Too much IN influence?

[hcobb]

I think I'm slathering on the IN touch a bit too much here and will have to rewrite. It's not stated at this point, but the obvious discord is applied by the obvious actor. Which will be a major plot point later.

[ORIG] Angel Dawn
By Henry J. Cobb, all rights reserved.

I think that the characters and situations presented here are original, but
I owe a heavy debt to my influences.

Chapter two: "Dawn of the Dream"

It was night. I was sitting in the back seat of Mr. Himoto's car. He was
driving and a woman was sitting next to him. The three of us rode in
silence.

I was griped by a strange overwhelming emotion. I found I couldn't look at
the two and so turned to the window to stare out in the night. We passed a
light and I could see my face in the window's reflection. It wasn't my
face. It was another girl's.

The entire situation felt odd and not right. I must be visiting a human's
dream. I tried to pull my soul away from hers, but I felt bound and
trapped by the strange emotion. I focused my strength and leapt to my own
identity.

I felt my body in motion and it did feel like my new body. I was moving to
music, it was a performance, some sort of dance. I looked around and saw
only that one boy I had learned Japanese from. I looked down at myself and
saw that I was dressed in extremely thin fabric that covered hardly
anything. It just wasn't practical to stay warm in such an outfit. I
exerted my will over the dream and changed my coverings to my school
outfit.

The boy jumped back.

This must be his dream. "Excuse me, but I must have offended you
yesterday."

"What?"

"I touched you without introducing myself first. My name is Dawn."

"Ichiru, er I mean I'm Ichiru Sakurayama."

"Excuse me again Ichiru, but there are things I must attend to. You are
not injured?"

"No, no, I'm fine. You can come by anytime."

"In that case let me leave you this token," I closed my eyes and thought
for a moment, then handed him a red candle, "Light this when you want me to
visit your dreams again. Goodbye for now," I summoned my wings of fire
and flew up, through the ceiling of his imagined room and out of his dream.

I stood on his dream, in the world of dreams. There was a minor demon
nearby but I looked at it sternly and it scuttled off. Why was it so near
the dream of a human? I looked up and saw the Tower of Darkness nearby and
the Tower of Light in the far distance. Not a good place for an angel to
be.

I focused my will and changed my perspective until Ichiru's dream could fit
in the palm of my hand. I picked it up. It was quite heavy, but my will
was sufficent. I don't think I had moved a human's dream before. Was that
even allowed? Well too late now. I flew up and towards the Tower of
Light.

As I flew I could see angels and demons tending to human dreams and heading
out to deal with the distant other things. I landed well short of the
Tower of Light and put Ichiru's dream gently down on the surface, where it
could bathe in the light. One thing I was sure of was that dragging a
human's soul into Heaven would have drastic effects of some sort.

I stepped up to the gate. It was closed. I pressed my hand against it and
it did not budge. I banged my fist against the gate but there was no
answer. How could it be left unattended like this?

I remembered that there was an observation platform at the top of the tower
so I flew up towards it.

There was a flash of lightning and my conection to the world of dreams was
painfully severed.

"Ow!" I woke with the beating of new heart in my new head.