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You wake up to see a dream.
It doesn’t feel like anything at first. You don’t feel like anything at first.
The world is solid. Real. Physical. Three-dimensional. And you are flatter than flat, thinner than thin, and at risk of fading away in the blink of an eye if your host wakes up. You are flimsy.
(How strange it feels, to be an imaginary shadow plastered on the wall. Everything is muggy, but you are certain this is most definitely real.)
You look around the room. Everything is yellow: the walls, the floor, the ceiling. There is nothing but bright chartreuse. The walls are cold and uncaring and cheerfully bright. You know it’s supposed to be that way, but a deep and alien longing lodges itself deep within your brain.
(Do you even have one of those? Dreams don’t have organs, but you need a brain to think. You think.)
You look down at yourself. How something that’s entirely flat looks down , you aren’t certain, but you can see your body anyway. Where the room is completely yellow, you are entirely pink. The contrast in colour makes you stick out like a sore thumb. You lift a hand, and it goes gliding across the floor in response.
(You’re still thinking in three-dimensional terms. There is no up, nor down, not for you.)
The air lies flat and still. There is no hiss from shifting winds, no sounds of soft breathing or the natural buzz that comes from living flesh. Only pure and unending silence. It’s as if you’re not even there. Was it… supposed to be this empty? You scour your brain for answers.
There are thoughts in your head. Thoughts that feel sturdy and well-worn, like you’ve fondly held on to them for years. They’re yours. They shouldn’t be. Your memories supply you with the bare minimum of information, yet those scraps feel monumental against the silent walls of the Time Room.
Your name is Prismo. You are the result of a dream from one of the most powerful wizards in recognised history. You have been chosen to work as the Wishmaster: granting life-altering wishes to those who prove themselves worthy while guarding the Time Core.
But why? You ask yourself, unsettled with the newfound feeling that something has gone very wrong. Why am I dreaming? Why am I in this empty room? Why can’t I remember anything?
(You receive no answers. All the thoughts you can gleam tell you the same thing: you are a dream, a whisper of something far more powerful, trapped on a wall. Nothing more.)
The thoughts in your head feel fake. The hands you remember are not your hands, the skin is not your skin. Memories bleed and smudge and melt into one another until you aren’t sure what’s true and what isn’t. Answers become scrambled, a chorus of chaos that leaves you more confused than anything.
Your memories seem to agree on one thing, however: the Time Cube is yours now. Only yours. Untouched by outside worlds, a speck of yellow purity against a cobweb of glittering possibilities. And you will stay within its walls, protecting its core, watching outside universes, for the foreseeable future. The writhing feeling of dread worsens, feeding off of another emotion you can’t quite decipher yet. Excitement? Anticipation? Impatience? The Time Room is small. So very small. But you control the cube . You’ll have visitors in the future, a phantom memory tells you.
Visitors . You’re waiting for someone, aren’t you? You strain to grasp at thoughts that fall between the cracks in your focus like sand. Some kind of promise. Waiting for someone important. Someone… fond.
(It unnerves you how your physical body clings to your dream form like this. Memories elude you, yet newfound emotions surge through you with every piece you pick up.)
Well. Sitting around won’t do you any good. You drift along the walls, taking small delight in the way the creases in the walls press against your form. It’s your only semblance of sensation, a ghostly whisper of touch. The walls are solid, impossibly solid, yet a simple focused thought splits them open. The atoms groan as they flicker in and out of reality. You peek through the makeshift window.
Stars sparkle like bits of polished silver against the velvety blueish-black canvas of space. Purplish chunks of debris drift around the cube in a makeshift halo. Your eye widens. It’s an almost serene sight. The Time Cube looks like an ugly, blocky blotch against the pitch-black expanse of space. All those planets. All those stars, controlled by your hands.
Yet in the cube, all you can do is watch.
You pull back and prod at the Time Room’s floor. There’s no window here, yet the ground feels lighter in your subconscious. You reach out and peel the ground back to reveal a staircase. The cube may be a puzzle, but it’s your puzzle. Completely and entirely yours. You glide down the stairs with a delighted grin.
Your first visitor is not a wish-maker. You find yourself unsurprised but disappointed. They’re another deity- an old friend of yours, so they claim. While the 4-D giant ball with sunglasses certainly feels familiar, you’re uncertain if that’s a good thing. The surrounding air vibrates in ways that makes your hearing hiss and pop.
He introduces himself as Orbo. A god auditor. It’s a fitting name for a sentient ball. You find the wisdom to keep that part in your head.
‘Heard they knocked you out for the job. Lost some of your memories, too.’ Orbo rolls around the Time Room in lazy circles. Around and around and around. Trying to follow his movements makes your head ache. You ‘hmm’ in agreement, grimacing and you glance elsewhere.
The rolling stops, and Orbo turns to stare you down. The lavender glint in his shades pins you in place. ‘How’ve you been doing, mate?’ He’s searching for something, taking apart your very being and inspecting it piece by piece. You gulp.
‘I’ve been- I’ve been, uh, good,’ You manage to squeak out, wringing your hands. There is something very off about Orbo. The way he stares at you, scrutinising you, it fills you with cold dread to think about what he’ll do if he finds something he doesn’t like. It makes your skin-not-skin tingle with fear. ‘Can’t really remember anything, though, yeah. Just the fundamentals.’ Orbo leans back with a thoughtful frown. You pray that answer is good enough as he rolls closer to your wall.
The space between the two of you shrinks and shrinks until he’s practically leaning against you. His sunglasses, coloured with hues of royal purple and ultraviolet, scan over every divot and blemish on your wall. You grimace and lean away. Your instincts, a vestigial emotion at this point, scream at you to run, to fade away. It clashes and brawls with your subconscious that assures you there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s giving you a headache. You grit your teeth and refocus on Orbo.
(He could kill you, if he wanted to. Not the dream you. The real one. And you would die with him. But he wouldn’t. He liked you too much.)
The searching look on his face brightens instantaneously. ‘Well, don’t hesitate to reach out, mate. You’ve got a lot of gods watching your back.’ The smile on his face is genuine and warm, and you shiver despite yourself.
‘Thanks, Orbo.’ The name is awkward on your tongue. You’ve got too used to thinking instead of actually speaking. ‘I’ll keep that in mind if something goes wrong.’
Orbo rolls away until he’s standing by the window-entrance he entered from. He hesitates and turns back to you, frowning. ‘One more thing, mate.’ He almost sounds… nervous. You tilt your head. He pauses. ‘Good luck.’ And then he’s gone.
The wall slides shut as his words echo in your head. Good luck? With what? Being Wishmaster was proving to be more boring than anything. It wasn’t particularly hard to sit and stare at yellow walls. Maybe that’s what he meant. You have a look at the barren walls around you. Good luck holding on to your sanity.
(Or perhaps there was something worse waiting for you. Something dangerous lurking just out of sight. You were guarding the very essence of time, after all.)
Who knew how long you could stare at the ceiling until the boredom was too much to handle? If it’s supposed to be a challenge, then so be it. You sigh as you settle to the floor. Days, weeks, decades alone, you could handle it.
Probably.
Your next visitor takes about sixteen years and fourteen days to arrive. They’re another cosmic deity, just like Orbo. The star power radiating from their exoskeleton makes the air shake with heat. They’re some kind of bug-person-thing, you think.
(You’ve never really seen a bug before. The few memories you scrounge up don’t offer much information, either. But something tells you that the stranger is a bug, and you listen to it.)
Their exoskeleton is a rich scarlet, and it glistens in the Time Room’s never-ending light. You hate the light. It never dims, even when you try to close your eyes and sleep to pass the time. But this god looks rather smart in the harsh light. It accentuates their angular chest quite well. You blink and blush when you realise you’ve been staring. Focus on something else, you tell yourself, glancing up to their face. It is, unlike the rest of them, round and squishy-looking. They stare down at you with wide-open eyes that seem to draw in all the yellow in the Time Room. Their grin is wide and toothy, with an array of razor-sharp and shark-like teeth.
(Again, you’ve never seen a shark before. But those teeth feel so familiar that it must be true.)
The cane in their hand glints teasingly as they leap from the perch they entered through. They flip– once, twice –in the air before landing neatly on their feet. You let out a tiny sound of surprise and awe.
They hold themselves with terse dignity, as if displaying a character for a show. When they turn to you, however, the rigidity practically melts out of their posture. Their grin is wide and toothy and warm.
‘Sorry I couldn’t stop by earlier,’ they say as they meander across the time room. Their shoes– impeccably clean and polished –click against the dense metering of the floor. ‘Work kept getting in the way. But when I told them I was seeing you, they demanded I put down everything and visit as soon as possible.’ They chuckle, and you can’t help but smile with them. It feels awkward and tense.
(You know them. You must know them, or else they wouldn’t look so familiar. But they’re the second person you have ever met, and you can’t even remember their name.)
‘Any way,’ they continue, leaning against their can and closer towards you. Their yellowy eyes flit over your body. You can’t help but flush at their gaze. ‘How are things going so far?’
‘Uh, fine, fine. Bit boring though. Nobody else but Orbo has come through.’ You’re surprised at how easy conversation seems to flow with them. You fumble over your words, still unused to using your mouth instead of your brain, but it seems as natural as blinking to talk with them. ‘Uh, do I–‘
Their face lights up. ‘Ah, you haven’t heard the news yet! Orbo just sent out the Time Cube’s location to other mortals. I reason you’ll be getting quite a few visitors soon. Clever, aren’t they?’ They tilt their head up, giving you a fond look.
(They know you used to be mortal. Of course they do. All the gods do, especially this one. But why? )
You laugh again. It comes out much more forced this time. ‘Yeah, I guess. But, uh, I don’t–’
‘That reminds me.’ they cut you off again, standing upright with a delighted look on their face. It sends your stomach aflutter. ‘The Boss wanted me to give this to you.’ They snap their fingers with their free hand, pulling the air down and drawing something out of the space hiding underneath. The atoms in the air tug and squeeze before a remote falls into the palm of their hand. You peer down at it. It seems normal enough– channel and volume and power buttons and the like. But… What were you supposed to do with it? You didn’t have a television.
Noticing your confusion, they point the remote at the opposite wall and press the power button. It jolts to life with a burst of sound: trees rustling and wind blowing and people laughing and birds chirping and–
They press the mute button, and the air drops silent. You open your eyes. When had they closed? The stranger watches you with concern.
‘Are you alright?’ They ask. It seems as if they weren’t expecting that reaction. Like you hadn’t spent your entire existence in a completely silent room. Like they believed you were used to noises or something.
(Like you were still you.)
‘Yeah,’ you say with a shaky breath. ‘Sorry. It’s just— it’s just a bit much.’ They take a step closer to you, reaching out to gently brush the wall you’re stuck on. It would be comforting if you could actually feel it. Your pseudo-heart pounds in your chest. Their face is soft, gentle, and worried. A part of you, the real you, you come to realise much later, wants to reach out and hold them in your hands forever.
‘Uhm,’ you start and hesitate. Your throat feels dry, which should never happen. You’re not even sure you can drink water. Your mouth continues before your mind can catch up with it. ‘I’m sorry, but– who– who are you?’
The stranger stills. Their hand leaves the wall.
The air grows cold. You feel as though there are talons clasped around your very being, mere moments away from ripping you into useless shreds. They turn to stare up at you, face unreadable, the light gone from their eyes. Their mask slips on, and the pieces click into place. The sound is deafening.
They turn back around and begin to walk away. The sound of their shoes and cane against the hard floor echoes through the Time Room. They say nothing and do not turn back around as they leave through the window the came from.
The Time Room is quiet. The air is still.
You are a wretched pink stain on a horrid yellow wall.