Canchi ==> Dream...
The dream was tiring. Odd, for a dream to be tiring. Tiring and painful.
He was dancing in the dream. Dancing in a ballroom. Or that's what the floor would suggest. The checkered pattern of white and gold marble called back to images of architecture lost deep in the sea.
Dancing in circles, the clacking of their feet echoed through the ballroom: a rhythm in the midst of silence. A rhythm he could feel, but too erratic to know.
Nothing he'd ever danced before anyway.
He looked around the room, to see four large pillars. Three were alight; green, blue, and red. Yellow, all the while, soaked up their glow. The four--a pulsing emerald, a crumbling obsidian, a steady ruby and a consuming amber--formed a box around them in the ballroom. Together, they grasped at the sky, forming an ephemeral enclosure.
Above, the night sky shone with more stars than he'd ever seen in Inkopolis. The light pollution never let them through. They shimmered in a moonless sky, lighting the darkened world. As he danced, their whirling forms put jewels to shame.
If he weren't so tired, it would be beautiful. He might have even appreciated it, but this stupid suit was making it hard.
Gods below, a suit AND tie? Who dressed him like this?? The pants were too scratchy and the waist was too tight. He wanted to get out of it but... well the occasion called for it but... man, just why???
It did set the scene though, he had to admit. A midnight dance, between four weird pillars in the middle of nowhere. A dance for a two. A dance with...
With someone.
...
He looked beyond the pillars. The world was serene. There were no walls here. The ballroom floor ended beyond the jeweled backdrop giving way to a shimmering forest. Trees with purple leaves swayed in a circular wind around the ballroom.
But all was steady where they danced.
...
Try as he might, he couldn't look away forever. So he looked.
She was... it was gorgeous. It looked his age, but... human. Short, bobbed amethyst hair gleamed in the starlight, sparkling with an unearthly quality. Her lips parted, revealing a catty, pearly smile. Her eyes sparkled with cunning.
She... it... was... something.
He looked away to find that she was garbed with equal grandeur. A velvety, black dress flowed down to her ankles, leading to heels that set her just high enough to be eye level with Canchi.
He looked back to her... its face. Her grin wasn't evil but it was joyfully malicious. She mouthed something:
"I'm you, numbnuts."
And then he remembered. Without hearing, he knew her voice. Her... this thing had been using him? His body? It had used his voice and his words and his memories.
But it was clear now. That... that wasn't him and it'd never been. Ever.
He stopped to pull away, but found their wrists were a union of royal violet ink. Canchi pulled harder and harder. The mass linking them was like tar and concrete, solid and gooey, refusing to let either of them go.
He wanted to shout at her--at it. It! To scream and wail until it let him go. He jerked his head up, tentacles flailing with sudden motion, and caught a glimpse of her face. For a moment, he knew terror. Canchi pulled violently now, with less anger and more mounting dread.
Then she said--no. Not 'said.' Commanded...!
"You will dance."
The world echoed with the word's power and Canchi's insides twisted. The pillars trembled like his legs and the floor around them fluttered like his stomach. The marble upended and flapped in an swirling, purple maelstrom of emotion. The sky turned red and the stars began to burst like old lights.
It was terrifying. But Canchi had to admit, he really was feeling stronger than yesterday.
He pulled again, gathering both will and terror, jerking his unwilling partner around this way and that, more chaotic than their wild dancing bastardization with more strength than before.
"No!" it screamed. "No!!!"
The emerald pillar pulsed wildly. The ruby glowed hotter. The obsidian crumbled and reconstructed faster and faster. And the world was fading away, sucked into the amber.
The gel holding their hands together was stretching thinner and thinner.
Canchi wanted to scream for it to let him go. To leave his body. To let everything be real again.
He.
Wasn't.
This.
There was a terrible crashing. A scream. The human flashed scarlet and azure. She'd torn in two.
And Canchi woke up on the floor.
...
He turned his aching head to get a face-full of blanket and a whole lot of nothing important. It was... nice.
After some time lying to himself that he wanted to sleep, he got up. The clock in his room read 3:00. He'd been sleeping for awhile now. A really long 'awhile.'
...what now?
