I went to get the mail. Despite being mid-morning it was nearly night-dark outside. Oh, there’s a full solar eclipse going on. Okay.
Going to get the mail. Open the mailbox to find the usual mass of junkmail, some bills, and a few magazines. But I also find a cat, and my wand. (Yea, that wand.)
I’m dreaming. Okay. Figured such from the eclipse, but whatever. I take my wand (which started humming happily to be in my hand) and poke the cat out of the mailbox. It hissed at me and jumped to the street. It turned around, did the fluffed-up threat display, but made no motion towards me. I note that the visual presentation of the creature is a generic stray cat, but the feedback implied a creature of power.
But this is taking place at my house. At the boundary of the property. (The sidewalk.) That means… Shit.
“Keri! Oh, there you are. Did you get the mail?” My mother comes outside. I look with both eyes and see that this is not a mere projection. Like the dream with the lions, I am seeing a shard of her in this alternate reality.
I try to hand her the mail so she’ll go back inside. She sees the cat and decides to try and scare it off instead. Making noises and waving her arms uselessly, she tries to bluff the cat into running off.
The cat doesn’t move.
It shifts its stare between me and Mom. The closer Mom gets, the longer it stares at her.
Right. I know where this is going. Fuck it. I’ll make amends later if necessary. First, a distraction. “Hey, Mom! [Jewelry store] sent you a voucher for a free diamond ring! Here!”
Two steps before Mom leaves the grass and passes the property boundary, she turns around sharply at my announcement. “Seriously?”
“Yea, but you gotta call it in. Here, take this and go inside, I’ll take care of the cat.”
She takes the bundle of mail I’ve roughly shoved to her chest. Her scramble to not lose the pieces also helped to hide my wand from her.
The cat realizes its prey is escaping and started to transform into the entity the wand had warned me about.
Oh, are you going to lose your cool? Yes, you do that. That will make this easier. And cleaner. Instead of challenging the cryptid, I turn to follow Mom back into the house. The air became very still as everything present was watching the unfolding events closely.
The cryptid launched itself after us. The moment it crossed the boundary, I turned and with one smooth motion raised the wand towards it.
I said nothing. I thought nothing. I simply applied my will. A lightning bolt happily chewed through the space between the wand’s tip and the cryptid’s face. Once contact was made, the unleashed energy devoured the cryptid from within. Its feasting completed in less than a second, the residual energy was freed from my will and dissipated, becoming a gentle breeze that flowed away from the house in glee.
I barely had time to slide the wand down my pants before Mom turned around at the sudden noise.
“Oh, that cat! I’m… hey… where did it go? And what was that noise? It sounded like thunder.”
“The cat’s gone. It saw a shadow larger than it and didn’t stick around. And you heard that too? Better get inside where it’s safe.”
Mom nodded. She found the voucher I had conjured into the mail and was fussing over all the terms and conditions as she entered the house. I waited at the front door until the solar eclipse had ended and the sun was shining hotly on the property again.
Entering the house ended the dream.