Dreaming Makes More Sense Who: Ash and Rae Where: Just inside the treeline When: Early morning
Ash rolled over in his sleep, hugging his pillow to him as he curled around it, shivering slightly. It was cold, too cold for him to keep sleeping, but too early to wake. Another five minutes, he told himself, but then the light was seeping through his eyelids, pulling him to wakefulness. He rolled over again, hand flopping back into the sand beneath him. Sand? His fingers curled into the sand, the top starting to warm from the sunlight, but cool beneath. There shouldn’t have been sand in his bed.
He squinted as the sun brightened, rising higher in the sky, preventing another second of sleep. It was time to wake, but when he sat up he wondered where he was, as this was certainly not his bed. Was he dreaming? Ash rarely had lucid dreams, but maybe this was the first. He rubbed a palm over his eyes as his hair fell in his face, still groggy from a restless night. It was the first time he ever recalled feeling tired in his dreams, but who said he couldn’t? In dreams, anything was possible.
With no pressure to get up and moving, he sat there a minute longer, and then the ground beneath him shifted. Ash quickly shuffled backwards, unsettled by the movement, and then even more so when it continued. He jumped to his feet, grabbing the pillow from the ground before he took off, beginning to run. At first his steps were aimless, but then he spotted a speck of green in the distance. There, that’s where he needed to go. Dreams were fairly straightforward like that, giving him only one good option-- he certainly wasn’t going to head towards more endless sand. As soon as he stepped foot within the oasis, Ash climbed upon a rock, watching the expanse of sand he’d covered in the last few seconds. It continued to shift before it stilled. His heart continued to pound. This might be a dream, but that felt real. The fear was real, and he wasn’t going to wait around to see what was waiting for him beneath the sand. He headed into the woods, weary of what laid before him in this strange new world.
There had been a handful of days since Rae had first woken up and in those days, she had kept herself busy. After Andy and herself had spent their first night in the desert oasis, Rae had spent he next morning creating a child like fishing pole out of a giant stick and a length of ‘rope’ fashioned out of the reedy plants that sprang up in the marsh like shallows of the pond. Since then, they’d lived off fish and some various fruits that they’d discovered to be edible.
Every day, Rae would take some time to herself and explore the surrounding area. She made sure to keep away from the dense trees that had those strange blue striped monkeys. Today, Rae had spent her time wandering back along the pathway that her and Andy had taken upon meeting each other. By chance, she turned down another bend in the path and heard a rustling among the thick foliage. Pausing, Rae did her best to keep herself hidden from view until she could figure out if the noise belonged to something that could possibly be harmful to herself. All she had with her, weapon wise, was a stick she’d taken to carry in case one of the rustling little critters in the brush needed to be swatted away. Against anything bigger, she wasn’t sure it’d be of any use.
After the noise stopped, Rae slowly crept closer. It didn’t sound like it was an animal. It could have been another person, but that thought brought about a whole other worry. If it happened to be another person, were they a friend or foe? “Hello?” She called out, ready to run back the way she came if she needed to.
“Hello?” Ash called back, head whipping around towards the sound of the voice. Dream or not, he’d rather be with someone than completely alone and he couldn’t imagine a threat calling out in such a way. He’d have run towards the voice if he didn’t already feel so vulnerable, wearing only his boxers and carrying a pillow. It could only get worse if he was shoved in front of an audience and forced to give a speech. Grabbing a stick off the ground, he called back. “Who’s there?”
“I could be asking you the same thing.” She answered back, her voice floating over the wild vegetation. Picking her way along, Rae thought about her appearance for the briefest of moments. Her pyjamas were dirty, a few tears here and there, and God help her, her hair was full of knots and tangles. She knew she looked horrible, she only hoped it wouldn’t scare off whoever was there.
When she finally stumbled out of the plant life, she stood there with her stick at hand ready to defend herself if need be. She looked him over a moment, noting the pillow and state of dress. “Let me guess, you woke up out there in the sand huh?”
If this was a dream, it could have been anyone to answer. It could have been his brother, his ex-girlfriend, or the queen of England. Asking who was there had seemed like a logical question until he got his answer. The girl that appeared before him didn’t look like a native to the land, nor did she appear to be a threat, despite having a better weapon than him. She was in a similar state of dress, though definitely a bit more ragged than he’d yet to become.
“Yeah, back there,” Ash said, nodding towards the direction he’d come in from. “Is this something that happens often?” Dammit, Ash, wake up! He was quickly deciding that he liked normal dreams better than lucid ones, even if they were sometimes more frightening. It was much too weird to know he was dreaming, yet still have to go along with it.
“Thankfully you were able to get away from whatever thing is in the sand. I haven’t set foot out there since I first got here. Whatever it is that makes the sand move, it scares the hell out of me.” She babbled as she shifted from one foot to the other, thankful for the socks that were quickly becoming too worn as they lent a slight bit of protection from the small sharp and jagged bits that were dug into the ground beneath her feet. “Its happened a few times.”
Squinting against the glare of the sun, Rae held her hand out to the man who stood across from her. “I’m Raelynn, you can call me Rae.”
He looked back out towards the desert, remembering the way the sand had shifted and sent him running. “Could be graboids, the creatures from Tremors. Or sand worms, like in Beetlejuice.” Ash immediately wondered if saying the name three times would conjure the ghost and decided that now was not the time to find out. His dream was complicated enough without dealing with that kind of insanity. “I’m gonna go with graboids,” he added, thinking that was the movie he saw most recently. Dreams were more likely to latch on to something recent, right?
“I’m Asher,” he smiled, setting aside the stick to shake her hand. “But you can call me Ash.”
“Right Tremors. I was a big fan of those movies growing up. Especially the first one. Got to love good ol’ Stumpy.” She said jokingly as she shook his hand. “Ash, its nice to meet you. Since you’re new around here, how about I show you the way to the pond? We’re a small group, but we’re surviving.”
“The whole Tremors thing is why I think I’m terrified of heading back out there. We’re kind of safe here and all. Who knows if its circling around waiting for us to step back out there.” She couldn’t help but laugh as the thought went through her mind. It terrified her, yet amused her at the same time. “The things from Beetlejuice moved more in an up and down motion, this thing barrels through the ground more. So, I think I”ll stick to Graboid as well.”
“Did everyone wake up out in the sand?” It seemed like a reasonable thing to ask, since she’d said it happened before. “How many of us are there?” He paused, then just decided to put it out on the table. “How do I know I’m not dreaming?” Because that was the only reasonable explanation for what he was doing there. Even a prank wouldn’t have been this elaborate and he didn’t think anyone would have knocked him out and driven him out to the desert just for this. So yes, dream. It had to be one.
She had thought this was a dream as well, she couldn’t fathom waking up in the middle of the desert as anything other than a dream. By the time she’d literally smacked into the oasis, she knew better. Everything was far too real to be a dream. “Well, let’s put it this way... if you were dreaming this wouldn’t hurt.” As she spoke, Rae reached out and pinched his arm. It wasn’t the most practical way of getting a point across, but she’d been there for quite awhile now. She knew it wasn’t a dream. “Satisfied? Now, shall we get a move on? I don’t like to be this far away from the pond when it gets too hot.”
Turning around, she didn’t wait for an answer as she began to head back towards the path she’d branched off of. “There aren’t many. Andy and I were the first to arrive, I think. We have fresh drinking water, and shelter at night. We’ve been living off of fish and fruit. I hope you don’t have an allergy to either of those things. We haven’t figured out much about the wildlife around here. Except, the blue tiger monkey things, they seem like they’d like to rip us apart. I’ve been wary of some of the plant life this far out. Red berries and flowers are usually poisonous right? I remember being told that as a child. I just don’t know if its backwards out here.” Rae began to babble again as she turned to look over shoulder, making sure he was following her.
“Ow!” Asher whined as she pinched him, frowning at the feeling. “Okay, got it, not a dream.” It was true that he shouldn’t be able to feel pain in dreams, but maybe that wasn’t completely true. How would he know? Rather than argue with her, he followed along behind her, continuing to hope he’d wake up sometime soon. That was the only way this would all make sense. People didn’t just go to sleep in their bed and wake up in strange new lands... unless they were abducted by aliens. He might have accepted that as a reasonable explanation if they were on Mars, but aliens probably didn’t drop people off in the desert.
“So did you make the shelter? Is this like Survivor to the extreme? Any chance of extra clothes?” Since she seemed to be in a night gown, he was guessing on ‘no’, but it was worth asking. Asher was still hoping for the dream option, since that meant clothes could magically appear, otherwise he had the feeling people were going to be seeing a lot more of him than he normally put on display. “I wish I could say I knew which berries to eat and which to avoid, but that’s never been my thing.” At least he could start a fire. Two years as a cub scout had taught him that much.
“No, when we showed up here, the shelters were here. They’re out over the water, held up on stilts so I hope you know how to swim.” Rae paused a moment as she thought over telling him about the fallen shelter. Whoever had made it had been gone long enough for the place to fall in on its self. In the end she turned her attention back to Asher. “We haven’t figured out who made them, but whoever it was, they’re long gone by now.”
“There’s few things I remember from my childhood. Poison Ivy and Oak have three leaves, moss grows on the north side of the tree, I think. Mostly, I just watch out for something that’s going to be along the ground. Like snakes. On my walks I hear things in the tall grasses and weeds, I make s much noise as possible, and swing my trust stick here. If there’s anything that’s going to attack me, its thought twice.” Raelynn hated when she rambled, but she found herself doing more and more of it lately. It helped her keep her mind off of her life. Her other life? The life she had before she woke up here.
“So there’s enough water to build over,” Ash said, an image forming in his mind as she described the place. That was normally the kind of thing he pictured on an island, not in the middle of a desert. This place was definitely weird. “Is there anywhere to go? Like, has anyone tried to walk the perimeter? Are we completely surrounded by sand? Should we be worried about resources?” He knew he was asking a lot of questions, but if this really was reality, then he had a lot to adjust to. He also suspected some kind of mental break was coming as soon as he came to terms with this madness. As of now, he still didn’t believe it, but he continued to play along. Denial is the first step.
“Where are you from when you’re not here?” he asked. He couldn’t ignore the real world, which was what made this the most bizarre dream ever. If it was a dream, he was asking a figment of his imagination about her life outside the dream. This made movies like The Matrix and Inception seem easy to follow by comparison. What was reality? For right now, this was, at least until he woke up.
“I haven’t walked too far. Honestly, this is about as far from the camp as I’ve walked since we woke up here. I come out here every couple of days, in hope of finding a way home. I know its just wishful thinking, there’s nothing but sand out there.” I’d like to return to my life. Rae grew silent for a moment, her mind turning inward as she began to dwell on her life before she woke up here. With a deep breath, Rae returned her attention to her surroundings and continued to answer the man she found herself in the company of.
“So far we’re doing good on food and water. If we end up blessed with good fortune, maybe just maybe someone who can hunt will wake up here. I don’t wish to condemn someone to this situation we’re in, but at the same time I’d like to have something other than fish and fruit to eat. There are animals in the forest. I don’t recommend going that way, by the way, there are these strange blue striped monkey type things, they make these horrible noises and seem to be aggressive. I haven’t been brave enough to try and pass them to explore into the trees. I’m sure you’ve noticed the vegetation is thick around here. I’ve caught glimpses of scurrying animals here and there. I’ve heard things slither like snakes do. Who knows, maybe we can come up with a way to catch something.”
Rae was silent after that, her thoughts once again returning to her real life. Why had Fate singled her out and stuck her in this place? What cosmic crime had she committed to end up here? To the best of her knowledge there wasn’t anything that would cause life to throw her into a strange new world. By the time she spoke up again, Rae and Ash were slowly climbing the incline that lead to the spring. From there it would be an easy trek to the ‘village’ (as she called it). “I come from Glenns Falls New York. I am a pediatric nurse and love what I do - did.” There was a sadness to her tone, she missed her career, her family, her fiance. She missed her life. “What about you? Where are you from?”
Ash listened, trying to take it all in and remember, even if he wasn't sure he'd need to. He was still unable to believe this was reality; it didn't make sense and he had trouble grasping how he'd come to be there without some kind of explanation. Maybe he'd died in his sleep and been thrown into some kind of heaven or purgatory. The later made more sense. Heaven wasn't supposed to be a desert wasteland, at least in his opinion, though it might have blue striped monkeys. As they started down the hill, Ash could see out to what was before them. A village, like she'd said, down the path they followed.
"I'm from LA," he answered. "I film movies, short films, things like that. Depends on the job." He'd seen a lot of odd plots, all with twists and turns and not so happy endings. This adventure made him think of that, though those at least had a bit of sense to them. No one would believe a plot where random people suddenly woke up in the middle of the desert. In 'Lost' they'd at least gotten there on a plane... in their clothes. But if that was what the human mind could dream up, what twist could reality put on the playing field? Ash had no idea how he'd come to get there, but he knew he had to work with it. It was either that or die in the process, and he didn't want to risk never waking up again.