent’s clawed bull charged at the wall and made a hole in it. Brent and Kate immediately mentally fixed it.

  I could never sleep well when there were other people around, and I always ended up walking around the house, getting some milk from the fridge or making some tea, which drove Sam nuts since he could be easily waken. I was walking into the living room with my glass of milk, Nick attempting to scare me into dropping it when I noticed Sam’s sleeping bag was empty. I sighed, I was never going to fall asleep I drank a few sips and placed the milk on the table, turning to find Sam with strands of blue hair falling in his face, holding a cooking pot. Yes, blue hair. Sam had spontaneously dyed his hair blue after seeing a picture of some rock star having done the same thing. The worst part is, it suited him. I only had time to think, “Oh shit, not again.” when I felt the pot connect with my head.

  I moaned and opened my eyes. All of the gang were looking over me. Brent helped me up.

  “Where the fuck is Sam when I get my hands on him...”

  “He’s not here yet.” Brent answered.

  That kid belonged in a fucking mental hospital. That’s when I noticed my surroundings.

  “What the...”

  The walls were made of stone and when I looked out the tiny window, I noticed we were in a tower; I focused my gaze on the dull coloured patch of flowers before noticing how shinny the sky was. My heart started racing as I turned to face my friends. I was expecting a laugh or a snide comment from Nick so I looked around. At first gently but then I violently spinned around, like when someone sees something in the corner of their eye but when they turn to see it, it disappears.

  “Nick.” I whispered to myself. After a few moments I yelled it. “Nick!”

  Sam chose that moment to appear.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as Kate and Brent looked at me with wide eyes.

  I was starting to freak out. Like I said earlier, nothing really phased me except for something to do with my brother, probably because I felt self- conscious about being a bit crazy or some crap like that. Or it’s just because I was so used to his presence after two years. My breathing got faster until I was hyperventilating, which was odd because I didn’t feel like I was lacking any oxygen. I moved to run down the stairs. Whatever it took I was going to find my dead brother that had not left my side since he appeared to years ago. As I rushed towards the stairs and saw the stairwell open up to me and the view of the outside displayed before me, I felt pressure n my shoulders. Brent wasn’t letting me. In fact, he pulled me back.

  “I have to find my brother!” I snapped at him before trying to get free.

  My eyes were shooting knives at him when he turned me around to face him. I started into his composed face and his deep brown eyes, sensing his plea for calm.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Calm down okay, I don’t know where your brother is, but I’m sure he’ll be back once you wake up.” He said in a rock solid voice.

  “Wake up?” I said, horrified. What did he mean wake up, I wasn’t awake?

  The air was so still, even when someone moved the air still remained perfectly still, in place. Or was it even air.

  I calmed down a bit.

  “So...what it going on?”

  I examined them with my narrowed eyes, my lips sticking out like when I was considering something.

  Sam, who had been surprisingly quiet, burst into life. A white tiger with wings was resting it’s head on his lap. That’s when I noticed the creatures, one for each person, all staring at me with deep questioning, considering eyes.

  “Well Savy!” He said dramatically standing up, knocking the tiger’s head off his lap and gesturing grandly, “We are in the dram world!”

  He held the pose he was in as if expecting clapping.

  “Basically, whenever you’re asleep you come here, anything you imagine can come alive.”

  I considered that for a minute, it sounded awesome, anything you imagine coming to life before me. But then I realised one horrifying detail: I wouldn’t get ANY alone time. I’m not exactly anti-social (okay I am) and I really need my alone time, it’s what keeps me sane in a world where people automatically want to become friendly with you when you’re alone. It doesn’t occur to them that perhaps you WANT to be alone. Now I get to spend my waking and sleeping hours with a gang of fucked up group of people that won’t leave me alone!

  “Okay, which one of you put drugs in the milk?”

  Their eyes worried at me.

  “Savy, this is real...” Kate started.

  I was already out the tower and running down, without feeling breathless. I ran through the flower patch and as I passed through, th
ey grew tall and covered me. A smoky image frightened me and I fell down. My heart seemed to stop, or at least whatever the mental equivalent is. It disappeared and reappeared stronger. The image fluttered a bit and became denser, condensing into a shape. The creature’s tongue fell out as it panted. It crouched in a leaned position and its fur that faded from dark grey on its back to almost white on the stomach was gleaming n the silvery light. Strangely, I was not scared by this appearance. Troubled, maybe a little. But I recognised this creature from my dreams as a child, this was my creature Keyn, with his three winding tails linked together to approximately the third of their length by a web of dark skin and two bat wings stretching out of either side of his body. Spikes rose and fell on his head with his movements as well as the lines of spikes on either side of the end of its tails. He yawned, his pink tongue hanging abnormally far and rolling back in after a lick of the lips. My eyes were open in amazement but I heard the sounds of my gang coming after me. I wasn’t ready to believe this strange world without my brother. It felt empty. Not because I was desperately attached to Nick but because I was so used to his presence it was as natural as breathing. And even if I was ready to believe this, I felt better with things lone, with time to think. It was probably because I had so much trouble listening to others I had to figure things out myself and not rely on anyone for an explanation.

  “Come, quick!” I told Keyn, whose head turned to me eyes rolling in my direction.

  He stood up on his hind legs in a crouched position, he had been leaning on his short arms. With one big lick at the air, Keyn began running next to me. We trashed through the flowers that seemed to be growing taller around me at my will until our surroundings faded into a sparse forest with hanging fruits that seemed to be hollow on the inside. Light emanated from their core. That is when, above the far away sounds of my friends, I heard a mysterious noise that sounded like a violent shift in the air, although the air in this place never seemed to shift. Then a shadow grew over me. My eyes widened more and more as a shadow formed next to me. I looked up. In front of me was the thing from my nightmares as a kid. A humanoid, completely dressed in black, even the fingers, like the unitards some people wear, and one oversized head, deep yellow with two hollow, unblinking black eyes. And let’s not forget the smile of the happy face. For a moment I was too stunned to even breathe, but then Keyn rushed the happy face man, pushing him to the ground.

  “No!” I yelled hoarsely.

  I head a few words from my friends and then they all rushed into my sight. Keyn and the happy face were now apart from each other and circling. The Happy face had a cut across his chest and a purple liquid oozed out onto his coal black skin.

  “Go!” Sam yelled.

  The white tiger serenely leaped and caught the oversized happy face in his claws. But he jumped back when the smiley face opened its mouth and retracted its black lips to show curved sharp teeth. Keyn choose that moment. He ran low and planted his teeth into the smiley man’s leg, sending his three tails, spikes out, to wrestle him to the floor. Kate’s unicorn chose that moment to plant it’s long horn into the thing’s eye. It turned still and when the unicorn and Keyn moved away, little pieces began to peel off like ashes and flew away as if in the wind, even though there was no wind.

  “Glad that’s over.” I said putting an arm around Keyn’s neck when he came to me and lowered his head. “Now I need some time alone to think okay?”

  Sam laughed. “Fucking shit Savy, you are fucking clueless.”

  Figures began to appear through the trees, pushing branches aside, illuminated by the glow of the weird fruits. Their black lips accentuated their unnaturally round and big smiles, but while their mouth said joy, their eyes were deep and menacing, making them especially creepy. I found myself thinking we were all doomed and that after being killed in a painful way I’d wake up in my bed, relieved if was just a dream. But suddenly, things other than my friend’s guardians appeared out of nowhere. The look of concentration on their faces seemed to be causing it. Keyn’s muscles were tense as a giant polar bear and a dragon fluttered into existence. But I had to stop paying attention when one of the, perhaps ten, smiley faces leaped towards me, mouth open wide and teeth bared. Keyn jumped in front of me, and although in a crouching position he was probably one and a half times me height, the smiley face was abnormally tall and his whole giant head opened up. The sounds of my friends yelling and the various creature noises faded, I could clearly see as the smiley face was headed right now, its teeth would completely eradicate Keyn’s neck. For some reason, I felt desperate at that moment. My heart seemed to stop beating. I never had very strong feeling for others. People fell into three categories. Those I do not like, those I do not mind and those who are annoying but have good intentions. None of them though, got any response for me, apart from the people I do not like. They attract anger. But I found myself desperately worried for a creature that came out of my mind. Suddenly, my vision filled with red, and the smiley face was my target. I wasn’t exactly sure what happened but a figure appeared in the sky, burning with fire and shot down, going right through the smiley face, making it slowly turn to ashes and float away.

  I caught Sam’s eyes wide and fixated on me, but then he realised a smiley face was after his guardian, taunting him, making him mad. And the tiger had trouble keeping up with its swiped, so concentrating, Sam made a big worm with a toothy mouth on each side appear to help battle. A few more were coming through the forest, but they were not smiley faces. One in particular was a human shape of crawling bugs, controlling a swarm of bees. I could feel Keyn get exited under the hand that was placed on his shoulder. I had created him a sort of superhero to protect me from the monsters in my dreams and one of his cool features was how rough and thick the skin on the inside of his mouth and tongue were.

  Kate saw us preparing to head in that direction and took her attention of the fight between her guardian and a smiley.

  “Stay back!” She yelled at me. “You can’t fight yet you don’t have the experience!”

  I stuck my tongue out at her. I mean, this was just a dream wasn’t it? But I was beginning to doubt.

  “Let’s go.”

  I grabbed handfuls of his fur and hoisted myself onto his back. Part of the forest had been burned down by the bird that saved Keyn, so he had room to open his wings and fly low over the ground.

  The humanoid moved closer and I could clearly see the cockroaches crawling over the human skeleton. At a rare moment, you could see the white bone but it was soon covered by another roach. As if wielding a whip, the humanoid send the swarm of bees towards us. Keyn issued a resonating cry, something between a lion’s roar and a hiss. Then he snapped at the bees, killing them with his teeth and letting them hang out the side of his mouth. Unfortunately, they had swarmed around him and I felt the pain as I got stung. I grinded my teeth and protected my face by putting it against his warm fur. Keyn noticed my struggles and began to flap, enveloping the bees and moving them away from me. Slowly he rose, effectively keeping most of the bees confined where he could chomp at them. When they landed, all of the cockroaches scurried away, leaving the pure white skeleton to fall in pieces to the ground, after a moment of seeming suspended in the air.

  “Ugh!” I grunted, “Finally!”

  The other were standing with their arms to their side, breathing hard. Their creatures flickered out of existence. I rubbed my arms, the bee stings hurt.

  They all surrounded her with exasperated looks.

  “You don’t think it’s over so you?” Brent asked.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. I had endured them stealing my lunch period when I could be alone, but now they were robbing me of the most precious, undeniable alone time: when you’re asleep. I crossed me arms.

  “Maybe not, but if it’s not, I can deal with it.” They began walking away from the tower, being in the middle I was forced to follow. I just wanted some alone time. And I saw those things. They were MY nightmares, they were going
after ME. I wasn’t quite sure what the rules of life and death were in this world, but I did care about them and wasn’t about to let them be in danger because of me.

  “Look Savy, you understand nothing to this world and it is much more dangerous than you think. You need our help for this.”

  I sighed and looked him in the eyes.

  “I doesn’t matter whether I need help, it is whether I want it. And I don’t want your help!” I said.

  “Why not!” Kate asked, exasperated.

  They couldn’t understand. I enjoyed solitude and anything worth doing is worth doing alone. When you’re alone, you don’t have to worry about what other people want. People hold you back. “Because! I can take care of myself and I don’t want you guys meddling in my life, especially since now I don’t even have my nights to me all alone!”

  Brent sighed heavily, which he hardly ever did. Light sighs when we were being weird yes, but a deep sigh meant I really wasn’t getting the point.

  “Savvy, you won’t survive without us, and there’s no way were letting that happen, so either you help us, or get in our way, your choice.”

  The voice of logic as always, one even I couldn’t deny.

  “Fine.” I pouted with my arms crossed, glaring at Brent even though he did nothing wrong.

  I heard some kind of hissing from above. When I looked up. All I saw was another horrific creature from my nightmare. It was smelling the air through its mouth that ran a thin line under its body. When closed. When open it could get very wide and very threatening. You couldn’t see all these details form where we were standing, but my mind created it, so I knew it was very flat, with long movable spikes on either side of its body linked together by skin that allowed it to fly in places with no set gravity rules by moving like a wave and three little antennas coming out of its front with two tiny eyes each.

  “Oh oh.” I said, looking up. It also had very corrosive saliva it used at a weapon. “Back into the trees!” Yelling this I realised, I had to stick with them. I knew my nightmares best of all and if they were trying to protect me without my help, they would surely die.

  We ran into the cover of the trees. Brent was carrying a large ax.

  “Where—”

  I watched as he let go of it and it disappeared into nothing, then reappeared in his hand. I got it then. Not only could you create creatures...

  I looked down at my hand and a wicked long sword, webbed by deep crevasses appeared in my hand. I frowned. Lava began flowing in those cracks. If I was going to prevent any of them from getting hurt, I was going to do one hell of a good job at it.

  We heard the frustrated cries of the creature ahead to I ran out into the open.

  “Come at me bitch!”

  Its little antenna eyes focused on me and it dove. The corrosive saliva was about to rain all over me when Keyn flew overhead, his wing membranes blackened. But it was thick and resistant so no severe damage was caused. The creature shrieked in frustration, it would take it some time to gather enough saliva for another attack. My gang were rushing to the rescue, but I left Keyn to meet the creature in the air. To create vines that shot from the ground and tangled the trees in front of them, preventing them from coming any closer. The fight was a bit odd in the air, the creature was at last twice Keyn’s length from head to tail and could not stop moving forward without plummeting to the ground. I made a clicking noise and Kayn landed quickly but gracefully next to me. The tip of his long ear was singed off, and there were many spots on his back with no fur and sticky red. Understandably. That made me angry. Very angry.

  “Hey fuck face!” I yelled.

  It went straight for me. I swung my sword, holding it with two hands. It caught one of its antenna eyes as it passed by and I tumbled to the ground. Keyn flew up and landed on the creature’s back, doing as much damage as plausible with its claws as I got up, my sword turning into a double blade sword as I willed it to. The downed monster was putting too much of its attention into finding a way to turn its head and get to Keyn to noticed me walk towards it. PJ’s ripped, and plant my sword into it. This made it rise in a furry, sending Keyn somersaulting down its back. Fortunately, Keyn managed to open his wings and catch some air, flying off. Corrosive blood was trickling out of the wounds Keyn had caused, making it even more dangerous.

  “Fuck.” I muttered under my breath.

  It dove down towards me, opening the long mouth, displaying sharp teeth and the bulging mass of flesh that one at the same time it’s mouth and stomach. Suddenly, that sight of wet pink flesh filled my vision and I was petrified. But I reminded myself of how badass I was and took a deep breath. Oddly, in this world, scents were faint and only seemed to come at certain moments so I was not bothered by the creature’s breath. I took a deep breath and threw my sword into the creature’s gaping mouth, throwing myself to the ground and rolling over, losing sight of what was happening for a moment and getting up with my tangled sandy blond hair tangled and mixed with dead leaves in my hair. Odd, I hadn’t noticed those dead leaves before. I had to react quickly my sword had missed its mark widely and had disappear. I noticed it reappear in my hand and while the creature was rising its fore body, I rushed towards it and with fire in my eyes, brought down the glowing red hot sword on it heavily. It sliced down into its flesh, burning it as it went. Perfect, I thought, that was it wouldn’t bleed on me.

  I was wrong though, the blood was so corrosive, it went through the burned flesh and poured to the ground. Some of it sprayed me and I tried my best not to yell and show weakness in front of this creature. The front part of its jaw hung open till the point it was cut, flopping around and hanging limply. But it wasn’t dead yet.

  “Keyn.” I barked.

  He came to me and I mounted. He and the creature entered this elaborate areal dance, Cringe trying not to get sprayed until I was close enough. I launched myself off, at the same time condemning myself for doing something so dangerous—even Keyn gave a yelp— and planted my sworn right behind its eye, keeping it there as my weight pulled it down. My legs were flailing and I let go, plummeting to the ground. Keyn, with his crispy black ear, intercepted me and we landed my breath short. We watched the giant beast fall heavily to the ground, head bent awkwardly at the place it was cut, showing the inside of its head. The top of it began blowing away in ashes.

  “That’s right!” I yelled, “That’s what you get messing with my brain child bith!” Making the arms back torso out movement.

  The vines, that I had not even realised I was keeping control of, fell dead as I untensed.