by E. J. Mellow
Tim was the only one there when I got in, comfortably set up on the couch reading a book. We exchanged pleasantries about my first day, and I distinctly remembering trying hard to form coherent words as the effects of my slightly inebriated state wore off. I caught him smiling more than once when I jolted upright on the couch after nodding off in the middle of a couple of sentences. Real classy, Molly.
Though Tim encouraged me to get to bed after that, I was still tempted to stay up and wait for Dev, but my efforts were futile once I realized how exhausted I truly was. Lying between the covers, I replayed the exchange at the club on repeat, between Dev and Aveline, between Dev and me—all of it confusing me further in regards to who this man was and, more importantly, who he was to me. You will never be her. Aveline’s words spun around and around, filling me with questions I didn’t think I had any right to ask. Eventually my lids drooped, and for once, thankfully, like my nights before the accident, I got a break from it all—I dreamt of nothing.
Now donned in Terra garb, I pad down the hall, pulling my hair into a ponytail. I find Rae in the kitchen leaning against the counter, licking remnants of what resembled a granola bar from his fingers and hungrily eyeing the remaining one in front of him.
“Don’t even think about it,” I say picking up the clear-packaged food.
“If you were a minute later, that thought would have happily been in my stomach.”
I roll my eyes and bite into the bar, immediately gagging. “Oh God! What is this?”
“It’s a sanus bar. A sort of protein bar, but highly concentrated. Gives you extra strength. Perfect before a long run.”
I force it down. “Um…what is this adjective you’re using before the word ‘run’?” I glance at him, confused. “I don’t understand when you put those two words together like that.”
Rae grins coyly. “I think it’s better to show you what a long run is instead of explaining it.”
“Hmm. Why don’t you try explaining first, and then we can decide?”
“Nice try.” Rae grabs my arm, ushering me toward the door. “And don’t worry. At the end of the long run, you’ll get another sanus bar as a reward!”
I groan. “Now you’re just being cruel.”
—∞—
I lean on my knees, gasping for air. “I hope…that concludes…” I pant, “your definition…of a…long run.”
Rae nimbly stretches next to the giant fortified wall that wraps around the metropolis and, like a jerk, is not a smidgen out of breath.
We traveled beyond the city’s borders to accomplish his workout routine, or as I titled it, twenty minutes in the You’ve Got to Be Friggin’ Joking routine. Rae hardly broke a sweat on his beautiful brown-hued skin, while I, on the other hand, had to switch clothes twice midrun from the indecency of my perspiration. And that wasn’t as easy to accomplish as it sounds.
“It’s adequate.” He leans down, touching his fingers to his toes, which I find extremely impressive given his enormous height. “But you’ll definitely have to run in New York. You’re terribly unconditioned.”
“Thanks.” I leer at him. “What’s so important about being able to run far anyway? Can’t I just use those nice little powers of mine and fighting techniques?”
“You’ll find you’ll tire easily using both skills if your body isn’t properly conditioned. You need to build up your stamina, wake up the muscle memory you’ve been given. Once this is accomplished, your need to sleep here will also reduce.” Rae pops two water canteens from a pack around his back and hands me one. I chug it greedily.
“I hate logic sometimes,” I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“It does get in the way of laziness,” he muses.
“Precisely.”
Leaning against the cool metal wall, I rove the peaceful horizon. The tall grass sways in the tepid breeze, and the shooting stars pass over in a constant stream. It’s so quiet here, even though there’s a massive metropolis lying right behind us. I missed it.
“So I got a message to Becca for you.” Rae breaks the silence.
I excitedly push away from the wall. “You did? How?”
“I used your phone and texted her. You left it back at the bookstore, remember?”
“Oh—I forgot. So you texted her?”
He nods and takes another swig from his canteen.
“Well?” I widen my eyes impatiently. “What did you say? What did she say? How is she?”
He chuckles. “She’s good. Asked how your parents were. I said they were the ‘usual.’” He air quotes.
I nod. “Good, sounds like something I’d say.”
“I said—well, you said—you missed her a lot, but your time at home was the very thing you needed. You asked how New York was and work. You asked her about Rae—”
“Rae!” I shove his shoulder. “You can’t do that! You can’t snoop about you through me!”
“Why not? How else were you going to repay me for this favor?” The corner of his mouth tips up. “Plus, wouldn’t you ask her that?”
“Oh. My. God! That’s not the point,” I scold, but after a moment ask, “What did she say?”
He breaks into a wide grin. “All good things.” He rocks back on his heels. “All very good things.”
I shake my head. “Becca would be mortified. Dear Lord, this probably breaks so many friendship codes.” I turn on him quickly, poking my finger into his hard chest. “That’s the last time I will ever ask you to give her a message.” I walk away, mumbling under my breath, “Can’t trust anyone.”
Rae catches up to me in three long strides. “Come on, it was all innocent. No harm done. Actually, quite the opposite.” There’s no hiding the pride in his tone.
I shoot him a glare. “That’s still playing dirty.”
“Don’t you want to know what Jared had to say?”
That stops me in my tracks. “Jared?”
“Yeah, there were quite a lot of texts from him.”
Rae quickly recounts what he can remember of his fake conversation as me to Jared. How he misses me and had some big case come up which is keeping him late at work. Some of the more…colorful things that Jared divulged make my ears hot, and I want to disappear on the spot hearing them uttered from Rae’s mouth.
“All right!” I hold up my hand for him to stop. “I can deduce where the rest of that was going.”
Rae merely shrugs, unfazed by my humiliation or the context of the conversation. “You know,” he muses, more to himself, “I’ve never sexted before.”
“Rae!” My cheeks flame in mortification.
“What? I haven’t.”
“Ugh.” I hide my face in my hands.
“Jared’s actually quite funny. I had to text back a lot of LALATs.”
I blink up at him. “Don’t you mean LOLs?”
“Um, no,” he replies, baffled. “Why?”
I stare at him a beat longer. “Rae, what in the world does LALAT mean?”
“Laughing a lot at that,” he says like I’m missing a screw.
“Oh my God.” I drop my head in my hands once more. “Never again, Rae. Never again.”
—∞—
A while later, Alec guides me down the stark white halls of the Dreamer Containment Center, or as he calls it, the DCC, to a new room where Elena waits. This space replicates the room with the Dreamer Memory Chair, except the walls are alabaster instead of paneled, and a giant ball of churning Navitas rests in the apex of the domed ceiling. My skin prickles and croons at its presence.
“Enjoy your training.” Alec says his usual cordial parting words with a slight bow of his head.
“See ya later, Al.” I nudge his shoulder and am rewarded with his efforts to hide a tiny smile before turning around. Mission Get Alec to Lighten Up has officially begun.
“Did you have a good rest of the day once we parted, Molly?” Elena asks, taking my hands in hers. My power stirs.
“I did, thank you.”
She nods
knowingly. “The report of your first physical training with Rae was outstanding. You showed remarkable restraint in using your powers.”
“Oh? Well, thanks.”
“You remember of course that you can also use them while fighting.”
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t really think about it. Since Rae was mainly doing hand to hand, seemed like an unfair advantage.” Although I was provoked to use it against one particularly annoying individual…
“Excellent. Well, today we’re going to work on those skills. We both know you have seen a bit of what you’re capable of. So now we’ll condition your mind, just like you worked through your muscle memory with Rae.” Elena guides us to the center of the room.
“The Navitas above will be your clay.” She gestures to the mass churning in the ceiling. “I want you to call it down and contain it. We will work on strengthening your restraint to be joined with it, as that’s what all Dreamers desire most when coming here—to be collected into the light, find that space where their dreams can become a reality.” She faces me. “I must warn you—this energy is the same that can produce nightmares. You must fight against the path of fear and hate. It can all too easily consume love and joy.”
Studying the energy above, I swallow nervously. “How will I know how to fight it?”
“It’s in your DNA to know. It’s why you were specifically chosen, just like each of your predecessors. As much as this is an exercise, it’s also a test. For nightmares are often disguised as dreams—they are a siren’s call, alluring and manipulative, but ultimately damning. You must learn your own strength to not give in or be fooled. You must know how you will be when joined.” She smiles sympathetically at my concerned expression. “Don’t worry. I think you’ll do wonderfully. Try and remember how it felt when you experienced the Navitas through other Dreamers. How did they control it? How did they feel? It’s all there for you to tap into.”
I straighten my shoulders and gaze up at the blue-white energy. How does such power seem so docile? I stare and stare and stare until the pulse of the light matches my own.
“When you’re ready Molly, call it down.” Elena steps back, giving me room. “You know how.”
I fleetingly glance in her direction one last time and know what she said is true—I do know how. I’ve recently known how to do a lot of things, but to experience it all for the first time, with my own hands and not through another’s, has me hesitating. Will I be able to control it like my predecessors? Will I be able to do the things I saw them carry out so fluidly?
Whether I subconsciously conjure them or they really are present, I’m not sure, but the Dreamers that are all at once a part of me and wholly separate stand like phantoms in the room. Riki watches on, her eyes dark, sure, and strong. I am you. Her voice resonates in my mind. You are me. I meet her gaze before I meet all the others, feeling their energy guiding my instincts, my desires, telling me we’ve all done this before and I will be able to do it again. Intuitively, I lift my hands, instantly feeling the connection to the Navitas. My body fluctuates between hot and cold, and the hairs on my arms stand on end as I hold the giant form above my head. The blue-white power begins to spin—around and around it turns, condensing into a thick, fiery ball.
Reaching out like a mother calling her child, the Navitas descends, and my heart leaps in my chest. It’s so bright, so brilliant, so perfect. The energy cascades down my forearms, the pureness flowing through every fiber, and it’s not until a tear slips past my cheek that I realize I’m crying. Even though I’ve been filled with this energy once before, I’m still moved by the overwhelming sensations. Completeness, and a purity so virginal it aches, warms every nerve ending. A barrage of human emotions and imaginings lap over me one by one, and in this moment I sense how truly powerful I am. I’m not one thing but everything. I’m insignificant and momentous. What I hold can build cities and in an instant destroy them, can birth souls and just as quickly snuff them out. It’s the power of a god, and I wet my lips at the temptations, constraining the urge to slip into the shadows that rim with such limitlessness.
“Hold on to it, Molly, but do not let it encompass you. Restrain yourself,” says Elena, her voice far away. “Remember, you are its maker.”
I am its maker.
Bringing the Navitas closer, the condensed liquid whips around, spinning tendrils of my hair as thin strands of energy lick out toward my forearms. It’s so pure, so clean, so empty. Its desire for creation is abounding, and it speaks to me in a thousand voices. Are you our creator? Are you the one that we will join?
Riki is at my side along with the Ethiopian boy and the small girl from Croatia—they all are here, all the Dreamers I have collected. Are you the one that we will join? they echo.
I watch the cords of human imaginings caress my skin, snake between my fingers. “Yes,” I whisper and throw out the energy.
The Navitas explodes, transforming the entirety of the domed ceiling into a brilliant blue sky, the scent of sun and summer passing by. I whip my hands around again, a coldness pricking my mind as the energy that’s connected to me shifts into anything and everything I can think of. The room flashes from a sunlit day to a blizzard to heavy rain. From standing on the peak of a mountain to an ocean crashing under our feet, to lightning crackling everywhere, to thousands of butterflies fluttering about as giant flowers grow as tall as trees. With each change, the Navitas sings in happiness, bounds with joy, and I find myself laughing along with it. I build worlds around us and solar systems and creatures that only exist in dreams. I manifest colors that have flavors and darkness that’s all encompassing. I go to a place unborn by man, created in a space where the natural law has no reach and the science of reason is washed away, replaced by the basic pure desire to exist, all of it coming from a place I never knew I had.
Marveling at the worlds I create, at the life that springs forth from my mind, and how full my heart feels each time something new is born, I find myself dipping a hand into the ocean that now laps up against my thigh. Cupping the water into my palm, I throw it forward, smiling when the droplets transform into hummingbirds, their colors rare and not from my world. They flutter toward me, encircling my form before shooting up into the azure sky. I laugh and fall back into the water, which gently catches me and rolls me to lie facedown on the belly of a giant furry mammal. It’s twice the size of an elephant, and its hide is sunflower yellow and softer than silk. Black unblinking eyes take me in as its wide mouth lets out a soft rumbling mewl. I pet its stomach, knowing it won’t hurt me, and grin when it begins to purr. A giant paw slowly shifts me closer so I lay curled against the creature’s chest. I look at it with love just as it gazes back at me before I nod a silent good-bye and blink to a new world and then another—floating, flying, and swimming between them all.
Eventually, after a time that can’t be quantified, there’s a wane in my strength, heaviness in my limbs. My mind aches with a sharpness, and the Navitas pushes on me with pressure I struggle to control. Around the edges of myself dimming is a whisper that will ease the pain, that promises to give me power that will never fade, and I tilt toward it, leaning into the temptation of limitlessness.
And that’s when I see it, the creep of the void, a black so dark it calls to me to come closer, to search for something, anything that may be beyond. My mind prickles in warning as my cells shift with longing. Inky forms begin to wriggle free from the emptiness. Come to us, they say. Their slick, oily voices murmur my wants and desires—dark secrets kept locked away, buried deep, for no one, not even myself to acknowledge. My breathing grows shallow, and with a hot flash of panic I quickly gather the last remnants of my energy and force them back. There’s a howl of anger as the darkness is shut out right before everything goes quiet.
The brightness fades as I contain the Navitas once more into the small twisting ball of an empty canvas, gently returning it to the center of the dome, where it hugs an unknown source, severing my connection.
Breathing
heavy, my shoulders sag with a century-long weariness, and for a moment I am bereaved, lonely, unsure where I belong, and then I blink to Elena staring wide eyed, mouth slightly ajar—an expression completely foreign to her.
“Molly, I have never…I mean…that was remarkable.”
I flex my hands, ridding them of an ache that has settled deep in the bone, still reveling at all I just did. “Was I supposed to hold on to it longer?”
“No,” she breathes, watching me carefully, “you held on to it longer than I thought you’d be able to. What you created…well, normally even after a Dreamer retains predecessors’ memories, they need a bit more time to work up to what you accomplished.” She peers into my eyes, searching, her scrutiny making me shifty.
“Did I…did I make a mistake?”
She chokes on a bit of laughter, another reaction that seems foreign to her. “No. Quite the opposite,” she says. “It seems you are highly advanced in your skills.”
“Really?” I ask, shocked, never having been advanced in anything. “Why?”
Elena glances to the Navitas. “I’m not entirely sure, but…”
“But?”
“I have some theories—theories I need to look further into before discussing,” she quickly finishes, seeing me about to ask more, and I snap my mouth shut, knowing better than to press her on a subject she deems unready to divulge.
I study the energy above, recalling everything I just did, that I knew I could do, and I remember something from earlier. “Oh, I wanted to ask you—well, I was wondering why some things from past Dreamers I can bring up, while others I can’t?”
Elena tilts her head curiously. “What things exactly?”