Borderlands (The Dreams of Reality Book 5)

by Gareth Otton

Jen blinked in surprise as the shapes landed on the floor, neither moving. It was such a strange sight that her brain couldn’t make sense of it at first. The two shapes looked so much like Freckles and Stella, but she couldn’t believe her eyes. Stella’s body was bloody and broken, so she was almost unrecognisable. As for Freckles, he was three times as big as he should have been and all that blood… Jen didn’t think she had ever seen so much blood in her life.

  However, the more she looked the more she realised it was them and her exhaustion was forgotten as she rushed to their side. There wasn’t time to call to Dream to animate her legs, she simply focused on the spot next to them and dreamwalked over to them.

  Freckles’ giant head turned toward the sound of her popping into view, and he thumped his tail a few times at the sight of her. Then, as if just the effort of doing that was too much for him, his head dropped back to the floor and Jen thought he looked almost satisfied as he closed his eyes and rested. One glance at him had her worried that it wasn’t just rest, but the rising and falling of his chest told her that he was still alive… but how long he would stay that way without her help she didn’t know. Even Lizzie didn’t look this bad when she had first seen her.

  She wanted to start healing him straight away, but a groan pulled her attention away from the dog and to the woman under the massive, furry body.

  “Freckles,” Stella muttered, her voice the only thing about the woman that was recognisable. Her face was swollen, there was a cut on her head that was bleeding freely, and that was just the start of her injuries. Though her eyes were open, they weren’t looking anywhere near as focused or intense as Jen was used to, almost like they were open and no one was home. One of them was unnaturally red, like it was filled with blood.

  Jen couldn’t believe the amount of damage on the woman, and that was just her face. It just got worse as she looked further down her body and saw a mess of bruises and open wounds. Her thought that these two had been knocked into the waiting room by a speeding train suddenly seemed quite accurate.

  “Oh my God,” Jen gasped, looking at the wounds and not knowing where she should even start. She wasted what felt like an hour struggling to see what was the most severe injury on Stella and where to begin, but then she saw Freckles again and wondered if he might be worse and she should start with him instead.

  She kept jumping back and forth from patient to patient, knowing she couldn’t work on both at the same time and starting to panic as the consequences of not being able to help either consumed her. She didn’t notice them, but tears were running down her face and her hands were trembling. She had never been so torn by a decision.

  She was so consumed by the thought that she lost all track of the world around her, and she jumped hard when a hand landed on her shoulder.

  “Easy Jen, it’s just me,” Dr Burman said, his voice as calm and in control as always. How did he do that? How was it that nothing he saw ever phased him? Even her dad got angry sometimes, looked scared sometimes, and she had even seen him panic once. But Dr Burman was like Stella, so tightly in control of his emotions that he was almost like a robot.

  It’s how you should be right now, she admonished herself. Panic doesn’t help Stella or Freckles.

  It was an easy thought to have, but not so easy to act on.

  “What do I do?” she asked Dr Burman, her voice shaking. “They both need my help and there’s so much damage. Either one of them looks like too much work and I don’t know who will die if I don’t help them first. I can’t leave them like this, they both need—”

  “Jen,” Dr Burman barked, his voice firm. He had been repeating himself, trying to get through her panic, but it took that tone to cut through her hysteria.

  “Jen,” he repeated, calmer this time. “You need to calm down and help me or we’re going to lose them both. I need you to have a level head about this. I know it is a lot to ask, but they need you calm right now. Focus on me and we’ll get them both through this. It’ll be just like we’ve been practising.”

  “But it’s Stella and Freckles, it’s different,” Jen complained

  “No it’s not. It’s still the human body. Don’t let your feelings get in the way. Think about it rationally. You have been healing people for the last couple of days. You work at a cellular basis and that is the same no matter whether it’s a stranger or the person right in front of you. Zoom in close, Jen. Look past her identity and focus on the task. You learn to do that, then you will be a better healer because you will understand the truth of how to stay calm in any situation. It feels like it has all this extra weight because of the context, but the truth is you’re just doing the same job you have done many times before, and it’s no big deal because you’ve done it so often. This is no different, your brain is just trying to make you think it is.”

  Jen wasn’t sure she believed what he was saying, but the tone of his voice and the surety of his gaze leant her strength and when he asked if she understood, she forced herself to nod.

  “Good, now we need to get Stella into an operating room as quick as possible.”

  “What about Freckles?” Jen asked even as the doctor called out instructions to the nurses nearby who ran off to get what he requested.

  “We will help him too,” the doctor said without missing a beat. “But remember the rules in this situation. It’s important to assess the severity of the wounds and ask yourself who needs help the most. Stella looks like she has suffered massive trauma and being as she looks a lot more fragile than Freckles, we need to help her first or we might lose her.”

  For the first time, Jen didn’t trust what the doctor was saying. It was less that she thought he was lying to her and more that there was something else that he wasn’t saying.

  “I can help them both,” she said stubbornly, deciding that she didn’t want to compromise and choose one over the other.

  “And you will,” the doctor soothed. “But one at a time. Now come on, time is a factor here.”

  Even as he spoke, he was pulling Jen away from the broken bodies and passing more orders on to the people who had come to help lift Stella onto a gurney. Then the doctor pulled her away to get cleaned up before going into surgery.

  Despite his words to calm her down, Jen couldn’t help but focus on that awful weight she felt. Her dad would never forgive her if she let Stella die. It would break his heart and he would blame her, she was sure of it. He might not say that, in fact he would never tell her, but she knew how much he loved Stella. He would never forgive her.

  “Jen, are you ready?” Dr Burman asked, breaking her from her trance and dark thoughts.

  She was almost a little surprised to find that she had gone through the routine of getting ready for surgery just like the doctor had shown her, that she was already cleaned down and dressed in the right clothes, and that he was just waiting on her to get started on this.

  Feeling like she might be sick as her stomach was doing somersaults, Jen bit her lip and nodded her head. Desperately she tried to think of what Dr Burman had said and concentrated on the process of what she was doing, not on who she was doing it to. She thought she might have been making progress until she stepped into the operating room and saw Stella lying on the operating table.

  Suddenly her hands were shaking harder than ever and it was like she couldn’t breathe. Swallowing hard and biting her lip to keep it from wobbling, she followed the doctor towards the broken body on the table.

  ◆◆◆

  The harsh sibilance of loud whispering aggravated Jen’s headache and brought her awake.

  She looked around the room and didn’t recognise where she was. This wasn’t her bedroom at Dr Burman’s house, and it took her a few seconds to realise she was in a hospital room. That realisation brought the memories of what happened crashing back.

  She sat up abruptly, ignoring her dizziness and swimming vision as she touched the skin under her nose and ears. She was surprised not to find her fingertip wet with blood, as the last thing s
he remembered was someone telling her she was bleeding from her nose and ears. Dr Burman had yelled something at her, saying she was pushing herself too hard. She didn’t listen because…

  “Stella,” she gasped, all thoughts of what had happened to her forgotten as she called to Dream to activate her legs and swing her feet out of bed. She didn’t get far. Just trying to reach for Dream felt like someone was shoving a needle behind her eye and she gasped, unable to bear the pain. She had pushed herself too far and though she wanted to rush to find out if Stella survived, she couldn’t fight down her nausea this time.

  Once again the harsh S sounds on that whispering aggravated her already injured brain and she couldn’t help but focus on those whispers. They were too quiet to hear at first, but the words faded into focus as she concentrated on them.

  “…couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The soldiers the Dream Team trained aren’t ready to act alone. Kuruk knew what he was doing when he took them out. I don’t know how we’re going to recover from this.”

  The voice was familiar, though Jen couldn’t place it until she heard the second voice that Jen had only ever heard in the presence of one man.

  “Kuruk isn’t stupid,” Amelia agreed. “Neither are the people in charge of this war. Everything they’ve done, except for maybe the Todmoryn incident, were strategic efforts to split our resources and reduce our ability to react. It was all leading to this.”

  The Prime Minister swore under his breath before saying, “I need Ryan to step up his timetable. I know Kuruk is only one man, but the destruction of the Dream Team has to be answered for and the biggest blow to them right now would be losing that monster.”

  “We might actually be doing them a favour,” Amelia disagreed. “I think they’ve barely got him under control. Taking him out might help them control their attacks better and—”

  “I don’t care,” Norman hissed. “Those dreamcatcher soldiers worship him, Ryan said as much. We need them demoralised and… What?”

  “Uh, sorry to interrupt sir, but you said you wanted to be informed when DT Martin woke up. Well… she’s awake,” said a new voice in a more reasonable tone.

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. Thank you for telling me.”

  Stella’s awake, Jen thought, once again reaching for Dream and this time prepared for the spike of agony as she pushed open that door. She had to grit her teeth to fight past the pain and dizziness, but she managed to animate her legs enough to swing them out of bed.

  She was still dressed in the clothes they made her wear for surgery and she was on top of the covers, so she didn’t need to worry about untangling herself from the sheets or getting dressed as she rushed out of the room on wobbly feet. She stepped into the hall just in time to see the back of the Prime Minister and Amelia heading to another room. Jen rushed to follow and almost tripped when they abruptly stopped outside the door of the next room, not going in. Jen would have fallen had Norman not heard her running and reacted quickly to catch her.

  Despite herself, she lost control of Dream in that moment and her legs collapsed, forcing him to take the brunt of her full weight. Norman staggered back a step in surprise, but when he steadied himself and she had chance to look up with her cheeks flaming in embarrassment, she could see that he understood what happened. He didn’t ask what she was doing there or wonder why she had fallen. He simply offered her a sympathetic smile and helped her stand without further complaint.

  “I need to get in there,” she said, but Norman shushed her with a shake of his head and a finger to his lips.

  “Your dad’s with her,” he whispered. “Let’s give them a second to catch her up before we barge in. We don’t want to overwhelm her, right?”

  Jen didn’t want to listen, but the effect of Norman’s voice was like that of Dr Burman. The quiet confidence somehow soothed the rush of emotions that drove her to reckless actions. So, instead of fighting him, she relaxed and focused on first getting her legs back under control, then trying to hear the faint voices in the other room.

  “Easy,” her dad was saying. “Don’t move. You’ve just come out of some major surgery. If it weren’t for Jen and your eidolon powers, you wouldn’t be with us right now.”

  “Trevors? The DTHQ?” Stella whispered, her voice sounding dry like she had breathed in a lung full of dust.

  “I know, but you need to calm down. You’ve been hurt and—”

  Jen was just out of sight of the doorway, but she strained to manoeuvre her head so she could look inside. Realising what she was trying to do, Norman helped her turn just enough so she could see through the crack in the open door.

  She saw her dad on the visitor chair beside the single bed, leaning over and holding Stella’s hand. Because of the angle of the door, Jen couldn’t quite see Stella, so she couldn’t tell how much she was able to help heal her before she pushed herself too hard and passed out.

  “Freckles?” Stella hissed, ignoring Tad’s warning to calm down and sounding more worked up than ever. “Just before the explosion, he dragged me out of there and wrapped himself around me. Where is he, Tad? Where’s Freckles?”

  The pause before her dad answered and the look on his face told Jen all she needed to know, and suddenly she needed Norman to hold her up again as her legs collapsed beneath her.

  “Oh no,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face as she realised the truth.

  “I’m sorry, Stella. He… His injuries were too bad and they couldn’t get to him in time.”

  “No,” Stella answered, her voice sharp. “He can’t be…” Her voice broke and she struggled to finish her sentence. “No,” she said again, and the sorrow Jen heard in that single word hit her like a blow.

  Through blurry eyes she saw Tad move, perching himself on the side of the bed as he pulled Stella into his arms and into Jen’s eye line. Physically she looked much better than the last time Jen saw her, but Jen wasn’t concentrating on that. Instead she watched something she had never expected to see in her life and something that hit her harder than anything else could in this moment.

  Stella clung to Tad like he was the only thing keeping her from drowning, and she started sobbing into his chest.

  Jen knew Stella wasn’t a robot and cared about things, but emotions were always so muted on her. It was something Jen admired about the woman and wished she could copy because Jen’s emotions always got the best of her and pushed her to make a fool of herself. She never thought there was anything that could make Stella even shed a tear until this point. To see her sob like a broken woman as she clung to Tad, who also had tears running down his face, stunned her. A painful knot was climbing up her throat as she struggled to hold in her own tears.

  And it’s all your fault, she thought. You shouldn’t have spent all your energy on Leon when the doctor told you not to. You should have practised harder, you should have been getting stronger… you should have been ready for this. Freckles would be alive now if you hadn’t been so weak.

  Jen wanted to hide from the accusations, but there was no where to turn as the voice was inside her mind and she agreed with every thought. This was her fault, and suddenly it was too much.

  She needed to get out of here. She couldn’t face Tad and Stella right now, not after what she had done. She had failed to save Freckles, and Stella was going to hate her now. She couldn’t bare to see that.

  Focusing on her legs, she ignored the pain of calling for Dream and before Norman could stop her, she broke free of his grasp.

  “Jen, come back,” Norman called, but she wasn’t listening. She couldn’t face being here right now, so she ran, almost like she was outrunning her guilt. But that wasn’t getting her far enough away nor fast enough, so despite the pain she reached for Dream more deeply this time.

  The hospital vanished as Dream embraced her, but it was only for a second before she was in another place. Instinctively she returned to her home, where she felt safe. Only her bedroom wasn’t there any more and she found her
self standing amongst the blackened ruins of her old home, breaking her heart even more. Flinching from the sight and panicking even harder, she changed the channel one last time and fell down onto the bed she had been using in Dr Burman’s home.

  She didn’t have the strength to run again, nor to even animate her legs. So she fell into the bed, sobbing as the guilt at her failure washed through her. She was so consumed by that guilt that she didn’t notice her bed dip as an enormous weight settled onto it, and she jumped when she felt a cold nose against her cheek.

  She looked up into the large, soulful eyes of a giant dog, and she knew just by looking at him that he somehow knew what had happened to his brother. He looked so sad that it cut right through her, making her feel like she would throw up.

  “Oh Hawk,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”

  Hawk of course didn’t answer, he just nudged her again and then rested his head against her chest until she gave in and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his fur and sobbing into him as the two of them mourned together.

  All she could think was that this was her fault, that Hawk should hate her now, and that he should turn his back on her. But she knew he wouldn’t, no matter how much she deserved it. She didn’t know what she would ever do if he wasn’t here, and that only made her feel worse for what Stella must be feeling right now.

  No matter how far her thoughts went down that dark path, they always came back to the same point. This is all your fault. You weren’t strong enough, and now look what happened. They were relying on you for just one thing, and you failed them.

  Scrunching her eyes shut tight and burying her face in her dog’s fur wasn’t enough to hide from those dark thoughts. She promised herself she would be stronger, that this wouldn’t happen again. But she knew that no matter what she did, she couldn’t change what had already happened.

  There was no bringing Freckles back, and she hated herself for that.

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