WL Chapter 2
Notes: Whenever I try to launch Dreamland, I’m informed that it’s “too unique” and readers struggle to connect with it. So, I’m trying something new. Let me know how it feels.
The chain chaffed at my skin, pulling me down closer to the pink heads of still grass I hacked at. The microbes on the metal cuff actively worked to dampen the sputtering light fighting to escape from my chest, keeping me from reaching out to the dreams we were snuffing out, keeping me grounded and in place, reminding me of my failure. Not that I needed that. I couldn’t forget.
Raising my gaze to the horizon, I took in the forgotten dreamplane that had once been shades of pink and purple but was now nearly relinquished to a flat plane of grey. The mountain was gone. The lake was missing. The only thing that remained was a single weeping willow and a small patch of the dead, pink grass that I and three others beat at, releasing the dreamdust into the air in wafts of hope.
Which was ironic since those releasing it were the hopeless.
“It didn’t matter,” Yade’s quiet voice continued as if I’d been actively listening. She beat the heads of grass beside me, her violet skin appearing darker in the dimming blue light. “I can’t fix things. Not like my brothers.” She sighed as dreamdust swelled around her.
I studied her for a moment. We hadn’t spoken to each other before this day, and I didn’t think her words were for me. It felt like she was speaking to work things out in her own mind.
“I can see their eyes,” Yade continued as she whacked at the grass. “They pick a thing up and they can just… see how to fix it.”
“Your family are mechanics,” I said. It was kind of a question, but I was almost certain. Mechanics were one of many Dreamland healer types, but they were, by far, the most remarkable. They were the only ones allowed to heal Dreamlanders.
She nodded and leaned against her hoe, her long tipped ear smashed against her thumb as her eyes glowed a bright purple. “I understand what they see. That’s how I feel as I’m looking at the flow of dreams. I couldn’t tell you how to fix…” She looked at the hoe in her hand and then returned her attention to me. “…whatever this is if it broke. But I can tell you that there are new dreams filtering in just there.” She pointed and the tinctures on her belt clanked lightly together.
I turned and saw the same dull grey plane we were making.
“It glows and sings and calls to me,” Yade said. “And I know that if it was guided to just there,” she said, pointing to another span of dull grey landscape, “it would have a better chance of seeding, tripling its yield.”
“That’s amazing.” But it also meant that she was a flow master who had the sad misfortune of being born to the wrong family.
“Get back to work!” a high-pitched male voice called. Offzai’s short and twisted frame draped a floating chair, his malformed head holding a green hat in a way that just made the cone look more pronounced, his larger eye scanning the field, his too large lips working as if he was eating the dreamdust.
Yade growled slowly, but returned to pounding the sand at our feet, beating at the pink heads of grass and turning them into dust.
I didn’t spare a glare at our guard, the energy behind the movement being useless. I was a burning shell of the reclaimer I used to be, and every morsel of energy mattered. I didn’t want to stay here. I didn’t want to disappear either, to be recycled, reshaped into something new, someone better. I wanted a second chance, an opportunity to prove myself.
“Yade Copperweld,” Offzai called, and then jerked his thumb behind him.
A billowing two-story tent appeared on the grey sands as a storm of light settled on the horizon to our left just as predicted.
Yade blinked her hoe out of existence, collecting herself and disappeared within the tent.
I just had to get through this. Flexing my fingers around the dull handle of my hoe, I brought it down. The pink grass broke. The dreamdust flew. I stepped forward.
I just had to find a way to fit back into my existence.
I didn’t remember how much time had passed, but the patch of grass had become smaller when Yade stepped out of the tent, her eyes unfocused, a slight smile on her lips. She stumbled toward me, blinking slowly, the glow in her gaze…gone.
What happened to her? What was wrong? I reached out to grab her wrist on her way by.
She stopped and tipped her head. “It will be okay. They will fix you like they fixed me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, just now realizing her cuff and chains were gone. “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“But you’re not a mechanic. You can’t go home. You see dust flow.” I pointed to the horizon where the storm was starting to take the shape of a rolling hillscape.
She closed her eyes and straightened. “I do not. I was born a mechanic and I simply did not get the same gift as my brothers. But I will mate strong and produce boys who will become great mechanics.”
This was not the same woman who’d gone in. I’d only just met her, they’d done something to her. My heart raced as I glanced at the tent. Would we be next?
The red skinned basher also watched on, concern and fear pinching his brutish expression, the sheen of one his broken horns catching the incoming light.
Yade pulled away and continued walking, her steps staggered as if she struggled to control her movements. “It will be okay. I’m going home and will have many children. And Dreamland will be happy again and served.”
Her words faded as she disappeared into the inky blackness that hid the end of this dreamplane.
That was going to happen to me. Happen to the basher. It would happen to all of us.
And that was good, I reminded myself.
I bashed the hoe against the ground and broke the grass. The dust flew and I stepped forward.
This was what I needed; what Dreamland needed. I had to find my way back to my existence. But what was that?
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. I stepped forward.
I wasn’t like Yade. I was different. All reclaimers were. We were rare, which was why our appearance wasn’t punishable by conscription or recycling. Mothers of reclaimers weren’t sent here because they’d given birth to a child outside of their scope.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. I stepped forward.
My parents had produced eighteen children and they were all Lumineers, people responsible for bringing light to areas of Dreamland that struggled to produce it on its own. In most cases, those areas were able to heal with the light pouring from my family’s souls.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
Had Mother produced a mechanic or a dreamsmith, a pathfinder, a guardian, or any other type of Dreamlander other than a Lumineer, she would have found herself here, shackled and conscripted, but unable to find a path to redemption. Mothers who failed to produce within their lines were unstable and unusable.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
Unless the mother produced a reclaimer. Like me.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
The true chafe wasn’t the cuff against my wrist. It was against my soul, if I had one. Did servants have souls? Were those created to serve deserving of one?
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
Growing up, I’d been treated like a treasure, and my parents had been filled with such relief. By a grace of luck, my mother had produced eighteen Lumineers and a reclaimer.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
I hadn’t been prepared to fail. I’d never failed before. Saving dreams had been something I did like others breathed. I didn’t have to be taught. I just knew.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
But the last dream I’d touched had claimed me, destroyed my ability, my confidence.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
I’d created a darkness that twisted through several different dreamplanes and made the dreams feral.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
My mother had produced me, a reclaimer, and had been praised for it. I was Dreamland’s gift. I saved dreams. Until I destroyed them instead.
The hoe went down. The grass broke. The dust flew. Step forward.
How long would it be before she joined me in this punishment for something that had been and was completely outside of her control?
“Lixiss Light Bringer,” Offzai called, his expression set in a grim line.
My name on my guard’s lips brought me sharply out of my meditative state, my senses feeling like they held sharp edges. The air, which had been silent moments before, now hissed with a metallic twang. The dull debris smell was punctuated with a tartness I tasted along the back of my throat.
Offzai closed his eyes momentarily and bowed his head, tipping it to the side as he opened his too large eyes and gestured behind him.
It was my turn. Glancing around, the basher and the other man were both gone already. I didn’t know if they’d been saved or… recycled. I had been so focused.
And now it was my turn.
Taking in a deep breath to keep my hands from shaking, I blinked the hoe I’d been using out of existence, returning it back to the construct, and moved toward the tent. As I drew closer, two figures appeared behind him, both tall and thin, dressed in wispy blue robes that fluttered in a breeze this dying dreamplane couldn’t feel.
“Be careful,” Offzai said quietly as I passed.
I didn’t know what he wanted me to be careful of. Dreamland was a place of safety, and I was the danger. I’d brought darkness to this place. I’d brought the illness. I nodded, unsure of what he wanted in response. “I will.”
He flinched and looked away in disgust.
I felt like a stupid child in that moment, too inexperienced to understand what he wanted to tell me. But I sensed I would find out soon enough.
“Lixiss,” the woman said, her long yellow hair flowing down her back in a straight waterfall, her pale lips rising slightly at the corners as she smiled gracefully. “It is so good to see you again.”
I didn’t know this woman. We had never met before, but I nodded, not sure what I was supposed to do next.
The woman gestured behind her and took a step back. “If you just step inside.”
“What is this?” I asked as my feet moved outside of my control. “What did you do to Yade?”
“We helped her,” the woman said softly. “Like we’re going to help you.”
Something inside me ticked or flinched. I felt a scream I could not utter rising inside me, demanding to be released.
“Please sit.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be in this space that was large and endless, as if the walls I know we’d passed through did not exist. All around us was inky blackness penetrated by pinpricks of light. A chair rose with four irregular legs that looked like roots and a seat that appeared as though it was being prepared especially for me. As I sank onto the rounding platform, tendrils rose, wrapping around me and hugging me gently.
The woman sighed, clasping her hands. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
There was no point in answering her. The question was ridiculous.
“Of course not,” the man said, his low voice rolling over my skin like a salve. “That’s how you designed her.”
Designed?
The woman sighed and nodded, raising a hand and drawing a chair out of the darkness. “I just thought—”
That I’d step outside of the rules they’d created? Anger flared inside me. I was here, bound and chained because I’d failed to meet their “design”.
The woman shook her head and then smiled at me. “I am Dream Lord Kilyn Elxina.”
Surprise and awe flared and then was quickly snuffed. Dream lords were gods, but this was my life. “Why do I care?” I asked, anger forming words I’d never have spoken otherwise. “I’m just going to forget you when you’re done.”
Kilyn bowed her head. “Quite right.” She raised her head and smiled at me, clasping her hands in her lap. “Shall we begin?”
Two inky black tendrils worked their way to my head, their dagger points moving unerringly toward me. I wanted to scream, to move away, but I couldn’t. I was cocooned in the chair. I tried blinking it out of existence, tried freeing myself. They settled on my temples and dug in.
“Don’t be scared,” Kilyn said. “It’s only scary in appearance. They have no affect on you.”
“Except I don’t remember this happening.” I glanced at the man. “How many times have you done this?”
“Reset you?”
Was that what we were doing?
“Many. One of the problems with the reclaimer coding is that you connect to elements outside what I can prepare you for.”
“Outside—”
“Tell me about the dream,” Kilyn said, forcefully.
“No.” I needed answers.
Kilyn closed her eyes with a sigh of frustration, turning toward the man. “This is the reason why you are wrong. Giving her the ability to see only breeds stubbornness.”
“You’re not seeing what I see,” he said, stepping forward. He gestured to me with his hand. “She’s piecing things together. She’s creating her own conclusions. She’ll provide the solution you can’t design because the solution can only be seen through their eyes.”
“You want to give her a personality.”
“Yes. That is where the cognitive function we need resides.”
“But that breeds disobedience.”
“The strictly obedient don’t survive.”
“They—”
“If they did,” he charged on, “you wouldn’t constantly be called to repair them.”
Kilyn clamped her lips shut and glared.
I didn’t know what to do, so I remained silent. I didn’t think that drawing more attention to me would hurt, but it didn’t seem like it would help in that moment.
“We’ll just—”
An explosion sounded nearby and my cocoon chair rocked.
Shock flooded Kilyn’s expression. “What was that?”
“The dream dust,” the man said calmly. “As the flow master you just programmed to produce mechanics told you would happen. Maybe if you’d listened to the gift she’d developed instead of mandating your own program…”
My heart pounded hard as I pictured Yade in this chair, trying to tell them what she knew only to be silenced and then disappeared.
“Will you—”
“You are the only one,” the man said, interrupting Kilyn, “who can fix whatever happened out there. The dream flow is of your design. This plane is your creation. I can reset the reclaimer.”
Kilyn pinned him with her pale gaze. “You will reset her, Vulre.”
He bowed his head. “This is your design.” He widened his hands. “I follow where you lead.”
Nodding, Kilyn stood, clearly unhappy. “This is going to take a while.”
Vulre remained quiet until Kilyn left.
I swallowed, the tendrils in my temples keeping my head in place, shoots of pain needling through me when I moved my head in the slightest.
Finally, Vulre turned to me. “Well, Lixiss. I will give you a choice. Do you want to awaken or remain sleeping?”
Questions
Is the story interesting?
Did this chapter hold your attention?
What annoyed you?
Do you like the character?
Were you confused about something?
