Briar & the Dreamers of Midnight

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Outside the tavern, there’s nothing but darkness.

This is my least favorite part. I can hop directly from dream to dream, but that’s usually when two dream islands drift close enough to overlap. I still haven’t mastered a good way to jump from one person’s dream to another.

To reach another dream, I have to walk through the sea of darkness between dream islands. It’s creepy every single time.

I look back at the tavern. Warm light glows from the windows. Shadows of people move behind the curtains, and I wish I was among them. It’s an island of color, light and sound in the sea of darkness.

The sound of the tavern fades quickly as I walk away from it. Walking in the dark between islands is like walking on black water. One of these days, I might fall through and drown. Until then, this is my kingdom.

It took me a long time—years, maybe—to figure out that the distance between the dream islands is determined by me. If I was unsure, I’d have to walk a long time in the dark before I saw the next island. Eventually, though, I figured out that when I know where I want to go—when I believe and am confident about my direction—then the next dream island appears.

I don’t remember anymore if life used to be like that in the Waking. But if it was, I wonder if I would have ever figured it out. Life is so full of—well, life—that it’s hard to see past the distractions.

I think about the hunters that I’m supposed to keep asleep while my friends are on a rescue mission. My friends are stranger than I am. At least, I like to tell them that they are.

They are the kin of wolves. They are either people who turn into monstrous wolves, or wolves who turn into people. I’m not sure which they were originally.

If I was a normal person in the Waking, I’d be afraid of them. Everyone else is. They’re sort of…monsters. But I kind of like them. They accept my strangeness, and I accept theirs.

I’m not sure the wolfkin would call me a friend. I’m not sure they’d call anyone a personal friend. You’re either a part of their pack or you’re not. But they do have friends of the pack, and I’m probably one of them. Maybe.

Either way, as far as I’m concerned, anyone who talks to me like a real living person is a friend of mine. Hell, anyone who talks to me at all is a friend.

There’s no one here other than me. Everyone else is asleep.

This mission is very dangerous for the wolfkin. They’re rescuing their alpha who was captured by the Dark King’s hunters. My job is to keep the hunters asleep so they don’t notice that something nefarious is afoot.

But there are too many hunters, and the wolfkin are making far too much noise. How am I supposed to do my job when they’re causing such a racket?

In front of me are three dream islands. The dreamer is brighter than the rest of the people on their island. It’s not that the specters are dim. It’s just that dreamers glow a little. They’re just a little more emphasized than the specters.

I’m in luck. Two of the islands have the same girl.

Perfect. What could occupy manly hunters more than a little friendly competition?

I concentrate to bring the islands closer. They’re all in different locations in their dreams.

This is the biggest mission I’ve ever done. I’ve never tried to influence so many dreamers or tried to merge three dream islands before. So it’s a little sloppy when the islands come together, but it’ll have to do.

In the end, it’s a mash-up of barnyard, tavern, outside, inside, night and day. It’s not pretty, but I’ve seen worse.

I walk into the mess of a giant island, wearing the body of the girl that two of the men are dreaming of. So now there’s three of us. Two of the girls are paying attention to their own dreamers, while I go around flirting with the others and bringing them all together.

Flirting is gross.

I don’t know what any of them see in each other. They’re all ugly, as far as I can tell. Even when they dream themselves into something better than what they are in the Waking, I know that deep inside, there’s still a part of them that’s basically an ogre.

It takes some work to bring all the hunters together in one part of the island. But once that’s done, I don’t have to do a lot to spark their competitive streak.

For all I know, the dreamers could be best friends in the Waking. But here, in my world, they’re free to push and shove and yell at each other all they want without any Waking consequences.

Before long, most of them do all of that with enthusiasm. They don’t even seem to hear the howling wafting through the island.

Two dreamers drift off and sit at a table, talking and drinking together while the other hunters begin their brawl in earnest. No one seems to remember the girls they were fighting over. In fact, the girls are nowhere in sight.

So long as they’re occupied, my job is done. I count the hunters. These plus the previous ones I took care of earlier don’t add up to the dozen I was assigned to distract. But I could swear I got them all.

I step out of the merged island. It’s now much smaller, since all the dreamers are concentrated in one location. I walk into the darkness. I do my little trick where I pull in all the islands. I concentrate on believing.

Still, no new island appears. I shrug. There isn’t much I can do if a hunter is staying up late. Once he falls asleep, he’s mine. But until then, he’s out of my reach.

The wolfkin will have to deal with the one hunter who is probably on his way to investigate the noise. I won’t lose any sleep over it. They’re big boys. They can handle it.

As for me, I materialize a comfy chair and a mug of honey cider. That’s a new trick I learned recently, and I can’t wait to show it off.

I relax in the dark just outside the dream isles, drinking my hot cider and keeping an eye on the dreamers as they go about their nightly lives.