The Long Ride
an excerpt

Chapter 18
Simon was walking through a field.
The moon was out, full and gravid, lighting up the whole sky. A hundred feet away, a grumble came from between the trees of a dark forest.
He whipped his head in the direction of the rumble. “Is someone there?”
The trees growled.
“Answer if you can understand me,” he continued, slowly advancing toward it.
“I am the one who haunts your dreams,” it growled.
Simon stopped dead. The colour ran from his face and his heart began to race.
“I don’t dream,” he tried.
“I know you dream. I am the one inside your head. I am the one who keeps you from waking up when you dream of things that chill your blood.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
“Show yourself,” he commanded.
“If that is your wish,” the voice answered.
Danger is coming. Why am I such and idiot? Why did I ask to see it. Change now, change now, change now. CHANGE NOW OR YOU MIGHT JUST DIE SIMON!!
He convulsed wildly, arms flailing, face beating against the dirt. He screamed as torrents of pain ripped through him, as his body rejected its host form and transformed into what he was meant to be. What he always had been. A werewolf.
Gasping for air, Simon saw his clothes lying in strips under his brown paws. He lifted himself onto his haunches and checked over his back for the entity the voice chose.
“Where are you?” he barked, spittle flying from his foaming mouth.
“I am in your head, Wolf. I told you before.”
“Show yourself! I command it! Show your true form!”
“If that is your wish,” the voice replied with a hint of sadness.
Simon panted, nervous and overheated. He could taste something new in the air, like fresh cut grass. He tried to convince himself it was the field, but it didn’t fit. Something didn’t fit.
“Here I am,” the entity said in a shallow voice as it emerged from the woods. In the darkness, though Simon’s eyesight was better than that when he was human, he could only see a black form in front of a large black mass that he knew to be the forest. The voice took the form of a human.
As it moved closer, he saw the form in more detail. He was sure his heart stopped when he saw what form it had taken.
“City?”
“That is correct, Simon. I am the woman you know as City.”
“But why City?”
“I was sure that you would not be able to handle my true form. The form of City College seems to trigger elation in you. Happiness is what I want you to feel while you talk to me, Simon. I want you to come back to join me one day. Perhaps we could talk again soon.”
“Will you still be City?”
“My guess would be yes. You have strong feelings for this woman City. Why is that?”
“I don’t know. It’s something inside. Shouldn’t you know? You said you were inside my thoughts and dreams and stuff. You should know then.”
“I know what you dream of. I am creator of dreams, but not of thoughts. That is the other.”
“Other? What other?”
“Our other.”
“Our?”
“Yes, our other. Your other as well as mine.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Simon, our other is the creator of your thoughts, just as I am the creator of dreams.”
“Yes, I get that part, but I don’t get how something can make up thoughts and not have thoughts of its own.”
“The other has another inside itself that gives it thoughts.”
“Does the other have someone like you?”
“I have not asked. I have not wondered about it so I did not feel it necessary to ask.”
“So the thought didn’t occur to you?”
“I suppose if you must reiterate, that would be an appropriate response.”
“So this whole thing is like a box inside a box?”
“I am afraid I do not comprehend what you are saying.”
“Like a picture of a picture of a picture? Watching a TV show about someone watching TV and on that show, someone’s watching TV? No?”
“Your mind is strange, Simon. I am enjoying this conversation.”
“Well I’m glad one of us is having fun right now,” he said rolling his eyes. He sat and wrapped his tail around his feet. The wind chilled the air and made the two conversationalists raise their voices.
“Why did you bring me here?” Simon yelled.
“I did not bring you here, Simon. You found your way here by chance or by choice.”
Simon shook his head. “It wasn’t by chance.”
“Then it was by choice.”
“I don’t think it was that either.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well the last thing I remember doing was making out with Luna.” He winced, expecting the form of City to cringe at Luna’s name. He huffed out a breath of air in relief when he remembered he was talking to his dream maker rather than City.
The voice was hollow and almost nonexistent, but Simon knew all the words the City form said.
“Luna is not what you think she is.”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?”
“That comment was directed at the host I inhabit, Simon, not at me. You must detach your emotions from this City woman before you can talk to me.”
Simon rolled his eyes.
“If you do not, I cannot help you find your way back.”
“Back where?”
“Do you not know where you are? You are deep within your mind, a spider web of labyrinths and doors that lead nowhere. You are in the dream world where you are not bound by the rules of science or reality and therefore have ventured far from it.”
Simon’s jaw dropped. His long, wolf tongue rolled out of his mouth. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“I do not kid, Simon. I give your subconscious something to do while you sleep. I take you on adventures in waterfalls and mountains and inside snowflakes. I do not have any reasoning in the real world and I can only help you out in one way.”
“What way would that be?” Simon snapped, his chest aching with anger and fear.
“That would be in the form of information. I am your encyclopaedia in the backwards world you find here. I can help you out if you ask me a question.”
“What question do I have to get out of here?”
“How do I get out of here?”
“That’s too easy. It has to be a trick.”
“There is no trick here, Simon.”
“Then there has to be more.”
“If you wish to leave this place, you must ask me how to get out and I will give you what information you desire.”
“How do I get out of here?”
The City form smiled. “You must enter the woods.”
Simon stared into the darkness, into what would surely bring danger. If he was still in his subconscious while danger came and his City form taking dream creator who had already admitted to not waking him when he dreamt of scary things decided not to wake him if he encountered something terrible, it could mean disaster.
“I’m not going into the woods.”
“The forest holds the way from here. It is your only way out.”
“Why don’t you just wake me up?”
“I cannot wake you when you are so far in. You are in a state of comatose relaxation. Your body and mind are detached. If I woke you from your slumber, you would be so distended from the world that you would lose the ability to use your physical body.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I am afraid it is what you are faced with. If it is your desire, you and I can stay here and converse. It would bring me great joy to talk to you face to face for once.”
“Well we’re not really talking face to face. I’m talking to City’s face and you’re talking to a dog face. Neither one of us is really in our true form.”
“That is what you think, Simon, because you have come to believe that human is your true form.”
“It is, though. I was born as a human.”
“And you were bitten by a wolf more than once?”
“Yeah, but what does that matter? It just means that the werewolf that bit me the first time had a grudge and wanted me dead.”
“The werewolf if closer than you think.”
“Is it here?” Simon asked, jumping to his feet. He circled where he had been standing.
“No, Simon. The beast is not here. It is closer to you in reality than you may think.”
“I locked it in my bathroom. Even if it got out, it wouldn’t have been able to find me. I haven’t seen any dogs or anything like that when I was on the bus. And don’t go saying it’s because I wasn’t looking for any because I was talking. I would have been able to tell if there was a werewolf looking out for me. Now that I’m a werewolf myself, I have this killer instinct. I have the ability to tell when I’m in danger, and if there was a werewolf around I would be in danger. Being in danger would set off my sense of when I’m in danger and I would kill the other werewolf to protect myself.”
“You are mistaken Simon.”
“I don’t believe you. Just tell me what I have to do to get out of here. I’m about fed up with this place.”
“You understand that this place is your subconscious. You are only getting fed up with what is in your mind.”
“Well I think you’re a little more City than Simon right now. It seems like you’re picking a fight for fighting’s sake.”
“I do not wish to fight with you, Simon. I only wish to help. I enjoy your company. It is nice to have company. We do not have to spend the whole time quarrelling. If it is your desire to go back to consciousness, I will take you into the woods.”
“It is my desire. I want to get the hell out of here.”
The City form nodded and started to walk, creating a path in the tall field grass. Simon trotted behind her, catching whiffs of birds and cats and his mother’s hot chocolate and spaghetti and dirty socks. He looked from the corners of his eyes at the sky which was fading from the blackness of night to a lighter blue and right behind him, a sight he caught at the very edge of the forest, a golden strip glinted on the horizon.
They walked together in silence for some time, the only sounds being their feet on the sticks and underbrush on the ground.
After what felt like an hour, Simon got impatient. “Stop.”
“What is it, Simon?”
“I want to know what kind of fricking wild goose chase you have me on.”
“I do not understand.”
“I know you understand.”
“You are not on a wild goose chase, but rather a trip through the thickest part of the woods of your subconscious.”
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”
“It means that there will be many trees to pass and streams to cross before we are close enough to your consciousness to break through.”
“How does that work, even?”
“I do not know. I am just the guardian of it. I do not know where it stops or starts, but as we get closer to it, I will weaken and disappear.”
“Can’t wait,” he murmured to himself.
“I do not mean to push, but if you mean to get back soon, I must ask you to continue walking.”
Simon rolled his eyes and did as the dream maker told him to do.
The forest was less dense on the ground than it had been closer to the field. The trees were far apart and as sunlight trickled in through their leaves, Simon became weary. “I need to sit down,” he said, lying down in a pile of red and yellow leaves.
“The moon has left you, Simon. You may return to your human form.”
“Crap.”
He began convulsing and thrashing about. He screamed for the pain to stop, for help from the dream maker, for City. Simon curled into a ball, letting the aftershocks attack him. The now crunched up leaves around him stuck to his skin with the built up sweat from his transformation. He gasped for air, taking each in greedily, not savouring any in his body before exhaling and covetously taking in another.
“Why did you have to go and say that?” Simon yelled, his hands shaking in front of his face.
“I wanted to remind you of your reality. If you wish to return to normal, you must do things as normal.”
“Or else what?”
“There may be no consequence.”
“So why can’t I just stay a werewolf?”
“You have the ability to change into anything you wish, Simon. You could be a dragon or a unicorn if you desired it so.”
Simon stood and brushed the crumbly foliage from his naked body. The dream maker watched him, a strange smile on City’s face.
“Don’t look at me like that, please,” Simon asked, turning away from the City form.
“It is not that I am City, Simon. This is just the body of City. It is in no way her other than appearance. She will not see what I see.”
“But I’ll remember all this?”
“You may remember some of it. It will seem like a dream once you have woken.”
“So I’ll think I dreamt about City seeing me naked?”
“Perhaps.”
Simon covered his genitals with both hands and faced the dream maker. “Let’s just go, okay?”
“If that is what you desire.”
“It is what I desire,” he answered mockingly.
“If I may make a suggestion,” the City form started, stopping to turn back to Simon. Simon turned around and peeked over his shoulder, having no intention of letting even a fake City see him naked after what they had been through. “You could fly.”
“Fly?”
“Yes. It is possible for you to fly if you wish it.”
“Would that require me to grow wings?”
The City form turned her head and squinted, thinking hard for the right answer. “It would be necessary, yes, but you would be able to move around your subconscious much faster.”
“Would I be able to conjure myself up some clothes?”
“I do not think that would be a problem. I am surprised you let yourself be naked this long.”