Chapter 1: A Walk in the Mist (click here to open Chapter 1)

Dream Earth

Walking in the midst of ash and dust, Adi Walkman floated without worry. 

Though he wasn’t a part of reality in this place, he wasn’t bothered; this was his true home. Home of his mind.

He walked slowly through the mist, eyeing all the piles of ash; black piles of ash appeared and rose everywhere amid the white mist like burning flakes on marble slate; it was very out of place. The mist didn't irritate his eyes; he only thought of reaching his destination. 

Ashes were rising up and down, burnt animal parts, flaked animal parts, perhaps even humans’. Among the thousands of piles, which meant nothing but eventual deaths to Adi, there were three piles glowing with a whitish outline. This did catch his attention. His dreams never had this before. He was able to see all three glowing piles among thousands he’d see every day in his dreams. The etherial glows perplexed him, but he didn't stop.

After a quarter-hour’s walk, he found a table in front of him - something of marble. He approached it and sat beside it, bent on his knees. He shut his eyes. Moments later, a small girl appeared beside him.

‘Death.’ She said.

‘What?’

‘All people die, some by our hands, some by our enemies'.’

‘Enemies?’ He asked the little girl Olivia.

’You will understand, with time to come,’ she spoke the words of a sage on the mountains. ‘Shall we start for the day?’

‘Yeah, let’s start.’ He responded. 

She picked up a black bag on her side and passed it Adi. Of course, it felt light and seemed empty, only until he reached his hand into the bag. He found a variety of shapes and objects inside it, until he felt a notebook which he picked out. He’d keep an account in this diary in all of his dreams. 

‘What is time?’ She asked. He opened a fresh page in the notebook and wrote something down. 

‘Time is… uh, something that we uh…use to measure a sequence of events in the past, present, and future.’ He answered back.

‘Yes!’ She said playfully, leaving her mature persona and getting excited for a moment, acting her age. ‘And in how much time are you going to kill me?’

He felt shocked at what she said, but she just smiled back at him. Something didn't seem right to him; this wasn’t how she’d usually talk. He knew her for a long time now, and this was one of the first times where he felt something…change. And his suspicions weren’t for nothing; her skin slowly started to darken, as she wickedly smiled at him, lifeless. Sounds of cracking resonated into the air as her shoulders began jutting out, like bones out of place. Her smile disappeared, and all of her hair fell off in piles. Adi was frightened—he’d never seen something of the sort—but he didn't get up. He trusted her. One of her eyes started to twitch, as did her head. Her shoulders kept growing with sudden jerks and crack sounds, and, after a few twitches, her face became completely black and stony. A big, ugly thing.

‘Olivia!’ He called out. She stopped twitching completely, head lowered. She raised it towards him. He’d thought she was a threat at first, when she started to transform into the ugly monstrosity, but as she turned her head, he saw something behind. It was all fuzzy and blurry, but from what he could make out, beings her size started to walk their way. Beings with dark, stoney skin like hers.There were flares in the skies, the white mist had had dissipated and the three glowing piles of ash rose. He looked closely at them and saw the faces of three people. Dear people. People he loved.

 By now he’d realised that these ash piles showed death, and so after seeing them in the air, outlining the translucent shadows of three very well known faces, he started screaming ‘no!’ Over and over, without stopping. Tears trickled down his cheeks, which he couldn't feel as soon as he woke up, gasping as if he was out of breath.

He raised his head and frowned with his heart thumping harder than a butcher’s hammer on dead meat. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and stopped gasping. He got out of his bed and felt disappointed. He’d always felt like his dreams had lasted an eternity, so much so that he'd sometimes not be able to tell the difference between reality and his dream world for a while.

He lived in a condo—not a big one. He wasn't making a living, of course. No work, nothing. In fact, he believed in his dream realm more than the real world. He liked Olivia more than his brother, more than his parents, more than anyone he had ever even remotely made any contact with in the real world. For him, everything that he cherished was within his dream realm, and there was nothing to care about in reality. 

He started pondering about what he had seen towards the end of his dream. The three glowing piles had the faces of people he’d never met in his life, yet in his dreams he’d known them for an entire lifetime. He walked towards the mirror in his bedroom, looking at himself. He was frowning. A few minutes later he went into his bathroom to take a shower. Water trickled down his long, smooth golden hair, always fell upon his right shoulder. He had a short nose and thin lips; bushy yellow eyebrows to complement it all, and his eyes were hazel in colour, unlike his mother who had brown eyes.

Once he was done, he dried up and put on a fresh pair of underwear, walking back into his small bedroom, and falling down into his small, plush bed. He’d never required much room on his bed while sleeping; he would always remain still, so concentrated in his dreams that he wouldn’t budge an inch. Blank and unsure, he slowly got off his back and sat down on the edge, dangling his legs and shaking them, eyes staring at the floor.

Olivia, please. Come here. He thought. Tired and sad. He felt horribly lonely. He had no one to go to in this town. 

He wanted to go out and meet his parents, he missed them. But he was sure they didn’t, after what happened. They’ve never forgotten, have they? He thought, an emotional drain overcoming him.

 He quickly turned his head and looked over to the closet, getting up and scurrying over. He opened the right door of the closet and looked into the mid-section. There was a safe there. He typed in the numbers, ‘2,1,2,3’, and the digital sign on the front of the safe read ‘Opened’. The safe’s mechanical lock opened. Adi, feeling excited, quickly opened it, on the brink of a smile.Though as soon as he opened it, his smile faded away, he found nothing but two hundred pounds.He had no money to go to Scotland, where his family was, and they never came to visit. They only sent him a meagre amount of money every second month, just so that he could survive. 

‘Oh Olivia, why couldn't you be real?’ He turned his head down and shed a tear or so.