by D. H. Quinn
“Some generic looking bedroom.” That disgusting witch, my mind whirls.
“Did she do anything to you besides kiss you?”
Rob rubs the back of his neck and looks down. “No,” Rob replies with a nervous laugh.
“Good.” Rob heads up to the cashier and I move out of the line and stand aside and out of the way. I pull out my phone in a panic. I email the blog again, hoping Sierrah would answer me. She had to know something. I tell her the mall we are at and pray for a reply.
Rob suggests we go to a movie and I agree. We see a mindless action flick that does almost nothing to distract me. In fact, I am more anxious. I glance at my phone when the credits are rolling and see an email from the blog that I received about 20 minutes ago. It just says “I’m here.” I respond back immediately and hope she hasn’t left. I tell her we just finished a movie.
She doesn’t respond but when we exit the movie theaters into the mall, I spot her immediately. I hadn’t thought this through. My brother would be curious about a strange woman waiting for us. As if by some miracle, Rob points out a group of his friends from high school. I tell him I see a coworker and suggests he visits with them. He seems reluctant but once they see Rob they enthusiastically wave him over.
Rob walks off with his group of friends and I approach Sierrah. I can tell she rushed over. Her long hair is pulled back, she is wearing minimal makeup. She waves timidly at me as I approach her. “Hey,” I greet her with a cautious smile.
“Hi. Was that your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“He looks alright.”
“He is for now but I am concerned.”
“You said this Jack woman has him?”
“Yes, she does.”
Sierrah sighs. “If she did that then she knows you can get back into the city.” I look at her, eyes wide. She knows something about Jack too. Before I can question her, she begins to speak. “I guess it’s time I tell you the whole story.” We head over to a bench and sit down. The mall now buzzes with people. Moms are tugging along toddlers, groups of teens and preteens loiter around and the occasional individual rushes by on a clear mission. Our bench is out of the way and off to the side to deter from some of the noise.
Sierrah sighs again as if she is trying to release the clear tension in her body.“I’m sorry if I just left you hanging. From what my brother told me the dream world isn’t pleasant,” she says apologetically. I shake my head no. I need someone, anyone to help me, I don’t care if she ignored me before. She continues, “well my brother is the one who wrote the dream blog. He started feeling crazy, like his dreams were the real world and this world didn’t exist. It helped him to write about it,” she looks up at me. I nod for her to continue.
“He told me about his dreams a few weeks in and then he talked about the city and all of these characters within the city and,” Sierrah pauses and she is having a hard time swallowing. “And then things came after me in my dreams. I had nightmare after nightmare. I became depressed and my brother recognized that and he said it was his fault. At the time I didn’t believe everything he was telling me but my nightmares eventually stopped and he went into his coma.” Sierrah shakes her head as if trying to get the thought out of it.
“He just went to sleep, promising he would fix it for me and he didn’t wake up. I learned about lucid dreaming and tried my hardest to get to the city to him to see what happened but every dream is unpredictable and everything has stopped me, but you, you are able to stay focused and,” she looks up at me hopefully.
“But what do you know about Jack?”
“She’s dangerous. My brother liked her a lot at first but he would tell me he feared her, he said she was the one controlling my nightmares, controlling the things that were feeding on my happiness and energy.”
“So, you think your brother may still be in the city?”
“Yes, probably, I don’t know. The doctors say his brain is somewhat active and they think there’s a chance he could wake up, I have to believe he will.”
“How long has it been?”
“Two years now, coming up on three.”
“From the stories I was told Jack gets a new human pet often,” I say before I can stop myself. “But like I said before, another human was in the city when I was there. They saved me.” I pause, looking over Sierrah’s worried face and something comes over me. “Sierrah, I would be happy to try to find your brother,” I say with conviction.
“Thank you.” Sierrah’s eyes glaze over.
“I was planning on facing Jack anyways.” I shrug. “What’s your brother’s name?”
“Aleksander,” Sierrah replies calmly and my heart pounds rapidly.
“Aleksander,” I repeat back shakily and she reads the look on my face.
“You know him?!”
“I know a dream walker with that name, he’s very close to Jack but that couldn’t be him.”
“Does he have brown eyes and brown hair?”
I laugh at the simpleness of the description. “Yes, but anyone could...” I start but Sierrah interrupts. This is why Sierrah's face looked so familiar to me the first time I met her, her eyes and nose, they resemble Aleksander’s.
“It has to be him! Hold on,” She picks up her phone and scrolls through. She shows me a picture of her and him standing next to each other, his arm wrapped around her shoulder. Its him alright.
“It’s him,” I say. She squeals. She puts her phone down.
“You can come to the hospital with me now and see him. It’s where I was heading before. Just to be sure.”
“I don’t know, I brought my brother here and,” I look at my phone and see a text from my brother that says he is going to hang out with his friends and that he will have them drop him off later if that is okay. I also see a text from Liam but I do not open it, feeling extremely overwhelmed. Aleksander exists in this world too. My heart flips.
“See, it’s perfect timing,” Sierrah says as she leans over, looking at my phone.
“Yeah,” I respond feeling uncomfortable.
“You can drive us over.” I nod numbly. This is crazy. I text Rob back telling him to have fun. I am happy to see him out with his friends. A knot in my stomach forms on the drive over to the hospital. I try to convince myself that it isn’t Aleksander, that I will see some unrecognizable man lying on the hospital bed. None of it made sense. How could Aleksander be human? No one in the city seemed to know. Then again, Jack deeply controlled the people of the city and she could very well be making them stay quiet.
Nervous energy rolls through me. I ask Sierrah about her family. I remember her saying in our first meeting that she had no one to pick her up and I extended that to having no one in general. My instincts were right as her mother had died a while back before Aleksander’s incident and their father moved out of town once Sierrah turned 18 last year and has since had minimal contact with her.
I ask her about the incident at the hamburger joint where she said something was following her and where I thought I saw something strange. “Since the Mares have touched me, my life has been drastically different. There has been hallucinations, I see them in my real life. Since you had been recently marked by a Mare I would assume that’s why you saw it but I cannot be certain.” I let the subject go, I know less on the topic than she does. Besides, I hadn’t seen anything transfer to my real life.
We arrive at the hospital a few minutes after this conversation. We park pretty close to the hospital entrance and I follow her lead down the corridors. One nurse gives us a friendly wave with a small smile and Sierrah waves back. We check in at the nurse’s station.
I have been feeling anxious since we left the mall and that anxiety increases with each step closer that we get. Sierrah opens the room number labeled 308. The machines beep steadily in the otherwise silent room. A brief flash of visiting my grandmother in the hospital runs through my mind. She had died shortly after. Needless to say I am not a fan of visiting hospitals.
; My mind wanders back to the current room and to the pale figure lying on the bed. He’s skinny and slightly older than he looks in my dreams but I have no doubt who it is. I fall into the seat near the bed, closely examining his still and emotionless face.
“Is it?” Sierrah questions hopefully. She closes the hospital door behind her.
“It is,” I say not attempting to hide the shock in my voice.
“Was he okay when you saw him?” Concern melts into her voice.
“Yes, he was okay, I just can’t believe he is real.” I slowly touch his hand to confirm his existence. It feels wrong to touch him when he clearly isn’t here so I remove my hand quickly, my heart still pounding from just being near him. My face flushes. Sierrah watches me cautiously, waiting for more information.
“I thought he was a dream walker. He is close to Jack and he seems to be afraid of breaking that connection.”
“You have feelings for him,” Sierrah says more as a statement then a question. Her eyes are wide. “This is great.”
“What, I.”
“It means you will truly do everything to get him out and maybe you can.”
“I don’t know if that is what he wants, he might even be the one who sold me out to Jack and not to mention everything he has told me up until this point has been a lie,” I say as anger builds inside of me.
“If my brother lied then he would have had a good reason too,” Sierrah says somewhat defensively. “He probably is still lying just to protect me.”
I calm myself down. This girl had obviously gone through enough and she was asking for my help, and I could most definitely give it to her. I cannot let my emotions control me. Of course he had a good reason to lie. I could see it now because I would do anything to protect Rob from Jack. I understand that now.
“You’re right and I am committed to helping him, of course I am.” I stare back at Aleksander laying helplessly on the bed. Jack was doing this to him, she had to be and this just motivates me even more to defeat her. But why him? She seems to despise humans overall. The fact that she had been holding Aleksander as her personal hostage for so long feels wrong. But maybe she did have genuine feelings for him or maybe she liked the control she has over him and doesn’t want to let it go.
“Thank you.” Sierrah pulls me out of my wandering thoughts. I look back over at Aleksander, lying so still.
“What was he like, when he was awake?” I ask Sierrah. I grip my hands tightly together in my lap.
A smile grows on Sierrah’s face, her eyes light up. She sits next to the sink and rests her head in her hand somewhat dreamily. “He was always there for me. He always took care of me in hard times, and we took care of each other especially after my mother’s death. He’s funny, smart and strong, and amazingly loyal to those he loves.”
She stares over at her brother and blinks hard. “He liked to travel and always told me he would one day take me to the places he had been once I was older.”
I smile, “must have been why he was drawn into the dream world in the first place.”
She nods. “At the same time he never let his wanderlust interfere with our relationship. He always called and messaged and made sure I was alright. He once video messaged me his trip to see the northern lights, saying something like that had to be shared with only someone special to him,” she smiles at the memory and I can’t help but smile back. Aleksander had shared that memory with me as well in a different way. She sighs. We are silent momentarily.
“Maybe if he knows how much you need him back, maybe if I tell him, he will do whatever he can to break free from Jack’s grasp. Tell me, what’s changed for you since he’s been gone?” This may be a personal question but I need to know the answer, I need to be able to convince Aleksander to come back.
“Well, I am doing okay financially and living wise everything is fine but I spend so much time here I am often lonely and he has to know that I will never give up on him,” she clutches her shirt closely to her chest, as if in promise.
“And your father left you alone?” I ask in an attempt to get more emotional information.
Sierrah nods. “He did give up, on me, on this family but I understand.”
“Aleksander would be furious with him, wouldn’t he?”
“He would but everyone can only take so much pain, everyone has their limit,” I read her face and can tell she doesn’t believe them fully. She continues, “but this,” she gestures to Aleksander, “this isn’t pain. It’s hope.” She looks at me for confirmation of her words.
“I would do the same if it was my brother,” I say. The thought that this could be my future slams into me and my face drops. He had been feeling lost lately, what if he decided the dream world was a better place for him, if Jack kept him safe, if she convinced him like she had Aleksander. But Rob must be leverage just as Sierrah had been.
“What did she do to you when she captured you?” I ask hesitantly.
“Jack?” I nod. “She didn’t capture me. My brother said she targeted me specifically. She had those monsters go after me and feed off of me. I don’t remember much but I know that time was difficult, I was feeling miserable and not like myself.”
“How long did it take, to get you to that point?”
“A few weeks but I was in it for months and even a year after. The effects were tough and long lasting. Look, I am sure your brother will be fine if she only just got to him.”
“But that may not be the case,” I say aloud as I connect the pieces. Rob acting different, Rob mentioning his nightmares, Rob always looking forward to college and now mentioning that he may not go. I thought it was a result of his breakup with Jessica but he told me that she said he was different too. “Jack may have been after him since I came to the city.”
Sierrah looks momentarily appalled and then her face grows serious. “Then you need to work quickly.”
“It’s hard, I don’t have enough time there and,” I start to say but she interrupts.
“Sleeping pills. You have anything to do tomorrow?” She asks as she digs through her purse and pulls out a bottle of pills.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I used them and had longer times in the dream world, you could do the same. Occasional use is okay, you won’t become addicted or anything.” She stands up and walks over to me to hand me the bottle. “If you want to help your brother and mine then you will need these.” The clear casing of the bottle reveal the horse sized pills. I put them in my purse but I have not decided whether I would use them or not.
“I think I should go,” I tell Sierrah feeling uncomfortable. She dictates her number to me, and I add her to my contacts. I can feel the urgency coming off of her and I know how desperately she wants her brother back. I promised to help Aleksander but there are many factors I cannot control.
Jack is extremely powerful and capable of so much more than I expected. Aleksander may not agree to be brought back, he may not want to be. I worry that I may not be able to help this family at all or my own for that matter.
I glance at Aleksander before leaving the room. Seeing him so helpless, lying there, hurts my heart. I drive home slowly, finding myself deep in thought. Feeling a mixture of fear of Jack having my brother and excitement of Aleksander really existing in this world.
Chapter Eleven
I arrive home around 4pm. My brother’s car is gone, and I hope he had a good afternoon with his friends. Once inside, I glance at my phone to see a response from Liam. “It’s okay,” is all he wrote back. I sigh heavily but I find that I care less about the potential for a relationship with him. It seems like he wants me to beg him for a second chance and that really isn’t my style.
I hadn’t done anything outright hurtful to him, I just wasn’t feeling it between us after what he said and I know he doesn’t understand that because I hadn’t voiced my concerns. Besides that the thought of Aleksander in the hospital runs through my mind. I pick up my phone and call my mother instead of respond
ing to him.
She answers on the second ring, surprise filling her voice, “Hello.”
“Hi mom, it’s me.”
“Oh hi Kamari.” I hear metallic clanks in the background and my dad’s voice as well.
“What have you been up to?” I ask her casually.
“Nothing much, just cooking dinner. What do you need?” She asks. Guilt wrings through me. I hardly ever called her and only really spoke to her on the phone when she called me. Of course, I did have a reason to call her but I didn’t want her to worry. Mainly, I wanted to check up on Rob from her point of view. She has always been observant.
“Just wanted to chat. How are you and dad?”
“We are doing just fine.”
“Good to hear and how is Rob?”
The phone goes silent. “ He's fine I think, why did he say something to you?” The concern is evident in her tone.
“No, I just texted him the other day and didn’t hear back, thought he must be at practice or something,” I half lie.
My mom sighs deeply. “He quit the team.”
“He did, why?” Just like the thought of going to college, Rob loved being an athlete, it isn’t like him to quit.
“He said his knee has been hurting too much, we tried to take him to the doctor but he says its fine as long as he doesn’t play,” The displeasure is evident in her voice. “You know, I think it concerns that Jessica girl, he just hasn’t been the same since they broke up.”
“Yeah that sucks,” I say lamely, feeling the worried pit inside me grow. It could be my fault. It could be the monsters I bring. “Is he home now?” I ask.
“Yeah, he got back in a half hour ago, do you want to talk to him?”
“No, that’s okay, I will text him.” She goes on to tell me about what she’s cooking and how her day went. I am happy to hear she is doing well. We talk for an additional 20 minutes until she hangs up to finish her cooking.
I take my dog for an extra-long walk in the chilly weather. I find relief in heading home and curling up on the couch with a warm cup of tea. My mind feels strangely calm for the first time in a while. The walk helped to let my mind wander. I watch a mindless television show for a few hours before my eyelids feel heavy.