If my throbbing head remembered rightly, I had my own bed somewhere. I wanted my own bed.
Querying the sleepy computer in my head, I was told off by an egg yolk pastry.
*"Go back to sleep, Uki-chan. You aren't making sense yet. You need the sleep to recover."*
Sweet bean paste and cracked earth. What did it take for know-it-all computers to reply to my search request without getting grumpy. Hadn't I helped with a clockwork mannequin model before?
*"That had nothing to do with this, Uki-chan. I am not a computer and I need my sleep too."*
Why did I have a computer search engine in my head anyway? One that went by the name of… I squinted mentally at the name. Shigure (pervert). No. Kimi Shigure (pervert). What a strange name.
The search engine had gone offline, so I could only query my own memory banks.
Eventually, I found a map there.
Following the map, I came up against a row of barriers and concerned navy blue uniformed buff men.
"Sorry, Kim. We have orders not to let you out of the building."
"Huh?" I blinked at the men. "I wasn't trying to go out."
"Are you… lost?" one of them asked me.
"Lost?" I looked up at the ceiling and wondered why this one had ridges, while the others upstairs had tiles.
"Where were you trying to go, Kim?"
"Go… to sleep. Bed. My bed."
My thoughts were slow and sluggish.
"Right," one of the men turned me around and pointed me back at the elevator. "Go back upstairs, Kim. Your bed isn't down here."
"Oh," I nodded and obediently re-entered the lift. There were buttons on the wall and I pressed all of them. Including the bright red one labeled 'Emergency'. An alarm went off, making me prance around with nervousness, trying to find a way to turn the alarm off.
A disembodied voice spoke into the little room I was in, but I was too panicked to understand what it was saying. Eventually, the room finished rising and the door opened with a 'ding'. I was met with the solemn faces of one navy uniformed man, a grumpy man in overalls and a tousled citrus coffee man. His five o'clock shadow was pointing closer to ten.
The pattering feet of an owl eyed pastry man stopped in front of me.
"Come with me," he said with a note of command in his voice. Feeling compelled to obey, I followed him.
By my side walked the citrus coffee man and behind me walked the navy blue moving statue. My headache decided to worsen as we walked to the point I could barely see anymore. Everything had gone all shades of dim interspersed with bursts of refracted light blooms. My feet staggered unsteadily on the cold floor until citrus and coffee arms enveloped me.
Having my feet swept from me was disconcerting, but not being able to hear or understand the muffled voices talking over my head was too. To avoid the nausea and stabbing head and eye pains, along with the beginning tightness in my chest, I reached out in my mind to make sure the doors and windows were all locked except for the one for the lantern maker. He might be able to come along sometime soon to shine a light on my predicament.
There was a bed and I was tucked in all nice and snug. Bug in a rug.
A few drifting days later, I was taken outside. People surrounded me, preventing me from seeing the scenery. The forest of long uniformed legs wasn't bad though. There were thick tree trunks and skinny tree trunks. The bark was navy blue.
They moved in consternation. Like in the outbreak of a storm. Shouting and bustling and jostling. Whooshing and swaying with the wind. Thunder boomed like popcorn.
A bang of smoke and I was knocked to the ground by a heavy person.
The next thing I knew was that I was a boat in a storm, lost at sea. Wind and wave and lightning strikes. It hurt and I cried, fighting against the heavy weight until it was like a light turned on. Now I was riding the storm with a newfound balance and confidence, giving as good as I was getting. Like shooting rockets, I flew to the stars, wanting to see beyond the stratosphere.
It was a battle. A fight for dominance and I was losing to the stranger wrestling me. It was a pity my muscles didn't have the same strength or endurance. In the end, it was like how farmers might sow seeds. Repetitive and exhilarating at the thought of what plants might grow. Not that I was going to grow anything . That wasn't allowed. I blocked the door to the baby room just in case and locked it. That was an out of bounds place. I didn't know why but I did know it was a restricted area. I just didn't understand why this farmer kept planting seeds in the same spot and why it made me feel like melting. I was pretty sure I wasn't an ice cream.
In the quiet hours, I heard birds sing. It reminded me of a tranquil forest until I heard the screech of a hunting frill necked raptor. The type of hunting bird of prey indigenous to the Tangled Mountains. The one that partnered with the intelligent false eyed monitor lizard to hunt. If those two creatures were out on a hunt, then an opportunistic minotaur wouldn't be far behind, waiting to lunge out and steal the prey. Depending on the type of prey, the centaurs might be alerted and then their herd would chase all other competitors away.
Although these dangerous creatures seldom left the Tangled Ranges, they did at times for unknown reasons, venture out into the lands of men. Then farms would be flattened, people eaten, women ravaged. Children would disappear, along with any livestock or food. City Agents were always on the alert for a sudden stampede from the mountains in case the frightening and difficult to kill monsters and creatures decided to try and expand their territory.
City Agents. I was a City Agent. If I was hearing creatures from the feared Tangled Mountains, then I should get up and do something. Sound an alarm.
But why was it so hard to move? My entire body ached. Had I run a marathon in my sleep?
Slowly and with great effort, I managed to open my eyes, but they wouldn't stay open. I only caught glimpses of a wooden bedroom. I tried fingers and toes and managed to twitch.
There was a grunt from behind me and strong arms hugged me tight. Sleepy fingers twitched in their firm grip on my breasts, sending a strange flood of shivering need through me. A wooden pole scraped at me. What was this?
I was rolled over onto my tummy and my hips were lifted. My legs spread apart. There was another grunt and then I was shot through with a crazy, uncontrollable sensation that made me cry out in euphoria. This was it. This was what I had been longing for without realising it was what I had been needing.
"That's the way," a voice murmured in my ear. "You're addicted to me now. Come and beg me for it."
Unable to control myself, I begged as requested in between sobs, while I was teased and played with. I really had become a plaything in a man's hand, said a distant thought, hidden deep in my mind. I grasped at that familiar rationality, but it was swept away by another wave of pleasure. Maybe I would get lost in here forever.
I smelled horse and lots of banging and smashing sounds. My bleary eyes blinked open at the stranger staring down at me from above.
Horsey legs on a horsey body with a man's torso. The centaur smirked down at me, while manipulating my body which had been chained to the bed. Why was I chained down?
Cold air drifted in from the broken doorway and windows. I saw other curious heads on horse bodies watching as I was being examined.
Sharp words in a language I had not heard before. My wrists and ankles were suddenly released.
"Female. Healthy. Good for bearing children. Good. Will bring home for the herd."
My brain was slow to comprehend. Too slow. I couldn't catch the meaning. Meanings eluded elucidation. I was thrown over a slippery, horsey back and the herd of centaurs took me away from the broken house into the deeper forest. Deep into the deeper forest where the light was dim and trees were tangled together.
There was the sound of clashing metal and fighting. I found myself hidden inside a thicket. Swimming to get out of the bush, I tumbled to the ground to see minotaurs and centaurs at war with each other. The battle around me froze at my appearance, followed by a renewed frenzy.
I stared with horrified fascination, feeling that there was something wrong with this situation. Wrong with my head. Wrong with my body. Who was I? Where was I?
Panic struck me like lightning through the heart and guts.
The foghorn bellow of a new approaching creature made all the fighting creatures freeze and scatter when the ground came to rumble and shake with the slow approach of heavy footsteps. Trees crashed and swayed with each footstep of this huge new creature. I watched a tree beside me seem to shake free of the dirt, baring its roots to the air with each earth quaking footstep.
Unable to keep my balance on the moving ground, I could only watch as the tree began to creak and lean toward me. Although I scrambled with as much haste as I could manage in the brief moments in between those footsteps to get away from the tree, I knew I wasn't going to be able to escape the huge tree in time.
A shadow loomed. A huge snort of warm air sent my hair flying and the falling tree was caught by a ginormous snout. I saw thick wrinkly skin ripple and the tree went flying, tossed far away. I felt the pulling of air above me as the huge snout sniffed. It was cold.
The snout turned away and blocked out the sun as it did so. There was a moment of silence, another snort and then the slow earthshaking footsteps turned in another direction. I never saw the entirety of the creature. The falling trees and trying to keep myself from falling down a steep slope was more my priority. The creature and its footsteps faded into the distance.
I sat there on the ground in a bright new patch of warm sunlight to catch my breath. This was the weirdest and most realistic dream I had ever had. What sort of creature had that gentle giant been?
Lost in thought, I only noticed the arrival of the big neck frilled raptor when its wings cast a shadow over me and I felt the sharp claws dig into me. I was snatched up into the air, helpless to do anything but watch my blood drip down those piercing talons. The forest and mountains shrank beneath me. In the distance, the city gleamed like a jewelled pin. So far away.
The pain and the blood loss made my eyelids heavy. Then I was dumped onto a rough twiggy surface and surrounded by a huddle of curious man sized grey furry chicks that nudged me with cold beaks. I was nipped and scratched.
I had no clothes and it was freezing. Diving in amongst the curious but clumsy chicks, I hid from their beaks and claws as best as I could. It couldn't be helped that I was still bleeding and dizzy. If I didn't move and wasn't careful, I'd be tonight's dinner.
The chicks eventually grew tired of scrambling over each other and looking for me. They settled down to fall asleep in the warm sun. I wanted to sleep too. I wondered if I would ever wake up again if I fell asleep as well.
Crawling out of the surprisingly well made nest, I crept past dry bones and fresher bones toward what looked like a cave. There seemed to be steps in the cave and I hobbled down those dark stone steps. I missed one and fell the rest of the way into the hungry darkness.
Hands pushed my hair out of my face and carefully examined my wounds. A man. A tongue clicked at me when I whimpered in pain. I felt myself being picked up and carried.
Warm and comfortable. It was warm and comfortable. It felt like I hadn't been warm and comfortable like this for a long time without the looming sense of danger hovering at the edges of my confused mind. It seemed that my mind was starting to come back now, but still not enough for me to completely understand what sort of situation I was in.