There sat a new test/
Much harder that you bought in/
As for the unseen, just take care of what you will/
Light the silent alarm/
We never think that we're missing much 'til/

I gasp and hold my breath/
These needs have changed so deep/
To face you, oh let's say/
I've been awake forever/

- Chevelle - "Sleep Apnea"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9ZXQortVNY

---

<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>


Planet [unknown]

[unknown] Nebula

[unknown] Arm


[unknown] lightyears from Earth


May 1st


“Brent,” a small voice summoned, breathless and delicate. Wherever it came from, this small voice spoke with no real personality. In short, the voice itself didn’t really sound like anyone in particular. Detached and mechanical, it beckoned the otter from his still, lifeless sleep.

“I’m here, Brent. Find me.”

Brent steadily breathed as his eyes adjusted to his new surroundings. The otter had no idea where this place was amidst the cosmos, but right now, the young man was precisely where he wanted to be at that moment. Sagacity and studious planning had gotten him this far, and no matter how hard the excitement wrenched, Brent knew first and foremost that his time here would be short. He’d heard the voice on more than one occasion, but each time since it began, he’d awoken long before locating its source. Unlike those other nights, this time he came prepared with training. Although not rigorous, it had proven itself applicable these past few nights. Revisiting this locale had been his goal all along, but for whatever reason, the training required to create a lucid dream had not yielded the results he desired after repeated attempts.

Not until now.

“It worked,” he stated, driven by relief, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his muzzle. “I just hope, this time around, I have enough time to see what I came here to find.”

Brent rose up off the smooth marble bench upon which he always awoke and embarked on his lone expedition into the spacious structure’s slumbering heart. The otter quietly scrutinized every square inch in his line of vision. The building was both filled with bright sunlight, and yet remarkably dark and desolate where the sun didn’t shine. Most flat surfaces in sight looked to be made of the same smooth, polished marble as the one bench. Charcoal gray basalt bricks lined the walls where there was no marble, and an assortment of angular glass formations marked his progression down the commodious corridor. Every so often, the otter would walk past an ornate wrought-iron door embedded into the gleaming and immaculately maintained foundation. The soft whir of idle mechanisms droning underfoot kept their pace in rhythm with each new step Brent took. But these distractions were unable to persuade him from the task at hand. What mattered most was what awaited him at the end of the hall: the atrium.

‘I don’t have time to wander,’ the otter reminded himself in thought. ‘As much as I’d appreciate the chance to search the building for exploration’s sake, there’s no assurance I can maintain this dream long enough here to humor it.’

‘That is,’ the otter reflected as he passed into the atrium, ‘if this really is a lucid dream.’

The moment he took those first steps inside, Brent gazed upward past the glass-domed ceiling into the hospitable blue sky beyond it. Stopping atop a glazed symbol of what appeared to be a gray compass rose in the middle of this palatial and lustrous room, Brent noted the presence of heavenly bodies orbiting not too far from the azure vault of the blue sky. They were three small satellites, three moons, made indistinct from the distance, panes of glass and atmospheric interference. What interested the otter more than even these bodies was the evidence of a gas giant protruding from one corner. Its large rings reaching out from some unseen void like a drowning hand in need of rescue from the sea. Brent heard those waters now. The otter could hear their waves crashing on the shores of some nearby cliffs outside the edifice. The comatose machines had buried those sounds up until this point, but now they were unavoidable. The water had been such a comforting source of reprieve for the river otter, but now these waves elicited much fear in the young man.

“This can’t be Earth,” the otter surmised, “If that’s the truth, then where am I?”

“I do not remember,” the frail voice replied in echo.

‘This isn’t a dream, is it? That’s why there are no telltale dreamsigns. I’m actually here,’ he intuited. “I’m really inside the bowels of some vacant building God only knows where. I just don’t know how that’s even remotely possible.”

“You are here, and yet you are not,” it promptly answered. “That much I can answer.”

“It’s not much of an answer, if you ask me.”

Deliberating for a second, the young man shook off his apprehension and stole away from the atrium toward an adjacent corridor.

“No. No, I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming,” he reiterated, retaining what had kept him grounded during these cases. “No matter how vivid everything may seem, I can’t risk losing lucidity. Not when there’s still so much left to see.”

The otter briefly glimpsed down at this magenta wrist watch. As always, each hand was spinning wildly as if driven to insanity by magnetism.

‘I’m not sure if I was expecting any different,’ Brent thought, continuing his search.

As he walked onward underneath the great glass-domed ceiling, the young man caught glance of his clean reflection in the unsoiled tilework. His short, swooping strawberry blonde hair laid untidily atop his head. The delicate features of his light tan facial fur were all apparent in the mirrored flooring. Brent’s gray sweater vest, black dress pants and rosy-hued dress shirt were also hard to miss in the patently glistening façade. But it was his pair of bright pink Air Yeezys that truly made the river otter feel all the more alien and out of place inside these lavish and pristine walls of marble and basalt.

“Let me say, I did not come dressed to impress,” Brent said aloud, snickering restlessly.

After fully exiting the atrium, Brent purposefully strode down the hall toward his true destination. In the recent past, the voice had led him past this point on more than one occasion, but each time he’d been thrust out of his lucid dream well before making significant progress. Now the otter stood in front of what may have seemed to be a dead end to most, but Brent knew better. This bare, unmarked wall here was hiding a secret that he felt destined to discover. Brent’s desire, the otter’s innate need, to understand the inner workings of this construction and its many certainly concealed treasures often overrode his compulsion to search and scrutinize with impartiality. These circumstances had not only made him skeptical, but they’d put him into an unenviable position where the more he came to know, the more bewildered he became.

“I’m dreaming,” he repeated, trying to cement his lucidity. “In here, I have control.”

Once finished reciting his mantra, the voice chimed in, “Is this what you truly believe?”

Brent sensibly considered his rebuttal, and proposed, “What else can it be but a dream?”

The bodiless shepherd fell silent.

‘I wonder what Tyson would think if I told him about this place and all these dreams I’m having. If one could call them that,’ Brent reminisced as he ran a hand across the smooth surface. His boyfriend had been so incredibly supportive of him the entire time they’d been an item, but everything had its limit. ‘Would he laugh it off like always? Would Naomi? I’m not sure how the others would react, but maybe if they knew more about these dreams—and about the many things I can do—maybe then they’d react with more concern.’

The young man muttered, stricken by uncertainty, “Or is that simply wishful thinking?”

With this said, a crack of white light wrinkled the empty space on the wall, splitting it down the middle like a grave wound. Then two more cracks suddenly materialized perpendicular to this original tear and ran their course until the supposed dead end was carved up in an incandescent vivisection. There was plenty of groaning and shifting as the smooth stones separated and soon subsided back into the supporting bulwarks. When all was said and done, the wall had completely given way, and in its collapse, a gaping entrance was all that remained. The aperture opened into abject darkness. With no light to guide him into the abyss, Brent was forced to consider what to do next. But thankfully, any indecision dissipated when the still air of the disquieting silence was upset by a gentle push from an acquainted source.

“You’ve found me,” the voice spoke, reaffirming its presence. “Seek me inside.”

“Well, I’ve come this far,” Brent resolutely remarked, taking a single step into the dark, “There’s no sense in going back now.”

Much to his surprise, as he walked into the room, the otter was in awe as the once pitch-black space began to fill with life the more he advanced. From what the otter could tell, the room inside was circular in nature and buttressed by thick, heavy marble columns. Tracts of white light surfaced and bisected bright concentric circle patterns until they both attained their nexus in the center. It was here where the room’s focal point shone brightest. Emerging from this locus arose a shaft of light fixed between two circular daises, one on the floor and the other on the ceiling.

“I can’t see you,” Brent declared, watching for any sign of life as he trod reflexively toward the platform. “Where have you gone?”

“I’m here. Can’t you see?”

Stepping instinctively into the shaft of light, the otter took sight of a peculiar occurrence. He stared with perplexity as a blunt black bar crackled into view with small burst of electric discharge. Floating in midair and elongating with each second, the object gave the young man the distinct impression that it had spontaneously taken shape out from nothingness. Seized by inordinate, superseding inquisitiveness, Brent snatched the object in his right hand and drew it closer to his face for analysis.

Taken aback as the electric currents harmlessly hopped across his digits, he said in bafflement, “I don’t understand. This is what called out to me? But how can that be—”

The young man gasped as the black bar abruptly gained mass and glowed with fearsome strength. Dropping the black bar to one side, the otter gazed in astonishment as the small, unassuming object grew in size exponentially and extended outwards a good three feet or so away from his person. Once the light had faded, Brent was then able to catch sight of what the inconspicuous black bar had become. Confused, the otter was amazed to find that a long, curved blade had revealed itself. He stared down at what he then confirmed to be the silken handle of a katana. Unable to describe what he’d come to grasp at first, Brent beheld the object with equal parts wonder and apprehension as he felt the sword’s real weight demonstrate an actual gravitational pull.

“Of all things to find here, I never imagined a sword,” he said with bemused disbelief. “Is this really what I was led here to find?”

Just then, the harsh sound of cocked gun from behind broke Brent free from his scrutiny. The otter pirouetted, swinging the sword out before him protectively, and yelped as he came face to face with a loaded revolver. The man sporting it seemed to come straight out of an old school Western. He was a gunslinger, a coyote to be specific, who could have easily shared a pedigree with a young Clint Eastwood. Although, modeling a black Stetson, a long black duster coat, two small bandoliers about his waist, a pair of dark trousers and two square-toed work boots made him appear more like a villainous foil than a hero. This perception was not softened at all by the cruel, contemptuous sneer that he also brandished with a similar hostile posture. In the shadow, his eyes shined like two silver dollars glinting in the moonlight.

“A passive psionic barrier,” the gunslinger pronounced in a thick Southern drawl. “And a strong one at that, I may add. I can’t easily pierce the probability field you’ve raised. I’m actually quite impressed.”

Stepping back off the pedestal, the young man meagerly demanded, “Who are you?”

“Did you really think that you, a creature of your psychokinetic capacity, could wander between the walls separating the worlds and go unobserved? Boy, you don’t strike me as a fool, so don’t be so keen to act the part now out of sheer desperation.”

“Answer my question,” Brent shot back, this time more forcefully, “Tell me who you are. And how do you know about that? The barrier. How did you sneak past it to get this close?”

“Why I hid in the darkness, of course,” the gunslinger countered with imperious confidence. “In fact, I hid so well in the negative spaces that not even this security system, advanced as it is, saw me coming. Not like it presents much of a threat to me anyway.”

Forgetting his previous chain of inquiry, Brent sensibly asked, “What is it that you want?”

“I came here to talk. So why not lay down your arms and make this easy on yourself?”

“Talk?” Brent chuckled uneasily. “Is that why you came at me with a loaded gun?”

“The fact that you can even find your way here, let alone wield that sword you now carry,” the intruder argued, "suggests to me that you’re worth my time and consideration.”

“I’m dreaming,” Brent repeated once more, meditatively closing both eyes, “This isn’t real. I’m only dreaming.”

“Oh, this ain’t no dream. Be sure of that. You are lightyears away from anything resembling respite,” he retorted with a sharp, toothy smirk. “But I’ll give you one last chance, boy. Put down your sword, and let us deliberate. I’m sure there are plenty of people in your life you’d wish to keep safe. And the best way to keep them in good health is to heed my requests with the utmost regard. In the end, I sure as shit don’t need to be polite to a pup like you. And I refuse to deign any lower, child. Surrender, or suffer the consequences.”

Blinking slowly, the otter sighed mightily and relinquished his katana to the cold ground with a metallic rattle.

“Splendid! I’m delighted to see you oblige so graciously,” the coyote hollered, holstering his engraved revolver.

Defeatedly, the young man inquired with hesitant acquiescence, “So, what’s there to discuss?”

“Oh, don’t you fret, there’s much for us mull over. However, I do regret that we met under such unfortunate pretenses. My name is Jonathan Sumner Ersatz,” he cheerily expounded, extending out his hand for Brent to shake. “It’s pleasure to make your acquaintance, one weapon to another.”

---

This marvelous new piece was done by the incredibly talented  aerokat! Honeslty, I can't thank her enough for all her hard work. I absolutely love how this came together! If I wasn't sitting at the time, I'd have been knocked off my feet. It was everything I'd envisioned. I'm so incredibly happy with what I've received, and I can't be more grateful to see two more of my characters come to life with the help of her immense skill. I truly can't thank her enough for what you see here. I know she's got plenty of great art in her gallery, so check it out for yourself.

And if all that impresses you, which I'm sure it will, then feel free to check out her Patreon and support her art:
https://www.patreon.com/poecatcomix/posts


art is ©  aerokat

Brent Morris and Jonathan Sumner Ersatz aka "The Cowboy King" are ©  nazcapilot