Give Gifts
Character(s): The Regifter (Charli), Somnys, npc character
About: Charli finds himself in a strange position: a familiar place with unfamiliar events. Vague memories of laughter, but heavier memories of loss. When a god of dreams contacts him, he learns he's meant to serve a greater purpose with a newfound power.
CW: implied deaths
Word Count: 1,573
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I couldn’t give you what you lost.
The ceiling was dark with hints of dust at the edges, threatening future cobweb tenants. A small vent was screwed into the wall just under it and filled the room with a dull, rattling hum. A dim glow from a blue-screen computer filled the small room, flickering slightly enough to be distracting. It revealed the smiles of animal characters in matte hanging on the walls. Each face was either crowned or throned by words of encouragement, or commands to have fun, to party, to laugh, to eat. Charli groaned and looked abruptly away from the haunting characters, so familiar to him that they burned the back of his mind.
But I hope that this is enough.
Charli grunted as he pushed himself to a sitting position. He clutched his head as the room begun to spin, keeping his head down to stave off the dizziness. Even in a dim place such as this, everything felt too bright and overwhelming. What had happened?
Children. He remembered children. A small group of them, and someone else. They were scared. They didn’t know. He had to preserve them, them and their dreams.
Out of the corner of his vision he caught sight of a crumpled black lump on the ground. A frightened scream tore out of him. Blood of an unidentifiable colour stained its clothes and splat on the floor around it. The head was propped up by a flat halo of horns, eyes open and staring right past him. But there was no mistaking it: that paling corpse had his face. Charli scooted himself back as far as he could go to get distance between him and the uncanny mirror.
“Who are you?!” The question tore from his throat in a near agonized scream. “What’s going on?”
A pink mist began to fill the room, full of starlight and swirls. Charli could scarcely make out a shape in the mist of something inhuman. Draconic, perhaps. The eyes of the figure glowed in a harsh white light. Charli reached around him blindly for something to defend himself, finally managing to stand and settling with a swivelling office chair as his mode of attack. The figure in the mist tilted its head as if studying Charli, seeming unfazed by the laughable threat.
Don’t you remember? You gave your life to protect them. You had so much love for their dreams, and wishes that they would put into their toys, and the characters that dance on the stage.
Charli blinked. “I’m dead?” His eyes landed on the corpse once again.
Yes, but not anymore. You return with a body made of dreams and hope. And now you can give it, and protect it, like you sought to have done. There are those who are in love with dreams, but I’ve never met a love like yours.
“You’re making no sense,” Charli whimpered.
The bear. Grab it.
Charli looked to his left where a small teddy-bear with bulging plush eyes and rosy cheeks sat on a neglected shelf. He shakily took the toy in his hands.
Do you recognize it?
He was surprised to find that he did. This bear was custom made from this building’s workshop. He could feel the small stone heart inside weighing down the bear in his hands. It was customary of anyone who made a plush here to recite their hopes and dreams onto this stone before putting it in the stuffing and sealing the plush up. The child who held this bear had wished to live beyond what the doctors predicted for him. He brought the toy to his chest as his eyes began to well with tears.
They did not make it. I regret to inform you that your sacrifice was in vain. But when doors close, there are others that can be opened. You feel them, don’t you?
Small floating lights could barely be made through the mist. Charli nodded his head, his face now blotchy and puffy. These were the children he could not save. He reached out to one of the floating lights as if coaxing a scared animal. One of the lights shuddered, then floated gracefully to his fingertips. He bit back a sob in his throat.
In dreams, all souls can be touched and connected, but the only thing they are ever tethered to is their bodies. That is why we wake in the same body every day, with fuzzy memories of our adventures from a sleeping world. But when we die, there is nothing to be tethered to. Many become lost, unable to leave the realm of dreams. But, there is a way to bring them back. They only need a tether in the waking, living world.
“It’s so small,” Charli cried. “This isn’t fair. Can I not bring it back to its body?”
Yes, if you want the child to be Undead, and hunted down by those who seek money or a break from their own curses. They would not think twice about an embodiment of a child’s love, however.
Though there were no pupils to mark the direction of the entity’s stare, Charli could feel them urging him to look at the teddy bear. Its soft fur had become dampened in some parts from the tears that dripped off his chin. The small light waved and flickered, as if it recognized the toy.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the light. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”
But you can fix it now.
Horrified, he was reluctant to listen, but as the urging became stronger he willed the soul to enter the plush. His breath was shaky, but he was overcome with strange relief. The intensity of love and hope, the wishful thinking of a tomorrow that would never come. The regifting of life, through some bizarre unnatural cycle, manifesting from two worlds that Charli was both a part of and so far removed from.
The light in his hand faded and the limbs of the beloved bear began to twitch. Before long the bear sat up in his arms, looked up at him with a tilt of its head. Quiet. Mute. But there was a strange uncanny air to this plush. The child had a new home. Charli could feel the very same love the child had first put into this bear back when it had been made, as if it served as the blood – stuffing, rather– of the body. He wanted to weep. How could life be born anew on wishes alone?
“How is this even possible?”
You are made from me, an extension of my light. I revived your soul, and though you have not a body you have a gift. To rehouse dreams. To resurrect life. To give them new perspectives. You would treat them well, these fragile hopes; I have seen a powerful love inside of you that promises it.
“I’m dead, and I can make others… not dead?” Charli shook his head. He could not look at the bear now. He could not look at his corpse. He could not look at the figure in the mist. He closed his eyes, refusing to look at anything or anyone. “I didn’t ask for this.”
A gift is often never asked for.
“What, do you want me to just travel the world and put every ghost I see into a stupid plush toy?” He regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. The bear was not stupid. The bear was a sign of hope, and now housed the soul of the child that had loved it so dearly. He lowered his voice, mumbling, “I’m sorry.”
In time you will begin to understand it. But for now, let no living thing look at you, lest they be burned by a light they cannot fathom. I will take your physical body, and I will put it into the sky to honor your deeds. Mortals will soon find a new constellation to admire. Good night.
The pink mist began to fade, and so too did the figure standing in it. When it was cleared, his own corpse was nowhere in sight, and instead what was left in its place was a strange white object. The teddy bear in his hands wiggled free and marched towards the mask, picking it up in its soft paws, and waddled back to Charli. It presented the mask to him, and he could see it more clearly. It was a strange, uncanny face; a wide smile that stretched to both rosy red cheeks, and upturned eyes that cried purple tears. Was he really not allowed to show his face?
With a distressed sigh he accepted the mask from the bear and secured it to his head. The weight felt awkward, though the mask fit perfectly. Was this to be his new identity? A masked conduit of wakefulness and sleep? Of life and death? He held the bear to him, who did not seem to mind the embrace.
Gifts are supposed to make people happy. Maybe life was a gift that could be given again and again and again. Maybe he could turn suffering into joy. Maybe pain would be trivial, someday. Silver eyes met plush ones, and there was a strange unspoken understanding between the two new friends.
They together must preserve the dreams of those who are lost.
