The Wild Moon by Riley Storm

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I blinked, and I was somewhere else.

Somewhere familiar, but certainly not the forest in the valley northeast of Kellar. There were no trees here. No green growth underfoot. No fire. There was nothing.

I was back in the Wasteland, as I’d come to think of it.

“Come on!” I shouted angrily. “What is wrong with me? I wasn’t sleeping! I was wide awake, damn you. This shouldn’t be possible!”

There was no response as usual. I closed my eyes, waiting for the presence of Mr. Mysterious, the giant sex hulk I met on previous journey here. But he must have been busy because nothing happened. There was no change. It was just me.

Eventually, I opened my eyes, deciding maybe it was better if I didn’t blind myself in an unknown land. So far, Mr. Mysterious had come across as friendly, but I really didn’t know a damn thing about him, other than that my father had found a drawing of him somewhere. But that wasn’t helpful without a name.

I was on top of that same hill I’d climbed my previous visit. In the distance, the giant stone wall and gates rose high into the sky, towering over the bleak, blackened landscape. They were the only non-flat objects around, besides the little hillock upon which I stood.

“Fine,” I said. “If I’m stuck here, having a waking hallucination–is it even a hallucination if I’m fully aware I’m having it?–then I may as well go exploring.”

As I stared down the hill toward the gates, my boots crunched their way through the brittle landscape, rock crumbling to dust with each step, compressing an inch or two. Looking back, I could easily see my path. It wouldn’t be hard to retrace my steps to my starting point.

I walked for what felt like an hour, maybe two, toward the gates, but they never seemed to grow any larger. How big were they? They must be huge.

And what was going on back in the valley? Was Johnathan okay? Was I still standing face to face with Aaron? While I walked, I pondered how time might pass back there. Was this all happening in the blink of an eye? Maybe Aaron didn’t even know something was up.

Even as I thought about him, I felt it. The change around me.

“So, you are here,” I said, turning my head slightly to the side to speak behind me, even as I continued trudging toward the gates in the distance.

“How are you here?” the same smooth bass voice asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not,” I said cheerily, clomping along, step after step. “This is a dream. Except now I’m having one while I’m awake, which is really creepy, I have to admit. So, maybe it’s not a dream anymore. It’s a hallucination. I’m probably going crazy. That’s what it is. I should see a shrink. Maybe they can give me some pills, so I stop coming here. Not that I won’t miss our fantastic conversations and your complete and total lack of telling me anything helpful about yourself or this place.”

Something poked me in the arm hard enough to make me stumble.

“Not a dream,” Mr. Mysterious rumbled, moving up next to me with utter stealth. “You feel real enough to me.”

I noticed he didn’t leave any tracks in the ground like I did. Definitely a dream.

“Well, duh,” I drawled. “My dream. I control it. That’s why it feels like you really poked me. A part of my subconscious is creating that to try and fool me.”

“I am not part of your dream,” he rumbled, looking down at me, his long black hair falling forward over his shoulders.

“Then, who are you?” I asked. “Because it seems like you’re just some mega-hunk I dreamed up.”

I was conveniently ignoring the fact that I’d seen the picture of him in my father’s journal. There was an explanation for that, too, though. If he’d ever copied that picture somewhere, somewhere that I’d seen it, then it could just as easily have been in my subconscious waiting to come out.

It was a stretch, but what else was I supposed to think?

As usual, he didn’t respond to me. Just stared down from way up high, making me feel small.

“Exactly,” I said. “You’re Mr. Mysterious and nothing more.”

I started walking again. He moved to block me.

“Really?” I said. “Dream, remember?” I kept walking, telling myself I was going to walk through him or that he was going to move.

I rebounded off his chest. His very hard chest.

“Ow!” I yelped, clutching at my nose.

Mr. Mysterious stood there, unmoving, waiting.

“Okay, well, that didn’t work out as planned.” Pondering the situation, I nodded, stepped around him, and kept going. That worked.

“Where are you going?” he asked, falling in step next to me.

“There’s no place like home,” I said dryly. “I’m pretty sure if I dig past these crunchy rocks, I’ll find some yellow somewhere. Which means…shouldn’t you be wearing a pointy hat and cackling? Let me hear you cackle.”

“No.”

“You’re no fun,” I said with a falsely dramatic sigh. Shaking my head, I continued.

“It’s not safe to go this way,” the hunky hulk told me.

“Look around you, bub,” I said, not slowing. “There’s nothing but blackness, crunchy rock, that hill, and those gates. I’ve been to the hill already. Twice, in fact. It’s time I visited somewhere new. I need change. It’s good for you. Otherwise, you end up an old crotchety…whatever you are.”

Mr. Unknown looked at the ground for a moment, then back at me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t know how I’m here. But I didn’t choose this dream, hallucination, whatever it is.”

“Not a dream.”

“Fine. What is it then?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Oh, wait, let me guess. You’re just going to stay silent.”

“Danger is everywhere here.”

Now that got my attention. Danger everywhere? I hadn’t picked up on that. Other than the bleak sense of foreboding that a place as lifeless as this must have, it seemed perfectly normal. The danger was back in the real world, as far as I could tell.

“Danger?” I asked.

He nodded.

“From what?”

More silence, but I swear the depths of his eyes grew a little bluer. Not that I knew what that meant.

“Is the danger getting worse?”

He nodded.

“What can I do?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said without hesitation.

“You sure know how to make a gal feel helpful. So, if I can’t help, then why am I here?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his oversized head, sending his hair flying.

“Some scholar you are,” I muttered.

“We must go,” he said.

We? That was a new one. Since when had I been included in his calculations?

“Go where?”

Mr. Mysterious looked away, back the way we came, and his face tightened visibly, tugging at his features. He was worried.

“We’ve been here too long. We must go. Come.”

He reached out to grab me and–

My eyes flew open, and I sat up with a start, breathing heavily.

I was back in normal land. In my tent. My head whipped around sharply enough to give me a cramp as I heard sounds. But it was only Aaron, sleeping soundly next to me.

How the hell did I get back in here? Did Aaron bring me to bed? What happened to me?

Questions filled my brain, but even as I tried to reach out toward Aaron, to shake him awake, sleep rose up like a giant blanket, drawing me down. I yawned, my eyes drooping heavily.

No. I wasn’t going to let this happen. I had questions! What had happened to me? What about the rest of his team? Were they back? Where had they gone!

I had just enough energy to search out my Soulbond. It was pulsing inside me. Still there. Johnathan was alive, but the drumming was weaker.

Driven off. They must have driven him off…