Kitteh :3 wrote:( Warning: Block of text ahead. )![]()
the child xxx the dreamcatcher
The child had always had nightmares.
But never anything like this.
xxx
"This will send all of the bad dream away," the child's mother said as she hung up a wood and yarn contraption, beautiful feathers dancing beneath it. The little boy was huddled beneath his blankets in an attempt to hide from the nightmares he just had. His alarm clock read 3:27 am.
"Now, goodnight," his mother said, kissing his forehead and returning to her own quarters. The boy was alone again, the chilling air of his room causing him to shiver in fright. The silence was what scared him the most. There was nothing to comfort him. He lay in bed for hours, surveying the darkness around him for any creatures of the dark that may induce his nightmares again. The boy nearly fell out of bed when he rolled over and was face-to-face with a glowing dog.
He was frightened at first, nearly throwing his alarm clock at the thing; but the dog explained to him that it was his dream catcher, and it would chase away the nightmares. All the boy had to do was call for its help in his dreams, and she would trap the dastardly thing in itself, allowing the boy to peacefully sleep each night away.
The boy called upon his dreamcatcher every night, at first to fend the flesh-eating dream monsters off. Then the cases got less serious. He cried for the dreamcatcher to take away the doll from his dreams, which had only gaping holes for eyes and nothing else on the face. He screamed when the clown came toward him, even though it looked nice and told jokes and juggled for the boy's entertainment. He wanted the spider crushed, the bats shooed away, and the rain abolished.
The dreamcatcher became exhausted. It had so much work to do every night, so many things to suck out of the boy's dreams. Still, it did its duties, doing everything the boy asked.
Eventually the boy created an island of paradise in his dreams. He would tell the dreamcatcher that he only wanted some things taken from the dream, while other things should stay. The insects had to go. Take some force out of the waves; I don't want to get wet, I just want to hear them. Take the annoying monkeys out, I don't like that cave, the clouds are blocking the sun.
This was hard work for the dreamcatcher. But it never stopped trying to please the child. Not even when the boy ordered for things to be placed into his dreams.
The boy started by saying he wanted a glowing waterfall, each tiny drop of it sparkling. The dreamcatcher fulfilled his wish. He then asked for numerous things: coconut and banana trees of the highest quality, where each taste of them were like heaven, a beautiful and graceful horse to ride on that had as much food as it ever needed, a delightful rainbow in the sky that always changed colors, and so much more that it would be impossible to name it all.
xxx
As the boy clambered into bed, he thought to himself what else he would want on his island. Maybe he would say he wanted an entire store for himself, so he could indulge upon any delicacy that he desired. Or maybe a yacht to ride upon the ocean. Or maybe—
The boy could feel the presence of the dreamcatcher appear. He rolled over with an expectancy to see what he saw every night. But what stood in the dreamcatcher's place frightened the boy more than anything he had seen before.
It was a dog still, yes, and it still glowed. But its pelt of dancing designs of flowing lines and hanging feathers was now white, without any design seen. The joyful, curled tail had straightened out and never swayed. It had chains around its paws. Metal sprouted from its back. A keyless lock dangled from its neck. The boy didn't understand what any of this meant. He only recognized the eyes—they were of the eyeless doll that he had dreampt about many weeks ago.
The horrifying dog appeared ever night of the boy's life, and never uttered a word. Soon after, the boy's nightmares returned.
xxx
It took the boy years to understand what all of this meant. He was brainstorming on his couch during the day when he figured it out all at once.
He had never thought about what happened to his nightmares after the dreamcatcher took them. It was then he realized that the dreamcatcher absorbed them into itself, which explained why it had taken the doll's eyes. The chains were forever attached to the dog because it had become a prisoner of the boy's demands. The pelt and the dog itself had become lifeless because each time the boy wanted something in his dreams, the dreamcatcher took part of its soul and used it to create whatever the child wished for. The dreamcatcher had labored until nothing was left except its body.
The boy ran upstairs to his room and tore the dreamcatcher from above his bed, and at once attempted to destroy it. But nothing worked. Burning it, cutting it, bending it, breaking it—nothing worked. That night, when the dog reappeared, it finally whispered a phrase:
"You have filled me with such treachory and taken everything of mine away. I will not let you destroy me. You must get what you deserve."
He had destroyed the dreamcatcher's life. He had destroyed his own life.
And it was then that the boy realized that through his own greed and ignorance, he caused his life to be worse than it had began.![]()
I love this. This idea is just amazing<3