So she was dreaming in 4K UHD with a scratch & sniff attachment. Meant nothing. “This is just a dream,” she whispered, reaching a hand out to the vase, sighing at the rush of heat that clambered happily up her arm when she placed her fingertips against the thick glass. Ari squinted. It really was unlike any vase she’d ever seen before; solid purple with a round fat bottom and a long thin flute of a neck. It reminded her of a genie’s bottle.
Genie.
“No.” Ari shook her head, stepping back. Creepy genie guy didn’t do this. It was a dream. Just a dream. In fact, she was probably dreaming about this crap because of creepy genie guy. Rachel was going to pay for that little surprise. A gimmick genie at an eighteenth birthday party… what had she been thinking? And not just any genie. Hot genie. With evil, soulless eyes. Rachel was such a pa—
What was that?
Ari pricked her ears, straining to hear it again.
There it is!
Heart pounding, she turned, almost slipping on the floor in her hurry to follow the sound of voices. Voices calling in the distance. Ari raced across the room toward a door buried deep in the shadows. Wooden and medieval in appearance, Ari wondered what the hell she’d been watching or reading in the last few days to make her dream this stuff up. Grasping the iron handle that looked more like a door knocker than a knob, Ari pulled the wooden door inward and gasped at the blast of cold air that sliced across her skin.
Her chest tightened. “Okay. That was pretty real for a dream.”
Eyes watering from the sudden rush of oxygen, Ari blinked and tentatively stepped outside. Her feet were stiff and numb from the cold and the black flagstones beneath them weren’t helping wake them up. As her eyes stopped tearing, she took in the long stretch of flagstones before her. She was on some kind of huge balcony. The roof arched above her in stunning architecture, swirls and patterns carved into the stone, perhaps Middle Eastern in design. The roof curved down to a halt on her right side, held up by carved columns interspersed evenly along a waist-high wall. Ari drank in the colorful mosaic on the inside of the wall, mosaics depicting people and actions, almost like they told a story. They reminded her of the ancient architectural reliefs her history teacher showed them. She followed the picture of a man on fire as his head reached the top of the wall and she looked out and over.
“Holy crap…” she gasped, stepping forward unconsciously. Beyond her perch on the balcony of this insanely amazing building, Ari took in the towering stone mountains that surrounded her, mountains that winked green under a winter sun. She squinted, trying to work out the flash and spark, and realized the mountains comprised the same stone and green gems as the walls of the room she’d been in. “Amazing.” Built into the mountains were elaborate homes that reminded Ari of the pictures she’d seen of Morocco, architecture that favored curves and color and arabesques. The homes grew steadily more modest the farther they were located down a spiral into a valley hidden by a sea of foggy clouds. Ari’s eyes widened as she saw people in the distance, walking casually along rough-hewn paths teetering on the edges of the mountains. Just the thought of traversing those roads terrified the hell out of her. The voices she heard appeared to have been these colorful figures, who strolled back and forth, descending up and out of the fog in brightly colored, loose fitting robes and pants. In this weather? She shivered again, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms.
They’re not real, Ari. Figment meet Imagination.
“Right,” she whispered. “I’m dreaming.”
Just a dream.
Ari’s whole body froze. Her muscles tensed, her shoulders hunched to her ears, her ears pricked up, her heartbeat did its best to drown out her hearing by rushing her blood around her body super-fast. It was the reaction someone might have to the sound of a thief breaking into their house at night.
But Ari wasn’t reacting to a burglar. She reacted to the low, deadly growl that rumbled from somewhere over her shoulder. She gulped. Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream. Slowly, hands trembling, Ari turned, placing one foot carefully after the other. Her eyes widened as she turned full circle and faced—
“Holy mother of crap.”
The thing before her… oh god, oh god, what is it, what is it?!
The growling grew deeper and louder as she backed away slowly toward the room she’d just exited and bile rose as the thing took an awkward, unbalanced step toward her.
You are so seriously messed up if you can dream this kind of stuff, Ari!
The monster—for that’s what it was—snarled. As far as Ari could tell, its mulch-shaped head was really only half of a face. It had one eye, dark and lidless with thick, pulsing red veins flowing out from under its mud-colored skin, skin that crinkled like paper when it moved. It had no nose cartilage, no bone structure, just a hole in the middle of its half-face that grew bigger and then smaller as it breathed its fury at her presence. As for the thing’s mouth… oh boy.