Alex Reynard
The Library
Alex Reynard's Online Books
PART FIVE
"...Methotrexate is this little yellow pill with a line down the middle, so it looks like a flathead screw. I take one every morning along with my Mevocor. It helps with my nausea. I usually feel pretty pukey after I first wake up."
Piffle nodded, trying to keep up. "And what does the mevv-o-core do?"
"Oh, that one helps build my strength up. Sometimes I feel too weak to get out of bed." He paused. "Though, it's weird... I've actually been feeling okay since I've been here. Better than I have in a long time."
"Doesn't surprise me a bit," she said, and gave her new friend's paw a gentle squeeze. "You're not 'you' anymore, Toby. You're your dream-self."
That thought set off sparks. "That makes sense! It's the only thing that would explain it! If this place is made of dreams, then I must be one too. And yeah, usually if I ever manage to dream, I'm not thinking of my symptoms."
She nodded like a bobblehead. "Prezactly! You're smart, Toby."
He shrugged. "I dunno. Mostly I've just been wondering how the heck I'm not dead already. It's been a week since I've had any of my pills. If this were my regular body, I'd be lying back in those caves now, past my expiration date. The fact that I wasn't dying was driving me crazy. But this makes perfect sense. Although..." He got very quiet and his steps slowed.
Piffle adjusted her pace and looked into his eyes. "Toby?"
He was staring without seeing. "That means my real body is somewhere else. You said I'm not dreaming, so this must mean I'm either in a coma or... Or I'm already dead."
Piffle fidgeted, not saying yes or no.
A sudden feeling of low terror spread throughout Toby's core, like cold glue poured down his back. He pictured his body lying in a hospital bed. An IV in his arm, a respirator in his nose, a catheter running from his crotch to a little bag. Or worse, it might not be a bed. He might be in a box right now.
They might be shoveling dirt on him right now.
A moment ago he'd been as close to relaxation as this nightmare realm would allow. Now his panic was back and gaining power by the second. His fingers trembled.
"...Toby?"
"YAAAA!!"
The tiny noise of her voice startled him so much he took off running. His brain was allowing nothing but the overwhelming instinct to run. Escape. NOW.
"Toby!!"
He could hear the hamstergirl's footsteps behind him and his imagination perverted them into the approach of some deadly beast hellbent on reaping his life. If he had one. If this wasn't Hell. If he wasn't already lying under a headstone carved with his name, his mother kneeling and weeping over him.
Toby screamed. Again and again. Thin, unselfconscious yips of uncontrollable horror.
His eyes weren't seeing anything but color and shape. The feeling in his brain drove him, compelled him, to keep running. Towards the horizon. Never stop. Not even if he wore his feet down to the bone and shredded flaps of flesh trailed behind him like streamers. If he paused for even an instant, it would get him. There was no time to think about what it was. It was there, behind him, gaining on him. He had to run forever just to keep alive.
Toby was in such an advanced state of frenzy that Piffle was forced to fly at top speed just to keep pace with him. When she dropped down and tackled him, he thrashed like a demon and bellowed unintelligible nonsense howls so loud they made her ears ring.
Then suddenly, it was over. Toby was gulping air and squirming and his heart felt like it was punching his ribs hard enough to crack them.
He shrieked a bit when he saw Piffle's face, but his sanity returned enough to remind him, 'Friend! Look, see? Friend! Relax!'
"What just happened!?" he whimpered.
Piffle tried to make comforting gestures in lieu of touching him. "Shhh, Toby. It's okay. Everything's okay. Look, see this nasty customer?" Between her fingers she held a tiny green squirming thing.
He was so disoriented he could barely focus his eyes. "Wh-what...?"
"It's a runbug. It's actually a tree seed, but it's got tiny little legs like a bug. See?"
Toby's breath was starting to return to normal. "What does that have to do with... with what just happened?"
She smiled. "Everything. These pesky li'l pests hop onto people and bite them. Gives 'em the willies. That's how it travels. It can hop a bit, but can go a lot farther if it can get someone else to run 'til they drop."
Toby stared at it, amazed and insulted that such a little thing had messed up his head so badly. "What an awful creature."
Piffle nodded, then tossed the runbug in her mouth and chewed it up. "Tasty though. This little meanie's not gonna get to pollinate any time soon, nosiree. We don't need any more of him."
Toby tried to stand up, but his legs were a bit too shaky. Piffle got up first and helped him. He took her hand without hesitation. (She noticed and grinned.) "I thought it was me," Toby said. "When I realized I might be dead, I thought it was my panic spiking up again."
"It waits for you to feel afraid, then cranks that up till the dial breaks off. Let that be lesson two, Toby: whenever you start to get that feeling again, quickly pat yourself down all over. The one good thing about runbugs is you can squish 'em pretty easy."
"I'll remember that. And thank you, Piffle. Thank you so much." He rubbed the sides of his head. "It was horrible."
She patted his paw. "First time one of them got me, I ended up two towns past Stoma before I collapsed. Totally bushed. I had a doozy of a time finding my way home again."
Toby stood up straight and brushed the blue dirt from the back of his pajamas. They'd gone from powder blue to lint-grey already. "But it wasn't all the bug... I was right, wasn't I? That my real body's somewhere else?"
Piffle did not enjoy being the bearer of bad news, but she nodded solemnly regardless. "No one's really sure. Like, not a hunnerd percent. And no one ever remembers exactly how they got here. But everyone I've talked to is sure enough that, even though sometimes you see this place in dreams, you only end up a resident here if you're in a deep sleep. Of one kind or another."
Toby needed a moment to deal with this confirmation of something he'd already been feeling faintly in his bones. A disconnection. A separation. He'd already been through so much, yet the fact that he was still able to process thoughts at all made him suspicious. Same as the fact that he hadn't already died from disease or withdrawal. He knew he was a mouse who'd never faced real fear or hardship in his life. Now here was a crushing ton of it all at once. Maybe the slippery nature of time and the very unreality of this place were helping him keep sane, because on some level he couldn't believe in it. He knew if he'd been lost in the real woods in his real body for just as long, he'd be catatonic by now.
"What does this mean for me?" he asked softly. "Let's... let's just assume for now I'm not already dead. I can't do anything if I'm dead, so it's not worth thinking about. Coma then. Does this mean there's a deadline? I have to get back home and wake up before a certain time or else it's permanent?"
Piffle wrung her hands. Her voice was a tiny squeak. "As far as I know, no one's ever escaped from Phobiopolis before."
Toby became as silent as a statue.
"...Oh, but that doesn't mean you won't!" she was quick to reassure. "I haven't traveled very far, certainly not Anasarca. And even if people did go home, how the heck would I know? I'm sure there's a way, Toby! Keep your chin up!"
He nodded almost imperceptibly. An odd calm had come over him. He could still feel fear churning around in his gut like a snake that refused to digest, but more than that, he felt the weight of knowing that this situation was real. It could not be ignored or run away from. If he didn't do something to save himself, he might be here forever.
He tried to focus on the practical. He started walking again. "We should keep going then. How much further is this place, Stoma?"
Piffle didn't even have to fly up and check. "I've been down this road a few times. We're close now."
He nodded in acknowledgment. "We should get cleaned up, get a good meal, and find a place to sleep. I know time's important now, but I haven't gotten any decent rest in a week. My mind's enough of a wreck. Sleep'll help me think clearer. Tomorrow we can focus on trying to find supplies and transportation. Then we head for Anasarca."
She saluted. "Aye-aye!"
He glanced back to her. "You can come with me for as long or as little as you want, Piffle. I really, deeply appreciate you helping me. But I don't want you to feel like you're obligated."
A giggle. "Maybe I'm tagging along because it sounds fun? Maybe I wanna see Anasarca too?"
"Allright then." He smiled and listened to his feet crunching along the soft azure soil. "I don't know exactly how we're gonna get supplies though. I don't have any money."
"You just let me take care of that! We'll be fine. I'd explain all about paying for stuff here, but it's kinda complicated without having a willwell to demonstrate with."
"Willwell?"
"It's fun to say, isn't it? Willwell, willwell, wullywullywoo!"
"I suppose," he said distantly.
Toby was not in the mood for lightheartedness, Piffle noted. She let him walk silently ahead of her on the path. Then saw his shoulders lurch in a sob. She hustled to catch up. She didn't think he was ready for a hug yet, but thought a pat on the arm would be comforting.
Toby didn't shrink away. A warm touch did help. "It's nothing," he said with tears in his eyes.
"I'm no P.I., but if it was nothing, you wouldn't be crying."
A brief half-grin. "It's just... I realized what it is I'm going back to. Best case scenario, I wake up in my old bed again, back in my old, sick body... and I die in a few months anyway. Just before I left, I found out I have Munchausen Syndrome Byproxy. Mom said it's terminal. My choices are either to be stuck forever in a realm of nightmares, or go back to a life that's almost over."
"Oh Toby..." Piffle gasped. "I don't know what to say! I mean, you're right that neither of those sounds like a happy ending. But, if it'll make you feel better, I'll be a good friend for as long as you're stuck here."
He sniffed as a hard sob rippled through him. "Thank you."
She reached down and took hold of his hand again.
*****