53rd of Ymiden Arc 721
The dream shattered.
Broke apart into infinite pieces.
Made way for sudden bright clarity sharp like cut crystal. Just a pinprick at first, a tiny hole that spiderwebbed outwards with cracks that ran quick and jagged. A shrill screeching, piercing bone to the marrow. Deafening and inaudible.
But he could feel it.
Spreading through his mind and body, like the growling of thunderclouds after a flash of lightning. Splintering limbs and skin and organs. Splitting them in too many shards, yet they stubbornly clung together. A broken vase that didn’t yet realize it. More and more lines branched off, going their own unique path. Cohesion growing weaker with every new crack that appeared. Outward forces pulling and pushing the shards, seeking where the weakest spot might be.
Easier the more time passed, the more the fragments split. Tiny splinters desperate to remain whole. Too light to enforce their will, too little surface to grab with and for others to hold onto. Then something finally snapped. One piece slipped down, the first of many. Others followed but an instant later, crumbling into dust where the hole now sat, nurturing and growing it.
Oberan awoke.
Opened his eyes.
He did not rise, for he already stood.
All five senses rousing too, suddenly sharper and duller at the same time. The frosted-glass vision faded, the underwater sound retreated. Cotton-soft tingling on his skin dwindled to nothing. Smell and taste kicked in, breathing too-crisp air and swallowing saliva. And yet for all the clarity chasing away the fog within his mind, he couldn’t say he could perceive better. In fact, it seemed to have gotten worse. Details fled. Liveliness gone. Hiding at the edges of his vision, speaking only when he didn’t listen.
Oberan was awake, but still sleeping.
Still dreaming, but his mind was clear and conscious.
Alert. Present.
Alas, dreams were not meant for the waking. Now his mind became like a greedy fist, grasping for mist. Unable to catch those ethereal whisps. Though the dream had stayed intact at the first point of breaking, its magic was fleeting. Lasted no longer than an eyeblink. Spilling out the cracks when he roused. All that remained was without luster.
Nonsense.
No more, no less. Figures that must have looked human before, reduced to vague silhouettes with shifting features now, appearance not set in stone. Environment unstable, landmarks popping in and out, a different one every time. Sky overcast one moment, sunny the next, and full of rain one later. Day and night constantly battling. Position of the stars randomized every time he blinked.
He stood and stared. Rooted in place. Eyes swiveling, darting from figure to figure, searching desperate for a face with recognizable features, with any features at all. Found none. Sweat prickled on bis forehead. Unpleasant tingling stabbed his armpits and lower back with hot needles. He took a deep calming breath, slow and steady in and out. Eyes closed for a few moments, focused only on the transportation of air to and from his lungs.
The faux-people around him babbled garbled words, every now and then molding a sentence that resembled intelligible speech. Wind rustled trees in the distance, tussled with the clothes and hair of the faceless silhouettes. But not Oberan’s. He did not feel it rush past his skin, and no parts of his outfit billowed. For him there blew no wind at all.
Lucid, he saw the truth of it.
A lump of priceless gold transformed into but a gold-painted stone. No, not transformed. It’d always been a stone. Only he hadn’t been able to see past the paint before. Now his gaze punched through the haze, able to process what he couldn’t mere moments ago. Rationality butchered the magic of the dream.
It unnerved him to be in a world that was just a little off. Perhaps if it’d been completely different from the Idalos he knew, Oberan might not have minded. However, everything closely resembled reality. Enough for a sleeping mind to find comfort in it, to overlook or handwave the missing parts and the holes in the weave.
Yet Oberan was awake now. Noticed the lack of faces, the environments inability to choose what it wanted to be. Perceived the absence of smell and taste and even touch. Understood he heard nothing but garbled phrases meant to resemble speech, but not much else. Very little made any noise at all if he didn’t actively focus on it.
Most unsettling was the realization he did not belong. Not anymore. That he differed too greatly from the uncanny constructs his mind produced. Or perhaps that mere moments before he didn’t even notice. That all this had been normal. Ordinary. Shivers ran down his spine, gooseflesh rippling from his scalp down to his fingers and toes.
Oberan did not want to be here. He felt too isolated, too different. No longer part of the whole. Cut off. Estranged. Out of place. An outsider surrounded by faceless almost-people that reminded him too much of how Sintra’s venom clouded the mind and washed away the distinguishable traits and features of anyone within his field of vision.
A band of ungiving steel tightened around his heart, building pressure in his chest. The pace of his breathing spiked. He needed to get out. Now.
So he left the dream behind. Without second thought. Just turning away and taking a step while wanting to leave. To be elsewhere. Walking for less than a fraction of a second. It was enough to bring him someplace else. A location equal parts familiar and foreign.
