The Real Dream: Chap. 1

               His eyes opened with no delaying flutter. His eyes faced the ground, lush green grass filling his vision. Shakily, he pushed up against the ground to sit against his legs, and slowly, he took in where he was, or at least what he could make of it. There were trees, some small, and some tall. The wind didn’t blow, but he could feel other presences around him. The sky was bright blue with big puffy clouds. The sun was not at dawn but it wasn’t at noon. The morning was cool and tranquil, but no sound came to him.
               “Where am I?” He muttered, looking side to side, forward and back. He suddenly realized that he was in more than just a foreign place. “W-who am I?” He asked himself, bringing his hands to his face. A thin layer of prickly stubble covered his chin and cheeks. He ran his fingers through his hair and plucked a hair from his head. The dark brown strand told him his hair color and gave him a better vision of himself. In his mind, he could see himself, and then he saw his name. Steve.
               He tugged at the clothing he wore. A large, teal shirt hung at his shoulders with loose, short sleeves, and was tucked in at random places at the edge of his pants. His pants, denim blue jean pants, were tattered with a hole torn in the left knee. Though his clothes were disoriented and tattered, they weren’t dirty. Even the black shoes he wore with the grey soles had not a smudge of dust, dirt, or mud on them. All he could think was that he either appeared in his turf of grass or he was placed there. Then, that just brought up more questions. Who or what put him there? Why was he here? Where was he?
               He rose to his feet and started walking. Though he did not understand who he was, where he was, or what to do, he wasn’t afraid. The world wasn’t foreign as to what he saw. Trees, dirt, grass. He found roses and yellow daffodils. Was it just amnesia? He felt as though he should have lived there before, if he knew everything there. Climbing a hill to a plain, he saw buildings. Small buildings with windows and stairs in the center of the plain stood against the open sky. It was not far, but in the long grass, something stirred. Steve saw it, but the moment he saw something move in the village, he dashed for the village.
               The grass slowed him as he ran closer. A hiss suddenly stopped him in his tracks. His mind raced out of an unknown habit. All it told him was to run for his life. Instead, he turned to find the source of the hiss. The tall grass shuddered and a scaled and clawed foot parted the grass. A large green head faced him, open mouthed and black eyes glaring.
               The creature’s open mouth permeated a cloud of finely grained dust that smelled of gunpowder. Steve quickly backed away, the creature hissing louder. The thing suddenly swelled up and its body bulged like it was about to burst. The frightened man jumped away, the creature returning to its normal shape. Steve turned back around and started fleeing back toward the village.
               Loud crunching of the creature’s feet tromping through the grass kept the fleeing man from turning back around. He knew the creature could explode; it was the only explanation of why it would swell up, hiss, and have a plume of explosives coming out of its maw. Gravel came under Steve’s feet, his feet slipping against the rocks. He hopelessly prayed that the creature couldn’t keep up, but he remember the thing’s feet. It was meant for all kinds of ground terrain. He knew he couldn’t lose it.
               The stone stairs to the first building were a few yards away. He could taste the end of his instinctive fear. Then, the rock in the arch of his foot at his last step slipped out, sending him to the jagged stones beneath him. The moment his hands caught the ground, a louder hiss sounded behind him. He curled a little, pushed his back toward it, and braced as well as he could.
               An explosion ripped through the ground, blowing dirt and rocks upward and outward. The shockwave tore into his back, his shirt shredding and his skin breaking. A single, but large gash went across his back with dirt and other chunks of land flying into the wound. He cringed and bared his teeth, clutching at the loose ground. The air was quickly silent and unmoving. Steve slowly opened his eyes with a soft groan as he tried to push himself back up. Looking back, he found a shallow crater, but no remnants of the scaled quadruped. The only evidence that it had been there was the thin layer of grey sand-like grit.
               Steve shakily stood, his legs shaking and his stance, awkward. His back seeped out more blood at every moment. Up the stairs he crept with a pained grimace. He looked up to see that the person he had thought he’d seen before was gone. The village was empty. The injured man slouched a little, almost in defeat, and continued to walk to the center of the small village. He found a circular rock formation in the ground with a small over hang. He smiled as he looked into it. Clean water shimmered in the shaded light. He grabbed one of the small buckets on the side and retrieved some of the shimmering cleanness. As he drank from the metal bucket, his back seemed to cool and he felt less of the sting. However, the more he drank the more of a pressing feeling bore into him. He placed the bucket against the cobblestone and turned his head.
               By one of the smallest buildings, there stood a man. His head was large and bald and he stared at the intruder with big green eyes. Besides his eyes, his nose was the most noticeable feature of his face. It was big and bulbous and almost drooped completely over his mouth. He was strange looking but he didn’t seem foreign to Steve. The reddish purple robe he wore draped on him like a cloak and his sleeves did the same. Steve stood up, feeling he was caught trespassing.
               “I’m sorry, I just needed some water.” He said stepping back. The villager stepped forward cautiously, curiosity deep in his emerald eyes.
               “You…who are you?” He asked quietly. Steve blinked a little, asking himself the same question.
               “My name is Steve, but…that’s all I can tell you. I don’t know anything else.” He answered. The villager cocked his head a little and approached a little more. He glanced to the trespasser’s back and looked back to his face.
               “The creeper…did it give you that?” The villager asked. Steve nodded, looking back to the wound himself. He still felt the wound burning as it tried to heal. The villager smiled and bowed a little.
               “My name is Ku. I am the village’s priest and enchanter, and I know who you are.”