Young Writers Society

Stella Eimer

The Dust City really wasn't safe. It really wasn't.

Stella had turned tail and ran across the rooftops in the opposite direction that Slayer went. Without stopping, she leapt over the gaps and stumbled over shingles and panes until she finally slipped and tumbled to the street below with a shriek.

The impact jarred her whole body. Stella couldn't move, and she wouldn't be surprised if she had broken some bones from her fall. She couldn't tell. The roof had been close enough to the ground that it hadn't sent her back into her real body. So she lay there on her side, winded and woozy.

Why had she been so stupid? She knew it wasn't a good idea to try using the wind to fly again, but the thrill of it was so great, it was hard to resist. The Dust City was really the only place she could do irrational things (include falling down from the roofs).

But that Vapour Slayer--she'd heard of him for sure, but what made him decide to go after her today? She still had no idea why he wanted her to meet him again.

"Goodness, there's another one."

"Two humans already made a mess on the streets in the Kaleidoscope Realm by falling from the sky earlier. Is this what they're doing for fun here now?"

One of the Dreamfolk tsked and they moved away.

Stella winced as she struggled to a sitting position. Everything hurt so bad.

"Definitely not for fun," she muttered, then gritted her teeth as she tried to stand. However, as she put weight on her left leg, a stab of pain shot up and she fell back down again. "Ow."

She'd just have to find somewhere quiet and inconspicuous to wait out the rest of her time in the Dust City for tonight. Of course, there was always the option to inflict enough damage on her dream self to send her back to the waking world, but she wasn't a big fan of the idea of ever climbing up on to a tall building and throwing herself off just to wake up. Especially now feeling like this.

And as for Vapour Slayer? Even without her dad's constant drilling into her to stay away from bad guys, Stella didn't want to comply with the imposing Dreamfolk's demand. Staying away from the Dust City for a few days--or a week . . . or two? No problem. Surely he'd forget about her by then? She was just one face among the many here each night.

She struggled to her feet and limped forward, holding onto the wall for support. Seconds began to feel like minutes and minutes like hours with her slow, agonizing progress. She wasn't sure where to go yet, it would at least be smart to clear out from the area of the accident.

As she kept walking, passing through the Glass District, she heard increasing anxious murmurs. They were all so hushed that she could only guess that the snippets she caught were something like "Dreadmill" and "Tiny Tyrant." Looks like there was another commotion surrounding that one.

Best to stay away from that zone then. Stella came alongside a couple of denizens and said, "Excuse me, could you tell me where the Dreadmill is right now?" She clutched at her ribs.

They gave her one look and left without a word. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in nearby the glass wall and grimaced. No wonder they ran away. One side of her face didn't look hot at all. It was turning purple and blue, and it looked like there was a bit of a swollen lump where she'd hit her head the hardest.

At least your nose is still intact, she thought, running a finger over its straight line. She'd seen quite a few soldiers in her lifetime, some of which had noses that had been broken at least once before. Must have been painful.

Well, even if she did run into the Dreadmill, maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Frightening, terrifying, yes, but perhaps the structure would just run her over, or its master would just fight (cream) her. Not that she wanted that, just that it'd be morbidly convenient.

Keep walking, Stella. Keep walking.

Limp, shuffle, limp. Stella glanced up and around, suddenly wondering if Slayer was still following her. Surely not, right?

Either way, what was the worst he could do to her? This wasn't the real world.

At last, she dropped to the ground. Just as she was closing her eyes for a brief moment, she thought she saw a pyramid in the distance.

Huh. Looks like I actually encountered the Dreadmill. Who would've known?

Ah well. Maybe it'll run me over after all. Ouch. Too tired . . . I can't go any farther.

Should've just stayed on the ground tonight.

One of the reasons I like magic is because of the way it tricks the mind into believing there’s more to life than the mundane drudgery of the day-to-day grind. What always bothered me though was the way it felt to fool someone. It was like I was betraying them by withholding the truth. In essence, that’s exactly what I was doing.

My name is Maverick Jensen. I am a magician. I am a fraud.

Living in Oakland’s Chinatown wasn’t easy, especially when all you can do to find work is find magic tricks on YouTube and start performing them. Other than that, I have no special gifts or talents. All I do is just make sure the rent is paid to the old Asian landlord with the Fu Manchu goatee and the sour, angry look on his face… all the time. His name was Shu. I don’t know why you need to know that, but that was his name. Shu.

It was a humid July that year, the one that I am telling this story in. It wasn’t just the spicy steam that was coming out of every street corner and sidewalk from the millions of food stands selling noodles or (yikes!) squid. I don’t know how these people do it.

My apartment was cluttered. I admit it. It was so messy and disorganised that I would be tripping over everything. Most of the stuff I tripped over were various books and books on magic and sleight of hand and whatnot. Houdini, a Biography. And my computer was old and clunky, but worked.

So let’s see… I think it was July 29th. Somewhere around there. It was like a Thursday or a Friday, and I needed money. I decided to actually put on a show that night, even though I sometimes would leave the fools outside a locked door because I didn’t feel like performing. But I knew I had to. It was almost the end of the month.

I was on stage, wearing my stage attitude and pleasing people with disappearing chickens and nigh-alchemical transformations, like changing a flag’s design in mid-air. That was a hard one. And do keep in mind that even though the chickens disappeared, they did not get savagely murdered like they were in the movie The Prestige. That was a horrific scene to watch. Rest of the movie was good, though. I recommend it.

After my poorly done act where only ten people showed up, I closed up shop and went home feeling like a wet, dirty rag. I decided to crash early because I couldn’t bear to be awake for another minute of reliving that night’s utter failure.

I had some cold peanut noodles before zonking out. They weren’t the best, but they were good enough to make me even more eager to hit the hay. Peanut noodles, shoes off, lights out, sleep in my day clothes - I was wearing a Nirvana shirt that day.

I closed my eyes and tried to get to sleep, but I was awake for at least ten, twenty minutes before I felt everything get heavier and more distant.

You ever have those moments when you’re trying to get to sleep and you are just about to actually fall asleep when your brain just decides to make your eyes open and make the process go back to square one? That’s what happened then. I was so angry at first…
But then I realized after my eyes so rudely opened that I wasn’t in my room. I was laying on the ground outside in some field of really short grass. Like, really short grass. It was wet, too. I came to the conclusion that I was dreaming, but just really present in the dream.

I stood up and walked around. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there, but I was glad to escape from Oakland for a moment. If things couldn’t get any more exciting and less Chinatown-like (thank God), I saw beyond this field that I was standing in, a large, gigantic, enormous, huge… massive, I mean - geez! I can’t think of a fitting enough adjective to describe how big it was, but hell yeah! I was not in Oakland anymore, and that was a plus! Anything but Oakland was paradise to me. I didn’t even care that I was just dreaming, because I usually just had dreams that featured people I knew, like my ex-wife, my teenage daughter that I never get to see, or (heaven forbid) grumpy old Shu.

I ran down the field with glee, letting wild yells and whoops and hollers of joy escape me. As I was running, though, a monstrous thing just slammed down in the dirt directly in front of me, sending something like a 3.4 on the Richter scale in all directions. I looked up and up and up and even more up. That thing, I realized, was a foot. A giant, tree-like foot. And craning my neck I saw the rest of what looked like an Ent on some serious steroids.

“Honey, I blew up the tree!” I mumbled in awe.

I was aghast with utter amazement. At least it wasn’t Shu.

I crept around the giant foot and began to accelerate into a jog, quite afraid of this Treebeard-meets-Godzilla kind of thing. I finally reached the edge of the field and found myself in the lower level of this gargantuan citadel, which was lit up brighter than a Christmas tree.

It was nighttime, it seemed. Everything in the sky was dark except for a heck-ton of stars.
Rather enjoying my time away from home in oh-so-beautiful dreamland, I decided to do a bit of exploring in this fantastic getaway I had made for myself like some kind of mnemonic backdoor to get out of (cough) Kansas. That’s a Wizard of Oz joke, by the way. The old one from the 1930’s is the only good one in my opinion.

I was quite startled by what I found there. All kinds of different people were there - people that were human, people that looked way less than human, and then various weird creatures that were all different from each other… and then out of nowhere I almost bumped into Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse???

My eyebrows raised and I kept on walking. As I neared a flight of stone stairs, I saw the Scream guy with the pointy mask walking the opposite way. I jumped, but calmed down when I noticed he didn’t have a butcher knife… and was exchanging fist-bumps and handshakes with a human-size, walking steel platter. This was definitely a dream.

The funny thing was, though, it felt so real. Like… real real. Like I’d had way too much whiskey and was now seeing Chinatown in a drastically different perspective. Was I hallucinating?

I went up the steps and got closer to the main citadel where I was sure to find more cool and weird things going on. It took about what felt like an hour to get up there.
When I reached the center of the action, I was instantly forced to be stuck in a maddening crowd of hundreds all pushed together. I found myself standing next to Santa Claus, who, I noticed, was drinking Diet Cherry Coke. I peered at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Wha’ ye lookin’ at, mate?” Santa asked rather abrasively.

“You, obviously,” I retorted.

He started laughing, and his entire thick body started to shake. He let out a freakish belch.

Santa coughed and turned to me. “So, mister - how do ye like Duss Ci’y?”

“How do I like what?”

He took another swig of Coke. “I says - how do ye like Dust City?”

“Dust City? What’s that?” I asked. We were both still being pushed by the crowd.

He laughed heartily, then belched again. “Haha! Thass a good one, mate!” He then pulled out a cigar. “Say, what brings ye to Dust City?”

I looked at him oddly. “What the heck is Dust City?”

He squinted. “You ain’t jokin’, are ye?”

“Well… no…?”

“Ahhh.” He pulled out a cigar clipper. “Your new here! I see! Well, welcome to the land where dreams are made!”

I chuckled nervously, then pinched myself. Hard.

The chuckle dramatically stopped. I started to get an inkling that where I was might’ve been something other than a dream. I looked around, felt the heat of the bodies, the smell of Coca-Cola sweat and cigar clippings, felt the skin on my arms.

A cold wind brushed over all of us. I felt it just like I would normally feel it while walking down the dirty streets of Chinatown… and then I all of a sudden realized the shocking, unavoidable truth:

It was no dream.

Santa had lit his cigar. The smoke that encircled his face like a wreath smelled putrid and awful. Great billowing clouds of it got in the way of me breathing. Couldn’t this crowd move any faster? It was moving tortoise-speed.
“Do ye have any kind o’ cool powers or anythin’?” he asked.
I was horrified at the question. “Powers? I wouldn’t say that. I can do magic tricks, though! Would you like to see one?”
“Absolooey,” Santa slurred happily.
I pulled out a quarter from my pocket. I had no idea where I got that coin from, but I held it in the air.
“See this coin?” I asked him.
“Yeah! I sure does!”
I flipped my fingers to make the coin disappear from his view. Only when I did that, the coin actually vanished from existence. I panicked.
“Whoaaa!!!!” Santa exclaimed. “You do has powers!” He slapped me on the back of my shoulder, lurching me forward a bit.
“No,” I insisted. “Just a few parlor tricks.” But I began to sweat, because I had no idea where the coin had gone, or how to get it back.
“Well, where did i’ go?” Santa asked.
“Beats me!” I shrugged. He laughed heartily and belched again, then coughed on cigar smoke. What a mess that guy was. A laughable mess.
The crowd moved forward and began to thin out. I was glad to gain some space between myself and the fat man in a red suit. He stank of aspartame.
I continued to wonder how that coin disappeared. The coin never came back. I kinda wish I’d held onto it so I could use it towards a drink or something.
The crowd now began to rapidly disperse. Like a gaggle of geese when frightened by a passerby, the crowd fled in all kinds of directions. Even Santa walked off without saying goodbye.
I was left alone in the middle of the square. Standing across from me were three individuals. One was a thin man who looked really mean and sadistic, the one on my right was a woman who stood with her hip cocked to one side. And the man in the middle was the most sinister of all - seven or eight feet tall, wearing a black, medium-brimmed hat, and a long, black coat that reached his ankles. He had a thick black mustache as well, which for some reason made me think he was evil. Everyone had fled the square because of them.
And then I noticed something off about them. They seemed to flicker in and out, a bit like a short-fused lamp that can’t decide whether it wants to go out or not. My heart began to race, and fear built to its limit. They began to advance towards me, all three at once, and when I had the thought to run, I could not move. I was frozen in terror.
Then suddenly, as the three terrifying individuals came closer to where I stood, a slender, smooth, luminescent hand reached out from nowhere it seemed, and pressed on my forehead, taking my body backwards to the ground.
But in the moment where I began to fall, the landscape fell away from me, and I found myself waking up in my Oakland bed, screaming, a cold sweat coating my skin.

I don’t know who pushed me back home. Whoever it was, I think they saved my life.
I didn’t have much time to process what just happened before realizing there was a woman hiding in the corner of my room. I jumped.
She was clad in white, and her hair was pearly. She, too, flickered like those evil things did when I was abandoned in the courtyard, but she flickered in a different way. It was as if she was phasing in and out of reality, as if she was being pulled back somewhere.
“Who are you?” I asked in a flustered and frightened mood. The sweat continued to produce on my face.
She looked at me with vacant eyes. “I think I was called Ella at one point.” She shivered. “I’m not sure.”
“Wait… what?” I sat up in bed and pushed myself a meager three inches further away from her, as if that was going to do anything to ease my fright.
“Well…” she said with a pause, “this body was named Ella before it was killed. I kind of took it over.”
I shook myself. None of it made sense. I was so flustered.
“Wh-wh-who killed you… um… I mean… her?”
“Hell if I know. But I think it could’ve been suicide.” She was still curled up in the corner. A strange light emanated from her. The light made her seem as if she was a phantom, a dream. Maybe this was all still a dream - a dream within a dream. I pinched myself to see if I would wake up.
She began to stand up. “You still don’t believe yet, do you?” she asked me.
“Believe what?”
“That the Dust City is real. I feel your resistance.”
I scrambled to my feet. “How can I believe in a dream-world when it’s all a dream?” I exclaimed. “I feel like I’m hallucinating!” I placed my hand over my eyes, stifled tears of frustration.
She was hesitant at first, but slowly came closer to me. She placed her nimble, feathery hand upon my shoulder. “What you don’t understand, you one day will. The Dust City, the realm of dreams - it is a dream. It is a hallucination. But even dreams have an empire to which they must be loyal. The Dust City is no more real than the world you have lived in since you were young.”
I uncovered my eyes, stared into hers. Her eyes were a spiritual blue, like water mixed with light. “So this city - it is real yet not real?”
She nodded, and then moved her hand to my chest. “I see into your soul, and I know who you are. I see that you enjoy performing feats of extraordinary dimension. I see that you, though troubled by your past, though staunch in your reliance on the physical, still believe in something unseen. Why do you think you have a fascination with what you call ‘magic’?”
“It’s just an act, nothing more,” I replied with disappointment.
“No, Maverick. That is what you tell yourself. But deep down, on the inside, in your soul, you truly wish for the magic to be true.”
I searched for what she said, but couldn’t find it. “How do you figure?” I asked.
“I don’t figure, Maverick. I know. Just trust me.” She let her hand fall to her side as she swiftly walked over to my window. “There is more to the world than you know.”
She turned around abruptly. I saw her wince, and her body flickered.
“What’s happening?” I panicked. I ran over to her.
She started to double over in pain. “I must get back!” she whispered. “I cannot strain this demand any longer!”
“What do you mean?”
“I had help to temporarily give me access to your world, but the connection is wearing thin. If I don’t leave now, I risk becoming an Outcast.”
“Outcast?”
She began to phase in and out, her words becoming choppy. “People who are trapped between the real world and the dream world. I must go!”
With a blinding flash, she disappeared in front of me, without a trace. I was dumbfounded and crazed, and I wanted to go back. Even though I really hoped I was dreaming, I was highly intrigued, and thrilled. I wanted more - more of whatever this crazy world was.

Pango Lyn — “Tonight, we fight, and I die, and I get up!”
Abilities of a Tiny Tyrant

“Terribad.” “Horrifreaky.” “Scarinizing.” “Horrifying.”

...Ah! That last one was already a word.
At any rate, Pango Lyn realized that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find an appropriate word to describe the situation he found himself in, so he attempted to come up with new ones. All failed, about as much as his attempts to approach Lisière without trouble.

“Stand still, Sugar-tail!” Lisière exclaimed excitedly as she fired another volley of bullets from her shoulder cannon. They detonated as they impacted with the sand, forcing Pango Lyn to run around the field to dodge them all, summoning his ExÄrm-H to launch some of his Eggs at full speed towards Lisière. Unfortunately, the backpack she wore (and from which the shoulder cannon was attached) doubled as a peculiar jet-pack that allowed her ground-based, rocket-powered slides from one slide to another. When she wasn’t doing that, she used it for rocket-powered leaps above Pango Lyn, and it was thanks to her mastery of the tool that she could cover the field in bullets, when Pango Lyn could barely dodge her assaults.

“Since when d’you call me Sugar-tail?!” Pango Lyn replied, skidding on the sand before sending another Egg in Lisière’s way. “Leave my tail alone!”

“Since when do you care about my lust words?” Lisière retorted, jumping far above Pango Lyn’s position. “The cracks around your poker face are showing.”

Two Eggs appeared in Pango Lyn’s ExÄrm-H. Since his own arms were sealed by the Madder Cloth, he’d have to compromise properly. “I don’t like your naming style. If you wanna use ‘lust words’, go find yourself a lover!” Though the Eggs immediately reached for Lisière’s position, her jet-pack allowed her to evade the hit. She then put an arm on her cannon to aim it back on the ground and fired another series of projectiles – though these were much smaller and faster. Pango Lyn was once again forced to zigzag on the sand to dodge them all, keeping an eye on his opponent.

“I already have one of those, though.” Lisière softly landed on the ground, her torn dark blue cloak briefly floating behind her as she rose on her feet, hands on the hips. “And she already gets those, too. Just not sugar-tail.”

Pango Lyn blinked. “You… You have a lover?!”

“Girlfriend, yes. Jadester.”

“But… But then just leave me alone!”

“Certainly not. We’re in an open relationship, she knows my tendencies, and I’m too interested to let you go without forced hugs.” a sly smile. “And more.”

“I will eat you!”

“Would you be surprised if I told you I am very much looking forward to that particular experience?”

Pango Lyn let out an exasperated growl. Threats didn’t work against her, being polite didn’t work against her, fighting didn’t work against her and he couldn’t at all tell if she was truly a bad person, messing with him, both, or something else entirely. There was no way the poor creature could properly enjoy himself in the middle of this confusion.

Laughter resounded in the distance, reminding Pango Lyn of the other odd presence that had shown itself shortly after the battle began. It was a man sitting on a chair – where he got it remained a mystery. He looked to be in his forties or so and had with dark hair, brown eyes and a messy beard. He looked like what Pango Lyn somehow new as being a mechanic, but he wore a black mantle similar to the black-suited men that had previously attacked the Dreadmill. Several of Pango Lyn’s Eggs were frozen in mid-air right in front of the man, something that had repeatedly happened after he’d say “Time: Out!”

“What’s so funny?” Pango Lyn asked carefully.

“Well, the way I see it… you two are arguing like an old couple.”

“Don’t we?” Lisière said, visibly in full agreement with the man.

“I barely know her, and as soon as this ends her current body will be inside my stomach. How is that similar to any old couple you’ve seen?”

“...That’s the most you’ve said to me since I arrived.” the man observed.

“I’ve tried everything else, so might as well.”

“Well, I only meant the arguing part.” he shrugged. “For the rest, I don’t know enough about Dreamfolk to tell anything else. Not that I mind, I’m only here to do my job, anyway.”

Pango Lyn’s eyes shifted from Lisière back to the man, and from the man back to Lisière. All he knew was that they worked for the same people. How powerful was he? Could Pango Lyn actually deal with him, assuming he could defeat her? There was no way his Madder State would carry him through two battles if he was as powerful as she was. “And that job is…?”

“Ha! Wouldn’t you like to know! But I can tell you if you win.”

“Then give me a minute.” Pango Lyn turned his attention back to Lisière. She was still standing confidently, hands on her hips, ready for… something. The scar on her cheek began to pulsate, and suddenly, a head began to slowly emerge from the ground beneath their feet. It was soon followed by a torso, then legs, then a fully formed human replica of Lisière herself, standing next to the original. Several more appeared after the first and, soon, Pango Lyn found himself completely surrounded by an army of Lisières.

“...Okay, when and how?” Pango Lyn calmly asked.

“Since the beginning, literally all of my bullets.”

“You never did this before.”

“Let’s just say I... grew well, in the past months.”

“...Plant joke?”

“Plant joke.” An eerie smile appeared on the mouths of all the Lisières as some of them formed a line, dropped on one knee and aimed their shoulder cannons at Pango Lyn. Another line pointed their arms at him instead, as the fingers on their hands transformed into green barrels of so many guns. A third line took to the skies with the jet-packs on their backs and also pointed their shoulder cannons at Pango Lyn.

“Come to me, my Lyn,” Lisière said, her voice formed with the echoes of all of her clones. “Take a shower in my Rancid Rain, then let your body dry in my bosom. Rest… Rest to your heart’s content by my side.”

“...What do you want from me?” Pango Lyn whispered, bending his knees.

“You, my Lyn.” her eyes, all the eyes widened as the smiles grew tender and larger. “I… want… you.”

“Okay.” Pango Lyn replied. “Guess I’ll have to make my point across.”

As the army began shooting from all directions, Pango Lyn shielded his body with both of his ExÄrms, then quickly extended his tail to impossible proportions, grabbing one of the clones with it. Then, with ExÄrm-H above his head, he began to dash at full speed while as his ExÄrm-J took hold of the clone and swiped a chunk of the army away as if the body taken was an over-sized whip. The giant hand the squashed several more below it as it stretched, propelling Pango Lyn in the air as a series of Eggs appeared in his ExÄrm-J. He threw them right below him, creating a hollow space within which he engulfed himself as the bullets kept flying. His cyan glow suddenly disappeared as he deactivated his Madder State to free his hands and run among the clones, performing a flurry of agile acrobatics to lacerate whoever came in his way with the sharp claws of his Flutter Sharpies.

Good, they stopped shooting as much. Guess they care about their allies... Let’s use that. With that in mind, Pango Lyn continued his rampage, enduring the few bullets that actually managed to scratch his screen as he came in and out of the Madder State to dodge, lacerate, headbutt and throw projectiles at every enemy that dared to approach or shoot at him. Before long, only a handful of Lisière clones remained on the field. But before Pango Lyn could try anything, they were pierced by a series of vine that came straight from Lisière the sombrero-sized rafflesia that rested atop Lisière's head. They quickly turned to greenish organic matter, then retreated alongside the vines back inside Lisière's rafflesia. To Pango Lyn's surprise, the woman was panting.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, Sugar-tail," Lisière said. "It's always a gamble to fight with you, you know. Small, agile, furious and surprisingly resilient. Not a good mix, for a shooting specialist. But don't worry — I came prepared." She raised a hand in the air, and from all around the field, the same green organic matter that Lisière had just absorbed rose from the sandy ground and came directly to her rafflesia until a faint greenish aura surrounded her body.

"Thank you for destroying all these clones and wasting your stamina doing so, my Lyn," Lisière said. "I'll be sure to put their energy to good use." She grabbed her shoulder cannon with her arm and once again aimed at Pango Lyn.

"If I dodge this, you—" Before Pango Lyn could finish his sentence, a flurry of vines came out from the ground and launched themselves at him, holding him in place as an eerie light began to appear at the end of Lisière's cannon.

"Hold... Still." Lisière ordered. "It'll be over soon."

Pango Lyn's eyes narrowed. "You actually made this fun, for a bit." he declared. Then, as his skin regained its cyan glow, one of his ExÄrms launched an Egg in the air towards the Dreadmill, while the other worked on ripping off the vines. At the same time, the Pyramid of Light that decorated the Dreadmill glitererred until it sent a shining ray of light towards Pango Lyn. From cyan, his skin turned completely white as he effortlessly tore down the vines that held him. He only had time to lock eyes with Lisière one last time before she fired a giant laser beam from her cannon. Fearless, Pango Lyn dashed towards it, clashing with the beam using nothing but his own head.