Freelance Saga: The Legendary Hero
Episode I: Doorway to Reality
Chapter III -- Part 1
The hallway he walked along now was narrower and
shorter than those he had navigated before. This weird dream had become some
sort of labyrinth. Scott had walked for what felt like hours, always moving to
the left-hand corridor by old habit. That was how he found his way out of all
of the Halloween corn mazes that he had ever encountered, and he figured it was
good as any other tactic.
He
walked along this latest path for only a brief few minutes before an entirely
new room appeared. This time it was not a circular stone room with some random
test involved. It was an ordinary, if rustic, log cabin. Scott heard a noise
from behind and turned to see that the corridor was no longer there. Panic set
in for a moment when he realized that he had no way to go back to the doorway
that led home. He remembered that this was only a dream, however, and managed
to regain his composure. This was obviously just more of the weirdness that the
dream had provided for him.
Scott wandered over the small room, noting
that it was a rather cozy place. There was a wooden table, a hard and
uncomfortable looking cot, and an old fashioned cast iron wood stove. There was
also a small chest sitting in the corner.
On the table he found a scrawled note. He
began to read the missive but stopped quickly when a voice began to speak.
“Who’s there?” asked Scott loudly. No one
answered.
Scott decided that he was hearing things
and began to read the letter again. Once again the voice spontaneously
appeared. He span around quickly in an attempt to catch sight of the one who
had spoken. It was the only voice that he had heard besides his own since this
journey had begun. He walked to the door of the cabin and snatched it open.
Instead of the rural scene that he expected to find he faced a yawning abyss.
There was absolutely nothing outside of the cabin.
“What?!” He jumped back from the door as
though it had set him on fire. How could that be possible? His heart pounded
within the cage of his chest for a time. When he began to calm down, his sense
of logic and reason returned. He told himself once more that this was supposed
to be a dream. Strange things could happen in a dream right? He closed the door
and moved away. It was just too unsettling to stare into that total darkness.
“There’s nothing out there? Who was talking?”
He did not see anyone in the room. After a few minutes, and a quick search
under the cot, he finally relented and gave up the search.
He went back to the letter. Maybe it would
explain something? He kept his eyes trained on the room in front of him for a
moment, then resigned himself to reading the note again. Just as before, the
moment he began to read it a voice began to speak once more. Scott looked up
expectantly but still saw no one. A thought occurred to him then. It was
insane, but it might be true.
He looked at the note and began to read
again. The voice returned! It was a feminine voice that exactly mirrored the
words on the message. It was a voice over! He huffed in surprise then laughed
at the oddness of his dreaming mind. That had really been a surprise.
Scott began to read once more, and the
voice returned. “Welcome, Hero. You passed the tests of courage, strength, and
intelligence. You have been found worthy. Please take these items and use this
house as your new base of operations.”
The voice over ended shortly after he
finished reading. He stood there a moment and allowed the implications to soak
into his obviously game addled mind. This dream just did not seem to end. He
had endured and even enjoyed extremely vivid dreams before, but this was far
beyond those. Scott began to wonder if he had indeed lost his mind.
“So, I have been given a house that is
literally in the middle of nowhere.” He could not help but feel his customary
snarkiness begin to rise to the forefront of his mind. His dreaming mind was
either brilliant or absolutely insane. Either way, this was interesting to say
the least.
Scott walked over to the bed and sat down
on it. It was just as hard as it appeared, little more than a few thick
blankets thrown over a wooden framework. “I wonder if my brain gets cable?” Did
that really matter? It was not like he had a television inside this room of the
imagination.
He hopped to his feet, an action that
elicited a creak of protest from the elderly cot. Scott wanted to inspect the
chest on the other side of the room. Once he arrived at his new destination he
had to speak his mind on the subject at hand. “Man, this thing even looks like
something out of a video game.”
The red treasure chest lacked any
adornment. It was a plain box and yet it gave off a distinctively retro-style
role playing game vibe. He opened it carefully while fully expecting it to
explode or have snakes inside of it, or something. There were no exploding
snakes inside the box but he did find a gaudy looking bracer and another note.
The voice over returned again as he read
the message. “This is a legendary artifact known as the Soldier’s Heart. It can
only be worn by you. It is keyed to your unique spiritual wave length. May it
serve you well, Hero.”
“Legendary artifact? I think I bought a
dozen of those things on eBay once.” Scott lifted the bracer to inspect it. The
moment it left the box he felt an over powering urge. He lifted it high into the
air triumphantly. A victorious fanfare sounded out suddenly and an unseen
masculine speaker exclaimed, “You Got Legendary Artifact, Soldier’s Heart!”
The
urge to keep it aloft passed and he snatched his hand down quickly. “What was
that about?” He was glad that he was alone in this house. Sure, it existed only
inside his mind, but that outburst would have been far too embarrassing to deal
with right now had anyone been around.
~*~
No comments:
Post a Comment