A New Life {Private, Somnus}

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“All the world’s a stage…”

Those words, penned by William Shakespeare, rang true, as there was a vast space of nothingness surrounding one simple, lonely stage. This plain, wooden stage, barely large enough for a production of a primary school, existed solely as a floor, and was illuminated by an unknown source. Upon the stage stood one figure, held up by ropes tied to his limbs, madly jerking the puppet about in a completely chaotic manner. However, those half-closed lids of the puppet opened as the luminance of the light rapidly increased, to the point where it was blinding. Blinking out of reflex, this ‘puppet’ opened its eyes once more, to find that the ropes were gone, and it was confronted by an extremely strange sight.

Bartholomeus slowly took in the sights all around him, feeling extremely confused by what his eyes were taking in. He was in a strange, yet familiar, forest with multiple different colors of trees and leaves, some places where grass grew to look like flowers, and even mushrooms that grew to amazing heights and sprouted 'branches' like a tree; some branches of these trees have creepers and vines hanging from them, almost looking like curtains. Many flowers and plants grew to be the height of an average human, some of them even towering above the young Curupira's head. However, none of this gave off the feeling of some wild forest, instead it seemed like a peaceful and carefully maintained garden. Although there was plenty of plant life and everything was natural, it was all a little spaced out and nothing was overgrown. Even the springy, moss-like plant life that covered the ground of this area seemed to form pathways among the vegetation. The sun was hanging low in the sky, looking like it was about to set, yet it's warmth still landed upon Bart's skin in a comfortable contrast to the cool and gentle breeze that occasionally blew across his person. It was indeed a place of great beauty and comfort, that seemed to naturally relax the soul.

Realizing that he could clearly feel the wind and sun upon him, Bartholomeus looked down at himself, only to notice that he was wearing a short Greek chiton, almost appearing on him as some sort of mini-dress. He felt that this sort of clothing should be awkward, yet he also felt extremely comfortable in it, as though it was something he had worn all his life. Strangely, everything here seemed so alien, yet the Curupira felt that peculiar sense of familiarity and comfort from it all. It left him dazed, and a bit more accepting of this strange world.

Soon, animals began to come from between the trees surround Bartholomeus, and drew close to the male, some even going as far as to rub themselves against him. He saw a few purple foxes with bright yellow wings, an orange unicorn, two white rabbits with crystalline horns growing from their foreheads, a red bird with extremely long plumage and an ice blue color on the underside of its wings, even a few butterflies that landed among the flowers, their colors changing with each flap of their wings.

Bartholomeus was caught slightly off guard when he suddenly had his hair yanked on. Turning to see what had committed this action, Bart found himself staring at a young female with bluish-grey skin and long, sea green hair, who had a bored and slightly irritated look on her face. This being stared the Curupira in the eyes before walking away from him, pausing to look back at the dumb foreigner. Quickly recovering from the confusion, Bart figured that the young girl wanted him to follow her and, not quite sure why, he did just that. As the pair trekked around, Bartholomeus became increasingly more convinced that he was in some sort of immaculate natural garden, especially as he saw humanoid beings dressed in the clothing of Hellenistic Greece and the Roman Empire that were wandering around, seemingly enjoying the garden. Following behind the female, Bartholomeus wondered where they were headed, and also why the sun seemed to be in the same position it had been in over half an hour ago, lingering on the cusp of setting.

While pondering over the oddities of this forest, Bart nearly tripped over his guide, who had stopped at the side of a natural spring with rocks surrounding the source, seeming like some sort of odd stone bench. The young female gave the Curupira a looked that seemed to say that he should just sit here and wait, before stepping into the spring and seeming to melt into it. Not knowing what it was that he was waiting for, Bartholomeus sat down, enjoying the odd, yet beautiful place he was in, growing certain that he must be in a dream.

[Somnus]

A great sigh whispered through the moss underfoot, a soft breeze wafting through trees and plants on it's way from the center of the gardens. The occasional and rhythmic pulse of energy emanated from the same area, a soft thump following it from deep underground. Eden was a living entity, much like everything else in the twisted and distorted realm of the dreaming. It was only natural that it would have a heartbeat, that it would draw breath from the maddening and poisonous air.

A pair of eyes reflected out of the water behind Godfrey, slowly blinking open and gazing at him with mild amusement. After only a brief few moments, a glistening pair of arms wrapped around the clueless boy's body, dragging him deep down into the drowned darkness below. The bloated corpses of those that Eden was built on drifted past, tangled and snagged in underwater flora almost more vivid than that on the surface, until the arms pushed the boy through a soft bed of moss, and up through the ground before a great tree.

The tree was the source of all life in Eden, the center of the gardens. Here the pulsing and thumping was inescapable, the telltale heart of the garden being located under the tree, wrapped in a cage of thick roots and creeping tendrils of vine. Roots running along the surface of the quite solid ground underfoot pulsed with every heartbeat, glowering with red heat but cool to the touch.

Somnus sat in an impression on the tree, reclining and lazily enjoying an apple. He was clad in his usual attire of wispy waist robes, a thin sheen of oil coating his skin. Vivid purple and orange eyes rested on the newcomer, waiting for him to gather his bearings before seeing what he could possibly want, and why he was even here in the first place.

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As the young Curupira sat upon the rock, patiently waiting for whatever was supposed to happen next, he began to notice something which he hadn't before, since he had been so caught up in all the sights of this new world. It was one of the things which he realized had been bothering him from the very beginning, and he just realized what it was, this place seemed to be a living entity, it seemed to be almost sentient. Calming his heart and paying attention, Bartholomeus could almost feel was seemed to be a heartbeat pulsing beneath his body, and even through the air around him. The young man found this situation disconcerting, yet, he still seemed to be unable to put up some sort of defense, or deny that this place was familiar to him for some reason.

Caught up in his thoughts about this odd realm he seemed to have been sent to, and growing even more convinced that this was a really odd dream, Bart was completely oblivious to what was going on in the waters behind him. Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped themselves around him and pulled the startled young man backwards, into the water.

Struggling helplessly against this sudden change, Bartholomeus watched as he sank deeper into the water, to depths that it looked like the waters were incapable of reaching if one were to took at it from the surface. On the way down, Bart noticed other bodies in the water; bodies which were bloated and pale, completely devoid of life. However, few of them seemed to have been frightened or struggling at their time of death.

Growing confused by how deep the water was, and how clear the surroundings were, as well as what had even dragged him down here, the curupira continued to fight against his unknown assailant as he ran out of breath. However, suddenly, it felt like his back had hit the ground, yet the young man received no time to process this thought. As soon as he felt that his journey downwards was obstructed, he felt a force pushing against his chest, driving him even further as the "ground" behind him gave way to his body; and Bart took a moment to see that, even though he could clearly feel hands pressing against his chest, there was nobody in front of him.

In the new moment, he had a feeling as though everything around him had changed, as it indeed had. The young man suddenly realized that he was sitting down on a ground of soft moss once more, and grew even more confused about his invisible attacker, and the body of water he had just been in. Taking a moment to observe his surroundings, Bartholomeus realized that he sat before a great tree and that, to his surprise, the pulsations which he had felt earlier had grown in strength and frequency to a great extant.

Staring at this tree, with its blood red bark and roots that extended across the ground, looking similar to fallen trees themselves, the curupira noticed an odd man sitting in an impression on the tree. He stared at this man, who gave off a very charismatic and attractive feeling, dressed in short robes, with glistening oily skin, and an apple in his hand, who happened to be staring back at Bart with two entrancing eyes of different colors, one orange and one purple. He seemed to be waiting on something from the curupira, but Bartholomeus had no clue what was going on at this point, so he decided to go ahead and try asking this bewitching the question that had been bothering him the longest. "Where am I?"

[Somnus]

"Well. You are in my garden, obviously. The very center of it in fact. I like to call this section Eden, personally." Somnus replied, running a thumb around the surface of the red apple in his hand. He'd only taken one bite from it so far, and it was a good apple, but he was done with it for the moment. Perhaps he would take another bite later, perhaps he would not.

After a few moments of eyeing the creature before him, Somnus spoke once again. "What do you think you are doing here, in my little section of the universe? I have many visitors, as you may have seen, but I always take pleasure in finding where they come from."

A breeze wafted towards the tree at the center of the area as the man finished speaking, leaves and soft moss whispering with the movement. After a few seconds the inward motion of the wind reversed, almost turning into a gale as the breath was released.

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"Well. You are in my garden, obviously. The very center of it in fact. I like to call this section Eden, personally." This was the response the weird man gave Bart, before tracing his thumb over the surface of the barely eaten apple in his hand. This man, while beautiful, and slightly entrancing, was indeed very odd. He seemed almost as though he was some social elite, or noble, dealing with a low-class peasant who he found vaguely entertaining. Speaking of which, did this man not say that Bart was in his garden?

After eyeing Bartholomeus for a short while, the man with different colored eyes spoke up once more. "What do you think you are doing here, in my little section of the universe? I have many visitors, as you may have seen, but I always take pleasure in finding where they come from."

While listening to the man's question, Bat could feel a soft breeze coming from behind him, and slightly from the sides, as though the wind was being drawn towards the tree. Suddenly, the winds changed directions, and vastly changed their force. They shot away from the tree with enough power to knock the curupira on his back and, if the wind had been closer to the ground, it probably would have carried him away for a little bit.

Startled by the odd behavior, and the strange man who continued to stare at Bart as if he hadn't even noticed the odd behavior of the winds. Not quite knowing what the hell was going on, Bart looked at the man, vaguely finding him reminiscent of a certain green movie character who was not pleased at finding people in his swamp, after the rude questioning on what Bart thought he was doing in the garden.

"Ummm... I have no clue. I just woke up here I think? I don't even know where the bloody hell I am, much less why I'm here. And I'm starting to think none of this is even real." The young curupira shrugged his left shoulder in a casual manner. "Last thing I remember is heading to my aunt's place with my parentals."