Dreamwalker's Tale: An Anthology

Maybe this is all just an exercise. If so, it is most likely one in futility. It might be a character study. A psychological analysis. I can’t be sure.

I had a revelation recently. Those are always strange. These moments when something just clicks, and it feels so profound. Strangely enough, in retrospect, it was a minor thing really. A name. Just a name. My name. I found it, and it feels right. Fitting, appropriate. Names hold power, they imply many things, they define us. I had not realized that I was searching for a name until I found it.

There are many things I merely assume. Suspect. So little is actually known, so little can actually be proven. I like to think that I created him. I like to think of myself as a Storyteller. There are hardships and obstacles, dour times and strife. But I try to make an effort to let my stories finish on a high note. If all you have is exhaustion and despair and doubt, letting your stories end on high notes has something refreshing to it. Some… almost revitalizing quality.

I like to think that I created him. As a wish-fulfillment of sorts. He is everything I want to be. Everything I ever dreamed of. Everything I wish for myself and my world. It fills me with such great envy that no words could ever truthfully relay its vastness, its bottomless depths. I dream of his stories, tell his stories, and end on high notes, for all I wish for him is good. So that I may possess it myself one day. It is the deepest, most selfish desire.

But a creature of sin I am, and I am well aware of that. I clad my sentience in flesh that disgusts me. Revolting as this body of mine may seem to me, it is what it is and I cannot shape it as I wish. It is the best tool I have to continue. And in the depths of my mind, I find new horrors each day, week after week, years following years and amassing to decades.

There is such cruelty in it. A mean-spirited presence capable of laughing in the face of despair of others. Capable of enjoying their torment and suffering, and even capable of causing it all by itself. Or rather, by myself. It is wrong to phrase it this impersonal, as the entire matter is very personal indeed. These urges are mine, as is this anger and envy. Seven sins, some say, exist. And we all suffer from them, to a certain extent. Don’t we?

Do we?

I don’t want to play the victim card. I am not a victim. Decidedly not. No, a part of me instead wishes to warn away all those close and dear, and the other part despises such weakness and keeps those warning words locked inside my tightening throat.

Beware, my friend, for a monster lurks behind that smile.

But they don’t listen. And they don’t see it for themselves. And he most certainly doesn’t know my name. Yet. And that tiny, weak part, tormented by itself, prays that he never will.

We are linked of course. He and I, we will never be free from each other. If I might end one of these days by some miracle — who will continue to tell his story? And if his story doesn’t continue — does he? But it is more difficult to turn those tables. I wish good upon him, fortune and wealth in many forms. And for such great envy and desire, I cannot end him, cannot stop telling his stories. Cannot even touch him, or bend a single hair on his coat.

I can force my will upon reality. I can meddle in the minds of those surrounding me, and him. But never will I be able to truly harm him. And why would I want to, anyway? Such delusions I have fallen prey to, hoping against hope that one day, I might have it. I might have what he does, what I built for him, and myself, and that I may share. And such vast envy do I harbor, such exhaustion resting in my bones, that I would be happy with the tiniest sliver of it. Gladly would I take it all, but if push comes to shove, a fraction of the whole would suffice. It would keep me at bay, at least. It would probably keep me… content. And maybe, just maybe, even happy.

Is it strange? To desire such a feeling with such burning intensity that it hurts yearning for it?

On many days I think that the cold emptiness of this place is all that I know, and all I can feel. I do have my own existence to care for, despite me barely caring at all. Not about it, anyway. I eat, and often enough without tasting or enjoying. I rest, and often enough without dreaming or recuperation. And I toil and waste away, both myself and the hours of my day.

I like to think I know loneliness. I like to think I know darkness. Yet doubt is my existence’s bread and butter, and the only thing I ever knew is this: I know that I don’t know anything for certain, ever. It is so easy to doubt yourself. And from that point forth, it becomes easy to doubt others. Until one day, you doubt your reality itself. And is this place I reside in not a curious one? Such strange laws and limitations. Others of my kind seem perfectly fine residing here, enjoying their continued existences all by themselves. They make it work. And I am both appalled, and angered. By their ignorance. And their happiness. And their ability to enjoy this place, which I cannot.

I reached the point of revelation when I consumed another mind’s story. It is just as well. A Storyteller needs input, from time to time, does it not? They call it inspiration. And maybe that title holds true. Maybe my mind digests what it has witnessed. Breaks it down to its smallest components, absorbs some, rebuilds others. And in time, when everything has settled, these once foreign pieces become part of me. Part of my own toolbox. Narrative pieces and twists to tell my own stories, to refine them and advance and evolve them.

There is a saying. You are what you eat. That has me worried, if I’m being honest. As a creature of doubt and envy and anger and despair, it was easy and started early, breaking down walls and limitations. Getting into contact with imagery that should not have been seen. Hearing what should not have been noticed. Absorbing ‘inspiration’ from stories that should not have been witnessed.

But does my philosophy agree with that? A story is not inherently evil or bad, neither is it good or helpful. A story is just that. A story. Meant to be told. And it gains its value, maybe even a moral or lesson, by all the different circumstances. Who tells it. Who listens. When, where and why is it told.

Given that belief, there should, in theory, be no such thing as a ‘bad influence’. And yet, I consumed a story and its very nature made me question this. It was a story of malice. Of anger and hatred and the horrible, terrifying things creatures can do to each other. And enjoy doing it. And I found myself laughing at their misfortune. And I found myself enjoying their suffering. And I started to realize what kind of creature I am. Not for the first time, and surely not the last time either. But this moment of clarity, it filled me with fear and worry.

Given my very own nature — is there a tint to the stories I tell?

Can something as disgusting and despicable as me — something that revels in its very abhorrent nature at times — even tell stories that end on a high note? Or even have a high note? Do I truly, fully understand what a high note even is? What hope is, and love, and that warm, fuzzy feeling when sharing in the company of true, true friends? When those songs reach my ears and my lips involuntarily part in a desperate attempt to participate, when my heart aches and my throat tightens and my eyes well up with tears, do I truly understand?

I want all that is good for him to have and enjoy, for the utmost selfish reasons. He doesn’t know I exist, I believe. He is not aware of just how much he should fear me. He doesn’t shudder and shy away from looking himself in the eyes in the mirror, because he doesn’t see me in there. Yet. He doesn’t wake in the middle of the night, screaming and thrashing, as we have met in the dreamscape once more. Yet.

But I do. Occasionally. How is that fair? I do see him in the mirror and avert my eyes from his, out of guilt and shame and despair. I wake each and every time with a deep sigh and a yearning for what is not meant for me, but crafted by me.

Or is it?

I am just a Storyteller, after all.

In the truest sense of the word, might I only tell what I witness? Instead of carefully crafting it? I was never drawn to call myself a Talesmith. I shun the title of author. Do I create? Or do I just regurgitate?

He calls himself Dreamwalker. My antithesis, my counterweight. I call him that as well. But where does this name even come from? Did I invent it? Did he? How can one tell, long after the fact, at which point exactly a perfect circle started?

I remain hidden. And a tiny, tortured voice still prays that this might be a state frozen in time. That he may never become aware of me. I share in his memories, but he doesn’t share in mine. I tell his story, but he doesn’t even know the depths of my depravity. It all sounds very dramatic, yet it doesn’t feel that way. It feels flat and dull, blunted to the point you couldn’t pierce skin with it no matter how hard you tried.

Maybe all of this is just a character study. A cruel joke someone keeps entertaining. I walk this cold emptiness alone, despite the laugh of my friends and the strength that they lend, and I shall find no forgiveness for what I am.

I call myself Voidwalker.

It seems edgy enough, doesn’t it? Fitting. Appropriate.

Each step is a stumble. And each breath wastes time and strength, and I grow weaker for it. The exhaustion makes me beg for me to tumble down to the ground, so that I may rest there and never stand up again and silently waste away. But until that last breath is finally, mercifully done, I shall continue, both to trudge on, and to tell his story to nopony in particular, just mumbling to myself… while walking the void.