Once Upon a Dream

Chapter the Third

This must be a nightmare, I decided. I was standing...well, I don’t know where I was standing, but it was pretty scary. It looked like some kind of giant, sterile warehouse. I couldn’t decide if it belonged to the army or the maternity ward—lots and lots of pregnant women surrounded me, standing at perfect attention in lines that stretched farther than I could see. Attack of the mummies?

Yeah, I know. That was terrible. I apologize.

Okay, okay—I’m back on track now, I swear. Lots of pregnant women. I waved my hand in front of one, but she didn’t respond. “Um, excuse me. Could you tell me how to get the hell out of here?” I asked politely. She didn’t answer.

“Gosh, you’re big,” I continued. “You must be due tomorrow. Or are you having a litter? Sorry, that was mean of me. Well, I’m sure they will all be very cute. Have you heard that listening to Beethoven will make them smarter?”
I took her silence for a ‘no.’

“It will, I assure you. Who’s in charge here?” I yelled. “Put some Beethoven on, already! You’re breeding morons!” Music suddenly blasted from nowhere and I shrieked. “Turn it off! Turn it off!” Silence, sudden and complete.

“Cripes, people. You want a whole lot of deaf pregnant women on your hands? Softly. This is quality music, people. Not the kind you head bang to. Although maybe these poor ladies have done a bit too much head banging. Seem to have knocked their cogs out.” The music returned, at a lower decibel.

I bit back the urge to whimper. Where was I? Wherever I was, I wanted to leave. Now. You can only babble to keep yourself from panicking for so long, you know?

The whimper slipped out when I heard footsteps a few rows away. You know in the movie, Signs, when they are in the cornfield, running away from the aliens? That’s how I felt. Only instead of cornstalks, I was in a field of wide-ankled pregnant ladies.

The footsteps were headed my direction. I started walking down the row. The footsteps came closer. Oh god, oh god. I walked faster. My footsteps seemed to crash out a staccato “rap rap” in time with the softly playing Beethoven, which wasn’t so relaxing any more. The footsteps seemed closer and closer, even though my pursuer never sped up. I was running now, having abandoned all attempt to be quiet. Oh god. The pregnant women never ended. I was never going to get out of here. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know how to get out. And even if I did, I would be lost in the never-ending rows of women in gray maternity clothes.

My breathing was ragged now, tearing out of my lungs in painful pants. My feet seemed heavier and heavier. Was that flash of black the side of my pursuer? I tried to run faster, but I was so tired. Don’t let him get me, God, I prayed.

I ran into a wall with a solid thwack. I screamed when the wall reached out and held me to it. I was weeping wildly, even—or maybe especially—once I realized that the wall I had run into was the solid chest of Cash.

He patted my back and said, “Jeez, ‘Donia, you about killed me there! Where do you think you’re going in such a hurry, anyway?”

I don’t think my answer was coherent around my sobs.

“Well, pull yourself together, now, babe. We have work to do.”

“What was that, chasing after me? Or, rather, who was it?” I asked.

Cash shrugged. My cheek moved up and down with his shoulder, smushing up toward my eye and then down toward my jaw. I pressed my face even closer to his chest so he couldn’t see how bad I looked.

“We don’t know. You’re supposed to be here to stop it.” Was he expecting me to be listening? I was so glad to have found someone I knew, okay, well, Cash specifically, that I was perfectly content to just stand there, hugging him. As I calmed, I began to enjoy his arms around me even more. In such close proximity, how could I ignore his nicely muscled chest and firm back? My hands started tracing his backbone. I didn’t tell them to, I swear. In fact, I didn’t really realize they were moving at all until he said—

“’Donia.”

“Yeah?” I breathed.

“Your hands are on my butt.”

“Oh. Um. Umm,...sorry?” Blast! I could be such a moron! I can’t believe I did that. Poor guy. Now he will probably be afraid of me forever, always thinking that I’m going to rape him if he ever so much as turns his back. I coughed to hide my embarrassment as best as I could. Not that it wasn’t still perfectly visible, what with me blushing the exact shade of Juicy Juice punch. But, you know. I tried.

“So, uh, what are all these women doing here?” I asked, desperate to change the subject from his very delectable behind. It had been nice and firm beneath my fingers, that perfect texture that just makes you want to squeeze—changing the subject! Changing the subject! “Hem. Yeah. Shouldn’t they be off their feet?”

He shrugged again. I was starting to figure out that Cash didn’t say a whole lot more than he absolutely had to. Strong and silent type, I surmised, pleased. I wonder if he would be loud in—

“Nah, it doesn’t matter. They aren’t really conscious themselves or anything. Just waiting to bear thoughts,” he answered.

What had my question been again? Cripes, this guy tipped me off balance. Wait, pregnant ladies, feet,...thoughts?

“Come again?” I asked.

“They are pregnant with your thoughts. This is your head, you know. You make up the rules here.”

I blinked at him. Yeah, right. I had decided to be chased through a forest of pregnant women by something really scary. I had decided to run into Cash. Yeah right. Okay, maybe I hadn’t really minded running into Cash. It had been a pleasant, if embarrassing experience.

“Um, so if you’re ready, we should really go find Zig and the others,” he said. I nodded my assent, and after waiting another moment, he pried my arms from around him, and we left the warehouse, or field, or forest, or whatever the hell it was we were. I can’t say I minded leaving.

“So let me get this straight,” I began, needing to understand the situation more fully. “I am here because there’s someone, or something, running loose in my brain, wreaking havoc wherever it goes?”

Cash thought for a moment. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“What kind of damage does it do?”

“I can answer that,” Zig said, appearing with Tattoo from around a corner. When had we left the pregnant women? I hadn’t noticed. Now I found myself in a city; skyscrapers that disappeared into the sky were on all sides. They didn’t exactly make me feel very powerful. I was kinda little to begin with. About five foot four, and my weight is none of your business, thank you very much.

“It’s been altering your memories and playing around with your moods. Manipulating how you see everything,” Zig continued.

“That doesn’t really sound so bad,” I said, relieved. “Well, I mean, it doesn’t sound good, but it doesn’t sound like the huge emergency you guys have been making it out to be.”

“You think it’s not so bad, chicky babe? You should see what things look like around here. And that’s nothing compared to how things will be if you don’t stop the monster.” That was Kathleen, peeking out from the top of Tattoo’s tank top. “I think it’s time for a tour of your brain.”