Dream Blood

Peel back the bark of the Acemeir tree and you’ll find the faintest traces of a sticky red sap. The ancients called it dream blood and revered the trees for their ability to transport lost souls to a place where they might discover answers, or, more probably, remain lost forever. For some, it held another possibility, and it was this chance, however slim, however brief, that had led to his desperate search.

It was a search that had consumed his mental and physical resources and taken him down a route he knew would haunt his future. But desperation is a powerful force, and one that had eventually opened doors he should never have known existed; doors that had terrified him; but which had been the only route available.

He would worry about the cost later. 

He sheathed his knife and examined the tiny graze he’d managed, with excruciating slowness, to work into the ancient, gnarled bark. Was it tinging red? Perhaps, or perhaps it was merely a trick of the light played by the sinking sun. He’d expected to see droplets of red forming on the trunk’s surface as dream blood escaped the tree’s guard; but knew now he was going to be disappointed. Perhaps the search had been in vain; the tree too old and withered to produce its potent drug. But perhaps not. He bent his face to the graze, pressed his lips to it and sucked. Nothing. He licked his lips and used his hand to spread the moisture over them. And tried again. Again, he felt nothing. 

He stood, feeling the hopelessness of the situation slowly envelop him in its cloying, suffocating embrace. His feet rooted him to the ground, but instead of feeding him, as roots should, they drained his energy and determination away. He watched the efforts of the last months soaking away through the soil beneath him and slumped slowly, the tree supporting his back, to the soft grassy bank beneath. 

As the world teetered and he tried to steady himself, he noticed the faint red streak on the back of his hand.

He awoke to the sound of a stream, and light blinding his eyes from a sapphire-blue sky. He was standing on a narrow path between peaceful hedgerows; a faint smell of sea in the air. He knew where he was! Ahead of him the hedges would open to reveal a large grassy area to the left. And to the right, would be, his mind hesitated, a cliff, and below that a sea wall that edged a quiet beach; a battlement against infrequent storms. There was no way up from the far end of that beach, he remembered; he needed to follow this higher path and find the huge globe that stood above the next bay. From there, a narrow grassy path would lead him down along a lower ledge. Eventually, that ledge would become a path that meandered down the cliffside to another beach. But he didn’t need to go that far. 

The route was clear; he just needed to get beyond the hedges; the hedges, and the diminutive figure that now stood on the path ahead of him. No more than two feet high, wearing a red vest and a floppy jester’s hat, it should have been amusing. But childhood terror, still too familiar, gripped him. Knowing it was remembered, the dream demon smiled its cold tormenting smile, and drew attention to the box that always accompanied it. The box resembled a tombola drum, with perhaps eight sides, perhaps more, each painted with a gaudy image; a different nightmare selected for him as if at random, but in reality, by the hand that drove the box. The box was just a torment; a way of extending the dread. It didn’t matter how many sides there were; as the tombola spun, the images would change to reveal a seemingly infinite, yet oddly familiar variety of horrors; ghostly shadows, monsters, children with snake’s eyes, rats, a tower. It always seemed to him, in retrospect, that the tower had been the worst, and the nightmare that had been selected by the demon with haunting regularity. A dark staircase he had been condemned to climb, round and round indefinitely, with no way to turn back, fear and darkness expanding with every step. He had never discovered what lay at the top of the tower; never confronted whatever dark horror lay around that final twist of steps.

He recalled all this in the time it took the demon to grasp the handle on the side of the box and begin his slow, methodical cranking. When the box stopped, there would be no escaping whatever nightmare confronted him. It began to turn faster; the nightmarish images becoming a blur of black, red, yellow, sometimes luminous blue. Until abruptly, the demon released the handle. The rotations slowed and the images regained fleeting shapes; a raging black river, a raven. Still it slowed… the tower! It was next, and the box had almost stopped tumbling. The tower hovered before him for a moment before the rotation continued past two more sides; and the demon smiled again. Not tonight it seemed. 

A bell, a mountain ledge…

He was in a cave. But there was light. Every few metres, a torch flicked shadowy yellow pools on the rugged, damp walls. It was silent apart from the occasional drip of water; but he knew it would not remain so still. He moved on reluctantly, the familiar creeping horror filling his stomach and airways. There it was; the first scurry of movement. The first cockroach, a small red one, scuttled across the path ahead of him. Soon, he knew, the cave floor would be a writhing mass of the things. His stomach churned in anticipation of the crunch of their hard-candied shells as avoiding their swollen numbers became impossible.  

He could change this! The realisation hit him with force. He could change it. The dream demon’s powers had weakened with age, or perhaps it was simply that now there was a greater fear that pulled him in another direction. He couldn’t, shouldn’t be here; this wasn’t the way. He needed to get to the globe.

The cockroaches were still massing; the rustle of their legs against the stone and each other a constant background music to his breathing. But there was a thin thread of path between them. And now a faint light at the end of the tunnel. He focused on it, noticing that as the light became stronger, the sound below him faded. He ignored the whisper of sensation on his legs; if he didn’t look, they would not be there; they would not be desperately swarming over his feet, pulling him back to their version of reality. The light ahead expanded, revealing a hole, and beyond it the green of summer grass. He stumbled on, now dragging his legs through a knee-deep mass of moving shells. The sound that had diminished, erupted again. He would not look down; if he did not look, they had no power. It was only the crunch of candied sweets he was hearing; just the wind from the exit ahead he was feeling. He would not look. 

Almost there. With one final effort, he threw himself at the tunnel’s exit, and the light, and landed beyond it in soft-green meadow. The cave closed behind him, dragging its scurrying inhabitants back into the half-light. 

The grass beneath his hands was damp and spongy. Very spongy. He struggled to his feet, and the ground gave. It was as though he was standing on a flimsy trampoline that barely supported his weight, whilst below lay hidden dangers; peat and bog that could absorb him whole and leave him drowning forever in darkness. 

Clear your mind! A rational thought poked at him from somewhere; a tiny part of himself that remained detached, objective. Focus! He tried to ignore the squelching movement and took time to take in his surroundings. Behind him, where the cave had been, there was now just the hard face of a cliff. To his left in the distance, a forest. Ahead of him, the same spongy ground vanished into a haze of fog. He turned to the right; and familiarity beckoned. Only a few steps would take him to a stony path and that, he knew with absolute certainty, would take him to the globe, albeit from a totally new direction. He did not know how he had got here; perhaps the tunnel had been longer than he’d remembered. It didn’t matter; he knew where he was, and it wasn’t far. 

He stumbled, staggering against the increasing rise and fall of the grass below him. The path was close, but the ground was rolling more wildly with every second and, as panic rose in his throat again, he floundered on the grassy waves, sliding, stumbling and scrambling again to stay on top. The ground lurched again, more violently, and fractured, revealing empty chasms of blackness below.

He had one chance. He leapt desperately for the path. His fingers found the hard, jagged edge and he grasped it tightly, as the fragmented ground below him fell finally, perilously away. Hanging above nothing, he scrambled for purchase, the empty air beneath pulling his flailing body, the path’s surface scraping his elbow and its exposed edge cutting into his armpit as he struggled. Slowly, slowly, he swung his body and legs to the right, feeling the damp of blood from wounds to his hands and arms. Fleetingly, he found the edge of the path with his knee; but he slipped, almost losing his grip completely. Again! This time his knee landed, tentatively, on top of the path. He shifted his weight to keep it there and, struggling against the grasping pull of empty space, rolled over and onto the safety of its stony surface. 

Time was running out. He didn’t know how he knew. But he knew. 

He ran.

The realisation that the path was no longer beneath his feet hit him with force. He was running, suddenly lost, on an endless expanse of hard grey sand. He stopped and spun around, panting wildly in terror and confusion. He didn’t know where he was. 

Focus! 

The small inner voice called at him again. 

Count! 

He closed his eyes. One, two, three. He turned again, this time with deliberate slowness. The path was there, just behind him. He focused on it with every fragment of his soul and slowly, methodically walked back to it; to safety. 

He hurried on. Then stopped, realising again that he had lost the path. One, two, three. Find the path, slowly, slowly. Three more times he lost the path, three more times he recovered it, until, incredibly he could see ahead, the grassy headland and the slightest outline of the globe through the grove of trees that surrounded it. Filtered sunlight reflected off its surface. Was it made of gold? He could not remember.  

He moved cautiously. Even now, it would be too easy to lose the path. The voice in his head reminded him to focus; but that voice he realised now, was also a reminder that the threads holding him here were thinning. He needed to get to the hut; time was running out.

He needed to be fast, but focused. Keeping his eyes fixed on the globe, he tried to run across the grass. But something was wrong. His legs were like lead; the instructions from his brain muddled. He staggered a few paces, and almost fell from the exertion. Had he ever reached the globe before? It was so familiar and yet he could not remember.

Something was coming. He could sense its presence behind him but did not look; dared not look to see what, or who. He tried again to move on but, although the grass between him and the globe was flat, it was like trying to run through thigh deep mud. He felt the first tears of frustration draw a line down his cheeks as he fought against the weakness that beset him and the invisible force that held him. 

A quiet snap close behind, froze him to the ground. But still he did not look, even as a rush of air, or something worse, brushed his neck. To look would be to admit defeat.

Float. The thought formed from distant memory of an ability that had always been present, but so often forgotten. He raised his arms and felt his feet lift from the ground, an old feeling close to ice cold ecstasy wrapping his heart. Hovering, rather than flying, he began the drift across the hilltop, his feet gently paddling the air beneath him. Why did he always forget he could do this? 

As he crossed the glade, a small lake opened in the ground beside him, jelly fish leaping from its surface. A distraction; he ignored it, keeping his focus on the globe. He passed between the trees on the far side of the glade and, at last, his hand brushed up against the monument’s rough surface. He landed gently, careful to keep his hand pressed to its curved and splintered façade.

He looked up. The globe was huge and divided by deep etched lines into panels; it was these lines that shone gold. Each panel had once contained an image, but erosion had scarred and blurred them, so that only the briefest shadows of their past remained. 

It didn’t matter; he didn’t have time for the globe’s mysteries. His destination lay beyond it. Walking again without resistance, he carefully followed the globe’s curve, never once letting his hand leave its surface, until he saw the sign a little way beyond it, and the narrow entrance to the path that would take him along the cliff edge to his destination. 

Not far now. The realisation renewed his determination. He crossed the short distance to the sign and passed through the narrow gap in the brambled hedgerow. 

Flimsy clouds traced veils across the blue sky, and far below, the sea sparkled in a display of blue and green. He heard gentle waves brushing over the rocks at the foot of the cliff and, for the briefest moment, he felt comfortable; at home. He followed the path as it descended towards the sea before twisting abruptly to the left. Here it narrowed, at first winding between thorny yellow gorse that clung to the steep cliffside. A little further and he was free of their talons but the track, suddenly exposed, abruptly narrowed, to become little more than a shelf gripping the side of the near sheer cliff face.  

He hated heights! Still the path narrowed until it was mere inches wide. Panic threatened to suffocate him. But even if he could have admitted failure this close to the end, there was no space to turn now; no way to escape the path. Like a frightened child, he dropped to all fours and crawled forward, focusing only on the hard, rocky ground ahead and trying, desperately to ignore the pull of the drop to his right. It’s not far, his rational part reminded him. “It’s not far”, he said aloud, fighting hard for every breath. “Not far.” As he crawled, he repeated the mantra. “It’s not far”. “It’s not far”. Breathe, hands forward, pull forward, legs follow, breathe. “Not far, not far.” Breathe, hands, pull, legs, breathe. 

“Time is ticking.” 

The thought exploded in his head. Where had it come from?

He looked up. Above him, the dream demon’s face appeared over the cliff edge, followed by a bony hand that dangled an elaborate clock. “You’re not going to make it”. Its shrill laughter pierced the air.

He looked ahead. The hut was barely fifty yards away. “Yes, I am.” He staggered upright and crushed against the cliff edge, he glanced back up at the still-grinning demon. “Fuck you!” And then he ran, blindly, scrabbling and scraping against the ragged cliff. 

The shelf widened quite suddenly, to form an apron in front of the small hut that protruded from a natural nook in the cliff face. He stood, bending to refill his lungs with air, and regarded it. It was, as he remembered it; half cave, half cottage under a thatched roof, now blackened and green with age. A single openly doorway stood between two tiny unglazed windows.

He had made it! If he was not too late. 

“If you are not too late!” echoed a mocking voice from above. 

Inside, the hut was dark and musty. Ribbons of slimy green fern trailed from the boarded ceiling. A deep carpet of damp moss and fern had taken over the ground below in the time since they’d been here. Had they even been here together? He could not recall when. Or why this, of all places, was so important; he just knew this is where he had needed to come. The alien familiarity was tangible; this place was special, but for reasons he could not begin to recall or explain. 

The hut seemed empty, with no sign of life. He stood, momentarily lost; had it all been for nothing? 

It was then that he noticed a dark shadow in the far corner. It stirred; a deeper shade of black in the darkness. The demon? The thought terrified him, but he was compelled to move forward into the gloom, the distant part of himself urging him on. “Focus. It will be what it is meant to be, if you are not distracted.”

Holding his breath against the competing dreads that clenched his heart, he moved tentatively through the gloom towards the lingering shadow; whatever it was, whoever it was.

“Hello?”, he whispered. The shadow shifted again, drawing closer, and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, the outline of a face took form before him. Adrenalin pumped through his body; it was a face he knew. A face much like his own. 

“How are you here?” His brother’s surprise and confusion were obvious.

“I came to find you.” He’d heard himself say these words many times in the weeks and months that preceded this moment, but they emerged now choked and barely audible.

“Why are you here?” His brother insisted, sounding alarmed now. “It’s dangerous.”

“I’ve come to take you home.”

“Home?” Confusion mixed with something else. Hope perhaps?

“But we must hurry. Do you trust me?”

A brief silence hung between them. “Yes”. 

He held out his hand and felt a renewed surge of relief as his brother grasped it. He pulled him close and wrapped him in his love, whispering through the tears that fell freely down his face now, in loud sobs. “Come with me. Please. Please David. Come with me. I still need you.” 

His brother shook his head sadly. “I can’t. The tubes.”

He had not noticed the tangle of tubes that wrapped his brother’s body; how had he missed those? They weren’t important now, he realised. “You don’t need them here. Trust me.”

“I do! I’ll die.”

“No, not here.” Grabbing the knife from his belt, he slashed the first tube restraining his brother. And then, ignoring the fear and horror in his brother’s eyes, more of them. The tubes slumped to the ground. Briefly. Too briefly. As each newly cut tube fell, another writhed back from the ground and re-joined others to once more entrap his brother in ever more elaborate knots. He slashed again. And again, ever more quickly, the attack ever more frenzied. Again, again, again.

Suddenly, quite suddenly, his brother was free.

“Come on.” He grabbed his brother’s hand and dragged him towards the door and out. “We have to get back along there.” He pointed to the shelf he’d crawled minutes earlier.

His brother laughed suddenly. “You walked along there?! You’re terrified of heights.” 

“Well, sort of walked.” He smiled, and realised he’d not smiled in a long time. Grabbing his brother’s hand, he led the way, a new confidence burgeoning inside him. 

He looked back to his brother, still holding his hand. “It’s not …” But his foot slipped and suddenly he was falling, dragging his brother with him. It was not quite the sheer drop he’d thought; but too steep, too fast to find a handhold. His own hand hit a rock and, in that moment, his brother’s was snatched away. He fell freely. 

He hit the water with cold force and fell below into the choking, green, silent depths. He thrashed his way to the surface, once, twice before the weight of water became too much. Darkness wrapped its black shroud around him and dragged him down. Away.  

He had failed; he let go of hope, of life itself, and fell.

***

He was vaguely aware of the hand that grabbed his. He clung to it as it pulled him towards the light. 

They broke the surface of the water together; his brother still holding his hand. He gasped for air as his brother held him and then half-dragged him towards the shore. His feet found sand and they scrambled the last short distance together. They collapsed on the on the beach on their backs, side by side. 

“Thank you”, he whispered. His brother, rolled on to his side, looked at him, and smiled.

Beyond his brother, he became aware of a light at the peripheries of his vision. Time was almost up. He struggled to his feet and urged his brother to do the same. “We have to go. Now.” 

He gestured towards a door that had appeared a short distance up the beach. It was open. Stumbling, limping, together, they passed through it.

***

Gentle, urgent birdsong; a brush of something soft against his fingers; he opened his eyes to let in the soft diffused light from a pale blue, cloud-whispered sky. As awareness and memory poured back, he lifted his head and pulled himself up to sit on the grass, noticing how spongy it was, and how its dampness had penetrated his clothes. He turned to get his bearings. Above him, on top of the bank he must have rolled or fallen down, his rucksack and belongings still rested against the weathered tree. 

He had made it back.

At the same time, in an intensive care unit two thousand miles away, a man opened his eyes, and re-joined the world.