What Dreams Are Made Of

Kaiya rushed down the grimy steps, reaching her destination at the bottom just as the train chimed it’s warning. She made a record sprint towards the doors only to have them slam shut a second too soon. Cussing under her breath she stood on the empty subway platform and ran a hand through her long dark deadlocks in frustration.

Her thoughts began to wonder back to the stressed filled workday, one thing after the other going wrong, and now this, when something made a loud noise directly behind her. She jumped and looked over her shoulder. Seeing nothing she slowly turned around, questioning her hearing, when something on the platform ground caught her eye: a small black notebook about a foot away.

“Wait…was that here before?” There was no one there but her.

She examined it from afar. It looked like an expensive leather-bound black notebook with a gold clasp that someone would definitely be missing. Nothing good came from poking your head into other people’s business in a large city, especially one with a questionable reputation like Silk city, but before she could think twice, she’d bent down and reached for it. The leather was cool to the touch, the shiny clasp cold, off-white pages with deckled edges peeking out in the middle. She stood up, undid the clasp and thinking she’d see the owners name inside opened it to the first page.

“Welcome 57th human chosen from a long-favored bloodline!

By law, you have now been registered for the 683rd round of the Game of Prosperity and Chance!

Please make your donation as contribution and acknowledgment of the terms.”

“Guess the owner must be into fiction.”

Kaiya quickly flipped through the rest of the pages, looking for anything else that might point to the owner. Seeing nothing she went to close the book, but felt her finger run on something sharp. She yelped in surprise more than pain, and dropped the book.

“What the he-!”

A cold chill ran down her spine as black ink swirled along the an open page and formed into words before her eyes:

Thank You for your donation! Remember, player, survive till the last level,

and meet your chance for prosperity beyond your wildest dreams!

“What?” Kaiya shivered, then blinked. Still seeing the words on the page, she took an involuntary step back.

The train rushed in and Kaiya, grateful for the distraction and thinking she must be more tired than she thought, got on, sparing no more than a glance at the notebook. She sighed in relief when the train left the station, feeling mildly surprised she had the cart to herself, and slumped onto the nearest seat. She let her mind wonder, going over what she had just seen, and hardly noticed the train reaching the next station.

A dark shape jolted her out of her thoughts, and she glanced down. There, not a foot away, was the little black notebook. This time with one glaring difference. In gold letters scrawled across the front was one word: Kaiya.

The doors to the train screeched opened.

A blast of wind carried the scent of fresh air and foreign plants, and a second later eerie calls from unnamed beasts assaulted her ears. She stared, incredulous at the misplaced sight before her: a full, real life jungle replaced the familiar subway platform. Her senses were robbed of everything familiar to her. She stared out at the deep green foliage, impossibly tall trees, eyes trying but failing to find the creatures behind the jarring symphony of shill calls and low growls.

Barely suppressing her panic, she jumped up, and saw the notebook open to the first page again. But this time, there were only 2 words:

Good Luck!

Her whole body began to shake but went completely still a moment later. Beginning at the furthest cart to her right, the lights in the train began to go out, one by one. Following the darkness, was a terrifying rumble she felt with her whole body. Then the glass in the darkened carts began to shatter. Something was moving in the darkness. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed. Kaiya felt her legs almost give way but forced herself towards the door, hesitating only a moment before throwing herself into the foreign world. The strangeness assaulted her senses again but sounds of the train being torn apart behind her pushed her forward, stumbling into the forest.

A second after reaching the moss-covered trees, she heard the last cart in the train blow apart. Her legs picked up speed, becoming surer with every step, heart pounding in her ears. She spared a quick glance over her shoulder and froze, feeling instant regret. Even obscured by the dense tree cover she could still see more than enough. Just in front of the demolished train, a towering beast, some impossible mix between a shark and a mountain lion with leathery skin the colour of a corpse, glared into the forest.

Kaiya dropped to the ground and went still, covering her mouth, not even daring to breathe. It took a step forward, and the forest went silent. Sweat ran down Kaiya’s forehead, burning her eyes. Still she didn’t move. Time passed. Her legs began to shake with the effort to stay still. The beast stared off to her right, looking as though something caught it’s eye, when suddenly its massive head whipped towards her. It’s eyes, light purple and slanted, bleed to red, completely engulfing the white like an eclipse. Kaiya felt her stomach drop, and her heart rate tripled. It’s massive jaw parted to expose row after row of large, jagged teeth.

“Oh god…” She breathed.

The beast crouched down, its muscles bunching, and a scene from her childhood – the family cat hunting a small bug- flashed through her mind. Eyes filling with useless tears, she jumped up and flew through the forest. Cursing the tree roots, and not even feeling the branches tear at her clothes and exposed skin, she crashed through the foliage.

A sound like thunder blew through the forest from where she’d been, and she nearly lost her footing when the ground shook from the Beast’s landing. She begged her legs to carry her faster, begged every god she’d ever heard of, and cursed her past self for picking up that book.

The book.

The second she thought it, the book appeared in front of her, mid-air. And then…she tripped. There was no slow motion, no life flashing before her eyes. One second she was upright, the next she was staring up at the blue sky, ears ringing, as something wet ran down her cheek, as a corpse grey creature suddenly filled up the bits of blue. First from far away, then closer and closer. A sense of alarm finally ran through her body, chasing away the haze, but too late.

A deafening roar, made in triumph, filled her existence.

The beast landed.

* * *

A bright light pierced her eyes, followed a second later by the sound of a crowded room; groups of people chatting and laughing, filled her ears. ‘Laughter?’

A sharp pain shot through her heart. She jumped up, sucking in breath, a shaky hand clutched to her chest.

“Oh! She’s up!”

“Heh, you owe me ten bucks…”

“…probably done in by the Rookie Killer...”

Mind still foggy, slowly the pain subsided enough for her to take in her surroundings. She was sitting on one of many couches along a wall in a large cabin style room. A gathering of tables in the center, a bar at one end, and the stairs leading to a second floor at the other. There must have been about 50 people of various genders and race in the room, all adults. The ones closest to her, three in total, started down in interest. Everyone else chatted with familiarity in small groups or kept to themselves.

“Where am I?” she croaked, throat dry. A tall woman with short blonde hair handed her some water.

“Did you really come blind?” The mid-aged woman asked as she sipped the water.

“What?” Kaiya looked around the room in confusion.

A moment of shock, then pity filled the faces of the onlookers.

“Ahh, I’ve heard of this happening from time to time.” A grizzled looking man said in a voice filled with sadness.

“Ed!” A small woman admonished.

Kaiya felt a mixture of irritation and fear slowly clear away her grogginess. “What’s going on? Where am I? And how did I-” Flashes of the train, a black leather-bound book, a forest, and a corpse skinned beast bombarded her. She gasped in horror, dropping the glass of water, not even hearing it shatter.

“Hey, hey, take it easy.” The small woman soothed. She felt a comforting hand on her back. “You’re alright. It’s always hard the first time, but you get use to it.”

“Someone should explain.” Ed suggests.

A moment of uncomfortable silence filled the space before the blond woman sighed.

“First, the name’s Sarah. Yours?”

“Kaiya.”

“Alright, the shorty over there is Leslie and the man is Ed.” She ran a tired hand over her face. “Right now we’re about 10 minutes north of Silk City. But back to the hard part, how much do you know about the black notebooks?”

“The…huh? There’s more than one?!”

“Ah, so really you know nothing then.” Sarah’s voice sounded more tired than before.

She reached into her back pocked, and took out a small leatherbound black notebook, just like the one Kaiya picked up. But this one had the name Sarah on the cover.

Kaiya flinched, leaning away, eyes glued on the notebook.

“Ah, don’t worry about what happened before. This thing won’t do anything right now.” Sarah explained.

‘Right now? So it will later?’ Kaiya thought.

“If you really joined without knowing anything, than you probably faced the first stage, and the Rookie Killer without any weapons.” Sarah continued.

“Rookie Killer? Wait, was I supposed to be prepared for that…that…” Kaiya trailed off, not sure how to describe what happened.

“A massive corpse skinned freak of a monster ring a bell?” Ed asked.

Kaiya shivered.

Ed nodded. “We call him the Rookie Killer. Think you experienced first-hand where the name comes from.”

“Anyway,” Sarah back cut in, “everyone you see here has gone through what you experienced. Only difference is, we were raised knowing about it and how to use the notebook to protect ourselves.”

Kaiya debated clapping or pinching herself, thinking this must all be a bad dream.

Sarah sighed, reading her face. “I think it would be easier to show you.” She opened her notebook to a random page, pulled out an odd-looking pencil, and wrote something down. Then looked up and met Kaiya’s eyes. “This is real.”

Then she bit her fingertip to draw blood, swiped it across the writing, and showed it to Kaiya. She glanced at the written word, ‘Hammer’, in mounting confusion.

Then Sarah ripped the page out of the book.

“Hammer.” Sarah’s voice took on an eerie quality. She held the page out to Kaiya.

And she watched as the page shimmered, folded in on itself, and then reformed into a hammer. Sarah walked forward and placed the hammer in Kaiya’s hands. She felt its weight, and, once again, began to tremble.

“For a price, these books offer you a way to fight. The longer you survive, the more you can summon. From any weapon in existence, to any you can imagine with your thoughts.”

Sarah bent down, looking into Kaiya’s eyes. “For better or for worse, this is your new reality. There’s no escape. Succumb to madness, or make this power your own. Climb the ranks. Conquer the levels. Then, if you make it to the very end: a chance to meet the power behind everything and have any wish you want granted.” Sarah’s mouth twisted into a sarcastic smile. “Welcome, Kaiya, to the Games of Prosperity and Chance.”