Waking Dream

Sleep is a fickle thing. Some nights it's over in an instant, a blink of your eyes and dusk has turned into dawn. Other nights, it wraps around you, deep and restful, then you wake to a new day fully refreshed. Neither of these types of sleep are very conducive to a story though. No, the tales worth telling are from nights full of dream and shadow, when sleep is twisted into strange visions or fears. Worst of all is when your sleep is disturbed by night terrors. Night after night, until weariness gnaws at you, until blurs the line between sleep and wakefulness. This is the fate of Berett.

***

The mattress and pillow were soft and clean while the room remained calm, but sleep would not come. There was an oppressiveness to the calm of the room. Over the scent of wood mingling with the stale night air was an unshakeable feeling of being watched. All Berett could do while waiting for sleep to take him was think about his life and how he had come to this point of sleeplessness.

Berett wasn't in the city to see the fire elemental that burned the roof of the place that became his home, nor had he helped put the fires out. He had been traveling from his farm at that time and only arrived in the city a few days after the destruction. He offered his farm strengthened muscles to rebuild and then signed up for the city watch. He wanted to help, but didn't want to return to the farm. The pay the city watch gave was much better than anything he could hope to make on the farm, and his help in rebuilding the apartment earned him a free room for a few years.

This room has been turning into a torture cell the last few nights. The first night was a dream. Peaceful in how the wheat fields danced in the breeze outside the old farm. That dream ended with an oppressive presents that soured the mood. The following night, the peaceful fields of wheat turned into burning fields of smoke clogged with pain and fear. Berret woke up coughing from the smoke and thought for a moment there were glowing eyes in the corner of the room, but these eyes faded as he coughed.

The third night the dream didn't start peacefully, Berett was shoved directly into the burning fields of his old home. As he stumbled around trying to find his way out of the field, the burning wheat turned into the walls of his room before it had been repaired. There was a dark cloaked figure standing near the bed next to Berett. He looked up to see those haunting glowing dead eyes inside the face of a dead skull under the hood. Berett couldn't move, he lay in bed unsure if it was still a dream, or if he had woken up to this vision. The figure started to move its hand toward his face, Berett's heart pounded in his chest. Berett did the only thing he could, he closed his eyes and told himself it was just a dream. It's just a dream. It's just a dream. After several minutes passed without anything happening, Berett opened his eyes to find himself lying on the floor next to the bed. The room was empty and back to normal. He was awake.

The fourth night's dream was different. Berett found himself walking the streets of Dalecrowns at night. He wore just the padding that is normally under his steel armor and was following a figure in dark leather with a scarf wrapped around his face and head. Berett got the feeling this figure was up to no good. They slinked along alleys and stayed hidden from the night watch patrols. Berett didn't know how he remained hidden from the figure, but continued to follow him. The figure began following a night guard. When Berett saw the figure draw a dagger, he stepped forward to confront him before an attack could happen. The moment his hand touched the figure's shoulder Berett woke in his bed. Sweat streamed down his forehead, and he was dressed in the clothing he had on in the dream.

This night would be the fifth night if similar dreams occur. Berett lay in bed, thoughts of the previous night’s events playing over and over preventing sleep from coming. He was so tired and lying in bed or long enough to not really be moving much, but out of the corner of his eye was two burning undead eyes floating. Turning to looking at them directly caused them to fade away. He heard the midnight bell from Grish Tower and the restlessness faded and sleep took him finally.

***

Crouching behind a barrel, Berett watched as a night guard walked by. As the guard stopped under a burning streetlight, Berett quickly realized he wasn't in control of the body he was watching this from, as it began to cast a spell. Berett didn't know any magic, and had no desire to learn it, but here he was watching as faint sparkles danced from his fingers and floated silently to the night guard. The guard walked forward but quickly stopped and looked around. Something was wrong, his steel boots were not making any sound when they touched the stone street.

The guard turned off the road into an alley that Berett knew would take him straight back to the main guard house. The body he was in wouldn't allow that to happen and stepped into a shadow. Moments later, the unwilling passenger Berett had become, stepped out of a shadow in the alley behind the guard. He had a huge greatsword in his hands. It was nearly five feet long with an intricate gold hilt that was capped at the end with a red gem. The sword was stabbed forward despite Berett's will trying to stop it from happening. It pierced through the guard's red cloak and entered the guard's back until it came out of his chest. The guard never knew the threat had moved that close to him. As he fell to the ground, the body Berett was watching this take place through stepped into another shadow, but before leaving completely, dropped a card.

This felt too real for Berett, but he was sure it was a dream. Shadow stepping, magical silence, and this massive greatsword are things he knew nothing of in the waking world. He had been a simple farmer where no magic or training had ever passed through his family line. This body must be the figure he had seen the night before, but why was he watching through its eyes?

While trying to take control or wake from the nightmare, Berett was teleported through shadows to a different alley. He didn't recognize the location, but he saw the old guard sitting on a box. It took Berett a moment, but he realized the building between this alley and the street must be an inn or tavern. The smell of booze, urine and half rotted food permeated the alley. The guard turned to look at the body Berett was watching from just as the figure swung its greatsword, slicing through the guard and striking the wall behind him as his head fell from his body.

The figure dropped another card and stepped back into the shadows. Berett woke up lying in his bed. Sweat soaked his body. He quickly got up and found everything to be as it was before he had fallen asleep. The room and bed were clean save for the sweat covered sheets. The clothing he planned to wear the next day was there on a chair waiting to be worn. Nothing was out of place.

Berett walked over to the window, but as he unlatched the hook holding the shutters closed, the bell from Grish Tower rang out. A moment of dread crossed his mind. He had heard the bell as he was drifting off to sleep. Was that a dream, or is this a dream? Pulling the shutters open, he could see the large clock tower known as Grish Tower. It was one hour past midnight. Leave it to gnomish innovation to make a clock tower that only rings twice a day, once at midnight, and once an hour later. The dread fell away seeing that time passed and that meant he did sleep. Which meant what he saw had been just a dream.

Then the night watch whistle blew from several streets away and Berett's heart sank.

To be continued....