Dreamscape
Murder grabbed Grant’s hands. She led him out of the small cabin’s front door. Above them, a billion stars gleamed. A melody faded in from somewhere past the field they stood in.
They looked up, mouths agape at the sharpest, clearest night sky Grant Noble had ever seen.
The melody became more defined. It was Greensleeves. Murder counted in six-eighths time as she led Grant through the steps of her favorite waltz.
A few measures in, he stopped her. From this vantage point, he could see her face perfectly in the moonlight, framed by the multitude of lighted pinpoints.
“I’ve never seen this many stars.”
“You can’t see them like this anymore,” she looked up, “back in France in the 1540s, every night looked like this, but we also didn’t have cars or air conditioning.”
“Looking at you in this light, the AC can burn in hell.”
She smirked. He kissed her.
They danced across a pond on stepping stones, the stars both above and below them, as they reflected in the clear, perfect pool.
Greensleeves became A Thousand Years, the song Murder had dedicated to him at her concert, Grant pulled her close.
“It’s our song.” On the bank of the perfect pool, they undressed and made love.
Grant woke on a tiny bed in a tiny room, his college dorm room. The window air conditioning unit rattled. He gave the machine a dirty look. He turned to look at Murder. She was just as stunning on stained sheets as she was against the flawless sky.
There was a knock on the door. Murder woke as she and Grant scrambled for clothing.
“Come in!” Murder yelled as Jenna stuck her head in the door.
“You’ve got to hurry, Grant. She’s coming!”
Murder barked back, “Who’s coming?”
“Your mother.”
***
Levi ran. He remembered this place. He had stolen bread just up the road from here.
He glanced over his shoulder. The man was still chasing him on the large white horse. “Why in seven hells do I have to be reliving this day of all days?” He ducked under a broken fence. He didn’t know why he did that again. Maybe he had no free will here. This was what got him killed before.
He rounded the corner and saw her. The woman with the axe. The world became white hot as his skull split in two.
He woke. In a cave. Just like he had on his first day. The clay here was a medium brown. Even after 470 years, it was still a perfect match for his skin tone. He was doomed to repeat this day too. He walked out of the cave.
The North Sea stretched out before him. He began the long walk. Without any fresh water, he would die every three days as he made his way, naked, into England.
***
Murder pointed to the moon above. Grant smiled. They were sitting on a log in the woods in what he assumed was 1540s France. “You know when you run across Flat-earth people online?” She wrapped her arms around him as she spoke.
“I’ve seen them, yes.” He looked back at the moon.
“I ran across a particularly stubborn one, who insisted that if you left the firmament you’d die,” Grant looked at her confused. She continued, “I just quoted his comment and added ‘without a spacesuit.’ Some things need a modifier to not sound silly with a change to modern times. Magical children used to try and teleport to the moon. But someone else had a barrier in place. Why? Because someone teleported to the moon and died.”
“That’s awful.” He said Though he was, at that moment, considering whether he could get a space suit.
The scene changed once more. They were still sitting, but the log had become a table from Grant’s high school cafeteria. It must have been Halloween. The decorations were of spiders, webs, and jack-o-lanterns.
Maxwell and Rita walked in. Grant found this odd as he didn’t know them in high school. But he hadn’t known Murder either, and she was still here.
Maxwell was dressed like a classic Vampire, and Rita was Elvira. Murder punched his arm…
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“This is your dream,” she replied, referring to the slinky costume, she was right, but he looked at Rita a second longer nonetheless.
“She does look good though.” Murder conceded, as she got off the table and walked towards Rita. She began to kiss her.
Maxwell flapped his arms and spoke like the Count from Sesame Street. “I’m a bat Grant!” He said, “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!” Before twirling his cape and vanishing.
Grant watched Murder and Rita kiss. He felt a hand travel up his thigh and begin rubbing his crotch. He looked over at Jenna who had joined him in sitting on the table. He gulped.
“This is too much.” He touched Jenna’s forehead and she vanished from the room.
Jenna was now sitting on her bed in her high school bedroom. She smiled. Grant was a good man that she didn’t know at all anymore. She hadn’t lived here in ages. But rather than objectify her, he took her home. Or tried to.
Grant took Murder’s arm and pulled her away from Rita. He sent Rita’s subconscious to dreams of her husband and sons, where she belonged. As he turned to his beloved, she smiled, but then shattered into hundreds, no, thousands of shards of glass.
Grant was on his knees, frantically trying to gather them all up. A voice came from behind him as he continued to cut his hands on the shards he was clasping so tightly. He found a red piece, he heard Murder’s voice, singing “Heart of Glass.”
Grant rose from the ground, his hands dripping in blood. Murder was in front of him again, whole. He dropped the shards. She was wearing a tight white dress with thin shoulder straps. The shards hit the ground and the blood from them and his hands splattered all over her.
“Should have held onto those,” as she spoke her voice changed. She was no longer Murder but rather the brown-haired woman that had asked him to look for her son. “You belong to me, Grant Noble.”
“Never. I am devoted to another and I will never betray her again.”
“You will,” the woman spun as she became Anne Boleyn from the painting, but still in the blood-spattered white dress. Grant was resolved. The woman took another step as she became Natalie Dormer as Anne from the TV show. She grabbed his belt loop and pulled him close. He felt her warm breath on his neck.
“Let me conceive, and we will have a son”.
***
Levi could feel his body shutting down again. At least this time he had the comfort of knowing that he’d soon be in southern England eating bread with a beautiful, kind boy. He breathed deep one last time. As he died, he saw Murder appear in front of him.
Murder sat and waited for Levi to return to her. Ten minutes. Twelve. It was always thirteen minutes and thirteen seconds. She’d seen it several times. Including once during the French Revolution, and from a heroin overdose in London in the 90s. Murder refrained from any hard drugs. She loved being alive. Levi hadn’t done heroin again after that night.
His eyes popped open and his lungs filled with air and she hugged him.
“At least you’re prompt. What happened?”
He frowned. “I’ve been lying to you. I’m sorry, but I didn’t think it mattered. Between the time I woke up and the time I ultimately met you, I didn’t die twice. I died every few days, for months, excruciatingly, from hunger or dehydration or both. I suffered for four months as I made my way to you,” he was crying, and she held him, “but you already felt bad that I was made to protect you... And… and you were so kind to me. I...I didn’t want you to know how much I had...”
Murder cried as she held him. She thought about Grant. She’d seen a version of herself approaching just before she’d shattered away. But she had also seen in the flicker that Mother was with Grant.
“I’m sorry we can’t rest just yet. We have to find Grant, Mother is with him and it didn’t look like a good thing.” She got Levi up and helped him walk.
***
Grant laughed. You can’t trick me like that. I know she’s an actress and not Queen Anne. Show me your face.
“Not Natalie” turned to him and became a very real version of the woman from the Anne Boleyn painting, except the painting did her no favors. She was stunning, dark burnt umber eyes with gigantic pupils, hair dark as night yet undeniably red.
She turned and screamed at him. “Fool! You could have it all!”
Arthur popped into the room. Chanting, clearly trying to sever the link. Grant started to call out for him to stop but he didn’t need to. Anne had scattered him to the wind with a flick of her wrist.
“Join me willingly or I’ll just take you over. I’m here in your subconscious because I still have you in my thrall.”
Grant had watched her flick her wrist so he thought he’d try it. He did and conjured a broad sword. Wasting no time, he lifted it and slashed, separating her head from her shoulders. He woke up. He looked around the table. Everyone was up except Murder and Levi. Arthur was alive, and Giselle was nowhere to be seen. Arthur threw him a vial. Smelling salts. He popped the cork and used it to rouse his friends. Murder embraced him. Over her shoulder, he saw Levi’s weary smile.
“You okay?” Grant’s concern warmed Levi’s mood even less than slightly.
“I’m in one piece, ask me again tomorrow,” Levi said, as he got up from the table and headed towards the guest rooms.
Grant started to follow, but Murder stopped him. “He needs to rest. I’ll go check in on him in a few.”
Grant walked his guests out one by one. Rita kissed his cheek. I appreciate you sending me home when things got strange. You almost waited a bit too long.”
“I love you too much to objectify you. I thought about it, to be completely honest, because it was a dream, and because you are really hot... but you’re so much more than that. Once a partner...”
“Always a partner.” She squeezed his hand as she left.
Jenna nodded at him. “Still a class act, Grant. Although you do know, I haven’t lived at my parent's house in a decade?”
“It knew it was safe.”
“We should make plans, you and Murder should come see the new place.”
“Deal.”
Maxwell shook his head. “I’m a Bat? Really?”
Grant just laughed as he shook his hand. “Ah-Ah-Ah.” They laughed again.
He sat down in the chair next to Murder.
She looked at him. “So what happened?”
“I cut her out of my subcon—“
“Your Grandmother passed away,” Giselle interrupted, as she handed him his phone. ”Grant. I’m so sorry,” She had just returned from another part of the house.
“Well, now I guess now I know who was shielding me… and why it stopped.” Murder held him as he cried.
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