Dream Catcher- Chapter2 Part1

Dream Catcher - Chapter 2

The Darkness is coming. Part 1.

My canvas was white. It stretched as far as I could see left, as far as I could see right. It was infinite, and it was mine to colour.

I sat down where I was and stretched out on the ground with my hands behind my head. I blinked and with a little flash, half the white space became a huge hill of grass that I was lying on. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, the rest of the white was covered in a thick velvety black dotted with diamonds that shimmered and shone in the light of the crescent moon above me. I smiled. Night. The best time of day. The time when you could escape to a world that you could control, with no work, no chores, just being alive. I looked up at the moon above me.

“Evening Moon.” I said softly to the sliver of light. Slowly, the moon twisted and twirled until two eager eyes and a smiling mouth were looking down at me.

“Hello Eli!” the moon exclaimed. “How are you tonight?”

“Content as always,” I replied like I always did. “And you?”

“The usual as well,” sighed the moon as it smiled and looked around at it’s glimmering diamond coat. The moon usually complained about how it was trapped in the same sky all night and forced to share the same sky as its sister, the sun, during the day, never getting to explore the world below the horizon. But I had other questions for it tonight.

“Don’t you ever think that there is some place other than this endless white world?”

“I do, Eli. But it is not a place I can go. I am bound by the skies. But you. You can dream. I cannot do that, Eli, but you can. You can dream yourself out of this place. And you must, quickly, before he comes.”

“Who?” I asked, sitting up. The moon looked worried.

“I have not heard much, but of what I have heard, he is terrible. He is only but a small force at the moment, but he is growing fast. They say he comes crawling, thick and dark like oil, leeching into dreams and blocking out all light. They say he corrodes all dreams until life itself is sucked out of his victims, leaving but a body and a blood stained dream. That is not a sight I wish to see, Eli. You must run, before he finds you here.”

“How!?” I asked panicked now as I scrambled to understand what the moon was telling me.

“I do not know, Eli.” The moon said. “I do not understand dreams. I am just the moon. But someone will come for you, they are already searching, I can feel it.”

“WHO!?” I asked again.

“I do not know. But you will find him Eli. I know you will. You are a bright girl. Now I must say goodbye. My sister the sun is calling on me.”

“Wait! Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. I do not know what tomorrow brings. Sleep safely my child.”

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP...!

I sat up straight in my bed, covers tumbling off me. I craned my neck to look out the window in front of me, only to see the majestic moon dive deep into the fiery heart of the rising sun. I looked away as the intense light burned my eyes.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP...!

I looked to my left and slammed my hand down on the buzzer on my clock. The numbers were flashing. I shook my head to shake out the sleep and the memories. I had forgot to set my clock again after the power outage last night. And now it was waking me up early. I groaned and leaned back against the headboard. I slowly closed my eyes. I wonder...

I was back on the hill again, though the soft comfort of the night was gone and the flaming tongues of daybreak were singeing the grass on the horizon. I reached up my hand to the pale orange sky and imagined I was grabbing a piece of the wall. It gathered in my hand like cloth. Carefully, I peeled back my canvas like a sticker to reveal a desert world with deep purple skies and bright colourful auroras waving and flowing above millions of floating white orbs suspended over the dry, brittle ground. Another world... That was when I saw one of the orbs spew a thick black liquid like a fountain, only to be engulfed with it and burned until it was no more than an oily puddle. It was him, I thought almost instantly.

I quickly pulled the cloth-like piece of wall back into place. For good measure, I thought of duct tape and duct taped the patch I had pulled on, just in case. I sat down then and started breathing quickly. Panic was taking me over. My place, this endless white canvas, my refuge from all the problems life threw at me, wasn’t safe any more. I could never come back. I could feel the tears on my cheeks, and I tried to fight them back but to no avail. I finally broke down and let the tears take my pain away.