The Chronicles of Always

Most had dreams. When Tino Vainamoinen came to his parents with vivid tales of nonsense words they didn't think anything of their son's lucid dreams.

"Hullies" dancing from the trees in some child's meadow, the "gripes" in the fjord, the beasts guarding the field Azair. Tino spouted on about his adventures when he slept, keeping a notebook of drawings (he had yet to comprehend the alphabet) up until he was met with enough resistance, telling him that none of the meadows he described existed. None of those beings lived. His friends were not real.

Tino quieted about his fantastic adventures, his parents ignoring the scrapes and bruises that remained. He had been a clumsy boy, the marks could be from anywhere. The scrape wasn't from running with Matthias away from the wallafan stampede. The bruise wasn't from a Hullie dropping seedpods on them. The twigs and dried grass in his hair was a result of not bathing like he swore he did the night before, not the remnants of Lukas's and Emil's ceremony with the Trills. The strange ribbon tied around his wrist when he awoke was stolen the sewing room, not weaved out of pillar thread and tied with care by Berwald.

He was told to put such childish ideas away. Tino did not speak about his friends, instead writing madly every detail of his dreams, keeping his gifts from that realm hidden away in a chest built and carved by Berwald. No one believed him anyway, no one had to do anything.

Until the night he screamed.

His parents ran into the room prepared to fight for their son when they saw him on the bed, arched back and shrieking, Tino's arm bent at an odd angle and swelling. His mother ran forward to wake him when a grotesque crack filled the air. His right leg lay mangled without a reason. They carried him off to the hospital only to be offended with allegations of abuse while Tino did not wake up until morning. When asked what happened, he blamed "The Zipper". Some legal trouble and MRIs later, Tino stayed with his parents and at eleven and a half years old accepted the daily medication.

He never dreamed again.

…

Prologue for a new story, short chapters but updating should be easier. Operable word being should.

This came from a dream and alice in wonderland. Take from that what you will.

Questions? Comments? Critiques? Concerns? Let me know.

-Waltz