The Dreamscape - Part 3

The blurry vision began to fade as Ryder awoke slowly, groggily from his knocked out state. As he came to, he saw a figure in the distance that looked so familiar. He couldn’t think straight, his head was spinning. It took a few minutes for him to fully awaken and become aware of his surroundings.

The stone floor was cold, damp. It was dark and the only light within the room was from a few torches hung up on either side and one over the big wooden door across the room.

Then, he looked up and there she sat, the one person he hadn’t seen in over a year. The one he had tried to will into existence so many times. The one that never showed up.

Alice.

She was physically abused, beaten, and her skin looked burned. Ryder’s face fell, he was in shock. Seeing his very first imagining in such brutal shape. It was heartbreaking.

Tears welled up in his eyes. As he lunged forward to reach out to help her, he was just as quickly pulled back, as he realized chains on both of his wrists confined him to the wall.

“Alice!” he called, the first tears running down his cheeks.

There was no response.

“Alice, pray awaken!” he spoke again, desperation in his voice.

Alice stirred, pain stricken face apparent. “Ry...der…” she whimpered through an exhale, trying to move through the pain to become as comfortable as possible.

“Gods, Alice, what happened!?” he questioned. He repeated himself a moment later as Alice hadn’t responded as quickly as the worried frei wanted.

After a few moments of silence, Alice was able to lift her head and open her eyes enough to speak. “I...have been...imprisoned here,” she spoke between breaths. “Everyday...fire...it...burns.”

Ryder then realized something he had never realized before. His mind instantly went to a dream he had back in October of 2017. Trying to remember his dream, he recalled it had been a girl in a blue dress with long blonde hair looking out a window to view nothing but flames. That girl...was Alice…

Ryder bawled. He couldn’t help it. It all dawned on him at once. Alice had ‘left’ him back in 2017, nearly two years ago, and now he realized that she wasn’t gone because of anger from him, but she had been locked up in this hell, unable to get out.

“How did you get here? Was it Erryd?” Ryder asked through wails, pulling away from the wall, unable to comfort his best friend.

Alice, shaking from the pain, shook her head negative. “It was you, Ryder,” her voice low, pained.

Ryder shook his head. “Never! I would never do such a horrid thing, Alice! You must know that!”

Then, it hit him, the exact words that the voice spoke of back in his cell, “Erryd is apart of you...you did this to me and yourself.”

Ryder’s tears continued to fall as Alice slumped back down. She was in so much pain and Ryder could almost feel it himself. His heart was broken. He realized that the voice was right. Erryd was always a part of him, just like Alice, just like every other imagining he had ever created. They were all apart of him. The good, the bad, and the ugly. It was no wonder why the voice, and now Alice, were blaming him for doing this to them, albeit unconsciously. It was his fault, and he slowly began to realize that as he stared across the room from his dying best friend and most wondrous imagining. He didn’t have control over his powers, he didn’t have the confidence, nor the strength to keep this from happening.

What broke the silence was the voice of his imagining once more. “Ryder, will you do me a favor?” she asked.

Ryder blinked a few tears away as he spoke, “O-of course, anything.”

“Please, just give me one last walk through Aetherealm before we both die.”

Ryder shook his head, “We are not going to die here, Alice. Pray, do not speak such a way.”

“Ryder, please...just tell me a story where we all live. Where things go back to the way they used to be. Where life is easy, magic comes freely, and we all live happily ever after.”

Ryder sniffled, rubbing his face into his shoulder to dry some of the tears and sat back against the wall in defeat. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t go to Alice and comfort her or even try to make her feel better. He was stuck there. He had no other choice. “Yes…”

And so the story began…

“Once upon a time, there lived a young girl who wore a dress of blue and white with a crown of roses. With locks of long flowing blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. She found herself frolicking through a meadow one bright sunny spring day. The sun rays warm, kissing her skin ever-so-softly. She made her way through the field of bright blue and gold flowers only to stumble across a small creek through the trees nearby and heard its soft burble. She followed the path down to the side of the creek and found herself env-”

The frei was cut off suddenly by the creaking of the wooden door across the room. It opened slowly, and silence befell the room. Behind it’s large frame was someone Ryder was all too familiar with. The colossal man who beat him every day when he was back in his cell. He came in, chain whip in hand dragging along the floor behind him, clanking metal against the cobblestone piercing the frei’s ears. The sadness he felt turned to rage as he glared at his nemesis.

As the giant began to slowly make his way towards the center of the room, Ryder noticed Alice’s demeanor change. She was weak, but her eyes widened as she gazed upon the man in the center. She shook with dread as he turned towards her.

“Hey, hey, HEY!” Ryder called angrily.

The man paid no attention to the frei, but kept his attention directly on Alice. He brought his hand up above his head and quickly let out a roar as his chain came down across Alice’s body. She let out a yelp of pain. Ryder screamed. “STOP! STOP IT!” To no avail. The man lifted his arm again, Alice squirming as much as she could to try and lessen the painful blows that were surely to come.

Ryder fought through tears and anger. This was his last straw. He was going to make it through this, and so was Alice. He closed his eyes, balled his fists and imagined the chains keeping him locked against this wall gone. As he opened his eyes with a look of determination, the chains burst into a plethora of rainbow pixels. His rune sparked, glowing a deep red, something that hadn’t happened at all during his time in this place.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Ryder screamed as he flew as fast as he could into the back of his adversary.

As Ryder tackled the man, he burst into millions of pixels all rainbow in color, just like the chains had moments prior.