VII: Strangers

The woman who Morpheus – and everyone else watching – assumed was her mother, hauled Amy out into the street. It was not concern that made him follow; that is to say, he did not think of it as concern. It might have been curiosity, but to be completely honest, he had nothing better to do, and the child had spoken to him. So he followed.

It was a green car. The kind of green that would have set the heart of Réveille on fire, the kind of green that only marginally rivaled Morpheus’ eyes. Amy was strapped into the back of it. She said something and the mother ignored her, starting the contraption instead. Morpheus idly took the seat beside Amy, no one seemed to notice him. The seats were smooth, comfortable, but the car smelled strange, as though someone had attempted to light a fire inside it.

The world flashed by as though someone spilled their water colours outside the window, making everything run together until it was all meaningless. Morpheus enjoyed that. Amy said something else, but he was far too mesmerized by the streaming colours to hear. He did hear the woman’s reply, however, because it cut so deep into what passed for his psyche that he would have heard it at the other end of existence.

“Your dreams don’t matter.”

Dreams always mattered, even if you were not a Dreamer.

“My dreams come true!” Amy retorted sullenly, “I told you we would meet someone special today, and we did!”

“You shouldn’t talk to strangers!”

Morpheus raised an eyebrow.

“I am not a stranger,” he said, and then several things happened at once.

The woman made the car shriek, Amy shouted for her to watch out for a ‘cyclist’, and Morpheus realized that driving was possibly very complicated.