Dancing Downward Through Dreams

David’s eyes snapped open. He must have dozed off during the trip. It was odd though, he didn’t remember ever lying down. He also didn’t remember taking off his clothes. Wait, am I still wearing my suit to bed??

He threw off the sheets and looked down. On the bright side, he wasn’t in his suit. It was a completely different suit, one that he would have worn to his prom had he actually gone. He remembered having to study overnight due to a B- on his last test.

He didn’t know what was weirder: how he was wearing a suit that shouldn’t have been in his possession, or that it still fit him. It all felt a bit bizarre, but what made it worse was what was missing in the train car. Or rather who.

“Morgan? You there?”

He looked around nervously, slowly getting out of bed as he looked around. There was no sight of her or Sebastian. In fact, it didn’t feel like the train was moving.

“They had to have already left…” David muttered to himself as he wandered over to the doorway. He looked around for some kind of way to open it but came up short. Instead, as soon as he touched the door, the doors blasted open and flew forward, becoming specks of nothing. All he could do from that point onward was step off the train and into the hallways of his own high school.

“No… No way…” David’s voice carried his bewildered tone across the halls. He never thought he would be back. His leather shoes clicked against the tile floor, filling his ears with an odd nostalgia. He knew every single twist and turn of these halls and could navigate them in his sleep. Sure enough, he opened the doors to the gymnasium and found his destination: the Sunny Shore Gardens, the park where they held the prom.

David watched as the faceless members of the prom shuffled around to a distorted club tune, their bodies blurred as if in slow motion. One, however, stood in a white wedding dress: the soft features of his boyfriend. He attempted to step forward, but two burly, dog-faced bodyguards sprung from the Earth and blocked his path.

“Ticket.”

David blinked for a moment before remembering. The golden tickets they gave out for prom. “Oh! Right here!” He reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a golden ticket the size of his hand. He slowly went to hand it over to the dog-headed bodyguard when all of a sudden, it began to melt right before his eyes.

“N-No… No no no no!” He shouted as the golden goo slipped between his fingers. He looked up at Casey, who looked back at him sadly. He opened his mouth, and only one reverberated sentence came out.

“Why was I not good enough…?”

David tried running in, but the meaty hands of the dog guards stopped him and pushed him out. They barked loudly at him.

“No ticket…”

“No entry!”

They slammed the double doors in his face, leaving David on the ground. He shot up and rushed at the doors with all his might. It did little as he simply bounced off. He didn’t stop. He got back up and slammed it over and over again.

“Wait, let me in! Let me in, dammit!”

He jimmied the door as best as he could, and as soon as he opened it, he was met with a brick wall. Just then, the sounds of stomping feet made David jolt up. He didn’t even need to look to know he needed to run.

He bolted to the right, panic in his eyes as he heard the sounds of stomping feet, making him try to run faster. He turned down hallway after hallway in a vain attempt to confuse the beast. It did little to help. The stomping was still coming and it didn’t sound like it was getting farther.

Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look! David’s mind screamed at him. However, his eyes betrayed him, and instinctively looked back just as he turned to run upstairs. There, he saw a hulking, muscular monster with massive hands smashing everything nearby. It ran as a gorilla would, its eyes gouged out and its mouth filled with jagged teeth. Coming from its back was a long, slender neck with a feminine head resembling her mother. It looked about, headlights for eyes as if to track someone down.

David had no time to waste. He ran upstairs as fast as he could. He risked tripping by skipping steps up, going higher and higher as he heard the sounds of the parental beast getting farther away. He didn’t stop, though. He couldn’t, not with the risks that came from slowing down. He just continued climbing up, up, down.

As he finally reached the final steps downstairs, David found himself at the subway station for his city. It was quiet, and the lights were dim. The smell of rotten trash and urine was oddly absent. He adjusted his sports jacket and tossed the bloody rubber bird mask into the trash. No need for that anymore, he thought as he took a seat on a bench while waiting for the train.

“Hey, shithead…”

David’s head darted to the gravely, slurred voice. His eyes widened. It was the drunken sleaze from his last night as free security for The Trash Heap. The creep stumbled towards David slowly, a wide smile on his face.

“Remember me? Yeeeaaah, you do… I tell you, I coulda scored if you just let me do my thing… Then maybe you wouldn’t be where you are…” Those words stabbed at a part of David’s heart. The sleaze spoke on. “Don’t worry. I’ll get her back. I got help for that.”

With a whistle, the man summoned a number of people to come from the subway entrance. They continued pouring in. David wasn’t sure for a moment, but upon closer inspection, there was no doubt. Every member of the creep’s gang was someone that he had beaten up, and only some of them were ones he chucked out of the bar, copied and pasted a number of times to fill up more space.

Their faces were clear for a bit, but the longer David stared at them, the longer that they became distorted censored mosaics. They seemed to grow in number as they stepped forward.

David took one final breath before he stood up to face them. Grabbing the metal bat on the side of the bench, he moved toward the crowd at a brisk pace. He could hear the dark synth building as he approached. With the music building up, he decided to drop the beat with one windup and a swing. As soon as the bat made contact with a censored thug’s face, the music blasted all around them while the lights shifted to a light purple-and-red hue.

The thugs all rushed David down with punches and kicks, but he backed up fast in an attempt to avoid them. His swings smashed the heads of each thug into a shower of pixelated blood and the sound of an 8-bit explosion. Swing. Crack. Boom. Swing. Crack. Boom. Over and over, he swung and smashed while they swung right back. Chains, knives, bats, fists. All were being swung at him and each one missed by inches. He could feel the rushing wind of each missed blow.

His heart pounded. He killed so many, but how many more remained? He needed to find a way out that wasn’t the occupied stairs. He took a glance behind him to see if there were any stairs. He could only find a pair of tunnels where the subway cars entered and exited.

Unfortunately, the creep took the momentary break in concentration to grab a hold of him. The two were thrown to the ground, punches thrown as the creep got a hold of David’s neck. David wrestled control away as best as he could, the two rolling down to the edge of the platform.

“You… Ruined… Our… Life!” The creep shouted before throwing David off of him and right over onto the tracks. David soon found, in the split moment, his fate. He was either going to be slamming face first with the third rail, or be hit by the rushing subway train. Either way, it would be swift and painful. The last he would hear was the rickety rush of the train along with the horn.

BZZZZZZZZZT

BOOM

Falling.

Sparks and pieces falling.

Downward more and more.

Two pairs of eyes fell around, seeing what looked to be the shadowy forms of angels. They gazed upon him with contempt and malice.

The specks of matter eventually reached an octagonal platform. Piece by piece, the dust was put together into one cohesive form, that being David in nothing but a pair of gym shorts and MMA gloves. His eyes slowly opened and he looked around.

The octagon… My old gym… His mind flooded with memories of learning every grapple, choke, kick and punch. It felt bizarre being back here, like none of it was actually real. But it had to have been, right?

Then, he heard the sounds of someone shouting, followed by the slamming of a punching bag. The voice was all too familiar. He shot up and climbed over the octagon’s fence, rushing through the arena’s doors and into a gym. There, he saw a bald, muscular man with greying stubble throwing several roundhouse kicks into a punching bag on a chain.

“Se… Sensei…”

The man looked over and smirked at him. “David, I told you to stop calling me that.”

David’s eyes filled up with tears. He rushed forward and tackled the man into a tight hug. He would be rewarded with a hug in return.

“Heheheh, still soft as ever, I see…” The man’s gravelly voice uttered as he ran his fingers through David’s buzzcut hair.

“Sensei Skinner, what are you doing here?? You’re dead! I… I-I saw!”

He looked over to his right towards the street, where another Skinner looked back at David.

“Listen, kid, I know your family. Sooner or later, you’re going to run into trouble and you’ll need every advantage you got. That’s why I’ve been teaching you all that shit solo. You need to be ready for anything.”

As soon as Skinner finished, a short bus slammed into him, spraying blood over David and the living Skinner. The bus slowly opened as one by one, a line of clowns staggered out. They clutched their bodies in exaggerated agony as a cop car pulled up. The cop came out with a radio and spoke into it.

“10-4, we have a confirmed 11-44 at 453 Maple Drive, suspected 10-51, CUI.”

David looked back at his sensei, who chuckled at the sight. “Well, yeah. That definitely did happen. No denying that.”

David ran his head along his forehead. “I don’t get it… Nothing makes sense! I don’t remember how I got here, or what happened! It feels like everything is just one big hallucination.”

“Close,” Skinner said, walking down the street. “Let me ask you if you don’t remember anything before or after waking up, and the whole thing just feels like a mess, then it can really only mean…” It only took a moment from that point forward for David to piece it all together.

“I’m dreaming…”

Skinner snapped his fingers and shot finger guns at him. “Bingo. And I think you know what to do from here. So if you could… Lucid me back to the gym.”

With a nod, David closed his eyes. He focused his mind on memories of the past, of the gym he trained endlessly in. He recalled the feelings, of the fact that even if he hated the reasons, the experience of training was fulfilling…

He opened his eyes, and found himself back at the gym, Sensei Skinner returning to his training. As David walked to the door to leave, he looked back. “Sensei… Why did you stop being the champion? I heard you just gave up.”

Skinner paused, adjusting his foot. “Look, when you’re at the top, the only way you can go is down. I’d have to spend the rest of my life defending a title until I was inevitably beaten. Does that sound like a good life?” He looked back at David, then shook his head with a downward gaze.

“No, I needed to find what I wanted to do, and that was teaching the rest of you. I knew the shit your dad was putting you through. Hell, I was his friend for most of my life. However, knowing that bitch he married, you were stuck there. So, I gave you all the tools I had to make sure you made it. Only thing is, you didn’t really listen to my advice about not striving for first place.”

“No… No, I didn’t.” David looked down, hand on the doorknob. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, man. Wasn’t my life. But looks like you’re getting back on track. Now get moving.”

With a nod, David turned the knob. Then, he hesitated.

“Sensei… Are you real?”

“Eh. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

~~~

It wasn’t hard to figure out the pattern from here. What David neglected to realize was that every bit of his dream had a consistent pathway. It all just lined up, and at the center of it was a structure that continued to change. Whatever it was, it was tall, and he was getting close. Walking into what started as his place of work, he ascended the stairs through the ever-changing floors.

By the time he reached the top, he found a door at the end of a long hallway. The hallway itself was light blue, evoking a sensation of walking in the sky. The door itself was unremarkable, simply made of black wood with ornate metal depicting snails across it.

When David opened the door, he was greeted by another demon woman. This one was light blue, much like the hallway before and the loose-fitting pajamas she had on. Her slippers looked like little snails, and the horns on the side of her head curved to resemble the shells of snails. Surrounding her were a number of bubbles that simply floated about, neither rising nor falling.

Her tired eyes turned towards David, yawning as she rubbed her eyes. “Wow… Didn’t think you’d actually make it…”

David awkwardly waved to her. “Ummm… Hi. I’m guessing this is where I need to be?”

The demon nodded. “Yep… Name’s Blank. Welcome to the Sloth Ring, my domain.”

David raised an eyebrow. “Blank?”

She nodded tiredly. “Dad was too lazy to fill out a name. Anyways, the lazy and useless people go here. You were supposed to be trapped in an endless dream, but…” She yawned. “Looks like you figured out a way past it.”

“Lucid dreaming.” David tapped the side of his head. “I learned it from my sensei.”

“Ah. Makes sense. Lucid dreamers are a pain in the ass to deal with. They make me actually have to try.” She rubbed her eyes. “Anyways, you won, so looks like I gotta hand over your honeymoon stuff…” She reached for one of the glass bubbles and breathed into it before tossing it to David.

“Uhhh… Thanks?”

She pointed a finger at it. “It’s a miniverse. Basically, a pocket dimension that lets you do whatever you want in it. Make it however you want, all that jazz. I gave you one with the most space and options, plus an insane HHS in case you get hurt.”

“HHS…?”

“High Healing Speed. Basically, if you get hurt or sick, the miniverse will heal you up.”

“Huh… Useful.” He nodded and slipped it into his coat, looking around. “I guess I’ll be heading home?”

“Oh, you might want to get this first.” She snapped her fingers and from another room, Morgan walked in. The only difference was that she seemed very much sleeping, a calm, peaceful expression on her face. She marched forward, then stopped at Blank’s hand motion.

“I… I’m confused.”

Blank yawned. “Oh yeah, had you both knocked out as soon as you entered the ring. She didn’t last long in my dreams, and since I can control those dreams…”

David felt more confused than ever. He turned to the Sloth Lord. “Wait… If you’re this powerful, then why did you lose to her during the trials???”

Blank rolled her eyes. “Was forced to… But ruling Hell takes effort, and I’d rather just chill. Anyways, you should get her back on the train and out of her sleep soon. If she stays like that too long, she could become a Sloth demon.”

David opened his mouth to say something but then shook his head. It really wasn’t worth trying to get an explanation. He bowed his head low. “Thank you for the challenge. See you at the wedding.”

“Yeah, I’ll try and make it…” She hugged a nearby snail plushie before drifting off to sleep. David himself, despite having been asleep this long, felt more exhausted than ever. As soon as he got on that train and fixed Morgan up, he was taking a nap.