Pt 14- https://www.reddit.com/user/Erutious/comments/1722cx9/trapped_in_the_dollar_general_beyond_pt_14_celene/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
It’s been about five sleeps since the first time I dreamed about Gale.
The dreams are almost always the same, but I don’t know what to make of them.
I’m always wandering through a shadowy landscape, searching for something as I walked endlessly. Saying it was shadowy may not do it justice, but the way it was set up is harder to explain. It was as if the place was a negative copy of the world, everything standing out in harsh white lines against the black backdrop. It’s a lame explanation, but it’s the best I can do. Anyway, I just kept walking forward, staggering a little because I was tired or hurt, when I suddenly came across someone in all that strangeness. They were floating a few feet off the ground, their mouth and eyes open as they groaned in pain. When he looked at me, I could see it was Gale and he looked like he was hoping for a great pain to end. He mouthed out words that I couldn’t make out before everything went white and I woke up.
Buddy would always come awake at the same time, almost like we’d been having the same dream, and look at me with confusion. I would try going back to sleep, but I just couldn’t get that image out of my head. It felt real, like Gale was reaching out from wherever he was, and as I lay there thinking about it, I knew it had to mean something.
Celene had no real advice to speak of.
“Like I said, no one has ever gone into the ceiling and come back again, at least as far as I know. Maybe he’s alive up there, maybe he’s not. Either way, it seems like a bad idea to go up there.”
I tried to put it out of my mind, but after being woken up the second night by the exact same dream, I couldn’t shake the image. I hadn’t had a lot of dreams since coming here, maybe a side effect of being stuck in this place, and these didn’t feel like the couple of dreams I could remember having. They were extremely vivid and unlike anything I had ever seen before, and I caught myself looking at the ceiling more than once that day. I wished I had some information about what was up there, but not even Gale had ever been into the ceiling before; well, not until recently.
But, I wasn’t the only one interested in the ceiling.
Tired as I was, it was still hard not to notice that Buddy was looking at the ceiling too. He had his head cocked to the side like he was listening to something, and I wondered what he was hearing over the drone of the fluorescents. Could he hear the Miasma up there? Could he hear someone screaming quietly in the blackness of the ceiling? I didn’t know, but I think that was the first time I thought about what could be up there besides all that darkness.
I thought about it a lot that day and I must have carried it with me into sleep that night.
I was back in the negative place, and I let my feet guide me to where Gale had been the night before. It wasn’t hard now, I had gone there before, afterall, and I found him much sooner tonight that I had before. He was still contorted oddly, his body hovering above the floor, but he turned his head as I approached, an action that seemed to bring great pain, and mouthed at me again in toneless horror. It was hard to tell what he was saying, buy it looked like he wanted me to help him. “Save me” or Get Me” was definitely the jist of it, though that was just a guess. His eyes turned to look past me as he mouthed, getting big as they spied something, and I turned just as a swirling mound of darkness roared loud enough to shake my soul.
Buddy was barking when I came awake this time, and Celene was yelling for him to quiet down.
It was hard to ignore the ceiling after the night before, and as Celene and I traveled around getting supplies I found myself looking at the ceilings of different stores. Were they all like mine? Some of them didn’t have ceiling like ours, but I was sure there existed a darkness in each of them. Who could say how you got into them, but they had to be there. It was a constant of each store, after all. The doors didn’t open until they did. The ceiling was full of darkness. The food never spoiled. The bathroom always led forward.
Constants, maybe.
Who could say?
The third dream was much the same, though it was the first time I noticed that something was happening Gale.
I found him much sooner that time, my feet now knowing the way. He was still floating there, in his constant state of torment, but pieces of him seem to be floating up. It was easier to tell in the photo negative environment, they looked a little like snowflakes, and if he noticed, it was hard to tell. He seemed to be in a constant state of terror, though, so who’s to say.
As he looked at me, he again began to mouth something. It looked like he was asking me to come and get him, but the grimacing in between words made it difficult to tell. Gale was clearly in distress, but whether it was the space or him I couldn’t hear anything you were saying.
When I woke up the next day, I think I had already decided that I was going up there to get him.
I knew it was a Deathwish, but I couldn’t just sit here while whatever it was was tormenting him. Gale was important to me, and seeing him like that hurt me. It could be a way to Luer me into the ceiling as well, but I didn’t care. I was stuck here either way, so I might as well do something.
Celene was instantly against it.
“You already went outside and came back. Are you in that big of a hurry to tempt fate?”
“But if I can go up there and get him before, it’s all over, maybe he could help us find the end.”
“There is no end, kid. It’s just an endless loop o f Dollar General stores. We aren’t meant to escape, we’re just meant to keep moving, keep living, until whatever controls this place gets tired of us.”
Buddy whined a little, looking at Celene as if pleading with her not to yell. We were sitting around having dinner when I brought it up, and though the conversation had started out mild it had become a little heated as it went on. She scratched Buddy behind ears and seemed to find some of her lost cool.
“It’s just a dream, kid. Don’t think too much about it. Trust me, it’ll just drive you crazy.”
I didn’t push it, but I knew it was more than just a dream.
Something about this place was special, and it seemed that I had some kind of affinity for it. It had opened the doors for me. It had spared me when I knew so little about it. IT had allowed me to find Gale, Something that didn’t often seem to happen, and it felt like it had thrown me a bone when I met Celene.
Now it seemed to be pushing me towards the ceiling, and I couldn’t ignore that.
After two more nights, however, I was ready to go regardless.
Each dream showed Gale in a worse state. He seemed to be turning into sand, his body dissolving a little at a time, and the longer I came back to him in that void, the less I expected to find him the next night. I can’t claim that Gale and I were family or anything, I had honestly known him for a short time, but it still hurt to see him like this. Gale was the first real friend I’d had since coming here, he’d taught me how to travel with purpose and we’d spent some times together. In contrast, Celene was methodical and not particularly interested in the secrets of this place like Gale had been. She was content to survive, and that seemed to be what she intended to do with whatever immortality we had here.
I, however, wanted a bit more than that.
The last dream was the worst, and ultimately what drove me to action.
When I found him, he was bobbing like a yoyo, up and down and up and down. It looked like he was having a mid air fit, and the lighted squares were falling from him like snow. He wasn’t mouth anything when he looked at me this time. His mouth was open in a scream and he was shaking as he loosed his silent fear and pain. It was terrible, like watching someone hang, and when I heard the tromp of heavy feet, I opened my eyes and sat up panting for breath. Buddy was awake too, but he just watched me as he lay shivering on the ground. He knew, I could tell that he knew, and I knew then what I had to do.
Celene woke up to find me packing a backpack.
“Where are you going?” she asked, though I think she already knew the answer.
“I’m heading into the ceiling.”
I wanted to be mad when she grabbed the backpack, but she was gentle about it that it was hard.
“Let’s talk about this before you,”
“Celene, there’s nothing to talk about. If there’s a chance I can save Gale from the ceiling then I’m going up there.”
“But we don’t even know whats up there, besides the miasma. It could be a trap, it could be death, no one comes back fromt he ceiling.” She said, shaking her head as she tried to take the backpack from me.
I held fast, not willing to give up so easily, “I’ve had dreams about it. It’s possible to live up there, at least for a while. I wanna bring him back, I want to have him here so he can help us find the end of all this.”
“I’ve already told you,” she said, gritting her teeth, “There is no end to this. This place just goes on and on and on. It won’t matter if we have Gale or not, none of us are leaving.”
I tried to formulate something that wouldn’t sound crazy, but all I had was a last ditch move.
“The Hermit wrote that he had seen it.”
Celene stiffened, the thought of the Hermit filling her with a mixture of shame and apprehension.
“Jasper wasn’t well, you saw that first hand. If Jasper told you that he saw it,”
“It was when he was still okay…well, kinda okay. He came to a spot where he was afraid to go on, a spot where the misama were plentiful, and that there he believed there might be some way to escape.”
She wanted to dispute me, but when I put the journal in her hand, she realized she could read it for herself.
“Hopefully I won’t be gone long. I want to tie a lead back to here so I can backtrack after I find him. Tie it to the ladder to I don’t get lost while I’m up there. With any luck, I can come back with Gale and Rudy and anyone else I can find up there.”
Celene seemed to think about this for a minute before sighing and shrugging, “I guess there’s no way I can really stop you.”
“Not really,” I said, heading for the ladder, “All I ask is that you keep the hole open and don’t unhook my rope.”
“I can do that,” she said, “With you up there, the miasma probably wont,” but she stopped when she noticed buddy.
Buddy had come trotting up with a harness and a leash in his mouth. He was looking at me as if to ask when we were heading out, and the look on Celene’s face was heartbreaking. I patted buddies head, telling him that he had to stay here and keep Celene company, but he just kept jumping up and putting his paws on my chest as if to say that he had to go with me.
I turned to Celene but she just shrugged and put his harness on, tears rolling down her face a little as she got him ready.
“You find Gale, Buddy. You find him and you bring both of them back. And you,” she said, looking at me with a look that brooked no argument, “You bring my dog back safe.”
I took a few minutes to write this out before I left, buddy getting some last minute pets before it was time to head out.
If I don’t come back, then I guess the ceiling really was the final frontier.
Hopefully, I’ll see you all a little later.
pt 16- https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/17o8cfk/trapped_in_the_dollar_general_beyond_pt_16_rescue/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3