Lucid. This was a lucid dream. This was orange skies, black rivers, and the hope of someday waking up. He would get out: some benevolent force would release him. He knew it. He knew… he knew he was screwed. He was the worst kind of person: dead before he lived. That's what he knew. That's what he knew beyond the swamps, the creatures, Hell. It was what he knew when he sat down on one of the many red cliffs and watched the wraiths bicker and moan below. He grinned: even if his excuse of a body was above them, it didn't mean he ever would be. No, he was the lowest of the gutter trash. And he would kill for a smoke, at the moment.
"They're definitely apt for this place, or worse, with all that whining…" he just wanted to sleep. But whenever he slept when he was alive, he'd have nightmares. His life had been a nightmare. What was the point of trading one horror for another?
"I'll give you what you want if you come down here, pretty-pretty?" One of the demons said from below as it struggled to climb the sharp ruts in the cliff. When its tentacle-like arm reached his boot, he kicked it off,
"Shut up, swampie." And it tumbled back down. He sniggered a bit, then frowned as he realised maybe some of those shape shifting losers could actually turn themselves into cigarettes… A bad idea, and he was smarter than that, now. He knew the dish and how it was served. There was no way some affable, good-natured demon (a contradiction in itself) was going to amend the laws and permit him to at least go above and pick up a pack at some convenience store. It sucked, too, because he couldn't go ahead and say "I'd die for a drag, right now," for it no longer applied to him. But he could go begging at the host's house… which was also a bad idea.
"Alright, alright: jan-ken-pon." He used to play that when he was little. It was the 'exciting' substitute for drawing lots in elementary school, which he actually aced, respectively. Well, not exactly 'aced'… yes; imagine a camaraderie of happy, short kindergarteners running around a room screaming out "I WIN!", but mainly, "YOU LOSE!" Happier days for happier blokes.
"Rock, paper, scissors:" he was going. Good ol' rock: trustworthy. Jesus liked rocks, didn't he? He didn't know: he never truly paid attention in school, too busy playing round and getting into trouble. But he was getting quite bored of just sitting on the cliff, so he rose and grabbed his gear, messing habitually with his bandana and walking off without a word to that eerie sky and black water. That water held a deathly smell that could choke anyone who wasn't used to it. Which was strange to him, because when he first came here, it smelled so nice… but he'd heard of the tricks it played on the demons and dead, alike, and he wasn't about to go cannon-balling into it anymore. He was actually becoming conscientious for once, no longer popping whatever-this-is into his mouth and hoping for the best. No, he was reformed. Except for the cigarettes.
Trudging down the hill, his gait wavered for a moment and he shook his head, reassessing the scene. When the reboot was finished and it all came back to him, he stood still for a moment, eyes a little wide and limbs stiff as the warm colours of his surroundings chilled him to his knotted core. He cried out then, anger tearing at his failing mind as he whacked apart the scenery, fury growing as each and every root-every branch and brush-grew back again almost instantly. Like he had never been there. And that hurt him deeply. Nobody would remember him on Earth-not one sorry jerk would bow their head in his memory. Because he hadn't done anything; there was nothing to remember him by. He was a loser then, and he as losing what little was left, now. Needless to say, he was really starting to get vexed with himself. How much longer would he last? How many more seconds were on the clock in this timeless, changeless world? God and all else knew the clock wasn't the most amenable or easily convinced of fellows: who was it that said "Time is a great teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all its pupils." Be… Ber… Berlioz, was it? He didn't remember that, either. What was the point of going to the 'service & complaint department' when he probably wouldn't even last the trip? Their host wasn't even veryassiduous, almost always ignoring his work in favour of some other activity. Like creating people out of plants. Strange, true, but he had learned to forgive and forget the eccentricities of this place. Because there were too many to get caught up in and survive.
So, it was pointless. He climbed one of the unmarked trees he had tried to hack to whatever was below him, settling in as the branches slowly grew curved around him. It was vicious, this place. He knew he couldn't stay in one place for very long without attracting attention-especially with his rather workable, new body: even the trees were trying to eat it up in hopes of getting better form. After all, what right did the 'new guy' have in getting such a gift? What import could he possibly have that so intrigued their host? He wondered this silently as branched grew over him. He was so tired of this. Tired of constantly fighting everything. He'd done that on Earth, so why couldn't he get a break, now? Why did anybody care enough to put on such a gruesome show for him? Especially, give him the body to fight it all off? Why were they making him fight and suffer and think so much? Unless… unless maybe there was hope. Maybe this was that other place, where you just had to stay awhile-the place like taking a sit in the corner? You realise what you did, repent, and go home? Yeah, maybe he was going home. Maybe this really was just a bad dream. He would fall asleep and he would dream. It would be a lucid dream. It was a lucid dream…
Where were his cigarettes?