Dreams, Memories, and Reality

Chapter 1 He opened his eyes and quickly closed them against brilliant light that fell through scattered forms in front of him. What sort of madness is this? He essayed another look, his eyes narrowed against the brightness. They were still there. Tall plants, thick-stemmed with branches covered with green-toned foliage. And through this foliage a blazing inferno burned, lighting everything close to the shadows that enfolded him. He shuddered. He had expected the worst and it seemed he’d been rewarded with it. Opening his eyes further he found that he was in some sort of stone crevasse that kept the light from reaching his body. His body. He looked down the length of it before scrunching his eyes against the sight. It was pale, a strange shade that he could not describe adequately in his mind. And unclothed. But that was to be expected. He lifted a limb and peered at it. Five digits, the tips covered in some sort of scale, faced him. Dexterous digits he discovered as he moved them, but more of them than he thought there should be. Looking down his body he found the lower extremities held pedes, for which he was eternally grateful, also with five digits apiece. The digits however were too short to be of much use, he decided. Pushing himself erect he found he had a muscular torso, not too unlike what an infinitesimal flash of memory, quickly lost, told him he was used to. There were lines of something that felt like bones beneath the flesh. He traced them with one digit, finding they seemed to form a cage of sorts. Pressing one upper extremity to his torso he felt something pulsing slowly. Too slowly. This could not be right, could not be normal. Or perhaps for whatever species he had become, it was the way of things. He needed to see his whole self. But how? Easing up onto his lower extremities he looked around the crevasse. It was larger than he had suspected, the floor covered with pieces of foliage that crunched, he discovered, as he began to move. Dizzy, he pressed against the wall of the crevasse until he had his balance. This would take some adjusting to. Once he was comfortable with it, he inched further into the darkened interior of the space that surrounded him. Shadows lengthened ahead of him—caused by the light of what he now understood must be a sun—fading into darkness the deeper into the crevasse he moved. But despite the darkness he was able to see, a fact that puzzled him. His orbs must be very sensitive. And the odor. The place reeked of death. He stepped cautiously forward again and felt something give beneath his pedal extremity. Something that sent out a fetid aroma, while small pale things wriggled to escape. He bent, picking one of them up between two digits to observe it. Carrion eater. He tossed it away. The shape of the thing he had stepped on was the body of a quadruped, but he knew it was lifeless and had been for a while. Turning back toward the light, he realized that it was almost gone, inching down beyond the huge plants that stood outside the entrance of the crevasse. Instinctively he knew that it was now safe to explore the area and perhaps determine where he was.