“It’s . . . a lot on the emotions.”
“Dying?” I try to joke.
She manages a wobbly smile. “Not much fun, but at least it’s fast.”
“What does it matter if the Emperor captures you or kills you? You all just wake up here, it seems.”
“If you were one of us, you’d understand.”
I gaze at her for a moment, then whisper, “I want to be.” Tell me how.
She gives me a sad smile, like she feels bad for me but knows I can never be a part of them. Something inside me crumbles as another hope for home and life is denied me. They dragged Erik into their ranks. At first I pitied him. Now I envy him. Why won’t they drag me too?
Stranna throws back the covers. “I’m hungry. Have you eaten?”
“No.” I offer my hand to help her up. To my surprise, she takes it. It’s comical, really, as we both wobble, but then Stranna lets go and keeps her feet. She wears blue-jean overalls and a white T-shirt similar to those I saw in the closet. I’m glad someone changed her out of her bloodied and torn clothes. I’m equally glad no one tried to do that with me.
“How did you get a message to Jules when she’s Above and you were in Tenebra?”
“Jules was dying in the Nightmare—she’d been stabbed trying to stop the Tunnel cart. I told her what you told me about the landfill and coordinates. When she woke up here, she was able to send help.”
“So if you’re a Spore, you just wake up in the Real World when you die?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes it’s our time to go.”
“So every time you die, it’s like Russian roulette. You don’t know which death will be your last?”
“Basically.”
“That’s sick.”
“That’s grace.”
I give her a side-eye and choke on another question. Grace? To never know which death will be your last? It’s a twisted game, that’s what it is.
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
There are too many questions to keep swallowing, especially right now when Stranna seems willing to give me answers. “Nole was like you, all . . . faithful. But he died in the Nightmare and didn’t wake up.”
“It might have just been his time,” she whispers.
I don’t like that answer. I shouldn’t have brought him up, so I shift gears. “How do you go back into the Nightmare?”
“It happens the next time we go to sleep.” Stranna rubs her eyes. “I’m so tired. But if I nap or fall asleep, then it’s back into the Nightmare.”
“So Jules has been keeping herself awake since she . . . died?” This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had.
“Yes. She’ll start fading in another few hours, I’d guess. We each stay awake as long as we can. We have to, otherwise the garden wouldn’t be tended, and there’d be no one here to feed those of us who are sleeping. If able, we also gather children lost in the Real World. Bring them here. But now that Luc has us captured, all this might look different.”
We reach the stairs, and she grips the railing with white knuckles, moving down one cautious step at a time.
“Why does everyone in Tenebra want to kill you?” I ask.
“It’s the smell—or the Spore dust as people seem to label it. It marks us as an enemy and triggers the anger emotion in those who aren’t like us. So they attack, just like you did. Now if you’d please move and let me go eat.”
I’ve stepped in front of her at the bottom of the living room steps. I move aside, and as she goes by, I realize the cushions and blanket lumps scattered across the living room floor are people.
Kids.
I tiptoe around them, nightmist hovering ever so subtly around their bodies, swirling with a hunger as I pass. They’re all in the Nightmare. I spot Everett tucked up against the feet of a sofa, one elbow propping his head. Stranna takes a moment to stretch his limbs and readjust him. Then she squats next to a little girl at the edge of the carpet, checks her pulse, and rises after a relieved nod.
I recognize the hair. It’s her sister, Olivia.
These are the older kids—the ones who can no longer wake up at will. Where are the little ones who still have the waking power?
“I bought your useless cure for her, you know,” Stranna remarks. “Not for myself.”
My gut twists. “I’m sorry. I truly thought it was going to work.”
“I did, too, after your video. Clearly it did work. For you. For a time. But I never should have purchased it in the first place.”
“You couldn’t have known it would fail.” Not even I knew.
“I mean that I should have had faith.” There’s that word again. This time, instead of making me angry it makes me sad.
“So faith told you not to buy the cure?”
“No. But I’ve been looking for a human way out of this since the virus struck. I could never quite trust God fully with this new existence. I knew in my heart that buying that cure was my way to try to take care of Olivia. Not what God was asking. It was because I left to fetch it that Olivia got put in the Arena in the first place. In trying to save her, I almost got her killed.”
