Story Cube 1 - hag, man in a portal, birdcage

I wake up, sweating, heart pounding. Thank god for these cool metal bars I can press my face against. What actually happened? I was dreaming, yeah dreaming, that was it. But what about? I’m breathing too hard to think clearly. I need to calm down. Calm down…

Calm…

There was a woman; I think it was a woman anyway. She was… like a… a hag. Yeah, a hag, but her face was covered by a heavy hood. What was she doing? I can’t quite remember. Why is it you instantly forget a dream when you wake up? She was in a gloomy room, a kitchen I think, although not a standard one. No ovens or fridges, just… a cauldron of some kind? It seemed normal at the time. She was mumbling something too, but I couldn’t make out the words. No, I can’t think what they were. She was moving round the cauldron. She knocked a birdcage that was hanging from the ceiling and left it swinging while she collected strange items from the shelves in the room. Colourful bottles, full of thick viscous liquid; odd plants I had never seen before, dried and curled like talons; and rabbit feet? Something small and furry anyway. Each one produced a new puff of smoke and different smell as it was added to the concoction being created in the cauldron.

So where was I in all of this? Certainly not helping, so what then? I must have been in the room, I was watching. But I didn’t move, no… I couldn’t move. I was tied up in the corner of the room, on the floor. I remember because I had to look up to see what she was doing, even though she was hunched over, almost in half. She never looked my way. Not once, until…

What happened? She stared at me. I can’t remember her face, just her eyes. They weren’t human. They felt like they were piercing my soul. Then I saw nothing. Only a swirling vortex of colours - red, blue, purple, black - spinning round me faster and faster. I felt myself lift from the ground, seeming to compress as I flew higher and higher. I didn’t feel right in my own body. Everything felt… smaller. How could that be? How…

I’m not in my bed.

I’m not… I’m not in my bed. Where…?

Cool metal bars…

I’m in the birdcage.