The Sleeping Beauty - Book 1 - Chapter 65
Another egghead scientist strapped a probe to my head, just like they had done in the pixie castle. The only difference was that this egghead scientist was a human and not a pixie.
Fairy tales are real.
Rose Briar is a diabetic college student without insurance. She’s been scraping by through a combination of maxing out credit cards and relying upon the kindness of strangers.
Unfortunately, she’s spent every dollar at her disposal. There’s no money left to buy her life-saving insulin.
Without her medication, Rose falls into a diabetic coma. She tumbles into a deep slumber and wakes up in a fantastical place called the Dream Realm, where fairy tales and legends of old are still very much alive.
She has one chance to wake up.
She must trek across the world, visit the most powerful object in the land, the Obsidian Spindle, and entreat with the fates; the only beings powerful enough to send her soul back to Earth.
But evil forces don’t want her to leave. They will stop at nothing to capture her and make sure she never goes home again.
Now, with the help of her half-gorgon girlfriend and a mysterious red rider, Rose must race across the land fighting dragons, monsters, and the forces of the Wicked Witch, Nimue, in order to reach the Obsidian Spindle before her body dies on Earth and she’s trapped in the Dream Realm forever.
Will she be able to wake up? Can she survive? Find out by reading The Sleeping Beauty today. If you love mythology, fairy tales, and dark fantasy, then you’ll love the first book in The Obsidian Spindle Saga.
Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.
Another egghead scientist strapped a probe to my head, just like they had done in the pixie castle. The only difference was that this egghead scientist was a human and not a pixie. His face was pale, and his fingers were so long that they wrapped completely around my arm when he pulled my straps tight.
It had become an all too disturbing trend in my life to be the subject of somebody’s experiment. Perhaps that was what Chelle meant when she said that it sucked being the chosen one.
“This isn’t going to hurt one bit,” the scientist said. He had dandruff flakes in his bushy mustache and thick glasses hidden behind safety goggles.
“You’re lying,” I replied. There was a time when I would have believed that lie, but those days were gone. “I don’t like liars.”
“Correct. I’m sorry. I forgot that you’ve been through this before. Nobody has ever escaped the machine except for you.”
“Just don’t lie to me. If you’re going to kill me, get on with it.”
“Sorry. I’ve always found that lying eases the minds of the subjects in their last moments. Do you mind if I ask how you survived your last encounter with the machine?”
“I grew about fifty feet in the air. Or at least my girlfriend did. To save me.”
“Ah,” the scientist said, as if that were a completely normal answer. “Well, that would do it. Then yes, this will hurt quite a bit.”
“Why are you helping the Wicked Witch?”
“She promised I could go home if I did. She promised we could all go home.”
“Did she tell you what you’d lose in the process? That all of Urgu will go up in smoke? That dreams would disappear? That all of humanity would go crazy because they could never dream again? Did she tell you all of that?”
“Yes, she did. And I agreed to help her. There are always problems to be had when making breakthroughs, but the positives outweigh the negatives. Can you imagine it? People from Urgu returning to Earth after hundreds of years away…what will happen to us? Can we survive without bodies? It’s all so fascinating. We’ll never know. Or should I say, I hope we’ll know soon?”
“I don’t like you.”
The scientist smiled. “You don’t have to. I don’t like you, either. I nothing you. That is the prerogative of a good scientist. I take no pleasure or pain in what will happen. You are simply the means to an end. Now, open your mouth.”
I didn’t fight him. There was no point. I was already doomed. I opened my mouth and let him position the leather bit.
“Good. It will help to bite down on that, unless you want to lose your tongue.”
Lose my tongue? I was about to lose my life. What did I care about my tongue? Still, I bit hard on the chomp, taking out all my frustrations on it. The scientist walked over to his computer terminal and grabbed the switch.
“Any last words?” He looked at me. “Oh, of course not, you have a gag in your mouth. Goodbye, then. Keep your fingers crossed this works.”
I was not going to do that. I wasn’t going to make it easier. I wanted my death to be a struggle, to mean something. I loved life, and I wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.
When he pulled the switch, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The electricity flowed through my body, and a weird calm came over me.
I opened my eyes and found I was no longer confined to the bed. Instead, I floated above it. I saw myself being electrocuted on the bed—in excruciating pain, but I wasn’t there to experience it. I was having an out of body experience, without the body. An out of soul experience.
I looked up to the ceiling and that’s when I shot into the sky like a rocket ship. I broke through the ceiling, and through the next floor, and the next, until I was up above the castle and floating into the sky. Down below, hundreds of people fought in the streets, trying to force their way into the castle.
But I didn’t stop there. I continued to rise at a hundred feet a second or more. When I finally stopped, I was high in the atmosphere above Urgu. I could see the whole continent wrap around a huge sea of water. It almost had the shape of Australia or a kidney bean, but the concave part was on the top instead of the bottom.
Though, I guess there is no top or bottom in the world, is there?
“No, there isn’t,” I heard behind me.
“Who said that? I am so sick of people doing that to me!” I turned around. This time, instead of two purple eyes, I saw a tall, statuesque man. His eyes were dark, and his black cloak fell in tatters around his shoulders, barely covering his arms and legs. His skin was darker than Chelle’s and yet it glowed brightly as he moved toward me, shimmering in the darkness of the sky.
“I wish we had more time.”
“Are you him? Are you Hypnos?”
He nodded. “I am he who bestows a blessing on one to lead my people, and that blessing falls to you, if you accept it.”
“What are my choices? Accept your blessing or die?”
He nodded again. “Precisely. I wish there was a better choice…for both of us.”
“Aren’t you a god? Can’t you make one?”
Hypnos shook his head sadly. “Even I have my limits. If I could make one, I would.”
“I don’t want this.”
Hypnos stared blankly off into the distance for a long moment. “Most don’t. Unfortunately, ‘want’ has very little to do with it.”
I looked down at Urgu, hundreds of miles underneath me. “Seems like it should.”
“Maybe, but unfortunately, your desire is beside the point. You are left with a difficult choice. Accept my blessing and live or deny it and vanish into nothingness.”
I gulped. “Will it hurt?”
“Not much, and then nothing will ever hurt again. Nothing will ever anything again.”
I sighed. “And I’ll never see Chelle again, right?”
“You might, still, but it’s uncertain. If you accept, then you certainly will.”
I nodded firmly. “Then I accept, but before I do, tell me. What happened to you?”
He smiled. “In time you will find me. You will both find me.”
“Both?”
Hypnos touched my forehead. A warm current flowed through me, and suddenly I snapped back into the room where I was strapped down and being electrocuted. The entire room was awash in sparks and electricity. But the electricity wasn’t coming from the computer terminal. It was coming from me.
My hands shook so fast I could barely recognize them. I pulled them toward me, and the straps holding me down snapped like thin twigs. I kicked my legs and they broke free as well. In one motion, I hopped off the chair and placed my hand on the computer terminal. Sparks flew from it in every direction before it caught on fire. The scientist stared on in horror.
“Please,” he whispered.
“Sleep.”
The scientist fell to the ground without another movement. I walked to the door. It was a huge, metal thing, but when I placed my hand on it, it flew off its hinges. The guards in the hall drew their swords, so I placed my hands in the air and electrocuted them until they fell as ash on the ground.
I didn’t know how I was controlling my power. I was barely thinking anything and yet I was able to wield great magic. I didn’t know where I was going, and it didn’t matter. Somehow my body moved me along toward an unknown target.
“Rose!” Red shouted. She stumbled down the hall. “What happened?”
I knew I wasn’t going to hurt her like I had the others. I liked her. “Where is Chelle?”
“With the Wicked Witch.” Red shook her head. “She’s not doing good.”
“Show me.”
I floated behind Red through the corridors until we reached the throne room. Chelle was pinned under a tapestry on the far wall, struggling unsuccessfully to break free from the Wicked Witch’s grasp.
“Leave her be!” I shouted. A bolt of lightning shot from my hand and electrocuted the witch. She shook violently and her body spasmed. I flung my hand sideways and the witch crashed through the wall and out onto the street.
The electricity inside me died down and I came to control my body and my senses again. I fell back to the ground. Red rushed over to me.
“Are you okay?”
I looked up at her. “I don’t know,” I gasped. “Help me to my feet.”
She did, and I hobbled over to Chelle, who was lying dazed on the ground, her eyes unfocused. “Chelle?” I shook her lightly. “Chelle, get up.”
Her eyes fluttered when she heard me, and she looked directly at me. “What? What happened? Rose, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me, and somehow I have powers now. I met Hypnos and I think he gave me his powers.”
“So, it is true,” I heard someone say.
I turned to Red. “What is true?”
She frowned. “I didn’t say anything.”
“He really is alive, isn’t he?” I heard the voice again. It was familiar. “I thought my spell would have killed him. I wonder what happened to him, then.”
Two purple eyes materialized in the darkness, and from that a cloud of black smoke billowed around them. Then shadows cascaded down to fill out her body, cloak, and head.
“Go away,” I said, the power surging through my body again.
“Honey, you do not want to take on a god.”
My eyes flashed with anger and electricity. The spark of Hypnos flowed through me. “No. You do not want to take on me.”
“Scoff.”
“Did you just say scoff?” I asked.
“I did, because it would have been too much effort to actually scoff. This game has grown stale. I don’t suppose I can use you now anyway, so I will let you have your victory. But rest assured, I will find a way out of this hellhole if it’s the last thing I do.”
I clenched my fists and stood firm, even though I was scared stiff, or perhaps maybe because I was scared stiff. “If you touch us again, it will be the last thing you do.”
Hera smiled. “I really do like you very much.” She disappeared into a cloud of smoke which flew out the window and into the sky, vanishing from view.
“I don’t understand any of what just happened,” Chelle said, standing up shakily.
“Me either.”
“I do,” Red said. “With Ozma dead, Hypnos needed a new champion, a rightful heir, and he chose you.”
“Me?” I said, meekly, barely able to believe. “But I’m just a nobody.”
Red placed her hand on my shoulder. “So was Ozma. So were they all. Hypnos believed that only a nobody could lead without malice.”
I nodded fervently. “Cool. Very cool.” I cocked my head to one side. “That’s cool, right? I think it’s cool.”
Red pulled her hand from my shoulder. “I think it’s cool.”
“I guess you got your wish, then,” Chelle said after a long sigh, sadness dripping from her voice. “You’re a somebody now.”
I wrapped my arms around Chelle. “I’ve always been a somebody, because I’ve been a somebody to you.”
“That is the corniest thing you’ve ever said,” she said, and then she kissed me, long and deeply. I had only been kissed like it a couple times before, and always when Chelle was going on a trip. It was as if she was saying goodbye. I understood then, that she would not stay with me if I remained in the Dream Realm, and it broke my heart.
Fairy tales are real.
Find out by reading The Sleeping Beauty today. If you love mythology, fairy tales, and dark fantasy, then you’ll love the first book in The Obsidian Spindle Saga.
Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.