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He opened his eyes in silence.

It wasn’t because of the heat of the sun, or the dry cracks in his open mouth, or the sounds of the bugs orbiting his head, that he had woken. He did not register the softness of the bare moss beneath him, did not notice the comfort of the sunlight that cradled him. He only noticed the perfect quiet.

There was no rain, outside the windows, falling against the apartment like a deluge of cannons blowing through the city. There was simply the calm wind above, shifting the leaves of the forest.

And it was a forest that he found himself in. With tall, emerald trees of a natural beauty the boy had never seen before in his life, sunlight filtering down, stretching across and over his body like so many incandescent drapes. A golden curtain, sheltering him from the wild.

He stood up, shaking the stiffness from his bones, brushing the branches and dirt that covered his back from laying on the forest floor.

This would be one of the nicer dreams, it seemed.

His mind was empty as he stepped through the undergrowth, head craned upwards as he raised a hand above his eyes, shielding his sight from the glare of the sun.

There was something ethereal about this forest, and not just because it was, indeed, a dream.

The trees were so green, the sky, hidden as it was, felt blue in a way he could not recognize. And the heat in his chest, fueled by the warmth of the sunlight streaming from above, was so calming, he could traipse through this magical place without a care.

Small insects flitted through the air, ignoring him as they made their way through the great towers of wood that made up their world- butterflies and dragonflies, mosquitoes and bees, he could see them all. Birds sang and called out from far above, in the tops of the forest that he could barely make out from the ground, their shadows falling through the branches, even if he could not see their colors.

It was beautiful.

His feet were bare as he slowly padded through the forest, but he did not even need to watch his step, the ground was so soft, covered in rich moss and leaves as it was. His shirt was dry, the old stains of his tears washed away by the sun. Everything felt warm; everything felt right.

He stepped over a strange construction, a small heap of rocks piled together in a pyramid that reached his knee, moss growing over the lower ones, as ants crawled over each other, climbing and playing on what must have seemed like a great mountain, to them. At its top was a tiny jade, like a piece of the forest crystalized into one place.

He bent down, reaching over to touch it, but stopped.

Something told him that in a dream, it was best to leave treasures alone.

So he turned up his head, letting himself fall into a daze, entranced by the magical beauty of this place he had found. He could not see a cloud in the sky, from what he was able to make out in between the treetops, and the light glittered and caught in the air, in a beautiful kind of daylight starshow that could only live within a dream. Countless constellations and nebulae, tiny particles dancing through the air, sparkled as the light touched them, orbiting him as he walked.

Tiny squirrels and chipmunks emerged from the hollows of tree roots, and the nests they made high in the branches. They bit at his heels, utterly unwary of human contact, confidence gleaming in their eyes as they stared at him in curiosity.

He supposed that so far into the wild, so far that he could not smell a hint of exhaust in the air, not an echo of a horn or a voice, they had never seen a human before.

He thought of central park, that great mass in the heart of the city, one of those wondrous sanctuaries to escape from the blinding heat of the rest of his life, and he smiled. Though just a dream, this place far surpassed that refuge of his.

The green of the leaves was so rich it almost hurt his eyes, and the taste of the air in his mouth as he sighed and he breathed was too addicting to ignore. Without anything to distract him from his thoughts, without anything to push him onward or away, to scare him from living, the boy decided to relax.

He lowered himself down onto the moss by his feet, stretching his legs out before him.

He breathed in deeply through his nose, feeling his chest rise beneath his thin shirt, relishing the truely, deeply quiet world that surrounded him.

There was no rain here, and the heat of the sun was comforting.

He reached his arms forward, still breathing deeply, in and out, in and out, sensing the light that touched his bare skin, caressing him. He listened deeply and closely, to the birds that still flew high above him, the distant buzzing of the families of bees and ants, the chittering and dancing of the tiny creatures that made up the world, that had lived far longer than any people.

He listened to the beat of his heart, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, truly listened to a silent world. There were no alarms here, there was no laughter or crying, there was no rain or violence.

But he was there.

When he opened his eyes from the meditation, he felt alive, like the forest itself had reached out and touched him, making him one of its own. He no longer came from that loud, gray world where he existed in the waking day. He was present, aware of his own body, aware of his own thoughts.

He continued to walk, blinking at the animals surrounding him, watching him with their confident gazes and their curious faces.

His mother had never wanted any animals in the apartment, though they were certainly allowed. He had fond memories of animals in the homes of friends he once had, when they were all younger and happier, and he couldn’t help but feel sorrow in that forest, thinking about those days again.

He stepped closer to one of his small followers, a large, squirrel-like thing with silver fur and two tails (something that could only live within a dream), and though it stopped in interest, it did not flee. He could see in its eyes that it would not run; it was not afraid of him.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

With one finger reached out, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he made contact with the tiny being, feeling a lightness in his body as it sniffed at his finger, its eyes still fastened onto his own.

He always wanted connections, but it was hard for him to make them, and it seemed like all those he once held had already drifted away, living their own lives. People who he remembered fondly, friends he laughed and lived with, had changed and become more, over the years, growing into themselves. It seemed like he alone had stayed behind, caught in the past and the future, twisting in the heat of an eternal storm. With nothing but his dreams to keep him company.

He wanted friends again.

The squirrel-thing twisted away, turning its small head to look at him once more before jumping into the branches above, its white body flashing in the sun for brief moments between the leaves.

He turned after it quickly, his strides suddenly filled with purpose. He decided that in this dream, he would follow after the creature.

But something stopped him, as he had already begun to hurry after the animal, catching his eyes as it glinted in the sun, just where the squirrel had disappeared into the forest.

He had found something, hidden just in the corner of his vision, just beneath the hollowed roots of a great, wide tree.

It glimmered, sparkling like a star even brighter than all the rest that surrounded him in the sunlight.

But it was not moving, curled up beneath the tree, in that hollow of spun leaves and overturned dirt, growing in the shade of the burrow. He could see its chest rising and falling, so slowly it could even be dead, but its skin glowed with such vitality, he knew it must be alive.

Two small wings furled behind its back like silken robes, so delicate that he felt a single breath would be enough to break them. Two antennae, just like one of those tiny insects still fluttering through the treetops, poked up from its silver shining forehead, bare and bright like a child’s. Two eyes, slowly beginning to open, beginning to stare upwards at him, in the same innocent curiosity as the animals that followed.

He stepped closer, lightly, carefully, to not disturb.

“Hello there… What’s your name?”

He breathed the words more than he spoke them, enraptured by the sight before him, the tiny person that had just begun to wake up at his feet.

It blinked up at him, with wide blue eyes that seemed to take up its entire face, like pools of undisturbed water, without a hint of white in them.

The fairy (what else could it be) spoke, with a voice so beautiful and clear it could have been an instrument all to its own.

“I’m… Kelby. Who are you?”

The boy held back a gasp as the fairy- as Kelby- began to stand, slowly unfurling its wings until they spread the length of a hand, and using them as aerial support, it jumped up the bark of the tree, climbing and leaping until it had reached a low-hanging branch at the level of the boy’s head.

“Well- my name is Trevor. It’s nice to meet you, Kelby, but could you, ah, tell me where we are?”

It smiled, with teeth that seemed sharp, as it sat on its branch, tiny feet swinging from the top. “What do you mean? We are Here, that is clear, isn’t it?”

He smiled at the small thing’s exuberance, stopping himself from raising a hand to touch its shining white skin.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” The fairy wore nothing, yet the shining light covered its entire body. “What do you like to do around here, Kelby? Why were you sleeping in that little tree hollow, on the ground?”

The fairy tilted its head, smile vanishing as it inspected him in turn, its featureless brow furrowed in thought.

“I have to sleep on the ground. Otherwise I’ll get eaten by the birds, don’t you know?”

“...Ah, no, I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.”

“You’re kind of dumb, Trevor.”

He laughed at the blunt, childlike statement, and the fairy seemed to pout. It was young, that was clear, and it crossed its arms as it leaned back on its small perch.

“But that’s alright! I have a lot of fun Here! There’s all sorts of food around, just in the leaves and the branches of the great big trees, like the little friends that keep me company!” It jumped from the branch, giving him a shock as it glided deftly onto his shoulder, staring into his eyes. “What about you? What do you like to do, Trevor?”

He blinked at the thing standing on his shoulder, not tall enough to even reach his chin as it stood, small hands clutching at his skin for support.

“Um, not a lot. I like to read, and I like to take walks. What are you doing, Kelby?”

The fairy smiled at him, he saw as he watched it, standing on his shoulder, as he stood in the forest.

It opened its mouth. Its teeth were very sharp, he could notice, as it stood very close to him on his shoulder.

Something strange bubbled up from its throat, a strangely feral noise.

The fairy tore into his neck.

He screamed, a hand coming up automatically through the pain, grasping at the thing burrowing into his skin and throwing it away, into the bark of the tree it had sprung from.

His own blood coated his hands as he gasped through the pain, seeing the small glimmer of light spark up against the bark. He could just make it out, the tranquil pools of water that made up its eyes shifting into gray tempests. There was madness in Kelby’s eyes.

Trevor scrambled backwards, away from the now-silent creature, his blood pumping in his ears even as it gushed down his shoulder. There should never have been this much pain inside a simple dream, not even in a nightmare.

Because this was, certainly, a nightmare.

He wanted to scream, to yell or to call out to tell it to stay away, to threaten it, but he was silent. There was no breath in his throat, he simply stared with wide eyes, waiting for something to happen.

The fairy leaped towards him again, a scream of murder in it’s breath, translucent insect wings wide as it soared through the air.

But through sudden terror, his body moved without any input of his own. His hands came upwards, arching together as he slammed the fairy between bare palms like killing an angry bee.

He could feel those beautiful, starry wings of the fairy crumble beneath the force of his hands, feel its skin break, and its threatening scream turn into a cry of pain. He felt liquid on his hands, broken limbs between his fingers, as he slowly, shakily, opened his hands.

The beautiful body slipped free, falling to the ground like a star coming to earth.

He remembered a friend, or rather, a boy he once knew when he was younger. He was one of the wild ones, making fun of the teacher and never listening when told to leave class, told to go to the principal’s office. He remembered finding that boy in one recess, hiding beneath a bench in the play area outside, crouching over and watching ants crawl along the ground.

The boy was so silent, so unlike his normally hyperactive self, that even Trevor could understand not to disturb. So he watched as that strange boy looked at the ants, hands pressed on his knees as he sat beneath the bench.

For some reason, the boy had slowly, quietly raised his hand over the ants, still dripping with mud from playing with the other kids minutes before. Without any expression on his face, the boy slapped at that miniature march, killing them all, one after another until the whole line began to scatter in surprise and fear.

He remembered the sight of the field of ants, crushed and dying beneath the hand of a child, scattering in blind panic, murdered by the whim of a god they could not even understand.

The fairy was clearly dead, it’s once-silver body covered in blood that looked almost black. That black now coated his hands, mixing with his own blood that had dripped from his neck.

Its limbs were twisted, each one broken from the force of his hands coming together. Its eyes were dull, pussy liquid leaking out like tears, and its teeth chipped and broke, fallen from stretched, snarling lips.

He backed away slowly from the tiny body on the ground beneath his feet, his hand reached up to dab at the still-bleeding gash in his neck, and only then did he worry of some important artery being punctured.

He didn’t think so- the bleeding wasn’t as terrible as something like that, and it seemed the fairy had bitten more into his upper shoulder than anything else. But it had gotten deep, incredibly so for such a tiny thing, biting almost into the bone.

He stumbled from the terrible, pounding pain that had begun to rise in the wound, now that his adrenaline had begun to fade. The strength in his body quickly faded, and his legs cut out from beneath him. The boy fell into a heap, back leaning against the tree, next to the hollow that creature had originally slumbered within.

He breathed heavily, hand cupped against the gash in his shoulder, still staring at that silver corpse.

Darkness overtook him.

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