The Echoed Realm

by A. J. Vrana

  The phantom’s jaw unhinged, and it released a bone-shattering shriek, its sharp teeth bound only by strings of thick, red saliva.

  “How did you come here, witch?” its reptilian voice quivered.

  “It doesn’t matter how. I needed more time.”

  “You can’t kill me,” Drekalo slavered. “This is the dreamscape, where all is timeless. Death doesn’t exist here.”

  Miya regarded the demon, then shrugged. She was waiting for the man made of smoke to become flesh and blood. Slipping off her leather jacket, she watched as it evaporated into the fog. When the last specs of mauve disappeared, she turned to the demon.

  Throwing her arms back, she cut across the expanse. Her hand shot out to wrap around Drekalo’s throat. His gangling body careened to the side, but he couldn’t escape. Violet swirls enveloped Miya, then erupted into a billowing cloak of spectral feathers. A raven beak made of bone drew over her face, black and purple bleeding onto the ivory like oil mixing with water. The bottom edge of the mask cut over her lips in a sharp V, and she flashed the demon a wicked smile.

  “Let’s take you somewhere death exists.”

  Drekalo gasped—the start of a protest that never came. Miya hauled Dawn’s tormenter into the in-between—a sliver away from either realm. She could see the faint outline of the kitchen—all blurry lines and morphing shapes floating behind an ethereal curtain. The in-between was neither here nor there; it was a cell, trapping the demon where he couldn’t roam.

  The bars to this cell were open to the blade, and the executioner always struck from the earthly plane.

  The demon shrieked and flailed as Miya released him. “Y-You’re no witch!” His voice sounded garbled. “You’re—”

  Drekalo’s accusation died in his mouth when a knife was thrust through his throat, then twisted for good measure. The man, it seemed, had finally arrived, and he’d reclaimed his beloved weapon.

  The fissure in the wall sutured shut, and Miya returned to Dawn’s kitchen. She snatched up the half-full wine glass from the table and raised it in a toast.

  Wiping his hunting knife, slick with black viscera, Kai turned to the Dreamwalker. He took the glass from her and spilled its contents onto the floor, then tossed the delicate crystal aside. Tilting Miya’s chin up, he swooped down and stole a kiss before she could say the words. He pulled back, grinning rakishly, and said them in her stead.

  “Long live the fucking king.”

  2

  The dreamscape’s iridescent sky greeted Miya as she tore through the veil, Kai stumbling in tow. Pallid at first, the pearly sheen melted into a blanket of azure that bled into warm hues haloing the hanging star. Rings of amber and marigold, then pink and wisteria, radiated from its core into the sea-coloured ether.

  The journey back was gruelling every time, but it was worth the spectacle that awaited them. Their corner of the dreamscape was a kaleidoscope of colour. Vast knolls of emerald and dandelion sprawled across the landscape. Save for a few high hills, the lush earth was blanketed in a thick forest that blossomed around a low river valley, the water sparkling like ice on a winter’s day. If Miya could peek into the dream stone and glimpse the world inside, she imagined this was how it looked.

  The fragrance of lilac trees washed over her, and the wind whistled its welcome alongside the song of a nearby thrush. Miya knew Dawn was safe. She would try to make sense of the ordeal, to give an order to the chaos, but it was futile. Her mind would do the only thing it could: blur the details and treat it like a bad dream. Her memory would be fuzzy, and Kai, who’d manifested from shadow and blood, who’d ended her nightmare, was only a mote in the mural.

  Kai’s job wasn’t as simple as stabbing a spirit with a pointy object from the physical plane. First, Miya had to address the entities on their terms. The boundary between the earthly realm and the dreamscape was murky, but the place where spirits could actually die was the microscopic middle of a Venn diagram—a limbo that was both worlds at once, and yet neither.

  “That’s the twelfth one.” Kai inspected his hunting knife, now back in his possession.

  “They’re getting tougher,” Miya sighed, plopping down on the slope. Each hill in their nook of the dreamscape was named after a precious stone: amethyst for the lavender fields stretching over the knoll to the west, ruby for the lumpy mound sprouting with red dahlias, and peridot for the clover-leaved grass peppered with milky aspens. She loved perusing the clovers, searching for the one that’d bring her luck. If anything, she needed some good fortune.

  Miya was tired from travelling. Dreamwalking was easy; her physical body remained, but her consciousness departed for the dreamscape. It was effortless, like sinking into a warm bath. On the other hand, moving flesh and bone from the dreamscape to the earthly plane and vice versa was like plodding through a current of mud.

  “So many nightmares out there…” she trailed off. “It’s tough to tell if people are haunted or just stressed.”

  “The ones that go on a murder spree are probably haunted,” said Kai, smiling wryly.

  “It’s not only that. I feel like there’s a new Black Hollow every day.”

  Kai scoffed and wrinkled his brow. “There’s only one place bat-shit enough to be Black Hollow.”

  Miya threw herself back and stretched her limbs. The summer grass was inviting, and a small cottage awaited in a glade nestled in the woods overlooking the peridot hill—past the flaming oak swaddled in a copse of birch trees, beyond the willow’s canopy, and through a gateway only they could see.

  The stone cottage boasted a thatched roof with a sturdy chimney. A hedge of white roses decorated the front wall near the door, the thorny vines sprawling across the stonework and snaking around the windows. The snug interior was furnished with a hearth for cooking meals and newly lacquered chairs around the table. There was a bed—an actual bed—with a walnut frame and a quilted blanket for the rare nights when Kai’s body heat wasn’t enough to keep the chill away.

  Miya didn’t know if they’d dreamt it into this reality or if it’d always been there, but she didn’t care to question it. It was home, and that was enough.

  The smell of smoke and the madness of the mob was still fresh, even after three years. Miya had been in the dreamscape during the worst of it, but her physical body had absorbed the mayhem. The memories had sunk into her bones. Of course, she also had Kai’s colourful narrative to fill in the gaps.

  Miya rolled over onto her stomach. “Come take a nap with me,” she offered, and Kai joined her on the grass, slumping against an aspen’s bole as he pulled her into his lap.

  He stroked her hair back and clipped her ear with his teeth, earning a squeak of protest.

  “I said a nap, not a nip,” Miya slurred as she began to drift. Kai half-heartedly made his displeasure known with a grunt that rumbled against her back.

  “Sorry.” She patted him on the thigh. “Dimensional travel takes it out of a girl.”

  His arms tightened around her briefly. “At least you get to travel.”

  Miya’s heart sank. After Black Hollow, they’d found that she’d unwittingly tethered Kai to her like a familiar to a witch. He could only enter the physical realm when she willed it, and neither of them understood why. Worst of all, he couldn’t be there alone; Miya’s consciousness needed to remain with him. They’d learned that the hard way. The first time they’d returned to explore the material world, Miya tested the reins on her abilities. She was pleased to discover she could willfully dreamwalk while her body slept in the earthly plane. It was easier than breaking physics and moving bodies through dimensional doors. But barely twenty minutes into her descent to the dreamscape, Kai’s panic, palpable like a splinter in her skin, tugged at her to return. When she made it back, he was writhing on the floor in agony. Eyes wide and bloodshot, he gasped for air like his lungs were filled with cotton. He later described the sensation as something like being eaten alive by starving fire ants.

  It was a rude awakening to learn tha
t Kai’s body couldn’t sustain itself in the physical world without Miya’s consciousness there to anchor him. If left on his own for too long, his body began to disintegrate, tearing itself apart cell by cell.

  Miya shook away the memory. She didn’t understand why things worked the way they did; all she knew was that once Kai was in the physical plane, he needed her there—specifically, he needed her awareness of him. Eventually, they accepted this as their new norm. Or at least, Miya had.

  “We can go whenever you’d like, not just for hunting,” she said. “Like a date night!”

  Kai snorted back a laugh.

  Miya pushed her back against his chest and looked up at him, his face upside down. “Oh, come on! Everyone likes to be wooed occasionally. Movie and dinner?”

  He clicked his tongue. “Cliché. Try harder.”

  “All you can eat steak and...?”

  His lips grazed her ear, his breath a seductive whisper. “Start a bar brawl with me.”

  “Such a...hopeless romantic...” Her muscles were letting go, everything fading as she fought to keep touch with the conversation. Thoughts melted into obscurity. Her lips moved but formed only an incoherent mutter.

  “Sweet dreams,” she heard Kai say, the words muted like they’d been spoken underwater. She melted into familiar warmth, no longer aware of where her body ended and where his began.

  Sticky heat pressed down on Miya’s skin, the shapes of soaring cypress trees and winding boughs barely visible in the steam. She was in a swamp, the plant life saturated and drawing sustenance from water flooding the landscape. Leviathan tree roots protruded from the bog in slithering arches. Her feet submerged, she stumbled forward as tall grass caught her ankles. She knew this was a dream—a dream within the dreamscape.

  The dreamscape was a world she could step into like one stepped into a room, but she always carried her dreams with her; they come from inside, swallowing her up while she slept. It didn’t matter whether she was in the dreamscape or the physical plane.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  It was her again. Miya thought she would’ve gone by now, but even after three years, the ghost of her past clung to her like a shadow.

  Miya steadied herself against a cypress tree, taking stock of the flooded forest around her. There were no animals, no birds or even insects. It was too quiet. Coal-coloured clouds rimmed with amber darkened the sky, and the narrow path opened towards a black lake with algae strewn across the surface. It was perfectly still save for a single ripple that roiled from a circular cay. A crooked grey elm sprouted from the islet, and beneath its leafless branches, a figure peered out over the water.

  Miya walked into the lake and waded through the green slime, her toes barely scraping the bottom. She shook the sinewy weeds from her hands and feet as she clambered onto the shore. As she approached the elm, the figure grew clearer: a tall man with dark, dishevelled hair and a warrior’s build.

  “Kai?” she called, pushing forward until she could reach out and touch him.

  His expression was vacant as he turned and stared right through her like his soul had been carved out, leaving only a husk behind.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” She waved her hand in front of his face, but his eyes didn’t follow.

  Instead, his hands shot out and wrapped around her throat. He plunged her into the water and squeezed. Miya grappled against his hold, her vision tinted mossy green by the plant life glazing the bayou. She opened her mouth to scream, but her voice dissolved into the liquid abyss. All the while, Kai held her down, his face smearing like a painting blotched by a spill.

  He was too strong to fight off, but she’d be damned if she was snuffed out by a nightmare-puppet. Twisting underwater, she clawed at his arm and managed to resurface just long enough to see the elm looming overhead.

  A silhouette hung beneath it.

  The umbral mass glided closer, obscured by Kai’s towering form. Miya’s gaze trained on the space behind his shoulder. A woman’s hands—grey, putrid flesh—slinked around Kai’s neck. Gaping slits slashed diagonally across her boney arms like gills. Gradually, the rest of the creature emerged. She was something between woman and fish. Her unruly hair resembled the lake algae and clung to her rot-speckled face. Cheekbones protruded like marbles in a worn leather sack, and inky shark-eyes with slit-green irises shone from the caverns under her brow.

  Blackness bloomed across Miya’s vision as she was submerged again. She was drowning. Fear raked up her throat as Kai’s fingers clamped tighter, ensuring the terror remained locked in place.

  “Open your eyes.”

  A familiar voice.

  “Open your eyes, Dreamwalker.”

  Miya gasped for air, her heart racing through her ribs as she scoured the empty, white void. The swamp, its macabre resident, and the distortion of Kai were gone.

  “Psst, over here.”

  Miya squared her shoulders towards the beckon. It was the echo of the original Dreamwalker—Miya’s first incarnation, and the entity who’d haunted her while she was still just a girl in a village. She’d stayed like an imprint from a past life, following Miya after her awakening. A shadowy, feathered cloak billowed around her, and a bone mask disguised her face, though Miya knew it was likely her own.

  “What’s happening?” asked Miya. “Who was that woman?”

  “You must hunt them.” Urgency laced the command.

  “Hunt who?”

  Her reflection from another life strode forward. “The demons. Hunt them.” A sharp smile cut across her face, splitting the edge of the mask. “They’re already hunting you.”

  A blustering wind ripped past them, blocking Miya’s vision as her hair was swept up. “But why?” she called over the blaze. “Why am I being hunted?”

  “You keep wandering, stumbling into nightmares where you don’t belong.” Her predecessor’s lips stretched further over her teeth. “Demons love the smell of a lost lamb.”

  The Dreamwalker had a knack for getting lost, no matter the lifetime.

  “I can’t help it,” said Miya. “I don’t know how to find my way.”

  The spirit’s smile retracted. “Use the stone,” she advised. “Follow the raven.”

  She raised her arms, her cloak swelling. Throwing her arms against the wind, she thrust herself skyward. Black and violet bled from her garbs and swirled through the air like dye through water, devouring the white void.

  The dark fabric encasing them unravelled, and Miya tumbled through the rift below.

  3

  Mason

  Mason thought he’d eventually get used to this. Gripping the folder between his fingers, he allowed himself a moment—for composure, he told himself—to breathe away the pounding in his chest. His stream of success could never wash away the bitter suspicion that one day he’d fail again. He flicked the folder open to the first page and immediately found himself dizzy with relief.

  Today would not be that day.

  He burst into his office, barely able to contain his excitement. “Great news, Miss Nassar! Our tests show you’re officially cancer-free.” He looked happier than his patient—a biology student at UBC whose life was put on hold after her diagnosis. Her family had flown in from Egypt to spend the first month of treatment with her, but she’d done most of the heavy lifting alone.

  Dania Nassar pulled back her ferocious curls, her sculpted eyebrows drawing together. “Seriously?” she asked, breathless. “The leukemia’s gone?”

  “It is,” Mason nodded, feeling a twinge in his chest. This was his second leukemia case with a university student. He imagined Amanda smiling, reminding him of the journey she’d put him on three years ago.

  Dania’s mouth dropped open before a bright, dimpled smile spread across her cheeks. “I can go back to class? Take my exams?”

  “You can!” Her excitement was infectious.

  “I can go to med school!”

  Dr. Mason Evans signed his patient’s release forms. He could hear her chuckling quie
tly, trying to contain her mirth. “Dania, I have no doubt you’ll go to medical school if that’s where your heart is.”

  “Hey, Dr. Evans? Is it hard treating people who might die?”

  Mason finished his notes. A clean bill of health. For now. “It can be,” he admitted, then leaned back and clicked his pen. “I wish I could tell you there’s a way to prepare for it, but it’s different for everyone.”

  Their celebration tapered into a prolonged silence. “Do patients die a lot?” Dania asked.

  Mason smiled, his thoughts wandering elsewhere. “Even one death feels like a lot, but when you help someone survive, it feels like you’ve saved the world.”

  Dania smiled back. “I think that makes it worthwhile.”

  Mason stood up to shake the young woman’s hand. “I’ll see you for your check-up in three months.”

  He flopped back into his chair after she left and rubbed his eyes. He had plenty of open cases to review, and at least a third of them didn’t look great. Reaching for the pile, Mason skimmed through his remaining patient files, his heart sinking at one in particular.

  Ronnie Kaplansky, male, eighteen, aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Mason took a deep breath. Ronnie was his most difficult case, and he was one of several doctors working to improve the boy’s chances of survival. As a medical oncologist, Mason worked with radiation, targeted therapies, and immunotherapy, making him responsible for the chemo and antibody treatments. He was impassioned by Ronnie’s situation, and that scared him. He didn’t need another Amanda worming into his heart. Mason struggled to strike a balance between Lindman’s pessimism and his own savior complex; it was a slippery slope in either direction. He wondered where Ronnie’s fight would take him.

  “Shall I tell your fortune?”

  The woman’s voice tugged Mason out of his thoughts. He hadn’t heard her enter, her striking amber eyes and silvery-white hair seizing him.

  She simpered and cocked her head. “You seem apprehensive.”