Story - Dream
Mar. 10th, 2004 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
m31andyAnother story. As usual I've posted this up on to Writers Ramblings This was based on a dream I had the other night, the one that followed myself snogging a moderately famous newscaster. Sigh. Anyhow, enjoy, and all that jazz.
Dream
The girl dreamed.
She dreamed of a palace in the clouds. No-one had a key to the palace but her. This was her palace. She wandered through the gold and marble covered rooms. Vast rooms, hung with tapestries, with fabulous paintings and beautiful fabrics. Statues guarded these rooms, sculptures decorated them. Within the palace lived servants who kept the place clean. Beautiful women with dark skin and dark eyes, dressed in pure white robes. Gold painted men defended the gates, admitting no one unless she had called for them.
She loved her palace in the clouds, with its beauty and its riches. She always wished she could stay there forever, enjoying the finery and freedom, but she always had to wake up and face the real life of an ordinary girl. School and study; family arguments; bullies and pain. When she was awake she wished herself back in her castle, safe and sound from the hurts of the everyday world. But sometimes, just sometimes, she wondered whether to be eternally locked away, wrapped in the cotton wool of the cloud capp’d towers, would be that good.
Yet night after night, she journeyed to her palace and sat on her golden throne, Queen of all she surveyed, absolute ruler of a handful of serfs and guards, owner of shadows of statues, glimpses of tapestries and feelings of fabric.
The girl dreamed.
* * *
She found herself in a long, darkened corridor. Looking behind her, she saw only darkness. Looking ahead of her, she saw the same. She listened for some noise, but she heard only silence. The air around her was still and she felt neither warm nor cold. It smelt flat and lifeless. She waited for a while, unsure of the direction to walk in. Finally she opened her mouth to shout, to be reassured that she was not deaf or unfeeling. As she did so she heard a voice, echoing from the darkness.
“Helen Tremaine.”
Helen started. She turned in the direction of the voice and peered into the darkness. The voice spoke again.
“Helen Tremaine.”
She peered again. This time she discerned a faint glow further down the corridor, a pinprick of light. She made her way, slowly, towards that light. As she got closer she saw it was the flame of a candle, burning brightly in front of her. It neither wavered nor flickered, but burned with a steady orange flame. Walking further towards the candle she finally made out it’s owner. A small girl with long matted blonde hair and bare feet stood in the middle of the corridor waiting for her. She wore a white, knee-length smock and a flesh-coloured mask. The mask was completely smooth and did not have a mouth.
“Who are you?” Helen asked the girl.
The girl did not say anything, but she held out her free hand to Helen.
Helen hesitated for a moment and then took the girls hand.
The girl led Helen down the long, straight corridor for an indeterminable time. Helen tried to engage the girl in conversation, but she wouldn’t speak. Finally they walked round a slight bend in the corridor and through a set of double doors.
They had stepped into another long corridor, but this one was white painted and brilliantly lit. Helen thought it looked clinical. The little girl walked over to what looked like a nurses station and put the candle on the desk. She took off her mask and then reached behind the desk and picked something up. She turned to face Helen.
Helen gasped. The little girl’s face was pale, streaked with dirt. But what had shocked her were the bruises on he cheeks and on her jaw. Sores from where the skin had split had mostly dried black, but some were still weeping or red with blood.
“Are you alright?” Helen asked, and then mentally kicked herself for being insensitive.
The little girl looked so lost for a moment, then she shook her head.
“We must go,” she said. “This way.”
The girl led Helen down the corridor until they came to another set of double doors. There she paused.
“All you have to do,” she said, “is throw this into the Dark Cube.”
The girl handed Helen the object she had picked up at the nurses station. Helen took it and looked at it closely. It was a large egg, made of a pearly, opalescent stone. It felt very cold and very heavy.
“Then what?” Helen asked.
The girl looked blank.
“What happens once I’ve thrown this” Helen held the stone out to the girl “into the Dark Cube? What do I get?”
The girl shrugged. “What you wish. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, you must go through the door and wait to be called.”
Helen hesitated for a moment, and then turned and pushed open the door.
She walked into a large room, filled with rows of chairs. All kinds of people were sat there or walking around slowly. Some were clutching objects tightly, staring into space. Some were sat or knelt with their heads bowed, praying to unknown deities. Some were talking in low voices to their neighbours. They were discussing tactics, maybe, philosophy or last night’s football score. All were waiting. Opposite to the doors Helen came in were another set of doors. Two very large, muscular men were stood in front of them. They wore white shorts, a white mask and very little else. They carried long, pointed spears. Other men were walking around the waiting room, and seemed to be waiting for some sign. Turning round Helen could see two more men, guarding the door she had walked in through. She backed away from them slowly, clutching at her egg. Helen suddenly felt very scared. Her legs bumped into the back of a chair, and turning round she saw it was vacant. She walked round and sat down, wondering all the time how she was going to get out of the room.
“So what have you got?” a cheerful voice next to her said.
Helen turned to face a man with greying hair and a short beard. He was wearing blue striped pyjamas and staring at her with light grey eyes.
He nodded towards her clenched hands, in which the hard stone egg lay. “What’ve they given you?”
Helen slowly loosened her grip on the stone and uncurled her fingers. The man leant forward and peered closely at the stone.
“Nice.” He said. “Very nice. I’ve had one of those. They have a good balance and fit well in the hand. Now you take this,” he picked up an object by the side of him and handed it to Helen, “that’s not so easy to throw.”
The object in question was a large black sphere, approximately 7 inches in diameter. It was totally smooth, and totally black. It seemed to absorb the light. Helen declined to touch it. She was a little afraid her hand would be sucked into it, like the light. She continued to hold her own tightly while she stared at the old man, trying to work out what to do. Helen suddenly started a little as she realised the implications of the old mans words.
“You’ve been here before?” she asked him.
“Oh, yes” he replied. “Quite a few times actually. You’re not supposed to remember, but I’ve always been good at remembering my dreams.”
The doors at the end of the room opened at this point. Helen looked up. One of the circling men went over to a girl over on the other side of the room and said something to her in a low voice. The girl began to cry as the man hauled her to her feet. She struggled and he had to call for assistance. Finally four white-masked men half-carried her out of the room, through the double doors on the other side of the room and down towards her fate.
Helen shivered and turned back to the old man. “What is this place then?”
“This,” he said in a dramatic tone, “is The Waiting Room.”
“And what are we waiting for?”
The old man shrugged. “Certain doom? Wine and roses? God and all his acolytes to suddenly descend and do a passable cabaret? Who knows, dear girl? Who knows?”
Helen was a little bemused by this. “But you’ve been taken through the doors before?”
The old man shook his head. “Nope. I’ve always woken up before I’ve received that honour” he replied. “No doubt it’ll happen one day. Hopefully soon as well. I swear these buggers are getting bigger.” He indicated to his sphere and smiled ruefully. “Oh well, it’ll come when it comes.”
Helen was silent for a moment and then said, all in a rush, “If you get called before me, I’ll give you my egg and I’ll wait with your sphere. I’m unlikely to be called quickly, this is my first time after all.”
The old man looked at her with pitying eyes, but as he was about to speak he appeared to hear something that Helen couldn’t. He paused, mouth open for a couple of moments, before turning and patting her on her knee. “No need, dear girl. No need. If I’m not mistaken, that’s my alarm clock. Goodbye.” The man tipped an imaginary hat to Helen, and as he did so he vanished from view.
Helen stared at the space where the old man had sat for a couple of minutes. Then realised what the man had said. She really was being dim today. All she had to do was wake herself up. Now how did you go about waking up? She pinched herself, she screamed mentally to wake up, she tried to envisage waking up in her bedroom. But all was to no avail. She couldn’t seem to wake up. But she was feeling tired. She closed her eyes for a moment, and felt herself drifting away and onto another dream. Could you fall asleep in dreams? Would this get her out of the waiting room? Helen didn’t find out the answer as she was shaken, roughly, by the shoulder. Opening her eyes she saw on of the white-masked men standing over her.
“Helen Tremaine?” he asked in a low tone.
She nodded nervously, her mouth suddenly dry.
“This way please.” He stood back a little and indicated her to get up.
Helen rose with shaking legs. There was no way anyone was going to drag her out of the waiting room kicking and screaming. Slowly she moved towards the double doors, they opened, but she couldn’t see anything beyond them. Helen paused for a moment, and grasped the egg tightly in her left hand. Then she squared her shoulders, looked her escort in the eye and walked quickly through the doors.
There was no light. Everything was completely black. In fact Helen could swear that there was an absence of everything. The only thing she was certain off at this moment was the egg in her left hand. She held it up, but couldn’t see it. Finally, frustrated she took a step forward. Immediately it began to get brighter, although everything was still dark. It seemed that an eldritch glow had illuminated the area with just enough light to see the very dark speck moving towards her. It got closer and closer, until Helen could see that it was a black cube, slowly rotating on one of its points. Helen realised that this was the Dark Cube that she had to hit with her egg and she moved to pull her arm back and aim, but she realised that the cube was moving much faster than she had first thought so she just threw the egg with a wild yell.
The egg arced out over the space between Helen and the Cube. Then it vanished. Helen was pretty sure it had hit the Cube. She stood there, staring and wondering what was to happen now. What was she supposed to do? Would she get what she wished, was that the prize? The cube was still coming closer. Or was it, it seemed to be growing bigger rather than actually moving. Steadily it took up more and more of the area until Helen was overshadowed by the cube. It was no longer spinning, but still growing. She stood there, not knowing what to do until finally, without a sound the cube swallowed her.
The girl dreamed.
THE END
Dream
The girl dreamed.
She dreamed of a palace in the clouds. No-one had a key to the palace but her. This was her palace. She wandered through the gold and marble covered rooms. Vast rooms, hung with tapestries, with fabulous paintings and beautiful fabrics. Statues guarded these rooms, sculptures decorated them. Within the palace lived servants who kept the place clean. Beautiful women with dark skin and dark eyes, dressed in pure white robes. Gold painted men defended the gates, admitting no one unless she had called for them.
She loved her palace in the clouds, with its beauty and its riches. She always wished she could stay there forever, enjoying the finery and freedom, but she always had to wake up and face the real life of an ordinary girl. School and study; family arguments; bullies and pain. When she was awake she wished herself back in her castle, safe and sound from the hurts of the everyday world. But sometimes, just sometimes, she wondered whether to be eternally locked away, wrapped in the cotton wool of the cloud capp’d towers, would be that good.
Yet night after night, she journeyed to her palace and sat on her golden throne, Queen of all she surveyed, absolute ruler of a handful of serfs and guards, owner of shadows of statues, glimpses of tapestries and feelings of fabric.
The girl dreamed.
* * *
She found herself in a long, darkened corridor. Looking behind her, she saw only darkness. Looking ahead of her, she saw the same. She listened for some noise, but she heard only silence. The air around her was still and she felt neither warm nor cold. It smelt flat and lifeless. She waited for a while, unsure of the direction to walk in. Finally she opened her mouth to shout, to be reassured that she was not deaf or unfeeling. As she did so she heard a voice, echoing from the darkness.
“Helen Tremaine.”
Helen started. She turned in the direction of the voice and peered into the darkness. The voice spoke again.
“Helen Tremaine.”
She peered again. This time she discerned a faint glow further down the corridor, a pinprick of light. She made her way, slowly, towards that light. As she got closer she saw it was the flame of a candle, burning brightly in front of her. It neither wavered nor flickered, but burned with a steady orange flame. Walking further towards the candle she finally made out it’s owner. A small girl with long matted blonde hair and bare feet stood in the middle of the corridor waiting for her. She wore a white, knee-length smock and a flesh-coloured mask. The mask was completely smooth and did not have a mouth.
“Who are you?” Helen asked the girl.
The girl did not say anything, but she held out her free hand to Helen.
Helen hesitated for a moment and then took the girls hand.
The girl led Helen down the long, straight corridor for an indeterminable time. Helen tried to engage the girl in conversation, but she wouldn’t speak. Finally they walked round a slight bend in the corridor and through a set of double doors.
They had stepped into another long corridor, but this one was white painted and brilliantly lit. Helen thought it looked clinical. The little girl walked over to what looked like a nurses station and put the candle on the desk. She took off her mask and then reached behind the desk and picked something up. She turned to face Helen.
Helen gasped. The little girl’s face was pale, streaked with dirt. But what had shocked her were the bruises on he cheeks and on her jaw. Sores from where the skin had split had mostly dried black, but some were still weeping or red with blood.
“Are you alright?” Helen asked, and then mentally kicked herself for being insensitive.
The little girl looked so lost for a moment, then she shook her head.
“We must go,” she said. “This way.”
The girl led Helen down the corridor until they came to another set of double doors. There she paused.
“All you have to do,” she said, “is throw this into the Dark Cube.”
The girl handed Helen the object she had picked up at the nurses station. Helen took it and looked at it closely. It was a large egg, made of a pearly, opalescent stone. It felt very cold and very heavy.
“Then what?” Helen asked.
The girl looked blank.
“What happens once I’ve thrown this” Helen held the stone out to the girl “into the Dark Cube? What do I get?”
The girl shrugged. “What you wish. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, you must go through the door and wait to be called.”
Helen hesitated for a moment, and then turned and pushed open the door.
She walked into a large room, filled with rows of chairs. All kinds of people were sat there or walking around slowly. Some were clutching objects tightly, staring into space. Some were sat or knelt with their heads bowed, praying to unknown deities. Some were talking in low voices to their neighbours. They were discussing tactics, maybe, philosophy or last night’s football score. All were waiting. Opposite to the doors Helen came in were another set of doors. Two very large, muscular men were stood in front of them. They wore white shorts, a white mask and very little else. They carried long, pointed spears. Other men were walking around the waiting room, and seemed to be waiting for some sign. Turning round Helen could see two more men, guarding the door she had walked in through. She backed away from them slowly, clutching at her egg. Helen suddenly felt very scared. Her legs bumped into the back of a chair, and turning round she saw it was vacant. She walked round and sat down, wondering all the time how she was going to get out of the room.
“So what have you got?” a cheerful voice next to her said.
Helen turned to face a man with greying hair and a short beard. He was wearing blue striped pyjamas and staring at her with light grey eyes.
He nodded towards her clenched hands, in which the hard stone egg lay. “What’ve they given you?”
Helen slowly loosened her grip on the stone and uncurled her fingers. The man leant forward and peered closely at the stone.
“Nice.” He said. “Very nice. I’ve had one of those. They have a good balance and fit well in the hand. Now you take this,” he picked up an object by the side of him and handed it to Helen, “that’s not so easy to throw.”
The object in question was a large black sphere, approximately 7 inches in diameter. It was totally smooth, and totally black. It seemed to absorb the light. Helen declined to touch it. She was a little afraid her hand would be sucked into it, like the light. She continued to hold her own tightly while she stared at the old man, trying to work out what to do. Helen suddenly started a little as she realised the implications of the old mans words.
“You’ve been here before?” she asked him.
“Oh, yes” he replied. “Quite a few times actually. You’re not supposed to remember, but I’ve always been good at remembering my dreams.”
The doors at the end of the room opened at this point. Helen looked up. One of the circling men went over to a girl over on the other side of the room and said something to her in a low voice. The girl began to cry as the man hauled her to her feet. She struggled and he had to call for assistance. Finally four white-masked men half-carried her out of the room, through the double doors on the other side of the room and down towards her fate.
Helen shivered and turned back to the old man. “What is this place then?”
“This,” he said in a dramatic tone, “is The Waiting Room.”
“And what are we waiting for?”
The old man shrugged. “Certain doom? Wine and roses? God and all his acolytes to suddenly descend and do a passable cabaret? Who knows, dear girl? Who knows?”
Helen was a little bemused by this. “But you’ve been taken through the doors before?”
The old man shook his head. “Nope. I’ve always woken up before I’ve received that honour” he replied. “No doubt it’ll happen one day. Hopefully soon as well. I swear these buggers are getting bigger.” He indicated to his sphere and smiled ruefully. “Oh well, it’ll come when it comes.”
Helen was silent for a moment and then said, all in a rush, “If you get called before me, I’ll give you my egg and I’ll wait with your sphere. I’m unlikely to be called quickly, this is my first time after all.”
The old man looked at her with pitying eyes, but as he was about to speak he appeared to hear something that Helen couldn’t. He paused, mouth open for a couple of moments, before turning and patting her on her knee. “No need, dear girl. No need. If I’m not mistaken, that’s my alarm clock. Goodbye.” The man tipped an imaginary hat to Helen, and as he did so he vanished from view.
Helen stared at the space where the old man had sat for a couple of minutes. Then realised what the man had said. She really was being dim today. All she had to do was wake herself up. Now how did you go about waking up? She pinched herself, she screamed mentally to wake up, she tried to envisage waking up in her bedroom. But all was to no avail. She couldn’t seem to wake up. But she was feeling tired. She closed her eyes for a moment, and felt herself drifting away and onto another dream. Could you fall asleep in dreams? Would this get her out of the waiting room? Helen didn’t find out the answer as she was shaken, roughly, by the shoulder. Opening her eyes she saw on of the white-masked men standing over her.
“Helen Tremaine?” he asked in a low tone.
She nodded nervously, her mouth suddenly dry.
“This way please.” He stood back a little and indicated her to get up.
Helen rose with shaking legs. There was no way anyone was going to drag her out of the waiting room kicking and screaming. Slowly she moved towards the double doors, they opened, but she couldn’t see anything beyond them. Helen paused for a moment, and grasped the egg tightly in her left hand. Then she squared her shoulders, looked her escort in the eye and walked quickly through the doors.
There was no light. Everything was completely black. In fact Helen could swear that there was an absence of everything. The only thing she was certain off at this moment was the egg in her left hand. She held it up, but couldn’t see it. Finally, frustrated she took a step forward. Immediately it began to get brighter, although everything was still dark. It seemed that an eldritch glow had illuminated the area with just enough light to see the very dark speck moving towards her. It got closer and closer, until Helen could see that it was a black cube, slowly rotating on one of its points. Helen realised that this was the Dark Cube that she had to hit with her egg and she moved to pull her arm back and aim, but she realised that the cube was moving much faster than she had first thought so she just threw the egg with a wild yell.
The egg arced out over the space between Helen and the Cube. Then it vanished. Helen was pretty sure it had hit the Cube. She stood there, staring and wondering what was to happen now. What was she supposed to do? Would she get what she wished, was that the prize? The cube was still coming closer. Or was it, it seemed to be growing bigger rather than actually moving. Steadily it took up more and more of the area until Helen was overshadowed by the cube. It was no longer spinning, but still growing. She stood there, not knowing what to do until finally, without a sound the cube swallowed her.
The girl dreamed.
THE END
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-11 04:41 am (UTC)