ETS WIP Chapter 4: The Problem with Dreams
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The drive back to the office was quiet and slow.
After turning in the company van and clocking out, Aeth went and found a small room set aside for rituals. There they participated in a deep cleansing ritual and even a protection spell to keep the bad dreams at bay. They knew that this case would be haunting them for days and weeks.
Just as the magic faded and the incense started to dissipate away to just smoke, Lyta stuck her head into the room.
"Hey, I saw you're back. How was it?"
Aeth shrugged, not really up for vocalization.
"I'm about to finish up my shift, you want to go get something to eat? It's my turn to buy."
Aeth nodded. Lyta was a good friend, a great friend, their best friend. She could read their mood and their whole demeanor with a glance.
"Great, I'll order us something to pick up and we can go to my place and eat and watch some TV. You feeling And the Fifth Rose was Black or do you want some truly silly nonsense like Real Monsters of the Sea?"
"Sea," they mutter.
"Great! I need something mindless tonight. Let me get my desk together and I'll meet you in the break room?"
"Yeah."
Before she left, Lyta entered the room and gave Aeth a quick hug.
The day was deeply draining. Aeth felt so very tired, but Lyta had a way of making them feel better about everything. They hope that she doesn't mind.
Even though they know if they asked, she would say that she doesn't mind if it is for them.
Aeth didn't have to wait for Lyta for very long, she just had to grab her stuff out of her locker and then their friend drove to her apartment.
They often worked the same shift, so Lyta almost always drove the both of them to and from work.
Lyta's apartment was small, full, and deeply comforting to Aeth, who made a beeline for the couch, where they plopped down and snuggled up to the plush bat named Bat-tholemew. Lyta had gone into her room to change out of work clothes and put in food order. She knew their likes well enough by this point that she didn't even bother to ask what Aeth wanted.
Eventually, she returned and went to the couch, gently picking up Aeth's feet, sitting down, and letting Aeth lay across her lap.
It was right about twenty minutes into Real Monsters of the Sea (when Urrephetilgoth the Emissary of the Dark Tide was calling out Herominish Lor'gillth as a horror, as if Herominish would be offended by being called a horror) when the food arrived.
By the time the food was consumed and the fight between the two ancient sea creatures had resolved, or at least come to a truce so they could fight with a third friend/enemy/fellow-horror-form-100-fathoms-below-the-sea, Aeth was feeling much better.
It was around the time that they had finished food and the second episode of Monsters was wrapping up that Aeth finally felt good enough to talk to Lyta.
“It was the last job,” they said. “It was a typical family that had their computer for too long and it was starting to give up.”
Lyta didn’t interrupt. She never interrupted when Aeth spoke especially about things that were bothering them.
“But the kid, about seven or eight, believed in the computer enough to create a small god that lives in it and kept it working long past it’s lifespan.”
Lyta reached over and grabbed Aeth’s hand, just held on to it. She knew what was coming next, where it was going, but sometimes it was necessary for the person to say it out loud. After a moment she pulled their hand into her lap.
“She believed in her computer so much. She named it, had a bunch of plastic dinosaurs she named and gave permanent make overs to. She reminded me of me, but, you know, with a better home life.”
Lyta rubbed her thumb across Aeth’s knuckles. A soothing, repetitive gesture.
“Got me thinking about… you know,” Aeth said with significant pauses. “I called the Bureau, and they assured me it’s still in lock up under constant surveillance.”
“It hasn’t tried to get out?” Lyta asked. She was the only person that knew of 3812-B. But even she didn’t know the whole story, not the whole truth of it. That was something too much even for Aeth, something they didn’t even believe or want to share ever again.
“No,” Aeth responded. “They would have told me if it did.”
There was a long silence between the two of them. “How are you doing?” Lyta asked.
“Better now, but tonight is going to be rough dreaming.”
“You can stay here,” she said. Please stay, is what she meant.
Lyta always said stuff like that. Aeth wanted to stay, they really did, but they also needed the comfort and privacy of their own place.
They thanked Lyta for everything and called themselves a car to take them home. Lyta kept Aeth's hand in hers for as long as she could, kissing the back of their hand as they finally had to pull away.
They don't dream that night. At first.
When they did dream it is intense and violent and full of spiders.
Well, maybe it wasn't supposed to be violent.
But all the spells they did to keep from dreaming also kept the underearth spider aspect from sending them their thanks so they increased the power of their dreams until they broke through their thorough magic and it was basically a nightmare.
A nightmare built on the strength of the generosity of a spider aspect, a being from the inner earth, so far below the surface that things are naturally dark and twisted. A nightmare built from their everyday experiences strong enough to pierce through the wards and defenses carefully crafted by a hurt mind.
The thing with gods and their gifts is that one can't refuse them. Not really. Refusing a god outright is a terrible idea, and being coy about it is simply a worse one. Because nothing is more horrifying than a god who has been thwarted in their attempts to thank you.
They had honestly forgotten about it. Especially after the small god.
The corridors Aeth was lost in were twisting, dark, made of stone that was hot to the touch and rough and coarse. They twisted in and back on themselves like the paths of stone were moving, living things. Like a spiderweb turned stone.
Aeth knew something was in the tunnels with them and was chasing them, pursuing them, just like before.
They weren't strong enough to fight them the first time and had only survive through sheer luck.
To fight a second time was something that was just beyond their capabilities.
So they ran as far and as fast as they could, but their legs were loose, and numb. They couldn't move fast or far. They were trapped and this was the end for them they knew.
It was coming.
It was coming for them.
And they were caught in this web and labyrinth.
Suddenly the nightmare tilted on it's side, everything slid to one angle and Aeth found themself face-to-face with a spider aspect.
"Thank you," the spider said enigmatically. They were already big, bigger than Aeth was in the physical world but now they were massive, gargantuan even.
All of their many arms reach out and hand Aeth a thing made of the darkness around them. It is small and soft as they reach out and touch it.
It is unwise to refuse the gift of something that wants to give you a gift, especially one even so tangentially related to divinity.
Aeth took the gift, with only a little hesitation.
They knew that they were still being pursued, it was still coming after them.
"Thank you," Aeth responded, looking over their shoulder.
"It is authentic spider-silk. Very soft. Amazing to sleep upon."
Oh, it was a pillowcase. That made more sense.
Suddenly, the spider tilts it's massive head. They just noticed the thing that was persuing Aeth throughout the nightmare.
"Something is stalking you," the spider pointed out unhelpfully.
There went any hope Aeth had that it was part of the nightmare the spider aspect crafted.
"Yeah," Aeth said. "It's something from a long time ago and it won't ever stop."
"I shall delay them, and you should wake up," the spider said before moving deeper into their nightmare of their own creation.
Aeth wanted to wake so badly. They wanted to free themselves from nightmares and sleep without fear, and they wanted to free themselves from this specific nightmare immediately.
The spider had gone and Aeth could feel wakefulness just beyond the skein.
They rose and tried to break through, they tried to move through the dream, the nightmare, to the waking world where their pursuer was locked away safe, they tried to rise but it was like surfacing through the water, the light was distorted and made the surface seem so much closer than it truly was, the tension of the water holding strong even as they rose fighting against breaking, not letting Aeth leave the nightmare and the thing that wanted to chase them and consume them, even though they had risen seemingly past the surface the water refused to break the skein refused to tear and Aeth then feared truly drowning of facing the thing they had spent so long running from of the thing that had tried to engulf them and would try time and time and time and time again until Aeth awoke, breathing hard, unable to move, unable to do anything besides breathe heavily as they rose out of their nightmare, in their bed, safe and sound.
Their heartbeat was loud, intense, and the only thing they could focus on.
Eventually the cobwebs of the dream left them, and Aeth climbed out of bed.
It was still dark outside, and they turned on lights as they walked through their small apartment to find water. It was something for their shaking and anxious hands to do.
With the lights on and their heart racing, Aeth knew that sleep was basically a lost cause.
They sat in their bed and scrolled on their phone looking at pictures of couatl and memes. They even sent a few to Lyta, knowing that she had her phone muted and wouldn't respond until she woke up.
Despite the distractions, the fading adrenaline, and the threat of terrible nightmares, Aeth's body demanded sleep and rest, so they found themselves slipping into sleep once again.
Mercifully they didn't dream any further.
When they awoke again, they found the lights still on and redundant.
Not feeling particularly rested but awake, Aeth moved through their apartment.
After only being awake for a few minutes, their phone lit up with a notification.
It was from Lyta.
"i'm coming over with coffee and snacks! [kissing emoji]"
Sure enough a few minutes later Lyta had let herself in with her spare key. She had a pair of coffee cups, a bag presumably filled with some kind of pastry, and a giant bag filled with all sorts of things.
"Hey," she said softly when she spotted the tired looking Aeth, "how are you feeling?"
"Tired, and annoyed, but you come with coffee and breakfast so less annoyed."
Lyta smiled as brightly as her yellow sundress.
"You seemed like you were having a bad day."
"How could you tell?"
"You sent me three cute couatl memes at 4am. You only do that when you can't sleep," Lyta responded, the concern in her voice obvious and unmissable. Aeth's heart swelled a little. Lyta knew them so well, and cared for them so much that she dropped everything on her day off to bring coffee and pastry.
"Yeah, the spider aspect from earlier yesterday really wanted to thank me."
Lyta's eyes went wide and she made an "oof!" sound. "And the underearth things always wanna communicate via dreams."
"But I had blocked my dreams since the encounter with the small god."
"Oh no."
"But the spider wouldn't be denied."
"How bad?" Lyta asked.
Aeth didn't speak, just opened an email on their phone and pushed it across the kitchen island.
Displayed was an email from the Catalog and Archive Bureau about Aeth's subject. There was a vicious escape attempt that was thwarted at approximately 3:49 AM. The subject did not manage to escape, and only caused damage to it's holding prison, but as per regulations, the Bureau was required to inform Aeth of the activity.
"Well, I'm really glad I brought this," Lyta said as she indicated the large bag she brought with her.
"What's that?"
"Unless you very explicitly tell me no, we're going to the beach. Leaving you here, inside, alone, seems real bad. So you can come with me to the beach, we can watch the people, look at the creatures in the bay, and play in the sand."
Lyta knew that the temptation hook was landed, Aeth loved to try and build elaborate sandcastles, and Aeth is very susceptible to Lyta in a sundress.
"You don't have to even do anything if you don't want," Lyta said to further sweeten the pot. "I just don't want you sitting in your place moping the whole time, thinking about your dreams. We'll stop and get snacks."
Aeth knew, objectively, that they should say yes, but they were still tired and reluctant.
"I got a new bikini and everything, it would be shame to show it off to no one."
Once again, they knew, objectively, that they shouldn't be so excited to see their best friend in whatever new swimsuit she got, but Aeth was only human and particularly weak for Lyta.
"Sure, I guess."
Lyta smiled brightly (almost as bright as her sundress). "Yay! Drink your coffee and eat your breakfast and then get ready. We'll head over and spend the day in the sun and the sand together."
Together.
Aeth wouldn't admit, ever, how nice that word was.
my kofi where you can read these early
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