Alice stared at the man wearing the fox mask, then at the space around her, doing this back and forth so fast she half expected her eyes to suddenly start looking both ways at the same time. She didn’t want to think about the implications of something like that happening.
"Yup, definitely a new one."
The man chuckled good naturedly and looked around.
"Let me take a wiiiild guess. You are an insomniac. You got desperate, asked around, found out there is such a thing as Greater Sleep Potions, took one, fell asleep so fast you didn’t even realize you did, then spent the next several minutes or hours counting sheep."
He looked around at the carnage.
"Guessing by the atrocious number of carcasses, it was more hours than minutes. Or you count very fast."
He then pointed at the wolves.
"Although, the wolves are new I'll give you that. You must’ve been really desperate, girl. I’m actually surprised you look as old as you do. How many years did you spend battling that sleeping problem?"
The man was speaking so fast and saying so many right things she was locked in place, her brain in the background whispering “Alice.Exe has stopped working”.
The fox man pointed up, right over her head, and said, with a chuckle:
"That’s also new. Oh, you’re so going to be an interesting one!"
She looked up, and saw that, right there, hanging over her head, was a little white rectangle with those words written in big, bold, letters. A red X was in the upper right corner, while another, smaller rectangle with the words “OK” was just underneath.
Oh no, I have Windows 7 in my brain.
She lifted a finger and went to touch the red X. The moment she touched it, the little Windows box disappeared, only for another one to appear:
“You can try to close me. Doesn’t change the fact you don’t understand jackshit about what’s happening.”
Her eyebrows shot upwards.
"Hey, don’t be sassy with me."
A cursor appeared out of nowhere and highlighted the words. A loud click was heard as if someone had noisily pressed a key on a keyboard, the words disappeared and, some clicking later, were replaced by another message.
“I’m your brain. I’m going to sass myself as much as I want.”
That’s when the fox man behind Alice couldn’t take it anymore and fell to the ground with a great belly laugh that seemed to expand around the whole clearing.
The wolves that had been feasting until then on her mind sheep whined and cowered as they heard the sound, their ears going down against their heads. Then they ran away as fast as they could.
After a good minute of laughing, Fox Man stood up and waved at the windows box, which had now turned into an image of two gears turning.
"Hooooo, that was a blast."
"What the hell is happening? What do you mean I’m in the Land of Dreams? How’s that possible? Is this a lucid dream?"
Fox Man took a deep breath, then snapped his fingers and a small table, two chairs, and a glass tea set appeared out of literally nowhere.
"Tea?"
He asked as he sat down, taking the tea pot in his hands, shaking it enticingly to show the amber liquid inside. It looked like one of those teas they showed you in commercials. Almost artificial.
"You really look like a tea person."
He shook the teapot towards her again… hopefully? She couldn’t tell with the mask.
She crossed her arms and stared at Fox Man. Maybe she’d fallen asleep and was actually dreaming, having a lucid dream of all things. And maybe, then, this man was just a figment of her imagination and would disappear.
He didn’t.
He just sighed and threw the teapot away. It smashed on the ground but instead of hearing shattering Alice heard a very loud horn HONK!!! The sound effect actually appeared in the air, a big white speech bubble with sharp edges, big, bold, angry red letters shouting at the world what the sound should be like.
"Hmm, very adaptable, good good."
He nodded in a self satisfied manner.
"Wha… why… explain!"
"I could try, but then the Dream would probably change to something else that will completely subvert the clarification I so verbosely gifted to your mind, causing both our parties to permanently lose precious moments of life that shall never be gifted back by the lord almighty amiably named Time."
His speech became progressively more and more verbose and convoluted, making her head spin.
"Was I drugged? Is this some kind of fever dream?"
"Yes and yes, but also no. You did take a Greater Potion of Sleep. And you did end up in the Land of Dreams because of that. Your insomnia tried to keep you awake so hard that it kept you from sleeping even in the place where people go when they fall asleep. That let you become a [Dreamer]. Congratulations are in order."
He was now sipping from one of the cups on the table that was now filled with tea. Which was impossible since… actually, who was she kidding? That wasn’t even the strangest thing that had happened to her in the last two minutes.
"So, I’m asleep."
"Astute observation."
He lifted a wine glass towards her and inclined his head in a very distinguished way, then drank deeply, getting most of the wine on his impeccable clothes since fox snouts weren’t good for sipping from small flutes.
"But I’m also… awake."
"Yes and no. You are not awake because you are sleeping. One cannot happen with the other unless you get one of them fancy Skills. But your mind is more present. You are conscious of being in a dream. So yes, you could say this is a lucid dream. But then, that would be a big understatement, because this is no mere dream. As I said, and I’m gonna repeat, this is the Land of Dreams. The place where all dreams happen. And I mean all. Yes, even that cat you probably have."
"I don’t have a cat."
"Then get one so I can be right."
"I don’t think I will."
"Your loss, cats are great. Until they try to conquer the world. The Land still has to heal from the last Dream Cat War. Thankfully the dogs helped, if you call ‘digging up ancient dreams of monsters of the deep’ helping."
"What?"
"Yes, well, apparently krakens dream."
"WHAT?"
"That shouldn’t surprise you, newbie. First lesson of the Dream is that there are no days without catastrophes. Hmmm… Cat-A-Strophe. Yes, that actually explains a few things. Anyways, if the night was too calm it means the Land is just waiting for the perfect moment to spring a prank on you."
"You speak as if this Land of Dreams was alive."
"It’s literally built on the minds of every living being with enough brain power to dream. Of course it’s alive. And it has a twisted sense of humor and a passion for dad jokes."
Alice didn’t know how, but she’d been roped into this increasingly nonsensical conversation and was even beginning to answer back. What was the worst that could happen?
"Seeing how the Land works, you have to always be ready for anything to happen. This place follows only one Rule: if it’s interesting, it’s bound to happen, sooner or later. So we’re all dreading when the Seventh Bingo Night of Doom happens."
For the second time Alice’s brain ground to a halt.
"Excuse… wha… the hell is a Bingo Night of Doom?"
"Well, the Dream becomes this big ball with all of us inside and shakes and moves around creating something commonly called a clusterfuck of nonsense and then begins playing against itself at this strange game called bingo. When it finally loses it gets angry and scrambles everything around and we have to begin exploring this ever-changing Land from scratch. What a pain."
She looked at the man and, not for the first time in these now five minutes wondered if she’d finally done it and gone crazy. How could she tell if she had? Did a crazy man know he was crazy?
"I don’t see how that can be bad. Like, how big is the Land of Dreams?"
"Infinite," he answered, deadpan.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
…
"Then how the hell can it become a sphere?"
"A good question. Not a wise one. Unless you fancy tearing your eyes out of their sockets. In which case here, take this spoon."
He handed her a silver spoon that immediately tarnished as she touched it.
"Do you realize that none of the things you’ve told me so far make any sense?"
He opened his arms wide as if trying to encompass the whole clearing.
"Welcome to the club!"
Silence fell briefly on the clearing, now free of dead sheep and her house. The only thing around her were the trees, the sky that sometimes became psychedelic because why not? and the table with two chairs and a wine bottle.
She sighed and sat down. If she was going crazy she might as well enjoy it. She took the open bottle and poured herself a glass. Then she partook of the rite of swirling it around and looking for the meaning of life in the liquid, sniffing and nodding appreciatively, then sipping with all the grace of an alcoholist.
The wine actually tasted of something, surprisingly. Something good, hearty. It was warm as it slowly made its way down her gullet and into her stomach. It brought to mind an evening of staring at the setting sun with your dog by your side contentedly snoring as you pat her belly, of eating that cake you hadn’t tasted for years because it was only made by this one [Innkeeper] in a faraway place you rarely had reason to visit. It tasted of playing a game of cards with said [Innkeeper] as she laughed at the silly things you’d done. It tasted of meeting a traveller in the dead of winter and offering him to stay at your home, where he played a song unlike any you’d ever heard.
She immediately felt nostalgia overtake her as her own memories mixed in with the wine, adding to the taste.
Now came the aftertaste of a night spent at a strange hotel lost in the middle of nowhere, where a caring young woman and an old, grizzled, man told stories of places nobody had ever seen with the certainty of someone who’d been there, as the light outside the windows never seemed to quite fade and the clock ticked louder than it should for being such a small thing.
It left behind the bitterness of having to leave, of going back down that road again and seeing the place was no longer there, disappeared like in a dream. It made her want to take another sip.
"Good, am I right? It’s an excellent bouquet. I harvested some of that myself. The aftertaste, that is. Seemed fitting for the bottle. But the stuff in there is much, much, older than me."
She looked hungrily at the bottle, wanting more, but Fox Man had already taken it back and hidden in… somewhere.
"You opened something so great just for me?"
"Of course not. But the bottle won’t run dry anytime soon. Memories have this peculiar ability to rebuild themselves. Just have to feed them the right memories yourself. Something fitting to help them not forget themselves."
That didn’t sound like it made sense. But then again, nothing so far had, so it checked out.
"What’s your name? I would like to be able to call you something different from Fox Man" she asked in the end.
The man looked at her and inclined his head, then answered: "You can call me Albert."
"Great! Hi, Albert, I’m A…"
A stick bonked her on the head and stopped her mid sentence.
"Actual First Rule of the Land of Dreams: Never Reveal your Name. Names have power out there, even more so here, where concepts have more presence than physics and reality. Choose another name, a title, anything, but never tell anyone your name. Because, best case scenario, someone bad could hear about it and come looking for you in the real world. Worst case scenario, your mind is enslaved and caged while someone or something else takes your place."
She shivered at that last part. Albert’s tone had been dead serious, completely unlike the rest of the conversation.
"Wait, that can actually happen?"
"Yes. In the early days of the Dream it happened often, or so the House says. Now there are those that hunt down such monsters relentlessly. [Hunters] with the goal to keep this place peaceful up to a certain degree. The Land of Dreams is already dangerous enough without bastard bodysnatchers."
Alice nodded and sighed in relief that nobody would try to steal her body anytime soon.
"So, come on, choose yourself a name girl. You can change it anytime you feel like it. Although, don’t do that too often, people will be confused."
She thought about it for a moment, then a small lightbulb popped on over her head. Literally.
Albert looked at it curiously, wondering what it was. Like he’d done with that strange white window with words. And every time that girl said the word ‘hell’. What was this hell? He’d never heard of it. But he shrugged all those questions away: it was strange, sure, but he’d seen stranger in the Dream. And this girl, all things considered, seemed promising.
"You can call me Garda!"
At first she’d thought about calling herself with a title like ‘The Gardener’, but it seemed too cringy, and she wasn’t that good. Sure, she’d been given the Class when she’d first come to this world. It had appeared in her mind for no reason the first time she’d fallen asleep, without her touching any tools or doing anything related to gardening. Still, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, as they said back home. By the way, that’s where her name here had come from: Lake Garda, back in Italy, where her parents lived. She’d moved to study abroad, in London. And now…
Sadness hit her all of a sudden. Her parents… they were still there, back home, waiting for her. No, probably already worried sick, since she’d been gone for nearly a month and hadn’t called them.
She didn’t even have her phone.
No. She’d been brought to this new, incredible, world, with her toothbrush.
Yes, you heard that right. She’d been brushing her teeth when she’d appeared in this world not too far from the house she now lived in. Can you imagine how strange that is? You’re just there, looking at yourself in the mirror, checking that no food’s left between your teeth, contemplating if the painful process of flossing is necessary, then bam! You bat your eyes and you’re somewhere besides a street, falling face first in the dirt road because you were leaning against a sink that’s no longer there. It’s shocking, that’s what it is.
"Maybe you should change it again. The moment you said it the Dream distorted around you and lost all color. If that name saddens you, you shouldn’t keep it."
She shook her head, getting a grip of herself. She’d already had this internal debate in the past month many times. And she’d come to the realization that she could do nothing as she was right now. Maybe, in the future, she’d find something that could help her. But right now, she was just a stranded girl who couldn’t even read the language of the place she lived in.
"No, it’s alright. Just reminded me of something I lost."
"Must have been something important."
"Yes, you could say that."
Albert didn’t tell her about the image that had flashed for a moment in the gray that had surrounded her: two people, a man and a woman, hugging a little girl with an unfamiliar lake in the background surrounded by high mountains.
He stoppered the bottle of memories back and put it away: he’d have time to get a taste of that image in a while. Or he’d toss the bottle away. It all depended on how he felt at the moment.
"Good then, Garda. Welcome to the Land of Dreams. A real welcome. I will help you in the beginning, but in the end you’ll have to build yourself up as a [Dreamer].
"Now, for the next lesson: there are three predominant groups in the Dream. The first are the Whites, the ‘seekers of justice’ as they like to label themselves; the second are the Black, ‘those that bring change’. A fancy way to call themselves revolutionaries. Then there’s those I’m a part of: the Hunters."
He inclined his head in a small greeting.
"We are probably the most important group. Or that’s what we like to think. You see, when you think about the Land of Dreams, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?"
"…Dreams."
"Naturally. But, where there is light, there is also darkness. The black to your white, if you would."
She looked at him, then the idea struck her.
"Nightmares!"
He nodded: "Indeed. Nightmares are also Dreams, after all. Dark, twisted, malevolent, dreams, but dreams nonetheless. Us Hunters, we hunt down nightmares and kill them. If possible inside the person’s dream, where they are confined and chained down by the person’s concept of the nightmare. But, if they manage to escape, also outside.
"Nightmares are dastardly creatures with a mind keener than one would imagine. But I guess that’s the advantage they get for being nothing more than things made out of bad memories and trauma. The problem with them is they persist outside dreams, and multiply fast, infecting other people’s dreams to gain more and more power. A Hunters’ job is to find them and kill them before they spread too much, if at all."
Alice nodded and absorbed the information like a sponge. Maybe she wasn’t crazy. And if she wasn’t, then this was useful information. And, most important of all, it was interesting! Never in her wildest dreams and fantasies had she imagined she’d end up in a situation like this!
"What about the other two factions, blacks and whites? What do they do?"
"Oh, those idiots? They just fight against each other and try to conquer the Dream’s grounds in an endless war for control. They like to think they can change people’s decisions through their dreams. Stupid, I say: most people forget their dreams and what happened in them when they wake up. And if the idiots end up inside a nightmare they’re usually not prepared to fight off those beasts."
"Hey now, stop talking bad about us behind our backs," shouted someone behind Albert.
He turned around, sighed, and put away all the nice things on the table. Even the sweets! Which she hadn’t realized were there in the first place. She also hadn’t realized she had been eating them for the last few minutes. Honey cupcakes were surprisingly good.
"For once I have to agree with my adversary," another voice said.
Two men were walking towards them.
One wearing black, the other white. Both wore masks fashioned after chess pieces. A Knight and a Bishop.
"Go away, Players. I found this young one first. You know the Rules. First come first serve. You won’t indoctrinate her into your Game."
Albert’s voice was menacing now as the wine that had fallen on the ground when he’d first tried to drink from a flute started to rise in the air and formed a lance.
"Don’t be like that Albert. We’re here as representatives, we have no…"
"I don’t care. I arrived first. You will not have this one. Soma knows you’ve taken the last few new [Dreamers] in your ranks. The Hunters need new recruits. We’re beginning to run low, and the Nightmare population has been increasing a lot lately."
Nobody knew why, but recently there had been a rise in the Nightmare population. They were keeping up, and luckily those beasts couldn’t Level, but it was strange. There didn’t seem to be any reason for it.
Also, for some strange reason, the nightmares seemed to be developing a sense of style, wearing hats. Always. And getting darker and darker.
"So, please, leave. My new student and I were discussing what comes next."
He waved his hand towards them in a shooing motion, and the wine arrow blasted towards them, passing through their chests at the same time even though they were side by side and the arrow-lance hadn’t split.
The two bodies fell to the ground and disappeared a moment later.
Alice shouted: "Oh my god you killed them!"
"Of course I did. Don’t worry, they’re alive."
"But you just killed them."
"And this is the Land of Dreams. Death doesn’t reach here. Old deal it made with Soma. He said it didn’t make sense for people to die when they’re just minds in this place, and he agreed."
She nodded, unconvinced, while also trying to grapple with the fact that Death seemed to be changing sex constantly.
Finally, she noticed another detail. Something she should’ve felt some time ago.
Something was on her face.
A mask. She lifted her hands towards it and suddenly felt the straps that held it against her face. She unlatched them, took it off, and looked at it.
A fox’s snout stared at her with empty eyes.
"Yeah, another precaution. Rule Two: Always Wear a Mask. Or Change Your Face. Same reason as Rule One. You didn’t know, and I didn’t want those two idiots to see you, so I gave you that."
She looked back up at Albert, and his fox mask was smiling, showing the hint of a small canine on his left side.
"Keep it and wear it. Or make yourself one of your own. Stars know I have way too many pups to worry about."
He chuckled.
"Now, let’s get out of here. I’ll show you around, and begin teaching you the basics of the Dream. If you want."
He lifted one of his hands towards her, asking her to shake it. She could take it, and get herself a teacher on the ways of this strange new world. Or she could turn around, and learn how it all worked alone.
When her mind put it like that, the choice was quite obvious.
She shook his hand.
And a deafening fart resounded all around the clearing.
"Hehe, whoopy hand-cushion."
[Dreamer Level 2!]
[Skill - Lesser Resistance: Mind Obtained!]