Chapter Twenty-Six
Below the Waves of Sleep
Michael blinked and knew he was asleep.
He was no longer in his dorm room, instead standing on a bright, marble floor which stretched on forever passed the horizon. Above him was pure, unending darkness, and, although it felt foreign to his eyes, he knew it was the sky. It was starless and moonless, but the dark itself was too familiar to be anything else. It filled him with a sense of heaviness, that thick blanket of shadow, but his heart had too many questions for the void to be all that scared of it.
Michael was alone on the great empty plain of white stone, and so for no real reason, he began walking. The moment his foot hit the ground, he couldn’t decide whether to frown or smile, for it was certainly not marble, he realised, or any kind of stone he’d ever seen. He leant down and touched the substance and his hand dipped right through, instead becoming bathed in what turned out to be some kind of starlight. It even caught in his fingers.
Michael blinked and let out a bout of sweet laughter.
I’m walking on starlight, he thought.
Michael stood up once more and as he moved the scene shifted around him. He was still on the great empty plains, but no longer was he alone.
In the distance, like dancing birds, twisting and falling in the high darkness of the void, creatures were playing. He couldn’t understand the noises they made but they were such a vast combination of so many beautiful sounds that he cared not for their meaning. They hummed and sang in great, unending siren song. It seemed to echo on forever.
There were two of them, circling and chasing one another like sparrows in a canopy.
The first was a four-legged, lithe serpent of some kind. It was green as emerald, wingless with long slender digits like a gecko. Its skull was nimble and slim with gentle fangs protruding out either side, its ears were pricked up and curved like horns, and its eyes glittered with mischief as its tail flickered back and forth animatedly.
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The second was stranger. Michael would’ve compared it to an eel if he was an eel or a squid if he had one second to see it and no wit. In place of its legs, its thick body slimmed and separated into three tails, each twisting around one another, propelling it through the darkness with casual ease. Attached to said tails were broad shoulders and muscled arms with great talons stretching from its fingertips. Leading it all was long, swivelling head with eyes that reminded Michael of shattered gemstone, glittering in a thousand different pieces, seeing every place at once without any kind of pupil.
The creatures sang as they played, and the melody of their voices was so wonderful and harmonious that Michael’s heart ached. They spoke the tongue of wind-swept tress, of little rivers, and of great cavernous waterfalls. Everything they uttered was music to him, and Michael sweetly wondered if it was these creatures who’d taught nature how to sing.
Suddenly, they broke away from their pattern of play and they ripped across the sky quicker than bolts of lightning, sailing over Michael’s head so fast that the wind they ripped behind them nearly blew the young man off his feet.
He blinked and the world shifted once more.
This time his heart skipped to see the new place he found himself in.
Around him was a theatre of creatures, some of which like those he’d seen moments before, and others nothing like them. They each differed in their appearance, some looking like strange divine ancestors of animals he’d seen on Draendica, and others were scarcely more than assembled elements. One looked like a winged stag built from starlight and moonbeams, while another was little more than a shifting mass of wind and flame. They were countless in number. Each more different than love and laughter.
Only now did Michael understand how truly far away the creatures had been before. They’d seemed no bigger than eagles. But the truth was that the smallest of them could have cast a shadow upon a mountain range.
A sense of realisation grew in the corner of his mind, like a candle being breathed back to life. Michael looked from creature to creature as they spoke to the others in their great council. And if there was any doubt left in his heart, it was gone when dark sky above Michael shifted. And it was dead and buried when the Void let out a content sigh.
Michael didn’t know how or why, but he knew, like he knew how to breath or how he knew how to smile, he knew that the Void’s name was Khasm.
And with that thought, Michael lurched awake, breathing hard and fast. He whipped his head around and found that he was back in his bunk in Fort Guardian. The darkness was thick about him.
Michael frowned and his hand touched the pit of his stomach. His brow furrowed as he realised the sense of dread which so often sat with him was gone.
Although he felt silly to do so, Michael reached out to the shadow and his hand felt nothing.
Yet… something about it was changed.
It didn’t hold the same terror as it had before.
Instead, it just felt familiar, like the ghost of an old friend from a life before his own.