Chapter 1

Ah, great. This nightmare again. I let the chaos of it play out before me, submitting to the nauseating feeling of eating and being eaten, spanning out over miles and miles of turbulent water.
That’s new though, I don’t usually get to choose; that’s not how dreams work. Wait a second, am I dreaming?

I’m standing on the deck of the boat now, and I’m me: a tall girl in her twenties, shoulder-length dirty blonde hair, jade green eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses. I groan, clutching my head as the feeling of the dream continues. “I thought the idea of knowing you were dreaming was being able to not have the dream fucking suck!” I yell.

“Indeed.” Echoes a woman’s voice. “This is most unusual. Allow me to assist.”

As if by magic, the storm stops. The waves stop beating against the boat, seemingly suspended in time, and I can now look up to see a clear night sky. How odd. I guess my subconscious is here for the win, I wonder if I can think up other things?

“That is the idea, yes. Though I am not your subconscious. I am Luna, Princess of the Night, Warden of Dreams.” her voice held a grandeur to it as she introduced ‘herself’ to me. She sounded like some stereotypical fantasy character with an introduction like that.

“And I’m the queen of mars, nice to meet you.” I say sarcastically. A crown appears on my head, and I wave. My eyes narrow, and I look around suspiciously. “Why can’t I see you?” I wonder aloud, not quite ready to play along. I suppose that something in my own head can’t hurt me much more than the nightmares do, but it never hurts to be careful.

“Your form is nothing like I have ever seen.” She says. “I do not want to risk the stability of this dream by startling you with my appearance.” A dream still operates on some logic, then? And I suppose if she were a part of my subconscious she’d just have appeared when I wanted her too. Let’s go with it then; hail to thee, thane of Dreams! I mentally cringe, that one was a stretch, even for me.

“Alright then. What are you doing here, dream guardian? Not that I don’t appreciate your help,” I hastily say, gesturing to the boat and still-unmoving ocean. “But I don’t know why you’d choose tonight of all nights to stop this nightmare.”

“You were not in my reach before. Tonight I simply felt your mind cry out, and came to assist.”

I scoff at that. “Sure, whatever. I don’t know how your magic dream crap works, but even I could come up with a better hand-waving excuse than that.”

“My unique abilities allow me to walk between the dreams of my subjects.” She says, and I raise an eyebrow at that. “I must admit that I am intrigued to see that seemingly includes you.”

“Must be handy for quashing all those peasant uprisings.” I quip, but I won’t deny being curious as well. Who is this voice, and what exactly is she? Some sort of magical creature? ‘Subjects’ implies that she’s some sort of ruler, but ruler of where?
“I rule alongside my sister in what is colloquially referred to as a ‘parallel dimension’. Our subjects are the sentient beings who reside there. And we do not have a ‘peasant class’, such a thing would be a momentous failing of rule.”

I snort, I guess she’s reading my mind, then? Or maybe that comes with the territory of dreamwalking, she was already inside my thoughts after all. Never mind a despotic ruler, even the CIA would have a field day with a power like this.

“You can walk the dreams of literally everything that is sentient in your dimension?” I ask. That’d be a lot of work, there’s no way that she can have been telling me the complete truth there, unless she can divide her consciousness somehow, and be in many dreams at once.

There’s a hesitant silence, and she replies with a vague “This is indeed the reputation I hold.” She ought to be careful, or magic 8-balls will start charging her for real estate. I knew that managing the dreams of what was probably millions or billions of people was impossible, but I don’t wanna dwell on thinking about how she might manage it all the same.

Whatever force was holding the waves steady gives out, and they start to rock the boat again, though weaker than before, and with them comes the consuming feeling gnawing at the edges of my mind. I reach up with my hands and scratch at my neck feverishly, in some vague attempt of making it stop.

“Cease!” Cries out the voice, now coming from above me. I look up to see the moon come into clear view, and a strange form appears suddenly before me in silhouette. I do as she says, and resist the urge to scratch at my now inflamed neck. Squinting, I try and get a better look at her, there’s 2 grand wings, and some sort of horn…?

No way, she’s some sort of winged unicorn? I try and ultimately fail to conceal a grin as she stands there in front of me, bathed in moonlight as if she were some majestic goddess, and she’s a fucking horse! I let out a burst of laughter, much to her chagrin, but I get over her appearance after a few moments and her expression softens. I have got to hear about the dimension she comes from, I bet it’s all rainbows and sparkles. I’m about to open my mouth when she next speaks.

“Your questions can wait. This dream is familiar to me.” Pardon? I would understand if this were a dream about being naked in school, or arriving at the final test for a class I’d missed, but I’ve asked my friends and even checked a little online, and I’ve never heard of anyone having a dream like this before. “Obviously so.” she says.

“It’s kinda creepy that you can read my mind, by the way.” I say, and she makes a shrugging motion with her wings, which are now folded neatly against her sides.

“It is efficient.” she simply states. “Time may be of the essence, after all. Tell me, do you have this dream every night?” I nod, and she continues. “And I can see the feeling it brings. Does it weaken your body, and bring fever?” Again I nod. She’s starting to worry me, the fact that she seems to know exactly what’s happening to me is, in this context, not something that’s comforting; as if she was reading a diagnostics list. In my quest for answers, a bit of googling had turned up nothing that fit anywhere near as closely.

She nods encouragingly. “You are suffering an ailment of my world, one that requires immediate attention. You must tell me, where is your body in the waking world?” Why does she need to know that? Is she gonna abduct me or something?

I know she’s still in my head, so I try my absolute hardest to not think about where I am right now, but, like not thinking about a pink elephant, it doesn’t do me any good. “Thank you. I shall send for someone to collect you with haste, and we shall tend to you until you are well.”

My heart races and I start to panic, the phrase ‘alien abduction’ coming to mind. Everything starts going blurry, and I find my body too sluggish to even rub my eyes before I fall to the ground, the dream fading away around me. Luna sighs, and a single thought is clear to me: I have to get away from her.

I wake with a start, in the relatively comforting darkness of my apartment. I’m in my bed, sheets a tangled mess as always, and the tank I sleep in is drenched in sweat. I try and leap out of bed, the urgency of needing to escape still at the front of my mind, but my body barely responds. It’s like moving with blur, a half-second of delay between my decision to move and my body complying. I trip over myself a little, and the soothing cool of the floor helps a little to ground me.

I’m burning up, I can feel it. So unpleasant is the feeling that I can barely think straight, and it’s growing stronger by the second. I try and reach up for the water on my nightstand but the half-second delay has evolved to complete paralysis. Great, I think, my vision blurring at the edges, I’m gonna die a failure.

What did I do with my life? I checked out of life a while ago, barely sustaining myself with money I made from tutoring, and from my parents. A life online, fulfilling in spirit but not in body. I could’ve been something, done something, but I spent it online.

“What a waste...” I rasp.

Ugh! This vectors question was giving me such a headache, had Satan himself written it to annoy me?

“x&8*£$#.”

“I’m nearly done with this question, one second!” I call back. I was out of time, I knew, but I was so close to an answer, and this math problem had been bothering me all day.

I keep trying to write the final few lines of working, but the ink evaporates from the page as I blink. Huh? Is the question changing, too? No, it was definitely still a calculus worksheet. I have to hand it in to my teacher in 10 minutes, hop step, me! I shake my head to clear my thoughts and keep up my apparently futile attempts to finish writing.

“x&8*£$#!”

Ah, she made a good point. I’d forgotten about the other triangle- what a dumb mistake. Definitely the headache’s fault, I was not on my best form today.

All at once I feel my stomach lurch, I realise that I’m on the deck of a boat at sea, and lucidity at last returns to me as I notice the large blue winged unicorn standing nearby. She’s very noticeably worried, but I can’t quite seem to grasp at the memory of why that would be…? Thinking is starting to hurt, and I decide to sit down until the headache leaves.

“Human!” She calls. “I sensed your return here, did you not wake?”

“Nn….” I mumble. Even that much exertion makes pain pulse through my body, and I shut my eyes. The pain isn’t stopping, and I curl into a ball, hugging myself.

Luna hushes me. “You need not speak, human. Calm yourself, and answer through your thoughts, when you can. The one I have sent to retrieve you can treat you, but she must know your condition.” I try and focus myself, but it’s hard. Eventually the pain subsides enough that I can clearly respond to her, but it’s taking all of my effort to do so. I try and focus on how my body felt when I was awake, and I recall in my mind what had just happened.

“It is as I suspected. Be at ease, for you will be in capable hooves. I only wonder how it is possible… I offer my condolences, human.” A blue glow washes over me, and it soothes the headache a little. I can think clearly now, but my body is still out of commission for now. Hearing that though, something snaps in me. God, I wish she wasn’t so fucking CRYPTIC ALL THE TIME! I wince, and clutch my head as a fresh wave of hurt washes over me, and I curse myself. ‘I wonder if you mind sharing with the class, Luna?’ I think, with much less vigor.

I can hear an exasperated sigh. “Yes, by all means. You only had to ask…” I hate her guts right now. “Your body is shutting down due to a lack of sufficient magic.”

Uh, what? Humans aren’t magical, and I’m pretty sure I hadn’t missed a letter to Hogwarts. “All creatures absorb magic from the world around them to survive,” comes her explanation, “And life evolves in a world to adapt to the amount of magic around it.”

Oh, I guess that makes sense. So why am I sick then, do I need to take some sort of ‘magical supplements’? I can only hope the solution is that simple.

“Unfortunately not. It is my guess that your body has been ‘infected’ with something from my world somehow, and is now requiring more magic than you can passively absorb from your Earth as a result.” Wait, what, like a parasite or something? Shit, maybe this is how I die?!

“You misunderstand; the nature of magic in my world can cause it to ‘overwrite’ other magics with a similar function.” That wasn’t very relieving, Luna. She really needs to work on her bedside manner. What would make her jump to a conclusion like that anyway? How are you sure I don’t just have my ‘chakras’ blocked or some crap?

“To put it simply, your nightmares, and what they bring with them. They’re something of a…” she hesitates then, almost as if wondering if she wants to tell me the complete truth or to water it down so that I don’t panic again. Secretly I wish she’d do the latter. “...Something of a ‘pulling force’ towards the dimension something belongs.” she finishes. “If you are experiencing that, and I can walk in your dreams, it seems only reasonable for me to assume something of my world is in your system, does it not?”

Why does she have to make so much sense? That does still raise a lot of questions though, and I am fully expecting to get an answer to each and every one of them. I’m about to put the first into words when she walks slowly over to where I lie on the floor, and sits next to me. “I am sorry, human. You do deserve answers, but the time we have together grows shorter. When you awake, the one caring for you will be able to tell you what you want to know.” I suppose that would have to do, then. She’d better be telling the truth though, or I swear to god I’ll come back here and, and… My mind draws a blank. What could I do to her? It wasn’t as though she were actually here, after all. Whatever. I’m still gonna be mad if I can’t get my answers soon.

“I am as good as my word.” she says, and I feel a gentle warmth cover me. Her wing? It’s soft, and the effect isn’t too far from being draped in a blanket. “I will soothe your mind, and invite dreamless sleep. When you wake, you will be in a better state.” I’m not even able to murmur a ‘thank you’ before I feel my consciousness slip away from me, and everything goes blank.

Author's Note

Chapter 1 accomplished! I do wonder if the prologue is entirely necessary, but I suppose I’ll have to see what y’all think. Assuming anyone’s reading this, that is!