Natalie Cuddington
Chance lifts his head slightly from his chest, and blood spills out of his mouth as he opens it to try and talk. I want to run over and tell him that he’ll be ok, I want to untie him from that cold, metal chair, I want to kiss him until I feel his pain instead of him. Instead I stand next to Zac, my hand still in his, and I just try not to wince when he looks at me.
“I thought I’d save him for you,” Zac whispers.
“What do you mean?”
“You can do whatever you want to him. You can put him out of his misery and do it quickly, but I think it’ll be more fun to play.”
“But why? He’s not a threat.”
“They’re all threats, Becca!” He rips his hand away from mine and grabs at his hair. “We need to take them all out! Why are you not understanding this!?”
“But don’t we need some sort of balance?”
“Fuck balance!”
“Becca,” Chance chokes.
“If you don’t hurt him, you’re not on my side,” Zac says.
I want him to leave us alone. He should leave us alone, thinking that I will do better without him hovering over me. He should trust me. Zac should just trust me because he thinks I helped him take down all the dreams. Because I came here with him. Zac needs to trust me.
“I can leave if you want,” he says slowly. Oh my god, it’s working. “If it makes it easier for you… If you don’t want me watching.”
I smile and nod.
He steps in closer to me and grabs my hips, pulling me into his body. His breath is old and sour on my mouth, but I try my hardest not to wince. “I want to watch, though,” he whispers. No! No, he doesn’t want to watch. He has something else that he needs to do. He has to check on his stupid Malevolent minions. Report to the higher up bosses. He has to do something. “But I think I’m needed somewhere.” Yes! Now we’re getting somewhere! “I’ll be back, ok?”
He kisses me and I want to smack him, bite his tongue or knee him in the crotch, especially with Chance watching. I kiss him back but manage to keep it short, pulling away before he wanted me to, I’m sure. He smiles when I break the kiss, and looks into my eyes. I need a breath mint.
“See you soon,” he says. He backs out of the room, and shuts the door behind him.
I give it about seven seconds before I rush over to Chance and kneel down next to him, putting a soft hand on his face.
“Chance,” I whisper.
“I’m going to throw up,” he says.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. I had to, to make him think I’m on his side. But I didn’t like it.”
“No, really. I’m going to puke.”
“Oh.” I stand up, looking for something he can vomit into, but there’s nothing. We’re in an empty room with one chair in which he is occupying. He burps, and then pukes, and it rolls down his chin and lands all over his shirt and lap. I can smell the warm sourness to it and I have to fight the urge to cover my nose. I don’t want him to feel embarrassed.
“Chance, what did he do to you?”
He shrugs.
I kneel next to him again and run my fingers through his hair. “I have to get you out of here.”
“We can’t get out of here. We don’t know where their transitions are. Or where they go into nightmares.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Even if we went into a nightmare, I don’t think we could end up back in Rem.”
“Why?”
“Zac got rid of all the dreams. All the Nightlifes, the Dreamscapes, they’re all empty.”
“Plus they beat me up pretty bad. I don’t know if I can walk.”
I look down at his ripped jeans, blood surrounding the frayed edges and soaking through the denim. I hope they didn’t break his legs. I go to the back of the chair and untie his hands, the rope leaving bloody indents in his skin as I peel it away. His arms dangle loosely beside the chair once they’re free, and then I get to work on his legs. We have to start getting out of here soon before Zac comes back. Once I’ve freed him of the rope, I bend down next to him and put an arm around him, forcing him to put one of his arms around me.
“Can you stand?” I ask him.
He slowly starts to lift himself off the chair, but then screams out in pain and lowers himself back down. He’s out of breath and I can see the sweat on his neck.
“You can stand,” I say firmly.
“What?”
“Your legs don’t hurt.” His legs don’t hurt. He can walk on them just enough for us to get away. He can do it. “You can do it.” You can do it.
“I… Becca, I don’t think I can.”
Yes you can. Yes you can. You can do it. It doesn’t hurt anymore.
He slowly stands back up and grunts as he bites down on his bottom lip. I can tell by his face that he’s in agony, but he’s walking across the room with me, half limping. He grabs onto my shoulder and puts more of his weight on me, but he screams out and then bites down on his lip again. I can’t do this to him, it’s too cruel. I can’t make him think he’s not in pain when he clearly is.
“Sit back down,” I say, taking the few steps back to the chair. I bring it across the room to him and force him back down.
“What are we going to do?” he asks.
I look at his bruised face, his swollen eyes, and I’m at a loss. He’s too big for me to carry him, and even if I could carry him, we would be too slow. There’s no way we could get away like that. I look around the room for something to use, even though I already know that there’s nothing. Finally, with nothing else to go on, I grab the back of the chair and tilt it back towards me so that it’s leaning on just its two back legs. I shuffle backwards, dragging the chair with Chance in it. It doesn’t even scrape that much on the floor, and having the chair at an angle makes him feel less heavy. This will have to do. Continuing backwards, my neck craned around so I can see, I pull us into the hall.
“Which way?” I ask.
He just groans.
I decide to go right, even though it doesn’t look like there’s a way out anywhere near here. I hear shuffling footsteps from around a corner somewhere, which is strange because I don’t see any corners in this hallway. I stop and listen, but the shuffling sound stops when I do. Maybe the sound carries around in these halls in strange ways. I start walking again and try to pick up the pace. But this time I hear voices. Or one voice. Yes, just one voice.
“Damn that stupid Aura! I can’t believe her! I should just throw her into a nightmare so she can’t get out, like we did to that other stupid girl.” He chuckles and I stop walking again to listen, holding my breath. “Where’s Zac when I need him?”
I push myself up against the mirrored wall, which does nothing considering Chance is slumped in a chair in front of me. I don’t know why I think this will help me hide better, but it’s all I can think to do.
The guy continues to talk and I shoot my head around in all directions, trying to see where he could be. “He’s probably back at the stupid fluffy dream place. You know what, I don’t have to keep getting hurt for this douche face, I can just get outta here and let him deal with all this shit! I’m going home!”
He’s going home! If I could just find where he was, and follow him without him seeing us, we could use it to get back to Rem, or back to my place or something! I step away from the wall and tilt the chair back into me again so that I can drag Chance with me, but a hand slams down on my shoulder and I gasp.
“Where are you going, sweetheart?”
I can’t think of a response that’ll fool him. I’m completely tongue tied, and as I stare up at Zac, I feel as helpless as I must look.
“What are you doing with Chance?” he asks.
“Uh… He passed out and I didn’t know what to do.”
“Why didn’t you just kill him?”
“Well… I… Because… I just…”
He sighs and a smile spreads across his face. “You’re new at this. I get it. It’s ok.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. I’ll teach you. It’s easy.”
“You mean you’ve done this more than once?”
“You mean you think the only person I’ve killed is your stupid brother?”
I don’t feel helpless anymore. I don’t feel weak or confused, or unsure of myself. I scream. I scream so loudly that it burns my lungs, but it feels good. I jump at him and we both fall to the ground, and when I land on top of him, I punch him in the face. It hurts my knuckles and the pain goes up my forearm, but I don’t stop. I punch him again and I feel his nose crack under my fist. Blood sprays from his mouth and nose, and paints my sleeves red. But I don’t stop. I whale on him as I sit there, straddling his chest, an overwhelming feeling of power completely consuming me. His head finally goes limp and falls to each side as I punch him over and over again. When my knuckles are covered in both his and my blood, and I find myself struggling to catch a breath, I stop. I’m still sitting on him and I’m resting my bloody hands on my thighs, looking at the cuts in my skin. I didn’t know I was capable of that.
I finally get off him, but when I do, a moan escapes his lips. I can tell that he wants to say something to me, but I’m not sure if I want to hear it. For some reason, though, I bend down close to his face, to give him a chance to say what he wants.
He groans again and mumbles something that doesn’t sound like a word.
“Sorry, I must have broken your face too much for you to speak properly,” I say. But just as I’m about to stand back up, he finally says a full sentence, under his breath, but just loud enough for me hear.
“That’s my girl.”
What? What did he just say? Did he call me his girl because I beat the crap out of him? Is he proud of me or something? He’s not mad that I totally just beat the crap out of him? Why isn’t he mad? Why hasn’t he seen that me being on his side has been an act? I shake my head and stand up, turn around to get Chance, and that’s when I scream. Chance is gone. Who took Chance!? Did Zac make me beat him up on purpose? Why would he do that just so someone could kidnap Chance? Why wouldn’t he just beat me up? It doesn’t make any sense.
“Chance!” I cry. I break into a run and head down the hallway as fast as I can.
The mirrors surrounding me are starting to make me dizzy and I have to stop to close my eyes for a few seconds. I dig the heels of my hands into my face and take a deep breath. I slowly open my eyes again and look further down the hallway, focusing on the end, before taking another step. I begin to move forward, slowly and carefully this time, and when I make it to the end of the hall, I turn left, hoping I’m going the right way. I hear something behind me and I spin around on my heels, coming face to face with a guy I recognize from a nightmare I changed. His blonde hair falls into his eyes and his lean frame towers over me as he sneers at me.
“Lost?” he asks.
“No, actually, I know exactly where I’m going.” I force a smile. “Thanks.”
“Where you headed?”
I shrug. “None of your business.”
“Oh, I think it’s my business.”
I sigh. “Fine. I was looking for Zac’s room. But I get so turned around in here, I have no idea how you guys navigate through these halls. I was just embarrassed about not remembering, that’s all.”
“That so?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure you’re not looking for Chance?”
My heart lurches forward. “Yup.”
He points behind him. “Second door on the right, take the hallway all the way to the end, make a left, and he’s the third door on the left.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
I can feel him watching me as I head down the hall and open the door, but I don’t turn back to see if it’s true. Once I make it into the next hall, I recognize it as the one I got lost in the last time I was here. Or at least one that looks just like it. Dark lighting, walls dripping with the occasional stale, musty water. I start making my way to the end, and realize that it doesn’t even look like I’m moving at all. How do they get around in this place!? Maybe I can’t get to where I want because I’m not actually one of them. But I don’t want to go to Zac’s room anyway; I just wanted to get away from that blonde haired guy. I turn back and start to make my way back to where I had come from, but again it feels like I’m not moving at all; it’s like I’m going the wrong way on a moving sidewalk at the airport. I’m about to punch the wall when I hear someone talking farther down the hall, and I stop right away, my hand mid swing. I cock my head to the side to try and listen, hoping I can somehow catch up to her without anyone noticing, so I can follow her out of here.
“No, I told you, Alex is stuck. Yes, I’m sure.” Is she talking on a phone or something? “Pixie cut, glasses, button nose.” Silence. “Yes it was her!” She pauses again, as if she’s letting the other person speak. “Yes, the bitch who can blow stuff up! Ugh, why don’t you trust me!? I made sure she was in my nightmare when Zac was pulling them off the walls. She has nowhere to go.” I hear a smile creep into her voice. “Fine. Ok, I’m on my way.”
My instincts make me press into the wall again, but she doesn’t come my way. I tiptoe to where I heard her voice coming from, and then break out into a soft run. I don’t want my thudding footsteps to carry through the hall. I finally see a girl all the way at the end of the hall, except she looks like she’s about a kilometre away. I pick up the pace and try to land softly on my toes, but I’m not getting any closer to her. I would really like to understand how these halls work. It’s really starting to piss me off.
After about a minute I find myself catching up with her and I want to jump for delight, but I keep my cool and continue to stay just a few steps behind her. I really have no plan as to what I’m going to do when I get to her, and I seem to be closing in on her pretty fast, so I better think of something, but I can’t. Nothing comes to me. I don’t know what to do. I’m right behind her now, and without thinking, I slam my fist into the top of her head, making her squeal and fall to the ground. She grabs at her head and opens her mouth in a sort of silent cry, looking up at me like she has no idea what’s going on.
“What was that for?” she asks.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. “I thought you were someone else. Sorry.”
“Who the hell did you think I was!?” She starts to get back to her feet, one hand still on her head.
“I don’t know, I’m sorry, I’m so confused. I’m just supposed to be making sure that Chance guy doesn’t run off but I have no idea where he is.”
“What Chance guy?”
“The guy they brought in a little while ago. Chance. He’s real beat up.”
“Oh, his name is Chance. That’s weird. Yeah, he’s just down that way.” She nods behind me by raising her chin. “That door on the left there.”
“Thanks.”
I turn back around and surprisingly, make it to the door on the left as if this was a normal hallway the whole time. I slowly turn the knob and open the door.
As soon as I walk in the room I’m met with a knife spinning in the air, coming towards my face. I almost don’t have time to dodge it, but I get out of the way just as it lodges itself in the door behind me. I uncurl myself from the ball I had formed so quickly and stand back up, looking a new Malevolent in the face. His sneer is making me want to punch him, but I’m a little afraid to cross the room to him. I don’t have any knife throwing training, or even any experience fighting, except for the two times I seemed to be good at beating up Zac. The guy whips his head diagonally, tossing his dark, greasy hair out of his eyes.
“What’s the matter, Aura?” he says. “You don’t want to play?”
My eyes wander to the corner of the room where Chance is tied to a chair again, his head slumped down and his chin resting on his chest.
“Of course I want to play,” I say.
Without any warning, his hand goes to his back pocket, and in less than a second, he’s throwing another knife at me. I dodge out of the way again, but this time I don’t curl in on myself. I just jump out of the way and then prepare myself for another knife. When it doesn’t come, I pull both the knives out of the wall from behind me, holding them ready in each of my hands. I don’t really know how to throw a knife properly, but how hard can it be? I chuck one of them at him and I miss him by about a metre to the left, and he just looks at it wedged in the wall, and laughs. I’m afraid of him pulling the knife free and throwing it at me, and I just wish that he would do something a little less intense. He almost reaches for the knife – almost, but then instead, he charges at me. I don’t know what to do, but I still have one more knife, so when he comes closer, I just shove it into his stomach. He curls over me and I find myself trying to shove it in even further. He makes a gurgling sound and I twist the knife, feeling it tear at his insides. He makes this awful gasping sound and then all of his weight is on me. I just sort of shimmy out from under his chest and peel his fists off my arms, and he crumples to the floor, the knife still sticking out of him. Why would he run at me if I still had a knife in my hand? Did I make him do that? I couldn’t have. I wasn’t even trying. I step over the Lent with shaking legs and make my way over to Chance, who is still slumped in the chair.
“Chance,” I whisper, tapping his face. “Chance, wake up. Chance, I think I just killed someone.” I almost can’t get the sentence out, but when I do, I feel something tighten inside my chest so hard that I can barely breathe. How did I just kill someone without even thinking twice? My mouth goes dry and a sour taste in the back of my mouth is creeping up on me. I tap Chance in the face again, but harder this time, and he sort of comes to.
“Becca?” he croaks.
“Chance, we have to get out of here.”
He nods his head and swallows and I can actually hear how dry his mouth is.
“Come on,” I say, untying him. Again.
We shuffle into the hall, which is thankfully empty for now. His arm draped over my shoulder is pulling on my neck, but I ignore it and carry on. I catch a glimpse through a doorway of people walking into a wall and disappearing. Is that where they’re getting into Rem? Or back to their homes? It must be. I don’t want to walk in with Chance and have them see me helping him, so I hold back until I think everyone but one person has gone into the wall. I take a deep breath and open the door, stepping into the room. The one person left is the girl from earlier, who told me where to find Chance. She looks at me questioningly and raises her eyebrows at me, but I start talking before she has a chance to.
“Is this the place Zac was telling me to take Chance?”
She stares at me and shrugs.
“I’m still kind of new to all this, and I get turned around so easily in this place.”
She sighs. “Does he want you back in Rem or something?”
“Yeah. Something about taking him back to where it all started to kill him.” I add an eye roll, hoping I look and sound convincing.
“That sounds like Zac.” She laughs and points at the wall. “Have you done it before?”
I shake my head, taking a step forward.
“It’s just like going home, but right now it’s set up to take us to Rem. We don’t think it’ll be open for much longer, though, so everyone’s trying to get everyone back. Better hurry.”
“I will.”
I take a step closer to the wall, Chance hanging off me. I step up to it and press my hand to it, but it slides through, like it’s made out of water. I try not to seem excited or eager, and step through, coming in right in the middle of the entry to the castle. People are still fighting, but there are much fewer people. I look around to see everyone stepping over large pieces of glass, and I look up to see that the ceiling has completely caved in. It’s open to the dark sky and a flash of lightening lights everything up for a few seconds, before turning everything dark again.
I can see Dustyn in the middle of it all, and his face lights up as soon as he sees us. But I can see his eyes catch on Chance and his eyebrows furrow. He runs over to us and pulls Chance off me.
“What happened?” he asks.
“Zac,” is all I can seem to say.
“I’ve got a lot of them to leave but I need your help.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes you do. I know you do.”
“You can do it without thinking, now,” Chance gurgles, a bit of blood seeping out the side of his mouth. I try not to look alarmed, but my heart is screaming at me to take him somewhere safe. “You rocked at killing those nightmares.” He swallows and coughs, but keeps talking. “You can do it, Becca.”
Dustyn nods. “I know it’s scary, but that just makes it feel more real, doesn’t it?”
Something gets thrown in our direction and we all duck, letting the knife flip around and cling to the floor some distance away. The Lent who threw it is now running at us, screaming at the top of his lungs.
No. He’s not going to destroy us today. He’s going to go back where he came from. I don’t care how badly he wants to take us over, he’s going back. I think he can feel me getting into his head, the way they can feel it in the nightmares, and now I can feel him trying to get into mine. The headache is right in the middle where I can’t get at it, and I can almost hear him telling me to pick up the knife that he threw at us.
Pick it up. Pick it up and shove it in your heart.
I force my feet harder in the ground and narrow my eyes at him, fighting through the headache, not letting him take it over. I won’t let him. I won’t pick up the knife. He’s going to stop getting into my head and go back to Dredd. And he’s going to take a friend. Go back to Dredd. Take your stupid friends with you, and don’t come back. What are you still standing there for? Go!
He falters a little bit, and grabs the arm of a girl, forcing her with him. She looks at him weird, but goes along with what he whispers to her, and they disappear into the wall. My head is still pounding, but there are more Lents to get rid of, so I make my way further into the crowd of fights and intervene. A punch almost makes it across my face but I dodge out of the way with just enough time, and I grab the Lent’s arm, controlling his mind and telling it to let me do this to him. His face goes limp and soft, and he doesn’t even try to fight me. I turn away as soon as he gets my message, and walk towards a girl with thick, red hair. She smiles at me with an evil flare and starts towards me as if on some kind of mission. I get into her head and tell her to leave, but she keeps coming at me, and pushes me so hard with both her hands that I fall back. I’m about to get up, but I don’t have time; she’s on me in less than a second. She straddles me as she sits on my chest and holds my arms down while a big Lent with dark hair comes to join her. I gulp and wriggle underneath her, trying to get free, but I can’t. For a few seconds, all I can focus on is the infinity tattoo on the side of her neck. It’s making me dizzy looking at it, but I can’t look away, until the guy leans over me with a smile, and punches me so hard in the face that it makes both my ears ring. I cry out to release the pain, but it doesn’t really do much. I try to get into his head, but it doesn’t do anything; he just keeps hitting me. My face feels broken and my head is pounding, and I want them to stop.
Stop. Stop it! Stop hitting me!
It’s not working.
The red head keeps holding me down while the guy continues to punch me, my head flopping to the side and slamming into the floor. There’s blood spilling out of my mouth and pooling around my face, sticking to my cheek and I can’t even wipe it away. But then someone comes charging at us and flies at the guy, both of them sliding across the floor. The girl seems startled by it all and takes her hands off mine for a few seconds, giving me just enough time to grab at her. She screams as I reach out and pull at her thick hair, using it to bring myself up to a sitting position. I tighten a fist and throw it at her face, feeling her cheekbone crunch into my knuckles. She screams again and falls to the floor, grabbing at her face as I stand. Dustyn was the one who saved me, and now he’s kicking the Lent in the gut. These two must have really strong minds for me not to be able to get into their heads, but I have a strong mind too. I can do this. My head is pounding and my eyes are almost swollen shut, blood is dripping from my face, and the room is spinning in every direction, but I manage to walk over to Dustyn and the Lent. I look at his face and try one more time. It feels like my head is going to explode, but I keep trying.
Get up. Get up and leave, and take your stupid ginger girlfriend with you.
My head hurts so much and any time I think of something for him to do, it jabs at my eyes and stabs my brain. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
“Stop!” the Lent yells. “Stop it! You win! Fuck!”
Dustyn stops mid kick. “We win?”
The Lent swallows and nods. “We’ll go. I don’t need this shit.”
“Oh, but we do? We need to have the shit kicked out of us, but you don’t?”
“Fuck off, we’re leaving, ok?” He gets up and slowly walks towards the red head, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Are you ok?” he asks her.
She just nods and they leave together. But there are still more. They all need to leave too. I have to get into all their heads at once, but how? How did I read all their minds at once? I know I wasn’t trying, but it still must have been something that I was controlling. Something that I can recreate in a different way if I want. Maybe if I can read their minds first, it’ll be easier for me to get into them. But wait a second, didn’t that one girl back in Dredd say that the door wasn’t going to be open that long? And didn’t they get what they came here for in the first place? Zac got all his nightmares, so what are they still doing here? I look around and notice that all the remaining Lents aren’t noticing or figuring out what’s going on.
“The door’s going to close!” I shout, without even thinking. “You don’t have much time to get back to Dredd! You all got what you came for, didn’t you!? You took over all our Nightlifes and got rid of all the dreams, so we can’t fight back anymore! You win! What are you still doing here?”
“Who’s that?” someone asks. I don’t even know if it’s an Aura or a Lent.
“That’s the girl Zac wants!” someone else shouts. Oh shit.
They all storm towards me, but I realize as they close in on me that there are only four of them. That’s all, that’s all that’s left. Four stupid little Lents. I can do this. I brace myself for my head to explode all over the place, and feel my mind as it enters theirs. I don’t even know how I’m doing it, but I’m entering all their minds at once, and I can see what I want them to do, like I did before. I can see it in swirls of dust and gold, of all them walking into the wall and leaving us alone. I study each of their eyes, somehow all at once as they walk towards me, and I see themselves in a swirly dust, walking past me and leaving. And that’s what they do. The dust in their eyes settles and they leave without any questions or fights. That’s it. They’re gone. It’s done.
And so am I.
I wake up in Chance’s bed, but there’s no one around. My head is still pounding, but at least it doesn’t feel like it’s going to blow up. I curl back up under the covers, not wanting to face anything. I need to sleep more before I can accept anything that happened today.
The next time I wake up, Dustyn is sitting on the bed and his hand is on my forehead. I wake to a bit of a start.
“Sorry,” he whispers.
“Where’s Chance?”
“In my room.”
“Is he ok?”
“Yeah, he’s ok. Beat up, but ok.”
“Am I ok?”
“Yeah, I think. It was just exhausting doing what you did. Took a lot out of you.”
I nod. “Can I see Chance?”
“I’ll get him to come see you, ok?”
“Ok.”
Dustyn gets up. “You did good, kiddo.”
“Wait.” I grab his arm before he can leave. He just looks at me, I guess waiting for me to continue. “Did you know my brother?”
“Adam? Yeah, I knew him.”
“Did he… I mean, was he…”
“Strong like you?”
I nod, fighting back the tears.
“Yes, he was. That’s why, uh, he…” he licks his lips and his voice gets a little softer. “That’s why he died. The Lents wanted him for his mind, and it got him killed.”
“Because he wouldn’t switch sides, right?”
He just nods.
“And now they want me.”
Dustyn sits back down on the bed and grabs my hands. “But he never told anyone what was happening, Becca. He wanted to deal with everything on his own, and we didn’t know he was in trouble until it was too late. We know about all of it now, and we won’t let them hurt you.”
“But they have.”
“We won’t let it get any farther, ok? I won’t. Chance won’t. We’ll watch out for you.”
“You’ll try.”
“Hey, no, stop. We will. All of us together, we’ll make sure you’re ok.”
“So what about Alex, then?”
“We’ll get her back.”
“How?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know yet, but there’s gotta be a way. There’s a way to fix anything, you just have to think of it.”
“But you weren’t there for her. She got taken.”
“Alex didn’t want my protection.”
“Then I don’t want yours.”
“Well you have it. Whether you like it or not.” He stands up again and runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll get Chance.”
I sigh and let him leave. I guess I can’t refuse someone trying to help me or keep me safe. I guess I should just keep it to myself that I don’t believe him when he says that he’ll be able to keep me safe forever. It’ll come as less of a blow when the time comes that I can’t fight back anymore. When I’m no longer safe. It’ll happen again. But at least I can be prepared.
Chance hobbles into the room with a bright smile, and gets under the covers with me right away.
“Hey you,” he says softly.
“Hey.”
“You saved me back there.” He cuddles up to me and I nuzzle my head into his neck.
I just shrug.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” I say. “It was a pleasure.”
“I’m sure it was.” Hearing the smile in his voice really helps bring me back.
It’s easy to fall asleep again, but it feels empty. Dreamless. When I wake up again, I only feel a little refreshed, and the feeling is eating at me. Is no one going to have dreams anymore? It’s going to be a world of nightmares and nothing else and we won’t be able to stop them. I shake Chance awake and he looks at me with a bit of pain across his face.
“Sorry, did I hurt you?” I ask.
“I’m ok. What’s up?”
“We can’t dream anymore.”
“There’s gotta be a way that we can get the dreamers back. We can get back into their heads somehow.”
That’s when everything stops. We can get into their heads. We can get into their heads!
“Chance, you’re a genius!” I say.
“I am?”
I sit up with excitement, ignoring my still pounding head. “If we can read people’s minds when they’re asleep, why can’t we influence their thoughts, too? Make them dream in real life!”
“Well we are doing it in real life…”
“But I mean from like, in their rooms, next to their beds.”
“You want to break into strangers’ homes to give them dreams?”
“Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that… I just… I mean, if we can all read minds of sleeping people, and I can read minds of awake people, and we can all influence thoughts of sleeping and awake people, I’m sure we can do it. We can do it!”
“But we won’t be in their heads if we do it like that. And there are too many people out there to do it like that. We would never get everyone.”
“But it’s a start! Maybe if we get into their heads like that, they’ll show up back in Dreamscape and Nightlife and stuff!”
“I don’t know. But again, it’s only some people. What about everyone else?”
“Zac can do it.”
“What?” He sits up more and leans on his elbow.
“Zac said that he can get into dreams without a place like Nightlife. He could also jump from Rem to Dredd without using the transition they made. If he can do stuff like that, then so can we!”
“Maybe.”
“No, we can! I know we can! And if anyone has too much trouble with it, we’ll think of something else they can do! But for right now, we have something, don’t we?”
He taps his fingers on his thigh. “Maybe. But we also have to figure out how to get Alex back. And anyone else who was in the dreams when they got taken down.”
“Yeah. That’s a tough one.”
We sit in silence for a bit, and I fight off the huge urge to read Chance’s mind. I so badly want to know what he’s thinking. I want to get inside his head. I want to make his dreams.
“We’ll think of something,” I finally say.
“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll think of something.” He doesn’t sound convinced, but I know that I am.
We weren’t made the way we are so we can sit back and watch ourselves lose. Some of us weren’t made stronger so that we can be kidnapped and beaten up, or afraid for our lives. We were made the way we are so that we can do something. My brother died because of who he was, and he shouldn’t have. If we’re stronger, we should be stronger; we should be able to win. I will not die because of who I am. If I die, it’ll be because I’m fighting for something other than myself. If I die in this war, it’ll be for a purpose. But I know that I was given an opportunity. I’m stronger than the rest of them, and I can do something with that. So I will.
And I’m not wasting any more dreamless sleeps on it.
I’m doing something now.
