After I laid Eon in the bed, I found my way to the other bed and fell asleep. Not long after I laid my head down, I began dreaming. Walking once more through fog, I knew not where I was going, but I was certainly going somewhere. All of a sudden I was assailed by a new yet familiar scent. It was not a smell which I had grown up with, but rather a smell I was recently introduced to. The smell of the forest. Stopping in my tracks, I don’t even bother looking around before I speak out loud.
“I am here at no fault of my own. I don’t know how I got here, but I’d rather you not send me back quite as viciously as you did last time.”
Silence and the sounds of the forest came in answer to my statement. “Great, maybe I’m still in my own dream this time…” and then whistling.
Not thinking about what that sound was, it moved on instinct. Diving to the side, a THUNK sounded nearby. Turning my face to look at where I was, there stood another large arrow. “Not great, so not my dream once again. And it looks like it just had to be my homicidal fiancée too. I might not survive this at this rate.” I got up as quickly as I could, during which I heard another whistle coming towards me. “Crap crap crap crap CRAP!!” I panicked as I fell out of the way again, landing on all fours instead of my side this time. Another THUNK, and another arrow where I used to be. “Gods dammit, at this rate she’s going to start shooting where I’m going to be rather than where I am.”
Not even bothering to try and stand up initially, I started running in the direction I was facing. The feeling of my hands making contact with whatever the ground was, followed by my feet lurching me forward, I eventually found a rhythm. Left, right, left, right. Hand, hand, foot, foot. THUNK RIP THUNK.
Ok, one of those was a new sound, and I really didn’t want to know what caused it. Bringing my feet slightly further forward than what I had previously done, I put as much power as I could to my legs and mid section, and throw my chest forward and up so that I end up more vertical than horizontal. Looking forward as I brought my chest up, I saw that my surroundings were slowly starting to fill in with greenery instead of being filled with fog. And thankfully, one of the first pieces of green that started manifesting was a massive tree, similar to those located on the outskirts of Gai’Faitotoa. Sliding to a halt behind that tree and hear two more THUNKS, one on both side of the tree.
Now that I was relatively safe, I took a good look at the arrows that had imbedded themselves into the ground. The same feathers that got me into this predicament were located on their shafts. Well, now there was no second guessing it now, this was definitely Suamalie’s dream, meaning the chances of me talking my way out decreased by about as much as my odds of becoming a pin cushion went up. In other words, I was basically screwed. I think Bright Daphne said that there was a word for people like Suamalie, I think she said the word was sociopathic? Something about showing no regard for the rights and feelings of others? I think that’s the word I was looking for anyway, though she might just be angry with me and not know what else to do.
After a few moments had passed, a very angry sounding Suamalie yelled out. “I THOUGHT I SAID THAT I WOULD BURY YOU IF YOU MENTIONED ANYTHING ABOUT OUR SITUATION!!”
In disbelief, I yelled back after gathering my breath. “DO YOU THINK I HAVE A DEATH WISH? WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I DIDN’T TAKE YOUT THREAT SERIOUSLY?”
A few moments of pause before the response came. “I HEARD YOU EARLIER! HOMICIDAL FIANCéE RING ANY BELLS?”
“ARE YOU BEING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? YOU’RE THREATENING TO KILL ME FOR WHAT I SAID… TO MYSELF… IN A DREAM?!?!?”
A long pause as my words crossed the distance between us. “WELL…….” Suamalie started before she trailed off.
“I’M COMING OUT NOW! HANDS ARE UP, AND I’D RATHER NOT GET A HOLE IN MY CHEST THIS TIME!” I shouted into the silence between us. Taking a few steps out from behind the tree, I turned into the direction I heard her voice coming from. All I saw was foliage and trees, no her whatsoever. Taking the time during which I was not being fired upon, I looked down and began inspecting myself. I was wearing the clothes I had worn through the previous day, in much worse condition currently, but I at least recognized what surrounded me. And then I noticed a stiff breeze blowing up the back of my shirt and hitting skin. Twisting my shirt around my body, I finally pieced together what that ripping sound was earlier. I’m not quite sure at what distance she was shooting at me from, but she was getting more accurate the more she shot. My stumbling running motion had save my life as the last arrow shot at me before I found my safety tree had taken the backside of my shirt right off. There was no longer any back to my short, so at that point it couldn’t even be called a shirt so much as it was an apron.
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“Great… she’s accurate, she’s angry, and she has it out for me…” I said under my breath. “At least this is a dream, I’d hate to see what would happen to me if she lost it on the physical side of things.”
Holding my hands over my head, I continued to stay stationary and appear as non threatening as I possibly could. It felt like I was trying to dissuade a predator from seeing me as food or something, I had no sense of shame, rather I knew that anything less would lead to my immediate and swift demise… if our last dream session is anything to go off. Waiting for Suamalie to make up her decision, I stood as still as possible hoping against hope that somehow standing very still would make me invisible in and amongst my current surroundings. Slowing my breathing and focusing on my ears, I waited and listened some more before I finally heard what I had been dreading.
After what had felt like a few minutes, I heard the sound of leave rustling which indicated that she was about to make her appearance. Catching my breath in anticipation, a brief thought came and went through my head before I had much time to actually think about it. That question being: if it took her that long to get to my position, then how far away was she and how exactly were we able to communicate over that distance? Like I said, came and went, because by the time I actually tried to ponder that subject, I saw her black haired head break through the leaves, followed by the rest of her body.
Her eyes never left my position once she finally saw me, her arms held a bow far bigger than what I thought she would be able to wield. The bow itself was currently not drawn, but there was one of those massive arrows resting in front of the string, ready to be pulled back and released at a moment’s notice. She kept it between me and her as she slowly began to circle my position, her legs adjusting to any change in height and keeping her head eerily level.
After circling me like a vulture would around an animal not far from dying for one reason or another a few times, she took her place in front of me once more before speaking. “I… I may have overreacted slightly at your statement. Sorry about that…”
Lowering my arms from above my head, not quickly, but slowly. I mean she didn’t shoot me after circling around me twice, probably means she didn’t see anything threatening, so could get away some movements if nothing else. Grabbing the bottom of my shirt-turned-apron, I gave it a twist once in her direction before speaking. “Yeah, just a bit of an overreaction. At least I knew how to dodge this time, if only barley anyway.”
“So you haven’t told anyone about our situation? Not Egon or whatever his name was?”
“Eon. And no, I haven’t. I value my life enough to understand that you have the ability to make good on your promise. And that’s what it was, a promise and not a threat. Because a threat implies the possibility of you not following through with it. A promise all but guarantee’s action.”
“Good… good…” was all I got in response.
“So, since you’re not outright killing me currently, do you happen to have any idea as to why this is even happening? This makes Dream Walk number two, and I still have no idea whatsoever as to how this is even happening, let alone how the first one occurred the first time,” I said. “At least this time I can see distance coming into effect, yet distance obviously doesn’t matter when looking at our first encounter.”
“I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that the first time you intruded upon my dreams, it felt wrong. Not that I could see anything out right out of place, but something felt off so I searched for what made it feel wrong. You know the rest. This time around, I felt your presence, but it didn’t feel wrong, just different. And I knew it was you without even seeing you which infuriated me given all that happened recently. The fact that you were here and that it didn’t feel wrong for you to be here.”
“Great… we’re stuck here together at least until you kill me, and we have no idea how any of this works. Just perfect.” I looked down and sighed at the situation we were in currently, beginning to resign myself to a fate of being skewered through the chest again when a feeling of unease crept over me. A shiver ran up my spine, and I looked around rapidly. “…please tell me that was you making me feel uneasy,” I asked Suamalie, knowing what the answer was but hoping it wasn’t.
“No… that’s not me,” she replied, bringing her bow to the ready and turning her back to me. I couldn’t tell if it was the fact that she trusted me not to stab her in the back or the fact that even if I tried to, she had the strength to negate the attempt, but I was certain of one thing. Whatever was out and about, I at least wouldn’t have to worry about that direction to start.
Turning in the opposite direction, I inched my way to one of the buried arrows and pried it out of the ground, never taking my eyes off of the surrounding forest. “Ok then, since it’s not you, do you have any idea as to what it is?”
Before she responded, we were greeted with the sound of a horn going off. And then I heard. No… not it. Them. From all around us. Chittering and clicking and laughing noises. “Gaia damn it all… Gobose.”
“You’re going to have to explain that one to me Samy.”
“Ok, I’m going to beat you up later for that,” she retorted to the shortening of her name, but continued speaking regardless. “The long and the short of it is as follows, this dream of ours just became our shared nightmare.”
We had both unintentionally been backing up, and at this point we had been back to back which almost caused the both of us to jump. Keeping calm we stared of our chosen directions as the unnerving sounds got louder and closer. This was going to be another sleepless night, and this is still only the start. What have I gotten myself in to…