Snow Fortress "dream sequence"

Are dream sequences still popular? You know, the ones where people have dreams that are somehow related to the story. Well, I have them, because no matter how hard you want to believe otherwise, this might be <spoler alert> REAL.</spoiler alert>

A single toll woke Kitten up. He instinctively knew it was midnight. He was in his bed in the Capitol, dressed in fresh clothes that smelled of soap with a hint of perfume about it. And tobacco smoke.

He sat up. He was certain it was dark, yet he could see every minute detail of the room and the paintings within. Across the room, he could read the titles of the books. His throat felt raw for some reason. There was a dull pain in his spine, the same one he’d felt that time he reawakened after his near-death experience.

Or had he come closer than expected?

There was a knock on the window.

He got up and opened. Somehow it didn’t surprise him the least to see The Mayor clinging to a rusted downpipe.

“Thank you,” The Mayor said once safely inside. He didn’t look like he was about to comment on his unusual choice of entrance any more, so Kitten asked. “Oh,” The Mayor waved his hand in response, “there’s a burglar in my office at the moment. Didn’t want to disturb him.”

Kitten shook his head and ran his right hand through his hand. It felt strangely numb. “You’re a strange man,” he told The Mayor.

“I get told that a lot,” the man shrugged and produced his pipe. “I get asked a lot of questions, too,” he added in a suggestive voice.

Kitten gauged the bait tossed to him. “I fainted at the mine today,” he mused out loud.

“You did.”

“There was a hand in the Ice. A human hand.”

“There was.” A puff of smoke rose from The Mayor’s mouth as he spoke, in spite of the pipe not being lit.

“Did they excavate it?”

The Mayor pondered a bit. “Do you feel well enough for a short walk?”

“I do.”

The two looked at each other. Then The Mayor nodded and threw the window open again.

Kitten scowled. “You said walk, not jump or climb.”

The Mayor smiled mysteriously. “And here I was starting to think you might be on to me,” he said with unusual softness. He reached out to take Kitten by the hand. His palm was hot like an oven plate and the touch made Kitten flinch at first. But the fingers held him fast.

Before Kitten could say anything, a chill wind assaulted him. They were standing at the entrance to the Mouth shaft, all dark and deserted at the time. Being up and about at the hour was looked down upon by most people. Of course some workers had to maintain the fires at the Smelter, but they were a special sort of people shrouded in myth and legend.

He looked around. Everything seemed very real, if somewhat haunting. If it was a dream, it was the most vivid one he had ever experienced.

The Mayor let him go, thrust both hands into the pockets of his coat and started walking along the damaged rails.

Kitten followed after a short pause. “What are you?” he demanded once he caught up and matched his pace to The Mayor’s.

“Who knows,” The Mayor smirked. “I was cast out by my kind to live among humans. I am not one of you either.” His expression grew cold in an instant. “You might call me a cuckoo, but then again, I’m not a bird either.” He stopped suddenly and cocked his head at a disturbing angle. “Although I think I used to know how to fly.”

Kitten glared at him. It was definitely a dream. No use getting excited about it.

He wondered whether he was able to will himself to wake up.

“What’s the point of us being here?” he asked.

“Your discovery, isn’t it?” The Mayor’s eyes were fixed at him, while the rest of him seemed to slowly fade away in a direction that wasn’t really there. “I want to see that hand. That person. Those people in there.”

He said “see,” but a feeling that he’d meant a slightly different sensual verb reared its abhorrent head in Kitten’s mind. In his dream, he was annoyingly paranoid.

“Alas,” The Mayor went on, suddenly becoming very focused again, “I mustn’t be greedy.” He looked at his hand and clenched it. “Especially here,” he muttered to himself, so Kitten could barely hear.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Kitten said pointedly. He really wanted to wake up, have breakfast and go to work. Without waiting for a sign of approval, he stalked down the shaft.

It was dark. The shadows gobbled him up and he knew it, yet he could easily recognize the glowing rails in front of him. Who needed torches in a dream, anyway. Then the whispering started. Fading among the echoes at first, the voices were steadily becoming louder and clearer, telling him to turn back. To stop. To not doom them all.

Kitten hesitated for a moment. He turned his head to look at The Mayor behind him. The man was literally glowing. Pale white flames licked the backs of his hands and slithered up his coat. Some even cared to caress his face from time to time. As dreams went, this one was extraordinarily exotic.

“Is it here?” The Mayor asked calmly, and Kitten realised that yes, it was there. He looked at the dazzling white wall with the black shape of a human hand in the middle of it. He reached out to touch it as he had the day before, but The Mayor’s hand gently brushed his aside before his fingers touched the Ice.

“Allow me,” The Mayor hummed. He rested his flaming palm against the dark spot.

A high-pitched shriek pierced Kitten’s head. He clamped his hands over his ears, but the voice only grew louder. He tried screaming as well, but that too only seemed to empower the horrible sound.

A horrid smell assaulted his nostrils a moment later. Just after that, the wall in front of him exploded into pieces.

The cave grew dark. White Ice turned dark grey, the flames engulfing The Mayor were gone. Only his coat remained bright. His hand was resting against another. Kitten held his breath as he looked at the person previously encased in ice: she was beautiful, or perhaps more than that, far beyond mere words. A wet, light colored dress clung to a frail, motionless girl’s body hovering in midair, reaching out as if trying to grab a life that had undoubtedly been lost to her ages ago. Long hair clung to her pale skin. The empty gaze of her eyes clenched his heart and threatened to crush it.

“A real beauty, aren’t you?” The Mayor murmured, unbuttoning his coat. “Such vitality, even in death. The living here can barely compare.”

The voices stopped suddenly.

“What are you going to do with her?” Kitten asked, mostly to fill the silence which horrified him even more than the upcoming answer.

The Mayor turned to him. There was a wicked smile on his face, growing ever wider. In fact, no normal person’s mouth should have ever grown that wide. Or had that many teeth in it. “What am I going to do to her?” he asked, slowly unbuttoning his shirt.

A wave of sickness crashed over Kitten. The horrible thing he had imagined turned paled in comparison to what he saw underneath the washed-out fabric: a vertical maw stretched all the way from The Mayor’s throat to his abdomen. Rows upon rows of sharp fangs glistened with saliva that trickled down the thin lips.

“I am going to make her mine.”

Brain Dump 2: Snow Fortress

After a lifetime in darkness, he emerged into the light. Above an endless windswept, snowy plain, the sun was setting. It was cold and there wasn’t a single soul in sight.

It was cold.

It was lonely.

Dying.

“Hang in there.”

The fading sunlight was cold. It passed through him unhindered.

“You’re still -”

Something searing burst through his chest. He looked down in horror.

“- owing me a favor!”

Gentle light was warming his skin. He could immediately tell it wasn’t sunlight, though. It was just another sun lamp. Who was wasting valuable electricity on him, though? He tried to shield his eyes with his right arm, but it wouldn’t move. At least his left did. Before he fully opened his eyes though, the sound of a chair creaking nearby made him freeze. Slow, heavy footsteps plodded away from his bedside. A door was opened and clicked shut again. Silence resumed.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. He closed his eyes again so he could use his remaining functional arm to lever himself up. His head bumped into the sun lamp, but he barely felt it. His torso and back throbbed with dull pain.

He squinted and looked around. He was in a room crammed with old junk cleared from offices - desks, filing cabinets and such. His bed was actually another desk with an old mattress laid on it. Compared to what most people had, though, it was unimaginable luxury. He most certainly wasn’t in the hospital.

Wait, why would he be in the hospital?

He racked his brain for some details of what had happened before he’d ended up here, but it replied with a simple. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.” So he did.

Just as he was about to check the rest of his body, the door opened again. Two people stepped in, both tall men. The first wore a stained white coat and glasses that reflected the light. His rectangular face, permanently fixed in an amused grin and framed by unmaintained dark, if slightly grizzled, hair and stubble was well known to every Citizen: he was The Mayor. The slightly shorter, completely dark-clad figure behind him was bound to be Dog, then. The Mayor and his bodyguard were supposedly inseparable for reasons that were the main source of gossip in the CIty.

“What a swift recovery!” The Mayor exclaimed as he sat next to him. “I wish I were this young and full of life again. But alas -”

The Mayor’s voice was strangely familiar. He had met The Mayor before, back when the man was known as Medic. A lot of time had passed since then, but there was barely any change to The Mayor’s exterior or behavior.

The Mayor proceeded in what felt like a routine check up.

He relaxed. He trusted the man. The entire city did. If he told them all to hurl themselves down a mining shaft for the common good, they probably would. The Mayor’s bodyguard was a different matter altogether, though. The short man’s deep-sunken eyes were barely visible, but still peering at him with palpable contempt.

“What’s going on?” he brought himself to ask.

“You’ve had quite a blast last night, haven’t you?” The Mayor laughed and patted his right shoulder heartily. He couldn’t feel anything aside from the slight force it exert on the rest of his body. “It’s time you begin a new life young man.” The Mayor stopped laughing, though his ice-gray eyes did not. “And a new life means a new name.”

A new name? He had a name. It was just that he couldn’t recall it at the time. A blast it must had been.

“You’ve got eight lives left I bet. So much like a cat,” The Mayor went on, ruffling his hair. That he could feel. It creeped him out a little. “Or rather a kitten.” For the briefest moment, The Mayor’s smile seemed as icy and distant as the snow field from before. “Yes, why not,” The Mayor muttered as if to himself, “Kitten seems appropriate.”

“What?” Kitten bristled.

The Mayor put a finger on Kitten’s lips. “Shush,” he said softly. “Save your strength, little cat. When the anesthetic wears off, you will find yourself needing all seven lives to cling to your last one.” He stood up and nodded to Dog. The man took a couple of wobbly steps and collapsed into a nearby chair. “He will watch after you. I need to get back to the office now.”

Kitten contemplated calling after him as he walked away, but found it too embarrassing. After the door closed, he was left with the morose Dog and an uncaring sun lamp. There were no other exits in sight. The only window in the room was blinded.

Kitten lied back down. He tried to imagine lying in the sun, but a dark fear of immense pain-to-come was lurking in the back of his head. What had happened? He still couldn’t recall any of it. Or much of what had been before. He squinted into the light. A sun lamp was usually to be found in greenhouses where meager vegetables were grown to feed a meticulously culled crowd of hungry mouths. The Mayor had almost all electricity redirected to those “life factories.” Wasting the precious resource on anything besides vital supplies was bordering on criminal activity.

Such was the world.

Humanity had returned to living in a cave. A cave of Ice engulfing the City - a few hundred ruined buildings huddled around the central Capitol building where The Mayor resided. They were a completely isolated society. Most of the men were diggers, mining the Ice for water, scouring the debris for resources left behind by a long-forgotten civilization. Women tended to families and chores, with a few exceptions who worked in administration. Crime rate was practically zero. Convicts worked in the Ice Smelter, a nasty job if there ever was one. The capital punishment was to be exiled - taken to the surface where there was virtually no atmosphere and people burned in the blistering heat of the sun or froze to death at night before they could asphyxiate.

Kitten had been convicted once. His punishment was to clear snow off the solar panels on the surface in the early morning and late evening before temperatures had become lethal. He could remember how the sun up there felt. The lamp was nothing like it. Its warmth was gentle and soothing.

Kitten stirred. The pain he’d felt when getting up returned.

He had no family to wish to be by his side at that moment. He’d lost his parents before he even really got to knew them. His grandmother who raised him since always changed the subject when he asked. Only once did she tell him they had done something the old government hadn’t agreed with. After that they had sent her to a hospice, while he went to some boarding school. Reunited after a year, instead of the kind, cheerful person, he met the husk of an old woman, babbling incoherent nonsense to herself. The only phrase that he’d been able to make out was “release me,” so he did.

He’d had her put down by the Medic.

That had been his crime.

He grit his teeth as the pain grew stronger.

Had he gotten hurt up there? Or was what he recalled some distant past? He couldn’t know. He couldn’t concentrate.

Dog moved. He got up from his chair and walked slowly over to the makeshift bed. Kitten watched with growing discomfort as the pale face came close. He still couldn’t see his eyes, and then he realized the man had been wearing a clay mask all along. The lips didn’t move, but a hoarse whisper poured out nonetheless: “Don’t worry.” A raspy breath. “This room is soundproofed.”

The face drew away and was replaced with a black-gloved hand. Another appeared to take the glove off. It revealed a mess of desiccated flesh and jutting bone.

“One hundred years,” Dog said. His voice was weak, but the silence carried it solemnly. “I have reached my limit. I have passed it.” He removed his mask as well. Underneath it was a mostly bare skull with empty eye sockets. “I am handing it to you: my quest.” he leaned forward again, staggering slightly. “Find her.” He dropped to his knees and fell silent.

Kitten screamed.

Kniha Ztracených Věcí: krátké zamyšlení

Včera jsem dočetl Knihu Ztracených Věcí (The Book of Lost Things) od Johna Connollyho. Seděl jsem u ní skoro do půlnoci a shrnování dojmů nechal raději na ráno, neb jsem musel brzy vstávat a potřeboval nějaký ten odpočinek. A jak jsem tak ráno ležel, přemýšlel a nechtělo se mi vstávat, napadlo mě dobré přirovnání: Kniha Ztracených Věcí je jako mramorová bábovka.

Včera odpoledne jsem ji opustil po kapitole, skrz celou jsem se smál jak šílený (dobře, ona ZAS až tak vtipná nebyla, ale hláška "nenaťapejte mi na podlahu, včera jste si jí vytřeli!" byla strašně ze života.) Když jsem usedl, zaznělo pár dozvuků, pár nepostřehnutelných vloček světlého těsta v tom tmavém...... které převládá. Než jsem se nadál, už se zase řezaly končetiny a "dobro vítězilo," byť velmi hořkosladce.

Trocha vhledu: je válka, malý chlapec přijde o matku, nabyde macešku (a malého půlbrášku) a dírou v zahradní zdi uteče do světa fantazie. Povědomé? Jistěže, takových příběhů je spousta, a to já znám povětšinou jen ty zfilmované (moc nečtu, k vlastní ztrátě). Zní to jako něco, co bych odhodil? Jistě, ale já to neudělal.

Kniha Ztracených Věcí má kouzlo, které funguje zejména na mě: přes trochu upovídaný začátek (který by mohl, dovedu si představit, leckoho odradit) nastupuje svižné dílko rozumné délky s jasným, čistým slohem, rozumným množstvím dialogů i akce a velmi ... anglickým přístupem k věcem. Ano, anglickým. Kontinentální Evropa poslední dobou vyměkla a malé děti jsou chráněny od smrti a násilí jak jen to jde. Snad jen v Anglii jsem zažil že tříleté dítě je celé šťastné, že Jeníček spadl z kopce a zlomil si ruku.

Čímž chci říct, že většinu času jsou věci dost ponuré. Hlavní linii táhnou známé příběhy - Karkulka, Sněhurka, a jim podobné - všechny aspoň v malé míře pozměněné, aby to bylo zajímavé (a místy děsivé.. děsivější) a dávalo smysl. Také se tu objevují motivy "moderních pohádek" (kdo uhodne, jaká informace o téhle knize mě dotáhla k jejímu čtení, si může vzít sušenku) a dokonce prvky dokumentů (ikdyž ne tak, aby to rušilo.)

Závěr je trochu předvidatelný, a poslední bitva se mnou úplně nesecvakla, ale kromě toho existuje jen jediná věc, kterou bych (mírně, samozřejmě) vytknul: jak mohl Roland v jedný větě mávat mečem a pochodní a v další střílet z luku? ... Viním absenci odstavců v mojí PDF verzi a těším se, až seženu papírovou.