When Simon opened his eyes he was greeted by a deep blue sky and a cool breeze blowing through his clothes, the sun was already above the horizon and the light almost blinded him as it shined on his face.
"Where am I? Am I still dreaming?" the young man wondered.
He could not fell a ground beneath him so he assumed he was still somewhere falling through the air.
Simon painfully turned his entire body to face the earth below, he looked down to see a luxuriant land coming towards him as he was coming towards it.
It took a while for realization to dawn upon him, as he was encased in a torpid state, but at last he awoken completely.
Simon was precipitating at a great speed towards the ground with no way of escape, when the man finally digested this information he started screaming in panic, begging for anyone to save him, but there was no one to hear his cries.
The cool breeze turned into a harsh wind as the land got closer and closer as each second passed.
Seeing that there was no one to save him Simon put his hands over his eyes and waited for his demise to come.
But it didn't, just as before he expected to feel the impact with the ground but instead he felt weightlessness in his body, as he was gently floating.
He peaked through the space between his fingers to see that he was indeed floating, he was gently gliding through the air, light as a feather, and landed on his feet to the ground.
He was speechless, to say the least; he had never experienced something like similar during one of his dreams and didn't know what to think of it.
Simon instinctively checked his body to see if he had any major injuries and, much to his surprise, not only he was unscratched from the fall and the fire but he also noticed that his clothes had been replaced with others.
Instead of his usual grey attire he wore a navy blue suit, underneath the jacket there was a perfectly white shirt with a black tie tied around his neck.
At his feet, he had a pair of shiny leather shoes with spats.
Simon also noticed that his gloves had completely disappeared and that his bag was, luckily, left untouched.
Or that's what he thought before he noticed a rather large skull-shaped metal brooch sticking out from the side of his bag.
He had no idea where all those things came from, but that was the least absurd thing that happened to him that day.
It was a lot of things to take all at once so Simon decided to sit down and rest for a while.
In the meantime, Simon's eyes wandered all around him exploring the new unknown place.
He discovered that the land where he stood was actually floating isle in the sky, he looked down from a cliff nearby to see an endless green landscape, stretching as far as the eye could see.
He could see other floating isles in the distance, some bigger than others, but all of them were filled with vegetation.
Then his attention shifted, towards the forest that stood behind him, it had some very tall trees that shadowed the entire undergrowth with their large fronds, the trees felt very disproportionate but then again he could not expect any sense of realism in one of his dreams.
Although the isle flourished with life, it looked scarred, as if something terrible had just happened recently and it was trying to recover from the trauma.
When Simon finally felt rested he got on his feet and entered the forest, hopeful to find a way out.
Simon found the bed of a dried river and used it as a pathway to access the innards of the forest, noticing even more strange things along his way.
Colorful mushrooms, giant dices, and marbles littered the undergrowth, various cups, pots, and even a steaming kettle, everything around him was about twice his size, making him feel very tiny.
He even came across a stone statue, Simon assumed it was of woman judging by its clothes but the face was too disfigured to recognize who she was.
After passing under an entire bridge made out of domino pieces the river's bed led him to a clearing with a small pond in the middle of it.
The clearing was just a circular piece of land that lacked trees but there was something eerie about it, it felt out of place and artificial, Simon felt as if something was watching him, spying him from behind the deep vegetation and he had lived enough nightmares to understand that feeling.
The pond was filled with a suspicious black oily liquid and as came by the shores he noticed a series of large white doll head floating on the surface. They all looked deformed, burned or corroded by the unknown substance and had barely any human features left.
As he knelt down to inspect the hollow doll heads Simon felt the ground beneath him shaking, and suddenly a black mass of liquid emerged from the depth of the pond.
The black mass took the shape of a giant snake; his body was mostly made out of goo but doll heads and various metal scraps could be seen sticking out from his body.
The creature made a horrible screeching sound and Simon's muscle memory kicked in and draw out his gun to defend himself.
The snake lunged towards Simon to bite him but the man promptly dodged his attack and fired a few shots from his revolver, unfortunately, the bullets seemed to go straight through his slimy mass and when they didn't they just bounced off the metal bits.
The snake kept about half of his body underneath the pond while only exposing the other half of it and its head, he attacked by biting and spitting corrosive globs of black goo.
It was unpredictable at first, but after a few unlucky strikes and missed bullets, Simon memorized his patterns.
The man kept taking pot shots at the snake, taking cover behind trees and rocks whenever he needed to reload his gun, until a bullet accidentally hit one of the doll's head, shattering it completely.
A smile appeared on Simon's face when he heard the sickening sound of the snake in agony, giving away his weak spot.
The man kept firing at the doll's heads as best as he could, his aim wasn't perfect put it was good enough to destroy most of the heads on its body, causing massive injuries to the snake.
The monster, now worn-out from the fight, launched a last desperate attack, he slammed his entire body on the ground in an attempt to crush Simon.
Simon managed to survive the attack but received a forceful hit to his back that knocked his pistol from his grip and made him fell to the ground.
With his weapon out of his reach and the giant snake towering right above him he thought that it was the end of him, but then he remembered that he still had one last weapon that he could use.
Simon hastily pulled his diary out of his bag as the snake was about to strike his final killing blow, he flipped through the pages until he reached the one he was looking for and aim it towards the snake.
A stream of flames emerged from within the pages igniting the snake's head instantly, Simon could feel the heat burning through the pages, the tips of his fingers were aching and his palms were sweating but he kept the book steadily in his hand.
The fire quickly spread from snake's head to the rest of his body and in the blink of an eye, the entire pond and its shores were swallowed by the flames.
The snake tried to fight back, it tried to retreat but everything around him was on fire, with no way to escape the creature collapsed onto the ground where it remained motionless.
Out of breath and with his hearth hammering in his chest, Simon placed the smoking book in his bag and watched as the creature burnt to death, the fire had disfigured its carcass completely leaving only a wrecked mess of metal and doll pieces.
"I guess this is not my lucky day." Simon thought before he rested his head on the grassy ground and closed his eyes, shutting out the sunlight far above.
"Now where is the damn thing" Simon said to himself while he was searching for his lost weapon, frustration seething through every word, he remembered seeing his gun being knocked out of his had by the impact with giant snake but could not pinpoint were it went, he had scouted the clearing multiple times but to no avail, he looked everywhere, in the tall grass, the shores of the pond and he even checked a few times near the snake carcass just to be sure not to miss anything, but nothing.
Simon rubbed the bridge of his nose and gave a loud sigh, a million thoughts racing through his head that definitely didn't alleviate his headache.
Why am I here? How do I get out? What are those creatures? By now he was convinced that this place was not his mind, everything looked too bright and too different from what he had lived in the last years, but if this wasn't his mind then where was he? Questions after questions and none of them could be answered.
But even in the heat of all of his reasoning, he could still feel a sensation of impending doom lingering in the back of his head.
It all started when he first entered the clearing, Simon had the feeling that someone was watching him, at first he thought that it was the hidden presence of the snake that was making him feel uneasy but the feeling persisted even after its death, and he had lived through enough nightmares to know that it wasn't just paranoia and he'd better keep both of his eyes open at all times for anything and anyone.
"There it is!" Simon said cheerfully as he spotted his target, his thoughts immediately retreated in the depth of his mind as soon as he spotted his gun, the shiny metal object laid hidden underneath some bushes on the far edge of the clearing and quite far from the fight that took place just minutes before.
I wonder how it got that far, thought Simon.
He moved forward towards his weapon but as he was kneeling down to pick it up from the ground with the corner of his eye he saw a shadow dashing right behind him.
Simon spun his body in a single move, weapon ready in his hands, but there was no one to be seen.
"That's it, this is the last time I refuse to take my medicines"
"You have no idea how many times she told me the exact same thing" An unknown voice replied to Simon.
The man jumped backward for the surprise and was about to fall to the ground again, but regained his balance and turned around to see the source of the voice.
Standing proudly on four legs there stood what could only be described as a grossly deformed cat, vaguely resembling an oversized Sphinx cat, it had a very thin coat of fur and slender body shape with various marks drawn all over his body.
It had a very starved and skeletal appearance, so much that his bones could be seen poking through his skin.
But the most remarkable feature was his head, large and completely disproportionate compare to the rest of his body, bearing the most unsettling smile he had ever seen in his life.
Apart from the initial surprise Simon wasn't really afraid of him that merely curious of this strange looking animal.
"What? Never seen a cat in your life?" The cat tilted his head slightly onto the side.
"Cats don't usually talk from where I came from" Simon replied as calmly as he possibly could.
"Oh I am not doubting your word Simon in fact I know quite a lot of things about you," said the cat whilst he held a book wrapped in the coils of his tail.
Simon's expression changed from curiosity to fear as he saw the diary, his diary, in hands of the cat that stood right in front of him.
Hastily he opened his bag and look inside, it was empty.
"Give me that, you freak!" Said Simon, practically screaming at the animal, before lunging a hand towards the cat to snatch the book out of his grip.
But the cat reacted faster than him and in the blink of an eye, he disappeared into thin air.
"Show yourself cat!" Simon looked around him in search for his book and the cat, adrenaline rushing through his body just like before.
"I am over here," a calm and soothing voice called for him, and there he was, sitting composedly on top of a rock that was far larger than the man himself, the cat.
Simon rushed to him to retrieve what was rightfully his, but this time he tried to use diplomacy instead of violence.
"That book doesn't belong to you, give it back to me" "not so fast young man, there is something you have to do for me if you want to have your belongings back," "I am not here for you amusement cat, give me my book back or else…."-"or else what Simon? What are you going to do about it?"
What was he going to do about it? Simon thought about it for a moment, the book was everything for him, his past, his memories, all of that could all be lost forever if the cat wanted to.
He was powerless and could do nothing but submit to the despotic orders of the cat.
"What do you want from me?" Asked the defeated Simon.
"Well you see Simon there is a damsel in distress who is in desperate need of his white knight, and you might be the right man to do the job"
Said the cat with the most smugly grin printed all over his face.
"So, do we have a deal?" the cat asked.
Simon lowered his head one more time to reflect, he could not simply walk away and leave his diary in the middle of nowhere, assuming there was a way out, to begin with.
He raised his head one more time to look at the cat, his expression of glee made his blood boil but had restrained himself to strangle the cat to death, much to his disappointment.
"Deal," said Simon with a thread of voice.
"I knew you would make the right choice," said the cat before teleporting on top of a branch outside the clearing and into the forest.
"Hush, there is a long way ahead of us."
Simon followed obediently, leaving the clearing behind.