How and why she had found herself there was beyond her. No matter that it was then the heart of deep nightfall, for it was then that she felt the most alive. Time had never seemed to have an effect on her, and as much as she tried to establish what would be considered a regular routine, she invariably failed to keep herself from rising and exploring worlds at moments when one should not be conscious but on an interior, foggy level. Level. Those around her had always explained the world and mindsets on levels. Layers that dictated where the world stood, and folds that predestined the thoughts and reactions pulsating through everyone's bodies and conscious and subconscious minds. The idea of levels was much too abstract, but what she lived was more so. Perhaps it was more abstract, but to her, it was intensely real. It wasn't a theory, and it wasn't a notion. It was a reality. The reality, not of layers of the mind, or waves of repetition through out the history of the earth, but of worlds. Of other existences beyond that of the one considered the 'real' world. What she lived now - what all of humanity thought it was living now, was simply a dream. A dream or a nightmare, depending on what the fates thought best. The worlds that she traveled to - the worlds everyone traveled to, were the realities. Not one, but several. Every legend, every myth, every belief, every 'dream' was true and existed in a separate reality to the dream that they all lived in.

She realized that her reverie only confused her further about an idea that had lived firmly inside of her since the day she was born. Since the day someone bore her that is, the day that the fates thought she was needed. In some other reality, she was a mere puppet to a queen with her face, who worked her every move to her pleasure. No, not a Fate. The fates were above all, though there was no hierarchy in the realities that she had been welcomed into. In some other reality, perhaps, she was the queen that steered the lives of others. It depended on where she belonged, and where she ventured. Not all the realities she had been to were pleasant. Not all the times she came across something new was she welcomed with open arms, but rather she paid her own way in, with a fragment of her soul in return for a fragment of thought. What that meant, she knew not yet, but the fact was clear.

She broke away from what she thought for a moment. She had to stop or she was going to end up in the loony bin. She knew it. She had to stop. She planted naked feet firmly on the ground, hoping that it would give her a feeling of security. The thought of something beyond the boundaries set by the life she lived and the world where she lived was obviously something she wasn't ready for, and was something that would inevitably cause some kind of imbalance. She thought for a second. The idea of a different world, of wonder and of brilliance like the ones she had traveled in at night in her dreams was welcoming. It was childlike in its beauty, like something out of a Disney movie. She loved to think that perhaps the times she let herself just think freely the way she had, and the times that she had come to truly believe the thoughts that seemed to be coming out of nowhere, that she was actually right. She wanted more than anything to be right about this just being a dream.

There had to be a world that was inhabited by princes, by kings, and knights, and by the magic of moonlit rides on white horses and battles of swords over love and hate fought within the mystery of large stone castles somewhere deep in the night. There had been to many to see the stories, to see the events that took place, and too many to come back to talk about them. They said it was fantasy, and those who saw it themselves claimed it was as well, knowing full well that as they put them down, and turned them into something, they embodied them, and proved their existence as a different reality. They knew that what were seen as stories came to life, as soon as they were shown, told, or written. There had to be a world where fairies and creatures endowed with the power of beauty, magic and dreamlike flowery chants climbed in and out of their silky petal homes and graced all those around them with nothing but beautiful laughter, and childlike pranks. There had to be world where one form could become another, and the play of hearts in human souls could become joy to creatures of a night so warm and touched with silver glistening magic. There were too many captured by the tales, and too many wistful of the stories. There were too many who could read lives and fortunes in a few lines of the tales, and could tell the nature of one's soul just by watching one weep and laugh as a creature of one of these nights. It had come to life in the hearts, souls and realities of too many, for it not to be real. There had to be a world where nothing could be broken, and was captured by dark and light, and by harmony. A reality created entirely by atmosphere, by the sound of music, riveting through every wave of air, instigating emotions and feelings never felt before. Where waves of color in every form possibly sweep abstract surfaces, and where everything is felt as the as the light breath of gliding feathers, of wings. Too many pieces written, composed, painted, lived, told, bound and carved in stone, for these worlds not to be real. They were made real as soon as they were created, or taken out from what seemed like imagination but was just a door opening to a new reality. They were brought to life just by her thinking about it all.

She was shocked by her own wish right then. Perhaps not shocked, but taken aback by the solidity of the idea. The rational side of her begged her to leave her fantasies in the gutters of hell where they belonged, while the other side of her sucked her forward into deep vortexes of thought, and of reality. She didn't believe that all worlds and all realities were known as fantasies. Not all had magic. Not all shimmered, and not all were the eternal mixture of beauty within the combination of light and dark. There were realities known more to those of the world of dream. Realities where all that was known was violence, were shots spiraling out in quests to break the spirit of those innocent and tortured, were pools of melted rubies that once coursed through the rivers of life within a person. There were some that were tormented by these worlds, and some that took a certain pleasure in them. There was too much known about these worlds, and too much of them connected with the dream world that she was in now. The two may have merged, or the realities themselves may have allowed themselves to be tangible, to give humanity a taste of pain, and of sadism. There was a completely new beauty in this, something not often recognized.

She sighed deeply, and found that she had exhausted herself with her own reverie. She looked around and smiled at what she had just described as a dream world. If this was a dream, it was beautiful, it was wonderful, it was terrible and horrendous, and it was precious. One day all that were in it would be released and they would wake up. Where they were bound for then was a mystery. The starts shone around her in a sharp yet misty glow, carving out the forms that had been worshipped and known of for centuries. The giant orb hung among the pinprick point of light in its radiance like an empress on her throne, and like a mother among her children, beautiful in her youth, ripe and breathtaking in her age. The sounds and songs of various insects echoed around her in a comforting chorus. She felt enveloped in the fresh heat of a summer night, and it was cleansing. It was peace. She padded back to the living room barefoot on the cool mocha tiles, thinking that if that were her one wish for the future of the earth, then her wish would make the world a much more interesting place, if not much better. Everything beautiful was useless unfortunately, so she forgot about the entire night.

She eased her eyes open and felt a soft, oval shape just underneath the nape of her neck. She had fallen asleep on the couch. She eased herself up, groaning groggily, and swung her legs around and sat up. She ran her fingers through her fiery red hair, and tried to think of what she had thought about the night before, and what she had dreamt. She drew a complete blank. She stood up and walked out of the room, pulling off her nightshirt. She didn't notice that the smooth surface of the ceiling had opened up in a large hole, and she didn't notice that the skies above her had warped in the same beautiful intense darkness that she loved so much. She didn't notice the faces within that darkness that looked down upon her. Nor did she notice the tears of joy in the eyes of every prince, fairy, pixie, queen, angel and bird that looked upon her that morning, and had carried her in a chariot of spun gold just then night before.