Enter the Dreamlands

There is no sound. Nothing but your own footsteps and breathing.

There is no touch. Nothing but your clothes.

And there is no feeling. Not even of cold in this empty place.

Around you is a land of nothing but white. It has no features. There is no flora. There is no furniture. No buildings. No creatures. No telling if you are outside or inside.

There is nothing but the haze: the thick fog swirling around you stopping you from seeing any more than a few steps ahead. But then, what more could there be beyond? You hear nothing. You sense nothing. You are in... Somewhere. But who can say?

You walk. What else is there to do?

This place is vast.

The fog feels of nothing. In it you see the icy crystals of winter, but it is not cold.

Even as you swirl your hand through it it barely reacts to you. You feel no wind, nor can you wave any to have the fog acknowledge your presence. It billows softly and slowly on its own.

You walk. Hardly a sound to your footsteps. Hardly a sound to your breathing. You walk quietly. Are you respecting the silence? Or is there perhaps something in your instinct tells you to not make a sound? It does not matter. You walk. Quietly.

Where are you going? It does not matter. There is nothing to do but move forward.

You walk.

She stands still and firm. A great woman directly ahead of you, as if your direction was perfectly aligned with her. She looks down at you, as calm as the fog around her. Her only movement - her chest softly heaving with her breath.

She is tall. Very tall. Around twice as tall as you. Your eyes come somewhere to her midriff. It is hard to say given her attire.

She wears a long corset, and thigh-high heeled boots. Leather beneath them, and a collar around her neck. She looks like she belongs in a dungeon, but the look on her face says she knows exactly where she is, and that she belongs right here and right now.

In her hand lingers a paddle. Short, wide, wooden, and perforated with 12 holes. She grips it by the handle in one hand, cupping the striking end with the other.

You sense she has been looking into your eyes from the moment you saw her form in the fog.

She waits for you to approach. And what else can you do? There is nowhere else. Only here, and only her.

You stand before her. She looks down at you. She is pretty, kind of cute. One could imagine that cute face at a barbeque and be none the wiser to what she is here. There is no unkindness on her face, just neutrality.

There is confidence in her demeanour. Besides her breathing she stands tall and firm like a statue, her feet planted on the ground at shoulder-width. She holds the paddle closely and looks past it, down at you, comfortable in everything.

But there is something missing from that confidence, a small piece of the puzzle. She looks at you with expectation, yes, as if she were waiting for you, but there is something else - a suspense in awaiting your answer.

"Your mistress tells me you've been a bad pet. Is that true?" She says.

Her voice is sweet and feminine, but her tone is serious. The paddle she holds is notably visible in your peripheral vision as you look into her eyes.