บท 2: Searching
As soon as he left the bathroom while drying his wet hair, he heard his phone beeping. He glanced at the lit screen. His food had arrived and he needs to pick it up from the apartment building's lobby. He quickly asked the delivery guy to hold on before he put pulled on his coat. No need to care that he wore a casual shirt and shorts inside the coat as long as he looks vaguely presentable.
The delivery guy was nice and patient so he had no problems suppressing the lingering anxiety inside his mind to get his food. He soon arrived back at his apartment room and locked the door behind him. A breath of relief left his lips and he silently cursed himself. What getting better? He was still a mess of nerves whenever he had to leave his own room. Shaking his head to clear his mind, he dropped the food on his coffee table. Since the apartment is a one-bedroom apartment with an open-kitchen connected to the living room, he had long transformed the "bedroom" into his personal study and placed a bed where a couch would normally be.
He would not have guests over anyways, he internally comforted himself.
It took a moment before he realized something.
"Why am I not just talking to myself? I usually do. Hmm, that dream must really be getting into me," the clear albeit slightly hoarse voice feels alien to him and he gulped a random glass of water to wet his dry throat, "Hello? Huh, that feels better. Guess I just needed a drink."
He shook off the lingering feelings he couldn't point out and went to his study to grab his laptop. He brought the laptop out to his living/bed room and began starting it up. While he waited, he unboxed the takeout breakfast and began eating. He glanced at the clock. It was 8.30 AM. His hands unlocked the phone on the table and set an alarm for 10 AM with practiced ease.
He spent the rest of the morning mulling about how to describe a normal morning for his story's protagonist while munching on the slowly-cooling breakfast.
* * *
The loud ringing of a random meme song alerted him from his writing. He fumbled to stop the alarm and finished the sentence he was typing earlier. Then, he threw the empty box of breakfast to the trash bin of the kitchen.
Now, time to look into those weird dreams.
He took a moment to organise his thoughts at looking up why he had similar nightmares about the same person for a month. The idea itself seemed ridiculous but he kept an open mind. He does write fantasy web novels for a living so why should he find that idea ridiculous? He brought the laptop back to his study and let it sleep on one his empty desk. Then, he turned on his PC with three monitors.
It took a few minutes to boot up so he took a notebook from his desk and opened it to the most recent page. It held the finer details of his recent dreams and he groan when he looked at the date of last week for the most recent page. Why can't it just leave him be? He missed dreaming about wonderful fantasy lands filled with flashy magic and weird occurrences from which he can draw inspirations from.
He wrote down a few simple points in his note book:
Day 13 - 5/1/20
- Chased by the shadow things in a forest (Redaltia/Echdyltia? Forest)
- Was apparently a magic forest brimming with life before the shadow things corrupted it into a dead forest
- Thoughts about a whole day of chasing (better stamina than last time)
- Jumping off the side of a cliff, flying over the ravine to the west
- Shadow things couldn't follow (can't fly/playing with prey instincts?)
- The enjoyment of flying but there was an unknown reason for extreme soreness on the back, hurt or had flown far before?
- Unknown time flying but the forest is about a few centimeters tall from the other end so (things fall below the horizon after approx. 30km for ±60m above land = ravine width 25 - 30km)
- A white feather with black shaft, similar to the wings on my back but different colors maybe?
- A couple of "Simple Space Displacement" magic using the energy recovered while flying (average bird is 32-48km/h so about one hour??)
- Reluctance to speak
- Decided to stop on the cliff-side instead of finding a place on the other side of the ravine
- Other side: deserts, plains, rare trees and plants, small groups of building here and there (some tents, some square buildings), yellow-orange ground, and some sand
- an everlasting dark sky, no clouds, some cracks in the sky??
- Why am I making this note.
He paused after he wrote the last line and gave a wry smile. Why indeed.
After he jotted down the finer details, he put his phone (for the google searches because where else does all the numbers come from) on the desk and began his work on the PC. His memory of the dream was as vivid as if he had personally been through it and that slightly worried him. What if the person he became in the dream dies? Wouldn't he have to remember what dying feels like too? It was one of his concerns but there were also other reasons.
The dream itself is unusual. He had zero control over that body yet he can hear echoes of the owner's thoughts. He felt like he had peeked into her mind without her knowing and even made her uncomfortable every time he woke up too. He knew that the sounds from his world and his own emotions can affect the other person when it became drastic. Even after he wakes, the dream felt more like a memory. It doesn't fade as easily as normal dreams he had previously. He didn't know what would happen while he's awake, so that's yet another source for concern. Nevertheless, he began with searching recurring dreams.
Google searches showed the usual, dreams with meaning and what some symbolism in it might mean. He looked up winged person and what it symbolises and pondered over it for a bit. Wings meant freedom and inspiration, or lack thereof. Unfortunately for him, he knew that the other person had wings but had not personally seen its colour or condition. He was more inclined to believe that these are simply symbolism that his mind made up but... there's a nagging feeling.
He flipped his book to the beginning and began skimming before he stopped at one of the terms that the other person had thought of. There was a mention of a place, but he wasn't sure how it'd be spelled. It was apparently where the other person was on one of the first times he had his dream, although the name was only mentioned in the other person's thoughts in the next few dreams. He attempted to plug in any spelling he could think of for the name he heard.
"Eycala, eysala, ekala, ekhala, eicala, none of these are anything significant," his voice mumbled as searches came up in vain, "maybe... I try to separate each letter I heard. Ear-Kha-La... Don't some language speak the vowels different..?"
He thought of something and typed in Irkhala. Google brought up random stuff like before but he clicked on one of the suggested words on a random urge. He thought it'd be nothing else of importance, and waited for the page to load. It took a few moments and he was met with big letters from google.
Irkalla, the underworld in ancient Mesopotamian mythology.
His mind stopped, fingers froze and jaw dropped.
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