Dreamscape, IN: Episode 1, Between Water and Sky

Read the Prologue: here Wordcount: 583 Part: 2/ongoing

Between Water and Sky

I thought I saw it as I jumped off the pier into the lake.

The air was already cooling as afternoon slid into evening. Summer doesn’t last long in Dreamscape. I tossed my towel off my shoulders and ran down the weathered dock, my bare feet pounding the weathered gray boards as I sped toward the horizon. The wind thundered in my ears and my hair tossed against my sunscreen-slathered shoulders. My skin was rough with goosebumps. The water would be cold, but I ran faster. Faster! This might be the last dive of the season. Go!

My feet left the end of the pier and a sudden silence rushed around me. I was flying, launched into the air from the sheer energy of knowing the whole sky was watching, waiting.

High, high above and many miles long, it trailed on and on toward the west. The cars flashed back the reddening sunlight as it coasted faster and faster over the curve of the sky. Away it went, and I hit the water.

The roaring chaos of the broken surface gave way to the humming jingling teal-black depths. I plunged through the shock of the cold to a dark secret world. This world calls me, too. It always disappears when I touch the soft oozing sand at the bottom and kick off. I was bound skyward again.

My face erupted into the biting breeze and lapping waves, and I dragged my hands across my blurry eyes. A seagull screamed and I searched the sky. It was gone.

For a while I swam around under the pier, weaving in and out between the slimy supports and the zebra-mussel reefs like an unglorified mermaid. I watched the others with only my eyes above the water. They would be cold soon. We wanted to stay until sunset, but we would see.

Maybe it was strange for a girl my age to care so little about what her friends were doing. But they never talked about the train. They never really talked about what they wanted to do. I was ambitious. Or something. I’m not sure what it was. I just knew there was music in my head, always changing and building. I was bound for somewhere.

Even if I never left Dreamscape.

Mom picked us up and drove us home, letting the others off at their houses along the way. Then finally, it was just me and her in the car. I told her about the train.

“Why do I see it?”

“Everyone does, honey.”

“But nobody talks about it but us.”

“Nobody dares to hope. Most people seek security in other things. Hope…it’s too hard to control.”

I let my hand ride the wind outside the window. “I suppose I’d better focus on this last year of school, so I can have something to hope for, myself.”

“Hard work is good for you,” she said. “All your dreams are there to get you out of bed in the morning. But outcomes can be chaotic in this world. So much that you can barely claim the credit or take the blame. Do your best. Make your plans. Don’t give up. But at the end of the day, if it helps at all, try to remember everything this life has to offer can be gotten by accident.”