Spider Dreams: Chapter 18 “A Dream Within A Dream”

I jerked my head away from seeing and sunk into the growing black pool beneath my body. I felt the cold wetness seep into my limbs. My soul collapsing in form contained once again in a body, solidified, I opened my eyes. Dark space. Old books. Years of tenant’s storage collected in corners of the attic. Cobwebs and the musty smell of one hundred years without ventilation draped dim light in the silent atmosphere.

I stood up lifting my heavy decomposing body. It took all the effort my muscles had and I staggered to the stairwell descending the creaking steps.

With hesitation I grip the knob and turn it. The old wooden door sticks and I shove my shoulder into it to jar it loose. The knob moves in my palm and I let go watching as it molds itself into a small face. Two beady eyes roll out from the back of its head and it sticks its tongue out at me.

“You do realize it is in you are walking, rather than out?”

“What?”

“You think you can get out like that? Well, you haven’t even begun.”

I grabbed the knob again. The little face bit into the meat of my palm. With one good shove I pushed the door wide open spilling onto an upper floor landing of a Victorian designed home. I looked at my hand. Teeth marks.

Massive archways with floral carved wood lined the walls and pillars with golden frames that moved like the surface of water. Hundreds of framed mirrors filled the walls all the way down the red-carpeted hall. Though my reflection didn’t show in a single one as I approached the single door at the other end.

Outlined in flowers and angels singing I approached the archway and stepped through the doorway. This door opening with ease swinging inward to a large ballroom filled with people dancing. Dressed in classical clothes from a hundred years ago, the women all wore sky blue dresses that squeezed at their waists and accentuated their breasts. The males wore all black and moved in hard angles like robots. Everyone wore semi-transparent opaque masks enough to reveal their expression but not enough to show their identities.

Tall dark purple curtains reached from floor to the massive twenty-foot high curved ballroom ceiling. A sparkling crystal chandelier hung in the center rotating and flickering color and shadows from the dancing flame held within its core. In the grand orchestra I bore witness to not a single sound emitted from any direction as if all these hundreds of individuals danced to a song I myself could not hear.

She found me on the balcony, a tear forming in one of my eyes. I think I could make out a faint smile under her mask. Without words she gestured on open hand towards me to join her. The pale yellow of her dress glowed a sharp contrast amongst the ocean of blue dresses below as we descended into the waltzing crowd. I smiled, becoming lost within her hidden beauty, being lost within the moment, intoxicated by her smell, clean, loving, radiating purity, and soft attraction. I could not have resisted even if I so desired to. I had no control as she directed my body like a puppeteer with her delicate hand weaving through the black and blue mass of people.

My gaze locked in ecstasy with her green emerald eyes as our bodies moved as one in an infinite dance of voidless eternity. Nothing could break our unity, this moment, this feeling of completion. I knew love. That’s when the music began, or when I was able to hear it finally, the orchestra that this grand ballroom danced to. Quiet at first, then growing louder, violins, cellos, drums, bass. The tempo grew and rose from the depth of this air filling my ears; it was at first euphoric as horns blew and trumpets whistled, then violins shrilled. Hours, minutes, days, I am unsure how long we danced, but I do know when it stopped. That feeling of emptiness, helplessness, a opening inside my stomach became hollow and the music beat heavy with dread and panic. I lost her eyes, stumbling back, tripping over my own feet, and falling into the crowd.

Everyone stopped dancing and the music disappeared leaving a beaming cold silence in the piercing yellow-lit room. A shaft of blue spotlight pinned on me as I stood still and the masked crowd circled around. Confused and frustrated, I realized I did not have a mask. I desperately felt the need to escape. Then she stepped forward from the line of individuals staring down at me.

Gliding over to me she whispered in my ear. “You do not belong here. You are not one of us.” She lifted her mask enough to reveal her lips where she gently gave me a kiss.

The floor beneath my feet opened to darkness. Weightless, I began to fall, sunken into emptiness. I tried to reach up to where she looked down at me still standing on the other side of the small opening. Her green eyes watching me disappear and then the door closed. All was black.

---

Her smell lingered on my clothes. I remember that sensation first as my senses returned. It gave me the sense of hope before flinging my eyes open.

Grass, silver green grass and a small broad silver orange-breasted bird hopped about in front of me. It pecked at the ground until finally pulling out a thin, long silver taffy of a worm that stretched and stretched until snapping in half rather than succumbing its entire existence to being a meal. The bird flew off. All around me the world painting in silvery pastel hues, the trees and plants reflecting a lunar like glow against a blackened background. Even the dirt near my face looked chrome as bug rummaged about. The shine of the grass waved in the soft autumnal breeze. Shards of crystal chimes dangled and echoes cling from leafless black tree branches. Light prismed through in pale colorless specks leaking to the ground.

Sitting up I noticed a large round stone table at the top of a hill nearby. With stiff limbs I began walking up the hill reaching the table and the vast expanse of space stretching before me, a clear night sky with a full moon descending into my throat. All is bleached in lunar light.

Three figures in robes approach from the opposite side, one in red, one in white, one in black. Their movements are feline; smooth and effortlessly traveling uphill.

“We are your secrets. We are your dreams. We are your desires, your comfort, your completion.”

The figure in red glides up next to me and pulls the hood from over her face. Flowing brilliant red hair lights the sky like a flame without heat. Her red eyes lock onto mine and I am paralyzed. She pulls a knife from her side and steps next to me, one hand sinking through my clothing the other using the knife to cut my garments free. She steps back as the figure in black pulls back her hood, dark oil black eyes and long dark fingernails, she grabs at my arm and back, scratching sharp talons into my skin. Blood drips from the new wounds and she begins licking my flesh. The figure in white stands before me and reveals her face from under the deep hood. Short bleach white hair cuts along contours of her cheekbones. I swallow and something in my stomach drops. Her breath is like ice, her pale lips close to mine.

“We have been waiting.”

“For me?”

“It is not wise to leave a muse waiting.”

She hands me a silver ring with a unique symbol of three lines slashed horizontally by another. I place the ring on my left index finger. The woman in black takes off her cloak and drapes it over me. She licks away the dribble of my bright red blood at the corner of her black lips. Naked, she takes my hand and guides me towards the stone table where I was to sit.

The woman in red carries a small black and white decorative urn up to me and opens it. Inside is a dark liquid. She brings it to her mouth and takes a sip. Drips of black spill down her chin. She then moves close to me pulling my head into hers where she covers my lips with hers and a millisecond before she touches mine I see the eyes of the serpent in her mouth. She exhales into my lungs a thick, sweet smoke. I become weightless instantly and I slowly exhale as my body falls backwards and away while my consciousness lifts upward puncturing through layers of liquid surface. Until I hit the top of a bubble, my face pushed into the meniscus too thick to pop through. All around glowing geometric shapes and gears circle around the empty space. Strings of webbing touch everyone. There is an overwhelming sense of welcoming embrace here and the other entities. This is home; the universal mind.

As fast as I ascended to this layer I began to fall, sucked back into the depth of my body. This shell of a capsule, something to contain my desires and corruption, a prison I realized. My body is a prison contaminated by ill thoughts and intentions.

I blinked. The woman in white stands over me with a smile. A small black snake slithered out my mouth. I could see dawn rising all along the horizon in every direction. Sitting up she embraced me. I rest my cheeks against the soft cold skin of her neck and exposed chest. Her chin sits on top my head and calmly she whispers in my ear. “Go to the river.” I can hear her heart beat.

In the heavy black cloak I descend the hilltop towards the stream’s direction. At the edge of the cliff a waterfall splits into two and cuts through the ground below. My reflection in the water’s surface startles me. I am aged. I touch the surface and see color emanating from my skin. They scatter across the silver rippled surface.

“Well hello stranger,” out pops the friendly fish from the well. “I see you are doing fine and pleasant.”

“Hello to you too.” My voice feels like it hasn’t been used for eons. “I see you are doing well yourself?”

Thanks for visiting.

Copyright © 2018, Charles Denton
All rights reserved

Previous Chapters:

1: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-one

2: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-two

3 & 4: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-three-and-four

5: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-5

6: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-6-the-voice-inside-the-mind

7: https://steemit.com/steemit/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-7-coble-stone-ruins

8 & 9: https://steemit.com/steem/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-8-and-9

10: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-10-fish-s-monologue

11 & 12: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams

13: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-13-attic-revisit

14: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-14-frailty

15: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-15-day-job

16: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-16-family

17: https://steemit.com/writing/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-17-bad-coffee