In the City of the Nightmare King

by V. S. Santoni

  “Why’d we stop? What the crap is that noise?” Alison muttered.

  A cockroach flew out of a vent near the speaker—and not just any roach, a big fat city roach four inches long. It flittered toward me and I nearly hyperventilated. Few things filled me with utter revulsion and horror like city roaches did. I swatted wildly until it flew past me and landed on a wall. Another cockroach crawled out of the vent and took flight. Alison screamed when she saw that one join the other. Then the grate fell, and roaches spilled to the floor in the hundreds. Alison and I huddled together in the farthest corner from the roach pile. Blake moved back, too, but he was more cautious than afraid. One roach landed on my left arm and bit me—I freaked out and swung my arm, flinging the little monster. Hundreds more cascaded out of the vent; the hungry black heap continued to grow.

  I looked up and saw a hatch on the ceiling. “Blake,” I said, pointing to our escape route. “Boost me up.”

  Blake took a knee and let me sit on his shoulders, then he lifted me toward the hatch. I weighed more than he expected—he wobbled to the side and nearly dropped us, but I pressed my hands against the ceiling and balanced us until he regained his center. Alison rose up on her tiptoes in the corner, withdrawing from the spreading mass. I pushed against the heavy hatch, gritting my teeth until finally it opened, clanking loudly against the cab’s roof. I reached through the opening and planted my forearms on the ledge before reeling myself up, then lay on my stomach and reached down.

  “Come on!”

  Blake lowered a knee again and waited for Alison to climb on his shoulders, then hoisted her up. He winced as roaches started biting his legs, but Alison grabbed my hands in enough time. I held her steady until Blake regained his composure enough to maneuver her directly under the hatch. She scrambled up onto the roof with me.

  “Ali,” I said, “hold me down while I reach for Blake.” Alison wrapped her arms around my waist and secured me, and I lowered my upper body through the opening. Blake didn’t see me, though, as he was too busy kicking and swinging as the roaches covered his legs and started for his midsection.

  “Blake!” I shouted. He spotted me hanging through the hatch and jumped, and I snatched his hand. He weighed so much that he almost pulled us all down into the cab with him. Alison quickly tightened her hold, and I reeled him up until he was able to sling his arm over the ledge and pull himself the rest of the way up. A few cockroaches flew up through the opening, but we slammed the hatch shut once Blake was through to prevent any more from following.

  “J!” Alison tugged on my sleeve and made me look up. Another stalled elevator was suspended in the shaft, twenty feet above. The doors to floor twenty-eight were wide open just below it. Our elevator groaned to life and resumed climbing, threatening to crush us. When floor twenty-eight’s landing was within reach, Alison and I jumped and hauled ourselves through the opening. Blake leaped, but his fingers slipped and he fell back onto the elevator with a loud clunk.

  Alison sprang to her feet. “Blake!”

  Blake barrel rolled through the gap between the lift and doors and hit the floor next to us with inches to spare. The doors slid shut, and a noisy metal clamor followed.

  “Gah. That was so messed up,” I said, standing and sweeping my hands through my clothes, still feeling like cockroaches were crawling all over me.

  Floor twenty-eight’s landing was tucked in an alcove between two converging hallways. A framed canvas painted all black hung over a leather bench opposite the elevator doors. Alison eyed the art. “Someone should tell the Nightmare King’s interior designer about pastels.”

  Blake looked around the corner, down the hallway to our right. The passage stretched about forty feet before hanging left and continuing. The corridor to our left mirrored the one to our right. “Right or left?” Blake asked.

  “The Nightmare King’s leading us to him,” I said. “Why else would those doors have been open?”

  “So regardless of where we go, it all leads to the same place,” Alison said. “At least Mrs. King makes it easy for us.” She headed down the corridor to our right, and Blake and I followed.

  The corridor’s dingy wall lighting turned the passage a dim orange, causing the gross beige wallpaper to take on a yellowish hue. If nothing else, the Nightmare King understood mood. Every step forward, its powerful aura filled my chest with a stomach-rending sadness that made me feel sick. I pushed out the feeling, but its lingering impression left me thinking about Hunter. Doors with unmarked brass plaques lined the hallway. I jiggled a door handle as we passed, but it didn’t open. We walked left at the corridor’s end and spotted another curb farther down, heading left again. We took that and kept walking until we found another corridor, this one turning right. We navigated the cavernous paths, one after another, going in circles, trying to reconcile the Escher-esque warren. The entire time, I got the feeling the walls were inching nearer to one another. Without windows, the space’s claustrophobic tightness only increased. A deathly sswwwffff caught my attention, but I didn’t know where it came from. The noise sounded again and continued. It was the walls—the walls were closing in.

  “Run!” I shouted.

  Alison and Blake looked at me strangely before they realized what was happening. We dashed into the next hallway, but the walls there started advancing on us too. We charged down the passage, but my foot caught on a nail sticking out of the carpet. I lost balance and crashed to the floor. The nailhead had pierced through my shoe and snared the rubber, making it difficult for me to stand. Alison ran back when the walls were only inches away from one another and dragged me along with her, leaving behind my shoe.

  The walls finished sliding together, blocking off the hallway behind us. It took us all a moment to gather ourselves. Strangely, my shoe reappeared on my foot.

  “What is this thing, a Batman villain?” Blake said.

  “It’s messing with us,” I said. “It controls this world. We don’t have any magic. It could’ve killed us if it wanted to.” I shouted to the ceiling, “Stop messing with us and just show yourself already!”

  Two darkly colored doors appeared at the end of the passage. The Nightmare King’s palpable aura swelled behind them.

  “Those weren’t there before,” Alison said.

  “We’ve got to be careful,” Blake said, but I ignored him and walked toward the doors. “J, we don’t know what’s behind there!”

  “Yes, we do. It’s the Nightmare King.”

  “It could be a trap—another hallway full of tricks.”

  Although his words didn’t sway me, a dreadful feeling hit near the doors and gave me pause. It was like I was swimming in the ocean while sharks circled under me. But Hunter’s aura was drawing near. I shook off the discomfort and opened the doors. Before me, a hall of mirrors branched in two directions. Each pane of glass distorted me in different ways, some stretching tall and thin, others round and squat. Alison came up beside me. “This . . . doesn’t look like a hotel room.”

  Blake walked up on my other side and studied his own twisted reflection. “Let’s stay together.”

  Alison and Blake walked in one direction, but I caught my reflection giggling in a mirror in the other and decided to investigate. The closer I came to the reflection, the less it looked like me. Its sunken eyes had shadowy circles, skin gray as a corpse’s. I turned to call for the others, but a mirror wall had appeared behind me. Now all that awaited me was the path leading to a dead end. All my reflections burst into snickering, some covering their mouths and whispering to the others. Their indistinct words transformed into a roaring hiss that filled the chamber. Then one reflection walked into another mirror and melded with the doppelgänger there. The other reflections did the same until only one remained in the dead-end mirror. I approached and got a better look: it had jaundiced eyes and a snarling mouth full of big, crooked teeth. Its dark, ashen skin looked desiccated, as though partiall
y mummified.

  The look-alike stepped through the mirror, and the glass rippled like water as it emerged changed on the other side. It grew taller, donned a sharp suit, and its head transformed into a billowing cloud of black smoke with a pair of glowing yellow orbs for eyes. Its monstrous mouth—too wide for any human—twisted into a smile. The creature’s feet hovered off the ground, but only slightly. In a familiar teenage boy’s voice, the monster said, “You’ve lost your friends.”

  “Are you the Nightmare King?”

  The monster closed the space between us. I moved back until I bumped into a mirror. I was cornered. It loomed over me, its hideous shadow swallowing me.

  “I am.”

  Chapter 17

  The Nightmare King beckoned for me with his long fingers as he floated back through the mirror. I feared I would be endangering Alison and Blake if I resisted him. I followed through the mirror and stepped into what looked like an unfinished bathroom, with a wall covered in white tiles and wooden floors that looked partially sanded. The Nightmare King took his place near a window and stared at the nothingness outside, his fingers threaded behind his back. He exuded graveness even though he sounded like a child. It came as no surprise the Night City’s ruler—a witness to the endless march of souls into the Void—embodied such solitary sadness.

  “Why are you looking for me?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to help someone, but I need my magic to do it.”

  “And you believed the laws of the Night City would bend just for you?”

  “Please. He needs my help.”

  “Why should I care?”

  “Because I’m not leaving here without him. He’s like family to me.”

  “Family? What’s that? Is it a fruit? A pile of string?”

  How was I supposed to explain what a family was? Families weren’t always the same. Someone could get married and have kids, even get a dog, but that doesn’t make a family. I’d been in one of those families before. I’d had a mom and a dad. Then everything fell apart and we drifted away from one another. But that wasn’t like Hunter, Ali, Blake, and me. I would never have made it through the Institute without them. How do you explain that to someone? You might as well ask a bird what freedom is—the bird can’t tell you. It only knows that when it takes off into the sky, the wind carries it higher. It can go anywhere. And that’s what a family does: it carries you higher.

  “It’s . . . not easy to explain.”

  The Nightmare King stared at me with glowing yellow eyes. “If you can’t explain it, then how do you know it’s real?”

  “You can look inside my head and see what it is, can’t you?”

  He went quiet. “You have relationships with multiple people in a group.”

  “No. That’s not all it is. It’s something more.”

  “Then what? I have never had a family before. How can I believe you if I’ve never experienced the same thing?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just . . . I have faith . . . that it’s something more.”

  Again, he didn’t respond. It was like he was trying to gauge whether I was being sincere. How far removed from human thinking was the Nightmare King that a concept such as family struck him as disingenuous?

  “Perhaps, a wager?”

  “You want to make a bet?”

  He pointed to a door behind me. It flung open, slamming against the wall. A powerful gust blasted into the room. Beyond, a short hallway stretched into a larger space, what looked like a squalid apartment’s living room. A door on the wall facing me opened. Blake walked in first, then Alison to his left. Bewildered looks dressed their faces. They opened their mouths to speak, but some unseen barrier kept their words from me.

  “Are they your family?”

  They split up to investigate. It’s funny how when you see someone and you know all their little traits, watching them from a distance makes them more endearing. “Yes.”

  “Would you give up anything for them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine then. If you can keep that promise, I shall lift the spell; however, you mustn’t tell them of our deal. Now, step through the door.”

  I walked through, and the door slammed shut behind me, announcing me to Blake and Alison, who startled and spun toward me. Alison came around the corner to my left. “Where the hell did you go?”

  I almost told him that I’d found the Nightmare King, then I remembered our bet. Better to keep them from asking too many questions. “I got lost.” Blake eyed me suspiciously. We’d encountered our fair share of malevolent lookalikes. I didn’t blame him for scrutinizing me.

  “Why did you leave us like that?” Alison demanded. I kept quiet, and she pressed me further: “Why, J?” She folded her arms over her chest and gave me that shrewd older-sister look.

  Before I could answer, Hunter walked in through the door Blake had used. He curiously scanned the room before spotting me. A ticklish feeling spread through my chest, my fingers, my feet. My body kicked into motion before I fully processed what I was seeing.

  I rushed over to him and ran my fingers down his cheeks, painfully choking back tears. “Hunter?”

  Hunter looked around again, confused. “Johnny, where are we? What’s going on?”

  I put my arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest, rubbing my cheek against his soft cotton shirt. Hunter clasped his hands around me, rested his chin on my shoulder, and hugged me back.

  “Johnny, what’s wrong?” Hunter asked.

  I gently pulled away. “Don’t you remember anything?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head.

  “You’re in a coma. Luther said you’re . . . ‘Void-touched.’”

  “What’s that?”

  Blake’s doubtful expression became a cynical glare. “He said that when you went into the Void, it marked you, and now it’s trying to suck you back in. Where were you?”

  Hunter shrugged

  “Okay,” Alison said, “it’s nice we’re all reunited, but the Nightmare King hasn’t lifted that spell and we’re still stuck in this”—she scowled at the room—“place.”

  “Nightmare King? What is this place? Are we . . . in Everywhen?” Hunter asked.

  “We’re in the Night City,” Blake said, walking to the front door and opening it. “We can’t just wait in this room.”

  We all peeked our heads out the door. No horrifying, twisted dungeon awaited outside the room, only an ordinary, run-down hallway. Blake strode out confidently and Alison chased after him, giving me an addled look as she passed.

  I would’ve happily stayed in that room, hugging Hunter.

  “We should follow them,” he said, “before we get left behind.”

  The hallway was all wrinkly stucco walls with chipped paint, and the light fixtures in the ceiling showered the passage with a sickly, flickering yellow glow. A smell like stale cigarettes permeated the air, and no matter how far we walked, we never came across another room. Our destination remained uncertain, like another encounter with the Nightmare King, but Hunter’s hand in mine brought me peace. I recounted everything to him. He listened, face stricken with wonder. Blake and Alison’s underwhelmed reactions implied they didn’t trust him—they kept quiet as we walked. I only attributed so much to their suspicions, though, the rest I relegated to my own reservations: they were the dishonest ones; in fact, it was plausible they worked for Nightmare King.

  Blake and Alison stopped walking. The hallway in front of us warped and distorted, spiraling like a corkscrew.

  “What the—” Alison said.

  “Let’s go,” Blake said. He walked forward until he was horizontal, then vertical; gravity imposed nothing on his movements. I got dizzy when I thought about walking in circles, but we needed to find the Nightmare King to leave this place.

  Hunter held me back, and Alison and Bl
ake walked farther ahead. “I don’t like this,” he said. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re looking for the Nightmare King, Hunt, so he can break the spell and we can get out of here.”

  “Why’re you all convinced this is the way?”

  The thought never crossed my mind. Blake had marched ahead with confidence, and we followed unquestioningly. This spiraling corridor made no guarantees—it could lead anywhere. Slowly, the walls around us blurred like a smudged oil painting, every color blending and swirling. I searched for the Nightmare King’s aura but didn’t find it. Strange considering it permeated the entire Night City.

  “I can’t feel the Nightmare King’s aura,” I whispered to Hunter.

  “What if he’s purposely misleading us?”

  “Who? Blake?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Are you even really sure that’s Blake?”

  I’d already thought as much. Hunter saying so only reified my distrust. Something in Blake’s gait was off—too certain. Back in the real world, he was sure of himself, but this sure? And Alison’s doubtful silence. True, she grew quiet with discomfort, but this quiet? In the Dreamhaven, my wizard sense parsed real from copy, but here I couldn’t know if they were real or merely the Nightmare King in disguise. Then I recalled our bet. Was this all part of the Nightmare King’s gambit?

  Hunter nudged me, leaned closer. “I say we tell him we’re heading back. We can figure out a new plan before we can’t turn back at all.” I looked behind us. That was certainly easier than interrogating Blake.

  “Hey, Blake, we should head back,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?” Blake said. “This is the way.”

  “How do you know?” Hunter said. “Can you even pick up the Nightmare King’s aura?”

  Aggravated, Blake pointed at Hunter. “What’s your plan?”

  “We head back and figure out some other way to find this Nightmare King dude.”