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A Lullaby for Gods - Jade Harley - 10-03-2015
Quote:Accompanying Music: A Lullaby for Gods. Rating for this installment: T. No replies, please!
1. Good Dog, Best Friend.
A streak of something bright and trailing stardust like exhaust smoke darted across the open sky of primordial Earth, erupting in a glowing plume of ejecta and dust that looked akin to a furling, sinuous, bottle-green jellyfish. For a moment, the untamed jungle all around stilled, the dark foliage frozen in time and the animals lurking in the brush going silent and unmoving.
Above, the stars blinked and stuttered, like a thousand-million fairy lights twinkling over a dusky mire in the evening.
Then, there was the world-shattering impact, the sound barrier and all margins of ordinary breached in that single terrifying instant. The universe, a gigantic disc stuffed inside of a sooty case, faltered and scratched, sang raspingly but certainly true.
A tear of green lightning branched across the planet, all-encompassing and brilliantly burning. Reaching down and tearing entire mountains through from the ground up in the process, all the while singing in an ear-piercing drone that was far above the hearing capabilities of most living creatures, the sparking electricity petered out and finally vanished.
In a deep basin that would one day be about an eighth of the size of the crater at Chicxulub, a First Guardian sat upon its haunches and waited for she who would thaw solid flesh and resolve it into a dew.
---
The horizon was a jeweled crown of striking orange and amber-yellow hues mingling pleasantly with a robin’s egg azure, wide-spread and with the sun’s fiery golden eye receding into slumber. Below it, the sea meandered gently, the pinkish fading light of dusk slowly coalescing into a deeper, solemn blue. Little pitter-pattering threads of soft white foam lapped against the shoreline; the breeze smelled strongly of salt and spray.
Far out in the waves of blue-indigo sea, where the ocean glinted like bottle glass and the surf romped about as if it were made up of great white-winged horses, a progeny of the fabled Pegasus itself, the fading wisps of daylight cast across the wooden, barnacle-studded hull of a very tiny ship.
Becquerel snorted as it regarded the distant speck of a vessel on the horizon. It was flickering in and out of sight, swallowed up by rising waves and the sea’s enormous constitution.
The presence of the ship worried it, although it wasn’t quite sure why. It had seen many other ships beforehand, with wide sails flapping about like gulls, but this little boat was particularly significant to it. Perhaps it was the occupants of the boat?
The waves made eagerly for the pebbled shore. In just a moment, the boat would reach the lip of the shore. Becquerel trotted to and fro on the beach, leaving agitated paw prints in the damp sand. When it sees that the boat is slipping slowly into the shallow waters, it ducks under the shade of the jungle and watches from the shadowy tree line, white fur cloaked in verdant green.
Heavy boots slosh into the shallow waves, flecks of seawater and foam clinging to their dark rubbery surface. A tall mustachioed man in an odd cap and a white suit turns around, easily picking up the second figure in the boat and gently placing them on the beach just out of reach of the bitter waves.
Plump little toes wriggle in the sand, attached to a chubby little baby foot and then a chubby little baby altogether. She has long dark hair and wide green eyes, speckled with flecks of refracted sunlight. She chirps delightedly as she takes up a fistful of wet sand, her prominent buckteeth made all the more prominent when she gurgles out a laugh.
“G’pa!” She says, peering after the old man who has gone about tugging their tiny fishing boat under the cover of the tree line. Teal green shadows scatter over his back and pristine white clothing as he stoops down to remove a strand of salty seaweed from the boat’s inside layer.
Becquerel hunkers down under the dark of the long grasses and shrubberies, curiously watching the human pup as she pats her hands into the mud. She is hairless, save for the mop hanging off from the top of her soft head, with squishy stubs of pink fingers and toes. It could probably steal across the beach, grab her, and make off over the dunes with the child’s grandparent none the wiser.
But, then the grandfather has the boat weighted down to the ground with driftwood so as not to let it be taken off by gale force winds, and he has stomped back over to merrily watch over his charge and remark inanely upon the favorable weather. There is not much it can do now but observe.
As the grandfather scoops the child up into his arms, an impossibly large gun strapped securely across his back, Becquerel tracks them silently through the lush underbrush.
---
It isn’t long before a tower begins to take shape on the island, tall and muted white against the soft blue sky in the cloudy daytime. As the sun sinks below the horizon, the whole thing glitters gold, coy oranges and dainty pinks travelling across the white stone like streams of warm water. Grasshoppers sing in the dew-stippled grass, their flimsy exoskeletons coloured a spry yellow-green.
The grandfather crouches by a pond that is flecked with magenta and yellow lilies settled comfortably upon their verdant green pads, hard at work on a strange, human-shaped contraption. It has round lenses, reddish like the bulbous eyes of an insect. A glowing piece of some green material is painstakingly tucked inside its chest cavity along with a whole slew of colored wires. His pant legs are stained brown at the knees from the soil.
A few feet away, the little girl bats an octopus plush around with her diminutive fists, giggling to herself and having what seems to be a grand old time. Becquerel doesn’t understand the meaning of this game, but finds that it would quite like to play it, too. It also suspects that it could play it much better, given the chance.
The large woofbeast crouches down underneath the dewslick leaves of a bush, its paws digging into damp earth that is darker than the mud of the Dead Sea. Its featureless face is turned directly towards the young girl, although no eyes are present to glitter or glint with ill intent. Which, considering the circumstances, is for the better. Becquerel wouldn’t wish anything but kindliness upon this child. It has been waiting for her for a very long time, after all.
Snuffling quietly to itself, the First Guardian of Earth crawls on its belly towards the playing child, tail curved like a white flag of peaceful surrender. As it draws nearer, the girl suddenly stops whatever she is doing and blinks up at Becquerel, her mouth rounded out into a little ‘o’. Then, she reaches fearlessly up with her sap-sticky hands and digs them into the soft fur on either side of his muzzle.
“God-dog!” She exclaims, in the babbling way that small children are wont to do. This does not negate the truth in her words, however clumsily-spoken they may be, and Becquerel’s pointed ears perk smartly up at the precise title.
A young Jade Harley giggles delightedly at the grooved, strangely illumined green tongue that drags across the side of her face in a friendly lick.
The world is pink and sunbright gold; the sea swells and sighs in the distance.
---
Its name becomes Bec, according to the limited dialectal ability of the small child it has come to cherish every gibbering word and sniffle of. It also becomes a ‘he’.
Strange, that. Bec does not particularly mind.
What he does mind, however, is that there is an outlandish, oddly nervous-seeming entity prodding about in his mind. It appeals most strongly to his parental sensibilities in regard to young Jade, but wisely does not broach much further into the torrential flares of green flame that constantly stir within the centermost nucleus of his cognizance. He is quite sure that if this entity were to attempt to do so, they would promptly have their eyes melt out through their ears.
The only time where he lets this entity have complete control is on a sunny morning in the year 2000. Jade is capering about the sloping grassy hillsides, plucking up white-blossomed daisies and attempting to stick them in Bec’s fur. Eventually, when this proves to be ineffectual due to a strange green electricity incinerating the drooping flowers, she wanders off to busy herself with some other exciting pastime.
Unfortunately, this pastime involves dual-wielding a set of flintlock pistols. For a moment, Bec is largely unconcerned by this and continues to laze about and let the breeze and sunlight coast lengthwise through his fur.
Then, the unthinkable happens.
Bang!
In a blaze of green lightning and cycling nebulae, Becquerel has zapped to Jade’s side. He spatially latches onto the bullet that is mere centimetres from her face, liable to kill her instantly if it were to make contact, and flings it halfway across the island to hopefully hit some other, less invaluable object.
Rather unluckily, the bullet ‘pips’ easily through Grandpa Harleys upper body, a short spurt of blood marking the bullet’s passage into his chest cavity. He keels over after his body gives a short jolt, utterly lifeless, body gone slack. A dark stain spreads down his nice dress shirt, seeping into the soft white cotton. A small trickle of scarlet blood slips past his parted lips.
The presence in Bec’s mind loosens its hold, seemingly mollified.
This is exactly why babies should not be allowed to dual-wield flintlock pistols.
A Lullaby for Gods - 2 - Jade Harley - 12-15-2015
Quote:Accompanying Music: On Golden Dreams. Rating for this installment: G.
2. Golden Dreams, Golden Towers.
Green eyes flutter partially open. For a moment, the world is clinical white and sunlit, a wide window allowing for a salty breeze and light to pour over the menagerie of colorful potted plants inside. A pinkish-gold sunset melts over the seashore, soft-lather waves and low-hanging Cirrostratus gently bowed into a glinting and exquisite halo of light, settling leisurely down below the horizon just before the vision dwindles into something quite different.
Outside of her bedchamber window, the god-child looks over a glittering realm of gold. Fanciful spires rise up into the ether, an air of antiquity and majesty shimmering about them. The city dons a garment of peaceful splendor and heartfelt sighs from fluttering, sky-blue streamers, only a scattering of dusky spots breaking up the citadel’s effervescent shine.
Freezing stars replace the soft covering of clouds, blank-eyed and passionless when tossed into the midst of astral murk. A glorious canopy of white and blue surrounds the round cloudland of Skaia, which sings harmoniously to the Kingdom of Light, Prospit.
Jade startles, now fully awake. Gosh, she must have fallen asleep again! Her dream self is leaning over the tower window’s ornate ledge, chin propped up on her elbows, as if this is a perfectly normal place to fall asleep in. Newsflash! It isn’t. Her subconscious is a silly goose.
The Skaian song swells, as voiceful as the ocean waves that she listens to while in her waking moments. Towers, temples, domes, cathedrals, and theaters spread out across the city below, a wondrous place that only appears in her dreams. White carapaces skitter this way and that, going about their daily business. The streets are laid in neat golden brick.
After smoothing down her lacy golden dress, which is speckled around its high neck with sequins like translucent dew, the Princess of Prospit grins. Maybe today her brother John will be awake! She ought to pay his tower a visit and check up on him— he really is such a sleepyhead.
With this mission in mind, she turns to make sure that all is as it should be in her bedroom. Her bed is in order, the cloud-dappled bed sheets tucked neatly beneath the plush mattress, and a single pillow is spread across the mattress end. Several potted plants are setting here and there, with no order or complex design to their placement. A silent breeze whisks through the room, stirring the dark curls about her shoulders into frisky wakefulness.
Satisfied with her evaluation, Jade turns and clambers out of the window, her feet catching upon the sill for but a moment before she is tumbling witlessly out of the tower. Rather than falling to her certain doom, however, her feet lightly catch up upon empty space, and— yes! The princess dips gently into flight with little care for decorum, the skirts of her golden dress rolling upwards in shimmering folds despite the absence of an air current.
She slowly drifts down until her slippers alight on the golden brick, the corners of her mouth plucking up into an easy grin as she glances up and down the glittering boulevard. It doesn’t seem as if any of the cute little carapacians are around! Maybe they are having a festival somewhere? The last time she fell asleep they were still busy setting up coloured streamers and booths, so maybe that is where they are.
Floating a small ways off of the ground, Jade wills her dreamself to shoot off down a brick-lain side street. The wind whirls through her dark hair and graces her sun-spotted cheeks— positively exhilarating! Somewhere far off, Jade thinks that she can hear dozens of little bells chiming, like the bright tinkling that oodles of scalloped seashells make when drumming against one another.
In a burst of air that sends her golden skirts and hair billowing, Jade comes across a higher-tier street level that angles precariously around the brilliantly glittering steeple of a cathedral. She pauses, sorts out the tangled mess that has become of her lacy dress— all that frilly stuff sure can get annoying! – and then looks out over the yellow citadel that gleams far below.
Above, the azure marble that is Skaia turns imperceptibly, cotton-white clouds shifting in its upper atmosphere. If she peers closely enough, Jade thinks that she can even see fireflies suspended amongst the vaporous contours of the airstream, small pulsating beacons that disappear from view with each new wandering trail of cloudstuffs.
A blaring trumpet draws her out of whatever daze that had come over her while she was viewing Skaia, and Jade turns her head to blink at a troupe of white-shelled Prospitians that trickle down the pathway past her, their carapaces glinting like precious mother of pearl.
Their beady black eyes shine with curiosity and admiration as they wander by, and Jade is able to clearly see the gilded gold instruments that they carry. The players’ clothes are an assortment of lovely sea foam green, rosy pinks, and lively blues and oranges; adorable little decorated tassels hang from their caps. The clicking rap-tap of their feet against the brick creates a sprightly rhythm, like chickenscratch and dribbling raindrops.
Clasping her hands together in delight, Jade looks further down the street to see where they are headed off to. Many colorful flags flap and flutter above hundreds of separate booths stationed along the streets; bouquets of soft pink and yellow blossoms tied together with satin ribbons are tastefully placed here and there; a cinnamon smell of roasted nuts and something like smooth vanilla wafts delightfully on the breeze.
By the time she makes it down to the main street level behind the carapace band, most all of the crowd’s attention has turned to her. She supposes that it might be a bit weird for them, since they apparently regard her as some kind of godlike figure in all of their songs and lore. But, Jade is only curious, and it can’t really do any harm to just take a quick look around, right?
Wrong. They start to literally shower her with gifts and other frivolous things before her feet even hit the actual pavement, and soon enough Jade is fairly certain that she is about to be forced to swim through flower petals to make it down the remainder of the street. It’s awfully nice, and the trembling butterflies that settle in her hair are an artful touch, but to be honest Jade would much rather just have a few honey-glazed almonds!
“I’m very sorry,” she exclaims in the general direction of the trumpeteers from earlier, who have begun to merrily announce her arrival on the next street as hordes of carapacians carry her along as if by the oceans current. “But I only just fell asleep! Maybe we could take a quick breather?”
She is reverently given a plush white towel, the kind you would only find in super nice hotel bathrooms, like a chateau on a crystal clear lake or something crazy like that, as well as a plethora of options amongst bottled spring water. “That’s not what I meant!”
Telepathic cheers of joy and jubilant claw clicks rain down from the terraces above as the sea of carapacians flows down the street, the pavement and surrounding walls fit to burst from the influx of celebrators. Somewhere along the way, a laurel of periwinkle blue flowers is placed atop Jade’s head.
“Oof!” Jade says when she is dropped unceremoniously on the palace steps. Crowds of carapacians undulate around her as she rises to her feet, buoyant in both spirit and step. The golden dreamer looks at them with pursed lips and suspicion lingering in her eyes, but finds that she can’t really stay mad at them when they’re so cheerful about her being awake and aware!
“You guys are really great, but could someone please explain to me why I am here?” she asks, hands on her hips. Then, balloons are streaming gaily down from some fixed point in the sky, mountains of confetti and flowers, some with the thorny stems still attached, settling along the golden staircase. The trumpets begin to warble out a distinctly regal tune. Jade turns, and—
Greetings, hero of Space, the White Queen says politely, her hands folded neatly in front of her, the joints and claws clear and distinctive from the rest of her eggshell white carapace. I apologize for not decreeing a realm-wide holiday for this momentous day sooner.
“Huh?” Jade asks, her brows cinching close together, still trying to comb an entire meadow’s worth of flowers out of her tangled curls. “What momentous day?”
There is an odd hesitating stammer in her mind for a moment from the surrounding crowd, not quite loud enough to be totally acknowledged, but the dreamer still turns to face the Queen fully.
The chess-piece sovereign blinks once at her, eyes a glassy obsidian. Why, your birthday, of course.
With a sudden, lurching start, Jade awakens from an unanticipated nap. Her face is pressed awkwardly onto her desk, and when she pulls back from it a reddened glare is imprinted sorely into her cheek. The green marker that has been clutched loosely in her hand hits the metal table with a sharp clatter.
Rubbing a flummoxed hand over her mouth and nose, Jade squints blearily down at the paper that is sitting on the desk before her. It takes several moments and the fumbling application of her glasses for her eyes to focus properly, but she is eventually able to read what she has written thus far:
Quote:…you see, when i go to sleep, in my dreams i wake up on the moon of a planet called prospit. by now you must know about this place! i have lived there in my dreams most of my life and i made so many friends there over the years. and you were there too! but you were asleep. the fact that you are awake now i think means all my friends are in trouble. you are awake because it is your job to help them. we will both help them!
but ummm..... i know these things because while i was on the moon, whenever it passed through skaia i could see lots of things in the clouds. the past, the future, stuff about our friends, and stuff about you! now that you are awake, and apparently at the center of skaia (??? WOW!!!) you should be able to see stuff in the clouds too. maybe you already have!
”Hmm,” Jade says, her lips turning downwards as her face takes on a thoughtful expression. Her eyes eagerly scan the page, a coiled and dim emotion encircling the pupil, and she dabs in a few more smiley faces with jittering fingers as her mind attempts to put what she would like to convey into the proper words. They light up once more hardly a moment later, sprightly green dancing behind the rounded lenses of her glasses as she presses the blunt end of the marker against the paper with renewed vigor.
She scribbles like this, hunched over the page and desk and utterly immersed in her work, until the morning light sifts inwards through her window as seawater does through thoughtless grains of sand. As the light of day smooths over her face with all the gentleness of a soft sea breeze, Jade Harley turns attentively towards it, a smile blooming upon her lips.
This wonderful new day will be welcomed graciously by the pebbled jungle paths of her island. Why not her?
RE: A Lullaby for Gods - Jade Harley - 03-18-2016
Quote:Accompanying Music: Mother [Piano Bonus] Rating for this installment: G. I guess? There's character death, though.
3. I Beg The Earth To Let Me Go.
Whole planets are whisked away in a blitzkrieg of fire, viridian flame leaving them destruct and propelled explosively apart before her very eyes. Jade blinks, hard, and the vision passes by in a daydream; her body slumps to the floor of the laboratory in an exhausted heap, miniscule flakes of snow sticking in thick clumps to her eyelashes.
The windows are totally shattered, jagged panes of glinting glass running like ripples of dry lightning in her peripheral vision. She is cold, her clothes are damp, and there is still so much necessary work left to be done. With great effort she rises from the floor, her hair an icy, matted mess and her nose burnt bright red from the frigidly cutting winds tearing through the room.
A mountain sits in a large, grey slope in the distance as she crosses over to a different corridor, silvery white coils of snowfall tinged with blue meandering gently around it. Stale grey walls close around her; for the first time since she woke up, Jade shivers, all at once becoming aware of the ice sluicing between her toes and the cool, frosted sweat congealing at the nape of her neck.
She arrives at the transportalizer platform, a flat circle of faintly embossed metal with several looping shapes crisscrossing over it. As she steps upon it, preparing for the expulsion of green galaxies that will hopefully teleport her someplace warmer, Jade gives one last appraising look to the lab before being transported downstairs.
Only, that doesn’t happen. The platform heats up somewhat, and she hears a desiccated mechanical stutter emanate from its center, but in the end it doesn’t let her leave the open-air floor. Jade is left confused and fatigued, a look of considerable disbelief worming its way across her face as she dismounts.
There isn’t time for this. She has to find the frogs, has to reach the right genetic sequence, has to save herself and her friends and those cute little critters inhabiting their planets so they can live on in a new game, safe and untouched by the ferrous fires that consume her dreams, and yet she cannot sleep for fear—
Urgency rises in her breast as Jade mutters bitingly to the steel platform, stamping her frozen feet against it before dropping to her knees to fumble at its inner workings and hopefully identify the problem. Purple-tinged fingers that lack any kind of feeling tug uselessly at the intricately interwoven mechanisms inside, as if they have forgotten the motions that Jade has spent so long perfecting. Soon, she has an array of tangled wiring splayed out around her, rivulets of red, blue, and the softest lavender she has ever seen pooling uselessly in her lap and wrapping loosely about her ankles.
A shuddering gasp shivers through her rib cage as Jade stumbles to her feet, throwing off the useless, stupidstupidstupid wires as she goes. The long skirt and sleeves of her clothes are no longer as confining as they had been in the stifling summer heat of her island— in fact, it feels more like she isn’t wearing much of anything at all to fend off this sinister wintry chill with.
Breathe, she thinks, balling her hands into fists and tucking them under her chin to better preserve warmth, and so she does. Each exhale is shrill and high-pitched to her ears, like an organ key pressed wrong during a familiar hymn, and still the snow caves in towards her from all sides in drifting, oppressively light drafts.
At one time she had enjoyed this snow simply for being a novelty. Now, staring helplessly at her shoes and how deeply they have already been submerged with a few short steps, she desperately wishes that it would just stop.
Jade starts, looking keenly up. All hope isn’t lost yet! Her sylladex would assuredly help— it contains her Iron Lass armor with its repulsor rays and rocket boots, more than enough oomph to keep her warm and boost her to a new floor level that actually has stairs. Now, just to call it up…
With a light, flustered wave of her hand, Jade smiles tensely and waits for her salvation to appearify out of thin air. Nothing happens. She tries again, this time with a bit more feeling, but yet again the result is exactly the same.
It is at this point that Jade begins to panic. She stares wildly around, hair flipping stiffly about as she tries to root through the snow for one of her many computers. Her search amounts to the discovery of a single communications device, her Lunchmuffs, and she hunkers down beside a table covered in mostly decimated potted plants to try and reach one of her friends, one hand combing fretfully over the top of her frost-dusted head as she waits.
To her horror, the candy red earmuffs resolutely refuse to spring to life and give her a direct line of contact with any of her fellow players. It takes a moment, but Jade begins to realize that she is effectively marooned here, dozens of stories up, in tremendously freezing weather, on a floor completely inaccessible by stairs.
Someone should have warned her about the stairs.
“Oh, no,” she breathes, covering her face with her hands, only just barely letting herself peek through her fingers at the snowy wastes far below. “Oh nononononono.”
She’s trapped. There’s snow way out of this one, and that was an abysmally bad pun but oh my goodness she can’t even think straight right now.
Rubbing furiously at her dripping nose and wind-numbed cheeks, Jade stands and wanders over towards the edge of the room, still attempting to drum some electronic life into her communicator with one hand. Her shoes crunch across shattered glass and bits of ice, sliding a bit as she nears the precipice that leads to nowhere but open air and an awfully long drop. She comes to a standstill a few short-lived inches away, the gears in her brain grinding together feverishly as she attempts to formulate a proper escape plan.
Abruptly, her fingertips stall in their agitated movements as her eyelids slide closed, lucidity and something far more cosmic sealing off from her mind like a bolted clasp. Her torso twists, bound by gravity and suspended as if by strings just as she crosses the margin between dreams and wakefulness, disturbed only faintly by the flocculent cloud layer spread out all around her.
In a loose tumble of limbs and rippling fabric, Jade slips over the edge.
RE: A Lullaby for Gods - Jade Harley - 07-17-2017
Quote:Accompanying Music: Coursing Rating for this installment: G.
4. Minnow.
A stray bramble flicks back and gives Becquerel a good whap on the snout. The bushy-haired wild child clinging onto his back whoops and giggles, ineffectively patting at the place where the branch struck, as if to soothe his nonexistent pain.
The First Guardian sneezes, tingling lime green electricity warping the pair halfway across the island in the blink of an eye. They stand beside a small babbling stream, with plenty of shiny, smooth pebbles that will not cut Jade’s feet should she venture into the shallows. As Becquerel lies down under a few floppy elephant-eared plants, fleshy and with thick vascular tubes, Jade grabs onto one of its pointy ears in her tiny fist and tugs.
Grumbling, the wolf-dog merely flops over onto its side so that its human charge will be made to dismount and release its ear lest she be crushed under its furry weight. Jade laughs something high-pitched and unintelligible, tinkling like bells along the cool summer breeze, and then rolls away and into the dirt.
A few sticks and dried leaves crackle as the toddling child wanders off, the mud gurgling with an amorphous sucking noise beneath her feet. When a stinging insect begins to buzz into Bec’s ear, it fries the annoying midge in an instant with a sizzling, static pop.
Still giggling and with the humid jungle air pluming all around her, Jade clambers over into the stream with a few cold splashes. Droplets of water cling to her clothing and smeared mud paints her knees a deep russet color.
Becquerel takes this brief downtime to rest. It is a lot of work, caring for a small human child. They are endlessly curious and very easy to lose track of. At times, the wolfish beast would simply place a heavy paw on her shoulder to keep her still, but the alarming noises she would then make were far too piercingly loud for its sensitive ears.
It is a good thing that Bec has above average intelligence and resilience, bordering on godlike if it were to bother with such trivial terminology. If it were aware of its transcendent status in comparison to the average canine, it would likely argue against any evidence pointing to its apparent ‘godhood’.
It is not a god. Becquerel might have all the knowledge and power of a god, but it is not one.
There is a sudden, particularly loud splash of water, as if a good portion of the stream has been disturbed against the rocks.
“Bec!” a tiny, shrill voice exclaims. The wolf-dog sits up fast and alert, startled by her outburst. In a single space-warping bound it is at her side, all fours paws drenched by the running water and cold stones clinking under its claws.
“Look!” Jade says, waving a tiny, wriggly and silver thing in the First Guardian’s face. The fish slaps against its snout as it flails wildly about, gasping for breath that will not come.
In a blur of color, the land of the dreaming dead shifts toward the waking world---