A Realm That Dreams

In my rage, I tore open the very fabric of reality.

The realm split apart before me.

The moment the void touched me, I was pulled in. Sol disappeared behind me, and there was only darkness.

Infinite voices screamed for supremacy, filling my mind. Until one began to drown out the others. The darkness here was not merely the absence of light. It was a churning collision of laws and realities. Up was not always up. Distance twisted. Focusing, thinking only made the madness worse.

Dim spheres of every colour stretched endlessly before me. As I turned my head, I saw my own realm shrinking behind me, fading until it became just another sphere among countless others.

“Cal’rak…”

The voice whispered. Though, through the noise of the others, it sounded like a roar.

“Cal’rak…”

Hearing my true name after so long wrenched me from my stupor.

“H, hello?”

My voice sounded wrong. Muffled. Changed. Perhaps this place had altered it, or perhaps terror had finally caught up to me.

“Follow my guide.”

A strange, pinkish light rushed toward me, branching like lightning. But there was order in it. Purpose. It reached outward like a root, each extension probing a different sphere, testing, searching.

The light formed a path. To where, I did not know. But with no other choice, I followed.

As I moved, the chaos around me calmed. The path behind me sealed shut. Time and distance lost all meaning. I walked, or drifted, for what felt like both moments and eternities.

Eventually, the path ended at a sphere like the others, glowing a deep, muted pink.

“What is this?” I demanded.

“I would let you enter.” the voice replied, “but that would harm me.”

A thinner strand of light reached toward my head.

“Hey!” I shouted, though the sound never left my mind. “What is this? You expect me to trust you?”

“You will have to,” it answered flatly. “Lest you become lost. Your soul cannot endure this place forever. The argic will break through, eventually.”

“And you will protect me?” I snapped.

“I can encapsulate your soul within the essence of my realm.”

“Yet you cannot let me inside?”

“You will understand,” it said. “But first, I must explain. You must trust me.”

I exhaled sharply. Even with the vast argic burn within me, I could feel the strain. Corruption seeped through the cracks.

“Fine,” I said at last.

The pink light wrapped around me.

Warmth followed. Peace. The edge of sleep. Then, sudden motion. My mind hurled forward at impossible speed, racing toward something unknowable.

And then, silence.

Birdsong. Insects. Leaves rustling.

I opened my eyes to a garden.

Perfectly trimmed hedges. Carefully tended flowers. Stone paths worn smooth by care, not time. Ilerious would have had something to say, looks like one of his gardens.

I sat in a metal chair at a small circular table. Another chair stood opposite me. The sky was wrong. No moons, Sol hanging too low, and the sky was far too blue.

Strangest of all, my body felt… stable.

Human.

“I hope you don’t mind,” the voice said, echoing gently through the garden. Nature did not react, as if the sound were part of it. “I took some liberties with your form. The memory you hold of yourself, has become… distorted.”

I turned.

An old man sat across from me. Human, or close enough. Something about him radiated familiarity. Trust. As though I had known him my entire life.

“Who are you?” I asked. My voice sounded young.

“Hmmm. That is a difficult question,” he said, snickering softly. “Would you like something to eat?”

I looked down. The table was suddenly covered in food, so abundant I wondered if it had ever been empty.

“What magic is this?” I slammed my fist down.

“The best kind,” he replied, sipping from a steaming mug.

I tried to summon my power. To burn this place away.

“It won’t work,” he said calmly. “You’re not entirely here.”

“What?” I realised the truth a heartbeat later. Nothing answered my call. “Who, what, are you? Is this real? Are you real?”

He gestured around him. “I am this. All of this.”

“What?”

“I guided you through the void. The realm you stood outside of… is me.”

“You’re telling me you’re a realm?” I scoffed.

“Even I struggle with the explanation,” he admitted. “The being that created this place built a vast network. Neurons, spaced impossibly far apart. A plan to slow argic decay. But the corruption spread. The network grew. Shifted. The creator faded. Or was consumed.”

“Consumed by what?”

“By me,” he said gently. “The network became a mind.”

“So, you’re a brain floating in nothing.”

He chuckled. “No. The brain is the realm.”

I stared at him. Understanding creping in.

“I’m not here,” I whispered.

“Your mind is,” he replied. “For some, that is enough.”

“And your body?” I pointed up and down him. “What is, who is that?”

“A construct,” he said. “Made from memories. Faces you trusted. There were few. I don’t blame you, after what Solious did.”

“Solious?” I said. “You mean Sol?”

“No,” he corrected softly. “That is her true name. Or, at least, it was the name she went by before building your realm.”

I swallowed. “And your, true name?”

“I have none,” he said. “But some call me the Webb.”

I studied the garden more closely now. The birds repeated their paths. The grass swayed without wind.

“I can change it,” the Webb offered.

“Are you in my head?” I demanded.

“There is no ‘head’ here,” he sighed. “Think of it as a dream. Mine. One you are visiting.”

“Then answer this,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “Why help me?”

“It has been a very long time since a mortal left their realm. Well, semi-mortal,” he said with a chuckle. “I thought it worth showing you the way.”

“The way to what?”

“The way,” he corrected. “You seek to stop argic decay.”

“Yes.”

“And so do I.”

I remember the silence that followed that. I couldn’t tell if there was fear in his voice. That perhaps he was doing this not just for me, but out of necessity. Or whether it was just curiosity.

“Then show me,” I said at last. “Guide me.”

He stands, reaching out a hand towards me. “I believe this gesture is often used as a sign of agreement.”

I took a breath of the fake air, and accepted.

Darkness swallowed everything. And in that darkness, I saw it.

The illusion, the dream, faded. For a second, in the dark. An impossible brain beyond comprehension. Neurons the size of worlds. All what that place is, ever was. A vast dreaming god, trapped in limbo.