I sat with my elbow lightly resting on the windowsill as I gazed out at the passing scenery. It had been mostly grasslands and forests as was common in the southwest of Hypnoise, but currently we were running parallel to a river I hadn’t had the presence of mind to notice on the first trip through. The sound of water rushing against the network of stones and the occasional croaking and chirping of wildlife filled me with a tranquility I was surprised to find I was currently capable of. It was not true peace, it was stale, but it softened my head in a way that felt pleasant.

  Across from me sat Karen, her head turned in the same direction mine had been out her own window. She wore a woolen jacket of exited colors, mostly light greens with purples placed around the pockets, cuffs, and collars respectively, that I felt fit her personality. Over the past few days, we had gradually shifted the distance between us back to something that was more natural for two people as of yet to become a couple, but still markedly close. Still with me having behaved in a manner that wouldn’t indicate otherwise, I would not be able to blame a bystander for believing that it would be a quick dance back to form.

  She lifted her head from her palm and smiled back at me.

  “It’s beautiful out today. I love this time of year when the frost just barely coats the ground and you can still see the foliage.”

  I nod in acknowledgment. What she said was objectively true, but I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d call it a preference myself. Suddenly I pictured her spinning in a field of falling red and brown leaves with a bright smile on her face. My stomach turns as my mind brightens. I have been…acknowledging this, more or less, over the past few days of travel. Acknowledging that I was as attracted to her as I was disturbed.

  A loud sneeze erupts from the other side of the bench I occupy.

  “Well personally I prefer britquar, I can’t stand another second of this damn cold.”

  Thomas’ coat was just as fine and therefore just as thin as his shirt was, hardly enough to protect him from the bite of the cold. It was an attire more fit for the brisk chill of wiltquar’s season than the bitter winds that dimquar would bring. His clothing was still partially unkempt, but more in a way that made it clear he was attempting to make himself more presentable. His attitude was likewise beginning to reemerge, but in a similar fashion was slightly more subdued.

  Currently the three of us were alone with Ben Trael, who was returning both to act as a guard and to his normal station. For most of the journey our new entourage Ray Timfeil had been with us breathing down our necks. The way he presented himself made it feel more like we were under inspection than protection.

  Thomas shivered a bit and gave another sneeze.

  “At least I can breathe a bit easier without that bald git around. Who does he think he is being snarky about my appearance when he’s got that stupid yellow mustache.”

  Ben grunted and spoke up for the first time since he switched with Ray. He had for the most part been leaving us be.

  “Aye. Think you could save that talk for once I’m out of earshot. I don’t want to get caught up in gossip over a higher up, especially not one from the capital.”

  Thomas scoffed and kicked at his shin guard playfully.

  “C’mon, tell us what you really think. He’s not about to hear us over the racket of the road.”

  He grimaced but leaned forward conspiratorially.

  “I think he’s a pretentious twit who wouldn’t last a second on the front lines. I think you be better off with a dog to guard you.”

  He quickly looked behind his shoulder as if colonel Ray might have been standing right over it and I couldn’t tell if it was in jest or genuine concern.

  “Don’t tell no one I said so.”

  “There you have it, zero confidence even from his peers. Luckily for me, I’m not going to be the one he’s completely glued to.”

  Thomas looked at me pointedly wearing a smug grin. I just shrugged in response.

  “It’s going to feel a bit awkward with him trailing behind me on the way to work. Other than that, I’m afraid he’ll find himself quite bored.”

  The normalcy of the words filled my face with an intoxication that buzzed in my jaw. It was a condition I had felt often of late. It felt as if for every word the ones I spoke denied, there was a small feedback that was all the more dangerous for its benign nature.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “You make it sound as if you’re going to stay cooped up in your home all month. I was hoping you might make some time to show me around Duskhovel.”

  It had in fact momentarily slipped my mind. I had been imagining I would stay shut away in my waking hours, perusing tomes borrowed from Rayngo as I very well would have if it wasn’t for my promise.

  “I was planning to ask myself, but surely he wouldn’t…”

  I made a show of twisting my face unpleasantly. I do believe I managed my act well.

  “Ah, look at you Douglass. You’ve got a beautiful dame on your arm, but your weighed down by a chaperone at the age of 27.”

  Slapping his knee, he laughed perhaps a bit more than his joke deserved. We both smiled in response but neither of us blushed nor denied the implication.

  “He…hey, would you guys be interested in another round of the cloud game.”

  She meant to capitalize on the mood and steer us in a more lighthearted direction, but she was also hesitant to remind us of an activity we had played with Bennie, Rachel, and Davis. She couldn’t tell when her prior energy would be appropriate or where she should joyfully display their memory in contrast with hiding them away.

  I think, it was more than likely, she didn’t know how to comfort people in a real way, even though she clearly wanted to based on her treatment of Raechel. It was fine for normal days, even the bleak days of a scrubber, and outbursts, but amidst real grief she couldn’t approach with the tendrils of that perpetual smile. I recalled the odd statement she made in regards to her sister and wondered if it could somehow be connected.

  Once again, I imagined these were secrets I should be searching after if my goal was to get close to her, but I didn’t have that for her. All I could offer was placid politeness that would pull but never touch within easily embraced words. My jaw buzzed all the worse when Thomas turned towards his window, not in annoyance but discomfort, and I took it upon myself to respond.

  “I don’t think that it will be quite as enjoyable between just three people.”

  The cloud game was something that could be easily played between just two people, so I’m sure she would read the subtext, but Mr. Trael gave her suggestion a leg to support itself.

  “I wouldn’t mind joining you lot. It’s a bit childish, but there’s worse ways to past the time.”

  In his gruff manner, I couldn’t tell if he was being sympathetic towards us or genuinely thought it just as well, but I somehow found myself thankful to him and decided to face the silly game with the same attitude. After a quick game of Rowchamp, my town’s name for a common game of choosing from triangled weaknesses that go cat, rat, and then squirrel to decide a victor, we came up with an order for our turns. I’ve never understood what the squirrel was meant to be doing to the cat, but I’ve heard in foreign lands the name and the animals involved were different.

  Thomas won and lazily looked out his window.

  “Okay, I’ve decided.”

  His voice caught a bit and when I looked outside a shape immediately came to mind.

  “An arm.”

  Come to think of it, I believe Raechel had lost one. Thomas nodded and the carriage was silent for a minute.

  “Thomas…Douglass.”

  I’m sure she hadn’t meant it to come off as chiding, but that was how it ended up sounding. She had been able to give words of comfort to Raechel before with her smiling voice, but unable to force the emotions into it she believed she needed, the voice defaulted into one that, in tone if not truth, carried the first hint of a frown I had detected in her. My fuzzy mind, the one that couldn’t settle the light atmosphere atop the solid bed of despondence, shocked me with the word cute when I transcribed the impression of her voice onto a mirage of her face.

  “Sorry”

  “Yea”

  We continued the game, making a point of not letting our true first impressions we saw in the clouds guide us. It was somewhat against the spirit of the game, but understandable in our circumstances. As we played, the frivolity exacerbated the fuzzy drifting of my mind. A thin veil of happiness was drizzled like a cloyingly sweet icing over my despair and its weight slowly sunk me into heavy slumber.

  I had moped every inch and scraped away every line with meticulous precision from over a miles stretch of tunnel. There should, by any reasonable measure, be nothing left to see behind me except for a sparkling clean stretch of emerald. The pristine gleam of the human soul left untouched. But when I looked, in my wake were more lines and splotches than I had first walked through. They spilled and propagated from the sickly yellow-green trail of footprints that followed me.

  “Look at that, boy. It’s the filthiest thing in the world. It’s your disgust. It’s the soul of your eyes that look with disdain over an ordinary mess and value only the gleam of emerald. Eyes that watch beauty are rarely beautiful themselves. Go on then boy. Don’t you have a job to do?”

  My blotched broken necked instructor was correct. My job was to clean this filth no matter where it came from. To sweep and sweep until nothing remained. I backtracked and scrubbed away but every clean space I walked through erupted into more filth. The more vigorously I scrubbed the more it proliferated. Back and forth I spun, unsure what direction to prioritize, until I could see nothing but a sea of splotches in any direction. The sea rose and engulfed me in its current, but my unseemly teacher leisurely strode through its depths and picked me from its embrace. He pinned be to the wall and ripped the mop from my grip as the sea burst and splattered across the surface of the tunnel.

  “You’ve got it all wrong boy. You’re not cleaning right at all. At this rate the work will never get done. Just watch me. You have to scrub it away at the source or else it will just keep piling up.”

  The course mop was dragged across my eyeballs, rubbing them raw as blood leaked out from their corners and flooded the tunnel. That blood disinfected the filth and left a bright red sticky surface it couldn’t settle back on. For hours and hours my soul was scrubbed clean of its filthy disgust, leaving nothing behind that could ever desecrate this beautiful red tunnel ever again.

  I had never dreamt of the ether ways before that day and can’t help but note that such an obvious landmark has never been mentioned in dream symbolism.