Prompt #427 Sleepwalk ~ naughty_bangles ~ Sleepwaking to another dimension ~ Original

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Title: Sleepwalking to another dimension
Author: naughty_bangles
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: All mine!
Prompt #427 Sleepwalk
Note: also inspired by this.

When I woke up, I was standing on a beach, water coming and going around my feet. For sure, it didn't look like my room. Less than a minute later, I was positive it didn't look like my planet.

I had been sleepwalking for as long as I could remember, and I had woken up in my fair share of strange places. One morning, I had found myself in an appartment accross the street, which the occupant had neglected to lock the previous night. Another one, I was lying on the rooftop of my building. But this beat every single one of my previous sleeping stunts.

The sun was setting in the sky, flooding the scene with a rich pink-purplish light, brightened up here and there by the salmon pink reflections of a gigantic moon. And when I say gigantic, I mean it. It wasn't one of those supermoons that happens now and then, when the moon looks a little bigger than usual. That moon was maybe ten times bigger than the one I was used to. It was so big it was a wonder the rest of the scene looked so earthly.

I am not an expert in astronomy or anything, but I had the feeling such a moon would have effects on the planet it orbited, making it into something not quite like Earth. And still, I was standing on what looked like a very earthy beach, a strip of sand between a larger body of water and a forest of palm trees. On the horizon, the sun was retreating between two mountains that didn't look different from all the other geological entities I had seen back home.

I stood there for a while, dumbfounded and wondering where I was, and how I got there. I took me a while to think I could trace my steps back in the sand, and maybe find my way back home. The most recent ones were already fading with the coming and going of the water, but older ones were emerging from the forest. Without any better idea, I began walking toward the trees.

The remaining light of the sun didn't quite go through the green wall in front of me, and I hesitated before entering the forest. It didn't look friendly to me, and I was afraid to hurt myself walking in the dark. But then, how would I have reached the beach if the forest was so dangerous? The answer came through the shape of a dirt path, going deeper into the trees in a roughly strait line. The walk was suprisingly easy, and even if the lack of light still made me uncomfortable, I wasn't afraid of hurting myself anymore.

After ten minutes or so, a strange, purplish light became visible through the leaves. The path seemed to lead me there, and even if that light allowed me to see what was around me at last, it mostly made me uncomfortable. Still I walked on, having nowhere else to go. It wasn't long before I reached its source. Two stones were standing at the end of the path, and they were emiting the light I was so unsure about. I walked until I was close enough to see strange characters engraved in the stones. At first glance, I didn't reconize the scripture, but after a minute, the characters seemed to morph into something far more familiar – English. Startled at the change, I stayed unmoving before the stones, now marked with a clear message:

"INTERDIMENSIONAL GATEWAY"

"CURRENTLY OUT OF SERVICE. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE."