Chapter Text
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Familiar images of devastation and flames burning in a crimson fire flashed through your head.
The same images that had plagued you in your nightmares ever since your early childhood.
You had no clue where the inspiration for that specific nightmare had come from. Likely from some clip of the news of a burning building that had made your child brain cook up the most horrific scenario that would cause even adults to cry.
A landscape ruined beyond recognition—grand stone buildings demolished into piles of crumbled rock, a crimson red stained the sky, fire burning everything into ash. Thick billows of smoke curled over the ground and only partly obscured the ruination. Sometimes there were screams heard through the loud crackling of flames.
You could not decide what was more terrifying. When the scenery was without the screams, void of any signs of life; or when the victims’ screams after a time faded into a dead silence.
It had gotten worse the recent years. Your therapist's explanation was that stress was deteriorating your psyche. Told it like it was supposed to be some great revelation. (Oh the overwhelming amount of anxiety from trying to balance the constantly piling schoolwork with your job so you could put food on your table was affecting you badly? What a shocker.) As if you had not already noticed that.
Since you were often scared awake, lying awake a large portion of the night, you decided to do something that held a bit more meaning than letting your thoughts spiral into something unpleasant.
The activity you chose was consuming literature. And the type of literature ranged from the biology book you had to read for the examination the next day to literal garbage stories posted on the Internet.
It did not take long before you were caught in the web of fanfiction and ploughed through the sheer abundance of fics. You could be up for the majority of the night reading novels about characters you had absolutely no clue who they were, nor had you ever heard of the franchise or books or whatever they belonged to. Eventually, you happened upon Genshin Impact—a game that seemed interesting enough to try on your old laptop.
Though your laptop could barely run the game and the graphics were trash, so you abandoned it fairly quick.
Reading was essentially what saved you from the insanity of insomnia. That and heaps of caffeine to power you through the day.
Your therapist had also said that you could not continue through life like this. That you had to find the root of what was causing the nightmares, the trauma, and promptly deal with it. She did not believe you when you could not think of anything plausible that could have caused this.
Was having a therapist even making a difference? Well, she had so kindly prescribed you melatonin. Which you had refused to take, since you did not want to fall asleep and risk dreaming of that terrible place.
But one night, there you were. Staring at the package of drugs.
You had a huge exam in mathematics in four days. It was crucial for you to do well if you wanted to pass with a good grade on the course.
If you studied the remaining days alongside getting some proper sleep—the information would stick and your mind would not be the sluggish mess it was. And those were the keys for an amazing performance.
But was it worth the cost of being flung into your cruel nightly imagination? And drugging yourself into it too? What if the melatonin made you unable to wake up?
You squinted at the package, twisting it around to read the ingredients. Only for the paranoia to surge at the list of things that sounded like something poisonous. Doctors and scientist would not allow patients to take poison though.
.....right?
One of the symptoms for sleep deprivation was being unreasonably paranoid.
Before the typical overthinking made you unable to take melatonin another night, you popped a tiny pill out of the package. On the count of three you threw it into your mouth and swallowed it with a glass of water.
You slipped under the duvet on your bed as soon as you had placed down the glass. Stare fixated on the ceiling and mind forcefully blank. As the minutes ticked by, you realised that the medication had not affected you at all.
Since you were already determined about your course of action, you sat up and reached for another pill. You refused to think about the repercussion of taking a higher dose than recommended. You were desperate for at least a couple hours of decent sleep.
It took a while before the almost nauseating drowsiness set in and your wide open eyes fluttered close.
While your consciousness slipped away, you wondered what kind of hell awaited you in your slumber.
Not in the slightest prepared for what the future had in hold for you.
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Your brain could conjure up some very realistic dreams (mostly nightmares).
So you did not think too much about suddenly lying on what seemed to be a very realistic forest bed instead of a mattress. Strands of grass caught in a light breeze brushed against your face. You scrunched your nose at the ticklish sensation.
Not too eager on discovering what terror would plague your dreamland, you clung to the lingering somnolence, slow to come back to your senses.
What finally did spark an attentiveness in your still sleepy mind was the distinct lack of smoke burning its way down your airways as you breathed. Instead, the air tasted clearer and fresher than what you had ever experienced before. And the wind was pleasant and soft, a contrast to the howling gales advancing the roaring flames in a great inferno.
This was... unusual.
Confused, you opened a bleary eye—and you were immediately attacked by the sheer brightness of the outside.
A lush and vibrant forest stretched out before you; a forest with a rich undergrowth blooming under the shade from the canopy of the tall trees. Through in the gaps between the leaves, the sun peaked through and cast its rays over your form. The seemingly peaceful surroundings caused you further bewilderment, and you raised a hand to serve as a shield from the unwelcome sunlight.
Cloth in shades of white and orange draped your arms, the loose sleeve slipped down and folded as your arm rose. Golden stitches were embroidered along the clothing's edges in an intricate design. You lifted your head to see how the robes fell down below your knees and the overflow of fabric spilled out on the grass.
"What?" you exhaled, not knowing how to feel about this particular dream.
Although it missed the usual horrific imagery of a catastrophe, you were put off. The dream was hyper realistic—all senses were in full function, and your mind could freely analyse the situation.
Everything screamed that this was real. And that spooked you even more than all the preceding nightmares.
You pushed yourself up in a sitting position, clutching the side of your head as fear bubbled up in you.
"Okay. Calm down. It's not real," you mumbled in reassurance to yourself, eyes wide as they took in the forest around you. It was not familiar to you, having this almost ethereal beauty unlike the ones in your home area. Thus ruling out the tiny possibility of you sleepwalking somewhere and certifying that this indeed had to be a dream.
Though your mind seemed to not accept this certain fact.
You let go of your head and stared straight forward. Vision zeroing in on a particular blue flower that reminded of a bluebell, but with a single large bell. And in the shade of the canopy it gave a soft glow. Except for the foreign environment and bioluminescent flowers, nothing indicated that this was a dream.
"This isn't happening."
However, for each minute that passed and the scenery remained unchanged, your chest clenched with more anxiety. "Is this real?"
Another soft breeze rustled the leaves of the trees and bushes. It brushed against your face and tugged at your clothes. And all of a sudden, you felt awfully exposed in the middle of nowhere.
You scrambled up on your bare feet, so fast that the movement caused a head rush. It took all of your strength to not collapse right back down on the forest bed. When the dizziness passed, you straightened from your hunched over posture—slowly as you were distracted by the increasing dread at the realism.
Had you finally gone insane? Incapable of separating imagination from reality.
Or had you drugged yourself into a vivid hallucination? One that would fade when the effects of the drugs left your system.
Or.. (you felt like you had lost your mind by even merely thinking about it -) had you, by some means, been moved to an exotic forest. And you changed into a fancy dress.
Yeah, no.
That was ridiculous. Laughable. If you genuinely considered that option then you were insane for real.
It had to be either of the first two. You could only cling to the hope that it was the second option. Clinically mad was not a label you preferred to be stamped next to your name in your medical files.
The wind picked up again and whooshed through the leaves, and you realised you had frozen into a statue while internally debating the likeliness of your insanity.
You took a step forward, then halted in your movement, not knowing what you were supposed to do. Because if this was a very realistic dream or hallucination, should you not just wait it out? What if roaming around would trigger some nightmare sequence that you would want to avoid? Or if it were a hallucination, you walking around might mean you walk somewhere dangerous in the real world that you could not see.
Staying put was arguably the most rational thing you could do. So that was what you were going to do. No matter how long you had to wait it out.
"Uh, excuse me—"
Nearly jumping out of your skin, you swivelled around at the sudden voice. A young man came out of the cover of the shrubbery, his approach slow and cautious. His attire was strangely old-fashioned. He wore mostly brown, although a white vest sat on his upper body and a thick black belt was strapped around his middle. What caught your attention was the quiver on his back and loaded bow in his hands.
You were flabbergasted. This had never happened before in your dreams.
The man seemed as shocked as you, blue eyes blown wide as he stared at your appearance. "Are you a fairy?"
"...What?"
He became flustered by the deadpanned response and immediately began to backtrack. "I'm sorry.. - I mean you look the image of one and legends says there're fairies in this forest, so I just blurted out the question. I didn't mean to offend you, Fräulein."
Was that last bit German? What was this kind of nonsense your drugged ass brain had cooked up for you to experience?
For a moment, you considered whether you should play along with the imaginary person or expose this for being your imagination. Although you had heard of horror stories where lucid dreams turned creepy when one would tell the fact to someone inside of the dream. So you decided against it.
"I'm not offended?"
He let out a breath of relief. "I'm glad you weren't." He paused, brows lowering in confusion. "But if you're not a fairy, why you're in the forest? It's dangerous. And you don't look like an adventurer or a traveller."
"I don't know," you answered truthfully. "I woke up and I was here."
You did not miss the returning spark of wonder in his stare. The silence stretched on a bit too long.
"Where are we? You said it was dangerous?"
"Oh," the man exclaimed, sheepishness leaking onto his face. "We're in Mondstadt, in one of the forests near Springvale, but I don't know exactly where. I'm kind of... lost. I'm only a hunter in making, so I don't know the forests so well yet." He unnocked the arrow from his bow and placed a hand on his chest. "Ah - I haven't introduced myself yet, have I? I'm Allan. It's nice to meet you."
Your response was delayed by the heaping amount of disbelief at what he had said.
Mondstadt. As in one of the seven nations in Teyvat, a made-up world in the game Genshin Impact which you had only tried out and read some fanfictions about. You were supposedly standing in a forest in that fictional world you had spare knowledge about.
At least your insane mind had a sense of humour.
"...I'm [Name]."
You squinted at the man before you. You did not remember anyone in the game by the name Allan. He was probably just an imaginary individual that your brain had made up in the moment.
"Well, you could accompany me back to the village if you want. It'd be best if you got out of the forest."
"Weren't you lost?" you asked, voice flat.
"Uh - yes, I was - am. But you're unarmed, so it's safer for you to travel with me." A blush bloomed on his cheeks as he sputtered to convince you to come with him. "And I'm certain I'll recognise our surroundings in a bit."
"Right."
He fidgeted where he stood, steadily growing more anxious as you were unswayed by his lacking persuasion skill. "It - it would greatly tear at my conscience to know I left an unarmed lady who's lost in the forest."
"Who said I was lost?"
"You did," he said nervously. "You asked where we were?"
You knew you did. You were being difficult on purpose. Because you were not so keen on going along with what your lunatic brain was trying to spur you to do. It would most likely be best if you just stayed.
However, due to the unusual serenity of your otherwise apocalyptic-inspired imagination, you were the tiniest bit of intrigued by the direction of this dream. And the realism of it all was still setting off alarms.
You heaved out a sigh. "Alright. I'll come."
"That's great!" He brightened up, instantly delighted by your change of mind. "Follow me then."
The two of you began to traverse the forest, you in tow with the loquacious hunter, in search for a landmark that Allan would recognise so he could navigate back to Spingvale. However, he seemed more intent on learning more about you than focusing on orientation. When you barely offered him any information to his queries, he steered the conversation to the people of his village.
His mindless chatter was filled with accounts of him and his hunter companions. As the search prolonged without result, the conversation dwindled down to spare sentences, the man's full attention finally on the task of finding his way back.
After the forest took upon a darker tone and the vegetation became denser, Allan was quick to retrace your steps, mumbling about the perils lurking in Wolvendom. It felt like you were walking back and forth and in circles, no closer to escaping out of the forest and reaching civilisation. The hunter-in-making tried to assure you that because you had almost accidentally stumbled into Wolvendom, he now knew the general direction of where you had to go.
You were severely doubting this guy's capabilities.
Perhaps this was the interlude of you being lost in an endless forest before the true nightmare would begin as nightfall came.
"Look!" Allan exclaimed. "I told you I knew where we were!"
Down a small steep where you were standing, a wide road lead through the forest. There were dips and bumps on the packed dirt, evident tracks of wheels and carts, indications that it was well-travelled.
Allan had straightened with a pleased smile, all too proud of his achievement, as if you had not been walking in that stupid forest for hours. Exhaustion seeped into your very bones, the soles of your feet ached from stepping on sharp sticks and pebbles, an uncomfortable heat flushed your skin and your throat was parched.
Again, that your imagination could so convincingly mimic the real experience of physical exertion made the unease crawl inside your chest.
"Mm... and pray tell," you began with a sarcastic drawl, "do we take left or right?"
He was quiet.
"Left."
Suspicion rose at the short answer. "You sure?"
"Uh - yes, I'm certain." His obvious stutter contradicted his words.
You were done with this dream and just wanted to wake up. Too tired to argue with this fictional person you skid down the slope and onto the road, heading left and hoping he was correct.
It turned out to be the right direction after you come across an intersection. The wooden sign had your destination inscribed and it pointed where you were headed. Replenished with energy, Allan picked up the pace, and you had to hurry to keep up with his long strides. The hard-packed ground and gravel scraped against your bare feet.
Fortunately, it did not take too long before the tips of cloth wings peaked above the treetops—Allan excitedly told it was a windmill belonging to his village.
Escaping the coverage of the lush forest and road curving upwards, the sight of Springvale stretched out above on the highland. It was not the tiny village that you had been expecting, it was far larger, though it had its resemblances. One-story houses with tiled roofs were scattered across a massive area, some stood in clusters and others alone, divided by dirt paths and fields of tilled land. Smaller streams meandered through and around the village, leading to a pond nestled in a slope surrounded by reed and flowers.
When you approached the nearest group of houses, nearby villagers spotted you and rushed to meet you. "Allan!"
A few sported the similar hunter's outfit as your companion, though others were dressed in old-fashioned clothes—all quick to reach the two of you.
"Where have you been?" a hunter demanded, his angry tone mismatching with the relief in his eyes. "It's almost sundown! We nearly sent for the knights to search for you."
Allan scratched the back of his neck. "I apologise, Günter. I got lost, again."
"You shouldn't be out on your own! Wait until Draff assembles a hunting party, or at the very least take a hunting companion with you."
"Sorry Estrid."
The mentioned woman crossed her arms, brown hair whipping around her as she jerked her head to the side in a huff. "You should be sorry for worrying us like that." Though, her visible ire melted fast into something softer. "You're alright?"
"Yes I am."
With that out of the way, Estrid shifted her focus towards you. "And who's this?"
"This is [Name]," Allan spoke up before you had a chance to introduce yourself, which miffed you. "She was also lost in the woods."
"Truly? Well, why was she in the woods to begin with? She doesn't look like a local and she's not properly clothed for travelling."
Uncertain of how to answer, Allan turned to you at Estrid's question. You almost did not speak up, since they had been conversing for a good minute as if you were not there and you were feeling petty. Why entertain the figments of your imagination?
Nonetheless, before anyone could ask if you were mute, you opened your down-turned mouth. "I don't know. My memory's fuzzy. I must've passed out because I just woke up there."
"...That's a strange and very uninformative answer," one of the unnamed hunters said.
"Where's your hospitality Lukas? This Fräulein here's brought to our village as a guest," Estrid scolded, hands on her hips. "We ought to show her a real Mondstadtian welcome! Not regard her with hostility and interrogate her."
That changed the tune of the group, who offered their own greetings and welcomes to you. Estrid watched the interaction with satisfaction.
"Now then, I'm certain you two must be famished." The woman did not wait for a response before she began to lead you away. You noticed the faint freckles that painted her dimpled cheeks due to her proximity. "Brook made an entire cauldron of stew earlier and there's still some left."
You were taken to a fireplace near the closest group of houses and had barely sat down on a one of the benches when a bowl was shoved into your hands. The sun dipped behind the horizon and coloured the darkening sky a red orange by the time you were finished.
Estrid ushered you into her own home, which had enough room to accommodate you. While she made the bed for you in the guestroom, she gave you a bucket with warm water and a sponge to clean the dirt off your feet. After you had dried them with a towel, you retreated into the room as she bid you goodnight.
There was a simple gown placed on the bed that you changed into.
You eyed the bed suspiciously. Half-expecting it to grow teeth, spring to life and attack you.
It had been a very peaceful and peculiar dream so far. Too peaceful.
You did eventually crawl down under the duvet and unlike every other night—sleep came and claimed you almost immediately.
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