That night, Nopal had a dream.
At first, she thought she had simply woken up. But one small detail seemed to bug her to no end. The straitjacket was tight. Before, it was itchy, but now it burned. It felt as if tracts of constricting velcro were being slowly dragged across her bare skin.
She knew what it was. A dream. That was because it simply wasn't true that the straitjacket was tightening so much that she could feel her ribs creaking. The air being driven out of her everytime she exhaled was fake. The straitjacket shrinking ever smaller wasn't real.
Arty and Holly wouldn't do that to her.
Upon that realization, gentle hands pried the itchy garment off of her. Free, Nopal inhaled the sweet night air. She stood, albeit with some difficulty, and surveyed her surroundings.
Now she stood in an empty field of grey. There was grass beneath her bare feet. She savored the sensation, wiggling her toes and getting them slightly damp. The sky above was turbulent, the moody grey clouds threatening an impending storm.
Nopal found that the plane stretched in all directions for as far as she could see. Probably forever, her mind told her. Yet she wasn't alone. She saw it off in the distance. A towering cube of smoke. And yet as it raged within itself, a miniature tempest, it remained tightly enclosed by an invisible barrier.
The curious pixie walked towards it for an indeterminate amount of time. Probably a long time. Who knows? Eventually she padded up to the cube. It was larger than expected. Completely disproportionate to what it had appeared to have been.
Inside, a whirling dervish of ash and smoke blew wildly. Rogue tendrils reached out and lashed against invisible walls, but, for the most part, the miniature cyclone seemed to be contained.
Nopal spotted objects being borne by the winds. Pieces of technology, both fairy and human. Plaques with writings on them she could not decipher. Black, disembodied fairy hands reaching, pulling, oppressing, as they writhed within. She saw them for what they were; chains.
Someone was being kept inside. Trapped. Imprisoned. If Nopal placed her ear against the "glass" she could hear someone trying to get out. Maybe. It was being drowned out by the howling wind.
Interestingly enough, the invisible wall was something else. It wasn't the same as the clouds of pollutant-choked smog. Those came from the outside to suffocate the prisoner. But what kept them inside was the prisoner. Nopal couldn't figure out how she knew it, but she did.
Maybe she could break the person out? But how do you do that when the prisoner imprisons himself? Nopal frowned. She knew she wouldn't want to be trapped like that.
But what could she really do about it?