Wednesday August 16th, 2017
The exercise:
Almost back in the first half of the month, we're returning to The Dream Kingdom today.
Work went fairly well today. Blue skies returned for another visit, which helped a lot. Kind of forgot how hot the sun is when it's not being filtered through a nice, dense layer of smoke though.
Better get this done before sleep wins yet again.
Mine:
Dylan woke to the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He opened his eyes slowly, feeling dirt and tree debris falling away from his eyelashes, and found himself flat on his back looking up at misshapen trees.
No, not misshapen, he realized. Broken. By me. By my fall.
He sat up carefully, groaning as pain shot up his arms when he pushed himself away from the ground. He looked down at his hands and saw that his fingers were still bleeding from where the flying carpet had punctured them.
Stop it, he thought firmly. Stop bleeding.
To his surprise, they did just that.
"Huh," he said. Or tried to. Mostly he just mumbled out bits of the terrain he had landed on. He spent a few moments spitting and wiping his mouth clean. "Bleh. What's that noise?"
The hammering of his heart was still loud in his head but he had finally noticed that there were other sounds nearby. A grinding cacophony was coming from his right, along with what sounded like a waterfall. As he got up to investigate a surge went through his body and he wondered if he was going to faint.
He remained conscious, though he swayed unsteadily for several seconds. Once he felt mostly confident that he could walk, he began to do so. The pounding in his head was unrelenting, and now it felt as though wild electricity was shooting through his veins.
When he reached the crest of the hill he looked down to see an escalator, of sorts. He shook his head to clear his vision but the severely out of place contraption remained. Shortly after that he realized that Olivia, Josh, and Nystor were riding up toward him. He raised his arm to wave to them but then one of the armed statues behind them came to life and began climbing after them. And then another. And another.
"Watch out behind you!"
The three turned and he could hear his friends scream. Maybe Nystor did too. Dylan knew he had to do something to help them, and fast. He looked down at his empty hands.
"Sword." He said it with a confidence that felt out of place in that strange landscape and he felt a tingling like electric shock in his fingertips. Nearly instantaneously a long, heavy sword flickered into existence in his right hand. "Lighter," he grunted and it became easier to hold. He looked toward his friends again to see there were now six armed statues pursuing them. "Another sword."
Armed with blades in both hands he took a deep breath. Just before he began to descend he remembered to imagine one more item into place.
"Armor."
