In Dreamings
an excerpt

Cay took Om and I by the hand and Lesley grasped the one I had free, Shadow gripping Om's. The two Dreamcatchers stepped simultaneously, and I was aware of only two seconds of black unconnectedness-- Darkness-- before we were in a forest.
This wasn't like the forest in Lesley's dream or the one of towering wooden pillars I'd first met Cay in. It had dark, thin trees with low twisting branches, many dead, weaving a barrier from spiky twigs, dead boughs, and thick winding brambles with sharp thorns. All of it was dark gray, no green or rich brown but instead a monotone jumble of monochromatic. Some of the trees were leaking a dark sap, sickly grayish-brownish that oozed out of trunks where they had been scraped open from the claws or teeth of some identifiable animal. From the size and impact of the marks, however, it would have to be big. And strong. And angry.
The ground had no mat of autumn leaves or grass, instead a dry, powdery layer of fine dust or ash riddled with twigs and hidden sharp thorns fallen from the vines was the covering. The dark sand gained dead leaves further in, dark and pockmarked with an unrecognizable spiky shape. The bigger trees I could see a bit further in's twisting roots were concealed mostly beneath it, but the knotted and scared appendages still thrust partway out, showing craggy openings where anything might lurk.
But the sky, it was what made the place so disturbing. If it had been blue or starred there might have been a strange, twisted beauty to the landscape, anything to provide contrast to the gray landscape. But it wasn't. It was black, and close, as though someone had draped a thick, heavy sheet over the place. And I don't mean black like a cloudy sky in the waking world, there's too much light pollution and color hidden in it to get truly black. This was like cave darkness, my eyes seeing imagined red and white sparks over it because they couldn't understand that no light was bouncing back to them. It's had to remember sometimes that we're not actually seeing a thing- but the way light bounces off it and into our eyes. Do colors even exist outside our heads?
The effect was claustrophobic, making me wish for room to run out from the edge of the forest into an open space where I could breathe, but behind me was just a few feet of the ashy soil that faded into more darkness a few feet away. Even my quick glance backwards was too much to describe, like going blind. It was like the Darkness we'd encountered between the dreams had soaked into the sky, tainted with nothing, filling it slowly, suffocatingly.
"The edge of the world," Shadow murmured softly. "What they think of it as, anyway. As close as you can get and be able to return."
Lesley pursed her lips, and began walking just at the edge of the trees, as far from the deep black a few feet away as possible. The forest snagged at her hair and skin with twigs and protruding roots and thorns, as though telling her to stay away, never enter or better yet leave altogether and forever.
"Here we go," Cay muttered, grimacing, still holding my hand as she plunged herself into the dark, grim woods.
"Hey-" I stared to protest, but when she let go instead worked on shielding myself from the poking, prodding wall. She fought past a tangled web of clutching sticks while the rest of ourselves pushed through the opening she had broken, forcing ahead for several feet before the barrier let up a little. Only enough that we could open our eyes and straighten a bit, but we still had to be wary of the snaking vines and sinister wood.
Even Shadow was having trouble, the thorn bushes seeking out him too and trying to slip unnoticed around ankles and legs, to trip and cut us. I had to concentrate mainly on following Cay and avoiding the tripwire vines strewn across the path Cay seemed to be following, though more from memory than actual lighter parts of the wood. There weren't any. I chanced a quick glance back and stumbled, but saw that the forest we'd come though was already beginning to knit up the trail we'd broken. We'd have to fight our ways out as well. This dream did not want us here.
Another thing I noticed that sent chills across my arms was the silence. It filled the air like a thick fog, but created the effect as if it had stretched the air out thinly, our voices, when we spoke, sounded faint, as thought they had traveled a great distance before finding our ears. I couldn't hear my labored breathing though I could feel it, making me think I wasn't actually getting air when I noticed. I knew I probably didn't need to breathe, but to not do so is nearly impossible. And it's slightly comforting too, which I needed here.
Only the snapping of twigs and branches echoed like gunshots, alerting anything that might be out there to our presence.
As we got further in the tress thickened and spaced out a bit, higher branches that were easier to duck under but there were still thorns. Small black flowers grew in clumps around and in the gnarled roots, protruding from the gray dust that muffled and hid our footsteps. The thick five petals on each looked velvety and soft, but I didn't touch them. As we walked we passed a group of them, when we bent to squeeze between a thick blackened trunk and a large bramble, I glanced down at them and saw they were rooted in the middle of a delicate bird skeleton, peeking from it's crumbling ribs with roots winding around the outstretched wing bones. I shuddered and jerked back reflexively, repulsed. How long had it taken to decompose the bird, the back of my mind wondered. How many would it take to devour a human, reduce them to dust.
We kept going, but soon things started to flicker and shift a bit. Not much, like the border changes, but enough to be noticeable.
"What's going on?" I asked nervously. Were we in danger? The whole place reeked of warnings, were any of them the kind Shadow could sense? Would he have even told us?
"She knows we're here." Cay said darkly. "She won't recognize me even though we knew each other, and defiantly not any of you. She might… change things around a bit to try to get us to leave.
"She cannot see us for who we are? Not Nightmares? Other people would take the most fantastic creatures in stride in dreams, right now we are for the most part human, or have a close enough resemblance."
Cay shook her head. "But even in the Dreamworld, she's gone mad. We have no idea what we might look like or seem to her, when you think the most fantastic creatures are out to get you-"
Before she could finish the land jerked slightly again, not enough to make me fall but disrupting my balance a bit. I looked up again when I was sure the place was steady and gasped, not expecting what I saw next.

It was a wolf, black and huge. Its fur was long and lush, and although it stood higher than my waist it looked lean and strong. It blinked and gave a low-pitched startled bark. It pawed the gray ash with a heavy foot as big as my outstretched fingers, and swung it's enormous head to look me in the eyes. They were pitch-black from the outside edge of the iris inward, the whit part slightly bluish and veined. They were oddly familiar.
After a half second where I held my breath, caught in twin dark pools, and golden brown cat leapt from a bush and stood, fur bristling, a few feet away from the wolf and me. It was a lynx, I think, long furred and much bigger than a housecat. It eyed the wolf warily, dark yellow eyes narrowed slightly and tufted ear twitching to track it's sound. They were Shadow and Cay. No wonder they seemed so familiar.
"Um," I started, "Was this something Annabelle did then?"
Cay in cat form gave a low loud "Mrrroow," but it still wasn't quite as loud as it should have been.
"Oh. Okay. …Why didn't I turn into something?"
They didn't respond to this, just glanced around apprehensively.
"Where's Om?" I asked, realizing he hadn't emerged in some other form or his own yet.
Shadow gave a low, uncertain growl, sleek fur raising slightly on his broad shoulders.
Cay meowed again -- even in the Dreamlands that was weird -- and crouched down as if to pounce, eyes now focused above my eyes and following the flighty path of some unseen creature. I bent down and glanced above and behind me expecting some horrid creature, to see a frail, trembling butterfly. It fluttered drunkenly in the air for a few seconds, white wings beating slowly as it drifted down to light upon my forearm, clinging to the skin. It's winger were paper with black markings, pools and splotches of ink. I couldn't feel the thin white legs as it crept up to my hand to sit, quivering, and I doubt I could have even in the Waking world either. Even though its wingspan was four or five inches wide at least, it was so light that I was suddenly glad for the still air. It -- Omniscient -- would have been pulled apart even in the lightest of breezes.
"Oh." I said. "Okay. Should we, um, go then?"
Cay stood up, a flowing motion that had been catlike even when she wasn't one, and began padding through the forest. Shadow waited for me to start following, holding Om on my hand, then started silently stalking after us.
They actually seemed to move faster in their new forms, able to squeeze between thorn bushes and leap low branches, but were held up as I struggled to get through. Cay did her best to find places large enough that I could fit through them, but there weren't any actual such places so there was no helping it. We walked for at least ten minutes, each second dragging by as though unwilling for time to continue.
I edged around a charred looking tree, trunk almost black and slightly damp. Hanging from its bare boughs was some kind of fungus, draped and dripping brackish water into the sand below, making small black puddles of foul-smelling liquid. We edged around them; I held my free hand over Om's butterfly form to make sure none of the water dripped on him. It didn't affect me like usual, instead sliding around, but I didn't know for sure about him. After all, he'd been turned into something along with Cay and Shadow while I hadn't.
We came upon another large, thick wall of intertwined branches and vines, trees weaving almost a Celtic knot to keep out people. I couldn't see through it for all the gray twigs and thorns, but Cay seemed to recognize it and started to attempt to weave her way through, lithe body squeezing past the first layer but then she hit a dead end. She growled and tried again, with still no success. She looked at me, and I carefully transferred Om to Shadow's shoulder, where he clung to the fur with spindly legs. Poor him, at least they could walk and move without being in danger. He once again was forced into the role of the observer.
I stepped forward and started bending, breaking the brittle sticks back so clear an opening. They snapped and cracked away at my touch, they seemed to break easier for me than they had for Cay when she'd tried it. More of the Dream's way of rejecting me.
I closed my eyes as I got further in, protecting them against the dry powdery dust they crumbled into as I crushed them in my hands and under my feet, pressing myself through the barrier. I fought to take a step forward, a thorny vine snaking around my thankfully strong boot before I yanked free, tearing it from its shallow hold in the dust clouding my feet. I continued to face the resistance the woods put up as pushed against the barrier, my body weight breaking the branches and cracking them into splinters.
I stumbled when suddenly I lurched forward, no sticks to block my way. This time I couldn't keep my balance and fell, hands smacking against the dusty gray sand. I opened my eyes and stood up, glancing behind me to see Cay then Shadow emerge. I watched them while rubbing the ash from my eyes, it wasn't painful but made everything look even more desolate and doomed somehow, the opposite of the proverbial rose-colored lenses. As Cay exited the chaotic jumble of dead tree parts I'd made she flickered and wavered again, and was suddenly in human form.
She sighed and cracked her fingers, shaking her head. "That was weird." She said.
Shadow hadn't stepped into the open yet, instead he hesitantly waited for Omniscient, still a butterfly, to clamber to a higher position before leaping off his head and sailing into the clearing, turning into his normal tall, papered self. He didn't say anything, just looked ahead as Shadow finally exited the tunnel and once more resumed his dark, grim personage. He too merely looked out onto where the forest had ended, what the forest had been protecting. Biting my lip, I too turned to see what we had come too.

First there was about fifteen yards of the sand, blacker here and without the sticks in it. Then suddenly out of it rose huge stalks, with great spikes on them, as though riddled with swords. They wound and twisted along the ground, shot upwards, but posed no real danger as they were too big, to oversized that it was like how thorns on a rose don't stop a ladybug from crawling up them. Behind the twisting mass, which was about 6 feet thick but I could clearly see spaces big enough for even Om to walk through, was some kind of floating, stone ball. It was large; from where I stood I would guess it to be two yards in diameter so. Ivy that crept along the ground somehow had managed to reach up to it and snaked along the bottom half of its obsidian surface, a startlingly beautiful green for such a barren, colorless landscape. The leaves were serrated along the edge like tiny knives; yellow-green tips deepening towards the middle of each. The vine the leaves spouted from that clung to the chipped surface were blood red, small tendrils snaking out like tiny tributaries of blood. Below where the stone sphere hung heavy in the sky and the stems of the ivy twisted down in a thick chain lay, curled, a figure. She lay in the fetal position, pale skin sunken and stained with the ash she had nested herself on. Her hair splayed around her, it could have been any color once but now it was tangled and dirtied dark, bits of ivy leaf and twigs stuck in it like ornaments. She reminded me too much of the mouse skeleton I had a picture of, bleached and hidden with limbs dangling awkwardly, as if she had no care for comfort.
Cay walked forward and I followed, limply, knowing what she had meant when she had called this place disheartening. The woman, Annabelle, looked so just so… beaten. Maybe it was because I knew her story, but it seemed obvious that she had given up on life completely. Ducking worriedly between the huge blades sprouting from the mountainous vines, my mind and lips formed unasked questions. Should we be coming here, so close; are we in danger; can she hurt us; we should turn back we know she's here; is there any way to save her. Is there anything we can do.
Shadow seemed to guess what I was thinking, for he said, softly, "There is no help we can give her. If she is to break away from this it must be on her own." Once again there was the barest trace of emotion in his voice, a hint of sadness, loss.
We were through the oversized brambles now, and mere yards away from the prone position of her body. Her skin was pulled tight over her bones, I could clearly see all her ribs and her shoulder blades protruded like severed wings. She resembled those pictures you see of anorexic people, or ones who have starved to death. She was wearing a torn black dress, what might once have been a lacy material now shredded and stained with blood, though I could see no cuts on her ivory skin. Her eyes were thankfully closed.
"In the waking world, is she-?" I breathed.
Cay shook her head. "No. This Is who she feels she is, not what she actually looks like. But still…" She whispered.
Then she stepped forward, and crouched down a few feet from Annabelle's body. "Anna…" She said softly. "Anna, it's me, Cay, a Dreamcatcher, you were one, too. Remember?"
Annabelle's limp hand stiffened, and constricted, curling into a fist. Slowly, like the unveiling of a new statue, her eyelids lifted, eyes blank and staring sightless until she blinked, still slowly, and they turned towards Cay. But they didn't focus on her, instead staring right through. She made no sound.
Cay tried again. "Anna, can you say anyth-"
Suddenly Annabelle's eyes filled with emotion, coming alive for a shard of a moment. A wordless wail tore itself out of her chest, rising in pitch and volume as she curled herself into a tighter ball; eyes squeezed shut to block out the world. She started sobbing, not the quite kind of tears and certainly not the silent, wordless kind of crying that fills inside us and slowly drains out through tears one by one. Her breaths were ragged and gasping, as though she couldn't get enough air, as if she had been running for much too long. Her tears streamed down her face, dripping into her mouth and hair before running into in the gray ashes to form cold wet splotches, darker than it had been. Her crying wasn't pretty or regal like producers for movies make it seem, this was ugly, raw emotion, grotesque and repulsive. The surrounding trees screamed, harsh calls of birds there had been no sign of echoing across the clearing.
"Anna-" Cay tried once more, but she didn't hear. She was moaning now, to herself, and sat up, choking. Her words were barely audible over the reptilian screech of the birds, which burst from the woods and took to the sky in an angry, swarming cloud. They circled together upwards, moving as a unit not one by one. It was hypnotizing.
"No, no they're coming back pain away voices no make it stop oh ow please stop no help me don't-" She muttered breathlessly, eyes still not seeing us. Instead they turned in terror towards the sky, wide with pupils dilated so they were almost as dark as Shadow's. They stared for a moment, then snapped to the forest in a jerking motion, her mouth still babbling incoherent words.
"No oh please not dark, dark, sucking coming-" She gasped, and indeed it sounded as though something in the woods had been awaked by her antics, something that had been sleeping deeply but now was waking, waking and ready to hunt. The trees groaned, branches creaking, and their tops began to give slightly. There was a horrible snorting, smacking sound, and then a snuffling, as though it were sniffing us out.
"Shit shit shit she's gotten worse, oh crap-" Cay was saying, as she tried to grab Annabelle's hand. "Please, listen to me-"
She screamed again, high and piercing, and shakily stood and began to stumble blindly towards the woods, still sobbing.
"Where is she going?" Om cry, spinning as he tried both to watch the circling, diving birds -- or were they bats? -- and see where the hideous noises were coming from, watching for the beast that would soon enough begin the chase.
"She's normally not like this, not this bad. She just ignores us mostly, sometimes starts crying but she's never been so loud before or created beasts," yelled Cay. "It's like she's making Nightmares, or calling them from inside her!"
"Will they harm her?" Shadow called over the rising noise.
"No, just scare her! I think!" Cay cried desperately.
"Then we need to go." He said, and grabbed us both and began running back to where we'd entered the clearing. The hole we'd come in through had barely started to close; only a few twigs stitched across it and some vines. Shadow crashed through, and once again dissolved into the shape of an enormous wolf, his head at the height of my elbow. Cay returned to the lynx shape, and as Om stumbled through his form dispersed, flowing to for the shape of a butterfly. He tumbled through the air, to stunned to use his wings, and before I could think I reached out my hand and intercepted his path with the trunk of a sickly gray tree. My heart leapt as he collided with my palm, afraid that I'd accidentally torn or broken his thought-thing wings or body. But he managed to flip upright and I caged him between bent fingers with both hands and took off after Cay, who was yowling for me to hurry. I tore through after her, this time ignoring anything in my path, instead just smashing through. Twigs caught at the clothes Siaysa had worked to make, but as they came so close to my skin they became to weak to catch at the material and tear it. Vines twisted around my feet, not so subtle now as they had been and reaching out noticeably. I could see Cay and Shadow struggling with these too and heard again a deep, damp breathing behind us. It was still far, near the clearing. It was still far enough away and faint, but it had already reached the clearing in such a short amount of time, the distance we were covering was no match...
I wanted to ask why we weren't just stepping out and away, but we were running to hard to communicate, and neither could answer with words. Maybe there was something stopping them here, or… Lesley. She was still back where we'd entered, or near it, she might be waiting for us not knowing what was going on. I didn't want to think of what would happen if whatever was chasing us, I didn't even know what it was, caught her unaware… I gasped for breath, my lungs burning and sides heaving, powered by adrenaline. I could hear a crackling of snapping whole limbs and the shifting thud of something heavy on sand and it wasn't hurried, as if it knew it had all the time in the Dreamworld to catch up with us. Somehow that was even worse than if it had been running after us, at least then there was the illusion that we might get away… here there was just despair. My body begged to stop and my mind was beginning to start, I thought hastily, trying to keep sight of Cay's small form as it streaked across the ground. She and Shadow were at least currently built for quick movement, I had cramps and my legs were going slower and slower, less knee bend and even more wheezing in my lungs. There was no way I could keep going for long.
Shadow was next to me now, barking unintelligibly. What did he want?
He stopped, in front of me, and bowed his head. Ride him? This was awkward enough -- my body ignored my mind and clutched at his fur and he tore after Cay, we were moving faster now but not enough-
He leapt at the last barrier, slamming through it as Cay tried to squirm between the spaces. We landed in the dark sand and skidded towards the darkness, he barely managed to turn and stop before we almost slid into it. Heart racing, I panted and turned to face where we'd exited-
The trees creaked and parted to allow a huge form through- it was much bigger than shadow, than any animal I'd ever seen. It had to be twice the size of an elephant, and I'm not exaggerating here, the image of that thing is burned into my mind. I've never really experienced a horrible nightmare that's stayed with me like that, while I have gone through quite a few none of them were as… real, I suppose, as that one. The whole place was almost touchable even though it must have been on the opposite side of the Outer regions, like a trapped piece of the Inner realms. All visible things were perfect, hearing defiantly too, even smell was slightly there. Normal dreams aren't that good. That disturbing.
It looked like a huge cross between a hyena and a wolf, and a boar. Probably some bear and wolverine in there too. It wasn't pretty like other predators are; not with the sleekness of a tiger or magnificence of a lion. The thing stood on four stocky legs, the front half heavier than the back, and broader. It was covered in a coat of long, shaggy, matted brownish-red fur, I could imagine the stench of sweat and feces and beast emanating from it so vividly I almost retched. On each paw-like foot, as big as my torso, was a curved, serrated claw; meant not for a clean cut or kill but instead jagged, bloody hacking to gore the victim. It's head was square-ish, blocky, with the lower jaw jutting slightly below the upper one in an under bite. It's nose was a cross between a pigs and a pit bulls, and large as my palm as it inhaled with a deep, wet, sucking sound. It opened it's monstrous jaws and released the breath; warm sticky air rolling through the stillness like a truck. When it hit me I gagged, choking on what little of the scent I could catch. I nearly dropped Om, whose delicate wings were trembling violently from even such a slight gust. The thing took a step out of the trees, huge paw sinking slightly into the dark sand, ragged round ears perked and facing our group. I would only come up to the bottom of its elbow on its forelegs…
Suddenly I was aware of Shadow howling defiantly. And Cay screeching in a way I hadn't known cats could. Shadow was snarling towards the beast, with the occasional vicious bark, Cay partly the same and slightly out of what seemed to be reflexive anger and fear. I looked down and saw something jumping through the sand about twenty yards away, a dark emerald green against the dull backdrop. It hurdled forward but couldn't find enough purchase on the thin, sliding dust to complete a full leap, flopping awkwardly back down only a half foot away from where it had taken off. I stared at it for a second, confused, then realized what it must be -- and who. It was a frog, smooth-skinned with black eyes, trying to reach our group. Lesley.
I started to run the few yards that separated her from us, taking only a few strides before something came lunging at me from the sky. The thing's head was huge and rancid and made me fall, canines as large as my upper arm bared much to close my face, jutting between black lips. They snapped mere feet from me; I can't help but think on purpose. If it wanted to kill me it could have, easily. I was playing with us.
A dark blur slammed into its face, snapping at a huge eye with powerful jaws and raking with claws. Shadow.
He would be killed, stupid, no; my mind raced as I dived back up and grabbed the frog, Lesley, who'd managed to cross the distance between us, in one hand while still cradling Om in the other. I thrust her into the pocket by my knee, knowing otherwise I'd be unable to hold her and but that she'd get squished in the ones at my hip. I could feel her moving, but was too preoccupied with watching the beast and Shadow to do anything more. I felt a pressure by my other knee, and glanced down gasping to see Cay leaning against my knee, yowling (I assumed) for Shadow so they could get us out of here.
He was still battling with the monster, worrying at parts of it when he had a chance. It looked like he was trying to get back towards us, but was understandably unwilling to turn his back to it, and kept being swiped and battered by it's huge feet.
Finally he ducked and managed to deek past, skidding next to us. I grabbed a handful of his fur, Cay still pressed against my leg. But before either of them could move the thing guessed our escaping intentions and lunged, a huge claw swiping at us from the side, catching my under my arm and sliding up towards my abdomen.