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22. Fireafy - Into the Dreamscape

hi. this shits from 2018. just found it in my phone notes it is literally 4 years old and for some reason I didn't post it
I think it was meant to be a full story at one point but I can't remember what I was gonna do with it

Since the day he first encountered the surrealism of sleep, his dreams had been garbled messes of nonsensical memories, a pattern of patches haphazardly sewn together. He was about five, maybe five and a half, when all that stopped, and he met Her.
She'd appeared in a faded green dress with a streak of chartreuse down the front, bobbling along on grubby bare feet. He befriended her, and she him. She'd attracted him to her at first by saying childish little things like "let's play together!", or "come with me to the swings.", but as time went on the friendship seemed a little too real to him.
"They'll come and get me. They always do here. That's how it is." she'd told him, screwing the sole of her foot into the dust.
"Who?" came the question, mellow with sleep.
She stopped fiddling with the brown, gnarled twig in her hands and looked him straight in the eye.
"The Nosferatu."
"The - what?"
The innocent little girl went back to twisting her stick into the mud.
"The undead. Our most hated enemies. That's why you're here, right?" she asked, sunnily, as if nothing were wrong.
"But you don't exist! I'm the only real one here. This place is fake. You're fake. I created this!"
The girl looked hurt, glancing at him with a wounded expression, and snapping the twig in half.
"I'm real. This is all real. You might just not be from round here. This place is called Goiky." she told him, sweeping her arm around at the flat, featureless plains of grass behind her. He turned to gaze upon the green nothingness spreading its thick fingers over the horizon. As he thought of other questions to ask her, he quickly realised he had never asked her name.
"What are you called?" he asked tentatively, afraid to make eye contact lest she mention the Nosferatu once again.
The girl snapped one of the halves of her old twig, creating a sickening crack.
"Leafy. You?"
"Firey."
"What a handsome name!" she smiled, giving a tinkle of laughter like sleigh-bells.
Unable to suppress a small blush, Firey was suddenly dragged by his sleeve over to one of the climbing frames to play games once more, dream feet skimming over the false land.
The strange thing was, Leafy returned again and again. Goiky never altered; it was always the same endless expanse of grass, and the playground was never left warped or bent in any way. It almost seemed genuine. Firey would have the occasional nonsensical two-horned nonsense dream, mixed in with his play dates with his imaginary friend. His friend who seemed oh, so real.
"They come tonight." Leafy had told him, her eyes glowing with an unnatural emerald light. The fire they had lit next to them crackled menacingly, lighting up half her face as if it were a waxing crescent moon.
"Them? The Nosferatu?" Firey had asked, pulling his knees under his chin in a subconscious attempt to protect his vital organs from whatever might be put there.
Leafy poked a small beige frond of dried grass into the blaze.
"Why are you even asking?" she wondered out loud, not once taking her vision away from the smouldering fire in front of them.
"I -" Firey began.
"The Nosferatu are all I talk about. How they're all around. How they plan to attack."
She paused, opening her mouth as if to say something else, yet suddenly deciding against it. She reached around for an unseasoned log from the pile she was sat in front of, and placing it carefully atop the fire, trying to create as few sparks as possible. She stared at it as the droplets of moisture still imprisoned inside from when it was a real tree bubbled up in boiling foam from the surface of its smooth bark. Suddenly, she stared Firey straight in the eyes in an unnerving way.
"I don't want you to come here tomorrow night."
"Why not? I want to see you! I'll miss playing with you and exploring this whole place." Firey shouted in petulant indignation, throwing a rock into the embers. "It's... it's not like I can die here! You don't exist! You... you - don't exist. This place isn't real. I'm talking to my own mind! I'm so..."
Strands of his flaming red hair looped around his fingers as he raised his palms to his head in exasperation and confusion. He felt like sobbing into his own pillow. He wanted to flee back into the real world and forget all about Goiky and who he'd met there, but then again he would've hated nothing more than for that to happen. He just couldn't find an option. He wanted to stop existing, even if just for an hour or two, just to escape, just for a bit...
And still Leafy stared at him through her jewelled eyes.
"I'm as real as you are. Just... positioned differently. On a different plane. This is the plane. Your mind has made you visit it. Even if you're not physically here."
"So..." Firey realised, slowly piecing together what his friend had just told him. "I'm here in spirit only? My body is still in my house? In my bed?"
Leafy nodded.
"I think so. If your body isn't in your bed, it's because you've fallen out or are sleepwalking. When you leave and wake up in your world, I just see you kind of fade away. Sometimes you just pop out of existence. Even now you're a bit fuzzy around the edges. And I can't quite touch you."
Her small fingers curled towards his chest. With a sharp gasp, he noticed that the digits passed partially through his skin before he could actually feel her touch.
"You're not quite asleep, so your consciousness is out of alignment."
Utterly shocked, Firey sat there gawping like a fish out of water. How could this be true? How could his own mind create a system so intricate, and how could he struggle to understand what Leafy was telling him if he himself had made it up? It didn't make sense. None of it made sense. He needed time to think.
"Sleep is supposed to be rest." he whispered, retreating into himself. "I'm not supposed to have a life outside of life."
He could sense his soul returning to his body, his real, flesh and bone body. He could feel the wash of the colliding universes, dimensions falling through the clutter of his mind. The swathes of grass morphed to the rough friction of bedsheets beneath his feet and palms, and the cushion of a pillow could be felt beneath his head.
"Don't come back!" he heard Leafy say, her voice echoing full of unshed tears and emotions. "Don't come back!"
As always, he heeded her words.