Perchance to Dream
Prologue
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them...
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
William Shakespeare
Hamlet
. . .
Beyond the twisting dark aether where grinning, mindless, lampoonic things lurked and watched; beyond heavy, condensed not-seas where vicious monstrosities feasted upon dying stars; beyond the monumental, loathsome black gates covered in sinuous shadows and crawling with nameless horrors she floated upon an endless void nameless, faceless, bodyless. She had no sight or hearing, no voice and no thought; she was nothingness. Within the nothing however she was she; that which was she was defined wholly by one wish, one desire, one burning, searing dream which would not depart though she had no lips to express it, no heart to which to hold it dear, no mind to comprehend it, no memories to sustain it. It was only a dream within a dream within a dream which was so large that it refused to die even when that which was she had stood before those horrid black gates. The gates had opened and she had passed through, but instead of falling downward into the bottomless destiny reserved for all things in this universe which have no given place she instead flew past them, past the bottomless It, past the deadlights at the edge of all things and beyond even that until she reached that place that she was at now, a place that was not a place. All that was in this place was the her that dreamed, nothing else.
The dream was of a nameless, faceless Other, some half-defined object which was not herself. She adored the Other automatically and sought it with determination and longing. From it she could feel a sensation that she could not understand but which filled her with elation anyway. She stretched into the darkness, pressing against it and through it searching for her desire but could not find it. She felt her painful separation from the Other was too harsh, too unjust, and her dream grew under her rapidly expanding desire.
She floated there for a time which made no difference to her, and her dream gathered and gathered until at last it shaped the wish inside into words which echoed into the infinite space around her. They echoed, but as yet they had no meaning, no coherence to any language known or unknown. They were simply words made up to express her dream.
As if in response to her mangled mind-voice the void shifted and swirled and suddenly there stretched before her a path of some sort, indescribable save that it was a path. The path was very short, and at the end of it was a staircase leading downward. She followed it without hesitation.
Down and down it spiraled into that night of night; one step, two steps, three steps; she impressed these steps upon herself, the first physical reference she could remember, all the way to the bottom, seventy steps in all. By now the appearance of the steps had driven a greater order into her and her words took on structure, still beyond her fractured comprehension but recognizable to any who might have ears to hear them with in this place; and indeed there were ears capable of hearing nearby. At the bottom of the steps she burst into an area which dazzled her so painfully that she drew back toward the darkness screeching in agony and desire.
I WANT! she screamed. I WANT I WANT I WANT!
From within the area where bright something danced and burned her fledgling sensibilities a voice which was not her own answered. "Turn back traveler. The way here is shut to one such as you."
The words were still unintelligible, but the meaning of them was somehow known to her and she shrieked in defiance. I'LL GO I'LL GO! I WANT!
Another voice answered. "You cannot pass, the way is shut. You have no place in this world or in the next. You should return from whence you came lest you perish here."
The entity which answered his warning did not understand what she said; the concept was still beyond her forming consciousness. The two in the brightly lit room understood perfectly however. They rocked backward under the force of it, their faces registering surprise for the first time that either could remember. The answering voice boomed in the enclosed space and though the words meant nothing the message could not be mistaken:
IF I PERISH I PERISH!
The two priests shook a little then as another long forgotten emotion welled within them: fear. Never before had a power such as this tread at their doorway and the thought of what conflict it might create disturbed their normally tranquil spirits greatly. They stood from their seats on the floor and responded as one, "If you insist upon passage then we will have to stop you by force!"
The dream was too large for her now, the painful need of it more acute than any threat of sensory overload posed by the bright area from which she had recently retreated. She swept into the cavern and past the two, bowling them over with her mere presence. The dancing light wreaked havoc on her, and the forms of the two made no sense to her. Ahead of her was another staircase, coolly dark, and she raced down it, one two three four five six seven one hundred two hundred seven hundred steps and then into a massive forest. The physicality of it nearly destroyed her and she cried out in distress. She could have simply been absorbed by the objects around her, lost in contemplation of their form for time immeasurable. Instead she flew over it, quickly, quickly, and there was the sensation of a great distance passing beneath her.
She flew over familiar seeming vistas, things which sparked recognition in her developing mind, but they were so confusing, so distracting that she banished away all contemplation of them. She flew and flew and presently found herself entering a terribly recognizable darkness. It was the dark of the same void which she had only so recently escaped; yet she flew on through the nether, positionless, still bodyless, but this time guided by some fleeting distant notion; the idea that something or someone (some Other) was calling out to her, perhaps searching for her even as she searched for it. She followed that notion through the everlasting night beyond nights, never stopping, turning neither to one side or the other, relentlessly in pursuit of her dream. In the wake of her passing the world which she had flown through shuddered, as though it had been grasped by the foundations and shook by some unimaginably large hand.
Far behind her in the cavern of flames the two priests dusted themselves off and shared a long, speculative glance. "That was most unusual," one said.
"Indeed," the other agreed. "Though I worry about what might happen now, I must admit that I am intrigued by the possibilities the future holds. Who knows what this world may look like in the coming years?"
His companion replied with a flippant shrug. "As you have said it, who knows?" He shot his partner a sly look. "Perhaps soon we will find ourselves serving different gods."
Both of them laughed at this, their beards shaking beneath their chins. Then they resumed their implacable demeanor and seated themselves once again on the floor, pondering and waiting, while all the while they could feel the progress of that nameless entity speeding through the darkest night in search of that which was calling her.
Calling.
Calling.
AN: My debut in fanfiction, and what better series than TTGL? Hope to see you all again soon.
P.S. formatting is the pits.