Dreamweaver

Chapter 9

We had walked in silence for another hour before I worked up the courage to approach Ganymede. Trying to look as manly as possible, I sped up until I was walking right beside him. He of course said nothing, because nothing in my life is that easy.

We walked in what was for me, at least, an extremely uncomfortable silence for several minutes. My first thought was that he mightn’t of seen me. The mist was thick and he was about six inches taller than me. But as I looked up as his perfectly etched features a horrifying thought came to mind. What if he was one of those sensitive guys? Crap.

“Erm…” I said, trying to catch the demi-god’s attention. “You must be confused.” His soft voice rang out. “Well…” I said, shifting uncomfortably, “Well, Amirra told me you were, ah, gay, and I, well I’m…” I coughed as an inadequate covert of my embarrassment, and we lapsed into silence again. I thought he was ticked until I looked up and saw a sneer penetrating his features. “I meant about your surroundings.” I collapsed in a pool of relief.

“Right, sorry, I thought… well, anyway, yeah I am confused. Where are we?" Ganymede looked down at me at last, green eyes sparkling with what looked like pity.

Not good.

“You’re in Somnir.” He said. I waited silently for him to continue. “When you dream, a part of you visits this land. Your subconscience creates a scenario. Unless you’ve reached a rare and extreme level of sleep you don’t actively control your dreams, but experience them as you would any reality in your world. When you wake, the dreaming part of you leaves, but the scenario you’ve created does not depending on the nature of the dream, it will repeat again and again, or continue and evolve into a kind of miniature reality. All of these dreams reside here.”

I felt like I was back in Calculus, trying to comprehend logarithms. I resisted the urge to say “What?” and instead answered “Okay… So we’re in a dreamland, that’s good, right? At least nothing can hurt us.” Ganymede shook his head. “On the contrary, a lot can hurt you here. For instance, the grounds beneath us could open at any moment, dropping us into a newly forming dream. Because we’re here in complete physical form, any beast or horror that befalls the dreamer is a true danger to us. I f the dreamer flies, we will be dragged along with him, but we will fall, possibly to our deaths.”

I stopped immediately, no longer trusting the mist shaded ground. “Take courage,” said Ganymede, “Our goal is not far.” “Wait, what is our goal!’ I shouted at the fading silhouette. “Where are we going?” But he was already too far away to hear.

Amirra tapped me on the shoulder. I looked over, startled. “C’mon.” she said, urging me on, “We don’t want to lose him.” I walked on reluctantly, keeping my eyes on the ground, testing the deceitfully solid earth with the point of my sneaker before putting my weight on it. I must have looked quite comical because Amirra laughed again and said, “I see Ganymede told you a bit more about this place. I was wondering what you boys were talking about for so long.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

“Shut up.” I said, “And forgive me if I’m a little cautious, but I think I have good reason.” “Grumpy, aren’t we?” she teased, and left to catch up with Ganymede. Soon she had faded out of sight. I walked alone in the eerie silence, trying to collect my thoughts. We were in this place… Somnir, the dreamland where this evil demon called the Dreamweaver presumably resides. Somehow we had to find her and either kill or contain her within the next week.
Just peachy.
I ran my fingers through my hair distractedly, this was insane. A few hours ago my biggest concern was missing the stupid school bus. Suddenly a shadow moving quickly in the mist brought me out of my reverie.

I called out nervously; “Who’s there?” But no one answered. It was like one of those old horror pictures. But if this was a movie, I’d have to go check it out and probably get killed in the process. Instead I ran up to Ganymede and Amirra. “Hey guys!” I panted, heart racing in fear, “Guys, there’s something back there.”

Amirra opened her mouth to speak, but Ganymede beat her to it. “Calm yourself, Nicholas.” Nothing can live in these mists. The air will poison any physical being to death within a few weeks.

“Oh goodie.” I said, dripping with sarcasm, “Something else to look forward to.” Ganymede arranged his pretty boy face into a look of polite confusion, but didn’t comment. Amirra, however, looked a bit rattled. “Let’s go.” She said abruptly and started leading the way until she apparently realized she had no idea where she was going. She stopped and let Ganymede pass with a curt apology and walked beside me for sometime.
Then I saw it again. The silhouette was hidden by mist, but I could make out that it was humanoid, at least.

“Did you see that?” I asked Amirra urgently.
“See what?” she asked, a nervous edge entering her voice.
“The thing!” I said frantically, “The thing I saw before!”
“You heard Ganymede.” She said, sounding almost angry, “It’s all in your head.”

She stalked off without another word. I was still staring off into the mists that the silhouette had disappeared into when a hand caught my shoulder. I yelled and looked around, feeling my stomach lurch in fear, and saw… Amirra.

“What the hell?” I said loudly. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” How’d you get back there anyway? You were just…” I looked back towards Ganymede and with horror saw two silhouettes in the distance. Then I looked back at Amirra behind me. I did the math in my head. Did one plus one still equal two here? Yeah, it did.

Crap.

I opened my mouth to cry out but the Amirra behind me clamped a hand over my mouth. “I’ve been following you for a while now. Whoever that thing is up there, it’s not me.” Her gray eyes blazed, swimming with a mist not so different from the tendrils that entwined my ankles. “We’ve got to take her down.” She said, releasing me and heading for her target.

I stood for a minute in indecision, realizing I had no idea which one was really her. “Ganymede!” I yelled, and he turned around in time to see one Amirra coming up fast on the unsuspecting other. With two long strides he reached the pair and lifted both easily by the collar, one in each hand. I ran up to the odd group, resembling an angry parent separating two quarelling twins, and, ignoring the Amirras, looked to Ganymede for some explanation.