Dream (The Waking Sleep Book 2)

by Lucy Adler

  She was seated, hands on her knees, her purple lights pulsing in a soothing wave of illumination that circled her again and again.

  The secondary veil now stood before her, the one that guarded the entrance to Jake’s dream-state.

  She smiled, her heart beating a little faster, as if she were about to hold his hand or kiss him for the first time.

  But then, as she tried to pass through, she felt resistance.

  As if someone - or something - were tugging the veil in the opposite direction.

  What the heck?

  She tried again. And again. But she couldn’t pass through.

  Just as she was starting to worry, a thought occurred to her.

  Oh, duh! He’s probably not asleep yet!

  I guess I could just wait?

  It would be nice to have a few minutes alone with him.

  Or if he’s awake, I guess we could just hang out for a little while? I’ve sort of been missing him the last couple of days.

  ____________________________

  “Jake?”

  She knocked again, as softly as she could.

  “Hey, Jake?” she whispered.

  Then she heard a few footsteps just before the door cracked open.

  “What’s up?” Jake asked, rubbing his eyes.

  Daria frowned.

  “Were you asleep?” she asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” he said. “But don’t worry about it. Are you alright, or...?”

  What?

  Why couldn’t I...?

  She hesitated, trying to gather her thoughts. As curious as she was, she was also still worn out from all the activity that day.

  “Um, well, since you’re awake now, would you want to hang out for a little bit? Just the two of us? I’ve kinda... missed you.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said with a smile. “Let’s go back downstairs.”

  As they walked down the hall, hand-in-hand, neither of them noticed that the door to Brix’s room was also cracked open.

  And as they came down into the living area and walked over to the couch by the fireplace, neither of them noticed that her boots and coat were missing from the hooks and shelves near the base of the stairs.

  12

  Year: 48

  (12 years ago)

  SPLINTERS

  Lena shook her head.

  “Then we’ll just have to try more,” Charlie said. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “I’m not sure it’s going to --”

  “It has to!”

  “Don’t yell at me, Charlie.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, touching her arm and then sitting down on the couch. He kicked off his shoes and put his legs up on the coffee table.

  “Besides, more Sendrax would be dangerous to the rest of me. There’s only so much a person can handle, right? That’s what you’ve told me.”

  She walked over and sat down beside him, twisting a few locks of his hair around her finger to try to calm him.

  “I just don’t understand why your body’s not responding,” he said quietly, despite the frustration that still lingered in his voice. “It seemed to work for a while, then it wore off. Then we upped it, then it wore off. Why won’t it stabilise?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Then he balled up his hands into fists and pressed them into his legs.

  “If only I could get this new version to work! Every trial, always a failure.”

  “Charlie, you’re doing the best you can. It’s a huge challenge.”

  “Well, it might be the best I can, but it’s obviously not good enough.” He gave her an irritated smile, then closed his eyes and let his head fall forward. “I know I can fix this. I just need more time. You still don’t think anyone’s caught on, do you? You’re staying safe?”

  “Yes, I’m staying safe. I really don’t think anyone knows.”

  Lena was still playing with his hair as she answered. Then she stopped and took a deep breath.

  “Charlie, have you considered the possibility...”

  “What?” he asked, looking up at her.

  The desperation in his eyes gave her pause. She hated seeing him like this. Powerless, out of control. But only because she knew how much it pained him. It never changed the way she felt about him.

  “Have you ever considered,” she continued, “that maybe this isn’t something that needs to be fixed?”

  “What are you saying,” he replied, lowering his brow.

  “I mean, what if... what if I’m not ‘broken’?”

  He leaned back a bit and his face grew cold.

  “Don’t say that, Lena. Don’t give up. I won’t let you become like one of those savages.”

  “But are they really savages, Charlie? And is everyone really supposed to be on Sendrax? Maybe there’s more --”

  “I won’t do this,” he interrupted her, standing up from the couch as he did. “I won’t have this conversation. Not yet. We haven’t tried everything, there are still options --”

  “What options?” she asked, cutting him off this time. “Are you going to overload me with Sendrax until I die?”

  “Why would you say that? Why would you ever say that?” he shouted.

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Charlie. I don’t think you want to...”

  But it was too late. He had turned away and stormed out of the room.

  And Lena was left alone as the tears flooded her eyes.

  ____________________________

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. And I’m sorry --”

  “It’s fine, really,” she said with a smile as they kissed goodbye at the front door. “I’m sorry, too.”

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he replied, placing his hand on the side of her head. “Just be safe, ok?”

  “I will.”

  Charlie took the bus to work that morning so that Lena could use the car to do some grocery shopping. After the scans had revealed the purple glow on her brain, she had told him about her daily routine. And while they coped with her exhaustion, and tried to figure out a cure, she maintained the same schedule. Charlie would leave for work around 3:00 a.m., so she usually ran errands or took care of chores around the house until 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. Then she slept eight or nine hours through the middle of the day so that she was awake again by the time he got home.

  As for the scans that first detected her abnormality that day at the hospital, thankfully the intern who had delivered them was an admirer of Charlie’s work. So Charlie promised the younger man an early ‘boost’ to his career if he kept quiet and let them sort out the situation on their own.

  That morning, Lena drove to the local shopping centre around 3:30 a.m. and found a parking space close to the entrance. It wasn’t usually too busy at that hour, which was why she went early.

  “Sample?” a woman asked, holding out a piece of cooked meat on a toothpick as Lena pushed her cart past the butcher’s counter. “We just got a fresh delivery of lamb from Franklin Ranch!”

  She pointed to a screen that was mounted over her kiosk. It showed a happy family standing arm-in-arm on vibrant green pastureland, with mountains rising in the distance.

  “They’re one of the premiere suppliers for our chain,” the woman continued. “Some sellers add their enhancements at the counter, so you can never ensure full absorption. But meat from Franklin Ranch is treated at the source, so you’re guaranteed the most nutritionally viable product on the market! Give it a try!”

  “Um, no, thank you,” Lena said, waving her hand and smiling. She had barely finished speaking before the woman had moved on to the next customer who happened to be passing by.

  Her list was a little longer than usual but Lena tried to make her way through the store as quickly as possible. Especially since she was afraid she might be feeling the urge to yawn. And it never stopped with just one.

  She grabbed the last box of cereal she needed, then turned her cart and started back up the aisle toward the cashier
s.

  When she was about halfway there, she began to notice a ringing in her ears.

  Or was it?

  She rubbed her right ear, then her left. But it didn’t stop.

  In fact, it got a little louder. It wasn’t deafening but it was hard to ignore.

  Then she realised that it wasn’t her ears ringing.

  It was the humming from her dream. And the night at the conference hall.

  It had been almost a year since she had heard it. But it was back, and stronger than before.

  Lena pressed her hand to her forehead, hoping to steady her mind so she could finish her errand and get home as soon as possible.

  She lingered by the dried foods, the bags of rice and oats, pretending to be shopping as she waited for the humming to fade before she approached the cashier. After half a minute or so, she turned the cart and walked further back into the store, trying to stay out of sight.

  But instead of dissipating, the humming grew louder.

  And she felt it now, too. Vibrating in her head, her chest.

  She made her way to the store’s bathroom. She never even knew the store had a bathroom until all of this started happening two years earlier. Now, public restrooms had become places of refuge whenever another episode gripped her unexpectedly.

  Lena shut and locked the door, then looked at herself in the mirror.

  She seemed perfectly normal. No glowing in her eyes. She wasn’t even sweating this time.

  But the noise. It was relentless.

  Then, as she continued looking at her reflection, she was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion.

  Her knees wobbled, her head dipped forward as she was barely able to hold her eyes open.

  “So gross,” she whispered to herself as she realised she was going to have to sit on the icky bathroom floor.

  But she didn’t have a choice. The tiredness was so extreme, even as she whispered, her lips felt like they didn’t have the strength to form words.

  She pushed her back against the wall, then slid down into the corner, her head leaning against the door.

  ____________________________

  It was her.

  But how?

  She was looking down from someplace above herself.

  She - her physical body, that is - was still seated in the corner of the bathroom.

  But she - whatever she was now - felt like she was floating.

  And this version of herself wasn’t tired.

  In fact, she felt empowered.

  But how? With what? And for what?

  Then she noticed something beside her.

  It was as if someone had spilled some kind of black liquid outside the room and the puddle was draining through the space under the door.

  Only, it wasn’t moving in a slow, predictable path like a liquid might.

  It seemed to be... reaching out?

  Then she noticed more of the same, leaking into the room through the narrow gap all around the sides and top of the doorjamb.

  It was as if the door were being swallowed by living darkness.

  Or perhaps stained by it. Just like the ink cloud in her dream.

  It continued to ooze and creep into the room, finding its way towards her physical body now, too.

  “No, no, no...”

  She started panicking as it closed in on her.

  “Get up!”

  She focused and strained with every fibre of her ethereal self to try to get her physical self to move away from whatever this substance was.

  But instead of moving, something began to emerge from her body.

  A shadowy form, dark like the terrifying ink cloud yet illuminated with flecks of purple light.

  Lena didn’t pause to admire it. Instead, she continued to will it forward until it stood, towering over her physical body in the small bathroom.

  RESIST IT.

  “What?”

  RESIST IT.

  “How?”

  But the voice insisted.

  RESIST IT.

  She didn’t even know what ‘it’ was but she reached out with the right arm of the shadow figure and pressed its hand against the door.

  Then she spoke.

  “Enough!”

  But the blackness continued to envelope her helpless body. And she could feel something closing in around her ethereal self now, too. A choking, crushing sensation.

  Then she focused one more time, summoning strength from the depths of her being.

  “Enough!”

  A wave of purple light suddenly poured down the shadow figure’s arm and collided with the blackened door. It cracked, then splintered into hundreds of pieces as the light tore it apart in an explosion of energy.

  And the blackness also heeded her command this time.

  It receded and collapsed into nothingness, as if it were draining out of reality itself.

  And in its wake, it left only the ink-stained fragments of the bathroom door, scattered down the white hallway at the back of the supermarket.

  ____________________________

  “I’m not really sure how we explain this one.”

  Lena was sitting on the couch, her arms wrapped around a pillow, feet on the edge of the coffee table. The store manager had called Charlie at work, asking him to come collect her. Once they got home, he had waited several hours for her to wake up.

  “I’m so sorry, Charlie. I - I have no idea what happened.”

  Her husband was pacing back and forth in the living room.

  “Tell me again?” he said. He wasn’t angry but Lena could tell he was at his wit’s end.

  She related the story in as much detail as she could.

  “And you said you’ve seen this black thing before?” he asked.

  “Once. In a dream. Maybe a year ago?”

  “You never told me about that.”

  “I wasn’t trying to hide it,” she said sincerely.

  “I believe you,” he replied, moving over and sitting down beside her on the couch.

  “It was incredible and terrifying at the same time,” she began as she told him how she had risen above the city, hovered in the clouds, and then watched as some unknown force absorbed and devoured Progress.

  When she got to the end, Charlie’s mouth was hanging open.

  “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “And what do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied as tears began to fill her eyes.

  “But you think that’s the same thing that was... coming for you, in the bathroom?”

  “I don’t know... I think so, probably... I mean, yes, it had to be. Because there was the humming, too.”

  “What humming?”

  “A sound, like a low vibration. It’s why I locked myself in there in the first place. I couldn’t make it stop. It was all around me, filling my head.”

  “Do you hear it now?”

  “No.”

  They sat together in silence for a while before Charlie made a suggestion.

  “Well, how about you lie down again?” he said, patting her knee.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he repeated, getting up from the couch and going into the kitchen. He returned half a minute later with a glass of water. “Here, have something to drink then get some rest. I’ll wake you up for dinner later tonight,” he added with a smile.

  She stood up and kissed him on the forehead.

  “Thank you, Charlie. I know I’m stressing you out. I can see it on your face.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, touching her cheek with his hand. “Just try to relax.”

  ____________________________

  She had been sound asleep for about an hour when the bedroom door slowly began to open.

  A hand, then a foot, then a figure moved through the doorway.

  It approached the bed and stood over Lena’s motionless body. Then it pulled something from its jacket pocket. The device was shaped like a cylinder, and had a series of dim blue lights along the top ed
ge.

  The figure leaned over and gently pressed the object to the base of Lena’s head.

  The lights began to flicker but whatever it was doing, it remained silent.

  The figure held it to her head for about thirty seconds, until the lights stopped flashing. Then they slipped it back into their pocket and tiptoed out of the room, gently closing the door behind them.

  ____________________________

  “Where did you say you got this stuff?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Right. Well, all I can say is that it’s unlike anything I’ve ever analysed before.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Um, it means it’s unlike anything I’ve ever analysed before,” the man in the long white lab coat repeated.

  “What’s so special about it?”

  “There are certain active components within the fluid that seem to react to the tests I try to run on them. As if they’re...”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s hard to say it out loud without sounding silly, but they behave as if they’re aware... of themselves and of me.”

  “And you tried treating them with Sendrax?”

  “It subdues them, briefly, but that’s about it. It’s like it makes them cold, then they warm up again and are back to their normal behaviour.” The man shrugged his shoulders. “It might help if you told me where you --”

  “Thank you, Mike, you’ve been very helpful. I’ll take it from here.”

  “It’s your show,” the man said, shrugging his shoulders again and walking towards the door. “Oh, but if we’re going to keep running more tests, we’re going to need more... whatever that is.”

  Charlie nodded, then the man left him alone in the lab.

  He flopped down on the stool at the bench, staring at the vial of purple liquid in front of him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a prescription bottle and a white cylinder with lights along the top edge. The bottle had the word “Sedative” printed on the side and cap.

  Charlie felt his eyes begin to tear up. He rubbed them before anything slipped down his cheek. He also felt a knot in his chest and throat. He coughed to clear away the sensation.