The Conjurer's Charm - The Dream Catcher series (BOOK 1)

6.1 || The Conjurer ||

Consciousness wasn't easily gained. His eyes had trouble opening although the light wasn't strong, as though his eyelids had somehow glued themselves together. All his ears could catch were the howling wind, some crackling like electrifying noise and the subtle sound of shaking trees. His back felt tiny tingles, all along from his neck till his feet that he felt as if he was on grass. His nostrils touched air neither hot nor cold, but peculiar to inhale.

It was hazy at first; blurred circles of green and white danced above him as his eyes opened serenely, and he couldn't tell where he was until he gradually gained his focus. Tall trees with caramel brown trunks towered over him, and their branches formed a woven canopy above. They were willow trees, beautiful ones. Their long droopy leaves suspended down from the high branches like thick mammoth fur. And above its interlocking boughs was the sky of a vague green.

Alwold regained his strength to rise on his back and scrutinized the strange world. He knew where the crackling noise came from—just above the roots in the trunk of every tree around him contained what looked like a swirl of hard fibres caging something bright and rushing inside it. It was hard to see what was raging inside this caged casket, but it was radiant and electrifying, like some chunks of light spinning furiously inside the cage struggling to get out. And its almost transparent leaves clinging on to the end of tapering branches no thicker than a strand of hair, some as though made of molten metal, fell to the ground and dissolved into it. Not a single dream had ever provided him with the perplexity to witness such strange trees, or perhaps this had to be the first one.

But he was stunned to his roots. He was able to think clearly and form thoughts. This was none like a dream but as if he was at an actual place. Alwold's belief in magical practices began to evolve. Might this have been because of that glass artefact? Speaking of which, it was nowhere with him. The panic of standing in an alien world overran every other thought.

This must be just another dream, he prayed. He placed his hand on his temple but jerked himself to stand up; he couldn't believe his eyes. He reached out his arms and studied them. They were blue and translucent; he could see through his hands at the swaying grass in blue. Looking down, the shock almost made him jump and hide behind the trees, because his legs were the same as his hands. But above his knees, it gave him an even stupendous shock to realize that he was standing naked, except that he wasn't exposing any of his privates because they weren't really there. A strange sensation ran from his head. He immediately ran his hands all over his body particularly in horror that more of his organs would've been misplaced, but found most of them by his touch.

He clenched his teeth, and he knew he had them. He ran his fingers above his mouth and found two wide lines that replaced his nose. He stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyeballs down, and it was there. He bought his hands to the sides of his head but found holes for ears. He brushed his palms across his forehead and above his head, only to find his hair delicate and incredibly soft, feeling as though they were standing on end and swaying like soft blades of grass inside a lake. This was when he wondered if he did teleport to an alien world or if it was just a lucid dream; Never had his mind allowed him complete control over his limbs and actions in a wild phantasm.

He rotated his head around, looking beyond the trees for any source of reflection — a mirror, a river, or even another person's eyes to see himself. But nothing except trees were seen near and beyond the reach of his eyes.

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He began making his way through the forest, peering beside the trunks of the trees every minute for anything at all that could help him. There was only one thing he needed—answers.

Maybe I'm dead, he thought. He looked like a dead spirit, with no skin and few lost organs, in a heaven he was sure different from the description he was taught, and he couldn't think properly too. The last proper memory with the true self he could remember was climbing a megalithic rock and removing an artefact from its place. Maybe he fell and knocked his head on the stones, or maybe the glowing object had electrocuted him, he couldn't tell.