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Chapter 12 - Pangolin

Chapter 12 – Pangolin

Weaver

I found myself in the midst of a dense forest. I knew I was in a dream even before I opened my eyes because instead of the expected noise from crows and crickets, I heard creaking, wailing and the loud ticking of an unseen clock.

I looked up and instead of seeing tall trees forming a canopy, I saw hundreds of limbless hands with fingers intertwined hanging roughly thirty feet above my head. Instead of the common shrubs and bushes shaping the undergrowth, I was surrounded by viscous web-like sap that clung to my legs. The ground was covered not by weeds or wildflowers, but by porous rocks that squished and oozed pus under my feet.

Yet the stench exuded by this chilling variation of the woods was oddly sweet. And the saccharine scent grew stronger the deeper I ventured into the forest.

Back in the comfort of my realm, I was surefooted. I didn't trip on the live vines that coiled around my legs. I easily slid past the hissing thickets that had rooted venomous mambas jutting out of the vegetation. I was not bothered by the flock of headless vultures that passed me when I came across an open patch of sky.

This was my home. And I had missed it.

I walked toward a familiar maple tree that appeared in most of my private nightmares. It had the most interesting foliage. Instead of leaves, the tree had jagged shards of mirror.

I walked toward the tree—my tree—expecting to see my winged form, but I cringed at what greeted me.

My father had allowed me entry to the dream world in my most horrific figure.

First off, I had a tail. I had a long, scaly, prehensile tail similar to a pangolin's. My forelegs were longer than my hind legs, but all four could be bent at three angles and were covered in scales and feathers. Each limb ended with a cloven hoof that had prominent claws. My massive girth was armored again like a giant pangolin's although my sides and underbelly were encased in a rough grey pelt. I had extended sharp bristles on my shoulders which connected a skeletal rhinoceros' head to the rest of my mammoth body. My father didn't even flesh out my skull. It was a bony cranium with glowing coals for eyes and pointy fish bones for teeth.

And as if I didn't look grotesque enough, I started frothing green matter at the mouth. It was ridiculous to see froth coming out of a skeletal head.

My father made sure that I would not want to be seen, would not want to interfere and would only want to watch.

But I was happy with the perk. For the first time, I didn't see entering a mortal's dream as a chore. I wanted to enter Selene's dreams and learn.

And I realized that everything I'd seen so far, except for the mirror tree, was her creation. This was her woven nightmare.

I couldn't recall ever creating anything comparable to my current surroundings.

Selene's conceptions were incredible. They were more exquisitely terrible than some of my own fabrications. Aside from the horrors that welcomed me, I encountered a herd of cottony eyes that bleated and pairs of ears fluttering like butterflies.

There was a skeleton stooping by a tree, picking a worm, eating the worm and letting the wriggling invertebrate fall through its bones unscathed. The skeleton would again crouch to pick up the worm to resume an endless loop.

Selene had a wicked sense of humor.

I heard a low guttural drone and it took me a second to comprehend that the sound came from me. It was my beastly form laughing.