biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

writing-prompt-s:

You become addicted to lucid dreaming, and start having trouble telling reality from dreams.

It should be easy. Flying, floating: a dream. Sitting, bored, in a classroom: reality. Clear lines.

It isn’t easy.

I forget I’m dreaming. I am in a classroom, I am in a coffee shop, I am in normal surroundings, but one by one they fall away. I am not the sort to dream of flying over wild lands. My dreams are my life, or a version of it.

But in my dreams, the rooms are quiet. And the people are not real. In my dreams when I speak, no one speaks over me. In my dreams, people listen. And when I do not want to speak, the conversation ends.

In my dreams, when I am tired, everything falls away, and I move on to the next scene.

I am in the library. You are speaking to me. I don’t want to hear the next words. This is the page where I slam the cover shut, put the story down, wait until I am calmed and prepared to continue.  

You are speaking. The scenery falls away. We are in a restaurant. That was a dream, just then? I thought that was really you, telling me things I don’t want to hear. Was that not you?

We are in a restaurant. You are repeating yourself. These words don’t make me apprehensive, but I do not comprehend them. What are the words? Are you mumbling? Or is that my ears? Wait, you’re tugging at my sleeve. I know what happens next. This is a dream, so I know what happens, because I choose it.

Why did I choose this? You are crying. You don’t do that often. You are looking into my eyes, and you are sad, and afraid. Did I make you afraid?

It’s after the restaurant. I couldn’t understand your words before, but now they are in my ears, going back and forth like the tongue of a bell. Come back. Come back. 

Back where? I am here, where are you?

Why did I start dreaming to begin with? You were in love with life, and with me. Was I in love with you? Did that scare me?

I was always waiting to sink to the bottom. I was waiting for a cue.

It’s after the restaurant. I am dreaming. I’m walking on a bridge. There is a small lake. But no, it is a river, because I have decided. And it is not small, not at all, and it is in fact very far down, I have decided this too. Or was it always a river? Was I dreaming to begin with? 

But the sun is on me as I leap off the bridge. Halfway to the bottom I decide to sprout wings, and I wait, patiently, to see what happens next.

mermaydsnet:

in folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including the near east, europe, asia, and africa. mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. in other folk traditions (or sometimes within the same tradition), they can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans.