I’d do almost anything to keep that look on his face constantly.
I know I could ask the demons and they’d help us in a heartbeat. But part of me doesn’t want that. Part of me wants to find a way through this myself. But is that just arrogance? Just pride? Is it foolish?
I wonder about it as I eat my ice cream, as I take Adam for a swim at the hotel pool, as we order room service for dinner and I make him eat his carrots.
When I fall asleep that night, I still haven’t decided whether I’m an idiot or not for wanting to stand on my own two feet.
My dreams don’t seem to lend me any help. When I become aware of my dream, my feet are in the soft clouds, like usual. But I’m not in any garden. I’m not in Hell either. No beautifully scary or wildy random things surround me. There’s just…nothingness. The clouds rise and fall as far as the eye can see, a white smear across the sky. They’re still soft under my feet, they still give a bit of a bounce to my step, but they swirl up and down in peaks. It feels like I’m walking through a giant tray of meringue. Or maybe whipped cream.
My eyes float up to the blue sky and back down again to the clouds, and I wonder about all the stories that say God separated dark and light and all of that. Millions or billions of years ago, when people said there were only two things. Part of me wonders if the light and dark was really white cloud and deep blue sky.
The philosophical part of me wonders if I’m at the point of origin for the universes. The place that existed before the garden and before time. Immediately, Adam’s shows ruin my intellectual wondering, and The Land Before Time pops into my head. It’s this insanely old animated movie he found on YouTube about dinosaurs. It’s actually pretty cute.
I picture the little dino characters playing here, running around. And I start to see shadows in the distance.
At first, hope bubbles up in my stomach, and I think it might be Ziel coming to see me. I haven’t been able to find him in my dreams for what feels like forever. My mind rarely ends up in the clouds these days, so weighed down by heartache, which really isn’t fair at all, because I could really use his arms around me right now. I could use a hug, imaginary or not.
I watch the shadows grow closer, and as they do, they separate. I realize that they’re multiple forms—not a single person but several. And they seem thicker and taller than most people as well.
A breeze starts up, and my hair whips around me, the pink curls bouncing prettily, in a way they never would in real life. They dance in front of my eyes and then away. When they fly to the side, I realize that the shadows are suddenly much closer, moving much faster.
A horrid growl carries across the dunes of clouds between them and myself, the kind that sounds like a lion or a bear, like a predator who’s furious. Did…did they smell me?
Fuck.
I turn, and my legs start pumping as I sprint up the hill made of clouds. My eyes scan right to left, but there’s nowhere to hide. There’s only dune after dune of cumulus white.
Behind me, the snarls grow louder and closer. I feel the clouds start to vibrate underneath my feet, as if this is some kind of giant trampoline, and the movement of the monsters reverberates through the cloud and reaches all the way to my toes. I glance back and see that the shadows are actually huge brown monsters somewhat shaped like men, but they have no necks. Their heads are domes set onto their shoulders, and their skin isn’t smooth, but cracked and oozing. Their eyes are dark black and bulging, with multiple facets, like a fly’s. The wind changes direction and whips from them to me, and a putrid scent washes over me.
Shit. I cough and gag. They smell like literal shit.
One lifts an arm and swings his hand backwards, as if he’s about to throw something at me. But there’s nothing in his hand.
My eyes widen when his entire hand detaches from his arm and flies at me, sailing through the sky, aided by the wind. I scramble to get away