Part 1: Dancing in the Looking Glass
The Dreamer felt the Nightmare before he could see It. Could feel It's cold fingers like malicious whispers grazing the back of his neck, tickling the small of his spine, nipping at his earlobes. Panic whined within like an abandoned steaming kettle, his thoughts clouded under its suffocating fog. The sweet ambience of the dream melted. The warmth of a distorted relived memory cooled, a picnic under twin suns, his ailing uncle, his employer congratulating him on a job well done, his childhood dog alive after decades, his unrequited love barbecuing and beaming, all shadowed by a sudden looming amorphic black abyss.
It called itself Paray.
The Dreamer shielded his vision, and tried to ignore the blinding shade. His eyes clung to the dream, frantically sweeping over the details, begging to stay in the fantasy. The major tones of illusion jarred to minor. Lilacs turned to deep mulberries, pink roses wilted to burgundy husks. Sickening grey tides of nausea rolled from Paray over the Dreamer's shore. Waxed in reluctance his frightened irises drowned in the formless terror.
Its shifts were too quick to dwell on. At best he found Paray as a thin figure in the centre of a storming black kaleidoscope. Its limbs multiplied and retracted, twisting from tentacles to wings, spider legs to scorpion tails, hands to crab claws, talons, hooves, and hooks, teeth to fangs, hair to snakes, smiles to snarls, poise to jigsawed contortions. Paray's constant evolution was too overwhelming to comprehend or place. Its forms danced, hypnotizing the Dreamer to a sickening prickled paralysis, until he didn't notice that the all of the dream had dropped to a nothingness devoid of colour. He felt a pausing pale terror, until, the sudden rush.
In a breath Paray towered in front of him. Under a Herculean hunch It twisted until their eyes locked inches from each other. Cold, stressed perspiration trickled from the Dreamer's brow. Distilled sorrow dropped like tears, and Paray drank. Through the rapid morphing face the Dreamer saw what he feared the most. He saw himself. He saw the mirror. His face painted in confessions of howling shame.
And he sank.
Down,
down,
down
to his damp sweaty sheets, gasping for air.
His eyes darted through the darkness of the room. The seconds it took to recognize the difference in shade from the dream, and that he'd returned home safe, were eternities. A subtle infrared glow from his clock radio, the hum of streetlights from behind his curtains, the rushing sound of late night highway traffic like low rolling ocean waves in the distance, nighttime annoyances had become instant comforts.
In the dreamscape Paray rolled back within himself. Neither satisfied, nor disappointed, Paray simply was. It was full. The experience with the dreamer monotonous. The play, Paray's purpose, happened as often as the flap of wings in a hummingbird's flight. From Its place It spied the next Dreamer, and the ones beyond. Countless, constant. It paid them no thought, neither deep nor shallow. The Dreamers would come and go. Some to return often, others seldom.
They were, the same, as It was.
It moved amongst them. Not flying, not stepping, the scape wasn't bound by those concepts. They were there, deep in their dreams. If Paray felt curious or drawn It went. The rules were as non-existent as they were simple. No shape needed, no presence told. At time's Paray was many, a crowd, a feeling, a knot, a gnar, the rushing wind whistling past a plummeter's ear in a fall. An absence, a truth, a lie, a betrayal. Ever always, an unrealized fact to face in the radical reflection.
At times in the dazzle, in the presence of the curious or profound It would dig a little deeper and find the monster within the Dreamer, pulling metaphors and memories like teeth, Paray's snapping surgeries free of anaesthesia, or mercy.
It imagined there were others as Itself. Though It knew not with any certainty, as It knew not how long It had been here, how many Dreamers It had seen, where It started, where It was. It was only that. It was. There was now. There were Dreamers and dreams. They, like Paray's appearance, existed in constant change. Aside from the two, everything else stayed the same.
That was of course, until she passed.
She moved with an unknown ease. A marlon through the sea, a dove through a cloud. In the form of black flames, Paray smouldered a suffocating Dreamer lost in his home's fire. She waltzed through the inferno, through the dream, unto the one ever over, as if it were nothing. Passing with a small smile and wave for Paray.
Its curious gaze followed her walk. She moved through the scene as if it was as routine and irrelevant to her as it was Paray. With a snap of its meaty claw Paray sent the Dreamer tumbling to their bed and followed after the peculiar illuminated figure.
In her wake It watched as she constructed as she stepped, mountain tops, gardens, rivers, adding to the dreams she strode through, curating Edens of her own. The Nightmare took off at a gallop, catching her stride. Without turning to look at Paray she introduced herself wearing the same coy smile. Her name was Luci.
Paray was perplexed. Until then there had been only one It'd met in this capacity, with this calm. An small old man who'd visit on occasions, questioning Paray, unintimidated by Its morphing. In his robust accent from the alps the man would repeat Paray's answers, to remember for his writings. Luci's eyes shared the same vibrance, cast the same reflections. A purity poured from every blink of her eyelashes. She asked for no insights, no mercy, no salvation. It was as if she wanted nothing from Paray, but to be around Paray. They simply walked. They looked. Exploring in awe the scenes their strides created. At times there was silence, at times there were sentences. Luci never pried, she listened, she questioned only to understand. Around her glow Paray's changes slowed. Her every step beckoned It to follow forward- as if Paray could do anything but.
Luci moved like a spell, like Paray, though how, It had no idea. In Its entire existence Paray's form had been in perpetual change, forever shifting. Never, however, had It experienced a shift from within. Nor had It felt such flourishing feelings. Feelings that mirrored the iridescent shimmers surrounding the little source. Pure little Luci couldn't help but laugh at her new companions awkward awe. Paray had seen the strength of Dreamer's imaginations, but never one with an ability to orchestrate with the same degree of control that It could. Her movements, choices, and creations were dazzling. Together the Light and the Shadow travelled.
The further they stepped, the more Paray lost touch with the ground. Until at the peak of a mountain, whilst taking in an astounding view Paray felt Its stomach plummet. Reality's floor dropped the moment they dove into one another's eyes. For the first time in Its existence, Paray was seen and saw Itself, as Itself, and was accepted, as only that. The wind whistled a golden melody,
and Paray fell.
Down,
down,
down
all while standing in front of Luci. The sensation was terrifying. It marked the first time Paray ever experienced the dread of the free-falls that It often sentenced Dreamers to. It marked the first of many feeling's Paray was experiencing. She reached for It's hand. Wrapped within her finger's Paray's form fell still.
Memorized within their shared stare Luci began to lean in, then halted. Confusion cracked her serene composure, Luci's mouth opened but before a question could dance through her lips a shattering sound drilled forth. Her hand flew from Its fingers to her face trying to silence herself, but the relentless siren cut through unimpeded. Her eyes swam in a sea of panic, pleading against the pulsating texture, and Paray knew only that It was losing her.
There's no flash. No bang. Without ceremony or goodbye she was gone. There, then not. Paray stayed, frozen in disbelief, and howled.
That wraps Part 1 of the 3 part series Night Mirrors! Be sure to check out the prelude, Sowed, and catch the next
Thanks for reading, and- stay tuned!
-Mr. Write