Chapter 7: Where are Monsters in Dreams
She awoke with a gasp.
"Kirika!"
Gone.
Where...?
The room swam into focus. It was large, with low tables and chairs, a crowded bookshelf, an expansive wardrobe, and lit everywhere with the golden light of a summer afternoon. A light breeze blew in through the open windows, the diaphanous silk draperies flowing upon it. She was on the largest four poster bed she had ever seen in her life.
Where in the world was she?
And then her eyes fell upon something next to her, and she knew all too well.
"No..." She reached for the tan-coloured teddy bear, and saw her hands for the first time. "No!"
They were small. Tiny, even. Like those of a child.
The bear was just as soft as she remembered. The button eyes, the velvet patches on its paws, they were all there. She clutched it tight. "How...?" she whispered.
She slid out of the bed. The wardrobe, the table and tea set, the drawings on the walls...this was her room.
Was?
No, is, silly, she thought.
Now, what was she doing? Oh yes. It'd been a hot afternoon. Her father wanted to take her out on the boat; she was tired. She took a nap. Hey, it was still early! She could go out on the water before dinner! She giggled, clicked open the door to her room, and skipped into the tiled hallway.
It was unusually empty.
She stepped over to the kitchen, intent on snacks "Miss Marie? Miss Marie?"
No answer, save for a pot left boiling on the stove.
Remembering her kitchen safety, she stood on her tip toes and turned it off. Forgetting it, she grabbed a rickety-old orange crate, pushed it to the counter, climbed it, grabbed two chocolate-chip-and-raisin cookies from the jar (one for her, one for the bear), and wandered out the side door. "Miss Marie? Mister George?" she called out over the garden.
A small butterfly heard her, and explained that the two had run screaming off into the fields a few minutes ago.
She thanked the butterfly, and made a mental note to ask her father to cut both their salaries for this transgression. Some part of her thought that something wasn't quite right about this whole situation, especially since the butterfly spoke in Cantonese instead of its usual Spanish; she silenced it with a well placed cookie to the mouth. Mmm, choco-raisiney goodness, she thought. She offered the second cookie to the bear (Wuffles). He declined, so she ate that one too.
Where was everyone?
The patio! Of course!
Back into the house, through the kitchen, and around the corner she went, down the central corridor with its two-toned tiled floor.
It felt...familiar?
Of course it was; she'd lived here her entire life, didn't she?
But, she thought, did I live here my entire life...right now?
She stopped, confused. Strange voices clashed about her head. Some wanted her to get on with it, pass through that door, and talk to Papa; others, distant ones, shrill with fear and loathing, screamed at her to get out, get away, run, run anywhere, any place but here. And she swore there was another voice, just on the edge of perception, saying something important, but drowned out by all the others.
Funny, she thought, it usually isn't that crowded up there. She wondered, briefly, if she had reached into Miss Marie's stash of 'special' snacks by accident, then tossed the thought aside, recalling that there was a distinct lack of flaming purple spiders crawling under her skin this time.
She set off down the hallway. The long, long hallway, made all the longer by the crushing sense of dread that seemed to weigh down her every step. She could hear her parents; it sounded like they were arguing about something.
Or someone, said a thought unbidden.
It soon vanished, drowned out by the screaming and crying of everything else in her head. The voices had grown in number and volume with every step she'd taken. It was getting quite irritating, and, she had to admit, a little bit scary.
"Um, excuse me," she said to the voices in her head, "could you keep it down a bit? All the wailing and doom-saying is starting to get on my nerves."
Suddenly, the voices stopped. They turned, looked at her (variously with pity, anger, resentment, and fear), shook their collective heads, and walked away.
Mireille was surprised, confused, and slightly terrified, in that order. Surprised, because the voices had actually listened; confused, because the aforementioned voices had turned, looked, and walked, despite being non-corporeal entities; and terrified, because now it was just a little too quiet up there.
Come to think of it, she thought of it, it's a little too quiet out here, too. Did they stop arguing?
She pressed her ear to the door.
Huh, she thought, guess they --
Two shots rang out.
She jumped back.
Relax, she thought, it's not what you think...it's probably just Papa teaching the delivery boy "the meaning of respect" again, that's all. Everything's calm, everything's cool. Nothing to worry about.
She clutched Mister Wuffles, all the same.
Hesitantly, she reached for the door.
The sound of the third shot ripped through her body, pierced her heart, and echoed about the dark corners of her mind.
Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes went wide. Her limbs froze.
And then panic took over. Her heart pounded. Every voice in her head screamed at once. She gasped, and burst through the door.
There were three bodies on the floor.
"Mama! Papa!" She raced to the fallen, slid on the marble, and grasped their hands. "No...no," she wept. "This can't be happening! It can't! No, not again!" She buried her tiny face in her mother's breast. "Papa...Mama...no..." She wept.
Something caressed her hair.
She gasped, and looked up.
Tears brimmed in her eyes, her lips quivered. "Mama?"
"It's all right, Mireille." Her mother rose from the ground, as did her father and brother nearby.
Mireille backed away in confusion. "B-b-but," she stammered, "I, I thought..."
"Silly girl," said her mother, smiling beatifically. "You must have been dreaming again." Her father laughed, softly.
She sniffled. "Yeah...I, I guess I was." She smiled. "It didn't happen. It wasn't real. It was just a drea --"
A flash of memory. Golden light. A fallen watch. Artistically-splattered blood.
She dropped Mr. Wuffles, and clutched her head, trying to shake off the imagery. "No, no! Not real, not real!"
Some force in her mind shoved her head up, tore open her eyes, and made her see the truth.
She screamed.
"What is it, Mireille?" asked her mother, blood still dripping from a great hole in her forehead. Her father and brother looked on, concerned, as their still-pumping chest wounds painted their shirts crimson.
She scrambled back until she hit the wall. "Dead!" she squeaked. "Dead, dead! You're all dead! I, I saw you die! I remember it! You can't be here! You're dead! No..."
A swish of fabric, and her mother was by her side again. The smell of fine Italian perfume and spilt blood assailed her senses. "Oh, my poor, confused little girl," she said.
"But...but how?" Tears stained her cheeks. "I...I see you, and you're talking, you're okay, but I know you can't be, and I, I remember that day, but, but that day is today, now, but it isn't, and --"
Her mother shushed her, and folded her into a loving, sanguinary embrace. "It wasn't real, dear. None of it was."
"But..."
"None of us are."
Even through the terror and grief, Mireille still had the presence of mind to say, "Eh?"
Her mother spread her arms. "None of this, none of us...are real. We cannot die, for we have never lived."
Her head was spinning, heavy with confusion. "W-what?"
"We are all just figments of another's imagination. We live, breathe, and die at His command, at the will of the great Author of our lives." She smiled, her face now a mask of blood. "So you see, my child, there is no need for fear, no need for sadness. Trust in His will, for it...is...all."
Some distant voice fought its way to the forefront of Mireille's conscience. "No, no, that isn't right! We're not puppets, we're not! We, we live our own lives, think for ourselves, make our own way! Our...my will is my own!"
Her mother laughed, softly. "My foolish little girl." She leaned in close. "You're not real, either."
She gasped. Her mother had seized her hand. "Look," she said, dragging it in front of her face.
She did.
It looked...cell-shaded?
"No," she whimpered. "No, no, no, no no no! I don't believe you! I can't! I won't!"
"You already do," said her mother, sadly.
Mireille gasped. Her father's pocket watch was suspended from her neck, locked in place by a chain of pearls. Its arms moved forward, implacably. "No! No no no," she sobbed.
"Join us," said her family, reaching for her.
"NO!" As she screamed, she tore the watch from her neck. The chain snapped; pearls sang through the air, as did the watch itself, hurled by her hand. It dashed against her mother's forehead and burst asunder.
The world shattered. The patio, her mother, her father and brother, the heavens, the earth...they split and cracked into innumerable shards, shards that passed over, around, and through her, cutting at her heart and mind. Each cut brought another memory, painful ones: memories of blood, tears, broken glass and bodies, of dark places in the world, and the blackness of the human soul.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the fractured pieces of reality fell away, leaving only a frightened girl, curled into a ball, weeping.
She drifted in an ocean of pain, grief, and confusion. "Not real, not real," she whispered to herself. "Not really them, not really here, not real, not any of it." She sniffled. "It's all an illusion, a hallucination, a dream, a dream, it's got to be a dream, it must be a dream, it --"
Off in the distance, she spotted the light of realization, and struck out for it.
"It...is...a dream," she said.
She opened her eyes, and got to her shaking feet.
The patio was so different now, she thought. And yet exactly as it should be, thought another part of her.
The floor was cracked and stained by age. Moss and mildew covered every tile, infested every crack in the wall. Part of the far wall lay crumbled upon the ground.
"A dream. This...is a dream." A fragment of information slipped in through the storm of argument in her head. "A lucid dream. Yeah, that's it. One of those ones where you know you're dreaming!"
She wandered out into the middle of the patio. "And if I know I'm asleep," she said to herself, "then I can wake myself up! Okay! Here we go." She took a deep breath, and clenched her fists. "Wake up."
Nothing.
"Wake...up!"
A few birds chirped in the distance.
She closed her eyes, and focused. "Wake up. Wake...up. Wake. Up. Wake up wake up wake up wakeupwakeupwakeup wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwake --"
XXXXxxxxxxxxxxx.....
She moaned.
Every part of body ached. Someone had hit her over the head with a sack of doorknobs, by the feel of it. And possibly in the stomach, she added, once the first wave of nausea hit.
She managed to ease open one eyelid.
Through the blurred, churning mess that was her vision, she thought she recognized what could, in some circumstances, be called the ceiling of her apartment. Ceiling, she thought, muzzily. Good. Better than floor. Or vomit. Or cow dung. Now, that was a bad trip.
She moaned, again, and tried to will the other eyelid open.
Someone laughed in her ear. A great, leathery hand with claws of steel closed over her vision, and pressed down.
XXXXxxxxxxxxxxx.....
"Oof! Owww..." Young Mireille picked herself off the stone floor, spitting out lichen. That wasn't normal, she thought, her head spinning. "Maybe I didn't do it right?" She steadied herself against the decayed remnants of a column. "Okay, Mireille. Let's do this."
She focused.
"Wake --"
A distant boom. A tremor shook her to the floor.
An earthquake?
A second boom, and quake. Followed by a third. And a fourth.
Um, aftershocks?
No, she thought. Footsteps.
She got to her feet. The tremors were getting closer. Old masonry dust crumbled from the remains of the patio. "It's okay, Mireille," she told herself. "It's a dream. You're in control. Nothing's real, so nothing can hurt you here, right? Nothing to fear but fear itself, eh?"
The far wall exploded. Chunks of ancient stone and wood pinwheeled through the air; she ducked to avoid concussion or, worse, decapitation. She coughed, waved away the dust, and tried to spot the nature of her new visitor.
It was fear itself.
"Okay...Mireille," she said, slowly backing away. "Nothing to worry about. It's not real. It's just a penguin. A big one. A giant one that just smashed through a stone wall with its forehead. With glowing laser eyes. And a body made of what appears to be the squirming flesh of all its previous victims. And purple shoes." She gulped. "Right. Just a giant, undead, cyborg penguin from the innermost circle of Hell. Nothing to be scared of."
The great beast whipped a massive biomechanical chainsaw out from behind its back, revved it over its head, and roared.
"Holy #$%#!" said Mireille.
She leapt back. The huge saw ripped through the air and smashed into the floor just where she was previously standing, chewing and spitting stone. She screamed, and scrambled for safety. She tripped. The growling blade sliced through the space where her upper-torso just was a second ago, and crashed through several stone pillars. She yelped, and then yelped again, as the dread beast smashed the blade into the ground next to her; she just moved her legs in time. In desperation, she tossed Mr. Wuffles at the monster. While it incinerated her childhood friend with its techno-demon-electro-vision, she sprinted for the nearest exit.
A great, slimy, foul-smelling flipper met her going the opposite way, and slammed her against a wall. She bounced off it, and flopped to the floor, wracked with pain.
Adrenaline saved her. Ignoring the stars in her vision and the screaming pain from her ribs, she dived out of the way of a cleaving blow, landing hard on one heel. It snapped, twisting her ankle. "Never...wearing...heels...again!" she gasped.
The hell beast bellowed at her. Its breath was that of burning flesh. A set of flaming claws scored the stone before her. Desperately, still struggling with her leg, she tried to crawl away.
Everywhere she looked, she saw wall.
Cornered!
The monster growled. Its chainsaw thrummed and spat. It advanced, slowly, each step shaking the earth. White, putrescent slime dribbled from its spiny beak. Mireille whimpered. It raised its mighty weapon in both flippers, pulled the starter cord, and roared. She screamed, repeatedly. In an unreasoning panic, she turned and tried to claw her way up the slime-slick walls. Her fingers clawed uselessly.
Or maybe not, she realized.
There was something written on the wall. A message.
Seeing as she was going to die anyway, she read it.
It said:
"Remember who you are.
Sincerely,
Rational Thought"
And Mireille Bouquet, professional assassin, aged 20, turned on her heel, pulled her Walther P99 from where she knew it always was, and fired.
The shot ripped through the creature's left flipper. It howled, and then screamed in pain as the now-fumbled chainsaw fell and sliced right through one of its rotting limbs. White putrescence spurted from the wound. Its eyes blazed, and it roared in her direction. Suddenly, it flinched, as a second round punched through its shoulder. It staggered back as two more popped into its chest.
Eyes steel, all fear fallen away, Mireille advanced, firing again and again. "Die...you...god...damned...mutant...hell...beast!" she said, punctuating each word with a bullet. "Die, damn it! Die die die!"
The monster screamed in agony. Its flesh convulsed, oozing from innumerable wounds. It stumbled, and crashed against the patio walls. Its eyes crackled. It raised its one remaining flipper. Its claws flamed. It howled in rage, swept back its mighty hand --
She put her last bullet directly between its eyes.
A squeal of a stuck pig, cut off suddenly. The creature stumbled back. Its head collapsed, as if imploding. Its whole body thrashed and convulsed. And then, without warning, it exploded.
Wetly. And very, very messily.
Mireille picked herself off the ground for the umpteenth time. A thick, goopy, white mess covered the remains of the patio, a good chunk of the olive grove, and, regrettably, her. She tried to wipe her goo-covered face with a goo-covered hand, and then realized why one can't do that.
"You know," she said, to the world at large, "it's a damn good thing this is a dream, because this would make for one hell of a dry-cleaning bill." She laughed at her own joke, riding the crest of an adrenaline high. You know, she thought, surveying the carnage, I think I saw this in a movie once. I wonder...
She licked her finger, experimentally.
The goop did, in fact, taste a bit like marshmallow.
But mostly like exploded penguin guts.
"Okay," she said, after she'd finished vomiting. "Note to self: never do that again."
She waded out of the patio area into less slime drenched parts. "This," she noted, "is by far the most messed-up dream I have ever had the misfortune of having. Fortunately, since I know this is a dream..." She focused. "I...am...clean!"
And with a soft ping, she was.
She wandered down to the beach. It was, as expected, exactly as she remembered it. She sat down, and tried to gather her thoughts.
"So...this is a dream. A lucid one. And I can't seem to wake up. Why?"
A piece of paper fluttered by. She grabbed it, and unfolded it.
It was a note.
"Sorry, haven't the foggiest, signed Rational Thought," she read.
"Uh...thanks for the save, back there, I guess," she said to the air.
She noticed a second fold in the paper. She opened it. "No prob; lay off the highballs and we'll call it even," she read.
She smirked. "Okay," she said, to the paper, "since you're presumably the smart one in this head of mine, what do I do next?" She turned the sheet over.
"Well," read the note, "I would suggest that you huminumuminarghbarbleshlup --"
Mireille jumped as the note melted through her fingers, dribbled onto the sand, and burst into flames.
"Oh, dear, that can't be a good sign," she said.
"No. It isn't."
In a flash, Mireille willed herself a fresh clip, reloaded, whirled, and aimed at the voice.
She squinted.
She was aiming at the sun.
"What the...?"
"Fear not," said the sun. "I am a friend."
"Who...who are you?" She shaded her eyes.
"Now is not the time or place for you to learn my name," said the sun.
"Uh, could you turn down the aura of light a bit? It kinda stings."
"Oh my! I'm sorry! Right away!"
Mireille blinked. The figure was still bathed in light, but she could just make out a feminine silhouette. A dress. Wings. Hair that sprung forth like a flower. And a radiant smile. The radiant one was either very, very far away, or very, very small.
"Oooookay, Miss...Whatever You Are. Care to explain what you just said?"
"You are in great peril," said the figure.
"Uh, yeah, I kind of noticed that after the giant evil demon penguin from the Abyss tried to give me a haircut."
The figure shook her head. "That is only how your mind has interpreted it," she said. "You are dreaming. But while you dream, your real self lies empty. Dying."
Briefly, Mireille had a flash of herself sprawled on a familiar floor, covered in what must be blood.
"No..." she said. "I...I've got to wake up then. Now."
"Alas, you cannot."
"Then you do it! Help me, please!"
The figure shook her head, sadly. "This is your dream, Mireille Bouquet. I cannot interfere in it."
"But someone already is! When I tried to wake up, earlier...I could feel it! I was almost there! But then there was this voice, laughing, and this hand, with claws..."
"Yes. He is the Master of Dreams."
"The 'Author' of my misfortunes?"
The figure looked thoughtful. "My, I never thought of it like that! Yes, that would work, too."
"Who is he?" She clenched her teeth. "Where is he? What does he want with me?"
"He wants nothing from you, save your pain and fear. As for where...that is hidden from me. You must find him yourself."
"And after I find him, what then?"
"You must challenge him. He will turn your deepest, darkest fears against you, but, if you persevere, you may yet escape from his grasp and return to the world of waking."
"My darkest fears? But, I just did that, didn't I?"
The figure nodded.
"Then where is the bastard?"
"Your task is not yet done," said the figure. "Your soul is tied to another, and she is still in grave danger."
Mireille gasped. "Kirika...where is she!?"
"She is in that place where she fears most, that place where her world came crashing down, and her heart split in twain. You two share a bond, a special bond, one of life, love, and death. Follow it, and you will find her."
"Follow it..." She chewed her lip, thoughtfully. "I...think I understand. Thank you."
"Good luck," said the figure, floating off. "If you face, and defeat...Him...we may yet meet again."
"Wait!" Mireille squinted at her. "Why are you helping me? Why are you doing all this?"
The figure looked embarrassed, if that's possible for a presumably-divine silhouette. "It is for a selfish purpose," she said. "The Master...is a friend. He has fallen to his own dark dreams; you have merely been caught up in events. But he, too, may yet be saved, if you succeed."
Mireille nodded. "All right. So...save my partner, beat the evil mastermind, wake up." She smirked. "Sounds like a plan."
"Farewell," said the figure. She vanished into a point of light.
Mireille exhaled. Dreamscapes, entangled souls, lives in the balance...heavy, she thought. She gripped her Walther.
Kirika...hold on. I'm on my way.
She steadied her breathing, and closed her eyes. In her mind, she recalled that place, envisioned every crack, every stone, every leaf, the heat of the sun, the sparkling water, the green grass. She focused on it, on herself, and willed herself into the mental picture.
She opened her eyes.
the same self the only self
self willed the peril of a thousand fates
a line of infinite ends finite finishing
the one remains oblique and pure