Natalie Cuddington
I don’t know what to do with my hair the next morning. I hate wearing it down because it’s just so straight and boring, and blows in my mouth when it’s windy out. It sticks to my neck and it’s so annoying and I just want to wear it in a ponytail, but I also can’t stop thinking about when Chance told me it looked better down. He’s a boy though, so he doesn’t understand. I’ve been wearing it down, though, so I should change it up and go back to the ponytail. I love the pony tail. It’s easy and stays out of my face. But pretty much every other girl wears their hair down, and it doesn’t seem to bug them. I should just wear it down. But maybe I should do something with it to give it a bit more life. I grab the hair curler from under the sink and make a bunch of curly locks all around my head and then brush through them to bring them down to a wave. Yeah, that looks good. Wavy hair just past my shoulders. Hmm, maybe this looks super cute. I smile and touch up my makeup where some of my bruise is showing through, and also pull down the collar of my shirt to see what’s happening with Gordian Knot thing. The redness around it is gone, and the symbol is very clear, in a bumpy white mark, just like a scar. It looks like I took a scalpel to myself so I could have this design on my skin, and this is the healed result. I shake my head and let my shirt collar cover it again before adding some mascara to my eyelashes. I take a step back to look at myself in the mirror again, playing with my hair and running my fingers through it. Why am I so worried about what Chance will think of my hair?
Chance is at the end of my street on my way to school and I can’t help but notice his unstyled hair falling so nicely over his forehead. And the singed bit at the back. Ha.
“What did you do last night?” he asks once I catch up with him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you beat the living shit out of Zac.”
I can’t hold back a smile. “Oh yeah, right. That.”
“Yeah. That.”
I shrug. “I dunno. I knew I was dreaming, and I remembered that when they get hurt in a dream they get hurt for real, so… I dunno, I just did it.”
“Just because?”
“Why do you sound like you’re mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you, I just don’t get it.”
“You don’t get it? You don’t get that Zac is evil? He practically raped every girl he’s ever been with, and makes people scared for a living, and he killed my brother!”
Chance bites his bottom lip and nods. “Right.”
“Right? That’s it? Just ‘right’?”
“Look, I’m sorry, ok? I forgot I told you that.”
“You forgot that you told me Zac killed my brother? Chance, that news made me throw up all over your bed, how could you forget that?”
“I don’t know. The last few days have just been a bit of a blur to me.”
I snort. “Yeah, me too.”
“Well of course they were to you. I mean, he almost turned your brain to mush. And … me telling you that he killed your brother.”
“I still don’t get why you’re surprised. Is it not normal for Auras to try and kill the Malevolents?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re good people.”
“Yeah, and they’re not. What they do kills people, does it not?”
He nods.
“So why are we trying to stop them by just changing their stupid scary dreams into nice ones? All that does is help people for the time being, but the Lents are just going to come back and do it again. It’s an endless cycle.”
“I’m not saying it hasn’t happened before, because it has. Just, normally the people aren’t dreaming themselves, you know? If we try to hurt a Lent, we’re putting ourselves at risks too. I never thought of a dreamer doing it.”
“So maybe I have something here! Maybe I can help you guys by killing them all in my own dreams! That way I can’t get hurt!”
Chance shakes his head. “It doesn’t always work like that. You got lucky last night. Most of the time the Lents are off in the shadows. You know, creating, observing, and not actually taking part. But Zac is just full of himself, and really stupid. And really wants you on his side, so he let you see him.”
“Oh.”
“But I hear you messed him up real bad.” A smile inches across his face and I can’t help but smile back.
“Oh man, he was being a little girl about it, too! He was all like, ‘stop it, you’re hurting me for real!’”
Chance laughs and hooks his thumbs around his backpack straps. We walk in silence for a few minutes, and I wonder why he hasn’t brought up the kiss yet. Maybe he feels weird about it because he technically wasn’t actually kissing me. Maybe he feels like he was taking advantage of me because of it. I want to ask him about it but I get too nervous even thinking of it. Maybe he’s nervous about it too. I mean, I had a feeling he liked me this whole time, but he would never admit it. It must have taken a lot of courage to dream kiss me, so maybe he’s waiting for me to say something about it. Maybe he only dream kissed me instead of real kissed me, because he was too nervous, and because I’m not saying anything about it, he’s hoping I just don’t remember, or thought it wasn’t actually him. Oh, why is this so confusing? He looks over at me and smiles, squinting in the sun. I smile back, but just can’t bring myself to say anything about the kiss, or about him even being in my dream.
Someone nudges my shoulder from the other side of me, and surprised, I look to see who it is. Shannon is walking beside me now, with Chance still on my other side.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
“Hey Chance,” she says, leaning forward a bit and looking over me at him.
He nods. “Hey.”
Shannon nudges my shoulder again. “Hey you were in my dream the other night.”
I smile at Chance before looking back at her. “Was I?”
“Yeah, it was so scary, it was like a total zombie apocalypse. We were running from them, right, and then all of a sudden we were in this subway station, like in Toronto or something, and there was this huge mob of them, all screaming and running at us. Like, these things were fast. And when we got on the subway, you were there but you had this crazy ass sword, and you chopped their heads off! Man, it was crazy.”
“I sound bad ass,” I say.
“You were!”
“I wouldn’t listen to her,” Chance says. “Even if she’s trying to tell you you’re cool.”
“What?”
“She steals people’s lunches.”
“I do not!” Shannon argues. “Stop saying that!”
Chance smiles. “She does, I’m not lying.”
“You are too lying! You’re twisting it all around!”
Chance laughs and throws his hands up in the air in defense. “Hey, all I know, is I had a lunch in the fridge at work, and you ate it, and then I didn’t have a lunch.”
“Yeah, because Sean told me it was his!”
“So you still knew you were eating someone’s lunch that wasn’t yours.”
Shannon smiles and shakes her head. “It was a misunderstanding and you know it.”
“Whatever. Lunch stealer.”
I can tell they’re just playing and it’s all in good fun, but I’m genuinely intrigued now.
“Where do you guys work?”
“Just the grocery store in the summers,” Shannon says. “And I’m not a lunch stealer.”
“Sure sure,” Chance says.
“Really. I would never. And I bought him a new lunch anyway!”
“Yeah, but I didn’t get it until my next shift, which did zero help for me on my shift where you ate my lunch. I was hungry, you know. I almost fainted.”
“You’re never going to drop this, are you?”
Chance’s smile grows. “Nope.”
Shannon splits up from us once we get inside the school, but Chance follows me down to my locker. No one is around when I get there, and my locker creaks in the quiet hall as I open it. I want him to say something about the kiss. What if it didn’t actually happen? What if Dream Chance was just telling me that he was Real Chance, because I wanted it to be Real Chance? What if it was some rando changing the nightmare to something nice, and I was just kissing a figment of my imagination?
“Was that really you?” I finally blurt out.
“Was what really me?”
“In my dream. Was that you?”
“Yeah it was me. I told you I’d look out for you.” He smiles, and it doesn’t even show a hint of post-kiss.
“What about… Before I woke up?”
“What about it?” he asks, slowly taking a step closer to me.
“Well, when you… When you…”
He steps even closer, and tucks his hand behind my head, his lips just centimetres from mine. His voice is soft, almost a whisper. “When I did this?”
I close my eyes as he kisses me, and I let him open my mouth with his, his tongue and lips dancing around mine slowly and gently. His kisses are so much nicer than Zac’s. Zac’s kisses were fun, sure, but Chance is like, a gentleman. He’s caring, and soft, and knows how to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. Also, I know that I’m kissing Chance because I want to. Which is weird, because I never thought that I would want to kiss Chance. He definitely didn’t stand out as the hot guy when we first met, but I don’t know, something about him is growing on me. And this kissing isn’t helping that slow down. My hands find their way to his shoulders and I stand on my toes to get closer to him. His hands run slowly down my back and he grabs my waist, pulling me against his body. He finally pulls his lips from mine, but doesn’t step back or let me go. He leans his forehead against mine and lets out a slow breath.
“I thought you didn’t remember,” he whispers.
“Of course I remember,” I whisper back.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”
“I’m glad you waited,” I say. “But… I’m glad you did it.”
“Good. So am I.”
“It’s so weird to think that we’ve only known each other for a week. Seems like a lot longer,” I think out loud.
“It has been a lot longer.”
“I guess it has.”
“Come on.” He steps back and smiles at me. “Let’s go to class.” I shut my locker door and start to walk down the hall with him, and I don’t even falter when his hand reaches mine, and our fingers lock together. We’ve held hands before, but that was different. This is different. This is clearly a ‘we just kissed and now I want to hold your hand’ type of hand hold, and not a ‘come on, you’re being too slow, I need to show you this place’ type of hand hold. I squeeze my fingers around his and he smiles at me, somehow making me melt more than Zac ever did.
Zac isn’t in Ancient History and I smile, picturing him lying at home in pain. He deserved even more than what I did to him, and if he ever comes near me again, I’ll hit him even harder. Class without him is actually kind of nice, and I enjoy working from the text book without him peering at me from his desk. I like that I know all my thoughts are mine.
“So are you and Zac, like, dating?” I hear from behind me on my way to my locker after class.
“Huh?” I turn around to see Shannon behind me. “Oh… no.”
She slips in beside me and keeps pace with me down the hall. “’Cause you guys were pretty friendly at his party on the weekend.”
“Yeah, I know, I was just a little drunk.”
“He really likes you, you know.”
“Yeah, I guessed that much. He’s not really my type.”
“How is he not your type? He’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah, he is. He’s like, really hot. But I just can’t picture myself with someone like him.”
“But you were with someone like him! You had his tongue down your throat all night!”
“Like I said, I was drunk,” I fib. “I don’t know, I didn’t know anyone here and he was being nice, and I thought I wanted to kiss him, so I kissed him.” I shrug and stop at my locker.
“You only thought you wanted to kiss him?” She crosses her arms and leans on the lockers next to mine.
“Yeah. I thought I liked him, but I didn’t know him very well. I know him a lot better now, and he’s not who I thought he was.”
“Well I know him a lot better than you do, and I don’t think you’re being very fair. He’s super sweet. I know he would never do anything to hurt you.”
I snort.
“What?” she asks, standing up straighter. “Did he do something?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it.” I put my books in my locker and shut it, swinging my bag back over my shoulder.
“Becca!” She grabs my arm when I try to walk away. “Did he do something?”
I stare at her, unsure of how to answer. What do I say? I can’t say he forced himself on me, because technically he didn’t. Technically he did, but I can’t tell her that he forced himself into my mind and made me want him when I actually didn’t. What do I say to her?
“You would tell me, right? I mean, I know we’re not really friends, but I would like to think that we could be. I …” She stops, lets go of my arm. “I understand if you don’t feel comfortable talking to me about it, because we aren’t really friends, but if he did something to you, anything, you have to tell someone.”
“Someone knows,” is all I can say.
Her brown eyes look so confused. She really and truly thinks that Zac is a good guy and I can tell that she’s not sure who to believe. She doesn’t know me, so why should she believe me when I say something like that? But I can tell that a part of her is fighting with herself over it. She wants to believe me. I’m just not sure if she is going to let that part of her win.
“Are you up for dream jumping tonight?” Chance says to me on our walk home.
“Yeah I guess.”
“It’s ok if you don’t want to.”
“I said yeah,” I argue.
“But you also said you guess.”
“Sorry,” I say with a smile. “Yeah.”
He smiles too. “Ok. I’ll pick you up at around 11:00.”
“Sounds good.”
We walk in silence for a few minutes and I so badly want to know what he’s thinking. I want to get in his head for just a second; I just want to hear one word, maybe two. But I can’t. I would hate him if he did it to me so I can’t do it to him. I bite my bottom lip as I fight with myself to control my mind. It got so easy with Zac, surely I could do it with Chance and he wouldn’t know.
“Do you want to get something to eat first?” he asks, pulling me from my thoughts. Good. I’ve snapped out of it.
“No, I think I’m going to make something healthy. I haven’t been eating the greatest since school started.”
“Ok. I’ll just text you when I get to your place, then.”
“Great.”
I put my hair up in a ponytail and change into some older jeans and a hoodie I’m not too worried about ruining. I have a feeling we’re going to get mucked up killing some nightmares, so I figure it can’t hurt to be a little prepared. I catch a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror and notice the bruise on my face; it’s showing through my makeup. I hope it wasn’t noticeable all day. It must not have been, though, ‘cause no one said anything about it. It’s probably just because it’s late and my makeup is starting to come off. My stomach is still full from my quinoa and chicken stir-fry with veggies, but I eat a banana closer to 11:00 just to keep me from getting too hungry or tired.
I jump a little when my phone buzzes in my back pocket, and I pull it out to see Chance’s text.
I’m walking up your driveway
Ok I’ll meet you outside I type back.
Ok :)
I pocket my phone and walk down stairs. I’m about to slip my shoes on when my phone buzzes again.
I’m excited to do this with you. I missed you last time.
Did he just text that because he was too nervous to say it out loud? I put on my shoes and open the front door to see Chance standing at the top of my driveway, looking at his feet, his back turned to me. I shut the door and lock it behind me, and walk down the pathway to meet him. He must have heard me, so he turns and smiles.
“How did you miss me?” I ask. “You were in my dream.”
He blushes and looks away for a second. “I was only in one. I was dream jumping all night. I’ve been doing it alone since Zac left, but after doing it with you… I dunno, it just felt right.”
“Even though you got me kidnapped?”
He seems to choke on his words slightly and gazes at me, terrified of the fact that I’m still thinking about it.
I hit him in the shoulder. “I’m kidding,” I say.
He relaxes a little, but still doesn’t say anything. I didn’t realize he still felt so bad about it. I want to apologize, but instead I just grab onto his hand, and walk with him down the road, and towards the forest.
We’re walking down the colourful hallway and I’m again dragging my fingers along the wall, feeling the textures of each paint splat, each brush stroke. It’s like every colour has a different story, a different reason for being there. Chance lets us walk at a slower place so that I can take it all in and enjoy it. I can’t help but smile as we walk closer to the end, all the colours just cheering me up in a way I never thought that colours could.
Once we’re in Nightlife Five, we drop our phones and our keys and wait for the nightmares to show up across the walls. Within a few seconds, the walls around us come to life with moving images of storms, forests, monsters, and lots of people crying. Each image is dark, foggy or raining, and suddenly my cheery feelings have disappeared, and I feel a ball in my throat as I swallow. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. But I lift my hand to a nightmare anyway, and let it consume me.
We’re standing in the middle of a corn field. The corn stalks are much taller than I am, but we’re in the middle of two rows of corn, so I can see all the way down the dirt path running between them. The moon is the only thing giving us light, just enough to shine off the green corn stalks and cast eerie shadows all around us. I look back at Chance, who doesn’t seem fazed at all.
“I wonder where the dreamer is,” I say.
“Probably somewhere in the middle of the rows, where it’s harder to see.”
“Where it’s scarier,” I add.
Chance nods and we step into the corn, the husks dragging across my skin as we walk through them. I try not to hold my hands up in front of my face to block them from hitting me, but I can’t help it. Something snaps behind us and we turn on reflex, but nothing’s there. It’s just dark, and we’re just surrounded by a lot of corn. I realize that I’m sweating, and beads of it are dripping down the side of my face. I wipe it off with the sleeve of my sweater and then roll them up to my elbows. I want to take the whole thing off, but I don’t want to just leave it here. I’m about to say something, but I hear someone crying. I start to run towards the sobs, and the corn husks cut my face, stinging my skin as I pick up speed. I hold my hands up again, but the husks just cut my arms instead. Whatever. I’ll have extra time to heal in Rem when this is over, so I try not to let the paper-cut feeling get to me. I stop when I find a girl kneeling in the dirt, the corn towering over her small body. Her dark hair is falling over her face and I can’t tell how old she is, but from her cries, and hearing her say the word “no” over and over again, she doesn’t seem much younger than me. I kneel next to her and almost scream when I see what she’s leaning over.
There is a dead boy in her lap. He’s been pulled up onto her legs and his eyes are closed, but his face is beaten and there’s blood dripping from his mouth. The girl is shaking and rocking back and forth, pulling on his shirt and stroking his face. A tear falls off her chin and lands on his neck. This image is reminding me too much of my brother, and I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe. I don’t know what to do. I stand up slowly and start to back away, but as soon as my feet dig into the dirt, I feel like I need out, and I burst back into a run. I only take a few steps though, before I plow right into Chance. His arms are around me and he’s holding me to his body, as if he knows what’s happening and why I’m running away.
“Hey, hey, it’s ok,” he whispers into my ear. “It’s not real.”
“I know,” I cry. “But… But…”
“This isn’t the same ok? I know it feels like it is, and I know this is hard, but it’s not the same. And right now, we have the power to change this. We can help this girl.”
“But no one was there to help me,” I manage to choke, my hands shaking against Chance’s arms.
“I’m here now. I know that’s not enough, but it’s all I can do.”
I take in a slow, deep breath, and then let it out. I nod and take a step back, looking Chance in the eyes. I can do this. I nod at him, and turn around, slowly making my way back to the girl. I sit down next to her and put a hand on her back and she jumps a little, turning to look at me.
“Who are you?” she asks.
“Just a friend,” I say with a smile.
I can feel Chance changing the dream already, and the sun starts to come up, brightening the sky. The girl looks back to her dead friend, but he’s gone now, and she looks more confused than scared or sad. She stands up and turns around, surely looking for the boy.
“What did you do with him!?” she yells at me.
I stand up too, and back away from her a step, my hands up in front of me. “I didn’t do anything. I was right here with you the whole time.”
I can feel the dream changing again, but I’m not sure which directions it’s going in. I look back and see a flash of someone walking through the corn stalks, and I know that it isn’t Chance. Chance is wearing black shoes, and these ones were white-turned-brown. I’ll bet it’s the Lent trying to stop us from changing the dream. I turn back to the girl and smile.
“Wait here,” I say to her.
I run further into the corn and follow the man who I think is the Malevolent controlling the dream. If I’m going to get him to change the dream, I need to be able to see him to get into his head. I try to keep my steps soft so he doesn’t hear me, but something is telling me he has some kind of sense where he just knows that one of us is nearby. He turns his head to look behind him and I duck down and get behind some husks so that he can’t see me. He raises his thick, dark eyebrows and then squints as he tries to see through the darkness that is slowly creeping back up on us. He finally shrugs and turns back around. I start to follow him again but he turns around in less than a second and charges at me. I don’t even have time to react; his hands are around my throat and I can’t breathe. I grab at his wrists and try to pry him off me, but he’s strong.
“Stop getting in the way, Aura!” he hisses.
I kick him in the shin and he grunts, but doesn’t release his hold on me. I look into his eyes and study the different browns in them, trying to see past them, into his head. I can make him let go of me if I want. I can make him do whatever I want. I let my mind seep into his and think about how much I want him to drop me, and he finally quivers a little, before letting go of my neck. I rub my raw skin, but keep my eyes locked onto his. I can feel him trying to get into my head, but it’s almost not even there; like a quieting headache after you’ve taken an Advil. I force myself deeper into his mind and think of him changing the dream. Somehow, it’s like I can see sparks inside his head. I can see wheels turning, and strings spinning, all creating an orange glow of what I want him to change it to. It’s like I’m looking into his eyes at a movie screen, made up of dust and gold and magic. I can see the corn turning into candy, and the girl seeing her friend. I can see them dancing together to 20’s swing music. They don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re laughing and doing it anyway.
I blink, and when I open my eyes, the images I saw through the Lent’s eyes are actually happening. I changed the dream! Better yet, I made the Lent change the dream! He looks at me with a twisted expression, and I can feel him trying to change it back, I can feel a pull of hatred and fear coming from all around me, but I’m able to push it back. I’m able to stay inside his head and keep him from bringing the nightmare back. I hear the two teenagers giggling and I look over to see them trying to spin each other, the girl’s flapper dress twirling in the air around her.
The Lent steps towards me, but I don’t move away from him. I’m not afraid, and I want to show him that I’m not. But he hardly gets to move two feet before he disappears before my eyes. I feel my mouth drop open, and I just stand there, staring at the space he was occupying not two seconds ago.
Chance comes up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You just changed a dream!” he says.
I feel a smile creep up on my lips. “I made the Lent do it!”
“No way! Becca, that’s awesome! You’re a natural!”
“I guess so.” I turn to look at him. “What happened to him, though? He just disappeared.”
“When it gets too cheerful, they can’t really take it anymore. Especially when they were the ones who changed it, it’s just too hard on their evil systems.”
I smirk. “That’s funny.”
“A little.”
“So what do we do now?” I ask.
He nods towards the dancing, laughing kids. “We wait for her to wake up, or wait for the dream to end.”
Chance sits down in the bright grass, so I do too. I lean into his shoulder, and we just sit there together, watching them be happy, until we’re surrounded by white, seemingly sitting on nothing, and then sitting back in Nightlife.
“That was fun,” I say.
“Wanna do it again?”
“Yeah.” We stand up, and are about to choose another nightmare to jump into, when two people appear in front of us. It’s a girl and a guy probably in their late twenties.
“Hey,” the girl says, sort of nudging my shoulder. “You’re the new kid!”
I look at her pixie cut hair and plastic glasses, and try to smile. “Sure,” I say. “Kid. Teenager. Aura. Whatever.”
She smirks. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. Just, I was the new kid not so long ago. It’s rare for Auras to show up at an age older than six or seven, so when they do, we all know about it. I was 19 when I started.”
“Oh.” She seems sort of overly friendly, but when I notice the incredibly gorgeous guy standing next to her, I can’t even listen to her talk anymore. It’s like nothing else exists. This guy… This guy is like Channing Tatum and Ryan Reynolds with a bit of Gerard Butler. If three guys could have sex and make a kid, this would be the grownup version of their kid. He is like, the hottest of the hot.
“I’m Dustyn,” he finally says.
“I’m… I’m uh…” I giggle and slap my hand to my forehead. “Becca. Wow.”
“Hi Becca Wow.” Even his voice is hot. I can’t even.
“Becca’s actually really good at killing nightmares,” Chance steps in. “And she read my mind while I was awake.”
“No way!” Dustyn sounds genuinely excited. “That’s amazing! Alex can’t do that,” he points towards the pixie cut girl. “But she’s got this really cool anger thing that works real well. She-”
“Dustyn,” Alex says, cutting him off. “Not now.”
“What?” he raises his hands in the air and shrugs. “It’s cool! You were almost the only one with a power, and now the new kid has one too!”
“I’m sorry, a power?” I ask.
“It’s not a power, we’re just better than they are,” Alex grins.
“Why don’t we go into another nightmare?” Chance suggests.
I nod. “Yeah, sure. Let’s.”
“It was nice meeting you,” Dustyn says.
“Yeah, you too,” I manage to reply, my cheeks burning.
Chance grabs my hand and pushes it to the wall and I don’t even have a chance to see the type of nightmare we’re entering.
We’re on the Titanic. Great. This is awesome. We’re by the railing at the edge and people are running around in a panic around us. People are shouting, and crying, and fighting over life boats.
“This wasn’t really how I wanted to die!” I shout over the wind.
“We’re not going to die,” he says dryly.
“Why don’t you sound worried? Don’t you realize this thing has already started sinking? Once this goes down we’re going to get pulled right into the ocean!”
“They’re still getting on the life boats, we have time.”
“Well find the Lent and change it now!”
“Fine!” He storms away from me and I chase after him, suddenly confused.
“Why are you mad at me!?” I shout.
“I’m not mad at you!”
I grab his shoulder and spin him around. “Why are you yelling at me then?”
“Because you’re yelling!”
I stop and take a breath. I look around at the panic everywhere and try not to let it get to me. It’s not real. We can make it go away.
“I’m sorry,” I say, managing to keep my voice at a regular volume this time. “This is just really scary.”
“Let’s make it fun, then.”
“How? How do we change it if the Lent isn’t around?”
“You don’t always have to get them to change it. It’s just better. But there’s no way we’re going to find him in this panicked crowd, even with the dream people being out of focus.” He narrows his eyes at everyone. “There’s too many of them.”
“So what do we do?” I ask.
“We just change it ourselves.”
The boat shudders and I lose my balance, falling into Chance. But he’s lost his balance too, and we both fall to the ground. I’m about to get up, but we’re both sliding along the floor, and I realize that we’re going down because the boat is really starting to sink. We’re going to end up in the freezing cold ocean, and we’re going to die. We’re going to die in someone’s freaking dream. Chance grabs onto a bench that’s bolted down, and I’m able to get a hold of his leg.
“What do we do!?” I scream.
“We have to change it to something easy! Like, uh, like this is just a simulation or something! We can’t actually get hurt! And the ones who are falling are wearing harnesses! We’re at a Titanic museum!”
“That sounds ridiculous!”
“So!? It’s a dream!”
And without even any warning, I feel something tightly wrapped around my chest, and I notice that Chance has a harness. We’re wearing harnesses! I look down at the part of the boat that was going into the water to see a ball pit, like in the play area of a fast food place.
“Chance you’re amazing!” I shout.
“I’m not doing it, you are!”
“What!?”
“This is way too intense for me to change it this fast; you’re doing it.”
How am I doing it? I didn’t even know I was doing it.
“Well what happens next?” I ask.
“You tell me!”
“Maybe… Maybe the boat levels again because the simulation is over.”
The incline goes back down to a flat ground and I stand up, looking around at the all the people who are chatting and gasping, and sharing their experience.
I catch a few parts of their conversations, things like, “I can’t even imagine what it would have been like for real,” and “I feel sick to my stomach,” and “I’m so glad they’ve given us the opportunity to feel what they were feeling,” and “I feel so much closer to them all now.”
“Weird,” I say. “Am I making them say all of these things?”
“Some of it, yeah. Some if it is sort of filled in by the dreamer, but not much. They don’t realize they’re doing it. It’s just their mind sort of playing along without knowing what game they’re playing.”
I turn to look at the crowds again, but we’re surrounded by white, and then we’re in Nightlife.
“So you liked Dustyn, eh?” Chance asks.
“Huh?”
He laughs. “You really couldn’t have been more obvious.”
“No, no I don’t like him.”
“So what, you just wanted to have sex with him?”
“No… No, I … No, I would never want to have sex… with him.”
He laughs again and I feel my face get hot. “Sure.”
“Really. I mean, I haven’t even… I don’t… Ugh, nevermind. I just… He’s good looking, ok?”
“He’s really got you tongue tied. I wish I could have that effect on you.”
“Chance, I… I’m trying to… I mean-”
“Don’t worry about it,” he waves me off. “You up for another nightmare?”
“One more.”
We actually end up killing four more nightmares, and I change them all, two of which I did through the Malevolent’s heads. It got a little hard at the end, I guess because I was getting tired, but we did it, and we’re now on our way to Chance’s room so we can catch up on sleep before the real morning comes.
I crawl into his bed and he gets in after me, pulling the covers over both of us. I thought at first that it might feel a bit awkward sharing a bed with him while neither of us was sick or injured, but it feels nice. He pushes his body against my back and wraps his arms around me, his breath on my neck. I nuzzle back into his chest more and feel myself smiling as I slowly drift off to sleep.
“Wait,” I whisper, my eyes snapping open.
“What?” he whispers back.
“Who watches our nightmares when we’re in Rem?”
“We can’t get nightmares in Rem.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I crane my neck around and turn a little bit so that we’re half facing each other. “Do we dream at all?” I ask.
He nods. “There’s always someone watching over us as we sleep. No matter where we are. But when we’re here, it’s only the good ones that can get through to us. The Lents can’t touch us here.”
“Wait, we always have good dreams in Rem?”
He smiles and nods.
“I didn’t dream the last time I slept here.”
“You were concussed, Becca. You just don’t remember.” He kisses my forehead and I sigh, turning back around so that he can hold me again, so that we can be cuddled together in his bed like two puzzle pieces fitting together just right.
I’m walking down the stairs into the subway station, but I can’t tell which one. I have no idea what part of Toronto I’m in, and when I look around for signs, there are none. The whole place seems to be deserted, but for some reason it feels familiar. Comfortable. A train approaches just as I get to the tracks, so I get on and walk all the way to the back of the car. There’s no one on the train, except for a man with dark hair, who’s sitting in a seat that’s facing away from me. I decide to be friendly and sit in the seat across from him. But when I sit down, I almost gasp at who I see.
He’s older and his cheek bones are sharper. His jaw is stronger; more pronounced. He doesn’t really look like a fourteen year old, he looks like he’s about 18 or 19, and I can’t figure out why I’m starting to cry until he looks at me, his eyes widening in recognition.
“Becca?” he whispers.
“Adam,” I choke.
“Becca, it’s so good to see you. I’ve really missed you.”
My vision is completely blurred over with tears and I can’t tell if he’s smiling, or crying too. Why is he here? How is he older?
“Don’t cry,” he says gently.
“But Adam… Adam, I can’t even believe that it’s you. How are you older?”
I wipe the tears from my eyes with my jacket sleeve and almost gasp again when I can see him once more, the same, only older.
“I’m always getting older, just like you are.”
“But I’m still alive.”
He smiles and it breaks my heart into pieces. “So am I.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere, Becca. I’m everywhere.”
“But how? If you’re everywhere, how come you don’t answer any of my texts?”
“I don’t have a phone, silly.”
“Did you know I was texting you?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then why didn’t you answer me!?”
“I couldn’t. I wanted to, but you know I can’t.”
“No. I don’t know. I don’t know how this all works. I don’t know! How am I talking to you right now? Are you alive in Rem?”
“No, Rebecca, I’m not.”
“Then what!? When are you alive?”
“In your dreams.”
I start to sob, and my body shakes. “That’s not good enough. Dreams aren’t real.”
“Sure they are.” He gets up and sits next to me. He gently grabs my chin and turns my head, forcing me to look at him. “You of all people should know how real they are.”
I sniffle and wipe my face again. “I just wish that you were around for all of this.”
“So do I. I miss killing your nightmares.”
“Did it hurt?” I ask. “When you died, did it hurt?”
He shakes his head. “No, it didn’t hurt.”
“What did it feel like?”
He looks up for a second, as if thinking about his answer. “It just sort of felt like… Letting go.”
“Like giving up?”
“No, like moving on. Getting over something. Starting something new. It definitely didn’t feel like giving up.”
“Almost like something you were waiting for? Like a release?”
He smiles. “Yeah.”
“I miss you, Adam.”
“I miss you too.”
“But this isn’t real.”
I wake up in Chance’s bed, my face wet with tears. I’m not sure how I feel about that dream. It felt so real; I just wanted it to be real. It wasn’t long enough. I was just starting to feel ok with seeing Adam like that, older, alive, and then I woke up, feeling more broken and empty than I have ever felt. It wasn’t right. I turn to Chance for any kind of comfort, but I’m alone. Where did he go? I roll over on to his side of the bed, and it’s still warm. Maybe he just went to the bathroom. But when I wipe the tears from my eyes and look across the room, I can see that the bathroom light is off. Where is he? I curl back up under the covers and try to go back to sleep, but I’m worried for some reason. Why would he just get up and leave? Unless… Unless that was him making my dream. Could it have been? But why would he do that? Didn’t he know the kind of effect that would have on me? I mean he made me see my aged brother, who died when he was 14.
Chance quietly slips back into his room, and I pretend to be asleep and try to stop crying so that I don’t have to talk to him. He carefully gets under the covers and curls his body up against mine, his arms wrapping around me and making me almost forget how to breathe. I try to hold back my sobs, but one slips out, quiet, but there.
“Are you ok?” he whispers.
“I don’t know.” I turn around and face him. He tries to wipe the tears from my face but I inch away from him.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” I repeat. “What’s wrong? Was that you? Was that you who just tore my heart into a thousand pieces?”
“What?”
“Did you put Adam in my dream?”
He sighs. “I tried to make it better than that. You woke up too soon, that’s not how I planned it to go.”
“How did you plan it? For me to jump up and down with joy, hugging my dead but alive Dream Brother?”
“Please, Becca, don’t be mad. Please. I was… I don’t know what I was thinking; I thought it would be comforting.”
“Well it was heart breaking!” I hit him in the shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to take offense to it.
“I’m sorry.” He scoots closer to me. “I didn’t know it would make you sad. I thought it would be nice.”
“Well you obviously don’t have a dead family member.”
He sighs again and closes his eyes for a few seconds. “I won’t do it again.”
“Well…”
He raises his eyebrows at me.
“Maybe one day,” I start. “You could do it again. One day, like, in the future. When I know it’s coming, maybe. So I don’t think it’s real.”
“So the dream wasn’t all bad, then.”
“Well, I don’t know. It was… confusing. And again, heart breaking. It was devastating, and seeing him older, just… Made me think he was alive when he wasn’t. That sort of messed me up a bit.” I stop and bite my bottom lip.
“But?” he asks, probably hoping I have more to say.
“But the thought was nice, I guess. And when I think about it… I mean, when I woke up, I was mostly mad because it wasn’t long enough. I was getting comfortable with it, and I liked being with him even though I knew it wasn’t real, and then it was over. Poof.”
“That part wasn’t my fault,” he says.
“I know.” I sigh and cover my face with my arm as I roll onto my back. “It’s all just so confusing.”
“Yeah.”
It’s quiet for a bit and I peek through my arm at Chance, to see him lying on his back too, his eyes closed.
“Chance?”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me.”
His soft lips are warm and gentle against mine, and his breath is sweet and comforting. We kiss for a while, hardly moving at all, just lying in his bed and taking everything at a slow pace.
He pulls away from me a bit and smiles. “You’re beautiful, you know that?” he says quietly.
I want to say something in return, but I’m sort of tongue tied. No one has ever called me beautiful the way that he just did. It’s not like Zac, who I swear just says it to make me swoon over him. When Chance says it, there’s so much sincerity to it, so much truth. Like he’s saying it because he knows I don’t think I’m beautiful, and he wants me to realize and believe that I am. That I’m better than I think I am.
Somehow in our process of slow, romantic kissing, both of our shirts have come off. I’m not even nervous to be with Chance in just my bra, or for his bare chest to touch me. I feel like it’s right, because it’s with Chance. It’s like he’s the one I’ve been waiting to do any of this stuff with.
We finally stop kissing, and Chance lies down beside me, twirling in his fingers a chunk of my hair that had come out of my ponytail. For some reason, he’s much more attractive than when I first met him. But he’s the same person, and he definitely still looks the same. I just happen to like it all now. That’s weird. I didn’t know a person could do that to someone.
“I like you,” I whisper.
“I like you too.”
I dream of a lot of things. So many wonderful, silly and cheerful dreams that I can’t even recall specific parts of them. I just know that I was smiling and laughing a lot in all of them. I wake up in the morning feeling so refreshed that I can’t even try to stop smiling. I feel so good.
“Morning,” Chance says.
“Morning.”
He leans in and kisses me softly on the lips, cupping the back of my head. I kiss him back and let myself fall into him as he wraps his arms around me. He’s still shirtless and I’m still just in my bra, but we’re snuggled up under his comforter. He climbs on top of me and pulls the blanket right over our heads, so that we’re cocooned in our own little world. He pulls away a bit and then kisses the tip of my nose. There is a bit of light seeping through the comforter and I can just make out the outlines of his face, the curl in his lips.
His kisses move from my lips to my jaw, to my neck, and then to the new knot scar under my collar bone. He kisses it once, and then slowly traces his fingers around it. I trail my fingers up his arm, and touch his scar too, just under the inside of his elbow. I run my index finger around the raised skin, tracing it over the three loops. I can see him smile in the dim light before he kisses mine again, softly, lingering before bringing his mouth back to mine.
“I really like kissing you,” he hums.
“Me too. I mean, I like kissing you, not me. That’s weird.”
He chuckles. “I should probably take you home, though.”
He sits up and lets the blankets fall back so that the cold air can bite at my bare stomach. I yelp and grab the blankets from him, curling back up into my pillow.
“We really have to go if we want to be back before your mom gets up.”
“Ok,” I whine.
It’s still dark out. I still have a few hours left to sleep in my own bed, on real time.
“What day is it?” I ask, really just trying to take as long as possible to go inside.
“It’s Thursday.”
I shake my head. “My week is so messed up. This isn’t going to age me faster, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well if 8 hours of Rem is only like 2 hours here, won’t I be 6 hours older when I come back? And since I spent like three days in Rem after Zac took me, but only a day here, shouldn’t I be two days older?”
“No, everything’s slower in Rem. Not just time, but everything. So we don’t age any different.”
“You’re sure?”
His smile kills me. “I’m sure.”
“But my bruises. Shouldn’t they heal slower too?”
“What do you mean?”
"It’s like my bruises are a week old, but they’re only 2 days old in real time. I thought they healed so fast because we were in Rem for so long.”
“Oh, I never thought of that. I don’t know,” he shrugs, like it doesn’t bother him or blow his mind at all. “It’s magic. I don’t know.”
I chuckle a bit. “Well if our bruises heal faster, then we should be aging faster.”
“I guarantee you, we don’t age faster. I don’t know about the bruises, honestly. I never thought about it.”
“Right, because you were six when you became an Aura, and didn’t question anything.”
He smiles. “Right.”
I nod to my front door. “Ok, so I guess I should get inside, then.”
I want to kiss him goodbye, but I feel awkward stepping in for some reason. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just woman up and kiss him? I know I want to. And the best part is, I know that those feelings are all mine. He starts to turn away, and a rush comes over me, and I just grab his shirt and spin him back around, kissing him. He kisses me back harder this time, like he wanted to kiss me this whole time on my porch too, but was also contemplating it, and now that we’re doing it, it’s like finally catching a breath of air after being under water. It’s refreshing and relieving, and we can’t seem to get enough. I’m messing up his hair and we stumble back into the brick of my house, kissing each other like we’ve been waiting for this for years. I almost feel hungry for him, feel like I need him, like I’ll always want more.
We finally slow down and we’re out of breath, but we still can’t stop. Our lips are moving more carefully and our grip on each other has loosened. But I still don’t want to let go. I never want to let go.
“Why are we kissing so much lately?” Chance asks, still out of breath.
“I don’t know.” I say. “But I like it. Why question it?”
“I like it too. I just didn’t think you felt this way about me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.”
“But I do now. I feel very much this way about you.”
He smiles and kisses me again, but this time it’s just a peck. I want to kiss him forever, but I accept it and let him take his arms off my waist.
“I’ll see you at school,” he says.
“Yeah. See you at school.”
I don’t feel tired at all as I head up the stairs to my room, but I don’t know what else to do, so I climb into bed without even thinking about it. I lay there for a good 20 minutes, thinking about the dream jumping, and about Chance, and eventually, I drift off to sleep without even meaning to.
"What is that?” Shannon asks at Lunch.
“What?”
She points to my face. “That yellow bruise on your face!”
I raise my hand to cheekbone, and lightly touch it. It’s not sore anymore, and I completely forgot about it. I was supposed to cover it with makeup, but I didn’t put any on this morning.
“Uh, I walked into a door,” I say.
“Excuse me?” She raises her hand and reaches out to touch my bruise but I pull away. “Did someone hit you?”
“No, I told you, I walked into a door.”
“Were you walking around with your eyes closed?”
“Who’s walking around with their eyes closed?” Zac says from behind us. My heart lurches in my chest and I feel like I need to hold my breath so I don’t say anything or try to hit him again.
“Becca has a bruise,” Shannon says. “And she’s trying to tell me she walked into a door.”
Zac sits next to Shannon and crosses his arms on the table, looking across at me. “Are you and Chance in an abusive relationship?” he asks.
“What? No. We’re not even in a relationship.”
“Is that because he hits you?”
“Chance doesn’t hit me! God!” You do! I want to just scream and make him pay for hurting me. Although, I guess I did. He still has a bit of a bruise as well, and his lip seems to be taking a while to close up; it’s still got a nice split in it.
“It’s ok, someone hits me, too.”
“I thought that was from rugby,” Shannon says.
“It is.” He smiles. “Someone hit me in rugby.”
“Well I walked into a door,” I say again.
Chance comes out of the food line with a slice of pizza, and as soon as Zac sees him coming towards our table, he gets up and winks at me. “I’m off,” he says.
I watch Zac leave the caf, and smile at Chance when he sits down next to me.
“He really likes you, you know.” Shannon is just smiling at me.
“Who does?” Chance asks.
“Zac. He likes Becca.”
Chance and I just roll our eyes at each other.
Fog is surrounding me as I look out at a lake so calm that it looks like glass. It’s dark and it looks black under the water, and the fog is slowly starting to grow, inching up towards my shoulders. Why is there so much fog? I hear a creepy laughter in the distance that gives me chills. I wrap my arms around myself and walk along the beach, the wet sand making gritty swishing noises under my shoes. But then I hear a scream and I whip my head back around to see what’s happening. Two boys are fighting, but it’s hard to see them through the fog.
“Hey!” I shout, running up to them. “Stop it! One of you is going to get hurt!”
They’re rolling around in the mud, climbing on top of each other and throwing punches in every chance they get.
“Stop!” I yell again.
But I almost scream when they roll over again and I see the face of my brother on the one of the kids. It’s my brother! It’s my brother at the exact age he was when he died. Who is he fighting with?
“Why are you being such a little bitch!?” the other kid screeches. He sounds young, like he’s fighting to go through puberty or something.
“Why did you switch sides!?” my brother yells, before taking in a deep breath and plowing his forehead into the other boy’s.
The other boy yelps and falls off Adam, grabbing his head as he rolls in the wet dirt. He cries out and rolls back and forth, and Adam gets up and stands over him.
“Answer me,” Adam says.
“Why don’t you just go change my stupid nightmare into a fluffy cotton candy dream, already? We all know your mind is too strong for us to stop it. Just do it, already!”
“What is your problem, Zac? You used to be so cool.”
I gasp and stumble backwards, not wanting to watch this anymore. I have a feeling that I know where this is going and I don’t want to see. I don’t want to hear, I don’t want to know. I keep walking backwards, shaking my head, and covering my ears so that I can try not to be a part of it.
“Wake up,” I say to myself. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.”
“You can’t make yourself wake up,” I hear Present Day Zac say.
I snap my eyes open and look at him. He’s still bruised and I can’t help but feel good about myself for that.
“Fuck you,” I say through gritted teeth.
He laughs and throws his head back. I scream and run at him, but my feet seem to be glued in place, and when I try to pick them up, I just fall flat on my face. Zac laughs at me again, but I smile when I see that I can reach his legs. I grab his ankles with each of my hands, and pull towards me, making him fall back with all his weight. He yelps just like 13-year-old Zac did when my brother head butted him. But he’s not on the ground for long, and when he gets up, he grabs me by the face and forces me to my feet. Squeezing my cheeks together, he forces me to look towards the water, where his younger self is fighting with Adam.
In a flash, we seem to be in the hall of mirrors from Dredd, and I can’t tell who the real Adam is and who is just a reflection. I yell for Adam to stop fighting, but he can’t seem to hear me. Just a few seconds pass and we’re randomly under the willow tree in Rem. I’m starting to get a little dizzy, and the fact that Zac is still squeezing my face with his dirty hands is making me uncomfortable. 13-year-old Zac and 14-year-old Adam stand up, and Adam runs at him, screaming as he jumps in the air and kicks him in the gut. Wow. My brother had some pretty cool moves. Zac flies backwards and lands on the grass in a heap, and Adam is back on his feet like he didn’t just drop kick someone. Adam steps on Zac’s neck, but I can tell that he’s not putting any pressure on it.
“I’m not joining your side,” Adam says.
“I’m sorry, Adam, then I’m just going to have to kill you.”
“Sorry, I won’t let you do that either.”
“Well we aren’t going to let you take over our nightmares anymore! So what else do you want me to do!?”
“Come back to Rem!” Adam shouts.
“Dredd is the light, Adam!”
Adam swallows and takes his shoe off Zac. He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at his opponent, probably thinking about what to do.
“If you come back, we can help you,” Adam says softly.
“I don’t want your help!” Zac pushes himself off the ground and runs at Adam, shoving him into the tree. He’s got his grip on Adam’s shirt and he’s slamming him back into the tree, over and over and over, and all I can see is Adam’s head cracking against the sturdy trunk, over and over and over again. Adam goes limp for a second, but then his eyes widen and he gasps, and then we’re not in Rem anymore. I don’t know how they’ve been jumping from place to place, but I don’t have time try and think of a logical explanation. We’re in the pool room of my old apartment building, and present-day Zac is nowhere to be seen. I remember Chance telling me that they usually hang back and don’t let themselves be seen in their nightmares. I figure he probably knows that I won’t look away by this point, and he’s left me here to watch on my own. I look around for him for about two seconds, until my attention is drawn back to the two teenagers in the pool. Their splashes echo around me as they continue to hurt each other, this time while trying to keep their heads above the water. Adam screeches as he grabs Zac’s face and pushes it below the surface. Zac’s hands are waving wildly in the air, trying to get at Adam, but Adam is doing a good job of dodging. Finally his hands are under the water and then Adam is getting pulled under and they’re both fighting under water. I’m holding my breath as I watch. They both come up at the same time, both of them taking in a big gasping breath, and Adam swims hard towards the edge. Zac is close behind and grabs onto his shirt, pulling him back into the middle of the pool.
“Aaah, stop it, you ass!” my brother screams.
“Come to Dredd!” Zac screams back.
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you too!”
Adam kicks harder in the water and finally makes it to a ladder, but Zac is right behind him since he still has a hold on his shirt. Zac follows Adam up the ladder, water splashing everywhere, but he slips when he gets out and loses the grip on Adam’s soaking t-shirt. But Zac is up in less than a second, and jumps on him, sending them both flying through the air. Zac is on top of Adam, who is now face down on the tile. I watch as Zac grabs a fistful of my brother’s hair, water flinging from his face, and pulls his head back so that he can whisper into his ear.
“Change this,” I hear Zac say, before he slams Adam’s face into the floor. I can hear the crack from all the way across the room, and it echoes in my ears, ringing through my brain. Zac slams his face into the tile one more time, and then gets off him, staring down at him, his feet on either side of his back. My heart is pounding and I can taste vomit in the back of my throat. My vision is blurring with tears, but I can see as Zac leans down, trying to get a look at him. He steps around him and stands beside Adam, his arms crossed as he waits silently for … for… I don’t know what he’s waiting for. He knocked my brother out already, so what is he doing, waiting for him to drown? Oh my god, he’s waiting for him to drown. He’s going to let him drown in a stupid fucking puddle! I want to get up and run at Zac, kick him in the face, throw him in the pool, anything, but I know it won’t change anything. Plus my body is shaking so hard that I would probably fall over if I try to move. It’s quiet all around us and all I can hear is my heavy breathing and racing heart, thumping so hard in my chest. I wipe my face and clear the tears from my eyes, finally watching as Zac gently nudges Adam’s shoulder with his shoe. Adam’s limp body wobbles a little, but nothing happens. He doesn’t groan, he doesn’t do anything. He’s dead. My brother is fucking dead.
“Finally,” Zac says, flipping his wet hair out of his face.
I lean against the wall behind me and slide to the ground, my brain completely turned to mush. How did I just see that happen? How did Zac get into my head and create a nightmare that was 100% true? How did no one see it? Why didn’t anyone change it? No one was looking out for me. I don’t know how long I sit there for, but I’m jerked back to “reality” when I see my 13-year-old self come into the pool room, the sunlight peeking in through the windows. Everything has a nice glow to it, even my face, as I cry into my dead brother’s shirt.