Lord of Time. Scary short story
There lived a boy. He couldn't walk and rode in a wheelchair. And when other children ran and played different games, he always stayed aside - sat in his wheelchair and almost cried from anger and resentment. And it seemed to him that all the children were happy, except him.
Sometimes he dreamed about running. He could run for a long time and not get tired, but sooner or later he remembered that he couldn't run, looked down and instead of legs he saw something terrible - octopus tentacles or chicken feet...
Once in one book the boy read a fairy tale about the Land of Dreams. It was called that because it could only be entered at the moment when a person began to fall asleep. But where this country was located, no one knew - maybe in another dimension or on another planet.
The Land of Dreams is very similar to our world, and at the same time completely different. It was inhabited by big talking cats that could kill a man with one blow of their paw. There were cyclopean ruins everywhere, left by a long-vanished ancient race. Among these ruins hid many monsters - ghouls similar to werewolves, giant praying mantises with hook-claws on their paws, tiny evil pixies with poisoned arrows, crying darkness that could wrap its victim like a blanket and strangle them, and many others.
And somewhere in the Land of Dreams lived the Demon of Time, or, as he was also called, the Lord of Time. He could fulfill any wish, and in exchange took away memories.
Then the boy thought that if he could get to the Lord of Time, he would ask him to make it so that the boy could feel his legs, could walk and run. For this, he was ready to give up as many of his memories as he could - there was nothing good in them anyway...
However, getting into the Land of Dreams was not easy. Every night the boy fell asleep with hope, but at best he dreamed of running...
And yet one day, when the boy was lying in bed and falling asleep, thinking about the Land of Dreams, he suddenly felt as if someone’s invisible huge hand had grabbed him and carried him away.
And the next moment he found himself in some unfamiliar place. It was night, but the stars that covered the sky were so bright that there was no need to be afraid of the darkness.
The boy began to turn his head, trying to understand where he had gotten to, but he could see little – there were only high, steep mountains all around. And only then the boy realized that these were not mountains at all, but the ruins of something so huge that they seemed like mountains.
"This is the Land of Dreams!" the boy shouted joyfully, and his words floated away into the starry sky like gray birds.
"I wouldn’t shout so loudly if I were you," he suddenly heard a voice.
The boy turned in that direction and saw two large cats. One of them was blue-green and had two large wings, which she was now diligently licking. The second was a cat of ordinary white color with black spots, only the size of a car.
"A hungry Absolem is wandering nearby," the white cat explained, "he eats people like you".
A howl came from somewhere far away.
The cat pricked up his ears.
"If I were you, I would hurry away," - said the cat with wings.
"I need the Lord of Time!" the boy shouted, "how can I find him?"
"If you seek death," said the winged cat, "then it is better to stay here".
But the white cat pointed his paw at the sky.
"Follow the triple star. You will find him in the golden square, at the foot of the Tower of Oblivion."
The boy looked at the sky and saw three stars, almost merged with each other.
"Thank you," he said and ran towards the triple star.
"Beware of the toves and borogoves, human," the white cat said at last.
The boy did not know who they were, but he did not stop and ask, because he heard the howl again, this time much closer.
But no one came across him on the way, maybe the howl of the hungry monster scared everyone away.
The boy ran for a long time, looking up at the triple star hanging in the sky, pursued by a howl that sometimes moved away, sometimes approached again. Sometimes he saw unknown creatures on the side - sometimes frightening, sometimes just strange, but all of them just followed him with their eyes, in no hurry to attack. So the monster that was chasing him, without knowing it, was helping the boy.
Finally, the ruins ended and the boy ran out into a huge square paved with gold instead of stone.
But the boy did not need gold, he dreamed of something else. And he finally saw the Lord of Time, who was sitting in a stone chair in front of a tall tower that went high into the sky.
The boy had already run halfway to the Lord of Time, when he heard a howl behind him and turned around to see the one who was pursuing him. The monster looked like either a huge caterpillar or a giant centipede, but at the same time it was not at all unlike anything else.
Feeling that he was losing his prey, the monster howled, but did not enter the gold-paved square. The boy switched from running to walking, realizing that no one would touch him here.
But no matter how long he walked, he could not get closer to the Lord of Time.
And when the boy started running again, the Lord of Time frowned and hit the ground with his staff.
A strong wind blew up, knocked the boy off his feet and dragged him away. But the boy grabbed the golden stones with his hands and stubbornly crawled forward.
"Legs!" the boy screamed, "give me legs!"
The Lord of Time waved his hand irritably and the wind turned into a hurricane, tore the boy off the ground and carried him into the sky.
Somewhere the monster howled triumphantly, but the boy no longer cared...
***
...When the boy woke up, the first thing he felt was pain in his whole body...
"Nothing worked. It was all in vain..." the boy thought, feeling tears welling up in his eyes.
But then, along with the pain, came joy, because the boy... could feel his legs.
The boy sat up in bed and wiggled his toes. And he saw the blanket move where his legs were.
The boy screamed with joy and threw the blanket back...
But under the blanket was someone else's body. An old body, all wrinkled, with gray parchment skin...
The scream of joy turned into a scream of horror...
"He deceived me!.. He took all my memories!.. He took my whole life!.."
This was the last thing the boy managed to think before his consciousness faded, when his decrepit old heart stopped, unable to withstand the high load.
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