Vivid (BoyxBoy) {Pipe Dream: Book I}

Chapter Forty-Two: Treehouses in Switzerland

"Kae," Seth calls for my attention. I stop and turn around, realising that Oz and his ship was pulling up into the sky, leaving us abandoned here. Fenir was pulling up the rear, looking around as if he was expecting something to jump out at us, any second now. "Before you go charging off, put this on." Seth came towards me with a tiny headset with a small microphone.

I place it on, earning a confused look from Lady.

'I can talk to them without being near them.' I try to explain.

'As Dreamer does with Lady?'

'Sort of. I still need to talk with my voice.'

'Speech is confusing and harsh. Voices lie. Say something then does another. Cannot listen. Forgets.'

I can't really disagree with what she's getting at.

'Not a lot of people can do what we can.' Other than my sister...and to some extent X, I haven't met anyone who can read thoughts like a newspaper.

Lady snorts and instead looks around. I realise that she isn't fascinated with the snow as she was with the made up rainforests.

"Seen and felt white rain before. Not as pretty...' She sent a strange image of darkness and the same squelching noise from snow underfoot. But it was accompanied with wire-cut tension and a feeling of being haunted by shadows that I was no longer shivering because of the freezing cold that's numbing my nose.

"It doesn't look like any Storms have hit here." Seth's voice again pierces the quiet air.

I don't stop this time while replying, "No. But everyone would have abandoned most of the municipalities around here for Zurich when the Disaster came about. It probably got even worse when they got a Tower." Fucking Towers and their fences. "...But we saw miasmic beasts roaming the countryside every now and again when we were here last time. And I can't say if any Nests have popped up in the area..." I look over at X who was watching the night sky.

We came to the first line of the tall dark evergreen trees that acted like a barrier to the forest. I couldn't help wanting to rush into it quicker. A few meters in, I knew exactly what I was looking for. In the tree tops was a series of platforms, ropes and rotten wooden bridges that would have been impossible to find unless you knew exactly what you were looking for. I followed the 'sky roads' as Mum called them and came across the main treehouse.

"This looks awesome!" Seth breathes.

"It was our treehouse."

"Tree mansion more fucking like it!"

The treehouse was set over a number of levels in about ten different trees together with a number of platforms, ladders and stairs set amongst them. My brother and I would explore the five different rooms and the sky roads for weeks if we were left to our own devices. A main walkway was hidden behind the outragous project of my grandfather had worked on for years. It was a simple ladder that came down if I pulled on a rope. I'm hoping that it hasn't snapped or rotted as I reach for it. Sure enough, even with a number of the ladder steps broken, it still falls to the groups with a solid thud.

I climb the ladder, hoping that it won't break under my weight.

"I'm going to scout ahead." Fenir mutters, walking passed below me.

"The house isn't too far from here."

"I'm not going towards your house," he answers back briskly.

I pause in my ascent as I watch him head out deeper into the forest. He looked as though he was following one of the rope roads that headed towards a tiny outpost some forty meters away.

"I think he's impressed," Seth states below me.

I get to the top, onto a platform in front of an open, half rotten door, "My grandfather was obsessed with making things." I call back down.

"I'll say. I'm going to look around down here, in case of anything decides to pop up."

I look down and see Lady a little distressed, 'Can't follow...'

'Sorry Lady...I'll be down in a minute.'

'...Will wait. Lady knows where Dreamer is. Is better to know. Will watch. Lady will tell Dreamer if bad things come.'

'Thank you, Lady.'

With that I realise that X had followed me up here. I walk towards the open door, careful of the creaking wood beneath my feet, expecting to fall through at any moment with the creaking some of them gave off. "This was a secret hideout that my grandparents extended every year we came here. It started off with just this room but then...it became this monstrosity."

Looking inside the room, it was just as we'd left it. A small fort made from blankets that were now eaten away. Two hammocks were once hanging from the corners of the room but had fallen from their hooks in the last decade and now lying on the ground in a heap. I head over to the blanket fort, kneeling down to see if the bear I accidently left behind was still there.

Sure enough, the mottled bear was sitting down next to the drawing I didn't finish when we were told to get moving since we were going back to America since Markus was going to be born. I reach for the bear and pull it close to me, sitting down to get more comfortable. "We were in a rush and I forgot him. It was the last time I saw my grandparents as well. This was what they gave me when they first met me. They actually went all the way to Ireland and my Grandfather hated flying."

X pulls out the picture. It was a crude drawing of...something in red and yellow crayons. "You were worth it for him, Kae."

"I forgot that any of this was here." The bear felt so fragile in my hands, some of the fur fell away like dust where I had grabbed him. "I guess nothing really matters when the world literally ends."

He puts the picture down. "You're chasing something that matters to you right now, even when the world 'ended' ten years ago." He takes the teddy bear from my hands, using his thumb to push some of the blue and cream fur out of its black bead eyes. "I just think that...what you valued shifted when the world changed. You had to cast aside what...you could materialistically value..." he reaches to touch my face with a free hand, "You had to cast aside your child self a lot sooner than most would. It's something you sacrificed so that your younger siblings could feel safe."

I couldn't stop myself from putting a hand over his, "What about you?"

"Me?" He frowns a little, not really sure about my question. "I was never given the choice whether to cast aside the Old World self...I do not think it ever existed."

That seems so sad.

"It is not something I can grieve over if it never existed. I am here, now. I can...protect the 'you' now...with the 'me' that exists now." He tilts his head again, listening to whatever ghosts he can hear. "Before does not matter. What I value is you, Kae." His was dead serious. I don't think he even had a joking bone in his body. "Past, present, future. The Kae you are and will be. They are what I can value. I can make that choice to treasure you." I feel myself caught in a trance as I reach up to his face, my eyes unable to look away from his face...his mouth...

I feel myself leaning forward, my eyes close on reflex as my lips come against his. They were soft and strangely warm despite the freezing cold around us. At first I felt him tense at the contact but he soon relaxes, responding in kind. The silence around us made me forget for just a second that anything else existed. That there was nothing else that I wanted more.