|| Maya's POV at 12:30 ||
Reaching my arm above my head, one finger outstretched, I grab a tiny piece of a cotton candy-flavored cloud and put it in my mouth to taste its sweetness.
I am a few meters above the pink meadow, the sky is candy-blue, and the clouds taste like cotton candy. And even though they are far away in the sky, distance doesn't matter here.
I decide to land on the ground, and when my bare foot touches the fresh grass, my blue dress changes color to pastel yellow. With each step I take, my dress changes color.
"But where is he..." I pout.
Before I can sigh again, I hear laughter in the distance.
A smile spreads across my face, and I look up at the sky, where my friend is descending toward me.
"Where were you? I was getting bored, Cloustache!" I say, crossing my arms and pretending to be angry.
Cloustache just laughs, a mixture of *pffff* and *boing* accompanying his soft laughter, "I was taking a nap, Maya."
I step closer and give his mustache a playful tug. He looks down at me and asks, "Do you want a ride?"
I nod my head and jump several meters to land on his soft back. I really like his back, it's like the softest mattress, one you could sink into and fall asleep on.
As I turn my head to the side of his cloudy body, I see the world below becoming tiny, the forests, rivers, and fields stretching as far as the eye can see becoming nothing more than colorful dots.
I stretch my arms above my head and take a deep breath.
The air feels sweeter than ever, the kind of calm that makes you forget the world outside.
For a moment, everything stands still.
Then, something shifts.
A strange pull brushes against my skin, soft at first… then stronger.
My body begins to slide down my cloud, and I feel a cold, distant breath, a gust of wind that sends me flying and lifts me off my cloud.
"Cloustache!!"
I try to fly towards him, but this pull is stronger than anything I've encountered so far.
I see him coming towards me as fast as he can and stretching out his mustaches, which I grab with both hands.
The wind keeps blowing hard, the sky begins to crack apart, the land below disappearing one by one, leaving only a white space behind.
And that's when I hear the noise, a *BIIIIIIP*, a noise I've heard before, but I can't say where.
"What's going on?!" I shout so that Cloustache can hear me above the din of wind and beep.
"That's not a sound from here..." he replies, frowning.
"Maya? Maya! Stay with us!" I hear voices in the distance, coming from the same direction as the deafening beep.
"Not yet, I'm still dreaming," I say, clinging to Cloustache. I don't want to wake up.
.
.
.
|| 3rd person POV ||
As the wind blew even harder, suddenly there was silence. Something gave way, not in the dream, but in Maya.
Then, instead of a pull, a push came, so powerful that it threw Maya into the sky.
Her cloud friend tries to catch her, but he's too slow.
The world rushes past her in a blur, colors melting together, the sky twisting into light.
For a heartbeat, she feels weightless, caught between falling and flying.
Maya's speed increased, and she approached dangerously close to the white wall that had previously been the sky. She crashed into it, but she didn't stop there. She created a hole through the boundary and found herself in a dark space.
This space wasn't black; it was filled with dark colors; deep purple, ocean blue, dark red, and many other colors.
When Maya opens her eyes again, everything she sees is blurry, the world around her is blurry, her body is blurry, even her thoughts are blurry.
Then laughter comes, laughter comes from children, adults, and old people, but not only that, whispers come and meet her thoughts.
She closes her eyes.
She feels the joy of a child flying, the fear of a soldier fleeing, and the calm of a mother. All these emotions pass through her but do not overwhelm her, like a river that meets her and continues its way.
Strangely, it doesn't scare her. It's like coming home without realizing it. It's soothing, but also sad, upsetting, funny, and joyful.
When she opens her eyes again, she sees bubbles around her, lots of bubbles.
Each bubble has a different color, a different emotion.
And she sees a bubble fading into the distance.
It saddens her, but she understands. It doesn't mean that everything is over, just that one dream is fading away and another must continue, differently, but move forward, nonetheless.
Beside the ruins of her dream, a new bubble forms, a black one.
Maya can sense who is inside, and it breaks her heart. So, she decides to go and help him.