4.23 – Kali

4.23 – Kali

Zoey’s consciousness expanded, one awareness traded for another. She floated from high above, formless, with pinpricks of light bursting into existence beneath her. Tens of thousands of them, varying colors, linked by spindly, trailing ribbons connecting the points in a spiderweb of dizzying complexity.

It took a second to organize her thoughts. Having a moment ago been chemically knocked unconscious, she had to fight off a fogginess in her brain. It lifted slowly. She found herself floating, without a body, above the sea of lights and interconnecting ribbons.

She tried to make sense of it.

‘Open the consumer’s mind to the dream world’ had been the potion’s description. So this was that, then? The dream world? Were each of those colorful lights a dream? The mass floated too far away to make out in detail. Could she move, somehow?

It came naturally. Her formless body drifted, guided by her intent, descending into the ocean. While from above it had looked like the lights were all at the same elevation, as she approached, she saw that wasn’t true. There was a depth, with some orbs higher and lower, though not by much. The sky, and the space above the mass, however, was empty.

The pinpricks expanded into orbs as she neared. Strangely, the ribbons stayed the same size, despite her descent, not growing with her shifting perspective as they should. It was a disorienting effect.

She did her best to ignore it, growing vaguely nauseous. With the nearest orb nearly on her, she focused on that, instead. The glassy, misty sphere grew until she could make out details.

A scene played out inside the orb’s depths. Fascinated, Zoey finished closing the gap. The image was discernible, though not clear. It seemed to be a stress dream, the unfortunate subject—a middle-aged woman with short brown hair—having an animated, heated conversation with someone important to her.

She could almost hear what they were saying. Zoey pressed a little bit closer, and—

And bumped her head. Not that she had a head, being a formless, floating construct of thought, but that was what it felt like. She’d been rejected from inspecting the orb—the dream?—closer. Or perhaps from entering it.

She wondered why. The orb had a yellow tint to it. Did the colors mean something? Looking around, other lights—some near, some far—had different hues and of varying vibrancies.

Zoey watched the woman’s dream for a few moments, running her fingers—her mind’s fingers?—across the glassy-mist pane, questingly, testing for weaknesses or a way in. But Zoey was barred from this one. Surely not all? It would make this adventure rather anticlimactic.Reêad latest novels at novelhall.com

Considering her class, Zoey had a suspicious how this would work. If there were a category of dreams she were allowed to slip into, what would it be?

The ribbons connecting the dreams were the stranger part. No matter how close or far she drew to them, they didn’t change in size. That said, some were larger than others. Some so faint as to barely be visible, a thin floating strand of spidersilk, and some almost a finger’s width, a taut wire. Those were rarer.

Closer inspection revealed nothing, but Zoey had a theory. It seemed the obvious one. With how the ribbons always led from one orb to another, the ribbons represented links. Relationships. The thin ones, acquaintances, the thicker, family or lovers. She couldn’t prove the theory, floating between some of the endpoints, but it seemed reasonable. Barring proof otherwise, she tentatively accepted it as true.

Then, because she couldn’t hold back her curiosity any longer, she found a candidate dream. As she’d expected, while she couldn’t barge into dreams of different categorizations, the pink ones—lust—Zoey was much closer attuned to. She picked one with a lighter hue, where the action was building, but hadn’t begun.

She didn’t know if she felt comfortable doing anything inside the dream—anything exciting—but she still wanted to experiment with the capability.

The dream she picked was a promising one. The young, black-haired woman was out in public, seated on a park bench. With her hand on the orb, and focusing, Zoey found she could peer in and intuit the woman’s thoughts and the developing scenario. Kali—and that was her name—fidgeted in place, glancing nervously around at the other park-goers.

Little by little, even, Zoey started to feel the woman’s thoughts.

She shouldn’t be doing this. She had a book propped up on her lap, half-way blocking the view, so she ought to be kind of safe. But then again ... not really. It was a terribly flimsy defense, and that was the point. Her other hand, the one not holding the book, slid across her inner thigh, thumb brushing against herself. She shivered in excitement.

In public. She shouldn’t.

She popped opened her pants button, breath coming faster. She looked around frantically. No one was paying attention, but still. Out in public. At the park. Really? She was doing this?

Her hand slid down her stomach, into her pants. She rubbed over her panties, massaging herself, heart slamming faster and faster. She felt the pounding in her ears. How had she gotten so insanely wet, so fast?

As long as she was careful, she’d be fine. Right?

Zoey pulled out of the woman’s thoughts, then shook her head in disorientation.

Could she enter the dream entirely?

Slowly, Zoey’s outstretched hand sank into the glass. A moment later, she was falling, diving into Kali’s fantasy.