The Dream Sanctum: The Eternal World (18 page)

“Quiet.” She felt it again. She held up her
hand to silence the doctor, and he obeyed.

“I remember… for some reason…”

Tell
me what you’re feeling.

Suddenly, it hit her. That was one of the
phrases she had conditioned herself to remember, one that would cause her to
perform a reality check. And she did.

She gasped as her memories came flooding back.
The doctor stood up, holding out his arm in case Kwin was going to fall, but
she quickly regained her composure, then turned slowly to face him. Far from
looking upset and confused, her expression was now one of icy fury.

Kwin raised her hand in front of her. The
doctor rose into the air as she did, then slammed forcefully against the wall
of his office.

“This was an unnecessarily cruel illusion.
How dare you
,” Kwin hissed. The doctor
gasped, clutching at his throat, but he could not speak. “It appears that while
you thought this game through, you did not stop to consider what I would do to
you if you failed.”

Kwin narrowed her eyes and slowly closed her
fingers to form a fist. The doctor began to choke, and he wheezed desperately,
trying in vain to remove the invisible power closed around this throat. Kwin
clenched her fist tighter, tighter… and then let him go.

Dr. Adams fell to his desk, then rolled to the
floor, coughing hard. His face was red and he seemed too afraid to look at her.

“No, I don’t need to do anything to you. I
already beat your game,” Kwin said resolutely. “In retrospect, I am impressed
you would go this far and stoop this low to keep me out of your mind, but
remember this in case we ever meet again…” Kwin knelt down next to the doctor
and lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. “I don’t lose.”

She stood up and walked to the office door,
then strode fearlessly through it.

When Lindsay walked through the door, she
expected to show up in a room full of shadows and evil creatures. But when she
opened her eyes, she realized that she was in Aqua Capital. To her surprise, it
was undamaged and full of people bustling about. A few people waved cheerfully
in her direction, and she waved back, though she was quite uncertain.

What
kind of a nightmare is this? Am I secretly afraid of sunshine and happy people?

For the first few minutes she jumped at every
noise and peeked quietly around every corner, but nothing happened. Nothing
jumped at her, no one turned into a scary blob of shadow, and everything was
fine.

This was an immense relief, but she was also
incredibly confused. She knew Aqua Capital had been destroyed when the airship
crashed into it, but yet here it was. And she
knew
everyone in the world couldn’t get into the Sanctum anymore,
but here they were. After some thought, she came to the conclusion that she
must be seeing something that happened in the past – but when? What was its
significance?

Everyone in the city looked happy, more so
than they usually did, so something must have just happened. Unable to figure
anything out from the bits of conversation she overheard, she walked up to a
middle-aged man walking nearby.

“Excuse me… what’s going on? Have I missed
something important?”

“You don’t know what’s going on? Oh, you
missed something big all right,” the man laughed. “The Nightmares are gone!
Kwin and her new friend, that boy with the black hair, they figured out how to
push them back. The Sanctum is ours again. I was glad, too. I thought I’d never
see this city in all its glory ever again.”

Lindsay breathed a heavy sigh of relief. So
this was
after
the Nightmares had been
defeated. It turned out she wasn’t going to be facing them after all.

The man turned and started to walk away when,
suddenly, Lindsay had a horrifying realization.

“Wait!” she cried. “When did the Festival of
Lights end?”

“Just this morning,” the man answered happily.
“Fitting, ‘innit? That the Festival of Lights would end by destroying all the
creatures of darkness.”

The man walked away, leaving Lindsay frozen in
terror. She knew exactly what was happening. The festival had just ended and
everyone believed the Nightmares to be gone. But Lindsay knew the truth. She
had been here before.

She thought about running away, trying to fly
off and make it to the safety of Golden Capital, but her body wouldn’t
cooperate. She couldn’t move. A piercing cold flowed through her veins like
ice, freezing her in place. And then her heart started to pound in her chest,
causing her breathing to quicken despite the fact that she was standing still.

“No… not now,” she whispered desperately.

Her mind flashed with a hundred ideas all at
once. She could evacuate the city, organize everyone within to defend it, call
for help, anything… but it all seemed too difficult now. It was too late, and
she didn’t have enough time. The overwhelming urge to escape soon blocked any
other thoughts from her mind, and it was all she could do to avoid breaking
down. Why couldn’t she be brave like Kai and the others? She was here and she
knew what was going to happen before it had even begun, but even with that
advantage, she was too frightened to move.

She heard something in the distance, so far
away and so quiet that she wasn’t sure she even heard it. But then she heard it
again, closer. A horrifying shriek, coming swiftly closer from above.

And then there were more of them. She couldn’t
see them, but they were coming from every direction. A few people in the city
square looked around in confusion, but didn’t stop what they were doing.

Lindsay took this chance to hide. A stack of
boxes leaned against a nearby wall provided adequate cover; nothing could find
her there unless they were looking for her already. And so she ran, ducking
behind the boxes and holding her knees to her chest.

Not a moment later, the sky went black. It was
as though the transition from morning to night had happened in the blink of an
eye, but this was no natural darkness. There were no stars in the sky; the
world was draped in midnight and terror, one where the gloom itself was the
least of her concerns.

She closed her eyes and whimpered as the
screams came closer, trying desperately to keep her breathing under control.
Her heart beat furiously as though trying to escape from her chest, and with it
came the overwhelming urge to run. But she forced herself to stay.
This isn’t real. I’m not in danger. I am in
control. Breathe.

When she opened her eyes, all was quiet.
Whoever else may have been in the city was now gone, whether by waking up to
escape or after being attacked by the Nightmares. Just like before. Everything
was happening just like before, and this thought paralyzed her. If she was
experiencing this again, she knew how and when she was going to be attacked,
and the seemingly endless horrors that followed from the sleep she could not
escape.

She finally risked peeking over the top of one
of the boxes, and to her horror, saw the square full of shadows. Most were
small, the size of a house dog, though there were a few larger shadows as well
in the forms of gargoyles and creatures Lindsay had never seen before.

Just as she began to entertain the idea that
she could escape the city, a massive wolf padded slowly into view. A black wolf
with deep red eyes surveyed the square, standing at least twice her height. She
fell back behind the boxes in an instant, covering her mouth so it would not
hear her breathing.

This
isn’t real.

The wolf paced slowly by, and for a chilling
moment Lindsay thought it had seen her, but it continued past her. She peeked
out over the box again and saw that none of the other shadows were moving
towards her. They hadn’t noticed her. Yet.

But then, as she sat in hiding, a thought
struck her. She had beaten them before. She had spent more than a day in the
longest nightmare of her life and come out stronger. She had stood on the field
of battle before and taken down creatures that would make the Nightmares themselves
turn and run. Death had tried to claim her twice and failed both times.
Besides, this was a dream – a frightening dream, but a dream nonetheless, and
she had learned from the best. She had been over the edge of the world and
back, and fought alongside the most brilliant and dangerous minds in the world.
She knew what she was capable of.

I’m
not in danger.

At this revelation, a spark of bravery pulsed
from her heart and through her body. She grasped it quickly. She could do this.
She
had
done it. And even if she
hadn’t, she knew she had it in her. She didn’t need to rely on Kai or any of
the others; she didn’t need their presence to be strong. Her opponents were
nothing more than bad dreams. Dreams in
her
mind. And it was time they left.

The wolf lazily made its way back to the
square, standing in the middle by the fountain. It appeared to be reveling in
its easy victory, unaware of the one remaining dreamer left in the city.

And then, before she could change her mind,
she stood up and walked slowly out from behind the boxes. Some of the other
Nightmares spotted her immediately, but did not attack, and she ignored them
completely. She had eyes only for the wolf.

I am
in control.

It turned to face her, and she nearly stopped,
but she had already come too far. It was now or never. But she knew she could
do it, and she knew what she was good at.

The wolf lowered its head, ready to charge,
and Lindsay stopped twenty feet away. The other Nightmares had gathered in a
circle to watch and prevent her escape.

Her heart still pounded, but now it was out of
anticipation. She was ready.

A tiny spark sputtered above her, then faded
so quickly that someone watching might not even have realized it was there. But
then another appeared. And then another. Lindsay raised her forearms slightly,
her palms to the sky, and they began to glow an electric blue. The air around
her hummed with energy as the lights grew brighter and brighter.

She had done this before. Memories of a battle
with a massive sea serpent flashed through her kind, and she remembered the
power she had discovered when all else had failed.

She took a deep breath.

The wolf charged.

Breathe.

It moved faster than she remembered, and she
nearly cried out, but in her fear she let loose a wild burst of energy. It
missed the wolf by an inch, crashing into a nearby building and sending the
entire thing collapsing to the ground. She stared at the rubble for a moment,
surprised by her own power. And then she smiled.

The wolf, which had dodged out of the way,
bared its teeth and leapt back at her with frightening speed, but Lindsay
didn’t move. She let loose another blinding burst from her hands, causing the
wolf to again jump out of the way.

Lindsay knew she wouldn’t get very far if she
kept trying to hit it from a distance, so she decided to change tactics. But
she had no desire to get closer to gain an advantage, as she knew Kwin would in
this situation. She had something better, perhaps flashier, in mind.

She concentrated hard, and the humming grew
louder, until finally she released. A tremendous shockwave of electric energy
erupted from where she stood and spread out across the entire square, causing
every shadow nearby to vanish into clouds of smoke. The wolf, somehow, still remained,
but was now alone. It also appeared to be stunned for the moment, and stood
still near the far corner of the square, its vision somewhat unfocused.

Lindsay took full advantage. She raised her
hands again, drawing up as much power as she could, then let it fly. It surged
across the square in a wide spread, leaving no room for retreat. Despite her
strength, the wolf was still there, fighting against Lindsay’s attack. When she
paused for a moment to regain her strength, the wolf vanished.

Lindsay didn’t wait. She knew what it was
trying to do. She whirled around, her hands glowing again, and let the bolts
fly. Her instinct had proven correct; the wolf, in the midst of diving straight
at her from behind, was thrown off balance and landed several yards away near a
large fountain. Not waiting to give it time to recover, Lindsay attacked again,
and the force of her strike caused the fountain to shatter.

Lindsay saw no sign of it in the mist and dust
that slowly dispersed from the wreckage, but she guessed it wasn’t over yet. It
was quiet, but the sky was still dark. She remained on her guard, scanning the
square for any sign of movement.

Suddenly, she heard a growl from behind her.
As she turned to look, her heart dropped.

The wolf stood under a large archway leading
to the rest of the city, and from behind it, everything seemed to be coated in
a swarming, undulating black mass. Nightmares of all shapes and sizes covered
every inch of every building and street, and as she looked on, even more
appeared from thin air around the wolf, appearing in small clouds of black
smoke. She had momentarily forgotten that the Nightmares could multiply if even
only one remained. She hadn’t destroyed the wolf in time, and now it had an
army; every single creature in the city was now converging slowly on her,
surrounding her.