NOVEL WEB The Dream
That night, Ginger dreamt about something odd. It was beyond odd. He felt strangely lucid and aware, and could even tell that what he was seeing wasn't at all real.
But he had to admit, it was hilarious.
He saw Ancor, his hand pressing on the pancaked hat on his head as he sprinted into the distance, the desert sand flying on and away from his tasteless robes.
Shf! Shf! Shf! Shf!
Ginger knew Ancor to be a splendid athlete, only, this gift seemed to selectively awaken when he met beasts that were too quick for his Shamanry. As such, this scene didn't surprise Ginger in the least.
However, the fact that he was closely following after the Shaman, high kneeing spectacularly in pursuit, was outrageous.
The two were in the same desert that Ancor had decided for the two to have as their setting for the farewell. Tall dunes of reddish brown rose everywhere, but the sky was dark, eerily so.
Ginger had spent the first few minutes laughing away at the involuntary action of his body, and how exaggerated the manner in which he and Ancor ran, but soon, he found the whole ordeal unsettling, especially when it kept going.
It didn't stop.
Nothing changed.
The shuffling of sand under Ancor's and Ginger's feet became quite frightening with every moment it persisted.
Ginger and Ancor's journey didn't seem to have a destination in sight. With further analysis, Ginger found that his steps matched the prints that Ancor left behind as he sprinted.
For some reason, it filled him with a sickening sensation.
It looked as though there was meaning to this.
Shf! Shf! Shf! Shf!
Even while knowing he was in a dream, Ginger found himself calling to Ancor, whose face he hadn't seen all this time, as the Shaman was running straight in front.
"Ancor! Ancor!"
Shf! Shf! Shf! Shf!
There was no reply. Only the uncomfortable sound of sand shifting because of the duo's feet in the deep silence of the cool sand, offered a haggard response.
"Ancor! Stop! Please!"
Still, there was no sign of a pause or even the potential of it, and Ginger didn't feel like his legs would listen to his pleas either. He tried to swerve, run faster, run slower.... all of it couldn't be done.
Shf! Shf! Shf! Shf!
Ginger paled.
He had to do something, but...
If he couldn't control his body in the dream, what hope did he have of drawing himself from the whole imaginary construct?
Was there an end to it?
Was there a meaning to it?
Was it even a dream?
Ginger felt the grappling hook of fear.
He started sweating, and his heart...hearts, started to beat furiously, creating a noise only he could hear.
'Ancor...' Ginger squeaked inwardly in terror.
Then suddenly, from his right, two long, narrow shadows cut across the desert to mark the two. A slightly thicker shadow cast an overlay over Ancor, keeping up with his speed, while a thinner one blanketed most of Ginger's body.
A frightful chill clawed on Ginger's skin as the deep darkness smothered him, and he shivered violently.
Without thinking, he turned to the source of the shadows, and his face turned as white as a sheet.
Over a distant dune, two silhouettes stood, one as tall as an adult man, and the other a full head shorter than Ginger. The ends of their outlines seemed to be fading slowly, and it looked as though they were about to disappear.
Almost immediately, Ginger recognized these silhouettes.
Pairs of arms stretched from them, and they reached futilely for him and Ancor, unlike their shadows.
'No...' Ginger thought in horror.
This wasn't a dream, was it?
There was no way... Why would he dream about them?
"I haven't forgotten you!" Ginger found himself screaming against his will. "I didn't want to leave! I was just... I'm coming back!"
He didn't know why he was yelling. It wasn't by his will, but also... it was.
"I'm coming back! You'll see! I'm coming... coming back!"
The words didn't stop coming out of Ginger's mouth. Neither the silhouettes, nor the sprinting Ancor seemed to hear him nor care, but he screamed anyway.
He screamed so loudly, and for so long, that perhaps the dreamscape chose to shift the scenery in consideration for his desperate cry.
A bright, ghostly gold hue blinded Ginger, deconstructing the setting he had been stuck in for an inordinate amount of time.
The resplendent hue then turned into a large, portly flame that sat within a hollow in a wall, noiselessly flaring as it pleased. Its temperament was as lazy as that of a sleeping toddler, but strangely, it felt a lot more imposing.
Ginger took heavy breaths.
He was drenched, and tired.
Finally, he had stopped running, and it really felt vivid; the ache of his muscles, the shortness of his breath... and a strange, uncomfortable strain on his insides that was slowly fading.
"Thank... Fetid..." Ginger voiced in relief.
As happy as he was though, he started to wonder. Where did Ancor go? The scenery of his dream had changed, but he didn't think...
"Wait... This place..." Ginger was suddenly smitten by reason.
The ghostly golden flame before him. The hollow it nested in. This room.
The plump boy's eyes shot open.
This wasn't a dream!
He was in the same office – Professor Alexandros' office – where he had had his First Burning!
Ginger frantically backed away from the flame. Only now did he realize he was too close.
As he drew back, he almost stumbled on something warm that was on the floor. He quickly caught himself and looked down.
The color drained further from Ginger's face.
"Wha...' he murmured with a sunken voice.
Lying on the ground without motion, was the hunchbacked Professor Alexandros, his face showing a considerable loss of color. He was a single pace away from his chair and desk which featured a sheet of paper with a written paragraph that ended with strewn ink diving across it messily.
Ginger panicked. He drew further away.
'What's wrong with him?!' he thought in fright, only to receive another burst of it when he saw another figure in the room, this one lively and plastered to the wall close to the closed door.
Reiss, his bulked, brown eyes showing thrice the amount of shock and fear in Ginger's, was trembling like a reed.
"Reiss? W-what are you doing here? What are we doing here? What happened to him?" Ginger blasted the dwarfish dragon with questions.
Instead of answers, Reiss looked up to Ginger incredulously, and an unmistakable contortion of rage and blame showed on his face.
"What are we doing here?" he shook. "What are we doing here?! Why did YOU bring me here?!"
"What?" Ginger asked, thinking he hadn't heard that last sentence right.
"You brought me here! I kindly asked you where you were going and... and you carried me down here!" Reiss exploded only to cover his mouth, remembering that this was the dead of night, and it was after wandering hours.
Ginger's knees almost gave in.
No way. That wasn't right. He was asleep just now, dreaming that he and Ancor were sprinting across an endless desert.
How could he have...?
Ginger looked at Professor Alexandros again.
"What happened to him?" the boy asked, his shaking finger pointing at the immobile old dragon on the floor.
Reiss pointed an equally convulsing, accusing finger at Ginger with a furious face.
"YOU," he mouthed.
Ginger froze.
Him again?
That had to be a joke, right?
What could he do to a full-grown dragon, to a Professor?
What nonsense was Reiss on about?
Sadly, it seemed the world was unwilling to pause for Ginger to figure out what was happening here because at that moment, there was a muffled knock on the door to the office.
Reiss and Ginger turned stiff, and both their eyes faced the door.
Neither of them made any movements.
Reiss pushed himself further against the wall as though to merge with it, his teeth grinding in panic.
This was the first time Ginger had seen such a strong reaction from him, and unironically, it made the gravity of the situation even more weighty.
And worse yet...
"Gregory. Gregory! I heard you blast the door shut from the first floor. Are you on something again? Gregory!" a voice spoke with an exasperated tone of familiarity from behind the door.
Ginger melted.
He recalled that voice.
It belonged to the Warden, Madam Agathe!