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(Some people are haunted by ghosts of themselves.)
Zam is sleeping, and he is dreaming. This is a fact he wishes he could forget when he opens his eyes in a forest. He is warm, like the distant setting sun has gifted him some of its heat, and he is lying on a bed of green moss and it is so comfortingly reminiscent of his base that he isn’t scared of the forest, of the towering trees and the rustle of the wind in the leaves, the distant call of birdsong. A quiet forest on Lifesteal usually means a trap, a rabbit-jump in his heartbeat and terror that makes his legs wooden.
This is different. This forest is quiet, and it feels like home. The moss against his back is soft, the colour identical to the furnishings in his tree-stump base and he laughs when he realises the moss has grown over him, a blanket of green. The weight of it is comforting - perhaps a little too heavy to be faithful to reality, but this is a dream, and reality doesn’t matter here.
Zam could stay here forever, but the sun is setting and he wishes to see the moment day gives way to night, so he sits, the moss offering little resistance. Some of it clings to the metal of his arm, and he brushes at it briefly, but it will not move. And that’s okay! It’s only right that a little bit of this place stays with him, if he has to leave.
So Zam stands, and he walks towards the receding sun.
This place is nice. This is what he has wanted to build on Lifesteal, for so long. Somewhere peaceful, somewhere safe, where the ground is dappled gold with the last remnants of sunlight and the birds sing brightly in the trees.
The crunch of fallen leaves under his boots sound a little like sand, and the thought stops him dead. The forest is warm, and so are the memories it evokes, but a different sort of warmth: the former is comforting, the latter is scorching. Zam does not want to think of orange sand and red blood staining it, of explosions and wither rot and always that awful laughter.
He does not want to think of the monster in his closet.
So he doesn’t. This dream is good, this dream is nice, and Zam is better now.
He keeps walking.
He keeps walking until he walks into a clearing, and the trees that ring it are crowned with pink flowers. They are cherry trees, and the petals rain on his head and shoulders, catching in the joints of his metal arm.
It should be peaceful, but the sight makes Zam sway, a puppet with its strings cut. A bird sings in the distance, but it sounds like laughter. It sounds like the monster in his closet.
For a moment, he can’t move.
Then Zam turns and is running.
His breath is rattling in his lungs when he slows to a stop, far enough away the sound of laughter can no longer be heard. Time has passed, he’s not sure how much, but the sun seems even higher in the sky than before.
Time can ebb and flow, but never reverse. Maybe it wasn’t a sunset but a sunrise. The thought scares him, and he doesn’t want to know why.
Maybe new beginnings scare him.
And now Zam is in another clearing, where the trees are older, gnarled and twisted, vines smothering their trunks and gouging tracks across the bark. Rubble strews the ground, coalescing around a large stone in the centre of the clearing, where the sun shines perfectly clear, a spotlight on the sword wedged in it.
Zam laughs, relieved, breathless. The sword in the stone. The gold hilt is bejewelled, pink and purple gemstones inlaid, and he would know it anywhere. The blade is his, was his from the moment he laid eyes on it and it was not built for a king but for a princess.
Zam knows his mythology. Sword in the stone, only withdrawn by the rightful king. Zam has never claimed kingship, but he claimed another title. And he never let that part of himself die, who wore colourful dresses and long hair and bright lipstick, so maybe the myths will be kind.
He crossed the clearing gingerly, every step expecting the bird-song laugh to start again, to devolve into screaming like the monster does every night. Maybe this dream wasn’t an escape.
He reaches the blade regardless. His hands hesitate before touching it - they are dirty, nails ragged and mud-smeared, the sign of long weeks labouring over builds. They are not the hands of a princess. But he cannot stop now - though he doesn’t need a sword, will not use it, not now, not ever, he wants to hold it. He wants to remember.
So he grabs the hilt and pulls and the blade slides out of the stone -
(Remember that this is a dream. Dreams do not follow the path of logic, nor do they make any pretence at being anything other than what they are. Failure to remember this is on the dreamer, not the dream.)
Zam is in a castle. He knows this, though all he can see is 3 stone walls, feel the rounded cobbles under his feet. He is alone, in a small room, in a castle, and he does not want to be here. He turns and steps out the door onto a hallway, long, with lanterns at regular intervals but these flames do not burn, they shiver, staticky, like something viewed through a screen. And the lanterns are hanging from tree branches, attached to tree trunks which grow out of the wall, sundering stone and sending cracks from floor to ceiling.
Zam is in a castle, and there are trees growing out of the walls, and nailed to the bark are signs with glowing letters. Some are purple, whispering of loss and love, and some are golden, desperate and self-sacrificing and idealistic, and some are red, screaming anger or fear. He refuses to read them. He is not going back.
So he walks, eyes fixed on the doorway at the end of the hall and the hall seems to stretch forever and the glowing ink is so, so distracting and he cannot help but glance, just once, for half a second and -
Half a second is all he needs to hear the laughter start again and then he is running, and the door is suddenly there and he runs through.
Zam is in a castle, and there is a pedestal across from him at the centre of a room so large, so empty, that his footsteps echo as he walks forward. Zam is in a castle, and when he looks up there is a snake painted, curled, on the ceiling, mouth open and teeth sharp. Zam is in a castle, and on the pedestal in front of him, on a red-velvet cushion there is a crown, and he goes to pick it up but it burns to the touch and he drops it and -
(Zam doesn’t notice this, but just for a moment, the sound of maniacal laughter can be heard, echoing.)
The clang as the metal crown hits cobblestone is drowned out by the roaring of a fire. He stands, alone, in a town square, market square, wide and empty, buildings looming like monsters over the expanse. The noise is disproportionate to the blaze itself: the sound would lend itself to an inferno, but instead Zam is looking at a black banner with a golden crown printed on it, fire blurring the image but unmistakable nonetheless. It is pinned to the support beam of a well, iron nail hammered through fabric, splintering wood, and now the edges of the beam itself is singed as the fire slowly eats at the image.
There is something beautiful about the destruction, and Zam cannot tear his eyes away until there is nothing left but ash.
When he turns away, he sees a stage, and centred upon it a block of wood the perfect size and shape to fit the head of a kneeling man. No executioner stands at the side, but the meaning is unmissable and Zam takes a step back, before stumbling out of the town square on shaky legs. He hurries towards the archway he can see at the end of the road, and this time the dream doesn’t fight him and he is there and he is through and he is falling.
(Eternity can pass in the blink of an eye, in dreams. To pass the next eternity, then, all you have to do is
.
.
.
blink.)
And after eternity has passed, Zam opens his eyes and is once again lying in a forest.
Is it over?
He prays it is over.
He sits up - no blanket of moss this time - and chances to look around. There are flowers in a perfect ring around him, orange tulips, cornflowers, dandelions, poppies, wither roses, white tulips, red tulips, alliums, and the occasional brown mushroom interspersed throughout the circle. He knows these flowers, and as he watches they wither away in front of him until all that is left is dust.
Zam can’t move.
A bird caws, and his head whips upwards to stare at the branches of the nearest tree, where a crow sits. But it is not like a real crow, and its feathers shine like oil-slick, iridescent yet cloying. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it looked like the void.
The void-crow opens its mouth and caws but as he stands there the sound morphs into laughter, cackling like the monster in Zam’s closet.
Zam cannot look away, even as the ground starts to crumble under his feet. The cackling is closer to screaming, now, and he covers his ears but the ground gives way beneath him and he is underwater, sinking.
He doesn’t fight, just lets himself sink, because this is just a dream and the water is peaceful, quiet, still.
He can stay here a little while. There is no breath in his chest, no air for him to breathe, but that is fine. He is content to sink, where the memories can’t reach him and the laughter is deafened by distance.
Eventually his back hits the lake floor and he is still, no longer sinking, no longer running, and the weight of the water presses down on him like a hug from a friend. He could sink further, into the mud, but for now he stays, and stares at the distant light of the surface.
His hand brushes against something metal, and, sluggish against the weight of the water, he flinches back, turns to look and -
Oh.
A huge anchor lies, wedged in the mud, half fallen. Engraved into the metal are stars and moons and suns, and the chain is long, stretching up to the surface. It must be a heavy weight for the ship it holds, and Zam doesn’t want to know who sails on that vessel.
This is a dream, and dreams don’t need breath, but now the water is choking and Zam kicks off the lake floor and swims for the surface, the lake’s stillness broken by his frantic movement because of course Zam can’t help but break beautiful things.
He breaches the surface, gasping, spluttering. There is a rocky beach not far from him, and he crawls out of the lake like a ghoul crawling out of a grave, stained with the weight of his past imperfections.
Zam stands, because at the end of it all he is still a prince and he will not cower, and he looks back at the lake. There is no ship, no sign of what that chain was binding.
The lake is returning to some sort of calmness, and he stares at his own reflection, gold skin and crown, green cape and dark leather.
(There is nothing more monstrous than your own self.)
Because his reflection is grinning, wider and wider until Zam’s own cheeks are aching, until he is staring at the monster from his closet, and it is laughing. (and maybe it is crying, because it has loved so long and lost so much, until it reached the point where its only recourse is monstrosity, lest it be killed by its own grief)
(But that is something Zam will not realise, not yet. They are both too damaged, the wounds too raw. Zam can only hide, the monster only hurt.)
And now once again the lake surface is rippling, the image blurring, breaking, until the monster is gone and the lake still once again to form another image, a new image, of Spepticle’s face and he is staring at Zam and he looks terrified.
Terrified. Of Zam.
Zam needs to leave. He runs back into the forest, dodging around trees and tripping on cobblestone rubble, until he finds himself in the very clearing he’d woken up in at the start.
And there is a doorway, in the centre, and Zam knows that this is an escape so he runs straight through into a horrifyingly familiar room, pink cherry wood panelling on the walls and flowers in the window sill.
The closet door slams shut behind him, and it sounds like his own laughter.