Opening her eyes, she found the house closer, but still not close enough. Now though, it was obvious they were at least gaining on it, with each step it looked closer than ever before. Still, it was at least a football field away, and already Cid was slowing down; the little cub didn't have the endurance yet to keep up.
"Cid!" Cierra called out, opening her arms for him. She would carry him the rest of the way, there wasn't any other choice. He looked back, understanding her intent immediately.
Instead of pausing for her to pick him up like she had expected, Cid jumped, claws outstretched.
He landed on her torso, Cierra scrambling to catch him and pull him up into her arms as his nails tore through her shirt, tearing open the bottom half and leaving blood trails forming where his claws tore at her.
"Could. You," Her breath was becoming more and more labored as she ran, "Not?!"
The skogkatt had the decency to slightly retract his claws.
With her last bit of strength, legs straining to meet her demands, calves aching, Cierra sped up. The house was so close now she could see that a window was open, its moth wing gray window curtain lying flat, completely oblivious to the terror right outside its frame. Cierra catapulted herself up the steps and onto the front porch. She barely had time to take a breath before Cid was leaping out of her arms, hissing at the yellow imps from the presumed safety of their new perch. They didn't even register him, instead chewing up the grass all the way up to the front of the house. Cierra's heart dropped. She could make out the dirt under nails long enough to carve out eyes and around their wrists were what looked like bracelets weaved together of blue and orange dyed straw.
They wore little else.
Cierra held her breath as they reached the very edge of the porch; the back of Cid's fur was up, back arched. Would they climb right up the wooden steps, and eat them too? Were these her last moments, on the stairs of some unknown house in a dream that may never have been a dream? She didn't feel ready yet, there were too many unanswered questions, too many things she still needed to do.
It was only when the sea of yellow imps parted, chewing at all the grass from around the borders of the house, that Cierra finally breathed.
"So, you will stay?" Cierra nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice coming from inside the house. She had somehow forgotten there was more to this place than just the porch.
"You know I will not interfere." It was an older woman's voice, the pitch deep and uneven. It vaguely reminded Cierra of listening to a piano play out of tune.
Cierra tried to hear who the old lady was talking to, making her body as still as possible, but heard no one.
"You can pass the door frame, you know." The voice called out to them; tone humorous.
Cid and Cierra eyed each other for a moment, both pausing to let the other enter first.
"Scaredy cat." Cierra narrowed her eyes at the overgrown fluffball and entered. It became obvious within the first few steps that no one had been in this house for years, maybe decades. Where the light shined through the doorway, all that could be seen where dust motes floating, trying to join the thick layer that already coated the floor. Cierra was shocked to see that her and Cid left behind no trace as they walked, as if the dust refused to be moved.
The whole house seemed to be made of wood, and Cierra tried to imagine it back in its original form, when the wood would have shined from being so well polished.
Already the voice had started talking again, coming from what seemed like the main room down the hallway from the front door, "You know, you didn't have to try so hard to get us here." She paused, seemingly waiting for them to cross into the living room, "The house just wants to see your determination before it lets you in."
The living room was much like the hallway, dust covered, like it hadn't been used in what Cierra was now thinking could easily be at least fifty years. The furniture was covered in once white sheets, the years having reduced them to the same gray as the window curtains. The drab, generally unclean appearance of the room made the woman Cierra had sworn was older, stand out even more.
The woman stood, body facing her visitors, but she did not open her eyes. Her outward appearance was not that of an older woman, but instead of someone around thirty-five. There were slight lines around the corners of her mouth and around her eyes; the only true betrayers that she was perhaps in her thirties. Her skin was like copper, and her long gold hair fell past her shoulders in thick wire locks.
Cierra was taken aback; there was no way this woman was human; no person could grow literal golden cords for hair. Each strand was so thick that Cierra was convinced that any individual hair could be plucked and used as a guitar string.
She was unsure if even the wind could move it around.
Looking closer, Cierra saw that the mysterious woman's eyelashes and eyebrows were the same.
"Who are you?" Cierra asked, unsure if she should of asked 'what' instead of 'who.'
"For many years I had no name," the disjointed musical voice answered, "though lately I've been called 'Goldie' by some." She nodded her head upward, to what may have once been a chandelier with crystals dangling off but was now covered in a white sheet like everything else.
Atop the sheet, barely poking its head over the edge, was a small brown bird, similar to those Cierra always saw living in small trees in the old park she liked to visit.
"Goldie…?" Cierra saw where the name came from, it was obvious, but she couldn't help but feel like it was a dog's name. Who would name a person Goldie? It reminded her of a child naming a golden retriever. That begged another question, why didn't she have a name of her own? And why had she looked at the bird, as if the bird had named her?
The more Cierra heard, the more questions she had. She shook her head, she was getting nowhere at this point.
"You're a bit late." Goldie said, a soft smile playing on her lips "Everyone else has already left." She looked back at the bird mischievously, "Well, almost everyone."
With that the bird tweeted at her angrily and flew down, pecking at her hair. Cid watched carefully, tail twitching. Finally, the bird settled on a couch arm.
"Everyone else?" Cierra found herself looking around for signs of other people, and, not finding any, she asked "Who is everyone?"
"I imagine you'll find out soon enough." The woman paused, "Does it hurt?" She nodded at Cierra, and for the first time since she escaped the imps, Cierra realized her shirt was torn and she was still bleeding.
"Oh!" She tried to cover herself, awkwardly crossing her arms. The only time she had shown this much midriff was when Dawn had convinced her crop tops were all the rage and she had tried one on at H&M. She had been too embarrassed to leave the dressing room stall, let alone bear skin in front of this odd woman and her bird.
"Do you remember how you fixed the trees and skogkatts in their dream realm?" Goldie asked, unmoving.
"How did you—" Cierra started.
"You'll find out soon enough." Goldie interrupted. "Now, focus on how you were when you first came here, to this abandoned dream."
Cierra tried to remember, to see herself from the outside as she had been when she first arrived. She pictured herself standing there; saw the shirt without the tears and blood, felt her legs before the running.
She gasped as her whole body relaxed, her legs losing the dull ache they had just recently gained. When she opened her eyes, her shirt was whole again, the blood and scratches gone.
"How is this possible?" Her voice hit a higher pitch, "What are you? What's happening to me? What is a 'dream realm'? What do you mean this place is abandoned?"
She stopped for half a beat and then went on, unable to stand it, "Is this all real? Is this normal? And what," she paused trying to find the words, "What am I?"
There was silence.
"They will find you soon enough," Goldie turned as if to stare down the bird with her closed eyes, "Won't they?"
The bird tweeted angrily, beating its wings. Cid took this as his chance, having inched ever closer to the couch during the conversation. He pounced, landing where the bird had been just a moment before.
The bird flew around the room, and giving one last stabbing tune, flew out the window.