All in all, the world to Berthe Mathis was as linear and cyclical as her bike tire. It spun and spun, but it always seemed fixed to a point. It hardly ever got much of anywhere - so when it did, it was as good to her sepia brown eyes as an optical illusion. The slightest movement ahead never failed to call for a double-take backwards so as a result she was more or less grounded to one spot. To be fair, she was completely comfortable in this spot. It was familiar and predictable, manageable. Not a thing out of place, and never a moments surprise. Content in the stationary hamster wheel of her day to day life, Berthe found the only variable events in her life to be in dreams - and they never could count for anything. Why would they?

The muted, ruddy crimson of her grown out pixie hair cut stirred only slightly in the oncoming winds. Just released from her shift at a mundane but tolerable retail outlet, she pedaled home with the swiftness of a hesitant tortoise - which is to say she took her sweet time. She had no reason to rush, never really did aside from when she'd made plans with her mother for dinner or had a rare chance to catch a conversation with her neighbor who'd always interested her. No possibility of that, not today. The stretch of neighborhood blocks seemed foreshortened by the thoughts that whirred within her mind. Despite all the comfortable predictability, Berthe's imagination had not suffered. If anything, it became more and more pronounced with each passing pay period, each rent payment, each distinct chunk of time measured in the systematic clockwork she existed in. It flourished and heightened, it manifested in the night - free to roam and create in the limitlessness of her subconscious. She'd learned to control it, slowly through her childhood and adolescence until she finally grew adept. It wasn't anything she cared to boast over. No one in her close circle of friends wanted to hear about her dreamlife, Berthe stopped talking about it after so many of them just tuned out once she started a sentence with 'I had the most interesting or vivid or intense dream last night-' She found a forum to log her most animated dreams, the ones that she needed insight with or wanted to hear a second opinion on - but she'd eventually forgotten about posting them as regularly. Keeping a journal was much simpler.

Upon her arrival home, toting her bike up the stairway to the second-floor, she used her free hand to unlock her door and spill in to her apartment. Securing everything, setting everything down and aside, she did very little besides get ready for bed. A long day was always met with an early night, Berthe anticipated the shut-eye - it was beyond needed. She nestled in, the sounds of every voice and noise she'd heard during the bulk of the day swarming in echoes over her, inside her ears, as she stirred in attempts to give in to her lethargy. As time ceased to have measurement, she emerged in to a carnival-like setting. No, it wasn't a carnival per se, it was more like a hotel. A large luxury hotel of marble and gold trim filled with various characters of all walks of life - all so vibrant and eccentric - each of them filling a booth on the ground lobby floor. Berthe grinned and buzzed around to each booth, the faces and conversations so sped up yet moving so steadily until she came to a doorway. Not much a doorway as it was an arch, made of a shrubby hedge. She passed through it, feeling the sensation of light and smooth fabric encompassing her.

The whole busy scene was far behind her, passed and forgotten as she stepped along a grassy garden setting. Beautiful thickets of rose brambles walled her path like a labyrinth, weaving ahead of her, directing her passage through. In a playful sense of wonder, Berthe did not question or try to overpower the guidance they presented - finally led to a stone well. The trickle of the water within reverberated from its depths, playing upon her sharpened ears and persuading a curiosity within her. Grabbing hold of the rope that dipped down in to the mouth of the well, she lowered herself down slowly - suddenly hastened in to the pitch black of the well by the breaking of the rope - falling fast in to a deeper and darker black until the feeling of falling subsided. She could walk, but felt nothing under her feet. "Echo?" she called, expecting the sound of her voice to return back at her. But nothing returned, nothing but silence. She repeated herself and found her voice flat - no sense to take hold to as familiar, nothing but the flatness of her own voice. Berthe blinked in to the void, seeing a sudden ripple of the nothing ahead of her...giving way to a sight beyond anything she had seen or created in past dreams.