In last month's DreamPunk issue, we challenged you to write a story using your most recent or most memorable dream, while incorporating the above image. We had quite a number of entries, which we're very excited about! Thank you to all who submitted.

Our favourite comes from newcomer gatekeeper0077:

Jay Maison forced himself back into the dream space. He'd been relentless in his quest for answers, every morning since the night he had once found himself unexpectedly caught up in Abby's nightmare.

He closed and slowed his mind. While in her nightmare, his perspective was locked to hers and he could not change it unlike when he replayed his own dreams. To keep focused he would clench a dream muscle using discipline he had tenaciously learned in his short life so far, and relying unknowingly on millions of years of dormant dream evolution locked in his genome he would go chasing the nightmare of the girl he loved.

He had seen the entire nightmare only once, that first night, and so he knew at the end of it she got to meet her nemesis. The epicenter of all her anger and hate, however well she hid it, he knew this nightmare was what drove her on every day, a dark emotional coil keeping her steady.

Piecing the nightmare back together was no easy task, every fragment had to be searched for in his own lucid dream world. Once he had won the battle of finding a lost fragment, he grasped it with his mind and fled to his dream tower and the plateau level at its very top.

There in the center stood a cold slab of stone to support his body. Connecting with the stone was always his cue he had made it back safely from the uncertain, seemingly ruleless land of dreams. His dream tower; his own construction within dreams, a solid artifact of rationality he had carved out over the years of his life. His own refuge in the black bottomless void of dreams.

After arriving on his plateau, he would breath and relax before very slowly flowing out of his energy state into a cavern he had created specifically for this nightmare of hers.

We also had an entry from Nablai:

Like a vision in the sky, his head held high, he stood against the background of eternity, calling onto me. Try as I could, my gaze refused to tear away, drinking all his features for a lifetime of pain. He left me again, there was nothing to do. Wish he could see what I did.

Like the lightning from the heavens, he stood in never-ending glory. My tears caused a frenzy, enveloping him like glue.

Woke up with a start and saw a piece of him sleeping right next to me—our baby! :)

CliffJonesJr joined the party with this entry:

The river was alive. Not only teeming with aquatic life but possessed of a singular mind and identity of its own. My companion looked down into the water, and her reflection looked back, many times larger and flowing along with the current. She turned back to me, and I no longer saw a young woman. She *was* the river, and she was older than me... older than the stones... older than the stars. She was life and movement itself. And I loved her.

jinnis submitted, too:

The ruins spread on forever. Leaves of dead trees crumbled beneath my steps, no breeze stirring the stale air of this forsaken world. Then I saw it, the glint of water in the distance. My heartbeat fastened, I ran, my footfalls thrumming on the broken pavement. Water meant life, meant hope. Mist swirled above the silver surface, condensed into clouds. And out of their live-giving midst, a smiling face rose into the sky. It beckoned me on, but my steps faltered when I recognised Death herself.

Finally, we have The Pools of Endless Iteration by MadMikeMarsbergen:

We were out by my parents' pool, though you didn't seem to see me. I told you I loved you and you looked everywhere I was not.

Then I saw what you were looking at. Out there on the horizon, an infinite number of other backyards with pools just like the one we stood beside. And there we were: repeated again and again in each iteration, well out into the horizon, until we were dots and then specks.

We suddenly fell upwards, the wind pulling us up like we'd been catapulted from below. Soaring through the sky, everything flipped and we weren't looking at backyard swimming pools, but massive, vacant watery skulls watching the desolate streets below, blasting anything that dared to move with a flash of light from their open mouths. 

I looked around for you, called out your name, said that I loved you, but you weren't there.

Wow, what a great bundle of challenge entries! And three of them—Nablai's, jinnis', and MadMikeMarsbergen's—can be enjoyed in audio form as well, as read by the authors themselves over on The_Weekend_Write-In's special Ooorah 10-Year podcast. Check the previous part for that, or alternatively just click the external link to get to it.