My knees buckle again and I slide to the floor, balancing on the balls of my feet, my sweaty back pressing against the wood-paneled wall. The chill does nothing to wake me. My strength flees and my eyes droop. Close.

The alarm rings, startling the atmosphere with its shrill scream, yet fading into nothingness . . . disappearing.

I bury my face into my folded arms as the Nightmare consumes me.

THE NIGHTMARE

The darkness clings to my body like tree sap.

I’m in the Nightmare now.

No light relieves the strain of my eyes. Blackness is everywhere, thick and dragging my head down, pressing upon me like invisible anvils.

Like always, I’m tempted to lie here, cheek against the sticky concrete ground. But like always, I force myself to my hands and knees against the emotional suffocation. I force a deep breath, but tar coats my throat. I grope against the walls and inch my way upward, locking my knees against the weight until I’m finally, finally standing.

Trembling, but standing.

Nole was right. The Nightmare is nothing more than a sticky, black tunnel of soul darkness. The first several times I entered, I tried to find or see the things I just knew Nole must have missed. Nothing. Nothing to see. Nothing to feel except slimy, curved concrete walls.

I don’t know what got him in this Tunnel—what killed him—but I’m not going to wait around and find out. I refuse to cower to this disease and let it take me.

Just like the other fourteen times I’ve been in this Tunnel, my first few steps are hesitant. Forced. The darkness wants me to cower. It wants to win. I growl at it. That’s something new that I’ve embraced: emotions are higher and stronger when I’m in here—and memory of life in the Real World dims and weakens until I can hardly remember details.

My anger is on the surface constantly.

In the Tunnel I see no reason to rein it in.

My pace picks up. The ground curves upward too suddenly, and I fall to one knee. My palm slides up the curved wall, through an unseen coating, giving me a small semblance of orientation in this Tunnel of night.

Panic chokes me as a memory stirs of a different place—a need.

Light. I need light. Sunlight. Candlelight. Lamplight. Anything.

The more I think about light, the quicker my lungs heave. The thicker the tar in my throat becomes. Desperation turns into a live animal writhing inside me.

I’m losing it.

A voice—my voice?—whispers from far away in my mind. Breathe. I don’t want to. I can’t. The voice can’t understand the impossibility of its demand.

Breathe.

I force an inhale. Exhale. And with that motion, a different reminder leaks in. I’ve been here before, in this Tunnel. And every time I’ve woken up again—returned to life. Today will be no different. I won’t let it.

The weight of shadows pulls at me, trying to drag me to my knees, but I dig inside myself—deeper than the emotional daggers can reach. I won’t quit. I won’t stop. I swallow some of the tar. Let it kill me eventually, but not until I find light.

I move.

I stumble.

I run.

My hands slide along the walls, guiding me. As though realizing they can’t beat me, the shadows relent. My feet propel me forward until my equilibrium spirals, and I fall. The shadows pull at my ankles, my clothing, my hair, trying to keep me down. But I lurch upward again, breathing hard.

I close my eyes, and some semblance of sanity returns. I grasp for it with the tendrils of my mind. Then I start forward again at a controlled jog. I steady my breathing and command logic to come forth. It obeys, but slowly.

Virus . . . virus . . . virus . . .

Ah, there it is. This place is not reality. It is the Nightmare Virus. To my knowledge, this is the fastest I’ve regained my senses while in the Nightmare. My logic and memory are beating the shadows. Is this . . . progress?

It has to be.

“My name is Cain. This is my fifteenth time in the nightmare.” I continue forward, letting the sound of my own voice calm me even though its echo tells me how long and endless and unknown this Tunnel is. “My brother is Nole.”

The details of memory stop there. I know other things—broad things—but can’t remember what was happening in the Real World before I fell asleep.

I open my eyes as I jog, and blink. Ahead is a very distant glow.

This . . . is new.

I increase my pace, feeding off the thrill of alertness. The first glimmer of hope. From what I recall, no news reporter ever mentioned something other than the black Tunnels of the Nightmare. Did Nole ever see this glow?

No, he would have told me.

Keep going, I command myself. I’ll reach that light no matter what, no matter how much despair sets in. If there’s one thing I’ve learned at the end of the world, it’s that hope is stronger than despair.

Hours pass.

I fall back to a walk. More hours pass. I don’t stop.

Without a watch or the sun, I can’t tell how much time is consumed by the shadows. Certainly a day has passed, maybe even two. Time works differently in the Nightmare. It lasts longer. I can’t quite remember the exact calculations. Five Nightmare hours to every one? Something like that.

More math.

Life Above is still fuzzy, foreign. The Nightmare fog is too thick, fighting against me to keep my thoughts contained.

The next time I look up, the light glows the size of a quarter. Maybe if I don’t focus on it . . .

I race time. Burst through barriers of seconds, minutes, hours. Shapes appear in the light. Movement? Sweat clings to my skin and drips down my head, sticking my hair to my face. Then, as though passing through a portal, I trip over a lip at the mouth of the concrete and fall to my hands and knees in the light.

Gravel digs into my skin. I press my palms firmly against the small rocks, letting them pierce my nerves. The invisible claws and voices and shackles that nipped at my heels in the Tunnel are gone. Subdued. Outrun.

These pricks against my skin, the divots in my palms, are something other than darkness. Finally.

Relief. Sore, sweaty relief. I heave in deep breaths.