Time: 10 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Mistaken identity” (this guy must look like a real jerk!)

START:

“I know what you did,” the man approached Ian.

“Pardon, have we met?”

The man lunged at Ian and shoved him. Then the world went black.

###

We he woke, there were rainbows across the sky. Ian slapped himself, and pinched himself, and all those little tricks you do to waken from dreaming. They didn’t work. Well, if he were dreaming, he might as well explore.

The ground was covered in a gray pulsing net. Waves undulated through it, like drops in a lake but fast, this way and that, coarsing across the hilly, bald land.

He saw a man on the far hill. He started toward him, but then he recognized him as the man who pushed him. He went the other way.

After some time, the gray mesh grew taller and crenelated. In the distance he saw a town. He walked to it, and the town was formed from the mesh. People, no, more like automatons, moved through the city, dancing a strange, architected dance that never stopped and never slowed.

Ian weaved through the automatons, who never even noticed him. He kept walking, and eventually the mesh grew sparse and there were flowers and grass.

A woman ran up to him. He extended his hand to shake. She punched him across the jaw. The world went dark.

###

When he opened his eyes again, there was only blackness. His face hurt, and he suspected this was not a dream. He felt around, sensing cold rocks. Was he blind? He stumbled along, sensing he should go somewhere, anywhere but here. Someone kicked him.

###

He woke up, floating in the clouds of a world with six moons in the sky. He swam through the ether, at one with life.

He saw the woman who had punched him.

“Wait, please talk to me at least before you hit me!”

She frowned, but she did not hit him.