Sunday, April 24, 2011

The Barn Tunnels

Strange things happen in barns late at night.
Laila and Amanda turn evil, trying to possess each others' bodies. They are shocked out of battle when the kitchen stove lumbers in and sets itself on fire, blocking our exit and forcing us to retreat into the barn's secret tunnels. Then an angry peacock mage turns me into a moth. I bash my body repeatedly through the windows between each tunnel split, trying to get fresh air.
The smoke is alive, and spreads faster than flames...
After a few hours, the spell fades and my body returns to normal. Still running, we slide down a long side tunnel into a deep pocket of stale air under the earth's crust, surrounded by roiling magma, which is kept in check by: The Fire Salamander.
He roars at the intruders in his lair, spitting flames and charging forward on stubby legs.
As he hurls a great ball of flame, talons curved, I think fervently of the open sea, my eyes closed- and fall with a great splash into turbulent waves.
Laila Amanda, and I wash up on a cold, cloudy beach, spluttering.
"Whew," Laila sighs, "looks like we made it--" just as a two-headed snake rises from the beach-grass behind her. "Look out!" I yell, but Amanda is already on it. She seizes a long strand of grass, bends it with her mind, and throws it to Laila, who stabs the monster behind her with the newly made sword.
"That--that wassn't very nissse of you, misss. I wass merely going to welcome yousss to the issland!" the creature replies, affronted.
"Oh! I'm terribly sorry, sir! We're not used to conversing with many other sentient beings," I hastily reply, pulling out the sword and binding the wound with more grass.
"Pardon me," asks Amanda, her curiosity waxing, "But how do you survive in this climate? This isn't exactly tropical weather..."
"Oh, well, that's because it's synthetic. It's the best we could do--a lot better than living outside, though, giving the present condition of the Earth." The serpent presses a hidden button on a tree with his nose, and part of the foliage folds back to reveal, behind a thick wall of glass, a barren, wind-swept nothingness.
The Earth is dead.
Laila is the first to guess.
"What year is this?"
"29, 019."
"Ah."
"The real question is, how did you get inside the dome? There's nothing living out there-- at least, nothing you'd want to invite to tea. How have you survived?" He peers closely at us, head tilted. "You're not from Earth, are you?"
"Um." Amanda steps forward, scratching her head. "Do you believe in Time Travel?"
"There are theories, of course, but it has never been proven."
"Yeah, well...we're time travelers. Just- really bad ones..."

(I'd like to say that we figured out why we ended up in the future, rather than just some random ocean in the present, but I have no idea. I'd like to say that by now I know how to handle it all, 'cause this dream is from about three years ago, but no. The dream ended correctly. We still suck. It's all trial and error, not simple and snazzy like many of the comic books I read. :( meh. Whatever. It's still uber-cool, time travel. And I still can't get a better feeling than when fighting supervillains in REM. So who cares that the dream didn't end properly! I'll just make a comic of it and then the plot will magically appear. :)) THE END.

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