The Elementals

The feeling is gone when I open my eyes. Yup, you guessed it. Looming trees, fog swallowing up the ground, darkness all around, etc., etc. But this time I look closer at my surroundings.

“No. Flipping. Way.” I mutter to myself. I recognize the tree I snapped some branches off for firewood. I spin around and slowly, the rest of the forest becomes familiar. Over to the right is where the owl I scared off was perched. I walk back a few steps, to where the camp should be. I see the way the ground dips slightly, and the absence of trees in the clearing, but no people.

I pace thoughtfully back to the original tree I tore the sticks off of. I remember touching the bark of the other broken tree when I was looking for Oh’Rian, and the way my dream seemed to come back in the day. Should work both ways, right? Experimentally, I touch the splintered branch nobs still attached to the trunk.

Immediately, it feels like I’ve been socked in the gut. I bend over, gasping for breath, and then realize I’m stabilizing myself on the tree. My hand isn’t passing through like it’s made of smoke, and a more definite giveaway is that it looks normal. I can feel the rough bark under my hand, the moss tickling my palm. I stand up, and looking around see the entire forest has been returned to wood and leaves and other typical tree things. Excited, but still cautious, I creep back to the camp. I can make out the sleeping forms of Stella, Maple and Sparky curled in between her and Terra, Steel a little ways off, Oh’Rian in the middle, Coal on the far edges, and Caelum with...me.

I glance down at my hands. I can see them just fine. I walk over to myself. Apparently, I am sleeping. I jump back as I see that Caelum is awake. He doesn’t seem to notice me as I step into the fire, which is almost out, but the wood is still smoldering sufficiently with a few tongues of flame burning persistently. The thing is, I don’t feel it. My foot is in the ashes, and I don’t feel it. All that’s there is a slight tingling that feels good if anything. Well now I’m freaked out.

I step towards my figure. My head is resting on Caelum’s shoulder, a small smile on my lips. I look content. At ease. Comfortable. I look...happy. Feeling like some sort of extra-terrestrial, I slowly reach out a finger to touch myself.

“It would best if you did not do that.” Stella says. I jump around, tripping. “I am sorry.” She says, helping me up. “If you touch yourself while dream-walking, you will get stuck in the dream world forever.”

“Dream-walking? Are you-? What?” I say, looking back and forth between the Stella in front of me, the Stella sleeping some feet away, the Tide sleeping on Caelum, and my own self.

Stella smiles, at ease in this strange world. “You and I are dream-walking. We are sleeping,” She gestures to the sleeping us’s. “While us speaking,” She points to me and herself. “Are our dream bodies walking about as if we are in the real world. With some exceptions.” She nods down to the fire.

“Alright,” I say slowly, trying to wrap my mind around it. “But shouldn’t only you be able to do it? Being the night Elemental and stuff?”

Stella nods her head. “Good observation.” She says and I feel like I’m in pre-school. “As far as I know, Elementals are capable of this, but not able to control when or where it happens, like I am.”

“How fun.” I mutter.

Stella chuckles. “Still sarcastic, even when privileged to walk among the dream world.” She turns. “I have my brother to check up on,” I feel a sharp pang of guilt as I realize I never even thought about Rico. As Stella walks away, she calls over her shoulder. “As I said, do not touch yourself, or you will be trapped here forever. And do not touch anyone else either, or you will be transported into their dream.”

I watch her drift away, feet gliding over the ground like she weighs nothing. As soon as she’s out of sight, I turn back to myself. Now that she said I can’t touch me, I really want to. But the fear of being stuck in this place for all eternity overrides my compulsiveness. I glance up at Caelum and see he’s asleep. I’m considering following Stella to be able to see Rico, when my attention is caught by movement in the corner of my eye.

I turn and hear Coal murmuring in his sleep again. A bad idea forming in my mind, I walk over to him. He mutters some more and the very, very bad idea develops into a very, very bad plan. I reach my hand out tentatively, and then pull it back. Stella said not to touch anyone. Stella is usually right. I sit there, battling with myself, but then my curiosity gets the better of me as Coal jumps and I instinctively grab his shoulder.

I give a small cry as the ground is ripped from beneath me. I feel a shock run through my body, and then I’m unceremoniously dropped, coughing in the clouds of dirt.

“Yes.” I freeze, rigid in place, choking on the dust as I hear my own voice.

“No-” Coal’s voice says and a foot smashes into my face.

Excuse me, passes through my face.

I shriek again as chills ripple through my body. I scramble to my feet. Coal is standing at the edge of the cliff with a stubborn look on his face. And the foot zipping through my head? It belongs to yours truly. I watch as myself tumbles into Coal and they both -we both?- fall over the edge. I peer after them but then it feels like someone’s yanking me down by a rope. I hit the ground again, but this time I don’t hit the layer of pillows first. It feels like I should be 2D, flattened into a pancake.

“-up you wimp.” I hear myself once I remember how to function. Terra says something and then my voice replies in a teasing, though slightly annoyed, tone.

“I didn’t expect you two to come down at the same time.” Caelum says. “You’re okay though, right?”

I feel a sharp jab in my stomach, and it slowly grows into a burning hatred, broiling from somewhere deep inside of me. I hate Caelum. I hate him for asking if Tide was okay, I hate him for existing and being so, so, so stupid-

Wait, what?

I don’t hate Caelum. But I do. But I don’t. I’m inside Coal’s dream... his thoughts... Coal hates Caelum? The group keeps moving out of sight and then I’m being tugged along again. The sky darkens, then lightens a bit, like in those time-lapse films. I skid to a stop on the ground and my palms get streaked with dirt.

I get the sense of just waking up, that sort of feeling when you want to fall back asleep but know you can’t. Suddenly, panic enters my mind. Tide is missing. No, I’m missing. So is Caelum. I watch as Coal paces somewhat frantically around the camp. Worry builds up inside of me. Where is she? I see myself smack into Coal from the trees, and feel a wave of relief.

The conversation is lost and I feel like I’m falling into a pit. It’s horrifyingly dark for a second, and then I’m barfed back up into another place. How many memories does Coal go through in one night? The sky is black and I hear an owl screeching away from the branches. Regaining my balance, I peer around a tree. As I had started to suspect, I see myself, collecting wood, and Coal grinning in that aggravating half-smiling way of his.

“You mean you weren’t stupid before I came along?” My figure turns around with a shocked look on her face.

Remembering this lovely exchange, I zone out and walk forwards. No reaction from the Tide-clone or Coal. I stand right in between them and still get nothing. I reach my hand out and jab it into myself. I feel the chills running repeatedly down my spine, but other than that my hand just passes through her and she doesn’t notice. Taking my hand out and shaking it like it’s covered in mud, I watch as Tide-clone walks forward, right through me, and stands face to face with Coal. More like face to chest, because he’s a couple inches taller, but it’s the same concept.

“Yes, they do. Normally they’re grey with gold bits, when you’re with any other human being they get darker, and when you’re mad they turn almost black.” Tide-clone counts obnoxiously and I get the same feeling of self-pride at my own sarcastic tone. “Like right now, for example.”

“So you’ve noticed?” Coal asks with a not-really-asking smugness that still manages to get on my nerves even in a dream. That’s right, things went south here. Coal didn’t follow the script. I watch the Tide-clone stomp off. I follow her and see her dump the sticks into the fire. It roars up, she spins around, Cheshire cat reference, been there, done that. Tide-clone sits down huffily next to Caelum and smiles patronizingly at Coal. The same loathing resurfaces, stronger than ever. I really, really, really feel like punching Caelum in the face right now. Tide would get mad at me though. But his smile, how dare he smile at her? The idiotic, untrustworthy-

I shake my head, trying to collect my own personal feelings and shut out Coal’s. My god, he really does hate Caelum. I feel like such a jerk now.

Wait a minute. I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not my fault Coal has people issues. I can be friends with who I want. I can be anything with anyone I want. So there. I stand there, watching, and then the ground just snaps up and swallows me into blackness, like when you turn off the TV and the screen looks like it folded in on itself.

I blink my eyes open. Everything looks normal. The ground is brown, the grass is green. The sky is lightening into a blue from the dark purple-black it was. The stars are fading out of sight. I shift, looking at Caelum. His grey eyes are trained on mine. I look down nervously, pulse quickening. After a second, I reach over and poke his chest. I lean back onto his shoulder and sigh with relief when my hand doesn’t immediately pass through his body.

“Sorry,” I say after he looks at me strangely. “I’ve had an... interesting night.”

“Alright,” He says slowly, accepting the fact that I might be crazy.

I don’t really want to, but I stand up and stretch. I’ll give the others a few more minutes before waking them up. Caelum stands next to me and again I’m reminded that not only am I shorter than Coal, I’m shorter than Caelum as well. I’m trying to re-ignite the fire then stop, because I literally have a human lighter lying around. I walk over to Coal and shake him.

“You need to light the fire,” I tell him, and when my first approach does nothing, I kick him. Kindly, of course. I mean, I have manners. “Get up, you slug.” He mutters and turns over. Fed up with being nice, I grab his arm and drag him over to the fire. “Light it.”

He shakes me off. “Boy, you sure have a pleasant way of waking people. I really feel the love.”

“Well, you’re not very pleasant to wake up Mr. Happiness.” I say to him and the ashes burst into flames. “Thank you.”

This exchange has woken most everybody up, and a voice calls sleepily, “what’s for breakfast?”

“Umm...” I stall. I feel a tug on my sleeve. Looking down, I see Maple wearing an earnest expression. “What is it?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, Maple bends down and piles up some dirt. We all stare at it. Nothing happens. Then, I see a green sprout making its way out of the soil. It grows faster and faster until a vine is fully out of the ground. It feels sort of Jack-and-the-beanstalk-y. My eyes widen as fat, purple grapes appear along the plant. Maple turns a little, and I see a tree burst out of the ground, so fast that a couple leaves smack my face. I let out a small laugh of admiration. Deliciously red looking apples are growing on the branches. The grapevine twists around the trunk of apple tree and then the clearing grows quiet.

“Whoa,” I say and murmurs of agreement and awe follow.

Maple beams with pride. “Breakfast.” She says.

“Um, yeah," Steel says in amazement.

After stuffing our faces with perfectly ripe fruit, we set off again. A few minutes pass, and then Stella catches up with me.

“There is a town a couple leagues from here. I saw as I traveled to Rico.” She says. “It would benefit us all to stop and plan and such.”

“I’m sorry, a few what from here?”

“About twelve more miles.” Stella says. She sighs suddenly, “You went into someone’s dream last night, did you not?”

I cough, looking at her. “How did you know?”

Stella points to my dirt stained palms. “You have not tripped yet today so I just assumed. Not to mention your extremely rebellious personality.”

I look down at the ground, feeling like I should apologize, but I don’t because I’m not really sorry. Now I know I can find out interesting things through people’s dreams. It’s an effort to refrain from laughing evilly.

“I know you are curious,” Stella says gently, and it occurs to me that she’s actually older than me. She and Rico are twins. I just never thought about it because she didn’t act all stuck-up, like Celina. “But sometimes you learn things you do not wish to know when you pry into places where you do not belong.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling like some kid getting lectured. Stella has that aura around her. It’s probably the 1800′s speech pattern. She nods approvingly and we lapse into silence.