by L. E. Fred
I swore I heard a hiss before waking.
.
Day 6
Afternoon
“Whoa, psycho!” Kyle opened my door and poked his head inside. “What were you trying to do with that bat?”
“I thought I...” I shook my head. “Never mind.” What was the use in trying to explain something like last night? That was definitely one of those things where you had to be there to understand. I now understood why people were being put into comas around the world. They were shipped off as slaves for Leona’s resort, the resort she couldn’t make in the real world, so she had to build it in nightmares.
“You do realize you slept later than me?” Kyle stepped into my room and sat on my desk. “I must say, I’m pretty impressed.”
I looked at my clock and saw it was already four-thirty. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had slept that late. To be honest, after last night I was more surprised it was only the next day and not the next week.
“Well, guess I’m still sick.” I threw my bat on my bed, wincing at the pain in my side.
“Maybe.” Kyle noticed I was in pain. “What happened?”
“I fell,” I said automatically. “Down the stairs when I was running in my sleep. People get hurt like that all the time—”
“What were you dreaming?” Kyle cut me off.
“What does it matter?” I didn’t make eye contact with him. Sure, I could make up some story in class to keep people out of trouble, but other than that I was a pretty bad liar. Kyle knew this, and he knew he’d eventually get me to tell the truth.
“You were running from something in your dream, weren’t you?” Kyle continued asking me questions. “And you weren’t running in your sleep. I heard you scream, and watched you run down the stairs. Your eyes were open, blinking, and alert.”
I was stunned for a few moments, mostly because Kyle had said something intelligent, but also because he described exactly how I felt at the end of the dream.
“Let me see what you hurt.” Kyle approached me, attempting to lift my shirt. I started backing away, but the pain in my side caused me to double up onto the bed. Now that the adrenaline rush was over, the pain felt really intense. The shoulder that hit the tree began to throb. As I fell on to the bed, Kyle lifted my shirt to see Serpentine’s bite marks.
“What the…” He studied them for a minute and then looked at me. “Devon, what did you do last night?”
“Did you hear me leave my room?” I asked defensively, knowing Kyle rarely went to bed before 5:00 a.m. “I didn’t do anything!”
“Okay, then what did you dream?” Kyle asked a little impatiently. “If you haven’t realized, little bro, I’m actually worried about you. Don’t take it for granted. I know you’ve been acting a little off lately, and it started right around the time those human shell victims showed up on the news. You and your girlfriend have been doing research on mythological creatures, meditation, and some lucid dreaming stuff, too—”
“I told you to stop hacking my computer!” I yelled angrily.
“It’s all connected to these comas, isn’t it?” Kyle ignored my comment. It’s not like he hasn’t heard the same thing twenty times before. “Look, I’m no rocket scientist, and even I’m piecing these two things together. You know Mom is gonna be in on this sooner or later…” His voice trailed off, waiting for me to finish.
“Unless you help me cover it up.” I knew where this was going. Part of me wanted to tell my mom, police, the CIA, and anyone who could help me. But who would believe me? They’d probably lock me up in some asylum while more victims turned into slaves for Leona’s resort. I pictured Melissa, Andy’s sister, and imagined her chained to some reception desk. Or worse… Getting locked up wouldn’t do her or any of the souls good.
I finally sighed and caved in. I beckoned for Kyle to sit down as I explained everything from my first time on the spaceship to Serpentine biting me. I told him about Mitch, the only other lucid dreamer, the Nightmares, and Tiff’s research. I told him about the ball of light that magically transported Mitch and me to the waking world after our horrible episodes. I even told him my hypothesis about the ball of light being the only way to wake the souls up.
Kyle sat in silence for a few minutes after I told him. I was really surprised to find him soaking in all of this information without making fun of it. He really believed me and even looked concerned for Mitch’s and my safety and all of the trapped souls.
“So, it can happen to anyone?” he finally asked.
“What can? Getting trapped?” I asked. “I guess. They don’t seem to discriminate against anyone.”
“No, I mean lucid dreaming.” Kyle said.
“Um, well, apparently it’s a natural occurrence. I mean, Mitch and I didn’t know we could do it before.”
“You’ve never been able to control your dreams before this?” Kyle stared at me blankly. “What fun is dreaming if you can’t?”
“What?” I suddenly realized what Kyle was saying. “You’re telling me that you can lucid dream?”
“Well, I think so.” Kyle frowned in thought. “Just last night, I was dreaming about starting college, and I changed it by giving myself wings and flying away. Then I dreamt up a pretty sweet convertible and drove around Los Angeles.”
“You can control yourself and create things?” I asked him.
“Well, you dreamt up that sword.” Kyle pointed out.
“No, I slept with my bat, and turned it into a sword.” I corrected him. “That’s different. But you can create things out of nothing when you’re dreaming?”
“I thought everyone could.” Kyle shrugged. “Why would anyone dream about something they can’t control?”
Now it was my turn to sit in silence. I had been going through this dilemma for about a week, and Kyle’s telling me that he can lucid dream every night with no problem? Not that I would have ever guessed it, but it did annoy me a bit. Why didn’t Kyle end up on the first spaceship and not me? He could have blasted it or created several balls of light to wake everyone else up. All I had was a bat that could turn into a sword.
Suddenly the front door opened. Mom was home.
“Dude, she called me like fifteen times today,” Kyle told me. “She’ll be happy you’re awake, but she wants to take you to the doctor. Plus, I think you should get those bite marks checked out.”
“And my shoulder,” I admitted. “I just don’t know what to tell the doctor. The shoulder will be easy, but the bites…”
“We could say you woke up with them.” Kyle suggested. “Say it was a big spider.” That seemed plausible. Man, Kyle was surprising me all over the place today.
My mom entered my room and made a fuss about my sleeping so late. She fretted over my shoulder and screamed when she saw my bites.
“I’m calling an exterminator first thing in the morning!” she announced after stripping my bed and dousing my room with anti-bacterial spray. “You can sleep in Kyle’s room if you’re scared tonight, Devon.”
“That’s okay, Mom!” I said. She sent me up to my room to get dressed for the doctor.
I threw on some clothes and checked my phone. I had ten missed calls from Tiff and five from Mitch. I guess his mom wasn’t making him go to the doctor. Then again, Mitch lived with his college roommates. What did they think about all of this?
“Come on, Devon!” my mom called from downstairs. “Your appointment’s in fifteen minutes!”
I sent Tiff and Mitch a quick text explaining that I was awake and would get in touch with them later. I grabbed some shoes and sat on my bed to pull them on. I suddenly stood back up as I landed on something hard. I looked down and saw it was my bat.
“You saved me last night, bat-sword.” I patted it on the handle. Suddenly, I realized something was different about it. A brown leather strap was tied around the base of the handle. I picked it up and saw a small dream catcher hanging from the strap.
The pattern in the webbing looked like the wolf carved o
n my sword.
.
Day 6
Night
Luckily, the doctor didn’t find any of my wounds suspicious. He deduced that an abnormally large, mildly poisonous spider bit me in my sleep. The venom caused me to have hallucinations, and I probably fell off my bed during some sort of fit. The fall would explain my heavily bruised shoulder. Although the doctor wasn’t sure what kind of spider bit me, he assured me and my mother that I wasn’t going to die from the effects. He prescribed some medicine to help with the bruising and pain and sent me on my way. My mom looked relieved to find out that I was going to be okay. I was glad I didn’t have venom in my system. Why did Serpentine’s venom go away but the bite didn’t?
Kyle couldn’t believe the doctor created that story.
“I don’t get why no one else realizes what’s going on!” He sat on his bed, placing the rest of the pizza in front of him. My room still smelled like lemon-scented cleaner, so I decided to hang out in Kyle’s room. Normally, I would avoid Kyle’s room at all cost. The smell alone usually kept me away. Guess that shows you how crazy my day was.
“They can’t lucid dream,” I explained, logging onto my laptop. “So they won’t realize what’s going on. The only reason you caught on was because you saw me wake up right after dreaming. I don’t think Mitch and I are going to get much help in the real world.” Kyle munched on his pizza as I signed into my messages.
“About time!” Tiff was the first to reach me. “If it hadn’t been for your text earlier I was going to call the cops! Mitch already told me what happened last night. Are you insane? What were you thinking fighting that woman? Did you really have a sword—?”
“Whoa!” I broke her steam of text before it turned into a full-length novel. “Mitch and I both acted on instinct last night. You weren’t there. Serpentine really hurt us. I had to go to the doctor today.” I explained how the doctor thought a big spider bit me and gave me a psychotropic trip last night.
“Guess no one would believe us now, eh?” Tiff typed back.
“Who are you messaging? Your girlfriend?” Kyle called up from his bed.
“Well.” I ignored Kyle and typed to Tiff. I explained how Kyle sort of figured out what was going on, so I told him about the dream world. I also explained how Kyle had been lucid dreaming for a long time but didn’t realize he was doing it.
“Wow, that’s weird,” Tiff replied. “But maybe he could be useful? I don’t know how he’d get into the world with you and Mitch, though. You two never plan on going there… I did read that lucid dreaming ran in families. I’ve been looking up lucid dreaming all day. I found some interesting stuff.”
“Yeah?”
“Does this look familiar?” Tiff sent me a picture. I gasped when I opened it. It was a rough sketch of a humanoid creature with grey, scaly skin, shark teeth, and sharp horns — a Nightmare, just like the ones from last night.
“Are those the Nightmare monsters you saw?” Kyle had crept behind me to spy on my conversation.
“Yeah,” I managed to say. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the picture. This Nightmare looked more vicious, like he wanted to kill the artist for drawing him.
“Mitch told me you saw them last night.” Tiff continued typing. “He said there were hundreds of them. I’ve been reading horror stories from people who’ve dreamt of these creatures. They’re in a lot of old legends and people used to think they caused insanity. Most people write these stories off as urban legends, like modern werewolves or leprechauns. But you and Mitch saw them… Devon, they’re dangerous, more dangerous than Leona Palma and her gladiator resort. They apparently hate humans and are jealous that we have souls. As a result, they create nightmares.”
“Guess their name makes sense.” I didn’t know what else to type. Tiff sent more sketches of the Nightmares, each one more horrid than the last.
“No offense, but if you gotta fight them next time, Devon—” Kyle said behind my shoulder, “—you’re toast. I’d stick with the snake lady if I were you.”
“Thanks for that.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking. Hopefully Mitch’s oar would turn into a bazooka or something, because my sword wasn’t gonna cut it with these things.
“There are other creatures mentioned in these stories, too.” Tiff stopped posting pictures and returned to typing. “They’re hard to describe, but I think they’re the anti-Nightmares. They help the lucid dreamers and protect them from the Nightmares. Apparently they rarely show themselves but work in other ways. People call those the Dreamers. Here’s the one picture I could find, but it doesn’t show much.” She sent me the link. I saw it was just a black background with two pinpricks of light, like eyes glinting in the dark, like the lights I saw last night after disembarking from the ship.
“I think I saw one,” I typed to Tiff. “Maybe they’ll help Mitch and me.”
“Well, apparently they only come if the lucid dreamer is in mortal peril,” Tiff typed. “And since you and Mitch were in a lot of trouble last night and no one showed, I wouldn’t bet on these Dreamers. They sound like the real myth if you ask me.”
“Maybe. Hey, did you get any more information on Leona?”
“Not really,” Tiff replied. “I think I found a document on her resort development, but it’s password protected. Hang on; I’ll try getting on it again.”
I waited as she did her thing. Tiff’s gotten around so many firewalls in school, I figured she’d probably crack into the document soon enough. I waited and spent my time talking to Kyle about the Nightmares and Dreamers, and eating the rest of the pizza. Around midnight, my phone rang.
“I can’t believe this!” Tiff sounded more scared than angry.
“What?” I asked.
“My computer got a virus from that website!” She sounded like she was going to cry. “Brand new and I just did a virus scan! I can normally fix them, but this one… it’s different.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, usually the screen would be blue or black with a bunch of computer-speak scrolling across it,” Tiff explained. “But this time, the screen is pink, and there’s a picture of a lion in the right corner. At first I thought it was dirt on my screen, but it’s definitely a lion, it’s just really small.”
“A lion…” I felt my stomach clench. “Do you think Leona caught you?”
“I… I don’t know.” Tiff’s voice sounded mousy, like when she got caught checking her social media pages at school. “Devon, what if she did?”
“What’s wrong?” Kyle asked me.
“You’re with Kyle?” Tiff asked.
“Yeah, I’m in his room.” I waved Kyle away. He punched my bad shoulder before sitting on the bed. “But, I don’t know, Tiff. She probably just had it protected and that happens to anyone who stumbles on her website. Can’t you get your laptop looked at?”
“It’s almost midnight,” Tiff reminded me. The day is short when you wake up at 4:30 p.m. “There’s nothing I can do tonight. Guess we’ll find out what happens in the morning.”
“She won’t get you.” The words came out of my mouth before I realized what I said. “If you’re worried about that, she won’t. Mitch and I will protect you if she drags you into this.”
“Devon…” Tiff’s voice trailed off. We sat in silence for a few moments. “Hmph, guess that new sword of yours makes you a hot shot, eh?” I grinned hearing her comeback.
“Maybe,” I told her. “Hey, I’ll come over tomorrow and tell you my next dream adventure in person, okay?”
“Sounds good. Good night, Devon.” Tiff hung up before I could respond. Kyle was chuckling from his bed.
“That was so sweet,” he said, laughing even harder at my red face. “I think you gave me diabetes.”
“Brotherly bonding time going on?” Mom had just opened the door. “Devon, I made up your bed for you and made your room smell less like a chemical plant. I’m not making you go to work tomorrow, but the doctor said you should get rest tonight. Make sure
you take those pills before going to bed.”
“Got it, Mom.” I stood up. She said goodnight before going to her room. Before I left, Kyle called me back.
“I’m gonna try going to the place tonight,” he said.
“What?” I raised my eyebrow.
“To the fortress place,” Kyle repeated. “I think I might be able to get there from what you told me. I could almost imagine the fortress.” That shocked me. Kyle didn’t have a photographic memory.
“You’re not gonna like it,” I told him. “You’re especially not gonna like Mitch. He’s a successful college student.”
“Guess that’s the price to pay for kicking some dream monster butt.” Kyle grinned. “Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Just like one of my video games.”
No, I thought. It’s nothing like your video games.
Chapter 7
Day 7
Morning
My next dream was both better and worse than the night before. On the plus side, I didn’t wake up with more bite marks. On the down side, I finally met Leona Palma. She made Serpentine look like a schoolyard bully.
****
I didn’t remember falling asleep. One minute, my eyes were closing and the next, I was standing in an elaborate hotel room. I didn’t even realize my bat came with me again and was already changing into its sword form. I was too busy admiring the room. Seriously, this place was amazing. Ever seen pictures of a celebrity’s bedroom? I bet it was only the size of this room’s closet.