Chapter 1 - Part 5

There was a colour. Then two, then three. They bled into each other, dancing and turning. After a while Jonathan realised he was watching the colours. How odd. He noticed now that they had become a picture. A house, a big house with a rosebush by the door. His first house, in California. Back before school, back before reading and writing. Then it was a year later and he was looking at his school, in Scotland. A face, a teacher. His mothers voice. Images and sounds flashed at him faster and faster, spinning round and round. His favourite toy, a comfy couch, a drawing in school, a girl with bright green eyes, alone in the dark, calling for help...

“You have to stay calm.”

The voice echoed from the darkest corners of his mind, echoing forever in the brightness. The whirlwind images slowed, fusing together to form a pattern. Jonathan recognised it. It was the symbol from the bunk!

“Good,” the voice continued, as if from a long distance, “now try and maintain it. Maintain yourself. In this place you see what you wish to see. Hold on to what you see now.”

As the voice spoke the symbol began to break down. Again, flashes of colour and light assaulted his senses, partially obscuring his view of the symbol. Jonathan felt himself start to panic until a memory flashed by his eyes. Red and gold colours painting a beautiful sunset. It was beautiful and for a moment Jonathan calmed. The images slowed and Jonathan found himself able to focus on the symbol. As he did so it seemed to sharpen, coming into the foreground and pushing the flashes back. He concentrated more and the images seemed to fold together, becoming shafts and ribbons of energy, which wound their way towards the symbol, merging with it and further solidifying the corners and blurry edges. After the last image had joined it Jonathan was once again alone, floating in the darkness with the pattern.

“Good. Now you are ready.”

Jonathan felt rather than saw the world change around him. It was as if he was in a vast pool and a wave had moved over him, calm yet insistent. The ripple moved against and around his being and as it did Jonathan felt a world flow into his senses. The darkness coalesced and then dissolved into a sheen of white and grey and cold and brightness.

After a long moment of over stimulation and confusion Jonathan felt his eyes adjust and he realised he was on a mountaintop. The freezing air blew briskly around him while his feet sank into a carpet of snow. The mountain dropped away steeply and the boy felt his breath catch in his throat as he drank in the vista before him. All around mountain ranges rose up impressively, snow lying in a thick blanket from the base to the peak, only a few uneven rocky patches remaining uncovered. Far to the east, in the gaps between peaks Jonathan thought he could make out glimmering blue, though it was difficult to be certain.

A particularly sharp blast of wind tore by, rocking Jonathan back a step and focussing his mind on the immediate situation. The most obvious thing to him right now was that he should be dead. A proficient snowboarder, he had been up enough hills to know that the sheer height here was such that there would be little oxygen and even less heat, yet it simply felt like a cold and windy day. Even the snow didn’t have as much of a bite as usual. His next thought, however, sent a chill through his body that even Everest wouldn’t manage. Perhaps he was dead. He had never been particularly religious but the world he was in now could perhaps match the descriptions of heaven. It would certainly explain how he had come from the floor of an old Scottish prison to the top of this vast mountain range. Maybe he’d had a heart attack or something. Now all he needed was an angel.

“Nice view.”

Jonathan span around. Barely a few feet from him a man stood watching him with a slight smile. Deeply tanned, he stood some six feet in height with large calloused hands. He was dressed in a roughly made waistcoat and thin trousers. From his colour and clothes Jonathan could only guess he came from somewhere a hell of a lot warmer than these mountain ranges. That is, if he was human at all. Jonathan stood mute for a moment, then felt a breath explode out of him.

“Are you an angel?” he blurted out, feeling stupid even as he said it.

The man’s smile widened, but it was kind, not mocking.

“No,” he answered, in an accent that might have been Spanish, “no, child, I am not an angel. No angels in this place. Well, some people think the liquid-tongued, but -"

The man shook his head.

“Sorry, I am getting distracted, and we do not have much time.”

Jonathan absorbed all of this slowly, feeling incredibly numb in both mind and body. After a moment he croaked, “Where am I? What’s going on?”

“First of all, stay calm,” the man said. “You are not in danger…yet. Right now you are still unconscious in my cell, in the asylum.”

“Your cell?”

“Later. As for where you are…”

He swept an arm around to indicate the view.

“This is you. Your mind, your thoughts. What you can see is the very landscape of your dreams. This is the Dreamscape.”