In the distance I see the abomination. It’s grand poise gives off an aura of invincibility in the distance. At this point my mind begins to snap. Like a dam built with sticks, the barrier around my mind breaks. Memories of a past life flood into me. I remember the last time I dreamed of the alternate world. The creature moves effortlessly closer to the mountain that I know is just a mere minute from being destroyed. I quickly try to formulate a better survival plan than my...previous execution.

I create an inner orb out of soft materials gathered from the workshop like room. The Eldritch evil stops in front of the mountain. I barely tense my shoulders as I realize waking up in my bed is the worst possible thing that can happen to me, so with absurdly low levels of tension a crafted sphere made of several layers forms in front of me. A bright light is summoned as I quickly use as much bedding material as possible between the soft inner coating and the resilient outer coating of the marble looking construct.

I quickly run through the house while the dark orb grows. At this point my very short legs struggle to keep up with my intent. I find an older woman who I assume is my mother. I yell to follow me with my high pitched boy voice. She follows while shifting her eyes left and right with her mouth open. She looks completely dumfounded whenever she walks through what used to be a workshop door. The room is now a large gray and brown marble.

I activate my power to open the large marble as the shockwave that usually kills me rapidly encroaches. I force her almost catatonic body into the marble and follow. I mold us to the side of the marble and wait for the shockwave to hit.

This time the actual shockwave is more like the most violent possible roller coaster ride rather than hitting a steel wall. I want to puke, but the rampant G force prevents me. I can tell as we slam through trees and then earth that we will soon stop. The lady with brown hair and a very thin figure has long since passed out.

After stopping, I open my protective sphere and check my body. The relief is palpable as I see a lack of injuries covering me and instead carpet burn covers almost all of my skin along with a crippling headache. The woman is promptly dragged by my tiny body out of the sphere. The landscape reveals we have been lobbed in a random direction. We are even further away from the slightly safer village than my first dream...

The most productive thing to do with my intensely debilitated body is to rest until the unconscious woman wakes up, so for about 7 minutes I spend my time trying to survive the migraine until my "mother" wakes up.

“Wha-wha….where are we? Are you okay?” I grinn with satisfaction at the warm concern she directs towards me.

” Yes. Are you?” I reply with a steady and to-the-point voice.

“Yes, but why are we here? Where is our home? What was that bright light?” She starts to huff uncontrollably at her current overbearing questions. I rear back and slap her with all of my tiny body's strength. The mediocre slap seems to wake her from her delirious state.

“Okay Mom. Look around and tell me where we are. Then I want you to tell me about the village over there.” I say with direction and maturity defying my age.

With a flabbergasted shake of her head and obedience created through my assertive words she replies with, “Are towards the badlands. Probably. I think if we went that direction,” She points towards the second village, “we will end up going to the Tauss village. ” At this point she looks over and sees the devastation of our village and pauses.

I quickly say, “Do not worry about that right now. We need to find somewhere to sleep or get food. Where can we go?” to try and prevent her from falling into despair before we have a direction to go.

“I guess the Tauss village would be our only option. We can’t get food otherwise,” She says with an ever increasing shakiness to her voice.

We both talk for a short while and make the plan to go towards the village today. The only problem is that nights are very cold in this world, and the beast from last time is making me cringe.

“What is a gigantic beast covered in fur with no head that has tons of bloody tentacles?” I ask while starting and keeping steady eye contact.

Her eyes expand in surprise, ”A Goth?! Oh gods no, where did you find out about those Nox? and why are you acting so strange? ” She pauses for a second to try and organize the vast array of questions in her mind before saying, “Why...Was there a gigantic marble in your room? Did you do that? Was it a god?”

“So there called Goths? Well, where do they come from, and how many are there? I can answer all of your other questions later, but this one is incredibly important right now.” I say with an intense stare.

“......They usually don’t come near our village. They are very rare, but there are more of them towards the Badlands. That’s why they’ve always been called the badlands. Did you see one?” she asks while leaning towards me and gripping the ground around her.

“I can’t say, but I know we might. Didn’t you say we are in that direction right now?…..Either way let’s move now and focus on reaching Tauss. I will answer questions on the way, but is Tauss a friendly village?” I say while slapping away imaginary doubts.

“As friendly as they can be in these times. We all help each other out if we can, but if we can’t... ” Her voice trailing off towards the end gives me plenty of information about the world. Apparently we are in a low resource subsistence farming or even hunter gatherer type society. I can not tell how large the society is, or if there is a civilization to even speak of. The tone in my Mother’s voice also tells me she doesn't either. She sounds like “We”, the two villages, encompasses everybody she knows...

After a short break we start the treacherous climb over devastated earth and gigantic uprooted trees. At this point I decide to answer what I can about my mother's questions.

“I really just don’t know that much Mom. I felt weird and then an orb was created, and I just knew we could get inside of it. I don’t know if I’m acting strange, but I feel like we need to stay strong after this great disaster. I have not seen a goth now, but I have before. I wanted to know so we could avoid them. Could you tell me if there are any people who have special powers Mom?” I ask while slowly filling the role of a small child.

With her situation becoming continually more understood she slowly starts to become more comfortable. She moves her light brown hair with a blond sheen out of the way as she says, “ No son. I’ve never met anybody like that, and I haven’t really heard of it either. But the world is vast, and it would not surprise me if our village just doesn’t know about it.”

We've walked at least 6 miles through rigorous terrain when I realize I'm not as tired as I should be. It is also still very bright outside so I ask while trying to stealthily hide my true questions, “How long are days Mom? and can we make it to Tauss before we need to take a break? or night falls?”

“You know today is 111 hours. We can definitely make it to Tauss before night fall. I doubt we will need to take a break unless you feel tired Nox.” I respond with a playful leap.

Even after over 6 miles of brutal hiking, I still have ecstasy flowing through my newly mobile limbs. I thank my weird transfer to this world for letting me experience this long lost joy.

After another 4 or 3 miles we arrive at the base of the Tauss village. An incredibly long lasting sunset is forming as we arrive at one of the first houses of the village. My jaw hangs wide open as I gawk at the surreal architecture once again. After the last dream sequence I eventually chopped up the event as unexplainable and unreplicatable, but this confirms my original suspicion that my childhood dream has a mysterious origin and meaning. Still, understanding of the situation is not coming easily. I ogle as we go up and knock on one of the half candyland, half rustic log cabin houses.

This time the the girl looks shocked as she says, “Dad! There are survivors!”

At this point I notice that almost everybody wore flashy, yet ugly, fur clothing. We all look like a large pack of skin wearing savages with confectionery log cabins. A large man walks up, and in the darkening sunset I can only tell he has a mustache and is bald. He stares at my mother as if to size her up before saying, “Did anybody else survive the great light from Terk?”

My mother replies while slowly overing her face and trembling, ”...I guess not...Everything is destroyed. All of the trees are broken and uprooted, every animal’s been flattened. It’s so bad...It’s so bad you can’t even tell where our village was...”

At this point a sobering quiet takes over the conversation. Empathy is transferred with a silent respect for the fallen. After about a minute the girl says, “ My name is Lune. This is Braul.” Braul interrupts her and says with callousness bred through the harsh environment, ”You can stay at our place, but you will work. Today you can rest, but when the night ends we will have yah wake early and start tilling fields.”

I try to absorb as much information as I can from the conversation. No doubt the two communities are not the whole of humanity, and this village is better off. The villagers are kind at heart, but they don't have much, so they are always working to make ends meat. The really surprising factor is the quickness with which they rebounded from the devastating announcement of the genocide of our village. This means death and disaster are either common enough that they only showed a little bit of surprise whenever hearing about it, or the man doesn't really care...

I ponder these thoughts as Lune shows us where we will stay. The house is filled with trinkets of basically dead animal bones, furs, and the odd neon pink substance. Furniture made from wood, fur stacked on top of itself, and what looks like pink hard candy could be rarely seen throughout the ridiculously large house. I can not hold my curiosity as I ask “What is this pink stuff?”

My mother responds, “Pariah sap, you know those pink leaved bushes in the forest? We smash up the leaves and mix the paste with water. After about an hour it dries to look like this. Our village was really new, so we hadn’t made anything with it. ” Like an itch years in the making had finally been scratched, I sigh.

After a very silent dinner we all go to sleep. Our rooms have a decent looking bed, so I assume the family living here is well off. It makes me think about how fortunate I am. I really want to bombard my mother sleeping next to me with questions, but a strong physical urge to sleep overcomes me. I think about how much easier it is to sleep here than in the other world. Maybe it is because we had such a long day? I fall asleep smiling about how I might be able to explore and learn more about the world surrounding me.

I awake to a Loud crashing noise above me. I see through the broken roof. A goth is standing above the house, and has already dropped its organ like tentacles down near me. My mind explodes with activity as I quickly analyze the situation. Why is the goth here? Maybe because we went near the badlands. Why earlier than before? I was probably in the bed for only a day. So the dark blue goo heals really well? That’s probably why I awoke that night. I have a series of questions and answers appear in my head simultaneously as I try to run from the monster's grasp.

I immediately regret not thinking more about the situation and preparing for it. The truth is after a few years the event has become hazy in memory,

A tentacle pulsates with fresh blood as it greedily wraps around my neck. The sensation of my body is quickly plucked away. I feel the all too familiar sensation of not having any arms or legs. I watch with horror as my own legs and torso are thrown into a cauldron made of wrinkly red flesh. My mind is quickly losing focus as I fly into one of the wrinkly walls. The squelching noise of wet flesh hitting wet flesh is the last thing I hear before I die yet again to the horror.

**********

Edited heavily, please let me know if anything is wrong.

I cut A TON from this chapter. I used to write very wordily. damn.