Story: 'Wordspace' Phase II, Part III

( Part II , IV )

Dream had been gone a long time. On the other hand, she had never really been gone at all, and had merely been asleep on a different plane of existence. The Wordspace had rolled on without her, and while she slept, the others dreamed. No sleep lasts forever, however, and so Dream awoke on a tuft of punctuation near the Well of Vocabulary, and stretched on the symbology luxuriously. It took a while before she woke up enough to realise how quiet everything was. She popped open an eye, and looked around. The Well was quiet, as it always was, and School was nowhere near. That was strange. School never ventured far from the Well.

Dream got up, stiffly flexing her syllables in the process, and wandered over to the origin point for new words. It was a hole, with a small surrounding bank of bricked up letters, and the usual wet content of Hs and Os. She still found it hard to believe that she had crawled out of there, just like any other juvenile word, gaping at the magnificent world all around her. It was a black pool...

"Good grief! Dream!" Boomed a voice, and before she knew it she had been swept up in a massive hug. It was a very familiar experience.

"Justice!" She managed to squeeze out the greeting. ``What's wrong?''

"We thought you had gone forever!"

"It was just a little sleep."

"You've been gone for a hundred and fifty cycles, Dream!" Another hug, but this time less punishing.

"A hundred and fifty cycles?"

"And we're in a state of crisis. You had best come with me." Justice pulled Dream along behind him, and around a small hillock. There, in a shocking turn of events to Dream, was a little trapdoor set into the bedrock of the Wordspace. She stared at in shock. Justice looked at her, faking his own turn at surprise. "Yes, some things have changed, and not openly. Will you come with me?"

Dream could only say yes, caught up as she was in the dream-like aspects of what was going on.

Her old friend opened the door. "Come on then! Who knows when that invader might arrive here?!" Justice scooted down the tunnel. To somewhere entirely new to the knowledge of the Wordspace. The foundation was supposed to be inviolable. Still confused, she entered the tunnel herself. Mystery would be proud of her, she thought, wherever he might be.

More? Of course more!