by E. J. Mellow
Everything is the same as the last time I was here. The interior is sparse of any real décor, but simple in off-white and gray coloring, and the familiar large beige couches sit in the lower portion of the living room. The warm light of the fireplace mixes with the cold blue-white of the fixtures around the apartment, fixtures that burn with the energy of the Dreamers, the Navitas.
Dev walks toward me while removing the strap across his chest and indicates that I should do the same. “Where are Tim and Aveline?” I ask, handing him my quiver before searching for the roommates who share this space with him.
“Tim is at City Hall, and Aveline is somewhere of equal unimportance, I’m sure,” Dev says casually as he places our equipment away.
I’m not exactly positive what Tim is to these two, except a sort of father figure. Aveline is Dev’s Nocturna partner. Not in a romantic sense, but his companion in their duties here in Terra. All inhabitants of Terra train for combat, Vigil included, but not every Nocturna decides to become a warrior and guard the land’s borders as Dev, Aveline, and Tim do. Others filter into the various duties required in the city, including helping to monitor human dreams to spot potential developments for new technology and advancements in society.
“Let me show you your room.” Dev is suddenly by my side and places his hand on my back to guide me forward.
I swallow, forcing away the shivers that threaten to course down my body from the contact. I was hoping something would have changed when I met with Dev again. That a brotherly affection would have taken hold between us once my boyfriend, Jared, and my relationship was more cemented.
I barely hold in a snort from my naivety.
Dev’s body next to mine is like being near a giant magnet, specifically one that’s annoyingly good looking and radiates confidence, self-composure, and desires that are usually found in dark, dangerous places.
I’ve never met anyone like him, and all that he is intrigues a part of me I never thought existed. So as happy as I am with Jared, I can’t ignore what Dev does to me, though that’s exactly what I’m going to try really freakin’ hard to do.
After passing closed door after closed door—with me wondering if Dev’s quarters are nearby—we stop at the end of the hall. I peek into a room much like one I’d expect to find in this apartment––simple and clean. It has the same wooden floors as the rest of the place, a white modern dresser on one end with a circular mirror above, two decent-sized windows on the adjacent walls, which are lined with sheer white drapes, and a plain queen bed resting in the center. There are a few unembellished lamp fixtures around the room, as well as a ceiling light that swirls with the Navitas and casts the area in a low blue glow. It gives off a cold warmth that’s surprisingly comforting.
“This is one of our extra bedrooms,” Dev explains as I walk in. “Mine is just across the hall.” The suggestiveness in his voice isn’t lost on me, and I refuse to turn and catch the smile that I know matches his tone.
The thought of Dev so near to where I’ll be sleeping has my stomach in a fluster, but I play it off like it’s the most unimportant news in the world. “Why do you guys have beds when you don’t need to sleep?” I run my hand over the pristine white comforter.
Dev gives me a look like I can’t seriously be asking that question. When I stay silent, waiting on his response, his mouth twitches from suppressing a grin. “Beds can be used for things other than sleep.”
Oh.
Oh!
I can’t help it. I go crimson.
“Don’t tell me you just use them to sleep?” He raises a brow. “That would be…disappointing to find out. Actually”—he scans my body with no shame—“that would be rather interesting.”
I shoot him a glare. “You are disgusting.”
“I can be a lot of things, Molly.” He leans against the doorframe, the corner of his mouth inching up. “Especially in this room.”
Oh Lord.
“Very mature.” I eye roll. “Now please, if you’re quite done…” I step up and give him a light shove toward the exit “I’d like to have some privacy while I settle in. Let me know when it’s time to train.”
His smile widens at my annoyance. “I’ll be back to bring you down. If you end up taking a nap, try not to dream about me too much,” he says with a wink before I shut the door in his face, which does nothing to block the sound of his chuckle as he walks away.
If this is how it’s going to be the whole time I’m here, I might not make it.
Slouching on the bed, I think about everything that’s happened to me up until this point, and how here I sit in a dimension that is connected to my own like the very nerves that run through my body.
I can still see the white room at the spiritual bookstore Rae led me to, the one way to enter Terra where my actual body stays sleeping for days so I can train here uninterrupted. It will be weird returning to my day job. Even when I’m unsure of the things I’ll be doing here, I know they will feel much more important than what I do at the marketing firm back on Earth. Well, I don’t think anyone can really argue that, given that I’m basically meant to save all mankind from a possible world war. Yeah, a smidgen more important, I’d say. I still have no clue how one Dreamer is meant to make a difference in helping ease the growing number of Metus, which feed off of the corruption of human minds.
Lying back with a sigh, I study the swirling light above my head, my thoughts drifting with the rhythm of the liquid that fills it. Thinking about what lies ahead, I can’t help flying back to the past, to the moment of recently closing my eyes in my world and feeling my body shift away, searching for another place.
—∞—
There was much of nothing as I waited in the abyss. I could sense my restlessness to open my eyes and begin, to accept my role as the Dreamer and embark on learning my abilities and powers. But my body resisted, taking forever to catch up with my thoughts and keeping me in blackness.
Eventually the void began to take shape, and I sensed my surroundings—a cool surface against my back, a bright light under my lids, a hand against my own, and the whisper of voices.
Blinking my eyes open, my heart stuttered at the figure before me, and a grin formed on my lips. Constant day-old scruff, buzzed raven hair, and piercing eyes all rested in an otherworldly handsome face hovering above mine.
“Hi,” I said after a moment of us staring at the other.
“Hello.” He smiled.
“Fancy seeing you here.”
Dev raised an eyebrow. “Were you expecting someone else?”
“Actually, I was expecting many someones—oh, you are here.” Sitting up, I found Elena, a Vigil and one of Terra’s elders, standing at the end of the table I was on. Wrapped all in white, her perfect shoulder-length blonde hair was swept back to reveal her very not elderly glowing complexion. Before I knew that Elena was one of the more powerful Vigil—another Terra race that interacts with Dreamers in their awake states as a sort of guardian angel to their destinies—I could tell she was important. She seemed to radiate the power of the sun, making her a force that you desperately wanted to look at but strained your eyes if you did.
“Welcome, once again, to Terra Somniorum, Molly,” she said in her authoritative, calm voice.
“Thanks.” I turned distractedly to take in the stark white room. It reminded me of the holding cell I found myself being escorted to the time I tried to make my way into a Council meeting unannounced. The similar surroundings allowed me believe we were in, or close to, City Hall—the center of Terra.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Fine.” I glanced between her and Dev. “Why? Should I be feeling differently?”
“No, fine is perfect. I take it Rae did a proper job of guiding you here?”
“Yes.”
Elena nodded contentedly and glanced toward the door a beat before Rae strode in. He let out a small sigh of relief at seeing me and smiled his radiant, sunny smile, teeth white against his dark skin.
&n
bsp; “That was fast,” he said, brushing his fingers through his tight blond curls.
“Was it?”
“Yeah, you pretty much just closed your eyes in New York when I portaled here.”
“She was ready,” Elena said, staring at me with her ominous eyes.
“Can you stand?” Dev offered his hand, helping me hop off the table. “This is an interesting sleep ensemble you have on today.” He smirked as he appraised my baggy sweatpants and tee.
“I thought it was rather amusing myself,” Rae agreed.
I regarded them both peevishly, and without another word quickly brought up the image of the black T-shirt, pants, and boots that are the uniform of the Nocturna.
Surprised, they both stepped back as my clothing rapidly changed shape and settled into what I desired. Elena watched with a spark of intrigue.
“Is that better?” I eyed them sweetly.
Dev was the one who recovered faster. “If only you could change into what I’m imagining.”
I made a face of disgust as Rae chuckled next to him.
“All right, gentleman,” Elena began, “I would like to escort her out and explain a few things before she leaves with you, Dev, and is taken to her quarters.”
“I’m not starting my training now?”
“You will, but first I’d like you to rest a little. Much of what we’ll be doing today will take a lot out of you, and it would be preferred if you were settled before we began.”
“But aren’t I technically resting now?”
Elena smiled. “It would also be best if you stopped thinking about your body in New York and thought of your body here as its own.”
I nodded, though still not understanding how that would be possible.
The four of us traveled down the white sterile hallways of what Elena explained was the Dreamer Containment Center—a building not far from City Hall that resided mostly underground. Two Vigil guards walked in front and two behind. It was hard not to feel like we were being led through a prison.
Elena stopped in front of a new hallway connecting to the one we were walking through. “Down there is where your physical training will be held. It’s fitted with all the material and rooms that are required,” Elena explained as she began to move again. “I believe Rae will do your physical lessons today.”
I looked to Rae, who shot me a wink.
After making our way down a plethora of nondescript corridors, and losing my sense of direction more than once, we stopped in front of an all-white door with a glowing blue lightning bolt resting in its center. It was a symbol I noticed also decorated the armbands of our fellow Vigil guards and something I’d seen a few Nocturna wear as well. I wondered more than once if it was the emblem of Terra Somniorum.
After a nod from Elena, one Vigil quickly pressed a code into a keypad, and with a huff of air the door retracted into the wall, and she stepped through. As soon as I entered the room, an onslaught of pressure formed in my head, and I shivered. Glancing down, all the hairs on my arms now stood on end, and a strange wave of euphoric energy rushed through me. Something in the air made me want to take in large breaths, like I couldn’t get enough of it.
“You okay?” Dev was suddenly by my side.
Glancing at him in a daze, I found myself thinking how small he looked, how fragile—a thought that went against everything I knew Dev to be. But yet I couldn’t stop thinking it. Like a shift in eyesight, I could suddenly see through his skin, a strange-colored blood running through his veins, red mixed with glowing white strands of energy. I saw where it entered his heart and felt it beat in my head. I watched his glowing lungs expanding and contracting with each breath. How beautiful it all was, but how simply it could be snuffed out. How easily I could snuff it out if I merely wished the energy to stop flowing, for his heart to stop beating.
“Molly?” Dev’s concerned voice shook me out of my trance, making the energy I saw so easily flowing through him disappear—my eyesight returned to normal.
What was that?
A hand was pressed lightly against my shoulder, and I spun around, feeling a tug in my core. Elena stood before me, eyes penetrating my own and shifting through thoughts I was unsure belonged to her or me. Whatever she was searching for, she seemed to have found, for her lips pursed and then relaxed. “Interesting.”
“What is?” I asked with worry.
“Soon, Molly Spero. We’ll get into it all soon,” she said quietly and motioned me forward.
Before following Elena, I stole a glance back at Dev, who was regarding me with uncertainty until Rae drew his attention away. Swallowing away that strange moment, I returned my focus to the room, taking in the massive domed space and alabaster square paneling lining its entirety. Searching for the light source, I found none—the room seemed to be lit simply because it wished to be.
As Elena and I walked forward, a shape began to rise and unfold from the center of the room, snapping and shifting to finally settle into a chair you’d find at a dentist’s office, except this chair was all sleek and simple in design. It appeared to be wrapped in the soft white material of the sleeping pod I laid in at the bookstore. Despite the presence of that comfortable addition, the object terrified me. What was it for? Was I to lie in that thing? And if so, what was to be done with me in it?
I searched for Dev again, to see him studying our surroundings with narrowed eyes, his expression openly revealing he didn’t like this room, which did nothing to help my unease. Rae was off to the side, talking to another Vigil guard.
“Molly,” Elena called as she rested her delicate hand on the chair, “this is where you will train with me on using your Navitas as well as accessing the memories of your predecessors.”
“I’ll have to sit in that thing?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it might appear. You will need to be in this when I give you memories, but we won’t need it when we practice with your powers.”
I gingerly poked the seat’s material. It molded to my fingers effortlessly, just like the white coffin. “How will I receive the memories?” I couldn’t help but imagine ancient torture devices and pliers.
“I shall give them to you.”
I laughed at her simple reply. “Yes, but how will you give them to me? In sandwich form?”
Elena merely smiled politely. “No, I shall send them into your mind.”
I balked. “How will you do that?”
“You will see later today—nothing to get worked up over. It’s very painless, and you will take to it naturally, as I have already seen.”
I frowned. How has she seen this?
“All the Dreamers before you have easily taken the memories of their predecessors.” Elena answered my unasked question. “This room is where many past Dreamers have come and learned of their history and the power that resides within them. It is specifically made to contain the almost-limitless energy you hold.” She stepped forward. “You’ve felt what I speak of,” she said without question, and I slowly nodded. Is that what I felt when I entered the room?
“And this is all safe?” Dev asked from behind me.
“Yes, very safe.”
“Hunh,” was his dubious response as he ran his hand over the material of the chair.
“Come, I have a bit more to show you.” Elena ushered us toward the exit.
Before I followed the rest of the group out, I glanced back at the lonely chair in the middle of the room. As if knowing we were leaving, it began to fold itself up and disappear into the ground, leaving the space empty and bare, like it never existed.
I shivered, exiting the room, just as I shivered when entering.
—∞—
A knock sounds at my door, and my eyes shoot open, the memories of my earlier moments in Terra fading away. I must have fallen asleep after all. How strange.
“You ready, Molly?” Dev’s voice is muffled.
I roll off the bed and straighten my shirt, surprised I don’t feel my usually grogginess when waking
from a nap. “Yeah, one sec.”
Quickly tying my hair in a ponytail, I steal a look in the mirror above the dresser. I hardly recognize myself in my black garb and flushed cheeks. The nerves that flutter inside me are obvious. What am I about to experience? How will it change me? So many questions spin around as I breathe in deep and walk toward the door.
Dev stands in the inky shadows of the hall. Blue eyes like liquid topaz gaze down at me, the indication of his Nocturna night vision apparent with their reflection.
He holds out a quiver and Arcus. “Ready?” His question clearly inquires beyond the obvious.
“Ready.” I nod and take the outstretched objects before following him through the dark hall and toward the light.
Acknowledgments
Dev’s story originally started out as a bonus chapter I was going to give to my readers for a holiday present. But that quickly became two chapters, and then five. Dev wouldn’t let me stop writing his side of the story, and honestly, I didn’t want to. I adore this blue-eyed rake of a man. He crept into my mind three years ago and hasn’t left me since. So I want to thank Dev (yes, I’m thanking a fictional character—because I can) for sticking with me and providing endless words for me to write.
I also want to thank you, my reader. If it weren’t for all of your passion and enthusiasm about our dear dream man, I would never have started down this path to begin with. So thank you, thank you, thank you! Especially my Mellow Misfits. You ladies are my knights in shining book-pages armor. Having you all gives me the courage and excitement to keep doing this.
To Dan, who is convinced I fashioned Dev off of him. I’m still denying it.
And lastly, but most certainly not least, I want to thank Corinna Barsan for always being the first eyes to my work and whose guidance is immeasurable, and Dori Harrell, my fearless editor who makes everything I write much prettier and succinct. I bow to you in gratitude.