The Day My Dream Died

3 - Precipice

— 3 —

Precipice

//\\

Lise sits on the cliff's edge, looking over the landscape before her. On the other side of the ravine, the once sharp silhouettes of mountains soften imperceptibly into the heavy drapes of a storm cloud backdrop. Spots of red-gray stone lit by luminescent flora fleck the mountainside. How long has it been since the night transition? She caught glimpses of the moon as she walked but she'd already lost track of what cycle it was by the time she saw it. Well, it's all relative, isn't it? It shouldn't matter.

She leans over the edge, looking past her dangling feet. The cliffside disappears into the abyss. She tosses a rock, listening for it to hit the bottom of the ravine. The sound never comes.

"Oh..." Lise mumbles, looking at the layer of snow thickening around her.

Careful not to slip, she pushes herself back from the edge and stands. She will start her descent after she's slept again. She decides it wise to set a few traps first, however. There was a plant she'd seen up on the plateau that might attract bazoles. Sure enough, she catches sight of one of the spiny creatures feeding on the broad leaves draped beneath the olea bush. It skitters away when she steps into the light. She ignores it.

Contrary to common understanding, olea bushes don't glow like other luminescent plants. The light is produced by the julea beetles which hibernate inside its flower-pods during the night season. Julea beetles glow far brighter than any plant could alone. Lise suspects that they were the reason some day season plants are able to grow beneath olea bushes. This particular bush has dark blue flowers that cast the surrounding area in rich sapphire.

Lise touches the broad leaves the bazole had been eating from. They are limp, no strength to keep them off the hard stone. On closer inspection, this is a plant she recognizes. It was harder to tell because it is wilting beneath the insubstantial light. The reason it survived this long into the night season was because of the olea bush, but it won't last.

Lise sets her traps and retreats from the bush's light. Time to sleep.

\\//

As she slips into the undermind, Lise immediately feels a sense of relief. She didn't lose control of herself. All is still well. Well enough, anyhow.

What was hard stone in reality is softer, less substantial here. A realm of few colors, the undermind is painted by human perception. A place as sparsely populated as the plateau would appear gray and hazy, just the vaguest shapes represented. The reason it has shape here at all is because she took the time to traverse the area a little prior.

In populous regions, the undermind is far more representative of reality, but also hard and uncompromising. Here, Lise has far more influence, but nothing to balance her perception if it becomes distorted. It can get out of control quickly. That is part of the reason she decided to stop early, so she could get as good a grasp on the surroundings as was possible in the dark.

She starts walking. The olea bush glows pale gray, lighting the barren stone. It is the single feature rendered distinct here. She takes a moment to look at it, recalling its vivid color. As she turns to move on, her shadow is framed by blue light.

The cliffside is blurred around the edge, but still stable enough for her to approach. She closes her eyes. A bridge... A crude bridge stretches before her. It pops out of existence. She tries again, holding an image in her mind. Another bridge grows from the hazy stone, stretching over the bottomless ravine toward the mountainside opposite.

Her first steps are tentative, but she grows bolder when she realizes it is solid enough to support her. She frowns as the bridge falters, but presses on. How did Seli cross this terrain? Did she?

A distorted vision of a girl with fiends surrounding her, devouring her, appears in the air. Lise can almost hear her howls... The bridge vanishes.

Lise falls into the abyss, mouth opening to release a scream that never sounds. Any second she will hit the bottom. There is no time to react. Any second... She never hits the ground. What? Falling, hair pulling at her skin so hard she thinks the wind might peel her scalp away with it, she vanishes into deeper darkness.

Why is there no bottom?! Her panic is dull, distant. She turns her head to look at the sky, finding that the cliffside is stretching rapidly downward to accommodate this unreality. The answer clicks into place. I never heard the stone hit...

Snow. I didn't hear it because the ground is covered in deep snow. Deep enough that I would survive the fall. She holds that thought in her mind, breathing heavily. The bottom is right below me.

Suddenly, she crashes face-first into white. Darkness. Ouch. The pain is everywhere. I'm still here, though. She can't move. She struggles, but the snow is all around her, blinding. There is nothing for her to gain purchase.

The snow isn't actually this deep, Lise asserts. She pushes herself out of the now shallow snow, slowly standing. Her whole body aches with the pain of the impact. Her hands, still wrapped in bandages here, feel oddly numb by comparison.

Far above, the sourceless gray light casts a dim glow on the walls of the ravine. Now to get out... She considers giving up on this expedition, but knows she needs to see beyond these mountains. Feeling about her, she locates the cliff wall in the darkness. She leans against it, trying to think of a way to escape. Could I imagine the bottom was higher up? Perhaps a pillar to raise me?

She attempts both—both require more control than she has at present. A ladder? She looks down at her wounded hands. No, not a ladder. Stairs. No, a step. Yes, that should work. She forms the image of a step projecting from the stone. Gingerly, she steps up. It holds. She makes another and steps up onto that one. The one behind starts to fade the moment she stops projecting it there.

Lise can feel her internal meter depleting step by step, but she perseveres. By the time she reaches the top she knows she doesn't have long before she oversleeps. The mountain on this side is very soft, making it hard to stand on. She feels like she is walking into molasses when she first steps off.

Trudging through it would have been impossible as it was. She imagines the stone gradually hardening, and it begins to do so. It starts solidifying around her boots, but she manages to get free before it traps her. Atop the mountain at last, she gazes over the landscape before her.

A vast carpet of gray forest extends from the diminishing hills and mountains toward the horizon. Most of the land is insubstantial: trees appearing more rain-cloud than foliage; hills and mountains like suspended waves. One area stands out—a single solid space. A lonely red tower, a town of washed-out browns and grays spreading from it, pale green trees growing mistier further from the tower. Black haze hovers over it like a swarm of carrion clickers.