As soon as my head hit the pillow I swirled into a mellifluous and effusive dream. This is Dreamwyrd, I knew immediately upon arrival. I was in a swanky ballroom that was somehow looking over everything in a massive cloud city. I looked down at my attire. I wore a silver tuxedo, complete with bowtie. Pretty sweet! I thought.

  I looked around for someone to show it to. There was Val! She wore a blue strapless dress with a little blue hat and a blue lace veil. Where had I seen that before? My brain felt fuzzy. She was drinking from a flute of bubbling red wine. Beside her was Tamiro! He wore a blazing blue tux looking dapper as aether.

  “Hey, crew!” I said jovially striding over. “Can you remind me why I look like a million bucks?”

  “That’s called a tux,” corrected Valietta.

  What the aether flux!? said Tamiro.

  The floor and air and indeed the people themselves rippled a bit for some reason. It was like an ebb in reality. The little svark had paled.

  Are…are you close to coming to pick me up? asked Tamiro sheepishly.

  “I think it’s a couple weeks, still, at least,” I said.

  Val nodded, as people began to shout in the ballroom below.

  “What’s happening down there?” I asked.

  “The purge is starting,” she said calmly. “I know it’s a dream, and it’s nothing I haven’t seen a hundred times, but still. Don’t look.”

  Friends there is something I must share with you. Friend Dream Fish has been hiding something. Something terribly serious. We are not the only ones dreaming in Dreamwyrd! There is another who stalks the moon’s shadows here: the Dream Lobster! He…he is looking for me! There! He’s coming! Eep!

  The svark pointed to a corridor that led deeper into the structure, where lobstrous shadows began to bubble up the wall. At that, Tamiro hopped nearly out of his skin and zoomed off crackling into the depths of the dreaming city. He passed through the window above the revelers who--according to Val--were being cut down in the pit below or something.

  A hulking knight in burnished red armor strode before Valietta.

  “Princess. It is time to go.”

  The knight took off his helm and knelt before Valietta. He carried a greatsword slung over his back and had dark hair and swarthy skin. It was Brufo! But as an [Honor Knight], I think. Another life, he had said. I thought about my other life, and my parents and brother. They would still be mourning me. While I was over here galavanting on an airship. But what else was I supposed to do?

  Val nodded to dream-Brufo, who rose to escort her away. Three other knights approached him from behind, blades drawn. dream-Brufo drew his greatsword and they began to fight.

  “But aren’t you forgetting your half-brother?” someone called.

  A blue-haired waiter strode up, heels clicking. Tall and elegant and dressed in black-and-white serving attire. He had sallow green skin and pointed ears. Tattoes of waves ran over him, though he was somewhat androgynous.

  Val whirled at the mention of the half-brother.

  “What about Welfram? He’s not here, I know that!”

  “Look for yourself,” the waiter said, waving a hand over into the melee where people were screaming and fleeing.

  “Should I help?” I wondered aloud. “This is a dream, though.”

  He turned back toward me and grinned. His mouth was row-upon-row of sharp teeth like a shark.

  “Dream away, Daniel. You’re right, it doesn’t matter if they die in the dream. Does that make you feel better?”

  “I wish it did.”

  A final slash, then the last knight facing dream-Brufo fell. The red knight was panting and bleeding.

  “Come on, princess. Let’s go before more of your sister’s hounds find us…”

  He led her away. Where in Dreamwyrd or whatever they were going I could not know. This was obviously Val’s trauma though, and horrific it was with all the bodies laying around downstairs, people dressed for fun and elegance.

  It was a deep cut. I felt a lot of emotions. I turned around and the waiter’s face had fully morphed into a lobster’s, squirming and inhuman. He spoke now in bubbles. They drifted on the air and popped in front of me, and when each popped a word sounded.

  “(We) (can) (help) (one) (another) (Driften) (Waker), (from) (one) (troublemaker) (to) (another)...(or) (as) (they) (say) (in) (your) (world), (you) (gotta) (break) (some) (eggs) (to) (make) (an) (omelete).”

  “What do you know about my world!?!”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  The lobster-waiter winked, and fumbled with his pockets. His hands had turned into claws. He eventually came up with a pearl that glowed redly. He offered it to me.

  “(Here), (here), (take) (this) (little) (firecracker)…”

  When it touched my hand I felt a thousand screaming voices. I shook my head, cowering back, and bubbles streamed from my mouth.

  “(I) (don’t) (want) (it), (I) (don’t) (want) (it)…”

  He tried again to give the burning pearl to me, but I didn’t hold on to it. I dropped it. Something hissed. The world rolled up like a gray scroll.

  I woke up panting and sweating. The red light of Stonestomach leeched through my window. I looked at my hand where the pearl had touched me and found it okay. I opened my mouth to yawn and a bubble flew out of my mouth and popped and made the yawning sound. That’s weird, I thought.

  I said that’s weird and two bubbles floated out of my mouth in sequence and popped to say it a couple seconds later. I said that’s really weird.

  I then yelled: “(Val) (I’m) (trying) (something) (out)!” and a torrent of bubbles flew out of the room and navigated down the hall and I heard them all pop together into a shout.

  “...Daniel?” Val called groggily. “What the aether’s going on?”

  “(I) (saw) (the) (Dream) (Lobster),” I babbled, bubbles spewing forth and eventually telling my story.

  Val sat me down for breakfast. The only chef that was up was Kola Junior, so I got a bowl of fresh fruit with some questionable knifework, but who was I to complain? At least I wasn’t with that shark waiter dude anymore. He creeped me out. The Dream Lobster, I thought, then winced as I did not want him to come unbidden either.

  The bubbling by now only happened intermittently, which unfortunately made me even harder to understand. But Val was patient with me.

  “So,” Val said between bites of fruit. “That was incredibly, utterly, weird and uncalled for. You got bubbles in your mouth from a dream?”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No! I do remember you there, though. And Tamiro…and he was afraid of a Dream Lobster thing, wasn’t he? Are you saying you saw that?”

  “I guess. It was that (waiter) (dude), maybe, or something.”

  “Well the more pressing matter is how are we going to open the mouth of this [Lithic Apex Mimic] thing?”

  “Right. I guess my thing is just (don’t) (sleep), right? That’s how those movies work.”

  “Movies?”

  “Earth stuff. Sorry. It’s like stories you can see.”

  “There are relics that have that capability. I had one like that back in Melpompne.”

  I looked out the window of the dining room, up toward the zigzagged ceiling where the boss’s mouth was sealed shut. I opened my mouth and shut up.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking. A mouth doesn’t open from the teeth. It opens from the jaw joint. So we’ve gotta find the jaw joint…”

  I peered. I was able to see where one of the jaws ended. It was near the tavern the dark dragon had called Dripp’s. Where the other ended I could not tell for now. I pointed it out to Val.

  “It’s a start,” she agreed.

  “And there’s always punching our way out.”

  “If you’re going to do that we need Mossy.”

  “Let’s let him rest.”

  As we departed together, seemingly before many of the crew who were taking advantage of the opportunity for actual good sleep, I thought of Tamiro and his story about finding a special fishing rod in the Dream Fish’s belly. There’s probably loot here, too. I would try to find time for a looksee. I glanced at Val, gauging if I would ask her to treasure hunt.

  But her face was oddly strained.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I just want to get out of here.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. But please don’t tell me it’s nothing. I can tell it’s not nothing.”

  “Let’s get the aether out of here! I like red better than the next girl but I need other colors in my life.”

  As we walked through the spooky town our shadows danced around us through the wreckage like haunted ghosts.

  “Is it just me or does the air feel different?”

  “Different than what?”

  “Different than yesterday. Like something’s changed in the wind. Where the aether are we?”

  Her voice echoed. We had come to a courtyard. Makeshift wood-and-metal steps led up to the tavern called Dripp’s, the name writ out in bent metal frames and featuring a drink glass which was actually a burning bin of refuse. It smelled horrible.

  “Well we could grab a drink,” I allowed.

  “Do you really want to drink at a place like that?” Val asked snootily.

  I could not argue with that given the smell of the burning garbage. We walked past it. Inside I saw Brufo and Wilia, our dual chefs, seated and parlaying with the dark dragon. What delicious treats would they promise him if he could open the mouth?

  “Daniel!” Val hissed, breaking my daydream.

  I was suddenly afraid that the shark waiter would pop out from one of the pillars.

  “Daniel! Look at this, it’s the jaw joint I think.”

  Val gestured to a massive whitish gnarl in the wall that bulged twenty feet.

  “What do you want to do to it?”

  “Hit it really hard. On the other side--” Val deployed her pulse hammer and pointed “--there should be another one like this. Do you want to fly over there and charge your [Adaptive] then start punching? How long do you think it will take to get over there?”

  I looked, seeing the other side of the teethline closing in on the wrecked ship that had been converted to living quarters. I nodded.

  “Not long. A minute or two.”

  “When I’m ready,” Val said in a low voice, “I’ll send out [Blaze Radiance] into the sky as a signal. That means it’s go time.”

  “Got it. Do you want Lancie here? Just in case?”

  “No aethering way.”

  I flew quietly to the other side and found the meaty jaw-joint structure just as Val had predicted. Makes sense. I went to a piece of driftwood and started punching it repeatedly to build up [Adaptive] while I waited for the [Blaze Radiance] flare. I wondered what the others were doing. Once we opened it, everyone would probably go to the ship. It would be best if I helped with that effort, or else I’d have to go back for them anyway.

  I was preoccupied with planning ahead so I turned, surprised when the red glow of Stonestomach erupted into rainbow light. Now!

  Someone else stood behind me. The pale, translucent man from earlier, Luneth. The red light went right through him.