"Where am I?"

"Where do you think?

I despised happy dreams.

As children, they will have more of them— however unrealistic or trivial. They will dream of swirly purple whorls twisting and dancing on the edge of the horizon, talking, pirouetting animals with exaggerated proportions, space rides on medieval wagons— none of which are terribly likely to happen. They will also dream of the littler things: chance meetings with their idols, celebrated birthdays, moments forever etched with joy. Growing up, they’ll dream of falsity and exaggerated truth, tiny victories, and situations that have no chance of happening.

Adults, on the other end, will slowly have fewer and fewer dreams— dreams more grounded in reality and responsibility. Theirs are often bleaker, but simultaneously more hopeful, having been shaped by their livelihood. Some dreamed of nicer things, a watching of a sunrise with a loved one, or a rare breakfast on a particularly nice day. There were, however, those that dreamed of darker things— war-torn memories relived in moments that jerk them awake at night, that hold them in a constant vice-grip.

Despite that, dreams described two ideas.

First, those tiny, transient things that we lose so quickly waking from sleep. Those wisps than we don’t even remember having. If you were to remember a dream, it wont last long. A particularly pleasant dream will slowly fade, straining and staining under the weight of reality, until all you have is a hollow imitation of what it once was.

Nothing more than a fragile husk, little better than an insect’s discarded shell.

Secondly, dreams described goals, aspirations, hopes— ambitions. Things for people to strive for, a noble thing to have, and one that typically garnered respect among one’s peers, regardless of standing and realism— passion often had a way of shining through the slog of life— and why wouldn’t they? They don’t exactly hurt to have, and to have a dream is the same as to have a purpose in life, and in terms of self-fulfillment, having a dream— regardless of whether it brings others harm— is better than no dream at all.

Dreams were such pretty things— such an idealistic and hopeful notion. How nice it’d be if everyone had them, right?

Therein lies the problem, though. Despite the greatness of having a dream, of having a purpose, it has a decidedly difficult barrier to entry. A person could flit through a million different dreams, try on a million different methods and purposes, but never find the one that truly fits them.

That isn’t to mention both contexts’ lack of regularity— most don’t remember dreams they had while sleeping, and finding an ambition to strive for is often much more difficult.

Since sentience has had a mode of expression— us— it’s been like this: dreams dying and ending, dreams beginning anew, old and new dreams picked up, and breathing new life through a million different people. As long as dreams have existed, people have searched for them, though few have found them.

So, in light of this, the dream of finding a dream had existed since dreams have existed— which sounds terribly paradoxical, but makes sense. Making your purpose in life, finding a purpose could be a dream all on its own. In that context, one could separate people into two delineations:

Those who were searching, and those who had found.

I despised that categorization— as if you could ever neatly sort people into two groups— the sheer gall of the idea. I despised the whole notion of dreams in general— that false reality you feed yourself, that feels so, so heartbreakingly real at the moment, only for you to suddenly wake up, and realize that everything— everything— was nothing more than a lie.

That it was all a dreamed-up situation by your own head. That now that you’re awake, you’ll never see that reality again, no matter how badly you wish otherwise.

[][][]

I woke up, eyes flickering open before scrunching closed as silt and dirt dug daggers into them.

Cold, damp soil infested every corner it could reach, scratchy rocks beneath my grasping hands, face caked in a deceptively thin layer of dirt. My breath immediately sputtered, erratic and shallow, flaring fiery pain in my chest. My hands twitched and grasped silty dirt at my side, useless, useless things.

Oh fuck. My head pounded, and I continued choking. This is new.

I took a deep breath— or at least tried to, before I nearly retched, coughing sandpaper dirt through my throat and nose. Brief panic sparked in my pounding chest. I scrambled, arms and legs flailing dirt and dust out of the way as I shakily stumbled to my feet, coughing and choking on dirt all the while. After a moment, I felt myself tipping as I fell back to the ground, my head spinning. My legs felt too unsteady, so I kept kneeling, a hand dug into moist soil as I fruitlessly tried to cough my silt-coated lungs and throat into the dirt.

My eyes stung, and the blurry patch of topsoil I could see was the likely culprit. Instinctively, I reached up to rub the dirt out of my eyes— only to forget my hands were little better. I doubled over again, hissing with a half-whine.

“Ow, ow, ow,” I moaned. “Fuck... This sucks... ” I scrunched my eyes closed, my throat still made of gravel.

Keeping my eyes scrunched closed, I did my best to blindly rub the dirt off my hand— hopefully, my clothes were in a less distressing state— before I tentatively rubbed at my eyes. I got most of it out— I think— They still stung— probably more from the action than any final traces of dirt. I groped blindly behind me, easily finding the cold rims of my glasses.

I got my bearings, spending a frankly, embarrassingly long amount of time clutching at the ground. But eventually, I shakily stood, dusted myself off, shook any loose dirt out of my clothes, and rubbed my glasses on a cleaner fold of my sleeve.

None of my stuff broke, right?

Checking myself, I still had everything— tools and vials and cloaks and Focuses all intact— and a cursory glance back to the hole I’d clawed out of settled little of my worry. I put my glasses back on, warily glancing about.

What’d I stumble into this time?

It was dark, lacking common moonlight, but I could still see the outlines of trees and the soft variance in colors between the dirt and leaves. Looking above, the sky held no moon, nor the normal snow-gray clouds. Both the clearing and the sky remained eerily clear, except for the single pinprick of light I could see in the lightless sky— my guiding star.

I’d woken up in some clearing. The trees, willowy, stripped, and the color of twisting, half-dead coals surrounded me on every side, whistling softly in brisk wind, stretching deceptively far into the distance. The ground, covered in dead and crinkling orange-brown leaves, held no grass, but barren dirt, silt, and the hole I’d clawed my way out of.

Though, it was a stretch to call it a hole— more a shallow ditch than anything. I wasn’t buried any more than a couple of inches below the surface, which was… a hollow comfort, for what it was worth.

Right, that’s the first thing. I took a pinch of Shimmer powder from my back pocket, dusting the hole I’d crawled out of. The silvery dust settled, and displaced clods of dirt began to pull back towards the hole, eventually filling it. After a heartbeat, I checked my pocket watch and sprinkled another pinch of Shimmer over the hole. Never hurt to be too cautious. The hour hand on my watch had ticked to a little past twelve, which meant I still had a decent amount of time.

Taking one final glance around myself and shoring my resolve, I let out a slow, calming sigh, before picking a direction with the least number of trees in my path and starting to walk. It didn’t exactly matter which direction I chose, I’d reach the center regardless— if Mr. Lestine wanted to be cooperative on his final night.

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Carefully stepping over dead branches and making sure to avoid getting thwacked across the face by low-hanging branches, I picked my way steadily through the forest, my earlier panic reigning into a lower, more familiar boredom-caution. As I walked, I made sure to occasionally throw pinches of powder behind myself, and my footprints vanished. Occasionally, I glanced up through the spindly canopy to peak at the sky for the star, making sure I was getting closer rather than farther.

I walked farther and farther, trees becoming denser and more twisting as I went. They curled around errant branches and other trees, reminding me disconcertingly of a hedge maze. A very dark, spindly, leafless hedge maze. Occasionally, the wind whistled, and I’d catch snippets of voices on the wind— screaming, crying and moans of pain and gibberish I didn’t exactly care to understand, or remember. There were other noises too— sporadic cracks of gunfire or explosions, echoing crackles of radio static accompanied by sparse drafts of old, clean medicinal herb.

It smelled an awful amount like a wet, stormy clinic— disconcertingly clean, petrichor, and storm-tossed rain— which made sense— Mr. Lestine was currently housed in one, after all. I paid none of the smells or sounds any mind. They hadn’t led to anything the previous times I’ve been here, and this would be the last time, so I’d just have to put up with it.

The crunch of leaves beneath my boots were quiet, small squelches of damp greenery and mud rather than the typical crisp of autumn. I spared a glance up, and the star was a little farther off now. I checked my pocket watch. The hour hand had progressed past the two.

Just a little longer, then.

I continued, and eventually, the tree line started clearing up, thinning, then becoming sparse, then sporadic as I stepped out onto a field of barren mounds and crumbling stone. I pocketed my pouch of Shimmer. Here, the the sole star in the sky was directly overhead, illuminating the lack of any flowers, the lack of any life other than me. It also illuminated the bodies.

Corpses of people long dead, half-torn, some sheered through with holes, some half-buried, others splattered across the sloping declines of hills. Some were just hands sticking out of the ground, reaching for the night sky. There were many who were more intact— in the sense that some only had a couple holes in them or large, gashing marks across their body. Though there were a majority that were just lifeless, perfectly preserved pale corpses, speckled with charcoal spots.

The smell wasn’t as bad as I expected, the breeze had died down, and there was an overpowering stench of metallic gunpowder and burnt coals that seemed to cover up much of the rotting smell. There was another smell too, pungent and undercutting, sour and burnt my nose a little.

I frowned, pulling my scarf over my nose. Mr. Lestine was probably in the center of that, and— glancing up at the star again— the center was there too.

How unpleasant.

Taking a deep breath through my mouth, careful not to look too closely at any of the bodies, I stepped out of the tree line and began to pick my way to the center of the mounds. I carefully stepped past the bodies, boots quietly squelching, avoiding the darker patches of bloody mud, and the sporadic patches of cracked brick or crumbling stone.

I really hope I don’t slip on something. That hole was nasty enough already. I did my best not to think of the amount of blood getting on my boots, or the slowly strengthening stench of sour, rotting gunpowder.

Eventually, I reached a small clearing, a place where the mounds leveled out, the corpses vanished, and where Mr. Lestine was kneeling, head in his hands, quietly sobbing.

Mr. Lestine— Dmitri Lestine on his record— was an older man, having reached the age where his muscles had thinned out. That, combined with stress had been confined him to a bed for years, silvered his last hairs, and made him rail-thin. Once, I’d been told, he’d been a heavy-set man.

Now, he was a husk— fragile— almost, his skin pockmarked and sallowing, his mind slowly deteriorating over the years. Delayed treatments hadn’t performed miracles for him, only delaying the inevitable. For years, his children and grandchildren had kept him alive, fed hopeful promises by doctors and healers, until now— his progressively worsening memory loss, combined with his deteriorating health, deemed him a lost cause. He barely recognized the staff who regularly treated him, or his family.

Must’ve finally gotten tired of him— or just decided that he was better off dead...

Despite that, and his worsening condition from age, he kept his memories of the war. Oftentimes, I was told, the man would awaken in the middle of the night, or experience severe panic attacks throughout the day. They tried to treat that too— therapists both mundane and magical were brought in— so you couldn’t say his family didn’t care. Mages that had anything to do with the mind were expensive.

Here, though, Dmitri wasn’t the old, bedridden man who I’d seen slowly withering in the clinic. He wasn’t wearing the drapes of a permanent in-house patient, nor had the rail-thin fragility of old-age. Here, Dmitri was different, dark-haired, well-built, dressed in a dark uniform ladened with soot, dirt, and medals. A ton of medals, actually, so many they weighed down his jacket, pulling it towards the ground. He also wasn’t sleeping, peacefully unaware of his reality. Here, he was awake, widely so, shaking with sobs.

“Mr. Lestine.” I called, stopping a couple feet away. I wasn’t feeling like getting smacked if he got startled. “Are you ready for your appointment?”

I tried to keep it casual, and frowned. Appointment— like this was some kind of normal, routine check-up, and not the last thing he’d ever experience.

“I... ” The man looked up, dirt and tears dripping down his face. Ah. He’s confused. “W— what?”

I sighed, thinking. Normally, patients were made aware that they were dreaming, but patients going through their last moments were a more... Touchy subject, to say the least. Some thought it was better to let them continue believing that they were actually in reality— some drivel about how lying to them in their last moments was for the better. Others thought it was better to let them know, to confront their reality and everything that entails. Normally, Dreamspinners like me, performing a Wake wouldn’t tell the person. But I wasn’t good at lying, much less telling unrealistic lies. I checked my pocket watch, the hour hand was on the four.

“… Dmit—“

“Ah… Ah!” Dmitri suddenly perked up, face scrunching in simmering rage. “You! Y— you’re the witch! You killed everyone!” His fists clenched, and he stepped toward me. “Your master send you to finish the job?”

“I—“ He took another step towards me, and I stepped back, frowning and holding my hands up. “I’m not a witch. I wasn’t responsible for this.”

I’m not even capable of something on this scale.

He stalled, stuttered and conflicted between his anger and grief. “Then what—“

“You’re dreaming,” I flatly interrupted, gesturing around. “This place around you isn’t real. Just old memories resurfacing. Can you remember?”

“R— remember... ” His face fell, perplexed, staring at the ground for a moment.

“You survived this. You moved back to the capital and lived out a long life, had children and they gave you grandchildren,” I gently said, watching his expression grow more and more confused. ”You were placed in the Amaryllis Clinic.”

Gently fishing through my bag for my supplies, I slowly started setting them out— nine, thin, silver arcs carefully laid end to end, forming a circle. Each of the arcs held three points, one on each end, and the last in the center.

“I— I think I remember..? I— It feels difficult... ” Dmitri gently muttered. I carefully began tying a thin string around each arc’s point, drawing it across the circle into a slowly forming pattern.

“You were losing yourself towards the end— we— they didn’t catch it in time.”

“W— what do you mean?” He looked so, so confused, blinking at his surroundings, his tears dried, looking up at me like I’d told him I was actually here to resurrect his entire platoon— or that his entire experience in this place was carefully orchestrated in some kind of sick joke.

“It means…” I paused, thinking of something comforting to say. I found none. “It means I’m the last person you’ll see.” His face settled, seemingly accepting his situation, or shutting down. I hoped he wasn’t shutting down. “Sorry,” I added, not quite certain why I was apologizing.

Dmitri turned to look around, his expression growing tentative, or contemplative. In a way, he looked almost resigned, or peaceful. Softly, he muttered, “Then you’re… Azrael? Dumah? Come to weigh my soul?”

“No.” I let out a soft sigh. I didn’t like this. I was about the last person you’d want to send to comfort a dying person. “I’m not an angel— just here to do my job.”

“Your job?”

I finished tying the string, the circle taking a similar appearance to a spiderweb, with the center left empty. “I’m a Dreamspinner. Your family paid for me to send you off tonight.”

I didn’t mention that this was also a first for me.

“I... So... ” Dmitri trailed off, falling silent, staring at a spot on the ground. “I’m— this is... ”

“Do you remember what you told them before you went to sleep?”

Of course, I’d been told what he wanted to dream about beforehand, but it’d be easier if he was willing. I fished out a wooden, ornate ritual staff. “Remember what you wanted in your dream?”

His eyes refocused for a moment, and he let out a soft breath. “I want to see them again.”

“Of course.” Carefully stepping into the center of my silver circle, I let out a breath, resolving myself. Don’t get attached— he’s dying, and he’ll be dead by the time your watch hits twelve. He deserves comfort, but not yours. You’re only here for one thing.

“Right,” I muttered, more to myself than anything. I turned to Dmitri. “Think about the dream you want— close your eyes if you need to.”

I spared another glance at the empty sky above, save for the single star, before shifting my grip on the staff. Dmitri had closed his eyes, scrunched them together in concentration— odd how people believed you so easily given the right circumstances— and I palmed my pocket watch, letting it go to drift in the air in front of me. The hour hand hit five. I looked up again, the first star had been joined by a smaller cluster of other stars. They were all tiny pinpricks in a black sky— but it was progress, tiny steps, but steps nonetheless.

I planted my staff on the ground, briefly readjusted my glasses, pulled down my scarf, and began to draw up the relevant ether.