Fleeing through the connection the rat had kept open felt like falling into a memory. The dream was there, waiting - fully formed. A bedroom, hazy as an old photograph, bleached with age, a woman she knew to be Mist lay tangled in sleep beneath the sheets, book of fairy tales for grown-ups open by her bed. An open wardrobe door yawned, leading to a twilight place of shadows, heaped and tangled in a forest of shoes. The UnKnown World was calling her home.
You steal from the beasth
he’ll grind your name to dust
his heaving hooves will smash your dreams
his horns will flush you out
You reach for Gumbaldy
pulse heavy as iron
Gumbaldy, Gumbaldy
its low pulls you under
into the sleep
from which waketh none
Master the beast
voices whisper
his eyes pierce through glass
his breath as briars
twisting your heart
You know this curse
this spindle’s prick,
this dark that locks you in
Hinder not the hid Rimtinder
in the kingdom of shades
where the forgotten linger
still as dolls in cradled vaults
wrapped up tight in threads of sleep
tangled in yarns
where no prince remembers
your fading name
The rat, though, would follow her, so she had to move swiftly, through myriad dreams, nested like porcelain dolls, bound for home. Moving toward the wardrobe, she caught her reflection in a mirror, staring back at her - eyes cold, calculating. Elunara knew it at once: the phage. The thing mimicked her form, designed to cleanse dreams of intruders, a shade from the corners of the mind. Shrugging off the mirror, it faced her as the rat’s voice slithered through the void, curling around her.
“These dreams don’t belong to you. You will be lost forever.” The words eddied through the dream like currents in a pond, causing the phage to falter, looking for the source of the voice, its borrowed face distorting in a howl.
Lunara spun away from the mirror and into the open dream, an attic of shoes rising and falling like the tide, drowning in dusty shadows. The endlessness was dizzying, folding in on itself like a looking-glass twisted beyond reason, repeating her own breath and heartbeat back at her.
Mist was surely suffering from this nightmare - she could feel it, the weight of it in the air - but Lunara didn’t know how to help. She only knew she had to keep moving, faster and faster, plunging from one dream to the next as the phage’s groan echoed behind her, a sound that hollowed out the dream like a gaping wound. Faces blurred by - fairy-tale faces, almost familiar - before vanishing into the gloom as the dreamscape darkened.
“You’re trapped in reflections of your own imaginings,” the rat’s voice hissed, merging with the phage’s howling groan, twining into a single, low wail.
Momentarily, the phage spun back into view - no longer a mirror of her, no longer human at all, but something beastly, lumbering toward her on bent limbs, a creature born from the deepest caves of her mind.
“Beest!” she cried, her voice trembling as the dream twisted into shadow, swallowing her whole.
Grimmbros, the ogre-hero from her world drifted past, carried on an unseen tide, surrounded by whirling flutters of blue butterflies, the lowing sound sweeping about him like a gathering gale. To her disgust, the pretty butterflies darkened to bats and the swimming image of Grimmbros flew apart as though clawed to shreds by unseen rats.
“Thoust steal from the beest…” the rodent’s screech wailed. Lunara felt sorry for Mist, turning in her bed as her dreams were whipped into nightmares at the instigation of the rat. “Take care fair maiden,” she urged, “You and your friends are in great danger. Take care, for the ogre-eater has found you.”
Elunara hurriedly fell like a leaf carried by a restless wind, each dream whispering memories and soon the boundaries between dreams blurred, folded, and collapsed. Each bled into the next.
Behind her, in the periphery of her awareness, the rat’s presence flickered, a shadow scurrying through her mind’s corners. Its red eyes glinted, its tiny claws made no sound, the further she fled, the faster it chased, each new dream offering only fleeting refuge before its shadow reappeared, gnawing at the edges of her mind.
The howl of the phage had become a deep, far-off sound, massive and ancient, but the lowing followed her. When the bull appeared next, it smashed through the fabric of the dream like it was nothing.
It was enormous, far too large for the space, its hooves pounding, each step shattering fragments of the dream. Its eyes burned and its twisted horns gleamed. As it approached, the world buckled under its weight, surfaces warping and cracking. It was a program, she realised - a thing designed to cleanse these strange, warped dreams. She was the strangeness now. Its mournful bellowing made her stomach heave. She backed away but the bull closed in, its breath fogging the space between them, warping the air. The space began to collapse - like mirrors falling in shards around her, slicing her image into pieces.
She plunged into the next dream, but the bull followed, relentless, designed to destroy what didn’t belong. And in this contorted, multiplying maze of mirrors, she was the thing that didn’t fit. She could hear its hooves grinding through walls of glass, erasing the worlds behind her as if they’d never existed.
Deeper still she fled, through layered mirrors, reflections of dreams fleeing through the labyrinth of herself. The rat was still there, flickering in the images, scurrying between worlds, always just out of reach, watching her, waiting for its moment. The bull’s sonorous groans had grown distant, but she knew it was still out there, somewhere, hunting her. She could hear its hooves shattering the dreams above her, layer by layer, crushing shards to grit.
Finally, she emerged into a foggy field, thick with overgrown grass that reached her waist, overhead, the sky bled turquoise and indigo.
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The rat was close. No longer a small shadowy thing scurrying at the edges, its presence loomed, fur matted and slick, eyes brimming with malice. It watched her as if from behind glass, then bared its teeth in a sharp, horrible grin, mouth red and too many teeth. She stumbled backward, heart pounding, but unseen forces boxed her in, reflecting her fear, multiplying her terror.
The world around her simmered like water, and she knew she was trapped, the sensation creeping around her without sound, a box of air, enclosing her, pristine and clear, as smoothly crystalline as the perfection of ice. The air inside grew cold, sterile, as if life had been drained from the dream. Her breath fogged the walls, and the fog spread, but the glass refused to cloud. Her reflection stared back at her, pale, preserved in a way that made her stomach twist. Fairy tales, sleeping beauties, the pull of the moon, dark and sinister.
There was to be no escape, no prince to awaken her. The rat moved close, watched with gleaming eyes, triumphant in its entrapment of her. It tapped a claw on the glass, once, twice, the sound sharp, like fingernails on bone. It sent a shiver through her entire body. “Sleep,” it said, “The theatre of the subconscious.” Then it vanished into the mist.
She could still just hear the lowing of the bull in the distance, the relentless grind of crushed glass, but it didn’t matter. She was no longer part of that world, no longer part of that dream. She pressed against the glassy wall of the box, trying to force her way out, but it wouldn’t budge. It held her like a frozen memory. Lunara slumped back in resignation. She had become the strange, the thing that shouldn’t exist.
*****
Holi sat in a green puddle, trying to wake up. It felt like she'd been half-asleep for years, dimly aware of her surroundings. Shapes in the endless green ocean had wandered in and out of focus, looming close, swimming afar. Lights flicked on and off, and then, apparently, the tide had gone out. As her senses had slowly gathered, she had seen the horrible little green midget get sucked through the bottom of its glass tube. One minute it had been floating; the next it had gone. She wiped wetness from her face and looked around.
She was sitting on the floor of a containment tube identical to the one the midget had been in. The door was open, and her feet hung out. Stumbling upright, she knew she had to get away. Where, she wasn't sure - but away, surely. Currently, no one else was in the room where the big glass tubes were. A door across the room stood open. Holi ventured unsteadily forward and peered through. Large, cuboid containers with glass tops occupied most of this new room, spaced out at regular intervals, with green things growing inside.
Holi pressed against the glass of the first container, as much to rest as to see in. Lush, leafy plants climbed inside, reaching for the artificial light above. ‘Clone Test 1F,’ a note on the container frame read. She was about to look for another exit when she heard a voice. Her immediate reaction was to hide, but the voice sounded familiar, so she listened. "Get rid of them," the voice moaned. "Get rid of them, back where it came from." Surely, it was Elmo speaking - but Holi vaguely recalled that there was more than one Elmo around here.
Straying hesitantly forward, Holi glanced inside another container as she passed. This one had a carpet of grass, bulging up in the centre like a little hill. Between the rows of containers, she could see a figure, bent over a computer terminal, typing frantically.
“Not Hob! So stupid! Obviously not Hob!” it was muttering. In a container further away, Holi could see another little grass knoll, only this one was broken apart at the top. She felt sure she could make out little green bodies in there. Stretching up to see more clearly, the creatures lay curled about each other like foetuses. Her involuntary gasp caught the attention of the man at the computer.
He turned, scanning the room, his eyes spotting the intruder just as she tried to duck behind the solid base of a container cube. Now he gasped and came forward whispering, "How did you get out?" Shooting a glance across the lab though, he looked startled. "Oh, you didn't. Wait, wait, it isn't what it looks like.
Holi hurried to put a glass tank between her and the man that now really did look just like Elmo. "What are you doing? What do you want? Where am I?" The words tumbled out.
"I'm sorry," this Elmo replied instinctively, "It's my assignment. They all want one." He tried to circle around the container, but Holi moved to keep it squarely between them. "It's this handwriting, you see. It looks like ‘Hob’, but it should say ‘Holi’, obviously. Who in their right mind thinks everyone wants their own Hob."
The look on Holi's face through the glass was one of massing horror. "Wait," the Elmo said. "We were going to put you back. Just gently clone you and put you back. We're not monsters." He again shot a nervous look at the other end of laboratory.
As Holi backed up toward the door, she stretched to see what was bothering him and went cold from head to toe. In one of the containment tanks was her own perfect doppelganger, an exact twin. Seeing her reaction, Elmo reassured, "Just one, we only made one so far." A tapping noise across the laboratory interrupted the exchange. In a container near the computer a little group of green figures had clambered out of the soil and some were banging on the glass, testing its integrity. "No! No, you don't," the Elmo cried, dashing off in their direction. "Got to get rid of you all! Send you back!" When he looked back to Holi there was no sign of her.
*****
“Hold this! No, not that way round! Like this!”
Foby 1, or Smug Elmo, as 3124b thought of him, was gearing up for a mission, passing various bits of kit to 3124b from a resource store.
“Timeline three? That’s where we’ll begin; cage the phage, delete the mess.”
Before 3124b could enquire as to exactly what constituted ‘the mess’, his superior self had plonked a Baldy device into his hands and poked a few spots on its sleek shiny surface. 3124b gawped uncertainly at this. These things were usually kept locked up, no one was allowed to touch them.
“Is it switched off?” he asked.
Foby 1 didn’t dignify this with an answer. He just stared as if over imaginary glasses and lifted one derisory eyebrow.
“Wouldn’t I be better waiting …” was all that 3124b managed to get out before the walls of the clinic began to fade.
“Where are we?” he asked as the geometry of architecture was replaced by the irregularities of trees and undergrowth, lit up blue by his torch. “Shhh!” was the annoying reply, accompanied by a fingers together gesture that meant ‘shut up – nothing you could have to say could possibly be as important as what I am currently thinking about’.
3124b was about to protest and demand that he be treated with the dignity he deserved, when he tripped over a root and fell sprawling into a bramble bush.
“Who’s that?” he heard Foby 1 say. Now he had him, now he could lay on the sarcasm and point out how, obviously, it was him falling over. But as he dragged himself to his feet, scratched and scuffed, he realised that the enquiry had not been Foby 1’s.
There, peering nervously at him, was another Elmo – no, another two Elmos! No sign of the smug one. For a few tense moments, no one moved, but then one of the two new Elmos ran, or rather, scampered forward and began sniffing 3124b in a most undignified manner. As he did so, 3124b noticed that this rather feral version of himself had a cord around its neck, gripped tightly by the other newcomer.
Before he could speak, the authoritative tones of Smug Elmo pierced the air.
“Nobody move! Number and purpose?”
The Elmo holding the cord looked all impressed and relieved. “Oml… Five... Oh! Don’t know if I can say sir,” he answered gushing with awe and obsequiousness, “and might I say…”
“Purpose! What is your purpose here?”
“Of course sir. Tasked with seeing Original-Elmo goes back… Wait, which version are you? I'm not supposed...”
“And did you succeed?” Foby 1 demanded looking suspiciously at the Elmo on the end of the rope.
The Elmo who wouldn't say that he was number 501 hesitated before admitting shame-facedly, “No sir. I was distracted by a talking rat that attacked me and made off with my Baldy device just as 2009 Elmo and his associates entered the portal. It went for my throat! Once I realised what had happened, I tried to go through the portal myself, but I was too late, it had closed. Not sure what to do, I decided to scout through the woods here and await rescue.”
Foby 1 rolled his eyes for the benefit of 3124b and then rolled them again at the sight of his leaf-and-thorn-ridden associate.
“And what exactly is that?” Foby 1 pointed with disgust at the Elmo straining at the cord, scrabbling in the dirt at 3124b’s feet.
“Not sure sir. I found it trying to free its head from a paper bag with donut fragments in it. I think it’s not human.”
Foby 1 tutted mechanically and observed, “What a mess. What a ‘mess’.”
3124b didn’t like the sound of the way he mouthed that last word ‘mess’. He began to move toward his associate to discuss what to do, but evidently no such discussion was needed since Foby 1 was already on the move. 3124b knew that an Elmo claiming to be from the future had appeared in TL1, but this was a timeline copy. That meant someone had time-jumped. Perhaps then, this was a copy, a second 501, duplicated along with everything else when that ‘someone’ created a new timeline by jumping here. Was this a timeline he was supposed to know about, or was this a different one? Best keep quiet.
“Show me,” Foby commanded 501, “Where is the portal?”
501 obediently led the way around the trunk of a large, ancient oak tree and pointed to an arched flaw in the base of the trunk. It looked like an enormous branch had once grown there, but now just dead wood filled the scar that remained.
“Okay 3124b, open her up,” the smug one called.
Much as 3124b would like to have ‘opened her up’, or instead to have lobbed the Baldy device right at the front of Foby 1’s big, self-satisfied head, all he actually managed was a bemused pleading look.
“Give it to Five Oh Whatsisname,” was the response.
Give it to him? To him! Not even ‘give it to me’. Now he’d been demoted to third in command! As if that wasn’t enough Five Oh Whatsisname held out the cord to the beastly Elmo thing for him to hold. It looked up at him pleadingly as if trying to tell him something. Soon, the party was inside the old tree and making their way down the dark tunnel within.
