DREAMSCAPES 

 

As they continued to walk, Gale suddenly felt an uncomfortable sensation in her gut. In fact, her whole body began to feel very heavy, as though some invisible force was tugging at her. Her eyes began to play tricks on her and she watched in disbelief as her surroundings were beginning to alter. Everything was blurring out of focus. She started to feel very scared and tried to reach out for Liam to keep her balance and her grip on reality, but she couldn’t find him. Her pulse began to quicken, her head pounded furiously, and her heart felt as though it would leap from her chest. She saw the leaves on the trees wither, turn black, and fall to the ground. Then the trees themselves were stripped of life and deteriorated into dust before her eyes. She looked where Liam had once been standing, but he was gone now, as was her brother, and Jackie, and Peter. The only solidarity left in this world was the massive rocks that were scattered all over the grounds, but they too melted away like hot wax, smoothing over the surface of this new landscape. In fact, the ground itself began to weaken and felt soft, like it was about to fall out from beneath her. Now she was shaking violently with fear, and against her better judgment, chanced a look down at this new surface she was standing on. Where there was once rock and dead leaves, was now sand, the color of which was slowly changing into a deep shade of crimson. Then she realized that it wasn’t the ground itself that changed color, it was the sky that was turning an off shade of auburn and highlighting the ground with its sickly hue. And now, even though she knew it was still night, a sun had appeared low on the horizon, almost completely blotted out by what looked like a swarm of insects, or birds. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that one large rock still remained from the world that she’d left behind, and perched on top of it was one of the men who’d chased her and her friends into the forest. His long black over-coat draped over the stone like a blanket of silk. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him, and she thought that this man could probably smell her fear as plainly as he could see the sweat that was now dripping from her brow. Then he spoke. The veneer of the dialect she’d heard them speak earlier had dropped, and now his throat produced a perfect command of the English language.               

“You don’t belong here,” he grumbled.

 Even though he did not shout these words, they rang in Gales head and she could see the surface of the sand vibrate as if there was a tremor beneath the ground. She could not form a response no matter how hard she tried. Her larynx simply refused to obey. The truth was she didn’t wish to be here any more than he wanted her company. She wanted to inform him of the fact, but she couldn’t manage to make a sound. Her lips just trembled in way of reply, and the rest of her body shook feverishly as well. The man stepped down from his post, the anger in his eyes suggested that he was impatiently awaiting an explanation for this intrusion, but Gale had none to offer. She had no idea how she got here, but she wished more than anything else in the world to go back, and soon, before this man had an opportunity to lay a single grubby finger on her. Now that he stood, she could see that he towered over her by at least a foot or more. His size and manner chilled her to the bone, and now he started to approach her; with what intention she couldn’t be certain, but she didn’t want to hang around any longer to find out. She started to back away quickly and tripped over an object that was jutting out of the ground. She toppled backwards and fell atop several rows of whatever it was that tripped her. When she saw what it was that broke her fall she released a bloodcurdling scream. She franticly scrambled to free herself from the spot, her hands grazing the slimy objects, which drew another panicked cry from her. The man began to laugh uproariously, apparently amused by her sudden outburst.