Free Feynard by Marc Secchia

botany and even more limited experience of the outdoors, there was no assistance he could possibly offer them–save his pity.
    Suddenly, the Unicorn’s noble head lifted and the full force of his gentle and knowing gaze permeated Kevin’s awareness, so that for an infinitesimal fragment of a second there was a connection. He did not so much hear as sense the words: Come to us.
    Kevin stumbled backwards with a soundless gasp. This was a nightmare, an eruption of the unconscious; his imagination stirred to raw, unexpected, terrifying life. It was like grasping a stick in the grass only to discover it was really a snake. Once again the dream had mutated, drawing him inexorably into its web of tangled obligations and hidden coercive forces. He wished only to be left in peace! They should not rely on him; he was powerless to offer remediation. There must be a catch. Panic constricted his throat and pulverised his ever-present mental barricades, so that he became vulnerable to whatever nefarious fate the Unicorn may have designed for him. For he knew that as its magical horn lifted and began to glow with eerie luminescence, that the jaws of the trap were closing and the Unicorn was about to ream him from head to toe; that he was about to be snatched away on wings of darkness; that the shadows in his mind had grown teeth and claws and dripping fangs and great waves of them were about to shred his helpless body … here they came … screeching and yipping and wailing … reaching out with monstrous and malefic intent …
    “Help me!” Kevin shrieked, flinging his pillow away from his face. He fell out of bed and flopped about on the floor like a gaping goldfish, wetting himself in the process. Then he fetched his skull a great crack on the foot of his bedside cabinet, and there collapsed insensible for a short while before coming to with an almighty headache.
    “I’m going crazy,” he muttered. He gingerly fingered the bump on his skull. “Ugh, Kevin! Can’t you stop yourself? At least until you reach the bathroom? No, you’d rather leave a puddle of stinking piss on your own bedroom floor, you worthless little weasel. It’s a wonder they haven’t locked you up already. You’ll end up a vegetable like your mother.”
    Kevin had no wish to admit this particular fear to himself, however, for the admission of fear always cost him grief if it gained a foothold in his mind. He guarded systematically against such weaknesses, rooting them out like a personal medieval witch-hunt. Therefore, he picked himself up and stepped into the bathroom, where he could strip off his sodden pyjamas in favour of a clean set. He should shower. Hot water and up-to-date bathrooms were among the few modern amenities available at Pitterdown Manor. He twisted the taps, waited thirty seconds, and stepped beneath the rushing water.
    His second howl of the evening attended the splash of water upon his shoulders, for it stung like a million needles zinging off his outraged flesh. Kevin was used to numbness. He stoically endured injections and treatments without complaint. He was not used to his skin reacting to sensation like a cat to a squirt of water, and so he scrambled out of the shower and stood there shivering, dripping wet, trying to figure out what had gone wrong with the temperature settings. But the dials were in their customary positions. He had not touched them. Wafting his hand under the steady flow assured him that the temperature was at its normal, bearable level, and there was indeed nothing sinister about the shower. Taking a deep breath, he plunged in again.
    Mind power will only take a person so far. As he could not believe anything had changed, Kevin insisted on prolonging the torture for as long as he could tolerate it–and soon, the stinging settled down to a form of mild tingling akin to nerve endings being teased by a mild electric current. With a self-congratulatory gurgle, he switched off the water and applied the towel