Time In Waves

He knew this beach.

Warm black sand--too warm, he'd first thought. A scoop of the stuff proved it to be incredibly fine, yet it felt like sandpaper running through his fingers. He'd been dazed and baffled then, a stranger under a pitch-black sky, but this time he knew without needing to move an inch.

The red waves offered light to see by, and he could see an equally red glow lining his bangs from his crest overhead. But two more lights hovered to either side. They had a lot in common: hell, that little face to his right had stared him back in the mirror for years, a smaller, more youthful Jesper, still untouched by all he'd learned since then. Was it him, though? Or the other ones? Which? He'd forgotten whose face was on what side long ago.

On his left, another Jesper. This one shed no tears, prisoner to no one. This one he was less sure of, a thin, sinister smile crowned with vivid red eyes that leered down with a smug contempt. He had the same distinctive divide down the face, and even the correct colour arrangement if memory served, but something about his air was so unfamiliar that Jesper had a hard time drawing a connection between them. Another stranger, he'd decided after a few visits to this beach, just another stranger at the crossroads that he and all his likenesses couldn't seem to escape.

What made it different was that it was a dream. They had a lot in common with memories, but were still distinct. One of those distinctions was a third presence: smaller, rounder, a distinctly crescent-like head, and tiny nubby appendages with which to bat at Jesper's head. The gravity of this place often kept him pinned, but he had no problem tipping his head back to look at the lunon, who was now pulling its master's ear with urgency.

He reached up to bat it away--it tumbled off of the armrest and down into the opposing seats, flopped pathetically for a moment before it struggled to right its heavy head. It had always been diligent about waking Jesper, but he showed it little gratitude as he reoriented himself, zapped back into the real world as his train zipped out of a tunnel and into clear pink skies. Nobody around him noticed, or cared, and he much preferred it that way.

If there was one thing Jesper truly hated, it was being bested, and his own subconscious was the most embarrassing enemy of all.