by Gareth Otton
“Ruk? You coming?”
Her brother didn’t react, almost as though he hadn’t heard her.
“Ruk?” she asked again, breaking him from a trance.
“We here?” he asked.
“Yeah? You good?”
Kuruk forced a smile and climbed from his seat. He couldn’t stand straight in the van and had to do an awkward shuffle to climb out.
“I keep thinking this is where it all happened,” he said as he finally stood tall. “This is where Lucy...”
His voice trailed off as the front passenger window wound down and a head popped out. Kuruk looked away so the man looking out couldn’t see his expression.
“You guys good here?” Marcus Riley asked. “You know the way?”
“Yeah, we remember the plan,” Mitena said, trying not to sound peeved. She had long since lost patience with this obsessed man. Outside of her brother and their contact who fed them the names of criminal dreamwalkers, she’d never met anyone so devoted to seeing dreamwalkers removed from the world. She didn’t like how that hatred fuelled Kuruk’s own. “We’ve been over it enough times.”
Marcus grinned. “It never hurts to be prepared.”
“We’re good,” Kuruk answered, turning back to face the man without a hint of the emotion that troubled him moments earlier. “Thanks for your help, Marcus. We couldn’t be here without you.”
Marcus laughed. “You thanking me? That’s rich. It’s an honour to help you kids considering what you’ve done for the cause. I hope tonight’s worth it.”
“Me too,” Kuruk agreed. He landed a massive hand on Mitena’s shoulder and squeezed in a familiar way. “I’ve got faith. My sister’s never let me down before. She won’t tonight either.”
Marcus grinned and wished them luck. Before he’d even finished speaking, the van pulled away fast and hard leaving Mitena and Kuruk alone.
“Alright, Ten. Last time, I promise, but are you sure about this? Really sure?”
Mitena forced confidence into her voice and said, “One hundred percent. I wouldn’t have brought us halfway across the world if I wasn’t.”
“Fair enough… it’s just—”
“Ruk, we’ve been over this,” Mitena interrupted. “They’re on to us and we keep getting hurt. If we want to keep up the fight, we need to up our game. This is the only way. I know it’s a risk, but I’m as confident as I can be that this will work.”
“It’s just a theory though,” Kuruk complained.
“So was what Grandma taught us about Dreamcatchers and my ideas of how to modify them. They were just silly stories neither of us cared about much, but look what we’ve done with them.”
“Your right. It’s just…” His words trailed off and he shook his head as though to shake free of his doubt. “You're right. Let’s do this.”
Mitena’s gut flipped as deep down she was hoping he might call this off. She’d been strong for his sake, but a part of her hoped this was one step too far for him and he would use it as an excuse to finally stop this crusade.
It was her turn to take a deep breath and get her head on straight.
“Come on then, Marcus’ distraction will happen soon,” she urged before heading off into the night.
They followed the route the van took, but instead of turning right at the end of the road, they turned left. It took them into the carpark of a warehouse and they headed around the side of it before crossing into another carpark for another warehouse. Steadily and without speaking they moved through the darkest parts of this estate, often having to risk using the torches on their phones to light their way as there were no streetlights. Neither spoke and they only paused long enough to cut their way through a perimeter fence between two buildings.
It took them the better part of twenty minutes, but finally they saw it.
The massive pile of rubble was illuminated even this late at night by lights that ringed the perimeter of the site. A tall, spiked metal fence encircled the area with rings of barbed wire coiled atop it. As ugly as it was, it was also the most famous place on Earth.
The King Dream Gate, where anyone could cross into Dream, even if they weren’t a dreamwalker.
Still silent, the siblings paused in the shadow of the nearest building and didn’t cross the last stretch of land that would bring them to the fence. They had planned tonight well and knew this was as close as they could get without being spotted by security cameras or the guards that even now wandered the site.
Mitena checked her watch for the time.
“Should be any minute,” she whispered and was alarmed by the shaking in her voice.
“Marcus and his people will pull through,” Kuruk said, suddenly confident again. “He’s good people.”
Mitena wasn’t so sure. After coming up with this plan, their contact feeding them criminal dreamwalker names back home had put them in touch with a Children of ADaM chapter operating in the UK. After hearing of the Campbell twins past successes, they cheerily worshipped the ground the siblings walked on. Despite that, she didn’t trust the motives of these people as she wasn’t sure they understood the mission.
After that one time Kuruk had been forced to kill a teenage girl, Mitena insisted they get more careful and stick to the mission. They only wanted to punish guilty dreamwalkers, and she would not be party to killing innocents. Kuruk agreed and it was why she was still doing this, no matter how distasteful it became.
These Children of ADaM wanted more, they wanted an end to all dreamwalkers. They hated them completely, and she was worried that hatred was rubbing off on her brother.
A huge explosion shattered the silence of the night, and both Mitena and Kuruk flinched away as the bright, orange fireball illuminated their hiding place. That it came from the other side of the Dream Gate site only enforced how large that explosion had been.
Mitena shot a startled look at her brother.
“What the hell was that?”
“Our distraction,” Kuruk said, pulling his balaclava over his face.
“But… Ruk, that was huge. Please tell me no one died over there. There are no dreamwalkers here.”
“No one died. They just blew up a couple of vehicles. We had to make a big enough distraction for that to happen,” he said, nodding at the site.
Mitena looked over and saw the distraction had worked. All the guards around the perimeter of the site were sprinting towards the explosion. It was large enough that none of them lingered, all wanting to help.
“Get your mask on,” Kuruk hissed before he stepped from the shadow and sprinted across the open ground between their warehouse and the fence.
Swearing, Mitena scrambled to fix her balaclava before she too sprinted across the open space towards where Kuruk crouched at the fence. He reached into his pack and pulled out an angle grinder, then looked around once more to make sure the guards were definitely gone. Mitena followed his gaze and saw them all running to the large tents and the massive military response that way. To give Marcus credit, he and his people were still there and she could hear their chants in the distance.
“They’ll get arrested for this,” Mitena said. “If not killed.”
“They know what they’re doing,” Kuruk insisted. “They just need to stay long enough to mask the sound of this.”
The angle grinder suddenly spun up and Kuruk cut into the metal spikes of the fence.
The noise was loud enough that Mitena was glad she brought hearing protection and sparks showered her, making her jump back, heart beating fast. Between the noise and sparks, it was only a matter of time before they were caught.
Her brother made short work of cutting through the first spike and moved onto the second, but it still felt like it was taking too long. Mitena glanced around, looking out for guards and not finding any yet. When she heard a change in the tone of the grinder, she looked down to find Kuruk had already finished the second spike. One more to go and he could move higher to cut a hole big enough for them to get through.
“Ruk, they’re coming.”
“I can see that,” he snarled over the sound of the grinder, not deviating from his work.
They’d definitely been spotted. Mitena could already see men with guns sprinting their way. Just as Kuruk finished the third spike, she knew there wasn’t nearly enough time. He might get one more cut done before they were in range to fire on them, but that would be it.
“Shit, we’ve got to abort.”
“The hell we do,” Kuruk said, throwing aside the angle grinder and grabbing the first spike in two giant hands. “I haven’t come this far to run away now. We won’t get another chance.”
Deviating from the plan, he roared with effort and pushed the first metal spike away from himself. The metal groaned as Kuruk brought his considerable strength to bear on it, and slowly it budged. Soon it was curled away from Kuruk just far enough that he judged he could squeeze through, and he moved on to the next. Again he roared, but this time his hand shook on the metal with the effort. Once more it gave way, but it was slow and those guards were awfully close.
“Ten, go,” Kuruk snarled, pointing at the opening.
“You’ll never get through,” she protested.
“I’ll follow you, but let’s not push our luck. Go!”
Giving her a shove, Mitena had no choice but to duck down and almost dive through the narrow space. There was more than enough room for her shoulders, but her back scraped the jagged edge of a spike and she would have got stuck had Kuruk not shoved her harder, tearing through the back of her black shirt. Then she was inside and scrambled to her feet.
“Run,” Kuruk ordered. “Get to the gate, I’ll be right behind you.”
His hand was already against the third spike and with another roar he started pushing and the spike started bending, though not nearly as fast. He was exhausted from bending the other two and she wasn’t sure he would make it.
“Run,” he grunted as he kept trying to force it.
Mitena glanced over to see the guards were close enough to shoot if they wanted to. However, she couldn’t run. Instead, she turned back to the fence and grabbed the spike Kuruk was trying to bend.
With a scream of her own, she placed her foot against another spike and heaved back with all her might.
Her strength wasn’t much compared to what Kuruk brought to the table, but this time it was enough. With a metallic groan, the spike twisted out of the way and Kuruk didn’t waste a second in jumping through the newly created hole.
Even with the extra spike out of the way it was a tight fit, and he also got snagged on the metal. However, he powered through, tearing his t-shirt and probably the skin beneath.
“You two, freeze,” shouted one guard as he stopped and raised his gun.
It was too late to stop though, and Mitena counted on the fact that the guard wouldn’t actually shoot. She’d always wondered what the point was in killing someone who was committing suicide anyway by going into Dream? At least she hoped he thought that because, with her brother one step behind her, she sprinted for the rubble that was only ten paces away.
“I said freeze,” screamed the guard as another one fell into place beside him, also raising his gun.
Both Mitena and Kuruk ignored them and covered the distance as quick as they could. Mitena was almost halfway when Kuruk overtook her, his longer stride eating up the distance. Unfortunately, he also made a bigger target and her calculation was wrong; the guards were willing to fire.
The first crack of the gunfire made her jump, but it made Kuruk flinch as a bullet tore through the upper part of his right arm. Mitena screamed and acted on instinct before there was another crack and she dived for her brother, preferring to tackle him to the ground a fail their mission rather than see him get shot and killed.
Stunned by the pain of his injury, Kuruk had already missed a step or she’d never have made a difference against someone with his mass. She collided with him shoulder first and they both fell forward.
She thought she felt the passage of a bullet overhead, but it might have been her imagination as time seemed to freeze. She and Kuruk were both falling forward and as she looked over, she saw the guards about to fire another shot.
She heard the crack of another bullet, saw the muzzle flash and then everything went grey.
The greyness was all-consuming and horrifying. Mitena’s mind screamed out against it, unable to handle its vastness.
Suddenly a concrete floor and a massive pile of black stone, the rubble of a fallen tower, appeared.
Mitena yelped as she and her brother collided with that stone, collecting bruises as she landed on sharp points and jagged edges. It was agony, but better than a bullet through the brain.
She rolled off her brother, who took the brunt of the fall and was relieved he was still moving. Her relief only lasted until she remembered the guards would still be there and…
Her thoughts tailed off as she saw there weren’t any guards. In fact, there was nothing. The concrete faded into blackness just a few feet away, as did the rubble. They were in a single spotlight of space, and there was nothing around them.
“Are we dead?” Kuruk groaned, noticing the same phenomenon. “When I saw the greyness, I thought for sure it was the end. This isn’t any better.”
Mitena agreed, but then a new thought struck.
“Wait,” she whispered. Suddenly the stones vanished from beneath her, replaced with the softness of a giant mattress, the sky brightened up and they found themselves on the worlds largest bed beneath a brilliant summer sky.
“What the fuck,” Kuruk muttered. “I’m definitely dead.”
“It worked,” Mitena laughed. “We’re in Dream.”
“What?” Kuruk asked. “I thought—”
“Not dead. Dream. Try it out, imagine something.”
Kuruk hesitated, then did as asked. Mitena should have known what would happen next.
An athletic, nineteen-year-old blonde girl appeared, a perfect example of American beauty. She was a cheerleader in school when Kuruk met her, a runner in college, and one of the nicest people Mitena had ever met. Lucy was her brother’s perfect match, and they’d loved each other since they were kids.
A tear rolled down Kuruk’s cheek as he saw Lucy’s smile again. The apparition reached out to wipe it away and whisper something Mitena couldn’t hear before breaking apart and floating away like petals caught in a breeze.
Mitena gave her brother a moment to pull himself together. She didn’t want to know what Lucy had said to him because it wasn’t really her. It was Kuruk’s imagination, and she didn’t want to hear what he thought when seeing her for maybe the last time. She was just glad the dream hadn’t darkened as it could have if Kuruk imagined how Lucy’s father must have found her the night she killed herself, laying in a bathtub filled with her own blood.
“We’re here,” Kuruk grumbled as he wiped away the last of his tears. “We made it. Now what?”
Before she answered Mitena reached for his injured shoulder.
“It’s alright,” Kuruk insisted. “The bullet just grazed me. It stung like a bitch, though.”
His definition of a graze and hers were different things. There was a nasty line on his shoulder like someone had cored out a chunk, and it was bleeding freely. However, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been and there wasn’t anything she could do for it without medical equipment.
“We’ll have to be quick so we can get it treated,” she insisted.
“Fine, lets just do what we came to do and get out of here… if we can get out of here.”
“That’s the first test,” she agreed as she swung her bag from her back and pulled out the equipment from within. “Take a seat.”
The world changed again, the soft bed beneath them becoming a tiled floor, walls rising around them covered in a myriad of designs like those in the tattoo parlour she’d trained in for the last few mo
nths. Finally, a padded chair appeared for Kuruk.
“This is weird,” Kuruk said as he sat.
“Don’t question it,” Mitena urged. “Anything you think here becomes real and we can’t risk messing this up.”
“Alright. I can manage. Now what?”
“I want you to imagine you’re like a dreamwalker and by flipping a switch in your head you could be here or anywhere else in the world. Don’t flip that switch yet, just hold that image. You got it?”
Kuruk frowned, but eventually nodded.
“Now’s the hard part, I need you to keep that in your mind as long as you can. Don’t think about anything else, just that. Can you do it?”
Kuruk’s frown deepened, but he nodded again.
“Alright,” Mitena said. “Now focus.”
She turned away and started assembling the tattoo gear she brought from the real world. She lined up her inks, assembled her needles and plugged in the tattoo machine. Then she also started daydreaming. She imagined she could sense what Kuruk was imagining and how strong that thought was. She mentally encapsulated his thought into a single design, a dreamcatcher, that she could tattoo onto his skin.
No sooner had she thought it when she could actually picture the perfect design to capture this dream, and she could almost see it already in place on Kuruk’s skin.
“Take your shirt off,” she commanded, seeing it living over his left shoulder. “And don’t forget to concentrate,” Mitena said as she sensed his imagination turn away.
“This is harder than it sounds,” he said as he peeled off his shirt and sat back down, flinching as the cold leather touched his skin.
“I know,” Mitena said. “But try or this will have been for nothing.
Kuruk grimaced and nodded, forcing himself to concentrate. Mitena sensed him rebuild the image, and she smiled. She was finally starting to enjoy this. Breaking and entering, gun fights, killing; she hated all that. But this, an exploration of this new art, it never failed to enthral her.
“Let’s do this,” she said and got to work.
Always artistic, she had picked up tattooing easily over the last few weeks. By no means an expert, she was talented enough to one day be one should she put in the effort. In this place with her ability to actually see just where the tattoo should be, what it should look like, and with it being her own design, it had never been so easy. Every stroke was sure, every line perfect, and the process went without a hitch.