A Peculiar String of Bizarre Dreams

Chapter 25: Enough Sleep

Specka drops me off to sleep on a flower. But it feels like a blink later, she's back in a rush.

"Jemma, hurry! I can't help you, you need to jump off the flower."

I look at her, half-confused half-asleep. What is she talking about?

"Why do I need to jump off the flower, Specka? Is something wrong?"

Specka flies in circles, making mad patterns.

"They're coming! There's no time to explain," she buzzes hysterically.

I don't understand what she's on about, but I decide it must be important. I glance down to check the height of the flower from the ground and realize that if I jump off I will, without a doubt, break all my bones.

"I can't jump, Specka, I'll hurt myself!"

Specka stops hovering above me and flies uncomfortably close to my face.

"Do you think I care? Jump. Off. This. Flower. You insipid girl!" Her voice sounds different — deep and not screechy, even a bit cruel.

"You're...not Specka...who are you?" I ask timidly. What is going on here?

"It doesn't matter!" The look-alike dismisses harshly.

With that, an entire swarm of Specka look-alikes rises from beneath the flower and furiously flutters above me. Their legs stick outwards facing me, ready to attack. I feel frantic and desperately search my head, trying to think if I have done anything to anger Specka or her friends. I've only taken Specka's help to see the Queen Bee and slept on flowers. Nothing else. How has my presence bothered these creatures?

"Your human scent is messing with our nectar tracking. We're hungry and your messing with our tracking," another crazy possessed butterfly roars at me. Could they hear my thoughts?

I glance down at the ground again, trying to gauge the distance, I'm too high up! Shall I try climbing down the leaves instead? Will that soften my fall?

"So if I jump, you can track your nectar again?" I ask the mad insects, stupidly trying to seek reassurance.

"Yes!" They screech and hiss in unison.

I'm about to leap, when I realize I could just leave this realm. I have the stone — what's stopping me? But right then, I hear Specka's voice in the distance. She sounds far away and quiet. Why is she whispering?

"Jemma! Jemma! Wake up, what are you doing?"

I force my eyes open. Was that a dream? I quickly look around and instantly scramble backwards when I find myself a step away from falling off the flower. Specka's dark eyes gaze intently at me, lined with caution and concern. What was I doing?

"I don't know. I thought your friends...they wanted me to leave, and I didn't know what to do so...I was going to jump. But then..."

Specka sharply interrupts my prattle with, "We have to leave. What you saw wasn't real — a darkfly might've stung you."

She flies in one complete circle around me, checking for only-she-knows-what, and lands on a petal, her back facing towards me.

I climb onto it, still confused, when I could just...

Out of nowhere, a swarm of Specka look-alikes emerge from beneath the flower, surrounding us. The dream I just dreamt must have been a premonition!

Specka carries me through them and we try to not get stung by their aiming pincers. We veer left and right, and the black winged, eye-patterned butterflies make menacing clicking sounds with their pincers.

"You can't escape us. Your presence here is not good for our nectar tracking."

They keep repeating that to themselves, as if I didn't understand them the first time. Aren't there other gardens with flowery nectar? Is my scent so overpowering that they aren't able to track nectar in other places, far away from the flower I was sleeping in?

Specka goes past our garden and steers way below her normal altitude till we reach a lake. She drops me safely on the ground under a leaf.

The lake, from the footsteps of the tree, seems enormous and I'm afraid I will drown any second, if the lake waters catch me. I'll be as inconsequential as an ant in the ocean.

"What was that?" I turn with crazy eyes to look at Specka, who sorrowfully peers back at me.

"The darkflies. You should head back to where you came from. It's no longer safe for you here."

The darkflies that poison you and make you imagine that which is not real. I recall Specka's words about them, about how she wanted to approach the flies so she could relive the memory of being with Bono.

Specka turns to fly back and has only gone some distance when she halts mid-air and starts flailing between two tree branches that are closely entangled.

"What's wrong, Specka?" I yell, so she can hear me from the distance.

"It's a spider web, I'm stuck," she calls back, "Go, Jemma, go away from here! They can track your scent, they're coming for you."

I hear her shout as she continues to flail mid-air. I gaze in the distance and see the swarm of darkflies heading straight towards us, their pincers ready for demolition.

"I can't leave you stranded like that," I scream in horror. My eyes begin to water and my throat goes dry.

"I've lived a full life, don't worry about me! There's no time!" She urges again.

The swarm is only inches away, most of them heading straight for me.

I quickly mouth the words 'Thank you' at Specka as her gaze stays fixed on me.Then, I turn my back away from my butterfly friend and the vicious swarm, close my eyes and will myself to cross into the next realm.

In the limbo of my time-crossing, I let the events of the butterfly-realm sink. Will Specka survive that attack? Guilt washes over me as I speculate over the possibility of cutting short the butterfly's already short life. What else would these quests cause me to do? I should have left the realm the moment I got the stone. But no, I can never get enough sleep, can I?