《A blink away》


 1. White nights

    The rhythmic ticking of the mechanical clock is perfectly in sync with the slow battering of the rain against the Gothic house. Beyond the window, laid a ground so arid that the simple fact that trees were able to emerge from it was a miracle, albeit they were pale and barely breathing. Above this macabre scene, was a sky that matched the same color palette; a shade of blue that evoked nostalgia for events that have yet to happen, as static grey clouds were glued onto the background.


    Emyr contemplated his neighbor, an old lady who used to always greet him with a wide smile that could repel sorrow of any kind, going through a photo album under a tent outside in the light rain. They''ve been neighbors ever since he moved here back when he was four; often she''d look after him while his parents were away on business trips. As his parents settled down and their important meetings became more scarce in between, so did visits from his Welsh neighbor, Mrs. Ceri Howell. Her group of friends used to have lunch and have loud and long conversations in her backyard, undeath that same tent; sometimes they''d go inside and listen to her play upbeat and joyful pieces of piano that could be heard by the neighboring houses as well. But the company she used to have over at her big red house slowly disappeared, now leaving her alone with just her brother. All Emyr got to hear from her piano nowadays was sorrowful tunes which made him think of the lamenting of an angel, late in the middle of the night, whilst the moon and stars shined brightest. On the rare occasions he got to see her, Mrs. Howell''s expression was weighed down with blatant sadness, like a face set in stone. Emyr never mustered up the courage to offer comfort to her. As he ponders on various reasons explaining why his neighbor became a loner, an awful feeling crept up his spine the moment he realized that sooner or later, everyone he cares about will either leave him to pursue their own life or simply leave this world.


    - "A sad fate indeed."


    As the clock rang seven times, the last beam of sunlight of the day managed to slip through the thick satiny clouds, and as it goes through the window, it gets engulfed into the room''s darkness. The night reached them much faster than it used to a season ago. The rain stopped and the ghastly breeze of fall made the few remaining leaves on the trees dance and twirl on their thin branch.


    As Mrs. Howell went back into her house, Emyr sighed melancholically and exited his room as his mum called for dinner. While he was walking in the hallway to reach the stairs, as if in a painting straight out of the Expressionism movement, he noticed that the objects in his field of view were more vibrant, in a way they seemed more,real;they stuck out like a sore thumb against the dimly lit surroundings. The contour of each object was more defined and yet paradoxically, did not, in any way overshadow the other brilliant aspects of the object. His eyes felt like they were slightly popping out of their sockets, begging to be freed, all in a silly attempt to get a better view of this thrilling phenomenon that contrasted very much with Emyr''s dull and repetitive summer break customs, which deep down, he knew himself. And just as Emyr finished that thought, it all vanished as if the colorful spotlight were turned off in a puppet show. Emyr blinked multiple times, but in vain, the effect did not come back.


    - "I should rest for longer tonight."


    His mom, dad, and younger sister were all enjoying spaghetti meatballs in a big pot at the center of the wooden table. His mom and sister, both called Ymir, could''ve easily been mistaken for being twins, aside from an identical facial structure, they both had hazel hair. His dad, Arthur, had a big bushy beard and was very muscular, the complete opposite of his son. Not feeling especially hungry, Emyr contorted and winded up the spaghetti on his fork, as he stared into a fuzzy point in space only he could see. When he got out of his daydream, he heard a buzzing sound. At first, he fooled himself into thinking it came from everywhere all at once, but when the initial surprise passed, he noticed the buzzing came only from whatever he was staring at. But ordinary objects like a cookie jar shouldn''t make such noises! And believe it or not, a buzzing cookie jar was not the strangest thing in all of this madness. It was his family. They kept eating their spaghetti as if nothing was going on.


    With the ever-growing fear that he was losing his mind, Emyr gobbled down the meatballs, barely even chewing on them, and rushed through the stairs to get ready to sleep. After shutting the curtains, all that was left for him to do is to lie comfortably on his bed. And to fall asleep. A few minutes in and he hears his parents call him to do the dishes but he ignores them. In the dead silence of the house, he could very clearly hear his father''s footsteps on the creaking stairs.Click. The hallway''s lights get much brighter and light oozes into Emyr''s room through the small slit under the door. As his father enters, the slow creaking of the door broke the silence. Arthur''s wide back made an even wider shadow, which blended instantly with the room''s darkness. He stood there for a bit until leaving while muttering: "Stupid kid...". Emyr was very irritated, not from being called dumb, but because his dad left the door slightly open. The streak of light protruding from the hallway does not prevent him from sleeping, but Emyr is a person that cares for such small details, such unevenness makes his toes curl, thats just who he is, and always has been.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Lying on his bed, he wasn''t exhausted to the point where he could fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. Thoughts of various natures walked in and out of his mind as he attempts to fall asleep, creatures such as winged elephants, and alternate scenarios of what would happen if he did such and such differently. After what could''ve been an hour, Emyr did not feel a single bit tired. Was lack of sleep a symptom of insanity? He wiggled, turned, and curved on his bed, desperate to fall into the land of slumber. Pointless, all of it. He blinked once. Then once more, and got up to look at his curtains. They were, "glowing". Unbeknownst to him, over 15h just passed, and he still does not feel an ounce of rest in him.


    Emyr got up from his bed and walked to the park, without eating breakfast. Several days have passed since Emyr''s first white night, and just like the first one, all the countless hours passed in a matter of seconds. All of his senses were numb; his vision was blurry, his nose dry and stuffed, a metallic taste in his mouth, and in a sense, his sense of touch and hearing got swapped. His ears felt the dry air but could not hear any sound, his skin could feel every vibration, but he''d be rendered speechless if he was asked about the texture of the bench he was sitting on. People passing by saw him as just another angsty teenager, nothing more; from the outside, along with the dark rings around his eyes was a blank expression. And his expression wasn''t the only thing that was blank; his mind was too. Not a single thought passed through, not a single observation came by. Very typical for people who haven''t slept a wink in several nights. His first thought arrived, he checked his watch. In an instant just like the previous night, several hours passed which to him, felt like a second. As if a robot being controlled, he very unnaturally got up from the bench and went back home. All these events ran on repeat for several more days, any sense of free will was thrown out the window. Every day he felt gruesomely more tired, every step was tenfold heavier, and every breath was taken like he was underwater. But he couldn''t sleep, couldn''t rest, couldn''t sleep a wink. On the tenth night, after his dull and repetitive routine, as he laid on his bed flat on his stomach, his eyelids felt like they were attached to bricks, like every other night for the past ten days. He took a deep breath and blinked. He was finally released, from himself.


    When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a fountain made out of stone bricks, about 3 meters in radius. He was half submerged in a blueish-green liquid, and interestingly, he wasn''t wet. Not his arms and legs, or his sleeves and pants. All around the fountain were a crowd of people, and chimeric creatures. Since every creature and person disappeared out of thin air as soon as he laid eyes on them, Emyr only had time to recall the last one since it lasted a bit longer than the others, a nine-horned turtle, barely making it above his belly button. Before vanishing, it said to him:


    - "We use that fountain to drink,bachgen."


    He was not home, the sky was too clear and the temperature was toowarm. Unlike back home, the sky was spotless and a monochromatic shade of blue. As for the land, it was clear how fertile it is, and yet, just like the sky, it was completely empty; aside from thick soft grass, nothing else grew on it. Nothing besides a tree on a hill, which oddly enough, looked a lot like the one he had in his backyard, except, leafier. And had an elderly face on it.


    Emyr walked towards the tree and as he turned around, noticed that the pond disappeared. As he kept walking towards the tree, every step he took got intensely heavier. As he got within 30 meters of the tree, it made a mumble; 20 meters from the tree, and all its green leaves fell to the ground like apples and turned into green birds. They all simultaneously flew right into his face and up toward the sky, blinding his vision momentarily. As he looks up, the clear blue sky was no more, in its stead was a blood-red ceiling. All of a sudden he was sucked into the ground, only leaving his upper body above the ground. A horde of knights on jet-black horses emerged from the ground all around the tree, pointing their spears at him. They were all adorned with birds of prey on their helmets and dark blue capes whose bottoms were clearly burned to a crust. Their armor had multiple layers, each having a golden edge.


    - "I said not one more step." boomed a deep voice.


    Stunned by fear, Emyr did not know what to do. Despite being in a dream, he could not get out of the ground or make the knights disappear no matter how hard he tried. Incidentally, as if a genie was listening in to his wish, he was,quite literally,uprooted from the ground; the tree was dangling him in the air, with a root cuffed around his ankles. Earlier, Emyr was glad he fell asleep, now he doesn''t want to do it ever again.


    The shadow of a round figure got closer to him, without him even noticing.


    "Didn''t think he''d make it this far, did you grumpy? I sure didn''t."


    Emyr knew that voice.

 2. Trails and Tapestries

    In a vast green field, underneath a dark crimson sky, was a tree surrounded by knights in gracefully decorated armour on milky white horses. As the tree held Emyr upside down, an odd little creature walked up towards him from behind...


    As it shuffled past him, he recognized the turtle from earlier. Because he was being dangled upside down like a human chandelier, the throbbing ache in his head intensified with each passing moment, resembling the relentless surge of a waterfall against rocks. With his diaphragm''s movement restricted, it was like breathing through a straw.


    - "Put him down."


    The turtle jumped up and tapped the root with his paw; for such a small critter, he jumped awfully high. After a brief period passed by, Emyr was released and he crashed face-first into the ground; to his disbelief, it was pain-free; the grass seemed to have softened his landing. The knights lifted their shiny spears toward the sky and with a flick of the tree''s root, they sank back into the earth. The turtle looked at him, while the tree, motionless like a statue, stared off to the farthest point visible in the landscape.


    - "I think we got off on the wrong foot. Let me introduce ourselves; I''m The Turtle, the conscious part of your mind, and he''s The Tree, the subconscious part." said the teal-coloured reptile. "You seem dumbstruck, what''s the matter?"


    - "... It''s just... my dreams usually don''t go this far, or have as much detail as this one." said Emyr, in a barely audible, shaky voice.


    - "I guess that''s one way to put it... But this isn''t as much of a dream as you think. In a sense, you''re talking to yourself right now. According to The Tree, few people managed to enter this realm in the past ten years."


    - "What realm?" Emyr says as he furrowed his eyebrows.


    The Turtle looked at The Tree, expecting a reaction, but it didn''t even twitch, as if blind and deaf to the things going around it. The Turtle took a deep breath through his beak and sighed, giving The Tree an annoyed look; his nostrils flared and eyes narrowed.


    - "Ever wondered why gifted people such as Tesla, da Vinci, and Mozart, one day got a creative, spark of genius? Because their mind was almost in perfect synch with the Collective Unconscious, like the ticking of a clock with the rain. Some of these talented people managed to connect to this vast database awake, but most of them did it through this realm(although some only once), where their conscious, subconscious, and physical forms would meet and talk. The Collective Unconscious is the accumulated knowledge of every living being that ever walked, or will walk. Every species has its section of the database, inaccessible to others."


    "What kinda bullshit is this..." thought Emyr. "I should hear my alarm ring any second now."


    - "And also since I''m the conscious part of your mind, I know everything you say or think."


    The boy flushed and looked to the ground, trying to disappear, on an open field. As silly as it may sound, Emyr felt embarrassed towards... a turtle, himself.


    - "Where was I? ... Right, so eventually as people got lazier, having access to more brain-damaging entertainment and such, their minds got weaker, not just the logic part(the left brain), but also their ability to connect to the database(the right brain). Also, an important point I''d like to make clear; The Tree reveals messages in another language, which I will interpret, causing the original message to lose part of its meaning"


    - "Didn''t it speak English a few minutes ago?" questioned Emyr.


    - "Indeed it did, but it''s not his job to translate it."


    - "So I take it my mind''s still fine? Are you going to reveal any secrets to me today?"


    A small rumbling shook the ground, and just as unexpectedly, the tree answered in a low raspy voice:


    - "No, you''ve already had one."


    - "Well NOW you talk!" as The Turtle turns his gaze back at Emyr, "Though you can''t blame him too much Emyr, he only speaks when he''s got a message or feels threatened. Or maybe his "secret", as you call it, was to not be so gahdamn cocky."


    Already having been humiliated once, Emyr was somehow immune to it, all fear of criticism just evaporated. Coincidentally, the temperature started rising and the air started getting really, in a way, dry. Every breath tasted like sand which also irritated his eyes a bit. The light breeze made his face feel like sandpaper.


    - "When?" he asked while rubbing his eyes, despite debris not being the cause of his itchiness.


    - "Do you not remember the effect that objects had in the hallway a few days ago before dinner? And the buzzing while you were trying to shishkabob your meatballs?"


    - "How, in any way, was that useful? I wouldn''t put it remotely close to "a genius spark". For all I know, that might''ve been what caused my insomnia!"


    - "Indeed it did; after the first "secret", as you call it, the person has to really want to know more about it to continue having more visions and truth be revealed to them. Many shun such messages, deeming them unholy or whatnot, which in turn, completely terminates their connection with the Collective Unconscious. For those who don''t, they will be put in an insomniac state for a few days, time for their conscious and subconscious, in this case, ol'' Tree and me, to materialize and prepare this realm."


    - ¡°And for the sake of the author, you can call me Yawuul and the turtle Virem.¡± says The Tree as he looks up at the sky. And winks. "Time''s up. Knight Ysgrul, take him back to the fountain." said The Tree all of a sudden.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    With a flick of his whiplike root, a single knight, identical to the ones from before, spawned out of the ground and put Emyr onto his horse, in front of him. As Emyr got shoved into his seat, a sudden hunger for knowledge and a sense of defiance burst into a wildfire inside of him.


    - "WAIT!! I STILL HAVE QUESTIONS! A FEW MORE MINUTES, WHO¡¯S THE AUTHOR?? PLEASE, IT''S MY DREAM!! "


    - "Another time Emyr. See you." said Virem, in a strangely sad but calm voice.


    As the angsty teen got escorted out of earshot, Virem asked:


    - "Did you really have to send him back now? Was a few more minutes not available?"


    - "The glass won''t hold the sand much longer." said Yawuul after a few moments of silence.


    Ysgrul the knight and Emyr were traveling on a horse, galloping beneath the surface level, with their heads above ground. Emyr could feel every dirt particle rub against him, but this dirt wasn''t thick and hard to go through, instead, it was relaxing and fluid-like; it felt like soapy water being gently rubbed on the exposed part of his skin. Despite the horse being very fast, it still took them a while to get to where they needed to be. After a few moments, he realized it only took him a minute to get from the fountain to The Tree last time, on foot. As he reviews all the strange events that have happened so far, the red birds flew away, slowly becoming just a red dot in the sky.


    The sun was almost about to set, and the sky looked like a piece of abstract art, literally. The colours were not a gradient, they did not blend in with each other very well. There were stripes of fuchsia pink, lime green, turquoise, and many more that seemed lazily stitched onto the heavenly dome. And just like an oil painting, you could see fine lines in the clouds, as if they were placed there by the delicate brush of an artist. Finally, as the sun retreated and the moon tagged in, the abstract piece of art was replaced by a sky that looked very much like a pond at night, with twinkling little pearls in its depth. Although a significant difference separated random stripes of paint on a canvas and a dark pond, the transition in the sky from day to night was quite smooth.


    They arrived at their destination. Near the fountain, was a forest that wasn''t there before. Underneath the moonlight, the vast army of trees looked like unfathomable titans frozen in time.


    - "Here we are. Farewell and, try not to bathe in the fountain next time will you?" says the knight, as he and his horse sinks back into the ground.


    Emyr considered his choice: sitting near the fountain till he woke up or explore the woodlands.


    - "Eh, what the hell, why not."


    As he got deeper into the woods, a bit below the clouds was a wooden hourglass. The two chambers were equally filled with golden, sparkly sand. He watched as it trickles away until his mind got bored of it. He kept walking, not having a single clue about where he was going. Suddenly, he hears singing, from an ugly voice at that. He followed the banal music.


    "I am Arlund, the best cook in the world,


    In my tub, flavours dance and twirl,


    A culinary maestro, watch me unfurl.


    Spices and herbs, my secret crew,


    Creating masterpieces, old and new.


    From savoury to sweet, my dishes soar,


    As Arlund, the best cook, them I adore."


    In front of Emyr was a clearing, and in the center, a one-eyed worm with two arms, his entire body jet black, was bathing in an old algae-infested tub. Around the tub were rusty cans of paint and in the tub, was no water. No, the worm wasn''t bathing in water. He was swimming in paint and face-sized batteries.


    - "Well what are you standing there for!? Come help me marinate my batteries!"


    Seeing how his mind can make him see and hear things differently, who knows what the boundary between his conscience and his body is? Not knowing how dangerous the worm is, he walks over to the tub, following his orders.


    - " Do you know what the secret is in making a good zap stick? You gotta peel off its skin and then gently shake it under this green paint." says Arlund as he demonstrates, making small ripples in his tub.


    The paint was purple.


    - "The paint''s not- "


    - "Apapap, not one more word. It''s green because I says it''s green. Got it? You obviously ain''t no cook so here, behind me is a basket full of well-marinated and seasoned zap sticks. Go take them to the young maiden, she will enjoy them for she has exquisite taste." he says, lazily pointing towards the basket while meticulously examining one of his batteries.


    - "But batteries aren''t edi-"


    At this moment, the worm swiftly turned his eyeball away from the batteries, and towards Emyr. The temperature instantly dropped way below zero and the paint froze. The worm lifted himself out of the tub with his thick arms, breaking through the hardened paint, and slithered towards Emyr. Every little crunch and crumble of the grass was paralyzing him with fear, slowly chipping away at any courage he had left. As the worm was an inch away from his face, it "retracted" his eyeball, and his "eyelids" expanded and sprouted many little teeth. A putrid odour stemmed from the hole in his eye socket, which Emyr feared was also his throat.


    - "You do as I say, I am never wrong, and I''m always better than you. I personally like my food freezing, want me to name some examples?"


    Emyr shook his head, his teeth clattering from the cold. He walked towards the basket, not daring to look at Arlund, and into the woods he went, without asking for directions. All he wanted at that moment was to get as far away from that place.


    He walked around for half an hour hoping not to bump into the worm again. As he looks up, he sees the hourglass again. The upper chamber was half as empty as it was a while ago. Looking back down onto the road, amidst the small twigs and rocks, he sees a long trail of hair, sparse in between and primarily dark-coloured, occasionally muddy orange, that leads to a waterfall, a good five hundred meters away.


    As Emyr followed the trail, he noticed the odd things in the forest; a minute into the walk, he found a kettle hanging on a skinny tree branch, bending it; a few minutes after that, birds pecking on a sheetless mattress with springs coming out of it, and cats rolling in mud. Emyr was slightly comforted that the usual theme of his dreams came back. Even though the idea of secret messages and otherworldly truths being revealed to him sounded enticing, he didn''t think it''d be worth getting eaten by a worm, and who knows what would happen when he woke up after that.


    He reached the waterfall and next to it was a house decorated with many beautiful tapestries. One of them depicted three ladies around a campfire at night: one young, one old, and one in between. On the tapestry, the young Maiden was playing the flute, while the Mother was preparing dinner; as for the Crone, she was talking to a young man. As Emyr got closer, the threads of the artwork looked very peculiar to him; they were finer and glossier than normal fiber. Each strand wasn¡¯t the same length, and they smelled of lavender. The predominant hues in the tapestry were orange, light brown, and black. A bit like the trail that guided him here.


    Emyr realized they weren¡¯t normal weaving threads. No, they were human hair.


    As silent as a mouse, someone walked up behind him and laid their hand on his shoulder.