Silversong (The Fable Series, Book 3)

Chapter 8

I open my eyes into darkness.

Far below, the twisted metal wreck of the bus falls forever, down down down into the void. The echoes of screams float up towards me, ringing in my ears like the final notes of ghost music long after the orchestra has finished playing.

I've been here many times before. Night after night, never-ending.

I'm here, but I'm not here. I'm nowhere.

Which means... I must be asleep. This is a dream.

Or maybe this lost oceanic cavern of shadows is all there is in the whole wide world, all there ever was, and everything outside of this time and place is the dream.

Which world is the real one?

I can't remember.

Out of the corner of my eye I see tiny white lights blinking into existence all around me, each emanating a corona of silvery brilliance that pushes back the darkness. They dance frantically through the dark, and I wonder if they are minuscule jellyfish, or bioluminescent plankton. They also look like stars, and I wonder if maybe I'm looking up at the night sky.

But they are everywhere I look, in every direction - above and below, and I don't know which way is up and which way is down, I can't tell if I'm floating high up in the starry sky or deep beneath the ocean.

One of the shimmering lights hovers right in front of me, close enough for me to reach out and touch it - so I do.

As my fingers close around the little light, it wavers, glowing blindingly bright for just a moment before sputtering out into empty nothingness. In its place is a small blankness - the most profound, absolute, final unbeing, like the flame of a candle after it's extinguished. Gone forever.

The lights all around me burn brighter for an instant and then become unstuck, dropping out of the darkness like a waterfall of falling stars. I follow their movement, looking down (or maybe up - I still don't know) and see that they are pooling into a mass. Like a mirror radiant with moonlight, or a softly shining white orb - the moon itself. Ripples of light peel off it, concentric circles of pearly glow. It blooms like an incandescent rose unfurling its petals, a spectral explosion in slow motion. I close my eyes, ready for whatever comes next, and the light envelopes me.

A whooshing sound echoes all around me, like when you're a kid and you hold a shell against your ear to hear the roar of the ocean. It grows louder and louder.

Waves crashing on distant shores; the push and pull of the tides.

I open my eyes into brilliant, blinding light. I wonder when I fell asleep, and where I am, and why it's so damn bright in here.

I lift my hand up to shield my eyes, groaning.

Blinking in the sunshine, my eyes finally adjust.

I seem to be lying down naked in an unfamiliar bed. Bare skin slides over smooth silk sheets as I shift and prop myself up on one elbow, trying to get a better look at my surroundings.

My eyes wander over a snow-white duvet embroidered with an elegant motif of tiny curling waves, each rippling with layers of delicate lace beaded with ivory seed pearls. I try to see where it ends, but the duvet goes on, and on, and on, impossibly far - as far as the eye can see, many miles into the far distance, in every direction. Sun shines through invisible windows into this vast, endless room, blanketed in an ocean of frothy seafoam clouds under a forever silver ceiling sky.

The room is the world, and the world is the room.

Great. Just what I need to complicate my already way-too-complicated life. The whole world has become an infinite bed, and I'm not even wearing pyjamas.