AN: It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been busy writing a bunch of other stuff while juggling parental responsibilities (my daughter is 1 year old now, holy crap) and this is the first thing in a long time that I've deemed worthy of posting. The irony is that everything else I've been working on is much longer and has taken a lot more time to write than this. This was inspired by a dream I had this morning, and I banged this out right after I woke up. Forces has crept back into my head again, it seems.
Unrelated, but: if you haven't seen the Sonic movie yet, GO SEE IT. It's a lot of fun!
Please enjoy whatever the hell this is (totally not angst in disguise ^^)

"Hypnagogia"

He was running.

His feet were soaring over bounds of grass and dirt, pavement and concrete, instantly leaving behind anything they touched. He sighed into the late-summer breeze as a wide grin consumed his face. This was what he had been dreaming of, a reality in which he could happily exist for the remainder of eternity. He was alone, but the others would surely find him soon enough.

He was running next to a large body of water—a lake or perhaps a river. The air had suddenly turned a bit cooler and the warm sun had disappeared behind a thick mass of dark clouds. His smile wavered only fractionally. Rain was no big deal. He could easily outrun the storm in a matter of seconds, and then his feet would be back to flying over dry ground.

Speaking of which...

Every time his feet touched down, they landed on something uneven and slick, almost like wet rocks. They were wet rocks, a momentary glance below told him. Somehow, he was now running on the edge of the water. But it was okay, he told himself as murky gray waves lapped at his ankles only to fan out behind him in the form of droplets, because he was already running his way back to that safe world. He could see it. A stretch of green grass lay spread out in the distance, tantalizingly close. If he just moved his feet a little faster, he'd reach it; and the bubbling panic that was currently shaking up his insides would all be washed away. He was almost there! He just had to run faster, a little faster...

His feet left the ground one more time and never returned.

Everything around him was freezing cold, wet, water closing him in, over his head, it was over his head and he couldn't breathe, he couldn't see, the dwindling light far above had all been snuffed out and he was about to go along with it, his pounding heart was slamming into his throat and his lungs were burning burning burning longing for air but the water filled him as the fear filled his veins and constricted every muscle in his body though his brain screamed fight fight he couldn't move he couldn't move but he could hear the water rushing in his ears and beneath that a distorted humming like a machine powering down echoing inside his bones dropping in pitch as he sank deeper and deeper into the cold suffocating darkness so wet so cold tears blending with the endless water slowly crushing the life out of him he was drowning he was dying but he could hear he could hear Infinite cackling laughing right in his ear give in to your fear there's no point in holding on

you will never live that life again!

He opened his eyes to a moonlit room with a tangle of blankets wrapped around his body, gulped down as much air as his lungs could hold, and screamed.