Dream Magic: Awakenings (22 page)

"Here you go. Drink up!"

* * *

The liquid assaulted Eric's throat and he lost consciousness.

When he came to, his mind was in a strange place. He was lying on something uncomfortably hard and cold. He opened his eyes, but couldn't see anything except the irritating flicker of a faint neon light. He tried to get up, but his arms, legs, chest and forehead were bound to whatever he was lying on.
Shit.
He struggled to break free - with no result.

Calm down and think!

After a few breaths, Eric relaxed enough to attempt teleporting.
I'll just blink out of this.
He extended his spatial awareness and tried to desync into various selves, but he instantly and involuntarily snapped back to his initial point of awareness. He tried a few more times, but the result was ruthlessly the same. Like an invisible wall, something made his thoughts bounce back and prevented his imagination from moving.
My hands are bound and my mind is in a coffin. Shit-shit-shit-shit...

On the verge of freaking out, Eric let a familiar part of him take control: his rage suppressed the fear and kindled the flames inside him. Fire was his friend within; his primary element. Eric allowed the fire to well up and he let it out in the way he practiced many times before. He gave it all he got. He fully expected, if just for the moment, to become a flaming elemental, burning away all that bound him and reigning hellfire on all those who put him in this situation. It felt like shouting his soul out in flames.

The moment passed. There was no fire; the cold light flickered as if nothing happened.

Eric, after giving it his all, panted. He wished he would black out and wake up elsewhere.

Faint, malicious laughter echoed in his head, but he couldn't tell where it came from or if it was there at all. Only the ebb and flow of his fear assured him of his own existence and the passing of time.

Start,
his mind echoed the word.

Shadowy hands stuck needles and injections into his body. The needles were thin - like for acupuncture - and didn't penetrate the body deep, but they were inserted precisely to inflict the most excruciating pain.

Eric cried out, and his body jerked from the strength of his cry, but no sound left his throat.

The large syringes had thick hypodermic needles, suitable for a horse or a small elephant. Oddly, the injections caused only numbness as green-gray liquids pumped into Eric's body. The mental anguish, however -
what are they giving me?!?!
- was on par with the excruciating pain.

Eric's soundless screams continued until they stopped. The needles got removed, but the respite didn't last.

The shadowy hands held small blades, which, with the hiss of metal sliding through flesh, cut into his body with quick successive moves. The rhythm and predictability of cuts would have been almost soothing if not for the pain and abominable nature of the act.
They are marking me.
The cuts were all over his body, but the majority centered on his face and torso.
Surgeons use medical marking pens; they are using shallow wounds.

When it was over, his violated skin was covered with an intricate grid of blood. Eric heard the evil laugh in his head again.

Slowly, a single shadowy hand came into view and dangled a sheet of paper in front of Eric's eyes.
What?
With an apt move, the edge of the paper cut into the cornea of his left eye, and then his right.

Eric frantically ran from the screaming in his own head. The fact that the same shadowy hand promptly and successively plugged a normal-sized injection through the center of both papercuts did not help. Whether the injections pushed something into his eyeballs or pulled something out, Eric wasn't in the state to tell.

Feeling resigned and empty, his vision red with haze, he barely noticed a small blade about to cut his eyelids away.
Snick-snack,
the blade worked like a scissor.

Panic resurged from whatever hidden pockets of strength Eric had left, just in time to notice the shadowy hand holding an ordinary spoon.

The hand did exactly what Eric feared it would do: the spoon breached one eyesocket, reached behind the eye, jerked until the muscles holding it snapped, and scooped out the eyeball.

This is the time to faint, Eric asserted, but he was prevented from fainting and the screams in his head reached an even higher pitch. The shadowy hand repeated the process with the other eye.

The screams went on for a long time, but their echoes eventually subsided and Eric had to accept the new normalcy of his situation. He couldn't see things ever going back to how they were before. Also, he couldn't see at all - since he had no eyes - but a tactile kind of sight enabled him to sense the immediate vicinity of his desecrated body.
At least the neon light is gone,
he remarked, but his attempt at humor left him even more hopeless and depressed.

The shadowy hands were back, brandishing large blades, saws, needles and other instruments.

A long blade made a large incision on his abdomen. The pain was dull. Several smaller cuts followed inside, but Eric barely noticed them. There was only the pressuring, choking, ominous feeling that they were doing something very sinister.

Dull pain marked another long incision, this time on his chest, and a large number of smaller cuts followed.
They're doing something. They're removing something. They're cutting out my organs!!!
Another incision, another dull pain.

As if the hands wanted him to see what was going on, Eric could sense his heart beating - no longer in his chest, but in the palm of a shadowy hand - fading into the dark.

How am I breathing?
Eric felt like he was breathing, but he had no lungs - he knew this to be true.

Eric examined his condition to the best of his very limited abilities, and he felt empty inside. Literally.

They took all my inner organs. Why am I not dead?! I should be dead!
Death was no longer something to be feared, but something to be welcomed.
I should be dead.
Both his rationality and emotions dictated that death is preferable to his current state.
It is time. I want to die.

Having made the decision, a wave of relief washed over him. He let go of his attachment to his body, floated above, and looked for the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel. With the release, he did see a light, and it was brilliant.
I'm going Home.

Eric felt ecstatic and almost happy as he neared the light.
I'm coming.

He began merging into the light...

Only to be yanked back and denied. Eric was jerked back into his severely mutilated, damp, and limiting body.
Let me die! I want to die! Why don't you let me die!
He yelled, but he knew it had no effect.

The shadowy hands did not let Eric die and they did not relent with the torture.

The top of his skull got sawed off and his brain syphoned out. With nothing major left except bone and skin, they began extracting individual muscles in the most painful way possible.
Let me die! Let me die!
With each piece removed, the prison of Eric's soul grew smaller and more crushing.

After every muscle piece got cut away and discarded, they began cutting away Eric's extremities; toes first, the fingers on his hands second, one knuckle at a time. Ears. Nose. Teeth, one by one. Lips.

The shadowy hands were running out of things to remove, but they took their sweet time. Eric's body approached being only a bloody, amorphous mass.

Arms and legs were severed in multiple stages, to make sure Eric was conscious enough to experience the pain.
Chop-chop.
Substantial force and heavy blades were required to cut away the bigger bones. His pelvis was crushed and then removed. The skin on what was once his abdomen and lower torso, torn away with reckless abandon. The vertebrae in the lower and mid spinal column got picked apart and severed, one by one. His ribs broken by sheer force, one at a time. His skull smashed and most pieces removed.

The passing of time no longer held any meaning to Eric. With most of himself gone, he wasn't sure he was 'Eric' anymore. He had just enough consciousness to experience pain and to feel the futility and sheer maliciousness of his imprisonment.

His prison was small: his lower jaw, a neckbone, and his right shoulder. That was it - all that remained of his dissected body. He thought they couldn't torture him more because taking away anything more would break their hold on him, but now and again they added something back only to take away something else, and ensure a perpetual state of pain and despair.

Eric saw broken dreams. He felt like he has woken up from this many times before, but not ever did he find the solution or exit from this most horrible of nightmares. Those Erics would wake up and go about their lives, but if they imagined the wrong thing or looked in the wrong direction, they would feel part of this nightmare and never be completely free.

He saw them waking up but not waking up, forgetting but not forgetting.

I'm the crux. The fool.

Whenever his thoughts strayed or attempted to escape, they were pushed back into the prison and the experience of pain. Eric's screams were silent even in his mind.

An infinity passed.

IT'S OKAY,
came the words carrying a feeling.
IT'S OKAY NOT TO BE YOURSELF.
Eric's mind raced around it; something clicked.
It's okay not to be myself,
he internalized.

Eric's mind didn't have much time or will to analyze with words what it meant.
Does it mean it's okay to die? Does it mean I can be someone or something else? Or does it mean I don't have to exist at all? Or that
I can
exist? Or...

The words quieted as Eric followed the light of his realization. He looked at and into his fear, followed it to the source, and saw there was no longer anything there. Only stillness - and he let go.

The laugh was his own.
Of course.

His prison and pain no longer bound him. He reached the point where death met life, and Eric became an outpouring of Love. His ego no longer limited him, and he started claiming and rebuilding himself.

He drew lines of light upon his remaining mutilated husk. The light multiplied under his Touch.

Bones, nerves, organs, flesh, skin; all grew anew. Eric reached into the darkness of the shadowy hands and pulled it into his light. He understood they were parts of him he judged or rejected, and that torture was their way of getting Eric's attention.

Eric felt invincible, and he stated the fact to himself.
Sure, I can be killed, maimed, imprisoned or worse; but I can always BE, and laugh about it.

Eric's outpouring of Love was answered with outpourings of Love from elsewhere, and he accepted gratefully. He never felt so Loved before. Some aspects of him were close, others more distant, but they all congratulated; he felt acceptance, approval, and shared joyousness.

Eric went over the light-form of his now complete body, and made minor tweaks here and there. It didn't near the complexity of a physical body, but as a resilient ego-image template to return to and regenerate from, he found it pretty awesome - beautiful even in its glory.

Eric echoed thanks throughout the realm, and vowed never to forget the Love.

He opened his eyes.

The mind projects its rationalizations on the irrationally broken symmetries of the world; a 'rational mind' is a contradiction of terms.

- Dynamic Perfection, Dreamer's Handbook

A circle of friends surrounded Eric.

The Playground was active as ever. Although he spent most of his time in the more remote outskirts of Dream Camp - attending classes, practicing, or just flying around while thinking things over - it was always refreshing to return. He wasn't too fond of crowds in real life - they drained him - but the crowd here always uplifted and energized him. The friendly, pliable nature of the place made it easy to come together and have fun - Eric could run and play to his heart's content with his mind off the leash.

"We'll miss you," Kyle said.

"We'll miss you too," Rose said, speaking for the three of them.

Duke nudged Eric's hand with his nose, sharing the sentiment, and got petted in return.

Lucy got to her knees and hugged Duke. Gemma promptly joined in.

"Why don't you stay so we can play together more?" Kyle asked.

"Somebody has to fight the nightmares... they are eating people alive, you know," Eric said.

"Cool..." Lyle remarked quietly.

"But you'll come visit, right?" Kyle asked.

"I have a better idea. Why don't you come and visit us?" Rose asked.

Lyle frowned. "Joe won't let anyone show us where the Outpost is, and we can't find it alone."

"Why not?"

Lyle's expression was pained. "He wants us to go to classes."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "So?"

Lyle looked down and twiddled his thumbs.

"I think the classes are fun," Aaron said. "Right?" He nudged Gemma.

She grabbed Aaron's hand, smiled sheepishly and nodded.

"I don't know..." Kyle said reluctantly.

"Come on, you can't be afraid of taking classes. How will we fight nightmares together if you're scared of studying?" Rose teased.

Kyle stomped his foot. "We're not scared!"

Rose leaned in. "Then promise me you'll go to classes and visit us later!"

"All right, we will! You'll see!" Kyle yelled.

"We're not scared!" Lyle added.

"That's the spirit!" Eric raised his hands to high-five both brothers. "Yeah! Master Joe was right when he said he had high hopes for you."

"He really said that?"

"He did."

Playmates and acquaintances trickled in, saying goodbye and wishing them a safe trip. Others came to see what the fuss was about, and gathered around.

"Are you really going to battle nightmares and stuff?" Aaron asked.