Dreamweavers - Kirby's Insane Halloween III
By ClaudeLv250
Introduction: You didn't think I'd stop at 2, did you? Anyways, it's that time of year again, and in the spirit of the holiday, I'm writing Halloween based fiction again!
When we succumb to sleep at night, it can be like flipping a coin: you can have pleasant dreams, or you may experience terrifying nightmares. And no matter how bleak or bizarre our nightmares may be, they can always feel excruciatingly real while we're experiencing them... the Smashers have this problem on a whole new level when their dreams and nightmares start to seep into reality. Who or what is causing the materialization of their greatest recurring fears?
Disclaimer: Super Smash Bros. and all related characters are the property of Nintendo. I whipped up all original characters except for any real people that might appear in the story. Don't sue me – I just like to write!
Chapter 1 – Recurrence (In Your Dreams)
Dreams are funny, the way they don't have to follow any rules. I've dreamt that I've been friends with people I've never met in my life, and I've dreamt that I've had to go back to certain places I never want to see again based on really flimsy reasons that felt legit until I woke up and thought about it. I've gone weeks without having any memorable dreams and then I can have four or five rapid, back to back, completely unrelated dreams all in one night. I've even had lucid dreams, where I turned the tides against whatever my subconscious was throwing my way. I've experienced the whole dream spectrum... mostly.
What I don't have are recurring dreams.
And that is why these past few days have been so weird.
It's happening again. This dream starts at the same place every time. I'm on a small sheet of ice, a frozen pond or something, and I'm surrounded by nothing but hills of snow and ice. The sky is overcast and the clouds are speckled with odd, glittering lights. It's cold – colder than it has any right to be – and I should be frozen down to my bones, but I can bear it.
I don't know why I'm here. The "why" doesn't matter, for some reason. I start exploring by heading north. I don't know if it's actually north, I just tell myself that it is. I always head in this direction. There are trees blanketed in snow and purple flowers blooming. Occasionally, I will come across rainbow-colored snowflake patterns drawn atop the snow itself. I don't examine this phenomenon because, over the hills of snow, I can see the dark silhouette of buildings in the distance.
Those signs of civilization do nothing to quell that fear and anxiety brimming inside of me, that feeling that something really bad happened here and will happen again if I stay too long. There's no one else here but me, there hasn't been anyone for ages, and no one is ever coming back.
One silhouette eventually separates into three as I draw closer. A mass of dark buildings represents the first silhouette; there are no lights or signs of life. Smoke stacks billow above the second, a factory no doubt. Activity from the factory when the city is practically dead awakens deep reservations inside of me. I choose to go to the third silhouette, its entrance lined with old lamp posts like a parking lot. This must be a mall or shopping center. For the first time, I don't feel that crushing loneliness as I slog through the snow and ice.
Inside, the mall is bright and populated with an assortment of small, colorful creatures. Something tells me to keep my distance and I obey. My eyes sweep the mall for signs of – what am I looking for? Something catches my attention, steals my eyesight. I can't look away. My body grows numb and cold, colder than it ever was outside. Above the creatures is a dark object shaped like a cape or cloaked, billowing in the absence of wind. It's some kind of window into another existence, a stretch of eternity. My vision rockets by countless stars, oddly shaped planets, galaxies, nebula...
I finally wrench myself away, looking at anything but that thing. It threatened to swallow me up – it will swallow me up if I stay here! I move so fast that I barely notice that the escalators I'm racing up are actually conveyor belts. When I hit the third floor I cut into a hallway where I can't make eye contact with that thing again and wait for my heart to stop trying to beat its way out of my chest.
Some deep breaths later, I decide this is my path. Malls have multiple exits, I can get out of here without coming across whatever that tear in the fabric of space was; that's how I rationalize it. I continue down the hallway and there's a computer terminal here. It jolts something inside of me. That's it, that's what I need! They need to know. I practically lunge for the keyboard and...
My eyelids slid open and I took in the plain white wall of my bedroom. I jumped out of my bed, grabbed the water bottle from my desk and let the sunlight filtering through the window shades kiss my skin with warmth in the autumn chill. Why does this keep happening?
Like I said before, I didn't have recurring dreams until this one. The last time I had it, I woke up as soon as I entered the mall. There's never been anything like that billowing tear in space before. I've told myself that the dream didn't mean anything. Just a weird phase my subconscious is going through. But it's getting harder to deny that it's having an impact on me, even moreso because my hand holding the water bottle was shaking...
That's it. I needed answers. I have to get to the bottom of that dream and there was one place that jumped out at me, another reality, really. Someone there had to have the means to answer my questions.
It's time to cross worlds again. I need to see the Smash Brothers.
And we're back! I intended on posting this before Halloween but, here we are. This one is going to be longer than the first two Halloween stories; the scope is a bit larger, than threat deadlier. What could be the meaning behind the strange dreams tormenting me at night? It's a lot more relevant to a Smash Brother than anyone may have suspected. Hardcore Nintendo fans may have recognized some imagery in there!