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wandered a garden that had been poorly planted, one only
waiting to be sown with better seed.” My insight indulged
my best hopes. I knew that dreams were tricky beasts, and
even the most seasoned dreamer is likely to misinterpret
them. As any good dreamer knows, dreams make promises
carved in smoke and speak in the hissing sibilance of snakes.
“While we’re lingering upon this issue of grim inevitability,
I would very much like to know how you’ve come to be
ignored by the things that inhabit this city.”
“That is a particularly interesting topic, given your
previous mention of gardens,” the dreamer said. “You
see, I too am being cultivated. This very bed I sleep upon
is invaluable to the creatures that dwell here. Every time I
return from dream, a little bit of my journey is left behind
within its sheets, its rusted frame and creaking headboard.
These creatures possess a kind of technology that harvests
it for their own strange purposes. I learned all of this upon
the close of the first day I entered New Victoria, just weeks
after the plague began. After making my way through the
silent crowds of shambling sleepwalkers, past screeching
birth knells of infant nightmares, I finally took shelter in the
spacious rooms of a derelict house, set gently afloat in the
untended hands of a small meadow.
“At that point, I had become far too familiar with the
unearthly sounds of nightmares risen from sleep, and so
failed to immediately investigate the metallic droning that
vibrated the ceiling. Eventually, the sounds of something
creeping toward my bed renewed my exhausted curiosity.
When I gazed into a small patch of moonlight falling from
the bed to the floor, I could see the creeping machinations
of a curious industry—throbbing, semi-organic tubers
slithering across the floor and crawling up from beneath my
bed.
“Of course, I was quick to leap from the bed, and just in
time—a ganglionic tangle of smaller tubers descended the
unseen corners of the dark room and seized my pillow within
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