Hunted

by Dean Murray

  "I'm not going to go along with this."

  "Yes, you are, Adri. The only way for you to stop it would be for you to tell Mom and Dad, and you're not going to do that."

  "Yes, I am!"

  Cindi shook her head at me. "Think that through, Adri. If you were to tell them then they'd probably cancel their vacation so that they could stay home and make sure that the house didn't get trashed. You'd be ruining their chance at working things out. Do you really want to do that, Adri? You know they aren't going to just go and then punish me when they get back. Mom is never going to be okay with a bunch of kids she doesn't know being here at the house without any supervision, not when there isn't anything to keep them out of all of her photography equipment."

  I opened my mouth to tell her that she was wrong, but nothing came out. She wasn't wrong and we both knew it. She could have just left things there and I probably wouldn't have said anything to our parents about her party, but she didn't stop there. She had to drive one last nail into the coffin.

  "Besides, Adri, you owe me. I've been nothing but nice to you lately. I'm the reason you tried out for the cheer squad, I'm the reason that Jackson is starting to notice you. Everything good that is going on in your life right now is because of me. You're even wearing my clothes."

  "I didn't ask for this, I didn't even want any of this."

  "You keep saying that, but it's not the truth and we both know it. I don't know how you're doing it, where you're finding the time, or who is teaching you, but this is obviously something that you've been working towards for weeks, maybe even months. People don't just suddenly learn our routine like that, not without serious effort, and you're picking up stunting way too fast."

  I wanted to respond, but I didn't know what to say. There was no way that she was going to believe that I was learning everything from sharing dreams with members of the squad. Cindi nodded, as though in satisfaction that I wasn't going to dispute her version of events.

  "Most of all though, you owe me because you wasted my time yesterday with a practice that you didn't even need when I had other, more important, things that I should have been doing."

  "I did need that practice. I'm sorry that it went long, but you should have said something when you realized that it was time for you to go."

  "Whatever. One way or another you're lying to me. You're not going to tell Mom and Dad and that's pretty much all there is to it."

  **

  I didn't eat very well at dinner. Cindi seemed to take that as a proof that I had a guilty conscience, that or maybe that I was taking her advice from earlier about not eating like a pig so that I didn't balloon back up to my old size.

  The truth was that I actually did need to eat. I'd burned through a lot of my reserves during my midnight practice with Sheree and I wasn't sure that I'd managed to replace them yet today, which could be a problem if I ended up in another shared dream tonight.

  Mom and Dad were actually both at dinner with Cindi and me, which was a rare treat, but I couldn't enjoy it while worrying about what Cindi was planning. Apparently Mom and Dad were really trying to make a go of things—there wasn't any other explanation for them both having torn themselves away from their respective projects in time to have a normal, sit-down dinner like everyone else had.

  My apathy even cast a pall over their efforts there, because instead of talking to each other they spent most of the meal trying to get me to tell them what was wrong. I excused myself from the table after twenty minutes of picking at my food and retreated to my bedroom.

  I tried to work on homework, tried to read a book, nothing worked. I finally just went to bed about an hour earlier than normal. I didn't particularly want to sleep, but I didn't want to talk to Cindi right now. This wasn't something that we wouldn't work past eventually, at least I didn't think it was, but it wasn't something that I could just forgive right now.

  Once again I fell asleep instantly, but this time I didn't end up inside of my own dream to start out with. I was in someone else's dream, and it had happened without any kind of conscious effort on my part, which meant that I was in danger. I looked down at myself and found that I was once again a chubbier version of myself.

  I didn't waste precious seconds this time around wondering what that said about my subconscious. Instead I visualized my body becoming even more rounded and then pushed that illusion into the pseudo-reality of the dream. I changed my hair and skin color and then reached up to confirm that my face had also shifted around as I'd changed the rest of my body.

  I debated for the briefest of instants and then I changed my eye color to brown and stretched my face so that it looked like something you'd see in one of those curvy mirrors at the circus.

  The whole process had taken less than a second. I'd done it out of a reflexive paranoia at what I'd find here, but it felt like the right thing to have done.

  I could feel the tightness off in a corner of my mind that told me that my psyche was sustaining the illusions without any kind of massive effort on my part. I knew there would be a constant, slow drain of strength and energy out of my real body as a result of the seeming that I'd created, but tonight I felt strong and well-rested, so it wasn't something that I needed to worry about in the short term. Hopefully I'd be gone before it became a concern.

  I looked around and finally realized how I'd known that I wasn't in one of my own dreams. Everything was much more vivid than I could manage with my own efforts. I was standing in a field of gorgeous sunflowers under a blue sky that had only the faintest white wisps of clouds as a gentle breeze caused the flowers to bob up and down.

  The flowers, at least the ones in easy reach of where I was standing, were all individual plants rather than the textured, colored mass that would have been the default surrounding in one of my dreams. Even more impressive, the soft, delicate petals on the plants were likewise individual and varied.

  There had been a little different of a feel to Sheree's dreams than to mine, but this was incredible. These dreams were almost compelling enough to mistake for the real world. I tried to change the color of a single leaf, fixing the image I wanted in my mind and pushing, but the faintest of flickers was my only reward for the effort and strength I'd just expended.

  Any lingering question I might have had about this possibly being my own dream was settled. I sat down in the middle of the sunflowers and started trying to flee this particular dream. There had been the tiniest of inclinations to explore my new surroundings, to see if the dreamer whose hospitality I was imposing on might be a potential friend rather than an enemy, but I knew that would be stupid. I needed to build up my endurance, needed to master those few things I already knew before I went looking for allies in the dream.

  I took a couple of slow, deep breaths and then tried to block out this dream as I simultaneously focused on the real world. I expected it to be a little bit of a challenge, but I'd done this four times now—twice on purpose—so I expected it to be doable.

  I hadn't counted on the way that the breeze continued to caress my cheeks or the deep, earthy smell that it carried. Even the feel of the ground underneath me and the flowers brushing against my back served to enforce the immediacy and strength of this reality.

  It was harder than I expected to remember all of the little details about the real world. The exact feel of my sheets against my bare arms and the sound of Cindi's breathing were just out of my reach and with them the easy escape from this dream that I'd been expecting to accomplish.

  I sat there for several minutes, but each attempt failed and each failure drained some of my limited supply of strength. I was just about to start my fourth attempt when I heard someone walking through the field of flowers.

  I tried to stand just enough to see without being seen, but he happened to be looking directly at me and stopped moving as soon as he saw me.

  "Interesting."

  He didn't seem angry, and he hadn't tried to kill me or anything yet. It was actually a much better start to things t
han I'd been expecting. I cautiously stood up, both to get a better look at him as well as to let him see that I wasn't at all threatening.

  I tried a hesitant smile as I looked him over. He looked like he was ninety and had a white beard that had to be nearly as old as he was. His skin was wrinkled and had the liver spots that I would have expected in someone that old, but there was one detail that didn't match with the rest of his appearance.

  He wasn't moving like an old man. He had an elaborately carved walking stick in his right hand, but he wasn't at all stooped over and the simple brown robe he was wearing seemed to be hiding shoulders that were surprisingly broad for someone who otherwise looked like they should be nearly to their deathbed.

  "What's interesting?"

  "You don't belong here in my dream."

  "You know this is a dream?"

  "Indeed I do. It's one that I dream on a regular basis, one I've dreamed for more years than you've been alive."

  "You never dream of other people being here with you?"

  "Occasionally, but never someone like you."

  His gesture took in my appearance. I looked down and felt myself blush. I'd been so busy trying to make sure that I wasn't recognizable that I hadn't really stopped to think about how the total package might look. My face was distorted enough he probably hadn't even been sure I was human to start out with.

  "I'm sorry, this isn't how I normally look, but it's important that I keep who I really am a secret. I've been told that it's not safe for me here in the dream world, that there are a lot of supernatural…beings that would harm me if they could."

  He frowned, but it wasn't an angry frown as much as it was sad.

  "Secrecy is almost always a tool of those with evil intentions, and it requires someone very far gone indeed to see danger behind every tree and bush. I will give you the benefit of the doubt though. Why did you seek me out?"

  I shrugged. "I didn't, not really. Maybe you brought me here somehow. I'm not completely in control of where I end up when I go to sleep. Sometimes I just go straight to my own dreams, sometimes I end up in the dreams of other people."

  "No, I'm afraid it's nothing I've done. In all of my years I've never encountered a…dream walker before now."

  "Still, you have some kind of power though, don't you? You have to be unique in some way."

  He gave me an appraising look. "Each person is unique. You'll excuse me if I choose not to share more than that given your own reluctance to be forthright with me."

  His words were delivered with such calm that it didn't sound like any kind of stinging rebuke, but I felt myself recoiling away from him regardless.

  "I'm sorry, child. That was unnecessarily harsh. Tell me what you can about your situation and ask me what you will. I can't promise to tell you all, but I will tell you whatever I can if it seems that it will help you."

  "I'm not sure what to tell you, or even what to ask."

  He just nodded patiently, so I asked something that felt relatively harmless.

  "How is your dream so detailed? I've been in other people's dreams and they aren't nearly this vivid."

  "Ah, I hadn't realized that my dreams were in any way different from anyone else's. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that it has something to do with my age, and possibly some of the mental disciplines that I have practiced over the years."

  I didn't know what else to ask him, but before the silence could get too awkward he cleared his throat.

  "How long have you been traveling into other people's dreams?"

  "A few weeks, maybe more, but definitely not more than a month or two. I started out sharing dreams with some of the kids from my school. It was pretty harmless really, and I didn't even realize what was happening until it became obvious that some of the things I knew weren't things that anyone had told me."

  "But at some point you started running into people you didn't know, dangerous people."

  I nodded. "There was this Native American guy who shifts into some kind of monster, and then there was this wax lady. The Native American guy told me how to leave someone else's dream, but both times I ran into him he practically killed me."

  "And this…wax woman?"

  "She tried to strangle me and right there at the end it was like she was sending these tendrils of smoke into my head."

  "Were you able to see her face? Would you recognize her if you saw her again?"

  "No, she was all deformed and melted. All I really know is that she was female and skinny, and I guess I don't even know that for sure because I found out that people can change how they look. I would recognize the Native American though because he wasn't hiding his real face from me."

  "And you can tell when someone is not showing their true form?"

  "Yes, there's a kind of shimmer around them when they do that."

  "Like now?"

  As he asked me the question he transformed, becoming taller even as he became less substantial. The process of the change took less than a second and when it was done he'd been replaced by a glowing figure that seemed constructed by nothing more than light. As I watched, his glow intensified to the point where I almost couldn't look at him, but if I put my hand between him and me just right to cut out most of the light I was able to see the faintest hint of the shimmer I'd seen when the Native American had made himself invisible.

  "Yes, I can see that isn't your true form. Do you mind toning it back down?"

  Between one heartbeat and the next he shrank back down and solidified into the form he'd been wearing when I'd arrived in the dream. It happened so fast that it was almost instantaneous, but there was a split second there where it had almost looked like he'd been someone I knew. It was one of those things that was over so quickly that afterwards you were pretty sure that it was just your imagination, but the feeling that I'd recognized something about his intermediate shape had been so strong that I had a hard time shaking it.

  I double-checked to make sure that the old man in front of me was really his actual identity. There wasn't any shimmer or other indication that he was forcing his dream to take on anything other than his normal appearance.

  He looked strangely satisfied as he resumed his normal shape. "Although I generally know that I'm dreaming when I come here, I've never been able to control things to that extent. Talking to you like this is making me more aware of just how much I can change."

  The sunflowers were wilting before my eyes, but he didn't seem to notice that or the way that the sky was clouding over.

  "I think that you're right to be wary of these other two that you encountered while dreaming. I can't teach you about the dream itself, but I would be willing to teach you the mental exercises that I believe have allowed me to create a dreamscape which is more complete than others you have seen."

  The sun was almost completely occluded by the clouds now and the sky had darkened ominously. I almost thought I could hear laughter, but it was so faint as to be almost indistinguishable.

  The old man looked around at our surroundings and frowned at the way the landscape was changing. A second later, the flowers were back and the sky was a cloudless blue, but the flowers had lost some of the detail and individuality that had impressed me so much when I'd first arrived.

  "I appreciate your offer. How do I start?"

  "Oh, no. I'm afraid I can't teach you here in this place. It will take time, even just getting started is the work of more than a single night. Not only that, there is no guarantee that we'll meet again like this. It would be best if we were to meet up in the real world. There I'll be able to teach you the beginning exercises."

  I shook my head. I knew I needed to stall for time, but I was out of ideas on how to do so. "I'm sorry. I really appreciate your willingness to teach me, but the only thing that's keeping me safe right now is the fact that none of the…people I run into in the dream know how to find me in real life. Maybe if we meet again in the future I'll get to the point where it would be okay for us to meet, but right now that'
s just not a possibility."

  There was a flicker of something in his expression that was gone too quickly for me to identify it.

  "Are you really so sure that you're safe, even with your real identity a secret?"

  Before I could answer he struck, not physically, but with his superior control over the dream we were in. The ground opened up, causing me to stumble, and then closed back over my ankles, trapping me in place.

  I was still reeling from the attack when I felt pressure starting to build. It was like a giant vice was somehow pressing against every single inch of my body at the same time. The part of my mind that was maintaining the illusion that altered my appearance felt like acid had been poured on it.

  My body shrank and then expanded slightly back out as I put more of my strength into countering his attempt at unmasking me.

  "You're like a child. You have no idea what you're up against, no idea what's at stake if you fail."

  The pressure from the vice doubled and my body collapsed in on itself. It wasn't an exact match for my real body, it was still the chubbier version of me that my subconscious still conjured here in the dream, but he'd stripped away that layer of my defense.

  I tried to fight back, tried to reestablish the false body that I'd been wearing just a few seconds previously, but my mind was pure molten agony. Another wave of psychic pressure started to build and I did the only thing I could think of to hide my identity. I threw myself as far forward as my entrapped feet and ankles would allow, obscuring my face with the fake black hair that he hadn't managed to shift back to its normal color yet.

  "I don't think so."

  Even as he spoke something rough wrapped itself around my waist. I was forced backwards against my will until finally I came to rest with my back tight against the rough bark of a tree that hadn't been there just a second before.

  The knotty branch that had wrapped itself around my waist was joined by two more, one around my thighs and the other around my chest just above where my ribs started. My arms were free and I clawed desperately at the topmost branch in an effort to free myself, but all I succeeded in doing was ripping my nails free of my fingers.