Floating in space... Nowhere is up, yet everywhere is too. This is all a nice dream, a quiet dream, a dream filled with mysteries and answers alike. Lucia investigates the unknown, it stares at her back with an
infinitely vacant gaze. She swims in a pool of void, desperately trying not to get swept by the current, saturated in the null, drowning in it. She needed to wake up, anything to rouse her from this slumber, a slumber that felt boundless, supreme. Gradually, the vacuous became brighter, as stars, little dots of light appeared, the lustre of which glowed her surroundings, she stayed swimming in a pool of null, yet she saw herself looking up to a starry night sky, a sky filled with celestial life, the ethereal beauty stunned her. It was all a nice dream... A dream that she needed to leave, she needed to wake up.
“BRRINNNNGGG”
Lucia woke up, in the office, a familiar place yet obscure. She looked up at the room, still submerged in Amythest. Her sight was hampered by her lack of rest, she could have slept an eternity and still be debilitated, yet she had. She looked up at the horologes that sat on the walls, they were ticking slow as if they were comatose and as exhausted as she was.
“BRRINNNNGGG”
Lucia looked at Aiden, he was soporose, lying on his back in the corner of the room, the sound was coming from him, Lucia drifted to him, scanning him for the source of the sound, looking through his pockets and bags, too tired to speak. She picked up an alarm clock, vintage and jet black, almost invisible in the purple.
“Wake up, Aiden, wake up,” she gently shook him, her voice trembled with concern as she faced the insensate boy lying before her. Inchmeal, he got up, blinking his heavy eyes, and yawning. He sat up, in quietude and scanned the office, rubbing his eyes as he adjusted to the color. He looked at Lucia with a face of trepidation and confusion, which was returned with the same fearful demeanour.
“What happened?” He mouthed, locking eyes with Lucia’s brooch, which was no longer gold, but shined purple, like the rest of the room.
“I don’t know,” she mouthed back, helping him to his feet.
“The clocks are normal again,” He muttered, finally gathering enough energy to utter words, albeit weak and ill-pronounced.
“I know,” She said, probing the horologes once again, “They feel...”
“Slower?”
“Yeah, slower,” she said, scratching her head. The ticking from the clocks played an odd melody, a dubious tune that she couldn’t put a finger on. She could hear the collective groans of Magnus and Jake, who were also slowly rising, minds nullified by the beam, holding onto each other to gain momentum. Jake examined his surroundings, acknowledging Madeleine, who was still dozing. He crouched down, gently tapping her shoulder, striving to wake her up.
“What is going on here?” Magnus mouthed, “We don’t know...” Aiden and Lucia said, drifting towards them. The brightness of the brooch was subdued by time and started to dim; plunging the room into complete black.
“Where are the blinds?” Jake whispered, with arms outstretched feeling for his surroundings, prodding the wall until he found it. Nothing.
Jake reached into Madeleine’s bag and pulled out her torch, shining it at where the blind should have been, to find that there was no window there, and the only thing he could see were more lifeless clocks, ticking on more lifeless walls. In a room that felt like it was floating in space, ultimately, Madeleine woke up, sensing their uneasiness.
“I heard an alarm bell go off, but... My mind, it yearned to stay in that state,” she started weakly, “I felt like I was drowning in nothing,”
“I felt that way too...” Cynthia murmured, seemingly also now awake and stretching her arms, “We weren’t blinded this time, we were knocked clean out,”
As they moved through the office, they noticed their steps becoming lighter and smoother, gliding through the air like a knife through butter.
“We should get out of here before anything else happens,” Magnus began, feeling for the door.
“Wait, I want to check something out first,” Lucia said, taking the flashlight from Jake and approaching the stairs to the balcony. She climbed them, with her energy replenished, reading the symbols on the balcony once more.
“You read this from the ‘Otherworld’... the stars with eyes to observe had brought you to this place, in a land where your dreams are reality, and your reality is but obscure retention, the truth is up to those who dwell on it, you now sojourn the infinite, this is your new domicile.” Lucia recited the words on the walls, they had changed. Just as she suspected, this was not the same place, which would explain the opacity of their situation, they were no longer in Kieran’s house, but there was only one way to be sure of their suspicions, and that was to leave through the door of the office, and away from it completely. Lucia flashed the torch at it, helping magnus find the door. With slight resistance, the door eventually opened, but... Not to the lounge, it led to several flights of stairs which seemed to lead to the sky.
“I really do NOT like this, at all, we should never have messed with whatever trouble Kieran got ourselves into,” Magnus started, distressed.
“Calm down, Magnus, we’ll find a way through this,” Cynthia replied with a placating smile, trying to reassure her stressed friend.
“Calm down? We are in the middle of a shapeshifting house by the looks of it, and Lucia’s pin flashbanged us, TWICE.” He hissed, “I want to go home now, this is NOT fun,”
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“Pull yourself together dude!” Jake exclaimed, slapping Magnus in the face, trying to get him to come to his senses and stop panicking.
“Sure, we’re in a trashy place right now, but you’ll only make it worse by whining like a little-”
“Guys, will you please just put a sock in it? I'm trying to think,” Cynthia scoffed, tapping her head, racking her brain for ideas.
“We should probably go up the stairs, it looks like the only way is up,” Madeleine sighed, Aiden and Lucia nodding in agreement, Magnus was the first to exit the study into the stairway, looking up at the seemingly boundless steps that awaited them.
“Ooooh boy,” he muttered.
The staircase was truly endless, the light at the end of a tunnel. A tunnel that never seemed to reach the light, Magnus looked over the railing and down to see the steps that he had covered. To his disappointment, he found out that the steps were submerged in darkness, and the bottom of the flights of stairs were virtually invisible to him.
“Hello?” He called, listening to his echo as it travelled, ringing in his ears. He looked up, covering his eyes as he gazed at the light at the end of the staircase.
“It looks like we’re almost there!” He chimed, enthusiastically, “Dude, you said that half an hour ago, we haven’t moved from our position,” Aiden sighed, looking up, to the outlet. “What even is this place anyway? I thought the door out of the office led to the lounge,”
“It should, I’m not sure what’s going on here,” Cynthia said, they had been traipsing through the stairway for hours, they’d assume, all their clocks and watches were all malfunctioning, and the only sign they had of time was from their own instinct.
“Perhaps this is all just a lucid dream, I hear that they can feel pretty real, and can be shared between people,” Madeleine added, yawning, “There’s only one way to find out,” Jake pinched Lucia on the arm, “OW! Dude what was that for?” She hissed, rubbing her arm where she got pinched, Jake shrugged at his failed attempt.
“Here, let’s just sit down for a moment, I’m exhausted,” Cynthia started, “If we aren’t going to get out of here any time soon, we might as well take the time to regain our energy,” she sat down on the stairs, closing her eyes and laying her head back. The rest followed, Magnus sat legs crossed on the lowest step, while Aiden leant on the railings.
“Have you checked if your phones work?” Lucia asked, glancing around the party, they each pulled out their phones, looking for the time or anything that could help them, just to be met with a black screen with the “∞” symbol on it once again.
“Hey, can you throw something down? Maybe it’ll help us find out the distance covered,” Jake suggested, “Like a rock or something,”
“I do actually have a soda can from the A.U Voyager, let me throw that,” Magnus said, reaching into his pockets, picking up the soda can and tossing it over the railings, he leant over to try and hear it hit the floor, but there was no sound. Magnus gulped.
“Should we carry on now? I’m not feeling as worn out,” Aiden asked, the reply he got was everyone else standing up and continuing their trek.
The stairs still had them captivated, and their seemingly endless trip had reduced them to crawling and clambering up the last few steps, the light almost in their grasp, closer and closer. Aiden was the first to exit the stairway, collapsing and falling face first into the ground, Cynthia and Madeleine following, Magnus was the last to exit the stairway, stumbling and tripping and he walked across the ground.
“Finally, thank God, that’s over,” he said, his tone had shifted to a lackadaisical groan, instead of a petty whine, which was relieving to the rest, Jake especially.
Once the group had regained their energy for the hundredth time, they took the time to analyse their surroundings, the messages on the wall of the study were right, this was no longer home, nor was it the cottage either, this was somewhere else completely.
The only two colours that Lucia could see were black and teal, everything that they thought to up be replaced with a darkness, dotted with glowing orbs and other stellar astronomical things. Constellations, comets and stars alike, despite the perplexity of their situation, the group were awestruck, gazing at the beauty of it all. They stood on a plain teal surface, it undulated gently for every step they took, as if it were water or any other liquid, yet they were able to stand on it and walk on it, Magnus leapt, hopping on the surface, watching it ripple with enchantment. Lucia looked around, the celestial galaxies and stars above her, and the fluid teal that oscillated beneath her feet seemed endless, with no boundaries or border, just them and the infinite. She felt light-headed, and her movements once again felt swifter as she coasted through the air.
“Where are we?” Jake asked, looking around, “It’s like a sort of lucid dream plane of the sort...” Madeleine replied, floating aimlessly in the void, “this is REALLY trippy... Which way is up?”
There was a buzz coming from Jake’s pocket, which everyone had now drawn their attention to, “What was that?” Aiden asked, “Not entirely sure, let me check...” Jake picked up the silver GPS that Lucia had given to him. The glowing red dot in the centre flickered at a faster rate and the frequency of sound emanating from it became higher.
“HA! It does work!” Jake bellowed triumphantly, Lucia rolled her eyes, “Do you know how it works exactly? Or are you getting excited over random noises,”
“Touché, it is better than nothing in the grand scheme of things, besides, Cynthia got a railway blueprint and Madeleine has the grip and cross-guard of a dagger, I think I have it pretty easy here,”
“None of that will matter if this is the only place that’s left for us here, there's nothing for miles out here,” Cynthia said, frustrated and crossing her arms.
“I for one still believe that this is a lucid dream,” Madeleine insisted, “Nobody is doubting that, issue is, how do we escape one?” Magnus asked, “I guess we just wait until we wake up,”.
“I feel like I'm already awake, is that just me?” Aiden asked, everyone else shook their heads.
“Well, in the meantime, while we wait to wake up... What do we do?” Cynthia asked, there was no response as everyone shifted their attention to Lucia’s brooch, which seemed to be flickering in the void. Lucia removed her eyepatch, analysing the brooch engrained onto it. It was no longer just a pin, it was part of the eyepatch, and the lustreless Amethyst hue of it shifted to an emerald green, glossy and vivid. She placed it back on, and started turning around, south, then west, with every rotation, the iridescence of the brooch became more prominent. Until she faced North, according to Magnus’ compass. It was at the apex of luminosity as Lucia focused towards the North, she closed her eyes, deep in thought as the brooch glowed...
From far out, in the sky of space, they could see a silver glowing rectangle materialising in the distance, the size of a large gate, the shine from which was powerful and dazzling, a door that the brooch has seemingly opened, once again, the brooch dimmed down, the light being subdued, and becoming opaque under the sable blackness of her eyepatch. They all contemplated the gateway that had opened up before them, so bright it was virtually impossible to see the contents of within. Magnus and Cynthia exchanged gobsmacked expressions, while Jake and Madeleine gazed with widening eyes and a gaping mouth.
“Yes, as I was saying, this is some REALLY trippy stuff,” Madeleine started, “Would it be wise to go towards it?” Magnus asked, blinking rapidly. Again, Jake’s GPS started to flicker, the frequency increasing by the second, “Seems like that’s what the GPS is saying,” he concluded finally.
They all considered it for a moment, moments of silence between them, with a nonchalant shrug that followed. They all made their way towards the mysterious gate, ready to face whatever was on the other side...
What did they have to lose?