Chapter 7:

The Dream

Sometime in the night, as it was still quite dark, Davies woke to find the stranger tending their fire. For a time, he stared up at the stars as he wondered at the stranger's story, then decided to interrupt the man’s revelry. “What was it like?” he asked. “In space? What was it like?”

The stranger turned. “So you say you believe me?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” Davies hedged. “I haven’t come to a final conclusion. I suppose I shall know with your telling. If it is true, I guess it shall be so compelling that I cannot deny it. If it is not,” Davies shrugged. "Either way, we have time to kill."

“It was sublime,” the stranger began. “It was vast, beyond comprehension. The stars never seemed to shift, although the earth shrank to the size a basketball, then became so incredibly big that I was but a dot,” he continued. “It was cold, incredibly cold, except when it was too hot,” he shook his head. “It was foreign, and very unnerving. It was downright creepy.”

“Did it freak you out?”

“A little,” the stranger replied. “The strangest part about it, the strangest part was a dream. At least I think it might have been a dream. I thought it was real, but now I think I might have been hallucinating…”

“You fell asleep, drifting through space?”

“I was up there for three days? Yes, I fell asleep, but it was not comfortable,” the stranger explained.

Davies nodded. “Okay,” he consented with a shrug. “Get on to the hallucination. That sounds promising.”

The stranger obliged, “I came to, and the moon was huge! It was so large, but it was still really far away. Also, it was barely a crescent. I saw the far side of the moon, though it happened to be dark, but it was not hard to see. And it took up a large amount of my field of vision.

“There were lights on the surface of the moon; stationary lights, slow moving lights. There were lights above the surface. These lights were fast: super fast, moving all about. I stared at the lights. For a long time, they played over the surface, some of them blinking out. New ones lit up. After some time, one came flying near me. It sensed me or something; anyway, it turned super fast, and flew right at me. I realized it was going to hit me, and right before it did, another sideswiped it, and the two burst past me in a tangle.

“They disappeared, and for several minutes, nothing more really happened. The lights still danced about the surface, but they didn’t approach me anymore. The two that flew past me and tangled together; those two dove to the surface and joined among the others. I must have watched them for an hour before anything more happened. Then it happened all at once. Suddenly, the lights on the surface rose toward me, and really, really quickly. I had time to panic, but what else could I possibly do?

“The lights flew past me in a rush, some flying at me, only to turn and dodge past. For several minutes, there was an intense rush of lights all about. They dove and weaved in all directions. At times, it seemed a dance. At others, it seemed to be nothing more than chaos. Some changed color, some stayed white, but none of them got that close. Most of them kept their distance.

“After a few minutes, the activity started to die down, and I wondered if any of them would get close for me to see what they really were. Finally, with maybe a dozen lights flitting all around, one of them approached.”

“Was it an alien?” Davies asked.

“What else could it be?” the stranger replied. “But that wasn’t what I first thought. My first thought was ‘angel’. She was gorgeous, but more than that. As she got closer and closer to me, all I felt was peace.

“This angel smiled at me. She didn’t speak, she smiled as she got close. She held out her hand, grabbed my head, and pushed me back. An energy pulsed through me, extending from this angel’s hand. I tried to resist it, but there was no point. It rolled over me in a wave, and I relaxed completely. A warmth came over me and I drifted into a comfortable sleep. The last thing I saw was the face of the angel, her eyes tinged with a sad knowing. I didn’t wake up for hours.”

“So you want me to believe there’s a colony of angels on the dark side of the moon?”

“Not a colony, and not all angels. Some of those lights had a malevolence and hate about them that makes me shiver to remember,” the stranger stated.

“Angels and demons,” Davies surmised.

“Or maybe an energetic alien race that resembles us. Perhaps what we call angels and demons have always been extra-terrestrial,” the stranger amended.

“And that’s all true?” Davies asked.

“Maybe. As I said, it could have been a hallucination. I was extremely cold, and quite likely, delirious.”

Davies considered it for a while. “I like it. I don’t know that I believe it, but it’s an interesting dream nonetheless.”

“Are you saying I might not be crazy?” the stranger smiled.

“I’m saying if you are crazy, at least you’re an interesting crazy that can craft a story.”

“Thank you,” the stranger gave a bit of a nod.

“I’m sorry, I still haven’t asked your name,” Davies stated.

“Nathan,” the stranger answered and extended a hand.

Davies eyes went wide as he shook the man’s hand. A mass of questions boiled in his brain, and he realized he had to re-evaluate everything he knew about this stranger—no—this legend. “Nathan,” Davies repeated the name with a smile. “Holy shit! You’re Nathan Marvelous!”

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