He groans. “Cain.”
“Here.” I slide the potato onto the small fold-out table jutting from the wall. “There’s not enough charge to power the microwave today.”
He pushes himself up. “Are you going to eat?”
“Nah.” I gesture to the gum in my mouth. “I’m good.” It’s easier to handle our dwindling food supply and rationing when my mouth thinks it’s eating.
He doesn’t bother with a fork and scoops up the potato with his hand. “Sick yet?”
“Nope.”
He gives a sharp, relieved nod. “Figure it out?”
“Nope.”
He eyes me before biting off a chunk of potato. “Did you even try?”
I glower. “Of course I tried.” The cure. He expects me to work on it every waking hour while he’s trapped in the Nightmare. He also expects me to do algebra and calculations and all the other sorts of things that got me held back in school—plus decipher his chicken scratch.
He holds out his hand. “Notes.”
I throw him the notebook we’ve both been using for the cure. He flips to the most recent page, but then stops and goes back to a scrawl of a castle half set into a cliffside. “Cain . . .”
“I did that during break time,” I joke.
“You don’t have time for a break. If we’re going to find a cure, we have to pour everything into it.”
“I am.” Does he think I want him to die? To stay infected? Does he think I want the Nightmare to come for me? Sometimes I just need to sketch to calm my brain enough to focus.
He traces the title over the top of the castle, written in gothic font. “Ithebego.” He smiles, and we both spare a moment to acknowledge dreams before the Nightmare.
Nole is—was—going into his junior year in college, studying dream serums and fabrication. I’m still not used to thinking of it in past tense. Universities closed down only a month ago. Nole and I wanted to be Draftsmen—professionals who build dream worlds. We wanted to have our own dreamscape company: Cross Brothers Creations. With a last name like Cross, I used to joke that he was the upright beam and I was the crooked one.
We didn’t want to create the typical beach scenes or therapy escapes that permeated the wealthy circles. We were going to build kingdoms with swords and castles and dragons with themes from our favorite fandoms and books.
It would have changed the world.
It would have awoken the world.
We were going to call our own dreamscape Ithebego. It was Cain’s idea to take the letters from a string of words: In the beginning, God . . . He liked the symbolism. The first thing God did was create a home—a place. A story world. I let him have his Bible moment.
I liked the name more for how it looked on paper—and the many different ways we could pronounce it. Nole may be the science brain, but I am—was—the vision behind the worlds. The imagination, per se.
We joined the same university—me one year behind him—and both majored in Dream Drafting and Fabrication. At the very least, we’d hoped to have more access to entering dreamscapes. I’d only ever been in one, but it was enough to affect the trajectory of my life. ImagiSerum is expensive. When it first launched, every person in the world was allowed one free entry—to get an idea of what entering and adventuring in a safe dream world while fully lucid was like.
Or to make us all addicted.
Nole and I went together. Our assigned dreamscape was a mountain top—a generic world made by a low-level Draftsman. We didn’t have to worry about altitude sickness, thin air, exhaustion, danger, or even proper clothing against the elements. We paraglided off the top of the mountain. There was no fear—just exhilaration—because a person can’t get physically injured in a dream. It’s all in the mind.
The experience was intoxicating. Easily addicting. Which was why people began killing for ImagiSerum when they could no longer afford it. It turned ugly fast, but not as ugly as when the ImagiSerum started killing back.
“How are you feeling?” Nole asks, flipping past my sketch of Ithebego and finding my newest equations.
“Fine.” I shrug. “Surprised I’m not infected yet.” With just Nole and me in this tiny space it’s bound to happen eventually. Right? Does anything else matter at this point?
Nole nods and jots something down. “I think it’s because you’ve only ever had one dose of ImagiSerum. There’s not enough in your system to mutate and infect you.”
His theory makes sense. When ImagiSerum was a new phenomenon, people were eager to take injections to enter dreamscapes. They lined up and drained their savings. But now we have data on the long-term effects: traces of ImagiSerum stay in your system. Mutate. Turn into a virus and trap your mind in a dark tunnel until you die.
I’ve entered a dreamscape only one time. Because I don’t have money. I’ve never even had a savings account. Since Nole was a year ahead of me in school, he got to enter a dreamscape once a week as part of his curriculum . . . unknowingly poisoning his body and mind.
The scientists tried to backpedal, to find a cure. But they were the first to get infected. Their bodies entered Nightmare comas before they could make progress.
Nole is walking that same path. I don’t know why I have more faith in him than them, though. It’s not because he’s my brother. I think it’s because his motivations were never for money or self-preservation. He believed in the good of ImagiSerum and couldn’t accept that it would be the end of humanity.
“Tell me what it was like this time.” I poise the pencil over our notebook. “Any detail you can think of.”
“Same as last time.” Nole sighs. “Nothing new.”
My grip on my pencil tightens. “Tell me anyway.” There has to be something. Some clue. Something he’s missing. If only I could enter the Nightmare too—not that I want to be infected—but I have an eye for the world. I know somehow I’ll see something Nole is missing.
“Darkness that’s heavy like a liquid pressing on your body. I can’t see a thing. When I put my hands out, I feel ground beneath me and—”
“What does the ground feel like?”
“Sticky concrete. There are walls too.”
“Also concrete?”
