Hollow Dreams

Have you ever woken from a dead sleep soaked in sweat, your breathing accelerated? Do you remember your heart beating so hard you could feel it in your ears? Do you remember the fear? Do you remember the nightmare?

Nightmares plague the sleeping hours of many, a personal horror movie waiting to commence the second you settle down to rest. How do you escape them, prevent them?

The Ojibway tribe created the tradition of the dreamcatcher to protect their children from the horrors of the night. Dreamcatchers have been increasing in popularity for some time, adorning headboards, walls, and rear-view mirrors across the world. Some use them purely for aesthetic purposes but many use them to catch, hold, and protect their owners from bad dreams.

What happens when a dreamcatcher becomes full? When each string thrums with the power of nightmares aching to escape? The answer is not to throw them away or even to keep them for they need to be emptied and cleansed.

There are only a handful of people in the world who know how to cleanse a dreamcatcher properly. These people have been trained to endure the panic, anxiety, even pure terror that comes from handling the nightmares of everyday people. These people are called Somnium Eques, or the Dream Knights.

...

She rose to her feet and surveyed the new load. Hanging in the first room of the Hollow—the system of caves in which the Somnium Eques conduct their work—were dreamcatchers in numerous sizes and colors. She leaned forward and snagged a small, simple catcher off the hook it hung from. It had a round frame wrapped in purple cord, the same cord spiderwebbed across the frame. Three thin wind chimes hung from it, each with a purple feather separating them.

She walked into the main room of the Hollow, which held a pool of pearlescent water and took up her position on the shore. She lowered herself onto knee pads that were mounted to the floor, a small comfort.

It took minimal effort for her hands to break through the semi-elastic surface of the dream pool and into the warm waters. Once the catcher and her hands were fully submerged her fingers went to work gently kneading the wrapped frame.

The visions started as normal and she breathed, focusing on her work. This dreamcatcher had belonged to a small child, a girl. The Knight could see her bedroom with cute lavender walls and white furniture with gold stars painted on.

One of the walls turned black and seemed to be moving. Spiders. There were thousands of them running towards the bed, the dreamer, climbing over each other in their haste. The Knight could feel the spiders' urge to reach her, to sink their fangs into her body, to run their little pinprick legs over her bare skin.

Calmly, she kept moving her fingers over the dreamcatcher as she had been taught.

The spiders faded and the vision of them was replaced with the view of someone looking down from a roof. The dreamer threw herself off the roof and landed on the green grass below, her left arm was broken, the bone was jagged and jutting out from her skin, soaked in blood.

The Knight's breath caught. Don't feel them, she told herself. Massage the strings, ignore the dreams.

When the visions stopped her work was done. She, stiffly, rose from her position and made her way to what they call the Sage room. A hundred or so hooks hung from the ceiling and from them hung even more dreamcatchers. There were the simple and traditional, like the one she was holding, which had frames of circles or teardrops. The more elaborate ones had frames like pyramids or prisms or the like. Then were the dreamcatchers that were adorned with crystals wrapped in wire, or beads that were woven into the spiderwebbing.

This room served the purpose of letting the dreamcatchers dry while being purified by fresh sage burned every hour to clear the room of malicious spirits.

This room was her favorite, the smell transported her away from the work she did every day and made her feel an inexplicable sense of calm. After hanging the child's catcher she lingered a moment, tapping a nail lightly against a wind chime.

Back to work.

In the room where the new dreamcatchers were hanging the air was tight with as sense of anticipation. In the corner of the room was a catcher she hadn't noticed the first time. It had three round frames, one that was vertical, one that was at a 45 degree angle and one at the 135 degree mark. From the center hung a white, pearlescent orb of polished moonstone. White sinews stretched across the three frames in the most intricate spiderwebbing she had ever seen in her time in the Hollow. Leather tassels and white and brown feathers hung from its frames along with dark grey stone beads.

It had called to her.

She cautiously took it down and went to the dream pool. She surveyed the room. Three other Knights were kneeled on pads on the floor, their hands hidden by the water, eyes closed.

She knelt down and submerged her hands. Her fingers knew what to do and she let them take over.

The dreamer strode down a spotless hallway, feeling the weight of what she was about to see settle on her but she smiled, this was a visit to see how she was doing, the smile was for someone else. Up ahead the elevator dinged and rushed open.

Perfect, she thinks as she neared the doors.

Out came two handsome orderlies with a rolling bed in tow. Its rider was recognized immediately. Her once beautiful skin was yellowed, taut, and peeling. Her sparse grey hair was in a disarray as it had been for a while now.

“Grandma!” The Dreamer cried and ran over, the orderlies paused.

Her grandma's eyes searched for her, though she wasn’t sure if they ever found her.

“You’re her granddaughter?” one of the orderlies asked.

“Yeah,” the dreamer responded, glancing at him momentarily before turning back to the piece of her heart lying on the bed.

“Where are you going, Grandma?” she begged the woman, hoping to hear her voice.

“The hospital,” the woman mumbled, a look of confusion on her face. Her eyes had settled on her granddaughter’s face but it was almost like she was seeing straight through the younger girl.

“Grandma, you’re at the hospital,” the granddaughter pleaded, reaching for the dying woman’s hand. The skin was tight, and her bones were more prominent than ever. Could the older woman feel the erratic pounding of the dreamer's heart through those thin bones?

“We are taking her to the bigger hospital, the one downtown,” the other orderly spoke up. “She’s going in for surgery.”

The girl’s heart dropped though the linoleum. Another surgery.

“The grandfather is upstairs in her room,” The same orderly added.

“Oh, thank you,” she gulped. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Grandma. I promise.” Her voice shook. She reached up and pet the woman’s hair down, the only thing she could do to let the woman know she was really there.

She watched the orderlies wheel away one of the strongest women the granddaughter had ever known.

Except there wasn’t another visit.

There was the phone call she could never forget.

There was the family members, the crying.

And now it's almost a year later and the dreamer still is haunted by the guilt that she didn’t jump in her car and follow that ambulance. The guilt that she wasn’t there by her grandmothers bedside when the surgery was done. The guilt that she was too late. The guilt of not being able to say goodbye.

On the other end was the Knight who was kneeled by the dream pool, weeping uncontrollably, as her fingers continued to knead the dreamcatcher. She yearned for her fingers to quit, to take a break but they wouldn’t listen, they wouldn’t corporate.

Her outbreak didn’t go unnoticed. Other Knights were gathering around the younger Knight in concern, the caretaker of the Hollows crouched to scratch her back until the dream let her go.

A few minutes passed as the Somnium Eques watched in silence as their younger member shook with sobs.

“I’m sorry, Grandma!” The younger Knight pleaded for the dead woman’s acceptance, pleaded for her to understand the guilt the dreamer had given her. She collapsed to her side, still shaking.

“Shhh,” cooed the caretaker of the Hollow, the girl’s tremors stopped and she went still.

The Knight woke up in her own bed, with the dreamcatcher above her head.

“No,” she grunted and reached to take it down but a hand tightened on her wrist.

“Leave it, girl,” a voice said. It was the caretaker.

“But-“

“I said leave it.” The old woman’s voice had authority in it that she had never heard before.

“Every Somnium Eques finds a dreamcatcher that speaks to them, to remind us that we are not immune to those feelings, that we are still human. This is yours. Keep it.” That was the final word on the matter.

The Knight laid her head back and closed her eyes. There was a hollowness to her chest now, like the dream had stolen her heart and wheeled it away with the dying women. She would never be the same. She had lost someone she had never known and she would never be the same.