Dreamscape: Saving Alex

Chapter Twelve

Walking beside Arrow rather than playing catch-up behind his manic pace was nice. Smaller details of the forest, which I'd missed on my own, took my breath away when he pointed them out. The woods teemed with beauty I had overlooked.

The delicate nature of this world grew on me. Increasingly, I found myself enjoying the beauty rather than comparing it to its two-dimensional equivalent. Some things just didn't transfer. I had seen only a fraction of this world, but I felt like I had lost out on so much over the years. Dreamscape was a pale imitation of Lockhorn.

"How do you know all of this stuff?" I asked as he pointed out the erratic patterns of pollen on the underside of dragon weeds.

"I grew up not too far from these woods. Once you get burned once or twice by dragon weed, you tend to take notice."

"Tell me about it." The burns were still fresh in my mind. He chuckled and reached up to pull some vines out of our way.

"Over the years, I've learned a lot from these woods. This, here," he said, folding up the cuff of his sleeve and pointing to a scar across his forearm. "That's from my first pet horned-bit."

"Pet horned-bit?" I asked. I'd never heard of such a thing.

"You laugh, but I was serious as a child. I begged and begged for a pet, but my parents refused."

"So what'd you do?" I asked.

"What any reasonable boy would do. I tried to tame one of these wild beasts on my own."

"No, you didn't!" I covered my mouth.

"Oh, I did. And as you can see, he didn't like it one bit. He rammed his horn right through my arm the first time I tried to pick him up. Sad to say, my days of pet ownership were very short-lived. Any time I asked again, all my parents had to do was point to my arm."

"Oh Arrow, I'm so sorry," I said, tracing the small scar that ran across his forearm.

"These woods, this world...it leaves its mark on you," he said solemnly. I didn't know what to say. There was a depth of emotion behind his words that I wasn't prepared to handle.

"Did you have any pets?" he asked, rolling down his sleeve.

"Flipper," I said with a smile.

"What?"

"Flipper. I had a rainbow fish when I was ten."

"A rainbow fish? That sounds like an odd creature. What happened?"

I looked up, searching for the memory, and frowned. I had almost forgotten. "My mom gave him away."

"Why?"

"Just another time she decided things for me," I muttered. "We were going on vacation, and she arranged for someone to take care of him. But when we got back, she didn't want to pick him up. She said life was easier without a pet. Less to worry about, less to clean. Like she had ever taken care of him." I rolled my eyes.

"Seems like our parents liked to think they know best." He rubbed his forearm. "That's sometimes the case, but not always."

"Not always," I said, exhaling deeply before meeting his gaze. "So what else would surprise me about these woods, besides the obvious danger and strange animals?"

"I never called them strange."

"A horned-bit; come on. Those are pretty strange looking, if you ask me."

"I never noticed," he said.

I shrugged. Maybe they weren't that strange to someone from this world. "What else?"