A Dreamless World

by SilverHoof1

stony confines

The cave, in its own way, was worse than the forest. While the forest had put up a farce of peace, the cave had no such trickery. Instead, the three found themselves in oppressive darkness, the three having to hold hands as to not lose each other. Bio tried to use a small pulse of energy to mutate her eyes to penetrate the thick inky blackness but found her adaption useless.

Much like the woods, the darkness wasn't actually 'real'. The entire world was a paradox, every feature, or lack-there-of, explicitly placed to mimic reality. In actuality, it was as if the entire world had been flipped onto its head and spun, throwing out the laws of reality and physics with it. it was hard to explain in a linear sense since the very concept was the exact opposite of linear.

Her thoughts were broken as a cry of pain sounded ahead of her, Selena's hand wrenching out of her own nearly towing Bio with her. She heard Selena cursing, and reached down to find she had tripped on a fist-sized bump that had formed in the stone. Bio crouched down next to her, glowering at the rock as it merged back into the floor, before turning her attention to Selena. "Are you alright?"

"Bloody stone tripped me, I can't see a thing in this darkness," she grumbled, her silhouette slowly sitting up. There was a soft gasp of pain as she tested to see if her foot was broken."I think I sprained it..." she was quiet for a few seconds, then, adding timidly, "Could... you carry me by any chance?"

Bio nodded, then realizing awkwardly that she couldn't see she replied by gently wrapping her arms around the larger woman, wrapping an arm around her waist and under her legs. Sending a quick pulse of energy down her arms she added to the muscle mass in her arms, attempting to lessen the weight resting on her body.

Pomella linked her arm with Bio's, then the three trecked onwards. Within a few hours, the cave began to shift, crackling and popping as if re-aligning its spine. The clatter sent chills from Bio's head to her toes, making her whole body tingle uneasily. Seconds later a blue light began to emanate from the pathway ahead, dousing the cave in an eerie light.

Turning the corner, the three discovered themselves in an underground lake, bioluminescent mushrooms clustered around a crystal clear pool. Small patches of grass cracked the stone in places, giving the are an almost homey feel. "We should rest here, there is no end in sight and we'll need our strength in case something happens..." Bio commented, looking to Pomella. She nodded, and the three sat around the water's edge, Bio setting Selena gently down next to her.

Selena looked to her and gave a small smile. Bio looked back and gave a slight nod, gently picking up Selena's leg to get a look at her ankle. Selena gasped softly in pain as the weight changed, staring off into the water. Pomella, apparently exhausted, flopped down next to us with a 'fwump', her head falling onto my lap. Within seconds the bird-girl was asleep, a contented smile curling the edges of her lips.

Bio took a second to gently rest a hand on Pomella's hair, finding herself stunned with the trust that had just been placed in her. She certainly wasn't used to people randomly falling asleep on her- although, she had never taken the subway. Focusing, she looked back to Selena's ankle, gently feeling the area with two fingers. Nothing felt out of place, although a bit of probing using her magic found the muscles were indeed sprained. The flesh around the sprain also seemed slightly bruised from when her foot had slammed into the outcrop.
"Sorry to be such a burden..." Selena mumbled softly, hiding her face behind her hair as she stared down into her reflection.
"Your not a burden, a single injury doesn't make you a burden ever..." Bio scolded softly, gently dipping her ankle into the water.
"But I slowed you down, I can't imagine I'm exactly light,"
"No you are not light, but it was necessary,"
"Then there was when you caught me during my fall..."
"It would have hurt to land without being caught, I would know since I experienced it,"
"But that's what I mean! You're doing all this for me, and I can't seem to do anything in return!" she cried, Pomella stirring a bit from the disturbance.
"Your company is all I need, having you around is... reassuring,"
"yeah, reassuring that somebody else will mess up..."
"Do not, ever, put words in my mouth," Bio snapped, lips tightening into a frown. Selena flinched, making Bio feel a pang of guilt. She hadn't meant to be as harsh as she had been, but she hated when others tried to finish her thoughts without knowing what they were. Simply because it was hard for her to express them didn't mean she wanted someone else to do it for her.

After a second, Bio silently let go of Selena's ankle and lowered it into the water, then put an arm around her. Selena leaned into her almost instinctively, both staying very quiet. In that silence, it felt like more words were expressed and shared then could have ever happened through speech. Then, softly, Bio rested her head against Selena's.
"I enjoy having you around, even if you don't have powers it's good to have you there to help... it's not like I can do much either,"
"That's not true! You can manipulate living matter, right? Mutate it or whatever,"
"Yes but nothing here is living except us it seems, and I have no idea what's causing it..."
"Maybe it was that figure who dropped us all here in the first place," Selena thought, pressing closer. Bio barked a laugh, shaking her head.
"You may be right, but even if it is that figure the last we saw it vanished into a rift, and I doubt it has a telephone," Bio joked wryly, bumping Selena gently. She let out a giggle before shaking her head, sighing loudly. "We need to figure out some sort of plan, we can't just keep wandering and hoping to find something,"
"Agreed, but our options aren't exactly prosperous - all we can do for now is continue till we find a way out,"
"I don't think that's going to happen, but..." Selena's sentence drifted off as she began to think, eyes focused on the surface of the water. Then as if lightning had struck she spun her head around excitedly, nearly smacking their heads together in the process. "I got it!"
"got what?"
"You said nothing here is real, right? nothing alive?"
"Yes..." Bio responded slowly, not following.
"Then what if that's because we aren't in a real-world?"

Her brain seized up for a moment, this new tidbit of information shorting out Bio's thought process. Feeling shellshocked, she slowly touched one hand to the water's surface, feeling no natural energy from it.
"Are you..." she faltered, still processing what she had heard. "Are you telling me this world isn't real? As if it were some sort of dre -"
"Yes a dream!" she cut in excitedly, practically bouncing up and down. "That one figure could do weird stuff, so maybe there is someone who can do illusions or something! We could just be stuck in some big Illusion that's being created as we go!"

While that revelation certainly was groundbreaking, it just made their current situation worse. "Okay... so if we are stuck in an infinite illusion, how do we wake up?"
"We pinch ourselves of course!"
"That's not how illusions work Selena, it wouldn't be so easy as pinching yourse -"

Selena yelped in pain as she pinched herself, then looked around wildly as if expecting everything to suddenly be different. It seems even an illusion's reality was cruel though, and Selena found herself still stuck in the cave. "... it was worth a shot?"

Bio chuckled softly, then focused on the problem at hand. "I think the first thing we do when we escape this cave is trying to find someone else, to see if we aren't the only ones in this illusion" she pondered, her head resting on her hand as she slowly rubbed her chin in thought. "If we can find other people it means we aren't alone and this could be bigger than we think it is - of course, it would be better if it was just the three of us because that would mean its something weaker than a more global option, but if it is global we're going to have to ring whatever information we can from the inhabitants of this illusion,"

Selena, taking a moment to catch up, nodded slowly. "Let's assume that the one doing this was a... 'personification' like you two are," she said slowly, choosing each word carefully. "What's the possible extent?"

To Bio's surprise, Pomella gave a yawn and slowly sat up, rubbing at her left eye.
"It counts on what they personify, the larger their domain the more they can do - for example, a personification of death could probably extend lives or end them early, as well as guide them to the afterlife, while a personification of murder wouldn't have as broad a scope,"

Both Selena and Bio digested that information, Bio herself not having enough interaction to know this. "Is there any way for a personification to become more powerful?"

Pomella blinked sleepily, yawned then gave a small nod. "Yeah... if they can force some other aspect to fit inside their domain they can control that too, or if they gather a certain amount of belief," she stopped for a moment, seeming to think, then cupping her hands she dipped her hands into the lake and held up the water. "Say this is your domain," she began to explain, nodding at the water in her hands. "This is all you have to start with, and it doesn't grow without help. But let's say you were to add something into that domain - " using her wing, she gently flipped a pebble into the water, it floating merrily. "Now you can control that small aspect you added, like if that death personification were to benefit from religious belief - "

"hold on a sec," Selena cut in, seeming confused. "religious belief influences personifications?"

"Well yes, if a lot of people believe in one thing it adds to the pool, for example, the thought that death is wreathed in fire or has power over fire, and from that even though its not naturally in their domain it integrates with it naturally," Pomella confirmed, smiling a bit. Then abruptly she fell back onto Bio's lap, her explanation complete and the water cupped in her hands draining back into the lake.

Bio and Selena shared a look, then began to slowly stand in near unison, Bio reaching down to scoop the sleeping bird-girl into her arms. "Your ankle alright?"

"Yep, it feels almost as good as new," Selena stated confidently, rolling her foot in a circle. Bio gave a nod, then the two turned towards the end of the small cave where a small opening seemed etched into the stone. The two padded on silent feet towards the opening prepared to find a way to the outside world from the confines of stone. Then, from far behind them, the cave screamed.