Do you dream?

Do you wake in the night with sweat on your brow, your heart thundering in your ears? Do you lay there, staring at the formless dark, daring it to take on shape as you struggle to recall the events that made your blood race through your veins and your breath catch in your throat? Of course you do. You have these nightmares just like the rest of us here in this dark province. You are just as much a shadow as the phantoms in your mind that clutch at your sanity in the wee hours of night.

You struggle out of bed, free yourself from the tangle of sweat-soaked sheets and stumble blindly to the bathroom, blink tears when you fumble the lights on. You brace yourself on the counter and will your breathing to ease, your heart to slow from its mad gallop so that you can focus, think about what it is you have seen. Your eyes adjust slowly, and by the time your vision is not impaired by the harsh yellow light you are breathing more like a normal man and not a prey animal. You peer at yourself in the mirror; the ordinariness of your surroundings, but you know, as surely as you know your own reflection, that there are things beyond all this ordinary that clamour to change reality. It is easier to face this fact in the light.

You take a deep breath and survey your figure; the lean lines of your naked torso in the yellow light; the stubble on your chin and the dark circles under your eyes that speak of your nocturnal odysseys into unknown spheres. You have so many questions and you know the answers do not lie in this bathroom. Nor in this suburb, nor in this city, but somewhere just as close. Close but other.

You’ve been dreaming in daylight now. You’ve seen some of the creatures from your nightmares on the streets, in the coffee shop where you get your latte in the morning. In the grocery store, the video store. They’ve been following you. Your dreaming mind is taking over your waking one. At least that’s what you’ve been telling yourself, but what if you’re wrong? What if that other place, that reality that exists in parallel with this one was breaking through? You shudder, brace youself again on the edge of the counter. You must be mad, it’s the only logical explanation.

There’s a knock at your door. Your flesh crawls with something akin to dread. You slip on your bathrobe and pad barefoot through the kitchen to the door. The clock on the microwave reads 3am. You peer through the blind on the door and see nothing. Part of you wants to back away from the door and crawl back into the warmth of your bed, but another is irritated that someone would dare knock at this time of night. Against your better judgement, you pull open the door.

“There had better be an emergency,” you growl.

“Oh, but there is,” says a voice and you blink, look down. Your visitor stands there, hidden in the shadows. She barely comes up to your chest and her features are drawn into an expression you can barely decipher as a grim frown. “Invite me in, there is little time,” she says. You hesitate, remembering something about vampires and thresholds. But you are bigger than she is and you are not dreaming.

“Come in,” you say and step aside. She enters, glances around and settles herself in one of your kitchen chairs. You do not sit, but stand where you are, allowing the door to click shut. “Who are you?” you ask, not caring that your voice sounds harsh even in your ears.

“I am a messenger,” she says evenly.

“Do you have a name?”

“I have many,” she replies and you clench your teeth.

“Why are you here then?” you ask, trying another tack.

“To give you a message.”

“Naturally, since you’re a messenger,” you snap. “What is it then?”

“The world as you know it is in grave danger,” she says. “and you are the only one who can stop it.” You pause and hear yourself laugh a little: a snort of laughter that sounds loud and harsh in the silence.

“You’re being melodramatic. I’m no hero and you’re a lunatic,” you say, tying your robe tighter, you gesture to the door. “Get out.”

“They said you would be rude and unconvinced,” she replies, but does not budge from the chair.

“Who are “they” and why me?”

“They are the Oracles. It has been foretold that a mortal will be the one to save the Twin Worlds from annihilation. They believe that you are that mortal.”

“Why?”

“You have been dreaming, have you not?” she asks and her voice is suddenly gentle. You feel yourself falling - not physically, but inside; all the pieces of your nightmares and waking dreams falling into a pattern. Your gasp is loud in the early morning silence. You find yourself on your knees and the tiny woman is smiling sadly at you.

“Yes,” she says. “You are indeed the one.”

listening to: Collide - Halo

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 12:34 pm and is filed under Fiction, Sidhe, Writing, fiction maybe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.