Cathexis

It is said that nightmares are born on Cathexis nights, when thunderheads darken in the sky and anxious fog clings to one’s legs as an executee to their cell bars. It is said that the Drareal can be seen overhead, turning until the Dragg drips from the astral Veil and pours onto the wretched planet below, unleashing its darkness onto the men and women of Walnacht. It is said that a single drop of the Dragg poisons the soil with fear and taints the heart with mania.

Deep in the Valley of the Gestohlen, Matzi stumbles through a lilac haze. His tribe has been traveling for many months in search of the Dreaming Oracle, whom the chieftain seeks for her own purposes. Their own Tea-Seers had predicted tonight’s inauspicious weather, but Matzi’s foolhardiness carried him far from the caravan in search of game. Now, with two rabbits slung across his back and a vole tucked in his inner pocket for safekeeping, he realizes the gravity of his mistake. It is Cathexis night, and he is alone, far from fire or family.

Matzi snaps a bundle of branches off a Witching Tree as he grasps for handholds, almost dragging himself through the underbrush and battling through newly bloodied brambles. A long thorn scrapes under his right eye, tasting him, and the forest drinks from his terror as he falls over himself running. Soon, as the elder warned, the Dragg will be upon him, and he will be consumed. In a frenzy, the boy reaches for a slender, sable sapling.

The chill at his fingertip is the first omen of danger. It is as if the hope that he had chased through the woods, the warm light behind the bramble bush, has drained from his entire body and into this tree. Except it is not a tree Matzi is grasping, for there is a multifaceted luster to the trunk that betrays a scaly complexion. And, as he attempts to open his hand, Matzi notes with dread that he peels off of the sapling with difficulty, as if it were coated in honey.

With a trembling lip, Matzi stares at his boot-tips, hoping to appear invisible to the nightmare by avoiding eye-contact. It is then that he hears the low warble of a monstrous bird, and sees the many hands with uncountable scaled fingers crawling about his feet. There is a tentative pawing, as if searching in the dark for a lantern, as the hands locate his ankles and begin to work their way up. The creature feels his torso, arms, and cheeks, examining Matzi. He waits beneath the oppressive grasp of the nightmare, breathing in time with the monster’s horrific respiration.

Then, he feels a warmth in his palm. A child’s hand, no larger than a throwing stone, nestles snugly into his own. Matzi feels it tug at his heart line, beckoning him without words, leading him clumsily forwards. He does not look up, for fear of angering the creature, but the infant fist calms him. He steps forward without objection, towards the great avian leg which he grabbed in error, and sees the writhing tentacles at its base. He continues.

The nightmare walks, clutching Matzi with its collage of extremities. Matzi follows obediently, steadying his body with the breathing techniques his mother taught him for restful, undisturbed sleep. To chase away bad dreams, she said, but the monster before him remains as real as ever before. Matzi feels so much of the creature - in his hand, in his heartbeat, in the tightness of his jaw - that he does not notice the underbrush parting around them.

Eventually, finally, the nightmare releases Matzi, and when he dares to glance upward he is alone in a conservative clearing, knee high in fluorescent fog. The pounding in his eardrums has ceased, replaced with the commanding call of a solitary owl. Syreal shines down through the gnarled canopy, illuminating a small mound of loose soil at Matzi’s feet. Before he can stop himself, he is compelled to kneel and dig, clawing with his calloused fingers until he feels the dirt give way and finds purchase around a solid object.

Matzi unearths a doll - a stuffed rabbit - and examines it. The stitching is clumsy, and one ear has been worn through by time and detritivores. Its button eyes have fallen off years ago, and Matzi spends a minute sifting through the soil for them without success. He also recovers an Idstone, which he wordlessly stows next to the vole, and tucks the rabbit away in his inner breast pocket. For a moment, he feels it swell against his breast, as if imitating his heartbeat. He returns to camp silently, and does not speak of this Cathexis night for four long years.