For some, dreams were a refuge. To others, a horror gone untold. To Shay, they had always been a gleam into a different life. Into death and fear. As a child, she hadn't been able to handle it, but now she was just glad her dreams weren't filled with the faces of monsters who haunted her.
Tonight when she slept, something had gone wrong. She knew this because she stood among a starry sky with a black backdrop. Shay turned slowly, half smiling at the oddity of it. Some other magic had influenced hers, that was the only way this could be happening. She was sensitive to such things. She wondered what it would have been.
The world gave way to streetlights and around her moved the nightlife of Manta Carlos. All those shady scary things no one wanted to talk about.
Blood and violence and fear sat all around her, but Shay was untouched. She didn't look through the eyes of her victims. For tonight, she was not a victim of herself.
She felt strangely awake, mind wondering to past horrors: like the time Jimmy had grabbed her hair and yanked her backward. That was when Shay had met Theo. When Theo had saved her. When she'd found her first true friend.
"What is this?" She called to the darkness, expecting no reply.
The physical layout of the dreamworld corresponded roughly to the real world, and one he got his bearing he could theoretically find anyone, but he had no way of knowing which dream was which without his markers, which he hadn't placed yet. So Revel was going in blind.
The half-nightmare entered invisibly, wanting to observe first. A new dreamer could be dangerous for the unwary, and besides he didn't just manipulate dreams haphazardly. This dreamer's mind went to starlight and shady city life. He noted how distant the girl seemed from her dream, like it was something familiar to her. He also saw that she appeared human and wondered how closely her dream self resembled her real self.
She was right - he would not give a reply right away, but he did canter toward her still invisible, hoofbeats echoing along the dream street behind her, stopping just out of her reach, watching her reactions closely.
Clack. Clack. Clack. The sound of hooves, in this place? Shay looked around, watched as other figures moved like still art. None of them made a noise. Matter of fact, the sound in her dream didn't sync up with the people at all. There was a constant hum, like people talking indistinctly. That went on until she stepped past the city and it melted away into what Shay knew as limbo. Or something close to it. The first time she'd seen it.
All darkness and dotted lights. Some cliff in the distance and glass scattered the floor. Except, when Shay stepped on it, it didn't make a crunch. It still hurt though. Still made her feet bleed.
Now Shay was truly confused. This never happened. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd had a normal nightmare, and they usually revolved around Nick or Jimmy, or past families. But she had never exactly been a lucid dreamer.
And still with that persistent clacking of hooves somewhere right out of reach. All around her and above her and below her. It was really messing with her head.
Okay, Shay thought. She was being played with. She had to be.
She picked up a shard of the glass, cutting her hand in the process and chucked it randomly somewhere to her right. The blood ran thinner here and slid down her arm in a way it wouldn't have so quickly were this a real injury.