“Fuck this, I’m out!” says a relatively tall looking student to his principal. The “kid” has on a large black trenchcoat and medium length blonde hair with straight bangs. His face looks almost as tight as his skinny jeans as he says these words to the man who could potentially determine his fate in life.
Astonished, the principal can’t even say a word as the student confidently walks backwards out of the room, whilst flipping the man off with both hands. As he leaves the school, the other students look at him like this was a normal Tuesday - because it was.
The ‘boy’s’ name is Cunningham Rocksbury. Despite attending high school as a freshman, he’s actually 22 years old. He’d prefer his friends call him “Cun” - assuming he had any.
Cun walks out of the school looking disgruntled, hands in his pockets, as he sullenly strolls down the street. He gazes around at the relatively normal city as he goes. It’s a pretty nice city - until you get to the part of town Cun lives in.
As he makes the transition from slick sidewalks to cracked concrete, he merely sighs. He sees the usual sights - a broken fire hydrant, a drug deal or two, Stacy the ‘18 year old’ hooker (who he avoids like the plague) and, of course, the stray cat colony who’d recently had kittens in some guy’s trash can.
After his 15 minute walk, he makes it home. His house is one of the least worst on the block. It at least has a functioning gate.
The millisecond he opens the door, two medium sized dogs lunge at him at full throttle. They lick him mercilessly as Cun laughs and struggles to contain their energy.
“Ruffie, Tuffie, down boys!” he says to his pitbull friends.
After a few minutes, the pups calm down and Cun gingerly strolls to his good ‘ol reliable couch as he debates if he should call and tell his grandmother about the fiasco of the week.
As he sits, he looks around at his home - a couple of broken windows patched with duct tape, some water damage here and there, and the casual rain collection bucket below the cracked ceiling. As he looks, he sees that one of the dogs had knocked over the trash can. He picks up all the trash and makes sure the carpet is as clean as he can manage. He sighs contently at his clean-ish kitchen while ignoring his beat-up old refrigerator.
He walks over and grabs a bowl from the cupboard and fills it with his favorite cinnamon-y cereal. He was getting ready to watch whatever was on TV when he heard the landline ring. He answers it and quickly realizes who it is.
“Cunny! I had a feelin’ ya’d answa.” Says Cun’s grandma. “It’s the middle of the school day so of course you’re not at school.”
Cun laughs nervously “Ye-yeah about that…-“
His grandma interrupts him to say “Look Cunny dear, I understand how ya feel, but whatever ya’ve done this time, promise me you’ll go and make it right tomorrow morning, okay?”
Cun replies. “Okay grandmama…”. He doesn’t dare question her calling him “Cunny” - he simply doesn’t feel any motivation to try. Well, not today, at least.
She continues. “You said you wanted to be a lawya, right? So make sure you don’t go to that dream world today, got it? You need to focus on your schooling. And make some friends while ya at it.”
“Okay grandma-“
She hangs up before he can continue.
“-ma.”
He puts up the landline and looks at his dogs.
“Can’t get a word in edgewise as usual, eh Ruf n’ Tuf?”
They bark as if they comprehend anything he’s saying.
Cun then slumps over to his couch. He watches some TV and eats his mid-day breakfast. He tries not to fall asleep but pretty soon sleep catches up with him.
He awakens with a start as something pounces at him - it’s a smoky black leopard! Cun quickly grabs something from behind him - a glaive. He casually uses it to pierce the cat in one fell swoop. The leopard quickly puffs into black smoke that then seeps into the ground.
Cun looks around at the familiar sight - a large, open area full of tall grass, weird lampposts and shadowy figures. The sky holds in it a pinkish blue fog. He quickly notices something that seems off to him, though. There appears to be a mountain in the middle of the plains - an unusual sight to be sure.
He puts his glaive behind him and the weapon seems to vanish. Cun’s eyes look different - his blue eyes and pupils have been replaced by 2 black rings.
He says out loud to himself. “Ah, the dream world. I um, definitely didn’t come here on purpose. Oh well. While I'm here, I may as well check out whatever the hell that is.”
He runs towards the mountain, which, upon closer inspection, seems to be more like a hill made of rock in the shape of a mountain. It seems rather small and definitely out of place.
As Cun approaches the mountain, he slays a few more shadow creatures with quick slices and stabs of his long, red, spear-like weapon. They are of no perceivable threat to him and he wipes them out with ease.
As he gets to the foot of the rock, he bends over and picks up a smaller rock that had broken off of the mountain. He smells it and then takes a big bite out of it.
CRUNCH.
“Yep. That’s chocolate.” He says, again, out loud to himself.
“But why would this be here in the shade plains and not the candied land…? Eh, the council works in mysterious ways, or whatever.”
He sticks out his leg and his shoe morphs a bit. It grows a large spike in the middle of the sole. He shoves the foot spike into the chocolate mountain. He does the same with the other foot and with that, he casually walks up the mountain vertically.
When he reaches the peak, he takes a gander around the land. He sees the usual sights of course, but his attention is quickly drawn to something truly strange - a little girl - smack in the middle of the plains - wandering without a care. Cun puts his hands up to his face as if he’s using binoculars and they actually function as binoculars.
He looks closer at the girl. She must be like, ten? He then looks closer at her eyes and they appear to be the eyes of a “Realite” - one who was not born in the dream world.
As someone born in the dream world, a “Dreamer”, Cun quickly realizes the significance of this - realites are never seen in the dream world. He doubts that she has any dream capabilities either.
As he stares in awe and sheer confusion, he spies another figure - a shadow bear! Known as some of the most ferocious beings in these plains, they are not to be taken lightly, even by Cunningham. To make matters worse, it’s approaching the girl at a dangerous rate. She doesn’t even seem to notice it.
Cun springs into action - he jumps into the air and his shoes quickly turn into ice skates. He quickly skates down the mountain of chocolate and leaps off of a ramp-like part of the mountain - and straight towards the shade bear.
The girl hears Cun shout to get away. She turns to her left to see the bear as it begins to swipe at her. She starts to flee when the bear looks up to see a dreamer careening towards it at full-speed.
The bear swipes at Cun, knocking him to the side. As the bear turns to swipe at the girl once more, the bear sees below it a shadow of awkward shape. The shadow lurches out from the ground and up towards the bear. It reaches out an arm, and it slaps the bear right upside the face. The shade quickly retreats. As the bear annoyedly turns around it sees that the shadow was connected to Cunningham and Cun seems to have control over it.
The angered shade bear reaches out its left arm and shoots its claws as spikes towards Cun. Cun dodges swiftly and makes a stance full of focus. Shortly after, two shadow versions of Cun come out of him to the left and the right. They take out shadow glaives and run towards the bear. The bear easily shreds through the clones but then looks shocked as Cun stabs it through the chest from behind - it had been sufficiently distracted. The bear groans as it falls to the ground. It melts into a pool of shadow and seeps into the ground.
The girl had stopped and stared at the encounter when she felt she was safe. After the bear disappears, she runs over to Cunningham and quickly begins to spout off questions.
“What was that? Where am I? Who are you? What the freak just happened!?”
The girl is a fairly short african american girl with 2 puffy balls of hair on each side of the back of her head. She wears a shirt with a wolf on it, and otherwise wears plain clothing.
Cun replies to her questions to the best of his ability.
“Okay so, you’re a realite and this is the dream world. That was a bear. It’s now toast and you’re safe… probably. Um… how exactly did you get here, anyway?”
The girl responds. “I just went to sleep and woke up here, I mean, I thought this was a dream but it just seems so… real.”
Cun had heard about the ‘dreams’ that realites have but he never knew how they connected to the dream world. He knows that the realites are never actually in the dream world. Or, at least, that’s what he thought before now.
Cun says. “This is very real, but I’ve never heard of a realit- er, ‘normal person’ being here before. I’m, uh, pretty confused myself.”
Cun is confused, yes, but he doesn’t care as much as he maybe should about the situation’s oddity.
The girl responds “Well, um, this is weird.”
The girl stares into space for a moment and then suddenly snaps to attention.
“Oh! I forgot to introduce myself! Sorry for being so impolite! My name is Serrie! Serrie Damo’n.”
Cun replies “Ah, hello. I’m Cunningham Rocksbury, but you can call me Cun.”
Serrie replies “That sounds a lot like a word I’m not allowed to say.”
“Yeah, it kinda does… either way, you can say any word you want in front of me, ‘cause I don’t care!”
He grins and seems proud of himself.
Serrie responds. “Oh wow, cool! You must have a lot of neat friends with an attitude like that!”
Cun’s eyes glance down to look away and he grabs his shoulder as he says “Um… yeah… definitely…”
Serrie continues, seeming not to notice Cun’s body language.
“I’m not allowed to do anything like that. My gramma says I have to be a ‘good little girlie’”.
She has a look of mild annoyance.
Cun responds “Ah, my grandmama wishes I could be like that. Well, minus the uh, girl part, I think…”
Cun considers what he should do. He realizes that this situation, while weird, is also full of potential- both for the girl and himself.
Awkward silence ensues. After a few moments, Cun says “Okay so: you, are a realite. Here. In the dream world. Wanna see if you can use dream powers?”
Serrie’s eyes light up.
“Do you really think I could do all those cool shadowy moves and be like ‘pow’ and, and ‘slish’ and kill evil bears and stuff!?”
Cun replies, probably a little too happily. “Probably not but it couldn’t hurt to try!”
Cun figures she should at least be able to protect herself in this world. Likewise, he imagines the potential of what could happen if a realite can perform dream magic! Is this a fluke of the world, or an opportunity?
The two of them chat a little more and Cun decides to take her to one of the places he frequents in the dream world - the Valley of the Flying Fruit.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
They walk through the plains at a calm pace. Cun often does tricks or makes funny faces as he casually slices up the shadow monsters, making Serrie more and more impressed. Eventually they arrive at their destination.
“So, down here’s the place. I think you can take a guess as to what lies here.”
Serrie replies. “So like, flying apples and stuff?”
Cun responds. “Precisely. First though, an important thing you’ll need before we start kicking ass is a weapon. Just like, think reeeally hard about what you’d fight with and then reach behind you and, well, grab it! It um, doesn’t work if anyone can see your back though. Some kinda rule here I guess.”
Serrie concentrates very, very hard; likely too hard, and reaches behind her. She grabs… exactly nothing. She tries again. And again. And again. After a minute or two of excitedly grasping air, she gives up.
Cun then says. “Maybe that’s too advanced for a realite? Um… try using an ability instead. Just focus on this, um, rock over here. Try to, I dunno, make it explode or some shit.”
Serrie points to her head like she’s trying to use a psychic ability and stares intently at the rock. Nothing happens for a few seconds but then, an extremely, barely noticeable crack in the rock appears. Out of it comes a small clover.
Serrie is overjoyed. “I did it! I made a leaf! That’s my leaf! I did it! Bow before my leaf!”
As she says this, she keeps looking over at Cun and back at the clover.
Cun replies “Damn! It is possible! Plant magic, huh? Cool! Try to grow it bigger! Just feel the power running through your bones, and jerk it out! It usually works for me!”
Serrie concentrates more and more, and another clover comes from the rock, then another, and another. Soon, the rock is covered with the little weeds.
“Sweet!” Cun said. “Now see if you can do your weapon!”
Serrie closes her eyes and concentrates again. She has an intense look on her face. She doesn’t look constipated like she did before - she looks truly focused. She slowly reaches behind her back with both hands. She pulls from behind her - two small flails. She opens her eyes and looks at her new toys of destruction. Her eyes light up with a sort of devilish joy.
“Ooh! Spiky smash-y things! I’ve seen these on TV and they looked sooo fun to use if you don’t hit yourself in the face!”
Cun pulls out his glaive. “Great! Now that you have your spiky whatchamacallits and I have my stabber of doom, lets go murder some fruit!”
Serrie nods excitedly. She then snaps to a different thought.
“Hey, are these fruits evil?”
Cun replies “Uh…debatable. Either way they come back…I think.”
Serrie shrugs.
Cun then lifts Serrie and jumps off of the cliff and into the ravine. His shoes quickly transform into sort of rubbery-fluffy soled shoes. They land safely with a couple of dextrous bounces. They then wander nonchalantly through the valley. It’s a fairly standard valley full of rocks and cracks. There is also some mild plant life, like mosses and vines in various places.
Serrie quickly spots their first target - a half-peeled banana that’s flapping its peel to stay aloft.
It ‘looks’ at them and soon after shoots its banana from its peel at them. Cun quickly slices it away. The peel almost instantly grows a new banana.
Cun motions for Serrie to fight it.
He can’t do everything for her in a fight - especially since there’s no guarantee he’s even gonna be there at all times.
She tries to hit it, but it stays just out of range. It then shoots a banana straight into Serrie’s face. She flies backwards but seems relatively unharmed.
Cun had explained to Serrie prior that the dream world adds constitution to those in it - as well as inherent proficiency with their natural weapon. However, death is still death, even in this world.
As such, Cun moves in to help but Serrie waves for him to get back - she has this covered. She runs up and creates a small root just below her feet. She uses it to gain about a centimeter of extra height - just enough to clobber the cocky banana. It gets slapped against the floor and fades away into the ground. Cun comes over and gives her a low five.
They continue to walk the valley. Cun shows off his skills on the various fruits - flapping bananas that shoot electricity, helicopter-leaved apples that shoot fireballs, bouncing oranges that can heal other fruits with juice, etc. Serrie slowly gains control of her plant powers with each fight. She uses small vines to “trip” some bouncing oranges and even figures out that she can make little flowers that can heal herself and Cun.
After about an hour of mercilessly slaughtering the poor fruits, they come to the end of the valley.
Serrie says “Aww… this was getting fun…”
As soon as she finishes her sentence, almost on cue, a large potted creature descends from the trees atop the valley. It’s a dastardly looking apple and watermelon with large lips and teeth connected to a pot. It has large spiky leaves that it flaps to fly.
The apple-melon demon starts its assault by shooting fire from its apple mouth. The fire is swept away by a flail strike from Serrie. Serrie then throws one of her flails at the melon. The melon seems damaged a bit and does not like that. It spins a little and shoots a bolt of freezing air from its mouth. Cun throws his shadow to lean up and take the hit from the ice. Serrie then throws her other flail at the melon.
Afterwards she quickly summons two small, curly plants near the flails to spring them closer to her. It doesn’t work well and only moves them a couple of inches. Cun then jumps up and swaps his shoes for roller blades. He does a little spin and then focuses up to summon two shadow clones to distract the creature. He uses that time to roll by and grab the flails for Serrie.
On his way back he takes a fireball to the back, which Serrie promptly heals. Cun then turns his shoes into spring shoes and jumps straight at the beast. It smacks him backwards with a large leaf. In a panic, Serrie uses most of her power to summon a large springy leaf for Cun to land on. He uses its springy nature to propel himself back towards it. The hybrid doesn’t expect this and thus Cun gets a finishing swipe that destroys the melon and injures the apple.
The apple angrily shoots more fire but Serrie dodges and gets in one last fling of a flail to finally finish off the flying fruit. It falls down, a pile of mush in a pot. It disintegrates into the ground as usual. Serrie and Cun rejoice. Their first mission is an astounding success!
They then climb up the valley, Cun using his spiked shoes and Serrie rock climbing with small vines she summons. As they go, they fling congratulations at each other.
Once they get to the top, Serrie says. “Hey, I’ve been wondering; what’s with your eyes?”
Cun explains. “Oh these? These are the eyes of a dreamer. I usually just wear contacts in the real world to hide ‘em.”
Serrie looks confuzzled.
Cun then says. “You got them too, you know. When you’d summon your weapon or a plant, your eyes would shift to the eyes of a dreamer, if only for a moment. I must say, I wasn’t expectin’ that.”
Serrie perks up. “Wait - you use contacts in the real world? So you don’t just live here?”
Cun nods. “Yeah, this world is only open for 12 hours a day. 8pm to 8am where I’m from. When you sleep here, you wake in the real world.”
Serrie’s eyes widen some more.
“So, from 8 to 8, right? Where do you live?”
Cun says “I'm from Freedin, Ohio.”
Serrie is taken aback. “That’s where I’m from too! What a weird coincidence!”
Cun looks surprised. “Where did you wake up at?”
Serrie says she woke up from the plains where he found her. She says she’d been walking aimlessly for about 5 minutes before the encounter. Cun is seriously confused by this as he jumps backwards a little.
“Wha- but I found you like, right at 8:02. Are you sure you aren’t mistaken?”
Serrie says. “I could be, but I don’t think so. I went to bed around 7:45 and I fell asleep a few minutes later I think.”
Cun slumps his shoulders and stares into the distance. After looking like he was trying to solve trigonometry in his head, he exclaims
“Okay. I have a possibly bad idea. Let’s go to, ugh, the dream council tomorrow night.”
Serrie asks what that was.
Cun says. “It’s the ‘high and mighty’ parade of powerful douchebags who control every facet of this place. Unfortunately, if anyone can explain what’s happening, it’s them.”
Serrie shrugs.
Cun continues. “It’s getting late. I can feel it - we dreamers can do that. Let’s head to the plains so we can leave and uh, meet up tomorrow.”
Serrie nods and follows him.
They arrive at the shadow plains quickly and Cun explains how if you sleep in the dream world you can wake in the real one and how doing so literally disappears you from this world. He mentions as well that Serrie and him are currently resting in the real world.
Cun finishes by saying. “And any time you wake up, you’ll wake in the plains, since that’s where you came to the first time. At least, that’s how it works with dreamers - probably works the same with you.”
Serrie then says that if Cun is real, he can come to her place at 247 Grande Blvd to meet.
“Still think I’m not real, eh?” He responds.
Serrie says.“This could all still be a really complicated dream…”
Cun shrugs. “Fair enough”.
Serrie lays down to sleep. She disappears quickly.
As Cun lays down to do the same, Serrie reappears. Cun asks about what had happened.
Serrie says. “I just laid down to sleep again in the real world and here I am… Oh well, I can just stay here until the timer ends, right?”
Cun viciously shakes his head. “No dreamer has ever dared ‘let the clock run out’. They say it can kill you - or worse”.
Serrie looks worried. “Oh.”
Cun then says. “Just um, try harder to sleep… normally.”
Serrie falls back asleep in the dream world and wakes up in the real world again. She then sleeps again and returns almost immediately to the dream world once more. This repeats for a few minutes until it appears to Cun that she’s slept for real.
Cun anxiously falls asleep as well. He figures that even if she reappears again, she can hold her own. In the plains, at least.
When Cun wakes up from his real sleep around 10am or so, he feels dead tired. Despite this, he claws himself out of bed, feeds his dogs and makes his way downtown. He naturally chooses not to go to school today. He instead brings some stale bread to the park and lackadaisically feeds some birds.
He decides that in order to protect this girl, it’s best to prove that he’s real. It also doesn’t hurt to have a friend… even if it’s an awkward as hell age gap.
He waits until the k-12 school lets out at 2. (It’s the only nearby school so he took a reasonable guess).
He then walks up to Serrie’s house and knocks at the door.
An elderly woman answers the door. She has a sweet smile that quickly grew into a scowl as she saw who lay before her.
“Who the heck are you?”
Cun tries to answer but she immediately cut him off to say
“Well, whoever you are, I don’t want your jesus. Come back again at Christmas time, you hooligan.”
Just as she slams the door in his face, Cun quickly says “Serrie-“.
The elderly lady opens the door again and looks even angrier.
“What do you want with my sweet Ser Bear you pedo?!”
Cun raises his hands in protest but before he can respond, Serrie comes to the door and looks at him, shocked. As the elderly lady sees Serrie’s expression, she goes to swiftly shut the door, but Serrie stops her.
“Wait, gramma! This guy… saved me yesterday! Yeah, there were some, some eeevil dogs that tried to eat me but this guy pushed them away and saved me!”
The grandmother’s expression immediately shifts from pure hatred to profound joy.
“Oh! Sonny! You really saved my little girl? I’m sorry to have been a bother! Please come in, I’ll make some cookies!”
She grabs Cun’s hands and practically yanks him through the doorway.
Cun considers that this is a rather bipolar approach to life that this grandmother has, but decides to just roll with it.
As the grandma seats him at a table, Serrie continues to stare in awe. She is starting to comprehend what had actually happened last night.
While the grandma is off baking cookies, Cunningham starts the conversation with a snide smile.
“So, think I’m real now, huh?”
Serrie slowly nods.
She replies. “So…. wow. I just… jeez.”
Cun also takes out his contacts for a moment to show his dreamer eyes just to seal the deal. Serrie becomes very excited.
Cun says. “Okay, so now that you know for sure, try to sleep at exactly 8 tonight so I can be there to help. We’ll go see the council and figure out what… this… is. Also, nice cover, but why evil dogs?”
Serrie sadly says. “My gramma hates dogs, so I said that to butter her up. I wish we could get a puppy but… yeah.”
The grandmother comes back with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. They all eat the cookies and chat for a bit. Cun lies and says he was also from Grande Blvd (since it’s the good part of town). After spending another hour or so getting Serrie’s grandma to trust him, they leave the house to go to the park.
Once they arrive at the park, Serrie asks more questions.
“So if that’s the dream world, what are dreams?”
Cun says. “I don’t really understand myself, but I think I’d heard rumors of these ‘dreams’ before. I'm sure the, uh, Dream Council will have all the answers we need.”
Serrie then asks. “So, I was pretty good with those flails huh?”
Cun says. “Yep! You sure were. That’s in part because the dream world was attuned with you. You were able to pull off some crazy stuff in there! With practice, maybe you could even be as cool as I am!”
Serrie then says. “Ooh! I should try training in real life too! I can get a spiky flail and everything!”
Cun panics a bit and says. “Slow down a bit! Just because you’re good with those dream flails, doesn’t mean you’ll be good with the real deal. The last thing we need is you killing yourself with a flail.”
Serrie looks disappointed.
After a few moments, Serrie goes on to ask about Cun’s life in the real world. He mentions sadly that he actually lives in the shit part of town with his bulldogs. Serrie’s eyes light up once more.
“Lucky! You get to live with two widdle puppies!”
Cun never thought that a girl living in the good part of town would ever consider a man like him “lucky”.
Cun says. “I dunno if we have the same definitions for the word ‘lucky’. I’d be ‘lucky’ to make more than $9 an hour pumping gas at the Gas ‘n Go.”
Serrie says. “But you can’t be that sad living with two doggies! Besides, I’m sure you have lots more friends than I do. I’m homeschooled so I don't get to see many other kids, really…”
Cun considers that he creepily waited for the elementary students to leave school for nothing. He skips past this thought as he says. “Yeah… all of those… friends I have…” Cun looks down.
Serrie seems confused but is easily distracted by a cat on a leash.
“That kitty’s on a leash! That’s a thing?”
Cun seems amused as well.
Cun dislikes cats, but that grumpy one on the leash looks kinda cute to him.
Cun and Serrie chat for a few more minutes before Cun walks her back to her house. Cun leaves for work and grabs a hotdog on the way. He pumps some gas from 4 to 7:30. His shift is normally from 3 to 8 but his coworker lets it slide in exchange for the hot dog.
Cun leaves for home and sleeps promptly at 7:45. He isn’t looking forward to seeking counsel from the council, but he closes his eyes and makes for the dream world regardless.