The night had past by quickly as Morus spent what felt like an hour hidden inside a crate. He could hear a commotion outside; a few hurried footsteps, men crying out in the distance, and frantic marching back and forth. But the last flickers of sunlight waned through the cracks in the wood, and he could tell the frenzy had died down with the sunset. He peeled back the crate’s lid as careful as a thief, and snuck out into the alleyway behind. Beneath his cloak was a prize that caused all the commotion; half a loaf of bread he’d stolen earlier kept warm against his body. A few winding pathways later, and he found himself back at the shack he called home for now.

It was no simple hunger that made his hands brave enough to snatch food though. He required a meal any time he slipped into the waking dreams. He needed the strength to concentrate enough to remain aware that he was real when all else wasn’t. Amidst a pile of blankets and pillows pilfered from various shops, he got himself as comfortable as he could. A single candle burned on a barrel near him, lighting the smoke trail of a stick of incense that stood next to it. In one hand, he lit up a pipe filled with herbs to cause a drowsiness, and in the other he took a few mouthfuls of bread to snack on before his mouth became too dry.

Between the chews and puffs of smoke, he found his eyelids growing heavier. Soon he felt his physical body seemingly melt into the pile on which he lay, and his limbs became too great a weight to bear. Each breath became ebbed and flowed like an eternity, and then, the sudden snap into falling.

The slip into dream was always sudden, like a quick fall into a hot bath, but tonight there was something different about it. Though his mind was freed from his body, his stomach still quaked and rumbled as though sick. His mind’s eye was dizzy and couldn’t focus the firmament of dream into anything more than a vague haze of purple and black rushing by him. His head ached, his limbs felt aflame, and the tugging at his stomach began to become more than he could handle. The boy knew something was wrong; it had never been so difficult to travel dreams before. He’d done it on countless nights in a thousand states of mind and never encountered so much trouble. He could feel his very being being ripped at by some unknown force, but the second he felt he could not take it anymore, he was out. And falling.

Falling towards a cloud shaped like tall ship sailing the skies. Morus tried to summon some force as to lessen his decent, but wound up finding out just how solid the vessel was. He hit its deck with a light thunk and a small wisp of clouds circled the mark. As he rose to his knees clutching his stomach, he noticed a curious creature staring back at him from across the ship.

“Be not afraid, friend fae,” the nausea had become nearly too much, and he could feel dry heaving beginning in the back of his throat. “I do — I am not as great a threat as I appear.”

He tried to collect himself, but his mind was awash with static and what he could swear was rolling thunder echoing in his ears. Something was not right in this dream either. Despite the sun in the sky and the cool breeze on his skin, something fiendish was waiting in the wings.