Tales from the Night - Sharing Nightmares

August 2066. Lejl wakes up after a passionate night with her girlfriend, only to spot one additional familiar silhouette lying in her bed, waiting for her in the first rays of the morning.

(Proofread and edited by Kaleb O'Halloran)

The first rays of sunshine filter through the blinds, harassing my eyelids and waking me up from my slumber. Just a second ago, I was there again, on that awful red sand. I can still feel the taste of iron in my mouth, the dryness of my lips, the scratches on my skin. But now I’m here, in the real world. I close and reopen my eyes a couple times, trying to get reacquainted with my surroundings. The bed sheets are a mess, a contorted, tied, chaotic bundle of fabric, barely caressing my skin. I groan, yawn a little bit. Good morning, princess, Cyphy would say – if she were already awake, that is. Instead, she’s still fast asleep at my side, snoring like a mountain bear. She isn’t wearing her arms, nor her earpiece, nor her usual pajamas. Hell, she isn’t wearing anything at all, to be frank. And I’m not either.

I smile. It was quite the memorable night. Maybe a little too much alcohol, and maybe a little too much teasing, and later a little too much... well, uh, intimacy with each other. I keep staring at her, at her glowing data bands filled with cute “z”s and sleepy emojis. I was so focused on her, back in that endless, crimson void. Every single one of my thoughts was about my Cyphr, about how much I wanted to be with her again, to hug her, squeeze her, kiss her. Now that I’m back from that nightmare and I see her sleeping so placidly, without a care in the world, I realize how lucky I am to have such a solid anchor.

I roll under the bed sheets, yawn a little bit more. Then, it strikes me. A scent I am still not completely familiar with – sweet and fragrant, but mixed with a weird smell of burning weed. I open my eyes, pointing them in the direction of the half-closed blinds. The rays of light pierce through, delineating a soft silhouette, revealing the long, brown hair of a girl sitting inches from me, under my same bed sheet, in complete and utter silence. A rusty peace medallion swings like a pendulum in front of her breasts, while she casually draws on a joint, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke through her thin lips. The sun plays with the particles, refracting the light around her in a strange halo. I lay still in contemplation for a long instant, without saying a word, almost as if I don’t want to break the spell. She sits quietly, calm and collected, savoring her blunt while wearing nothing but the light of the day and that weird, black medallion. Her eyes are almost closed, barely two slits, with no blindfold to cover them, not this morning. I manage to catch a glimpse of her ever-changing irises, shining in the dim, surreal atmosphere that fills our room. I keep gazing at her for a minute or so, at that feminine shape bathed in the morning aurora. Another puff of smoke, the acrid fragrance of cannabis reaching my nostrils again.

“Oi, you can stop pretending you’re asleep, Lejl.”

Her voice is weirdly quiet, almost a whisper, accompanied by yet another draw of the joint. I see her turn towards the window, towards the small openings in the blinds, her arms crossed, her back leaning on the cushion. I yawn, stretch my body for a moment, emerge from my cocoon of bed sheets.

“I wasn’t pretending.”

“Sure. And I’m really legally blind.”

A little too much alcohol, last night. A little too much laughter too, and too many innuendos. And maybe we shouldn’t have played strip poker together, but whatever. It was a girls’ night out, after all. Except it turned into something... a little more hardcore than we originally intended. Whatever the cause, nothing could change the fact that I was now sharing a bed with two other beauties, one being my girlfriend, and the other being this somewhat brash tomboy that we happened to be acquainted with. I stretch again, trying to make as little noise as possible. Cyphy is still deep in Morpheus’s arms, with a dumb smile on her face. If only she could see herself right now...

“Before you start making assumptions: it was a one off, alright? I don’t like playing third wheel to a lovey-dovey couple. This was an exception, and that goddamn Italian grappa was the only reason for it.”

That girl interrupts my chain of thoughts. Her voice is still quiet, but has shades of annoyance and amusement at the same time. I see her exhale yet another puff of smoke, against the light coming from the blinds. Her hair is as messy as it gets, but I bet mine looks the same, if not worse.

“Not to say I didn’t enjoy it, mind you. You two – that tall, armless bitch in particular – didn’t pull any punches, oi? And they say I’m the horny one, goddammit. That idiot Ange should really take a look at his fuckin’ daughter – or rather, at his daughter fucking – ’fore he starts judging me.”

I give a tired smile, while gazing at her silhouette once more. Yup, that’s Chai. Chai Constantine, in all her naked splendor. Too much alcohol. Too much laughter. One word uttered that shouldn’t have been... aaand here we are. I’ve learned something though: never get Cyphr above her drunkenness threshold, or there will be unexpected consequences. She’s already quite assertive when sober, but when she’s down three or four shots, she becomes a literal monster. I chuckle. The memories of the previous evening start reforming in my brain. The very same memories I held onto, while stranded under that bloodstained sky, walking in the darkness among puddles of ooze. It was hard, last night. My trip into that dead world lasted for hours, maybe days. It felt like an eternity, a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. What even is that place? When I was the Night, I thought it was just an illusory landscape on some dreamy layer of reality, something like a weird interstice between dimensions, where lost things fall when they wither or are forgotten. It was very convenient too, for moving in and out of reality when needed and cutting through space in the blink of an eye, much like running through a wormhole. However, in hindsight, I should have figured out that it was something more than that. That place is physical, it’s not a purely mental construct. That place had life, human life. Every night, every hour I spend there, I feel like I understand more and more about it. It is – or maybe it was – a planet very similar to ours. Some sort of apocalypse has befallen it, turning it into an eldritch, non-euclidean abomination (as an aside, I feel pretty smart for having learned what non-euclidean means). For some reason, I’m a part of it, even if I shouldn’t be. Or maybe my presence in this world is the anomaly? Mysteries I’d love to discuss with Cyphy, but the mere mention of it would make her dead worried. She can’t know about it. She can’t know that I’m still a prisoner of the Shadow Gallery.

“Oi, Lejl, you daydreamin’ over there? You’re stuck like a concrete ostrich.”

Chai has no regard for my train of thought. She just feels like derailing it again. I only hope she can feel my annoyance from my words alone, but I’m not sure if she’s that empathetic.

“I had a weird dream. A bad weird dream.”

I hear a chuckle, followed by another puff of smoke.

“Me too. And I didn’t like it in the slightest.”

I notice how she never turns towards me, keeping her stare affixed to the window, just barely glancing from time to time. She’s scared of meeting my gaze, of paralyzing me because of her Medusa eyes. I can feel that. Without the protection of her blindfold, Chai is more vulnerable than I thought.

“Oi, wanna share nightmares? My therapist says it’s helpful.”

“You see a therapist?”

“Once in a while. When I have suicidal thoughts, mostly. But I’m getting better. Streaming helped me quite a bit, yeah? BlindSeraphim is like my comfort persona. I fuck around – figuratively and literally – without having to find out, and for one hour or so just do the wildest things that come to my mind, without ever thinking about offing myself.”

A quiet sigh. I see her shaking her head wildly, her eyes closed.

“Forget about that, will you? I dunno why I’m telling you this, might be the weed. Anyway...”

“I was walking in a dead world, covered in sand and ashes.”

My voice is quiet, yet resolute. I feel like I’m starting to pull a weight off my chest. Chai falls silent, her eyelids ajar, her irises shining under the light of the aurora. I go on, breaking the silence again.

“Everything was red and black – the sky, the soil, the clouds. There were pools of ooze and tentacles, contorting like worms, dancing together. Strange insects too, with irregular, broken trajectories and a horrible buzz that made my skin crawl. It was cold, deadly cold, and I was nude, covered in blood, sand and bruises. Sometimes, I caught a glimpse of ghostly shapes that looked like human beings. Then, I saw buildings – a city, or what was left of it. It looked like the pictures I’ve seen of 2010s London, with all the same landmarks and such, just... in a total state of desolation. And in its center stood one peculiar figure. A tall shadow, as tall as the sky itself, with four shining eyes. I have met him before, in the past, in... other dreams. I couldn’t communicate with him, I have never managed to talk with him, but I could feel his bottomless sadness.”

I close my eyes, notice my hands are trembling. I curl into my own arms as my heartbeat accelerates.

“His sadness was... unbearable. A cry, a desperate cry for help, mixed with resignation. I lost my breath, lost my vision, my sense of smell, my equilibrium. I felt like I was consumed by a thousand mouths, torn asunder by countless fangs.”

I open my eyes again, see Chai close hers to avoid meeting my gaze. I breathe, slowly calming myself down.

“Then, I finally woke up... and saw you smoking weed in front of the window. In your birthday suit.”

“A tall shadow with four eyes...”

She grabs her peace medallion, looks at it in contemplation.

“I saw someone like that in my dream too. He was crying, wallowing, while thrashing at a pile of bodies, human bodies. And they all looked like... you know, the Donners. A pile of Donners, just under this crazy thing’s gaze, smashed and broken and pulverized, more and more after every hit. Some lost their hoods, and I could see their features, almost as if they were in front of me. Most had no face, just a mockery of a human being’s shape, but some did. And one had his face, that bastard LeJarme’s face! And another one looked like Martens! Yes, that Martens, for fuck’s sake! It felt unreal, insane, I was floating around like a goddamn camera, pointed at this broken mess of a gigantic shadow for the whole time, without being able to say a word, even though I desperately wanted to. In the end, I think he might’ve seen me, I’m not sure, but...”

She murmurs something to her trinket, whispering softly, then she kisses it.

“Oi, Lejl... if you ever meet him again, can you tell him he’s an awful dad? And that he was a dumb moron to go back to Shard? And that Misterkay is a stupid surname? And... and...”

I see something resembling a tear going down her cheek, as her voice cracks under her own emotions.

“...and that I miss him, even if only a little? Can you tell him? C... can you at least try?”

Chai breaks down into a soft, quiet sobbing. I don’t understand, maybe I could never hope to. Yet, answering yes doesn’t cost me anything.

“I will.”

“...Thanks.”

I don’t ask why, I don’t need to. We are adults, we all have our secrets and quirks. But, sometimes, just sharing a moment like this is enough to create a bond.

I hear a noise beside me, a yawn, a quiet movement. My little sleepy princess is finally waking up, the emoji on her data bands changing to reflect that. I chuckle, I find that function so cute. If she knew I activated it yesterday before we started our three-way tango, she would probably kick my butt to the ground... but that’s a risk I’m ready to take.

“Guten Morgen, little sunshine!”

“Shut up, Lalli... for just one more minute. This headache...”

“Oi, look who’s back in the land of the living.”

I see Cyphr’s body jolting, suddenly remembering what happened last night and where she is. Before she can say anything, Chai jumps out of the bed and starts opening the blinds, allowing the sun to finally pierce through the shadows in all its majestic glory, welcoming its rays into this small bedroom in a flat on Turing Avenue. Cyphr tucks herself under the bed sheet, groaning something unintelligible on repeat. I get nearer to her to try and put together the fragments of her speech.

“Cyphy?”

“Lalli... did we really...”

“We did.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

“Ach, du Scheiße! Das kann nicht sein! Das muss nicht sein! Heilige...”

I chuckle. I find her even cuter when she curses in German. I can’t understand a single word, but it’s still quite amusing. She emerges from the bed sheets, looking at me with what I can only describe as guilty puppy eyes.

“You should have stopped me!”

“Says the girl who was the first to fondle and french the both of us!”

I can hear Chai laughing from the other side of the room, holding back tears of laughter while avoiding looking at us.

“Oi, you two... are you two for real? I can’t believe it!”

She puts out her joint on her medallion, making it oscillate around her neck, her eyelids closed. In the light of the day, her blind smile is even more stunning. She can’t stop laughing, so hard that she’s shedding genuine tears of joy.

“We were drunk, and drunk stuff happens. As long as it happens just once, it’s pretty much okay, ’kay? Won’t make the same mistake a second time – that is, I’m never drinking booze with you two in the same room, ever again. Especially not with you, Cyphr. Hot damn, I have had my fair share of girl-on-girl action, but you were wild. Good thing Lejl detached your arms, or you wouldn’t have stopped boasting about their built-in vibration function for the rest of the night!”

Cyphr turns as red as a tomato, blabbering some muffled mess of an excuse. I chuckle, delightfully basking in that glorious sight. I’ve never, ever managed to make her feel like that, even when I’ve told her the exact same things, down to a T. But hey, I suppose when it’s another friend telling it to you, you can’t deny it as easily.

I jump out of the bed, without moving my eyes away from Cyphy’s mortified gaze, a gaze which is screaming now, how do I tell it to Ange? (The answer is you don’t, dummy!). In the corner of my eye, I notice Chai putting on her blindfold once more, while letting out a sigh. It must be annoying, never being able to keep your eyes free and uncovered. Maybe she could look for special contact lenses, but then the whole blind shtick would kind of get lost. I slowly walk through the piles of clothes on the floor, open the door to the living room as I turn back towards the other two.

“I’ll go make some breakfast. With coffee. A lot of coffee.”

“Oi, double for me. I have a contract kill to take care of later today, can’t go there half-asleep.”

I peek at Cyphr emerging from under the bed sheets, still flustered, but more in control of herself.

“Can you help me with my arms, first?”

Chai leans against the wall, claps her hands vigorously.

“I’ll do it.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. Last time you tried, you switched the left and right arms, no?”

“You know what, point taken.”

I smile at that exchange. My life has become so interesting, despite all the nightmares. Cyphy, Les Fleurs du Mal, Mr. Kissilmer, my beloved puppy Mr. Kramers, Jackson, Ange, Amy, now even Chai. If those dreams, those trips to that dead, forgotten world are the price for the happiness I’m feeling right now, so be it. Whatever happens, I’ll always walk forward, even when I’m lost in the dark, on that red, tainted sand, without a clear direction. It doesn’t matter how painful it feels. I won’t stop.

I’ll always, always find my way back to the people I love.