“Survive?” A shadow of sarcastic anger swells. “By putting me in a gladiator arena? You call that surviving?”
“It’s better than putting you on the streets to be devoured by the first nightbeast you encounter. Or worse.”
I think of the Spores. They would have killed me had the Stingray Rider not shown up. It takes me one look at Luc to connect that the guy on the stingray was him. He saved us.
“You train for a marathon. You go through boot camp for the marines. Here in Tenebra, you have to compete to earn the right to live. There’s limited housing, and one weak citizen can be the demise of a thousand. It’s the only way we make it. There are enemies in Tenebra, constantly trying to take our lives. Consume us. Turn us into mist and death.”
His explanation doesn’t settle much for me. “You make the Arena into entertainment. People relish spilled blood and combat. It’s sick. Did you ever think about what sort of citizens are filling up this place?”
“Every single one of them competed in the Arena, Cain. They fought and survived through level after level after level until they earned their freedom. Those people in the stands aren’t there just for entertainment. They want to see you survive. They want to welcome you—and the other victors—into this world. No one wants anyone to die.”
My wariness settles. Somewhat. Whatever his motives, he claims he can help me get a LifeSuPod. I’d be a fool to throw away such an opportunity.
Luc claps his hands together once, and the food trash vanishes. “Think on it, okay? This is a lot to take in, but your time is ticking. For tonight, stay here in the atrium.”
The scene grows fuzzy. Is this Luc’s doing or am I that tired?
“Where will I be when I come back?” If I come back. “Will I remember any of this?”
“I’m hopeful you’ll remember it all. And you’ll wake up wherever you call home. If you don’t have a home yet, it’ll be where you last fell asleep.” His terms are backward—referencing the Nightmare as waking up and the Old World as being asleep.
I need to watch out for this guy. I’m not about to trust him so quickly. Or even slowly.
“See you in a few days, Cain. Well, for you, it’ll be a few hours.”
The world blinks off like someone snuffed out the moon.
It’s cure time.
I practically leap off the couch as the scene with Luc fades from my vision—but not my memory. I relish the clarity in my mind now that I’m awake again. It’s not like when I used to wake up from a vivid dream where it trickled away like sand in a sieve. Every conversation and event is crisp in my mind, like I lived it here in the Real World.
The only things that grow more muted by the minute are my emotions. And I’m definitely okay with that.
There’s a lot of new information to sift through—Luc’s offer of a LifeSuPod and the fact that I created wings inside a dreamscape. Now that I’m awake again, the many rules drilled into my head at university come flooding back. Creating wings and a spear should have been impossible. One of the cardinal rules is that only the Draftsman can create items in the dream. It’s more than just a rule: it’s impossible to do otherwise.
Dreamscapes are programs. For a visitor to create something in the dream would be the equivalent of someone hacking a website by scribbling in the dirt with a stick.
So how did I do that?
The infection must connect me to the dreamscape somehow. But there’s no Wi-Fi where I am. I haven’t shared ImagiSerum with anyone. Can everyone in this Nightmare do something like that? Clearly not, otherwise they wouldn’t have been so shocked when I did it. More than shocked: frightened.
But Luc can do it. I assumed he’s the Draftsman, but now that I’ve done the same thing, I don’t know what to think. I can’t wrap my brain around it.
My concave stomach growls a demand for food. Luc’s pizza clearly doesn’t carry over. The memory of it on my tongue, however, does. I throw a cooked potato from the fridge into a bowl with a meager slice from my last cube of butter, then update my time card to reflect exactly how many days I’ve been infected and how many I have left.
Infected: 16
Remaining Sleeps: 6
I tear my gaze away from the paper as panic blooms in my chest, then I flip open my notebook and speed-scribble everything I can remember from this last entrance into the virus: the fight with the bull and how the swell of my emotions seemed to turn into weapons. I’m not usually quick to anger—at least I didn’t think I was. I know what anger can do here in the Real World. It’s even more dangerous in the Nightmare. There, it felt impossible to control.
Good thing it was a bull in that Arena and not a person.
If I reenter the Nightmare, will I awaken in Luc’s man-cave tower? I’m supposed to go back in eight hours. I’m curious—even anticipating a return. But no matter my new discoveries, the Nightmare Virus is still killing people. Killing me. Taking away my life and stealing my choices.
I can’t give it an inch in my mind. I must keep fighting—always fighting.
I bite away a quarter of my potato and finish entering my log. I add any remaining notes on how I plan to program the ImagiSerum. The dream code brings me back to memories of classes, back when we all still had dreams for a future. It reignites my passion of being a Draftsman for fictional worlds, video games, all our favorite adventures. I’m still not ready to accept that that future is dead.
I pop in my gum from the last time I was awake. A fresh piece would be nice, but I have four sticks left and seven Awakes. Got to ration.
Now it’s time to go to the university and finally test this cure theory. It’s as though I’ve assembled the innards of a jigsaw puzzle and finally located the pieces that make up the border.
The Fire Swamp is parked in the empty lot of Somnus University. I hope the ImagiSerum is still in the labs. It’s not hard to break into the science building.
At the beginning of this virus, people had banded together, trying to find a way to save one another. They shared necessary goods, checked in with their neighbors. But as the Nightmare spread, the panic buying began, which eventually turned into panic stealing once the stores ran out of products and business doors shut. Now people mug only for money and the hope for individual life-support machines.
LifeSuPods.
When I thought the Nightmare was nothing more than the dark Tunnel, I never understood why people wanted LifeSuPods to keep them trapped in there forever. But some people fear death so much they’d rather live under torture.
Now that I know there’s a whole world beyond the Tunnel, it makes a little more sense. Though I still don’t understand how the Nightmare can kill someone from the inside out. Is it a seizure? A stroke? A message telling the brain it’s over?
I step outside and jog across the darkened campus, appreciating the little moonlight I have, simply because it’s light. Moreso than the gray glow and fire in the Nightmare.
I reach the science lab and circle to where the back door is covered by several trees and some overgrown bushes. I insert my key into the padlock on the lab door. A week before his death Nole had cut the original and replaced it with a padlock of our own. Not only does it keep up appearances of security, but it also makes it look like I belong here.
