A strange chirping woke him from his deep sleep. He’d never heard a bird like that before. Daylight came to him from behind closed eyelids. Slowly, Jon opened his eyes to an enclosed space made of dirty brick covered in some kind of mud. A voice also came to him.

“It’s about time you woke up.” He recognized that voice from the night before. His eyes widened in on a familiar figure—the tall, creepy looking troll. “Come. We need to leave, now.”

“W-what?”

No, why was he back in this dreamland? Never in his twenty years had he ever had such realistic dreams, and never more than once. Everything in this dream seemed real from the ground underneath his sore back to the troll staring at him with beady brown eyes, to the muddy-looking house around him.

“We’ve missed our chance to be gone before dawn!” The troll snatched his hand and tried to heave him up from his spot on the hard ground.

“B-but—“

“Ugh, come on!” With one jerk, the troll yanked Jon to his feet. “You’ve slept well enough, Fangde. No complaints, today!”

Jon stood trying to reel in everything that was going on. Okay, so his name here was “Fangde” and he was a troll, one ugly-ass troll, and his brother—was that right?—was also one heck of a hideous troll. He could only assume he was the younger of the two since the brother stood at least two heads taller.

Stretching his arms and letting out a big yawn, Jon decided not fight this strange but interesting dream. Instead, unlike last night, he’ll live through it and see what happens. He’d never been much the creative type, and still couldn’t figure out why his mind would conjure up such a crazy event, but hey... it’s all for fun. He thought to himself, as long as my body isn’t doing something crazy while I’m asleep...

He swallowed down the possibility. The story his roommates told him yesterday sounded way too unbelievable. But being here again only meant one thing: his body was probably doing something weird.

The larger troll led him toward the entrance. “I’ll check to see if it’s clear.”

“Hold on,” Jon said before the troll could open the door. “Are we still running from the... something?”

“Hunters. Of course, we are. We’ll always be running.” The troll opened the door and peeked outside.

“So there are hunters that kill trolls?” Jon beamed at the scheme his mind made up. “What else?”

“Trolls? What’s a troll?” The troll glared at him. “No. We’re demons to them. The same as devils and corpses... the whole lot, be it evil or virtuous, it doesn’t matter, they’ll kill us. We dan jiao are not wicked, but the Taoists believe so, thus we’re hunted.”

What kind of nonsense was that? This thing he was staring at was a troll, not a demon. Was it because they were different than humans, or perhaps in the past, these guys did something wrong to be labeled as evil? Oh, now his mind was just playing tricks on him.

“Why can’t we just tell them we’re good?”

The troll gasped. “They wouldn’t believe us. Now, no more questions. Hurry up!” He stomped toward Jon and grabbed his hand, tugging him along.

“I’m only trying to understa—“ Jon struggled in the larger troll’s grip, but try as he might, he couldn’t be free. The troll shoved him out the barely open door, and he caught his leg on the bottom of the door. A sting curled within his ankle. “Hsss.... Not so hard. I’m going! I’m going!”

“Then, hurry!” Once outside, the troll led them away from the mud house and Jon noted they were still in the marshy areas they were in last night. “We’ll be safe after we get out of the swamp.”

He hobbled with a limp, trying to stay close to the troll though his ankle twinged every time he stepped down on it. Damn, his mind really went all creative, didn’t it? It could almost be the perfect setup for a novel or a video game or a movie. If he visited this dreamland every night and played out the scenes, he’d know how it all went to the end! How rich could he be if this was a great story? Jon smirked to himself.

“Keep up. I have a plan, Fangde,” the troll said. “If we travel South to Shaojing, we’ll be in TengDao territory. The hunters wouldn’t find us there.”

“TengDao? What is that?”

“What? You know... it’s...” The troll huffed. They’d picked up to a jog once they reached dry land. “Safe realm for us.”

Jon had to know more about this story. He knew of the antagonists, and the protagonist’s—himself being one—and somewhat of the land. And damn, the land was always just gorgeous! Seemingly untouched by man in most areas he’d seen so far, besides the few mud houses he spotted when they were in the swampland. Yet, those were made of natural material and allowed growth around them. Now, they were traveling across flat plane with long, wild grasses stretching on for miles. The small trail between the fields led to who-knew-where, and ahead of him, stood rolling hills that spanned the distances east to west. The sun peered out at them from behind bushy white clouds and the temperature so pleasant, he wondered if it was this tepid all year round.

“Is TengDao nice?” Jon asked.

The troll slowed, allowing him to catch up at last. “It is, brother. Nicest place you’ve seen, remember?”

He wished he could remember but he nodded anyway. “I hope it’s this nice.”

“We must find you a healer when we arrive. I think you hit your head a little too hard yesterday.” The troll ruffled FangDe’s scruffy hair and chuckled. “Brother, I do worry about you.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You’re the only brother I have.” He stepped away and they began to walk the small trail again.

A brother? Hmm... Jon wished to have a sibling one day. As the only child of the house, he knew too well loneliness and boredom. His parents worked a lot, leaving him in the care of sitters and when he was old enough, himself. He met a lot of other kids and never really had trouble making friends, though. But he always made sure to finish his schoolwork and studies before going out to play. He was truly independent at age fifteen. Still, he always wondered what having a sibling would be like.

Wow, my mind is really on the go tonight!

He couldn’t really be this troll’s brother, it was just a dream. But then, it felt kind of nice having an older person really looking after him.

A gentle, refreshing breeze rustled the grasses near him. It cooled the sweat on his neck, and he sucked in the wonderful air. If he could, he’d stay in this dream world forever. If he could, he’d dance in this field and no one would see to laugh and make fun.

Yes, he’d have to remember this feeling of peace and tranquility if he wrote this book. He breathed in the air again, tasting the freshness of it on his tongue and the back of his throat when something whizzed by his nose. The small piece of paper crackled and popped, suddenly exploding with a bang as it floated to the ground.

“What is that?”

The troll turned around, his eyes wide. “Brother!”