Narration

  To a professional, dream thievery is neither crime nor art. Instead, it is both a battle and a dance. With grace, freedom, and an impossible ease, the dream thief ignores the forces of gravity and bounds among the clouds as invisible as a dream. None of the guards notice him, even when he remains in the same airspace as the castle, just above the courtyard.

  A dance does not start until one asks their partner for their hand, so the dream thief must become visible to engage. He glides down from the air into the courtyard, falling from the sky like a sheet of paper following the wind.

  He is a black dot that the yellow fog lights catch on to and track all the way to the floor. The guards assemble for this affront. To come to the Heirs’ castle without an invitation is very bold.

  The guards are quick and silent. No need to disturb the Heirs’ sleep. They slip in and out of the shadows and surround the dream thief as he lands. Some glow from the power within them that begs to creep out. They could shoot him, of course. They have every right to. They never do for the same reason people accept dances from masked strangers dressed all in black at balls—curiosity.

  The dream thief sits and crosses his legs on the grass to lead the dance. The guards’ nightmares come to life. Those deep in their subconscious crawl out of it and face the moonlight. A spider-woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to the mother of a guard appears and decides she is hungry. A giant baby that grows in size eyes the guards and deems them all to be inadequate parents. Clowns leap out of the colors in the courtyard, and they can’t stop laughing.

  This satisfies the dream thief. He is safe. Every guard now battles a monster. This is only the waltz, though. He has come to do more than that. He has come to do ballet. At the same time, he splits his consciousness and walks into every dream of those sleeping in the castle—an unobtrusive stroll, as unnoticeable as the beat of their hearts. And he puts all those who sleep in an even deeper trance.

  Velli

  “Now,” I command Carreon.

  He dives from the clouds and descends upon the Heirs’ castle. Duke makes the grounds so chaotic that a guy on the back of a giant bat doesn’t stand out. We jet past open windows to see royalty and servants locked away in their dreams. We soar over men and women, who battle monsters from their nightmares. And finally, we find a window to a tower that has only one window and four guards defending its entrance. This, I assume, is either the prison or where they keep something hidden. I shrug. Tragedy or majesty. I command Carreon to set me down on the windowsill.

  “Stay here,” I tell him as I raise the window with surprising ease and slip through. I assume the guard assigned to the window is too busy fighting nightmares in the courtyard. “Carreon, be ready to fly when I get back, and do not leave before then. Camouflage or something so you remain hidden.”

  He whines but obeys.

  As I slip through the window, it dawns on me that this will answer another question I had forgotten but that has ruled my subconscious. Was Prometheus telling the truth? Was he truly brought down to the bottom of the Heirs’ prison and told the origin of the world through a pair of strange, all-knowing mouths? If not, why lie? Why try to convince me the world was nothing but chaos and misery?

  Tonight, I’ll find my answer.

  I would prefer a map of the Heirs’ prison to determine who I should release and who I shouldn’t and how to avoid guards that I’m sure litter this place, but I shall adjust. Tonight, I’ll free those captured by the Heirs, for right or wrong.

  I don’t make a noise as I land. It doesn’t matter. Massive overhead lights flick on above me and down the hall one by one with a boom each time. Boom, boom, boom, boom, and boom. I freeze, unwilling and afraid to take another step. Bright-white light touches nearly every corner of the hall. I’m center stage in a show I didn’t rehearse for. The spotlight’s on me, and I’m unsure of who my audience is.

  On both sides of me, cages line the hall. They’re full of thin-bellied and half-naked men and women. Their bodies scrape the ground as they crawl to the ends of their cells and toward me. Their words come out in ill-formed moans.

  Pick a cage, Velli. You’ll be in one of these soon.

  “Let me out. Let me out” is the consensus of the near dead.

  The sound rises across the tower. It’s like they all know I’m here. Directly below me, the same pleas vibrate the floor. Floor after floor in this castle, I assume the lights are on and the prisoners beg to be free.

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  The light of the halls does not touch one place—the very end, where the silhouette of a man sits in a chair.

  The man says something to me, something intelligible over the desperate cries for freedom. With my knives drawn, I shrug.

  The man in the shadow raises one dripping hand and yells, “Enough!”

  The tower hushes. No, that’s not true. The faint sound of tears remains. The sound is like a child being told not to cry, resulting in stifled sniffling.

  “And enough with the lights. It’s so bright.” He stomps once.

  The lights violently obey his will. The ones above him crack, and the explosions continue down to me. One by one, glass rains onto the floor and scrapes against the cages until, finally, the lights in front of me crack open.

  They are broken but not destroyed. They’ll survive. They blink and buzz until they grow tired of that and turn off. Darkness blankets the room. I stay still and quiet, and I grow conscious of how loud my breath is, of how my heart thumps in loud, trackable beats. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The lights flicker back on again in uncontrollable blinks.

  Okay, fine. So maybe he’s an electricity manipulator. And he has a fear of light? I turn my phone light on in my pocket, but I don’t pull it out yet. I focus on squinting between the blinking lights to get a clear image of the man before me.

  “Are you him?” Irritation peppers the man’s words.

  I do not answer.

  “You here for the prisoners?” he demands. His words echo through the hall and hit me with an almost-palpable force.

  Intimidated but refusing to show it, I decide to respond. “Yes. Now leave.”

  “You have no idea how absolutely aggravating and infuriating you have made my life since that stunt in the sewer.”

  “And you have no idea how desperate I am.”

  He does not reply.

  Thump, thump, my heart goes, and the sound of my opponent’s angry breaths travels down to me. Between heartbeats, I toss a blade at his neck. Darkness follows. The sound of contact. The lights blink again. The blade sticks in the wall behind him.

  “All for that?” He rises from his seat.

  “I won’t miss twice,” I tell him with absolute conviction.

  “And?” he demands. He yells with his whole body. His neck sticks out, and his arms flail.

  Pop!

  Something behind me bursts. It’s the window. It melts down the wall and blocks me. I reach to touch it, but my hand backs away at the intense heat. I’m locked in.

  Darkness’s jaws bite down on the room again. I make jerky movements with my knives, ready to stab something. His presence fills the room. He’s close. What is his power? How can he melt a window? The lights come on. He hasn’t moved.

  “Stay right there. I want you to feel something,” the man requests, still in his shadowed spot at the end of the hall.

  The lights go off again, and I throw a rapid succession of knives into his body. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. My heart goes more rapidly than my throwing ability. The knives leave my hand with an unsatisfying zip and a growing desperation. The lights turn on. I’m relieved. His body explodes in bright bloody bursts, and yet he still walks.

  “You don’t think I have things I’d rather do than stand guard here? ‘Get Red to do it. He’s not doing anything.’ Well, what if I don’t want to sit in this stupid cell, waiting for another wannabe savior? What if Red Father Christmas made plans for his evening?”

  Red Father Christmas steps into the light. Blood pours down every inch of his body like a waterfall. With each step, he plods through puddles of blood of his own making. “Because you’ve made my evening absolutely miserable waiting for you, I’ll ruin the rest of your short life. I hope you loved whoever it was you came here for.”

  He raises his arms, and a symphony of explosions comes from underneath my feet, getting closer. The ground shakes, and the moans return. I’m unsure what’s happening, but the prisoners understand.

  “Let me out. Let me out!” they demand again and do not seem like they will be persuaded by any hand-waving from Red Father Christmas this time.

  The explosions arrive on the top floor, and I understand why they call him Red Father Christmas. The prisoners’ bodies burst into red swirling globs of blood that resemble Christmas trees. High mercy-begging and empathy-demanding screams come from every prisoner, one by one. First on the right side then the left then back to the right like it’s pinball. The whole time, the lights flick on and off so the only constant is blood slapping the floor and the cries of the afflicted—until there are no more cries, and it’s only him and me alive in the room.

  “Tell your friends.” He sits back in his chair, a job well done.

  The cries of his victims echo in my head, and again, it’s another group I can’t avenge, another group I can’t do anything about.

  “Hey.” He stands. “I said leave. You’ve wasted enough of my time!” he commands, and with a pristine white smile, he sprints toward me.

  I bang on the window and slam, punch, and elbow against it until it breaks. I can’t wait to find Carreon. I leap out.

  “Carreon!” I yell as I fall.

  He arrives below me, and I land on his back.

  “Get Duke, and let’s get out of here!” I tell him.

  I have to take back the order because Rose stands on the dream thief’s head. We lost. It’s over.

  Substack Link- For short stories of fantasy and horror that sometimes involve the characters from here

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  https://www.reddit.com/r/Finchink/