Lately life had been in a word, complex for Ru'yah. She prefered to keep things simple, easy, and relaxing with only a fair bit of excitement. Allow her kind, tired green eyes to look at the world passing before her. But alas, the dream world did not intend for this to happen. Instead it decided to throw all it could at Ru'yah, shape her pre-molded nature into something of a scared freak with little energy to wander more than five feet ahead of her at once.
Indeed, at this point she could barely will herself to move after awakening from one of her many combined nightmares. Sometimes the nightmares would start off normal, an enjoyable day where nothing could potentially go wrong, sun shining upon her blackened fur, warming her to a comfortable degree before fading away hidden underneath soft silky white clouds. A breeze would travel alluringly over the dream realm of which Ru'yah's mind had painted, brush her fur loose and allow the lioness to fully bask in the glory of freedom and relaxation. Then the world of enjoyment would fade, and be replaced by something horrid. Perhapes a monster would attack, or other times the weather would instantly turn worse. Some rare nightmarish things would be that the land beneath her feet would dry out, grass no longer existing, not even weeds having enough water or light to grow. Ru'yah would be forced into a desert-like surroundings, with a tsunami of sandstorms blowing her away at every chance they had.
But did the disaster of a instant landscape remodel be the last of her troubles? Of course it wasn't. She still had to worry about the change of herself. By the time her nightmare began Ru'yah was no longer a lioness. She was yet another creature, something impossible for her to become. A Leopard, a Hyena, a Wildebeast, even a Crocodile once, all the creatures she had turned and shaped into as her landscape before her had shifted as well. Then problems would occur, as a different creature she would be faced with a conflict, something inevidable that Ru'yah was uncapable of preventing no matter how hard she tried. People around her would hate her, treat her as a monster and run her off, other times she would attack civilians for no reason, other times people were not involved in her struggles. Mainly it would be against the weather, or creatures that didn't speak. And almost all of the times, Ru'yah's dream would end with her death. Only then when the greatest devestation of them all came to Ru'yah would she finally manage to awaken.
Ru'yah panted heavily when her lastest dream ended, the feeling of sweat trinkling down her forehead as her only comfort of knowing she was awake. Her nightmares didn't use to be this bad. They would only be minor conflicts that still somehow scared Ru'yah, like going a day without food. Of course, that event would actually happen to her later as she managed to pull herself together and walk a few miles, but still, they never would involve death! Now she could only barely tell what was real and what was dream. If she had truly died or would live to see another day.
Forcing herself to stand, the lioness listened as her belly whined with deprived hunger. She wobbled as she hauled herself up, legs weakening with her constant kicking as she would experience her nightmares. Pulling herself foward Ru'yah eyed the horizen, deciding that it would be best if she didn't fall asleep again, all she would do is travel now. Yes... That was right, a few days ago she had thought that very same thing. That if she could keep moving foward she would end up somewhere eventually, where her nightmares would eventually cease and she did not need to struggle to remain conscience any longer. She only needed to keep believing in that. If she did good things would happen. And that was all the comfort that Ru'yah really needed at this moment. That if she could survive, she would be rewarded for her efforts.
The real challenge now was getting food into her belly.
She could not remember the last time she hunted in reality. She was always hunting in her dreams (even if those hunts sometimes were after other people) and so Ru'yah was never particularly reminded of her hunger until she was awoken and attempting to move. She had treated her body badly, it was doing its best to keep the soul inside it to the land of the living, but it was weakening quickly. The more she ignored her bodily needs, such as needing to eat or drink, the worse Ru'yah's condition became. Now she looked exactly like one of the monsters in her dream, a malnourished, disfigured verison of what was once an animal. On the brink of survival... Hunting wasn't going to be a picnic, that was for certain. Ru'yah stifled a laugh when she thought of how pathetic she had allowed herself to get. Turning ever-so-slowly she spotted a pool of water to her left. A herd of some sort of prey-beast were there, drinking up the drying waterholes liquid. Her parched throat begged for some of the water, and without completely realizing it the green-legged lioness stumbled over to the edge of the pond.
The other animals backed off to give Ru' space, but most did not bother to flee, sensing she was not a real threat, they kept a few feet away as she collapsed next to the small body of refreshing water. She stuck out her pinkish tongue and began to lap up what she could of the water, eventually crawling foward a little to drink even more than she already had. When she did stop rehydrating herself, the lioness was more awake than before. Her senses had come back and she was able to focus better on the prey near her dying body.
Of course the other animals noticed her regaining strength and started to run off, some more slow than others of course. "Ge... Get back here!" Ru'yah yelled in a tired voice. She struggled to her feet and was slow to begin chase, but it wasn't like she hadn't done this before! She could catch them if she wasn't so tired! Running after what she now idenified as Impala, Ru'yah exerted her limits and ran as fast as she could, which to her surprise was pretty fast for a lioness. Nowhere close to Cheetah fast mind you, but it was speedy enough for someone near death. Perhapes she'd catch the impala, perhapes not. She would prefer if she did, but either way Ru'yah was glad. Glad that she had finally regained her senses. That her latest nightmare was over, but most of all she was glad because she had convinced herself to run. Running proved that she could walk if she so dared to try. And walking mean't that she could finally see where the path she was on would lead her in the end. And so that was something she would eventually accompish. Not today, maybe not tomorow even, or a year at that, but Ru'yah knew deep down that this road was leading her to somewhere great. Maybe, even leading her home.
Word Count: 1,219
