by E. J. Mellow
“The Anima, for starters. I can’t remember ever seeing it before or knowing about it.”
She nods. “Yes, that’s because no past Dreamer has seen it before. None have ever walked the city of Terra, seen anything beyond the Containment Center. Besides having to fight the Metus, that is.”
“So they never left this underground facility? For all the years they would come here?” Elena nods, and I blink, astonished. “Wow…that must have been…well, really boring.” I would go stir crazy if I was only allowed to walk around these halls. Not that I’ve seen close to the whole Center, but still—to miss out on seeing Terra, with its unique skyscrapers and magic sky, and the Nocturna. To have never met them…Dev…
“It was adequate for what they were sent to do. For one reason or another, they never awoke anywhere but in the Center,” Elena explains before turning and narrowing her eyes at the exit. There’s a huff as the door opens, and Rae, Dev, and Alec stride in.
This is the first time I’ve seen Dev since the club, and my stomach scrunches into—well, a scrunchie, when we lock eyes. His face is gorgeously brooding and serious as he breaks our gaze to focus on Elena.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’ve been notified of a small Metus attack on one of our outpost generators. I wanted to see if the Dreamer should accompany us, though we can handle it if she’s occupied.” Dev speaks like he barely knows me.
“I can go,” I blurt out and then backpedal to compose myself when he shoots me a glare. “I mean…if it’s a small group, like you say, than this is a perfect time to test my skills.”
Dev ignores my response and waits for Elena’s. I purse my lips at the brush-off.
“I think Molly’s right. With what I’ve learned from today’s session, she’s more than ready. ”
My chin involuntarily tips up.
“Are you sure?” Dev asks again.
Elena quirks a brow. “I’m not in the habit of making decisions I’m unsure of, Devlin. Ensemble a team that’s been briefed on her presence.”
He reluctantly inclines his head before pinning me with his sapphire gaze. “You’ll need your Arcus.”
— 10 —
THE ENDLESS FIELD whips by in a blur, our speed silent in the hover car. At least that’s what I’m calling it, since it’s shaped like a car and hovers. It’s black inside and out, and its exterior reflects our surroundings like a one-way mirror, a chameleon zooming over the land. The top is completely transparent glass and—because I witnessed it when we climbed in—can fall away, transforming the vehicle into a futuristic sort-of convertible.
Alec drives with Rae in the passenger seat and Dev and I in the back. My eyes flicker over the quickly passing landscape as I anxiously run my palms over my knees, allowing the familiarity of this situation in, the memories of doing something similar before. A hand rests on top of mine, stilling it.
Dev smiles tightly, warily. “Aim for their heads first, and if you can’t, then their chests. Navitas spreads the quickest in those areas.”
I nod. “Yes, I know.”
“Of course,” he says softly, squeezing my hand once more before letting go.
There’s a loud beep right before strange symbols dance across the glass windows—a message.
“So they were on their way to the Sea of Dreams.” Rae leans forward and types something into the dash. “That means there’s at least a pack of them.”
“How many is a pack?” I ask.
“Around twenty-five,” Alec answers.
Twenty-five. That number might as well be a thousand. Can I really do this? All my instincts say yes, but the part that’s still only me, only Molly, is shaking her head vehemently and resisting the urge to pee her pants.
I’ve got to get a grip.
“What’s the Sea of Dreams?” I ask Dev, for distraction.
He smiles warmly for the first time today. “I’ll take you there sometime” is his only answer before he turns his attention back to the window.
We only travel for a couple of minutes when I spot a glowing orange mass mixed with blue-white light. A small group of Nocturna and one or two Vigil stand guard around a sleek black building that resembles a half-buried radio tower. A giant antenna juts tall and proud into the sky, where Navitas crackles at the tip, collecting energy from the passing shooting stars.
“Get ready,” Rae says, adjusting his sitting position to pounce the moment he’s allowed. There’s a second of silence, of calm, right before the glass top falls away and the sound of fighting erupts around us.
Dev grabs my arm, his stare unwavering. “Don’t leave my side,” he says before dragging us both to our feet.
He fluidly retracts his Arcus and, aiming down at the nearby Metus, shoots flaming arrow after arrow into the beasts. A few shriek their inhuman gurgle before bursting apart, while others, now aware of the new threat, dodge in the nick of time.
All four of us jump from the vehicle and run into the chaos, the tall grass whipping against our legs.
Quickly taking in the situation, I push away the urge to vomit from the stench. About sixteen Metus are staggered in groups of four around the outpost building. Their seven-foot-tall burning forms chuck pieces of fiery flesh at their foes, some spewing fire. Alec and Rae join two Nocturna who are fighting a group. One Nocturna, a dark-skinned man named Alexander, whom I met at City Hall, drips with sweat as he goes tête-á-tête with a beast. On the far side, I catch the whipping strawberry-blonde hair of Aurora, still supermodel beautiful, and her partner, whose name Brenna said was Ezekial. They make quick work of the monsters with the help of Aveline. Tim is the last I recognize. He stands closest with one other Nocturna and two Vigil. They push against Metus that have somehow grown their number to six in the span it’s taken for us to reach them.
The sounds of howls and grunts fill the air along with the pungency of rot and death. The weapons being used are of a variety—Arcus, whips, flails, and something that looks like a badass shotgun—filled and pulsating with an altered form of Navitas, the kind that will end these nightmares.
Dev reaches Tim’s side and with dizzying speed shoves one deadly sharp end of his Arcus into the abdomen of a churning Metus, stopping its forward lunge. The creature belches a scream, attempting to grab the intruding instrument, but Dev quickly twirls again, and my eyes hardly register the slash through the air that decapitates the monster. It melts into a flaming puddle that eventually sinks into the ground, killing the grass below.
I stand stock still, mesmerized, shocked, appalled, and surprisingly giddy. A painful heat slowly registers along my back, along with the oily, thick smell of rotting garbage.
Oh shit.
“Move!” Dev shoves me aside as two of his arrows find a home inside the head of a Metus. The light fills its entirety right before it pops like a mucus-filled balloon and is gone. Burning slime splatters my leg, but I hardly feel it through my protective pants. I can only pant and stare at the place where the creature once was. Where I just was.
“Molly.” Dev stares at me angrily. “What are you doing?” He helps me to my feet. “Why aren’t you fighting? Did you not see that Metus right behind you?” His tone turns from panic to concern.
“I…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he repeats incredulously. “Well, snap out of it! You said you could handle this, so prove it. This isn’t training anymore.”
His words jolt me into action.
“Yes, yes, not training.” I square my shoulders and, ignoring the Arcus strapped to my back, flex my fingers. For some reason I’d rather handle them this way. Letting all that I’ve seen and learned settle in, I switch off my individuality and open up my pasts. Everything instantly becomes clearer, second nature. Thank God for Dreamer memory osmosis.
A Metus close by sniffs the air before focusing on me. Molten drool drips from an orifice in its head, which I gather could be its mouth, but the thing slides around too much to be certain.
Yuck.
D
ev’s at my side ready to end the threat, but I step forward as my hand ignites with power. Navitas crackles and swims in my palm, ready to do my bidding.
The Metus tilts its head back, crooning an eerie whine at the sight of what I hold. The sound, filled with longing and desperation, is unsettling.
When it runs straight for me, I’m more than ready. With my mind prickling, I clap my hands together and then part them, turning the energy into a thin blanket of glowing white that quickly shoots forward, engulfing the creature, and collapses in. Right before the Metus vanishes without a trace, erased by the Navitas, a sigh whispers past my mind, a feeling of relief, and I shiver.
“Whoa,” Dev says by my side.
My mouth quirks up in an uncharacteristic smirk.
“All right, don’t let my praise go to your head or anything.”
“You’re one to talk.”
He merely shoots me a wink before guiding us forward.
We meet up with Aveline, who’s heavily attacking a Metus but unable to get a proper kill shot. Dev runs to help, and the two swarm the beast, working in choreographed unison that shines light on their long-standing partnership. With their dual efforts, the monster doesn’t stand a chance, and it explodes in a bomb of stink and fire. They share a companionable smile that has me turning away, noticing a rapidly approaching fiery liquid. It heads straight for Aveline, but since it’s so low to the ground and approaching from behind, she doesn’t see it coming. I run forward just as the creature begins to grow into its form, taking her by surprise. Dev yells her name, too late in realizing the threat, and she turns, horror stricken. But I’m there even if I’m yards away, and when the monster attempts its attack, I will the earth to burst forth, sending it backward. Aveline is rocked to the side, shocked but safe. I throw out my hand, letting cords of Navitas fly forward, and like barbed wire, it clings around the entirety of the Metus, rendering it immobile. Not missing a beat, Dev lets loose an arrow right into the thing’s chest. It crackles and fizzes with blue-white light before it bursts apart and is gone.
I’m breathing heavy as my head pinches with the acute pain of having to act so quickly. Dev glances my way and then to Aveline, who’s still splayed on the ground, looking shaken. I reach her first and hold out my hand. She stares at it before locking eyes with me, and I give her a small reassuring smile, which she doesn’t return. Instead she takes my hand, allowing me to help her up. She holds my gaze a moment longer, a mixture of emotions playing across her features, before she nods ever so slightly and turns away. I’m not positive, but I think that was her version of a thank you.
Eventually the Metus number dwindles, and there’s a hopeful levity in the group. I’ve taken down two more—Dev mostly jumping in front to remove any oncoming beast before I have the chance. I’m beginning to feel a little useless, and I wonder if he’d prefer I wait in the hover car.
It’s when I have this lighthearted thought that the worst thing I’ve ever seen happens. A Nocturna, not fifty feet away, trips trying to dodge a spew of fire from a Metus. Before he can right himself, the monster descends upon him in a wave of lava. Too quickly for me to react, the beast’s body dismantles to nothing but liquid for the second it takes to coat the Nocturna.
The man’s acid-sharp cry is cut off by the gurgling of pain, bringing me to my knees and bile to my throat. I watch in horror as the Metus literally consumes the form that was once a man. My vision flickers from the world as it is to a world of energy, the once-bright light of the Nocturna now covered by a black sludge. The Metus, desperate and greedy, suffocates the power of dreams into nightmares. When the liquid mass rises, it rises not as one, but as two. The Metus remaking the Nocturna into its own image, into our enemy that now stands seven feet tall and burning orange. The only discernable feature is that its body still partly resembles a man, a tortured shadow of what once was. With my shifting eyesight, I catch a glimpse of a light, barely there, but a light nonetheless, in the center of its chest—all that’s left of the once-bright Nocturna’s soul.
There’s a sickening pop as Dev buries an arrow into the original Metus, breaking it apart in a slimy burst of red and white. The newly formed Metus still remains, and I want to sob when sad, partly human eyes lock with mine. In a strange freezing of time, I sense its plea, the seed of a creature born of dreams still very present, hating what it’s become. But then the stopwatch starts again, and its lucidity vanishes, taken over by thirst and greed. It lunges toward me, and I jump to the side, simultaneously knocking away Dev’s aim to take it down, postponing the inevitable.
“Molly?”
“Just wait! There has to be another way.” I desperately search my memories. How can I fix this? I have to be able to fix this.
“This is the only way.” Dev pulls me to him right before a dripping claw can swipe me.
I shift back to the other plane of sight, suddenly finding it easy to do, and dig further into the beast’s chest to the tiny pebble of light, trying to figure out how to bring him back. But then I’m momentarily blinded by a slash of bright Navitas, and I blink to Dev twirling out with an Arcus that now glows white, slicing the creature’s head clear off. Its body crumbles in on itself, melting into the ground, and is gone.
“No!” I reach forward only to be held back by Dev. “No,” I say again, but it comes out in a whisper.
“It had to be done,” Dev says softly. “Do you understand? It had to be done.”
I sag in his arms, barely registering the sounds of the other Nocturna and Vigil eradicating the remaining beasts, leaving only the residual stench of nightmares.
Glancing at the singed dirt in front of me, knowing a life was taken there, I step away from Dev, and he hesitantly lets me. The image of a writhing, melting form is forever in my memory, the first memory of a loss in battle that’s all my own.
“Are you okay?” Dev peers down in worry.
“What was his name?” I ask.
“Cree.” It’s Tim’s voice that answers, coming to my side.
“What does it mean?”
His sorrowful gaze takes in the darkened grass. “Warrior.”
I nod.
“He lived up to his creation. That’s all any of us can hope for.”
“His creation was to be brutally devoured into a Metus?” It comes out more biting than intended.
“That’s not what Tim meant,” Dev says. “He fought bravely, honored his name.”
These answers for some reason anger me, and I walk away. Even with their remorseful tones, their single-minded sense of duty for Terra currently annoys me. I know deep down they’re probably right, but I’m still only surface level, wishing there was more I could have done. Walking among the remaining Nocturna and Vigil, I try not to stare too long at the injured, even though their presence reminds me further of my current uselessness to help them. There has to be more to my power here than to kill Metus.
“You did good, Dreamer.” As if on cue, Aurora, all exotic eyed and perfectly coiffed hair—yes, even after a fight—steps in front of me. “I saw you take one down. It was impressive.”
It’s odd to receive a compliment as if I just made a goal or a basket or a touch down instead of killing something, but I merely nod my thanks because I don’t know what else to say, too in my own head and too tempted in my anger and sadness to mess up her hair.
I wait by the car while they check the outpost generator and discuss what just transpired. For the first time, I don’t feel much like talking or asking questions.
I receive curious glances from the group now and again, and I wonder if it’s because of how angry I was earlier or because of the small handful of new Nocturna who have been briefed on who I am.
Dev steps in front of me, blocking my view. “Hey,” he says softly.
“Hey.”
“How you holding up?”
“Fine.”
“Mmm.”
“Really. I am.”
Again, “Mmm.”
“What?” I gla
re up at him.
“You didn’t seem like you were fine earlier.” He moves to my side and leans against the car.
“Well…I wasn’t, but now I am.”
“Okay.” He keeps staring at me.
“Is there another reason why you came over here?” I ask, watching Rae, Alec, and a few others guide glowing devices over the charred areas; black and still-sizzling orange goo gets sucked up, the grass once again green.
“Is wanting to see how you are not a good enough reason?”
I don’t answer, wishing I were still angry with him for the other night at the club, because that’s a silly, foolish thing to be angry at, and I’m starting to really miss silly, foolish things. Instead I’m standing in another dimension trying to come to terms with the reality of my past memories, my supposed destiny, and wondering exactly what sort of good I can really do here.
“You know, in the end we only have our duty to fall back on,” Dev says after a moment.
I glance his way.
“When someone is taken from us, whether it be in a battle or not, if we didn’t have our duty, our belief to keep fighting for, working for, none of us would last very long. This”—he gestures to our surroundings—“is what we’ve done for centuries, what we’ve fought for, and what we’ll keep fighting for. Because if we stop, if we do that, then they win and what Cree, what any fallen Nocturna or Vigil died for, would be in vain.
“Cree died doing what he was born to do, what he lived to do, and we can’t take that away from him. If we keep moving forward and living, then he keeps living too.”
I study his profile, sensing he’s not saying this just so I can hear it.
“But don’t mistake that to mean we aren’t angry,” he continues, “or upset or wish any of us could have changed the outcome. Because we have…some of us have wished a different ending more than our next breath.” His brows pinch in as he stares into the distance. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my time here, it’s that we can’t change the past. We can only try and guide the future.” His eyes rest on mine, a shadow of sadness still lingering.