Perchance to Dream

I dive behind the desk just before a hail of bullets flies through the space I had just evacuated, and efficiently somersault to my feet. There is a gun in my hand, and it is warm from constant use. I do not think this strange. Even as I somersault to my feet, I am firing at my targets once, twice, three times, knowing that I cannot miss. Exactly 2.4 seconds later, the bodies of my three targets hit the floor, shot through the eye. I permit myself the luxury of an appropriate physical response to such an efficient execution: I smile.

Tara rises to her feet, unharmed throughout the barrage and smiles adoringly. "My hero!" she says winsomely, and kisses me.

A biochemical reaction I cannot quantify is initiated by my body, and it is discomforting. Before the scenario can progress any further, I notice a mirror on the far wall.

The reflection belongs to Julian.

"Have I ever let you down before?" I hear my - no, Julian's voice ask. It moves without my accord. I am...

This is not my dream. The annoyance I feel does not register on Julian's face. I concentrate for a moment, and...

FLASH

It is different. I am different. My body feels heavier, and each step I take clanks loudly. Less responsive. My eyesight is less acute. I am walking through a vast, empty wilderness. It is hot. Unbearably hot. I am walking up an unremarkable brown rocky slope. Tiny shrubs grow in it, and they are ugly, and have many prickles.

Though it is day, I can see a bright light on the horizon, like a forest fire viewed from a distance at night. I walk and I walk and I walk, but I never seem to get any closer to the horizon, or to the distant light. The heat beats down on me, and I raise a mechanical arm to wipe the sweat from my brow.

But I am not Moses. I know that much. I am not Moses, and I am not Julian.

At least I'm not experiencing Raul's dreams again.

Presently, I realize that the distant fire is, at last, getting closer. I am almost to the top of the slope. I feel a strange sense of anticipation, and my body initiates the physiological responses appropriate a heightened state of anticipation. Excitement. Nervousness. Soon, I will see what I have sought for so...

"This is not for your eyes."

Moses does not react. I do not recognize the voice, but it is powerful, and deep, mechanical, and I am not altogether sure that it is a voice after all and not a series of strange, mechanical clicks...

I am elsewhere. It is dark, and it is empty. After a moment, I realize I am within my own dream again: the empty void. Every night, the empty void. Every night, I stand on a tiny lit platform in an ocean of nothingness.

I sigh.

That happens more often than not of late when I wind up in Moses's one of dreams, but dream-jumping is better than the alternative: being stuck here. Here, with the Void.

I stare out into the vast emptiness, and my body initiates a physiological response: chills run up and down my spine. I am being watched, though I know not by what.

That's when the whispers begin.

It starts softly at first, and I cannot be certain that I did not imagine it. Then there is another, and another, and whatever is out there in the Void, its language fills me with dread. It sounds like... the end of everything. It sounds like the Enemy.

I will not be afraid of them. There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing. Nothing in my own dreamscape which can hurt me. I will not be afraid. I won't.

My emotional response does not appear to care, or at least does not appear to hear my declarations. Cold terrors bubble in the pit of my stomach.

The whispering grows more intense. There must be dozens of them out there in the darkness, whispering back and forth, watching me. Presently I begin to perceive eyes glowing in the dark. Red eyes. I know that if I summon the light, I can chase them away. But summoning the light will also reveal their forms to me, and I can't stand to do that. I will not be afraid.

The language is... disconcerting. It grows moreso the longer I hear it. What's worse is how strangely familiar it seems, as if I should know and understand its words... as if the meaning is there, waiting to be grasped.

Then one of them steps into the pillar of light, and my heart nearly stops.

My face. My eyes.
Me.

The other me grins wickedly, and even as it does so, I feel a sick sense of writhing in the palms of my own hands. I hold them up just in time to see them split open ... mouths. Many-jawed, long-tongued mouths. I look up, and the other me has been replaced by Something Else. She was grotesquely fat, and upon her shoulders rested no head. Her bloated, corpulent body was tapeworm-pale, and on the palms of her hands were the same grotesque many-jawed mouths full of terrible, drooling, seeking tongues.

"Who are you?" I ask in spite of my revulsion. "What do you want?"

The questions. Always the questions. There are none more important.

A tiny whisper in my own voice issued from my right hand in answer: "We are you, Mikomi."

I grit my teeth and force myself not to shudder at the feeling of my hands inhaling and exhaling, and of the drooling, seeking tongues that wet my fingers. "Why are you here?" I ask.

The creature in front of me spoke, and its voice was still my own: "We have always been here."

I cannot say why, but that statement fills me with fear like no other before it. My pulse begins to race, and my breathing becomes strained, and...

I wake up with a start.
It is morning. My body is soaked with sweat. I let out a long, slow breath of relief, and sit up.

And faintly, I can hear one of the Rusty Nail Rogues shouting, "Land ho!"

...

I scratch the palms of my hands, shudder deeply, and head for the wash room to get cleaned up.