Part 3 The waitress - Glimpse III

The subway station looked old and small. She may have been at the intersection of two lines, she concluded, walking from one line and arriving at the other.

Stone bridges arched over the tracks so people could traverse from one side to the other and a big illuminated sign had written on it with latin letters the word “Teoți”.

In one area of the platform there was a piece of the wall and floor laid open to show how the subway looked centuries ago when it was first built. Back then both the bricks and tiles were a dirty yellow and they contrasted a great deal against the more recent pure white tiles and light.

She looked at the plaque explaining the history of the era but she couldn’t understand the language. And after looking around she realized she was in a European looking place, the people walking around had european features and brown hair.

It was best if she didn’t stand out so she sat down on one of the benches, put her hands on her face and tried to change her face. She already had dyed her hair lighter in woken life, but it was too straight so she tried to make it a bit wavy. She then searched her pockets for a mirror but when she looked into it she could get the angle right to see her face. For some reason she never could see herself in her dreams, this one was no different to her disappointment.

Her tennis shoes were bright yellow because she was told by her online group to always wear yellow, whoever or wherever she was, in order to appease the Yellow king, but everybody in that station was wearing dark grey-ish colors, she stood out like a nail with her colorful shoes. If the station had still been mustard and brown she would have blended in better.

In the end she decided to turn her shoes black with white. That was neutral for where she was. Even though she was in Europe and she would have loved to go exploring, there was something ominous about the place. She couldn’t put her finger on it but the lack of colors was unsettling. It wasn’t a black and white dream like she heard some people have, there was still some color in people’s skin and hair, in the shadowed places and the neon lights had a slight magenta tint to them.

There were none of the usual characters that chased her around, but the silhouettes of the people here reminded her somehow of those that hunted for her.

Finally she decided to move since after waiting a long time neither a train came nor did she wake up. She had her wrist watch on vibrate and ring in woken life, but it was set to ring every hour and on occasion time passed differently in here, wherever she was.

As she walked along the platform she came across a man who was silently crying on a bench. At first she thought he was resting his head in his hands, but tears trickled down his palms and a quiet sobbing could be heard though his body did not move, he wasn't even breathing, he resembled more a wax statue than a live person.

She had heard of spirit like creatures being caught in between worlds when people killed themselves or were brutally killed, but she had never seen one so she couldn’t be sure.

She didn’t dare linger for too long around it, there were many dangerous creatures in this world she kept falling into and the cases of sudden death syndrome were on the rise in Japan, yet again, after centuries of no cases registered, now other countries were reporting them again as well, many in East Europe. So she backed away and when she was far enough she turned and walked away.

And as she was thinking about the news she read, it dawned on her she may be in East Europe. She should have tried to remember the text she saw, so she sought to return to the plaque, but when she crossed the path of the man again, he jumped from his seat, embraced her and pushed her in front of the subway that was just pulling into the station.

She woke up screaming and shaking her arms. But she was safe in her bed. She touched her bed sheets and looked around. Good thing she turned permeable when the train hit them, it just passed through her, though the shock was enough to wake her, fortunately not to give her a heart attack. She touched her chest to feel her heart racing. Then the watch started ringing. It was 3 in the morning.

She eventually got up since she couldn’t fall asleep anymore and sat at her desk and entered her usual forum. After some scrolling she found what she was looking for, but it wasn’t the answer she hoped for.

SpaceCookie93
Yeah it’s just gibberish, sorry.

雨の女神666
i think it’s very pretty! looks like elvish ＾ω＾

喵主席2202
Looks like jelly beans :3

雨の女神666
elvish beans ٩(^ᴗ^)۶

Hugo Matapang
Since you dreamed you were somewhere in Africa, maybe check with a expert in old African languages. There are groups here dedicated for that.

SpaceCookie93
It’s not any human language, I already checked. Maybe it’s something foreign or she remembered wrong what she dreamt.

喵主席2202
maybe it’s the crab elephant people!

雨の女神666
the what now? O.o

Сибирскиемыши
E.T.s from the Hydrus constellation

雨の女神666
mishi! you’re awake!

Сибирскиемыши
good morning everyone ;)

喵主席2202
what he said. they are famous for collect animals for their zoo and @xYellowFOx said she only saw a couple of zebras and 1 giraffe. they don’t travel in such small numbers in the wild. must be a zoo!

Hugo Matapang
You mean the Hate Keda?

SpaceCookie93
Haathee kekada*

喵主席2202
yeah, whatever, indians first made contact with them. i just call them crab elephants cuz they look like giant crabs with elephant noses for arms

雨の女神666
I think I saw them in the news, they look creepy |Д⊙`)

Hugo Matapang
I think we look creepy to them too, with all our eyeballs and fingers.

Сибирскиемыши
and our skeletons are on the inside instead of outside, lol.

They rambled on with no good leads for her. Most likely she did remember the writing wrong, it’s almost impossible to recreate a complex pattern you don’t understand, she consoled herself. Whatever language it was she needed to find out what it said, it obsessed her.

But it was time to go to work now, again. After a small breakfast it was to the bus again. Slowly downhill to the town center and the tourist streets. And since it was the end of the line and hard to miss that bus stop she decided to try and nod off. Maybe she could return to that savanna and ask for the message again or find translations.

Maybe not get off at the wrong stop. Remain in the tram. Maybe the address wasn’t even in the real woken world. She had to focus, maybe…

When she opened her eyes she was in a familiar apartment. Thought the furniture wasn’t exact, it was very old in style, but she could feel she had been here before. She walked around the rooms and and realized it was a mix of one of her grandmother’s house and one of her ex-boyfriends apartments. All the windows were closed shut with thick curtains that blocked the intense light from outside.

Whatever chimera of an apartment this was, it was unsettlingly close to her private real life and very big inside. And there were people here too, she could never see them and she wasn’t keen on it either, but she could recognize the voices which filled her with dread! Whoever trapped her here knew who she was, or was getting close.

She recognized the shadow silhouette of her dead mother on one of the open doors. She was outside the kitchen and she couldn’t understand what she was saying but she was talking to someone and she could recognize the voices, even if the words made no sense and were barely audible whispers.

She left the area and went to an empty room to try and find the exit door, by the looks of the rooms it had to be close.

When she turned the corner to pass through her ex’s lounge to reach the main door she bumped into a tall broad shouldered man. He grabbed her by the shoulders and began to cry on her left shoulder quite loudly.

It was a famous European actor of African descent, she realized as she tried to look at his face. “Why in the world am I dreaming him?!, she was absolutely shocked to see him here.

As she jested to herself it wasn’t the time to ask for an autograph, especially since he wasn’t real, and why couldn’t she have a nice dream with him she noticed a little weiner dog drooling at the mouth in a corner next to a wooden dresser where the TV screen was placed.

“It’s not drooling, it’s foaming at the mouth”, she realized and the dog started to growl while its eyes were turning red as they were sinking into his head.

She felt a small bite on her collarbone, then the actor tried to bite her viciously. She liquefied her hands to escape his grasp and ran as fast as she could to the door, then down the stairs and into the crowded street.