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everyone Alex here with a quick
introduction to today’s episode this is
the first of our two writing competition
winners the second story will be played
next week also please be aware that this
story is a standalone work and shouldn’t
be considered part of the Magnus
archives canon that’s all for now we
hope you enjoy the episode
rusty quill presents lucid by Elizabeth
Richards
[Music]
the moment comes slowly in with a
sharpness when a mundane dream focuses
into lucidity it’s an awareness that
must be cupped lightly like water in the
palm or else my mind jolts itself awake
the dream world fades then becoming
impossible to grasp I recall it
distantly like a past visit to somewhere
far away it is difficult afterwards to
describe those memories of my own
sleeping world to anyone else my dreams
are more than fragments of sight or
sound there is a pulsing sense of
continuing life about them there are
patterns which have reappeared for years
the roads and neighborhoods of my
hometown childhood landmarks which my
mind revisits Mirador shifted north into
south city inter field the streets and
buildings become merged mixed with
larger distant cities as I travel in my
waking life accumulated impressions of
places built into an inner world then
there are the landmarks which live only
in my dreams repeated and familiar they
might return months apart when I find
myself lucid among their walls and
doorways I immediately recognize their
surprisingly unchanged details the
shuttered abandoned petrol station where
in reality there are only friendly
suburban houses the small brown house
with carpeted hallways and cellar
tunnels crushingly tight where normally
a bright ice-cream shop sits next to a
school
at some point becoming lucid for me was
no longer about the excitement or the
rewriting of dream plants moments I
became lucid or opportunities to explore
these places which existed only in my
dreams could only be visited in that
half waking vision upon actually waking
I would fill my dream journal with
sketches and notes trying to understand
what these places which seemed so
important and real to me might mean I
assumed they were some aspect of my
psyche some flavor of my soul that would
helped me better understand myself when
I encountered thee other than us it was
not in these places but in a watchful
pair of eyes a man was standing quietly
outside my dream city hall there were
many people walking the sidewalks and
the plot of my dream was comfortingly
usual I was late to an appointment or
maybe I was on my way to go shopping
I was only slightly aware that I was in
my other city the shifted place I wasn’t
yet aware enough to really explore still
I was moving slowly and feeling curious
when I realized the man was looking at
me I stopped his posture seemed friendly
and normal gazing into his eyes however
I felt the hazy sluggishness of
everything burn off a knowledge became
clear I was dreaming I was lucid
dreaming and there was a thing in my
dream looking out of eyes which I’d
imagined my idea of a business man in a
suit the man and the suit were part of
my dream worlds they were familiar but
there was a presence behind his eyes
that was not of me
my world the wrongness I couldn’t
explain to myself any more than I could
adequately explain my dreams to another
person I turned to run and woke up
instantly it was still hours until dawn
I feared that if I went back to sleep
I’d see whatever it was again looking
through those eyes with an awareness I
too never before encountered in any of
my many dreams so I unlocked my phone
wasted a few hours online until I felt
exhausted until the dream felt distant
enough to be written off as a weird
nightmare I was able to sleep again
fitfully and without dreaming as much as
this unfamiliar presence had disturbed
me I couldn’t hold on to the fear in the
morning light how many times that I
stumbled across strange buildings or
distorted scenery that I’d never known
until I found them while lucid dreaming
often those places could be unsettling
and creepy and while they felt real and
solid when I walked among them
I’d always accepted they were crafted by
some remote part of myself they became
familiar with repeated visits and there
were still times I’d make new
discoveries my dreams had a way of
surprising me the way the world seemed
to build itself couldn’t there be parts
so distant from my consciousness that I
would perceive them as anomalies when it
returned to my dream world weeks later
the other nurse rose inside her body
with long spindle legs that bent at many
joints it rocked and lurched as it
slowly moved towards me as if it were
unsure of how to move those impossible
limbs
the figure was still a recognizable
human shell still wore a business suit I
would even claim the Warped body as
another creation of my own mind but
whatever sat invisibly inside the
distorted form repulsed me beyond
explanation I ran upstairs and down
industrial alleyways I ran faster than
the crawling thing with those awkward
legs could run I was only awake enough
to know that I could run even fly away
no matter how many city blocks I put
between myself and the sense of it no
matter how high I tried to float away
towards rooftops and safety I felt it
pressing on me I didn’t need to see into
its eyes anymore to know it was not
created by me or my subconscious its
presence had an alien friction that was
prowling my dreamscape I had a sense of
those legs growing longer and more
jointed as the presence pursued me
eventually I became too lucid to hold
the terrifying hunt in my mind I
startled awake at 4 a.m. it was enough
to stay awake to let an early shower
chase away the lingering crawling
sensations whatever my visitor was it
had dissipated it was beyond my
understanding and wandering in a place
that felt so distant from my waking life
that it was easier to let it go
and avoid dwelling on it in the nights
that followed I remembered a little of
my dreams those dreams which I could
recall I was barely lucid caught in
fuzzy and chaotic dramas that had no
logic or structure when I finally
stumbled onto the other ‘no Segen
it wasn’t moving at all I dreamt I was
near an industrial factory I’d never
seen before
an ordinary kind of nonsense dream
perhaps nothing that was tied to my
repeated lucid a dreamscape a path led
towards two doors side by side a great
line of people were following each other
single-file into the door on the left
everything about the factory in the
doors was rusted and dirty but it felt
strangely safe and Tom I wanted to
follow the crowd inside but before I
could enter the left doorway I felt a
scratch upon the Lucid part of my mind I
went to the door on the right instead it
was solid metal heavy and imposing
suddenly the calm was gone the factory
before me felt terrible and wrong still
I had to explore I had to understand why
I had to know where it led I wanted to
know what it could mean I opened the
door slowly waiting for a darkness to
jump out and take me instead I found
myself at the top of a long metal
staircase built of grated iron flush
against one wall and leading steeply
down the rooms details became clearer
enough that I knew I would soon wake up
at the bottom of the metal stairs was an
immense empty warehouse like a great
cabin plunging down in front of me into
my right to my left was only solid wall
all of the walls were covered in bolted
steel plates between a few tall darkened
glass windows
high above me a single bright light bulb
rocked slightly hanging from a long thin
wire extending out of the darkness of a
vaulted ceiling I walked a little way
down the stairs then leaned over the
railings to look at what was below the
warehouse was empty but for a simple
metal folding chair at the bottom
propped open on a cracked concrete floor
and sent directly below the light an
empty warehouse but for the chair and
the space above the chair so clearly
filled with an unseen are than us that I
screamed a loud shout that died quickly
into an oppressive silence the intrusion
into my mind was overwhelming crushing
paralyzing I felt frozen still high
above on the staircase as the light
began to flicker off and on over and
over or the room became sharper and more
real I waited for my mind to be jolted
out of the dream to be forced awake I
was certain I was dreaming I could feel
the corroded iron banister cut into my
palms I could feel the breath and pulse
of my dream body I could feel the weight
of gravity as I leaned over the edge
unable to move back
unable to move at all in the moments of
darkness I couldn’t see the chair when
the light flicked back on I braced
myself expecting it to be filled with
visible proof of the immense presence I
knew was there a presence watching me
and waiting but the chair remained empty
and distant below me hours passed as I
was tossed between the darkness the
harsh light whatever had been inside the
businessman and the creature it was now
free from any mask or shell waiting
invisibly upon the chair paralyzed and
still hoping for the dream to end I
could feel the presence welling up like
a spring it filled the warehouse went
past the bolted steel and glass down
pathways through carpeted halls past
every shuttered window down every street
and alley way distantly I still wondered
if whatever this was this living
presence which I had stumbled upon in my
curiosity could ever be called a part of
my mind if so it was from such deaths
but I couldn’t lay any claim of control
over the being now flooding my
dreamscape
when my morning alarm sent me reeling
back into my bedroom it was only habit
that led my hands to the pen on my
nightstand habits to open my dream
journal nothing had dissipated with the
morning light filtering through my
curtains and as the ink moved on the
page the words and drawings were not my
home what belongs to my mind and what
does not as fragmented beyond my
recognition here in my bedroom reality
is turning slowly yet sharply
there is an itching sense in the air of
a lens slowly turning into focus
something is waking up within the
Dreaming world
this episode is distributed by rusty
quill and licensed under a creative
commons
attribution-noncommercial-sharealike 4.0
international license it was written by
Elizabeth Richardson and directed by
Alexander Jane you or for more
information visit rusty Qualcomm
twitter’s at the rusty quill visit us on
Facebook or email us at male at a rusty
Qualcomm thanks for listening
[Music]