Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 107

He looked up at the sky and winced. There were more cracks than ever, and pieces of the sky had fallen away to reveal dark spaces behind them. Instead of stars, he saw blinking lights that reminded him far more of hungry, glowing eyes in the dark.

"Lily? What am I looking at?"

"I honestly have no idea, Romeo. That isn't something she's creating. You need to hurry, otherwise I'm going to wake you up before we find out."

Mike broke into a jog, the landscape blurring and smearing out behind him. The black sand became stiff beneath his feet, giving way to jagged rocks that broke through the surface like teeth. A column of smoke led him to the remains of a disproportionately sized airplane. It looked like something that was perfect for island hopping, but was roughly the size of a 737.

"Dream logic," he muttered. The plane was magnified in size by its importance and the size difference between an adult and a child. His skin sizzled when he placed his palms against the hot metal, but it didn't hurt. Inside, several people screamed as they burned away, a sound he was all too familiar with from his own nightmares. He dug his fingers into the fuselage which parted like clay. With minimal effort, he started peeling the metal back.

"I wouldn't," said Lily in his ear. "Her family died in this crash and were eaten by drakes. Whatever might fall out if you do that will be her worst visualization of the experience. Better you leave them in there."

"Seriously?" Mike had a tough time ignoring the wails of agony.

"They aren't real. You are, I am, and so is she." Lily moved to the edge of his shoulder and pointed past the plane. "You'll find her past here, tucked away in the rocks."

Annoyed that he had to leave Ingrid's memories to their fate, he found a gap beneath the broken body of the plane to squirm through. The aircraft tried to sink into the ground and pin him in place, but he ignored the heavy weight of the plane and the flames crawling across his body. On the other side of the plane, the sky was packed with more of the drakes, but they were busy circling above an outcropping of rocks that were steepled together in a manner that reminded him of a temple.

"In there?" he asked.

"Hurry," Lily replied.

Mike ran toward the rocks. A drake landed in front of him, but he vaulted over it. When another swooped down to intercept him with jaws open wide, he dove down its gullet and pierced through the back of its body like a bullet.

"Do anything for you?" he asked the demon on his shoulder. Lily snorted, but didn't reply. A third drake had crammed its upper body into a small cave partially flooded with water, its sinewy tail whipping back and forth. Mike grabbed the tail and yanked the creature out. Digging his heels into the sand, he twisted his body hard, causing the drake to spin in the air. After two good spins, he hurled the drake into the sky where it collided with several others. The beasts exploded into fiery confetti that rained down onto the sand.

"That may have done something for me," Lily whispered in his ears.

"If that's the case, I have the perfect fantasy we could explore," he replied as he approached the cave. "But you'll have to wear pink and promise to bake me a cake."

"Leave it to you to complicate a simple plumber fantasy." The succubus bit his ear lobe playfully. "I'll put it on the list."

"Yahoo," he whispered in a bad accent, then stepped into the darkness of the cave. "Hello? Is anyone in here?" Snapping his fingers, he summoned the lightning spiders, which scattered along the inner rocks. Realizing that spiders may be too scary, he bent the dream to his will and forced them to turn into harmless balls of light. "Ingrid?"

"Daddy?" Up ahead, somebody sniffled. "Is that you?"

Mike felt his chest tighten at the sound of a child's voice. "No, sweetheart, but I'm here to help you."

"There are monsters outside. Big ones with teeth." A crouched form in the back of the cave shifted and slid free of the darkness. It was clearly Ingrid, but the woman was now a young girl in a tattered blue dress. "They crashed my parent's plane."

"I know." He took a step toward her, but Ingrid stepped back. The tinkling sound of glass on rock reverberated through the cave and they looked up at the darkened ceiling. Despite the cave only being maybe twenty feet tall on the outside, the cathedral ceilings disappeared into the darkness above. Cold water swirled in from outside, hugging Mike's calves and sapping heat from them.

"The tide is coming in." Ingrid hugged herself and shivered. "When it does, the crabs will try to eat the skin off your legs. You have to keep moving your feet." The water had already crept up to her knees. "I want my mommy."

Mike took a deep breath out of habit. He knew what it was like to be stuck in an endless cycle of self-torment. It had taken Naia's magic to snap him out of it, but even then, there had been a period of adjustment. Part of him was tempted to just grab Ingrid and drag her away from this place, but he doubted that would even work. After all, this dream was centered around Ingrid herself.

"So I'm still in my head and she's in hers, right?" Mike looked at his shoulder. Lily wasn't there.

"That's right," she replied from behind his ear. He assumed that she was hiding from Ingrid's view. "You're in her dream, but it's your Dreamscape that is replicating what she sees."

The cave shuddered. Mike looked over his shoulder to see that a drake had forced its oversized head into the entrance and was snapping at the two of them. Its teeth always just missed him, and the hot breath on his skin felt like a sunburn.

"Can I take it over?" he asked, looking back at Ingrid. She had pressed herself against the back wall and was already alternating legs to stand.

"Not really," Lily replied. "She needs to cede control, but isn't really aware that she's in charge of this place."

"I see." Mike turned to face the drake. If he was going to get through to Ingrid, he needed to appeal to her logic. Right now, she was raw emotion and terror. If he wanted, he could pull the drake apart, but what then? Would another come take its place? Taking Ingrid outside would only force her to see the wreckage of her plane.

He took a step backward, followed by another. Each time, the drake became more aggressive, its teeth gnashing just inches away. It couldn't really hurt him, but Ingrid didn't know that. The moment his back hit the wall, the cathedral-sized cave folded in on the two of them, the walls now narrow enough that he had to turn sideways.

"There isn't room for both of us," Ingrid whimpered as the drake snapped its teeth.

Mike turned to look at her. "There is if you don't mind getting picked up," he said. "My name is Mike, by the way. We met before."

There was a flicker of recognition in her eyes, but it was brief. The drake let out a shriek that shook the air, its jaw open wide. Mike reached out and snatched its tongue, then yanked so hard that the creature slammed its head into the rocks. The creature withdrew its head, leaving him alone with Ingrid.

"We did?" Ingrid studied his face, her eyes wide in the darkness.

Mike summoned a ball of light, which he held out in front of her. "Maybe you could be my helper," he said, putting the ball of light in her hands. "I can keep you up out of the water, and you can hold that up for both of us to see. What do you think?"

Ingrid hugged the ball of light to her chest like a security blanket and nodded. Mike knelt down and let her scramble onto his back. The two of them barely fit, but when he rose, little crabs fell off of Ingrid's feet.

"I don't remember this part," she said, and a ripple went through the dream.

"That's because this is new," he replied. "I wasn't around on the day of your accident, but I am today."

"That makes sense," she muttered as she toyed with the light. "When the plane crashed, others survived, you know. I was the only one small enough to escape."

"That happened to me once," he replied, leaning against the wall. Crabs swarmed his legs, taking phantom chunks out of his skin, but he ignored them. "I was in a car accident and it caught on fire."

"I know," Ingrid whispered, her voice suddenly mature and distant, as if it were coming from outside. "I remember it from your file."

"When you're little, everything is at least ten times scarier because the world seems so big. We like to think it will be easier once we're all grown up, but I don't think that's true. Even as a grown-up, a lot of that stuff followed me." Outside, a drake shrieked and pressed its face into the opening. "Not now, we're talking," Mike said, and another ripple went through the dream. The drake nodded and moved away.

"That didn't happen either," Ingrid said, her voice once more coming from outside the cave.

"That's because I'm here," Mike explained, though the drake's reaction lacked any real logic. "I'm like Gandalf, or whatever. I drop by and impart knowledge, and nothing bad happens while I'm here."

"I never watched those movies." Ingrid shifted on his back. "Dragons terrify me."

"Well, the dragon was primarily in The Hobbit, but that's okay. Are you scared of them because of the drakes?"

He felt her nod against his back, but her voice came from elsewhere. "That's what I thought they were when I was a child," she said. "They're not really the same, but that doesn't really matter now, does it?"

"No, it doesn't." He felt a presence watching them and felt Ingrid tense up so hard that the cave actually squeezed them. He looked toward the entrance and saw a massive eye peering into the cave. It looked suspiciously similar to Di's. "You'll have to come back later," he told it. "We're talking about important stuff right now."

There was a long pause, and the eye vanished, followed by the tremors of something big walking away.

"It listened to you," she said.

"Of course it did," he replied. "I've really only met two dragons, but both of them were very friendly to me. Maybe I'm part dragon?"

"I doubt it." Ingrid's voice was child-like once more. "Maybe you're just very brave. I wish I could be brave."

"Bravery means being strong even when you might fail. You seem pretty brave to me, facing down all these monsters while stuck in a cave."

"I'm not brave," she replied. "I'm just a kid."

"Kids can be brave. It just looks a little different." The tight walls of the cave loosened up. "I have kids. Did you know that?"

"Kids?" asked Ingrid from outside the cave once more. Mike considered the child on his back. Was Ingrid's mind in two separate places? Clearly, both halves were listening to him "I thought you only had one?"

"Nice going," muttered Lily in his ear.

"My youngest is very shy," he replied, cursing himself. Talking to Ingrid had reminded him of Callisto and Grace, and he had slipped into Dad mode. "Doesn't talk to anybody, so I don't take her anywhere."

"Maybe taking her places would encourage her to speak more, or whatever." The child on his back shifted her weight, then wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'm really tired."

"I bet you are. If you want, we could probably find somewhere more comfortable to sit. I know a place that isn't far from here where you could relax." He had an idea, but needed Ingrid's cooperation.

"But what about the drakes?"

"They're not invited," he said. "And can I tell you a secret? You have to promise not to tell anyone."

"What is it?" This time, he heard both adult Ingrid and child Ingrid answer him.

"I live in a house full of magical people," he said, looking over his shoulder. The young girl's eyes had gone wide. "They taught me how to use magic. Maybe they'll teach you magic, too."

"I already know magic." Adult Ingrid spoke now, her voice coming from the shadows. The entrance of the cave vanished and they were plunged into darkness, save for the magical light in the child's hands. Adult Ingrid stepped forward into the light, her features twisted and angry. "And it wasn't enough."

"Enough for what?" he asked.

"I devoted my whole life to becoming stronger," she said, sneering at the two of them. "To be able to face off against the things that lurk in the dark. And it wasn't enough."

"How do you figure?"

"I'm still here." Ingrid pointed a finger at the younger version of herself. "A part of me never left this cave, Mike. I pursued magic so that nobody else would become that scared little girl, forced to lick condensation off the walls for days to survive while the crabs ate her feet."

"And?" Mike turned to face Ingrid, one arm protectively wrapped around the girl on his back. "There's no magical spell that can fix the past, you know."

Ingrid sighed and turned away from him. He noticed that the darkness seemed to eat her away, leaving only bits of her behind. "How did you do it, Mike? How did you move past what you went through as a kid?"

"I found people to support me. They became my family." He moved toward Ingrid. "It all started when I met some incredible women that taught me it was possible to be amazing, no matter what or where you came from."

Ingrid looked over her shoulder at him, her features dubious. "You're really going to tell me that you found inner peace just by meeting some people?"

Mike shrugged. "Well, that's just it. I got lucky. That's sort of my thing these days. I was given an opportunity to better myself and I took it. But you don't have to take my word for it, you can meet them for yourself."

"We're the only people in here," said Ingrid. "This is a dream, right?"

He nodded. "It might be a dream, but it's very real. I'm not just some figment of your imagination. I'm actually in here, with you. Do you remember anything that--"

The ground shook beneath him, and Lily yanked hard on his earlobe.

"Not yet," she whispered.

Mike stared at Ingrid for several seconds as the dream stabilized once more. He looked over his shoulder at the child on his back. "So are you ready to see some magic?"

"I already told you. I know magic." Adult Ingrid crossed her arms.

"I'm going to show your inner child a different kind of magic." Mike turned away from Ingrid. "You're welcome to come too, if you want."

Ingrid snorted, but took a step in his direction. "You don't actually have to carry her," she said. "She's not real."

"That's not true for a moment." Mike reached over his shoulder and patted young Ingrid on the head. "She's every bit as real as you or I. Besides, if I don't carry her out of here, how will she ever escape this cave?"

"Good job, Romeo. I'll do the next part." Lily slid into Mike's collar and vanished. Ingrid followed behind him once he started walking, the dream crumbling in places as they walked toward a distant light. It was similar to the entrance he had come through, but daylight and seagulls had replaced a crashed plane and drakes.

"This is my home," he announced, stepping onto the soil. He paused to set young Ingrid down, the girl now rubbing her eyes. "My house is just up the hill."

"This is stupid," muttered Ingrid. Even though she had stepped free of the cave, the darkness clung to her like ink.

Mike shrugged. "Better than having crabs eat our feet." He looked at the girl at his side. "Are you hungry? I have a friend who loves to cook."

Young Ingrid nodded, and he took her up the beach to the house. Ingrid stood in the background as Mike introduced her younger self to everyone who came out to greet them. They spent the majority of a day there, visiting with the others and playing games. Naia initiated a massive water fight that nearly everyone participated in, and Sofia kept bringing out huge trays of food which the child ate greedily from. Cecilia taught everyone a song in her native tongue, then spent an hour sharing fae songs with them that had Mike on the edge of tears more than once.

On three different occasions, the drakes arrived. Each time, they were torn apart by Abella, who kept her eyes on the sky. Young Ingrid hugged the gargoyle more than once in appreciation.

It was late afternoon when Lily came sauntering down the trail, a smug look on her face. Both adult and young Ingrid noticed her, but neither paid her any mind.

"It's only been half an hour in the real world," she said, leaning in to place a kiss on Mike's chin. "But I think it's working."

"Really?" He looked at the adult version of Ingrid scowling from the sidelines. "It doesn't seem like it. And which version is really her, anyway?"

"They both are. But you knew that already, didn't you?"

He shrugged. "I suspected, but I'm hardly an expert."

The succubus slid her arm through his. "I'm having very unclean thoughts about you," she said with a grin. "It's too bad we have company. Think of all the fun we could be having."

"Put it on the list." He gave her butt a playful swat and noticed immediately that she was wearing leather pants. "Out of curiosity, how much of this will she even remember?"

Lily thought for a moment before answering. "As far as I can tell, not a whole lot. Her mind is still fragmented, but at least it's calm. You've got your work cut out for you, but I have faith." She pecked him on the cheek, made sure child Ingrid wasn't looking, then grabbed his crotch. "I'm doing this in real life, too. That old lady is giving me a real dirty look."

Mike winced. "Just so you know, that's Pele."

"I know." Lily bit his lip playfully and wandered toward the beach. "Don't mind me, I'm just here to get a tan."

Thinking on Lily's words, Mike watched both versions of Ingrid, curious what it would take to wake the women up. The child version seemed perfectly content to be at the center of attention, but adult Ingrid was just a bundle of anger, watching from the shadows.

It was nearly sunset when Tink and Kisa led young Ingrid down to the beach to look for rainbow-colored seashells. Ingrid the adult finally stepped free of the sidelines and shook her head as she watched her younger self go running off.

"It isn't fair," she muttered, her eyes glistening. "She looks so...happy."

"And you think she doesn't deserve happiness?" Mike raised an eyebrow at Ingrid. "Don't you deserve happiness?"

"You act like my therapist."

"I've had a lot of therapy."

Ingrid turned and looked back at the house and all of its people, scattered across the grounds. "I don't pretend to fully understand all of this," she said. "But I suppose it has its place."

"This is home. Home is where your heart is." Mike gestured at the women around him. "No matter what happens in my life, these are the people who are waiting to be there for me. In return, I'm there for them. We're a family."

The mage gave him a hard stare. "I'm not falling for that found family bullshit. Relationships are transactional. You can try to sell me on love and happiness, but in reality, none of these people would be here if you didn't have something to offer them." She pointed at Abella, who stood nearby with her arms crossed and her eyes on the sky. "She's your muscle. You give her a place to stay, she beats shit up for you. And then there's Ratu. Magic. I'm not sure about the goblin, I have huge doubts that you keep her around to clean stuff."

"Fix stuff," Mike corrected. "And just because we all have our parts to play doesn't mean we're lying to ourselves."

Ingrid snorted. "Mark my words. One day, this place will fall apart because someone won't be pulling their own weight. Everything will collapse."

"You have trust issues."

"That's because the only person I trust is myself." Ingrid pointed at her face. "I became strong so that I would never feel like that little girl again. And you know what? I let myself down. That fear, it all came back to me when we were chased by spirits, attacked by skeletons, and then that dragon--"