Dreamscape (working title rated for language)

This is a completly diffrent and new setting from the usual stuff I used to write in fantasy fiction. Suggestions for character names and ttile suggestions are welcome.

Prologue

"Would you dare to dream in a world built of dreams?"

Chapter I

06:23 Quintet, 4432 Dreamdeep

Yeah…the Snatchers sent a messenger last night, and by pre-dawn, the entire city was on its feet. The Shal Raz are coming, their raiding season has started and this time, it’s getting worse. We fought them off the last time, and the time before. You see, my own city, Preyah, being too close to the borders of Shal Yurok, the Wounded Kingdom, was used to such raids, but this time, not even the thousand foot walls will save us…we must abandon the city, or so we are told. Those are the orders of the Sandman. It was a restless night for most of the citizens. Not to me though…I slept. I even had dreams of my own, which is very rare. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later anyway. It’s just, no one seemed to care. Having no family, nor any followers of my own, one of the Snatchers just pulled me off from the dreams of a kid in North Dakota, and dumped me in the middle of Preyah. Point being, no one gave a fucking damn about the news I heard and the thoughts that rushed through my head.

11:59

We are leaving the city as we speak. A huge orlich just flew over the mountains ahead and landed onto the titanic glowing globe that was our sun. It plucked it twelve times, which means that it’s exactly twelve o’clock. Lunch time. I just saw two Constructs slamming the huge metal doors, making a terrible shkrrrrrrrgh-bum! Stupid chains. Never get used to them. Most of the people around me are either crying or helplessly trying to grab onto something, whilst trying to climb over the walls. But the caravan keeps moving…there are those who choose to stay behind. I don’t know whether I should pity them, laugh at them, or even join them. Some say that the City-on-the-Hill is much better than Preyah. Safer. And more pristine. The last monument of the achievements of humanity, unlike Preyah, that seemed to be locked in a constant state of biblical pseudo-Gomora. If you can tell, this world has a thing for Humans.

P.S. I forgot to feed Lucy, my snake. Oh well…she’ll have a nice, bulky slab of meat once the Shal Raz besiege the city. I’ll miss you Lucy. Buhbye. Loves, Jane.

“I don’t get it. Look at all these people! They are scared. They cling to each others partners almost as if they own them as a property. And you don’t show even a single shred of emotion. If this is how humans are supposed to look like on the inside, well…all this praise and boast for humanity is bull.” The small, three foot grey-skinned man pointed a thin, bony finger at her. His many rings and bracelets jiggled as the huge twenty feet carriage rocked left and right, thanks to the rocky road. Oh and yeah, his name is Ury.

“Just say bullshit.” Jane said with an emotionless voice. A mother caressing her son dressed in silken garments spun back around to face her, and her crying eyes, combined with smudged and drooling make up eyed her furiously. Jane just snorted at her. “Look, Ury, I’ve been preparing for this event for months, but when I spoke with the Mayor did anyone listen to me? Of course not. And why? Because I was a Single. I was not brought with an entire city, or a continent, I am not the sole survivor of the once great Shal Yurok. I am a simple woman that resembles a human. I was in the middle of a dream, the kid probably dreamed of his aunt or something, and the next thing I remember, was seeing bars all over the place, and a few moments afterwards, I fell just outside Preyah with a loud thud. Right next to a pile of dung.” She spoke with spite in her voice. She picked just the perfect moment for it.

“It would not surprise me if those abominations are coming after you! Remfilth!” a ruggedy man around the age of thirty lay near the corner of the carriage and threw his fist in the air, almost as if he was trying to wrestle space itself.

“Shut your pinhole Yoek!” Ury shouted at him with what almost sounded as a squeal. It was comic really, but the man knew better. He faced the wooden floor below him with his grey eyes and kept staring at a small hole on the floor.

Suddenly, the loud vrums and brums of many engines reached their ears. Before long, there were a few honks as well.

“God…cars…” Jane sighed and threw her face in her hands. Ury chuckled. The caravan stopped and they could hear the hard slow pace of a few pairs of feet as they slowly walked in the direction of the long carriage. Then, the back of the sewn-together leather that was supposed to cover their heads, flew open, and revealed the huge, monstrous grin of a few rhea. Their reptilian features were covered in fake moustaches, implanted sideburns or goatees. Some wore hats, others wore monocles, and some had long, blond curly hair. From Jane’s point of view, a pack of dinosaurs dressed up as humans. Which in the same time did not had the slightest sense of fashion.

“Hail humanoids!” one of them said, coming in front of the group, facing the refugees. He tipped his purple top hat adorned with a ridiculously long stark white feather and said:

“My name is Mr Sam Jack. And this..” he gestured towards another reptilian dressed in a tacky white spoted pink colored dress and two inch blue eyelashes “is Mrs Gretta Jack. Our group was sent by the Rheain Conglomerate to help you in your journey. We bring food supplies, clothing, and toys for the kids!” he raised an index finger, with an orange polished nail. Behind him there were a handful of rheas bringing in big wooden boxes and each had a stamp in big shiny letters saying “COOKIES” and “HAMBURGERS” and “TOYS” and the most numerous of them were labeled as “ACCESSORIES”. Someone from the carriges in front blew a whistle. An hour brake.

“Exuse me, Master Jack…” Ury squealed. The rheans snickered and chuckled. Ury didn’t seem to care. “Are these the orders of the Sandman? Or just a sign of rhean goodwill and generosity?” Ury, even though he was a Single, like our Jane here, he was in Preyah much longer than she. Over the centuries he gained quite of a prestige in the city, and rose to more noble circles. Now, he was something of a spokesman of the common people in Preyah.

“Both!”Jack flashed a grin at Ury. “The Snatchers sent a messenger to inform us that by orders of the Sandman, we are to help the Preyan citizens to be escorted to the City-on-the-Hill. Where you humanoids” He gestured towards all the people in the back of the carriage, exposing his rainbow nail polishes and colorful trinckets that hung from his forearm “are to populate the majestic city and continue on with your lives…” his wife flashed a grin and batted with her waving eyelashes. “but the commodities are our idea.”

“All of this food? Surely that much food and clothing is not a mere gesture of rhean goodwill.” Jane remarked. When one said rhean goodwill in this world, that person usually refers to the debt that rheans place on you if they help you out with something. “that, or your factories are overworking again…hopefully you are not planning to poison us with rotten food.” She continued.

“But of course not. We just invented the hamnburgers and the jeans! So we want to see who does your kind interact with such commodities!” Jack clasped his hands together and cooed happilly followed by the shock and awe of the rest of the rheans.

“You gotta be kidding me…” Jean thought out loudly.

“But you are humanoids right? Isnt that what your kind consumes? We only desire to see how you eat the jeans and try on the hamburgers!” his voice was filled with such zeal.

“You mean vice versa right?” Jane felt stupified. Rheans were so amazed with Earthian culture that anything that resembled even slightly human was labeled as such. They reveled in products and way of life that the Earthians would usually enjoy, or use in everyday life. Be it clothing, television, food or even everyday slangs and speech. To them, Humans were dieties and an oddity in the same time. They prodded and examined everything human, and they would build city-wide factories, solely for the purpose of making organic food, or flakes, or tv screens. Commercials and glimpses from tv-series from Earth fetched that were dragged or smuggled by Snatchers fetched a huge price on rhean markets.

“Oh?” Jack felt confused. His beloved wife took out a small catalogue from her red leather purse that had a naked woman printed on it and ruffled through the many pages. After a few moments of searching, she laughed with a loud, monstrous, almost male shout and nodded at her husband. “A trivial mistake. We apologize.” The whistle blew again, and the caravan was slowly starting to move again. The colorful group of rheans waved at them as they slowly moved to their big, shiny red chevrolettes and followed the mile long caravan of a few hundred thousand mothers, fathers, Pseudo-Humans, other Rhea and other odds and ends that Dreamscape has to offer. Minutes later, the sounds of buzzing kitchen accesorries that worked on stored REM energy echoed through the carriges and Jane saw a small child running after a small battery operated duckling. That meant one thing, the boxes were being open.

“This is gonna be a long day…” Jane sighed and lay beside Ury on the bedroll who was already asleep and had metal plugs in his pointy ears to be isolated from the infernal racket.