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adversary, and for that I would need to pry my dream from
the jaws of a particular and toothy whisper.
As the only man to have ever trespassed into the
nightmared lanes of New Victoria—both its waking and
wakeless incarnations—and lived to contemplate the
experience, I had good reason to believe I could shield my
dreams from the predations of a fellow monster. My sisters
stretched out in my hands as I laid upon the ground, their
laugher lulling me into sleep. Soon after, the baleful eyes of
my father led the way into contested nightmare.
I set foot into a room filled with cages hanging from a
water-damaged ceiling. In each rusted space huddled a pale
child studying me from behind the bars. One of them started
to speak. “You know our names— “
My father’s giant hands seized me by the shoulders and
thrust me beyond the words of the small boy, aiming me
toward a gigantic wooden door.
I did know their names.
The door was nothing to me, and I tore it away with ease.
The darkness that replaced it was pierced by a single tawny
light. With my family walking by my side, I realized the
light was a window looking down upon a familiar fantastical
forest.
My sisters were fogging the glass with their breath and
drawing strange shapes upon the misted panes. The hot light
from my father’s awful gaze fought with the moonlight
atop the canopy of the forest. Finally, his illuminated glare
settled upon something I’d missed the last time—a small
straightjacketed man seated upon the ground near the
entrance to the wood. Before I had a chance to inspect the
person more thoroughly, the forest began to hemorrhage
woodland animals. I needed to know who the man was.
My father’s axe was almost to the glass when we heard
something from behind.
A door had opened from the shadowy depths of another
hallway that also converged upon the window. I initially
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