by Sophia Sharp
“How come?”
“Reality is mutable here. But you have to learn to control it.” He touched back to the ground. “For example, take floating, what I just did. How do you think I did it?”
“Um, I don’t know. You just jumped, and…stayed in the air.” Nora felt like an idiot explaining things that way.
“I jumped.” He smiled. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. What I did, in truth, is push everything else down. I pushed reality down, a few feet away from me. You went along with it.
“Now,” he continued, “from your perspective, it looked like I jumped up and floated in the air. But for me, I actually stayed perfectly still, in the same dimensional plane. It’s everything else that moved.”
“Whoa,” Nora breathed. “You’re saying I can learn to do that?”
“Eventually. If your mind is strong enough. But not yet. Like I said, reality is mutable here, which means we can control the things around us. Let’s try something simple. Like…your hair.”
“My hair?”
“Yes. What color is it?”
“Um, I don’t know. It’s dark. A deep shade of brown, maybe?”
“And mine?”
“Yours is sleek black.”
“Okay, I want you to watch me very carefully. Are you looking?”
“Yes.”
“Okay…and now?”
Nora’s jaw dropped. On his words, Hunter’s hair changed to the lightest shade of blonde she could imagine. There was no transition. One second it was black. The next, it was bleach-blond. Everything else about it stayed the same, though.
He laughed, and his hair changed back. “You want to give it a try?” he asked.
“Me?”
“Yes, I think you’re strong enough to do that.”
“Um, okay. How?”
“Well, the first thing you’ll discover is that you can’t do it to me. You can’t change anything about me, actually.”
“Why not?”
“Your mind has power over this world, as does my mind, but we aren’t actually a part of this world. We’re more like…reflections. What you see before you, the person you’re talking to – and who I see when I look at you – is just a reflection of your real self. So, since I’m not actually a part of this world, you can’t change things about me. Just like I can’t change things about you.
“However.” Hunter lifted one finger up. “You do have power over your reflection. It’s kind of like…” he paused to find the right words, “…kind of like adjusting the filter that a light goes through. If you put a blue screen over a flashlight, the light turns blue. You can put a yellow sheet over that, and the light turns green. But the light itself isn’t changing. Does that make sense?”
Nora nodded.
“But you can change things about yourself,” Hunter said. “If you do, your reflection in this world becomes whatever you project. You can be anything, here.” Suddenly, he was a head taller than before. Nora gasped. And in an instant he was even taller, rising high above her until his knees were level with her head. She looked up, speechless. He was as tall as the biggest evergreen, now, and looked down upon her with eyes as big as the sun. Then, just as quickly, he was back to his regular size. He smiled at her. “That, for example, was a lot like the hair thing. It just took more control. I don’t think you’d be able to do it, yet, but I think you have enough control to be able to change the color of your hair.”
“Okay.” Nora sat up straighter, eager to give it a try. “What do I do?”
“It all begins in here.” Hunter tapped his forehead with a finger. “First, you have to believe that reality can be changed. You have to believe that you have full control.”
“I can do that.”
“But it’s not enough me telling you. You have to experience it for yourself.”
Without warning, a huge explosion came from the car, knocking Nora backward with its force. She hit the ground. Enormous flames engulfed the ground around her. She tried to scream, but couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. She scrambled back. The heat from the flames made the air thick, and she could feel the heat against her skin. She spun her head wildly from side to side, searching desperately for some way to safety. But all around her, the flames only doubled in strength.
She was trapped. She couldn’t get out.
The flames roared higher, coming closer to her. Trapping her. The air was too hot to breathe. Heat blasted from the inferno, and she flung a hand in front of her face to reduce the blare, but it was no use.
She needed to get out. But how? The fire roared, nearly engulfing her. She could already smell the bitter scent of her singed hair. Wait. Hair. Her hair.
Suddenly, she remembered what Hunter had done to his. He had changed it. Meaning that she could change hers, too. More than that. She could change reality.
Desperate, not knowing what else to do, she squeezed her eyes shut and imagined the ground as it had been. She focused on the clean, cool air she remembered breathing before. On the breeze moving gently through the trees. On the sound of lapping water from the lake.
The lake! It was still there – it must be! Frantically, she imagined a great invisible bucket scooping up water from the lake beside her and throwing it over the fire.
She gasped as a heavy sheet of ice cold water slammed into her. Her eyes popped open in shock, and she coughed, choking on the bit of water that came up her nose. The fire was gone. As the coughing fit died down and she looked around her, she saw the ground was absolutely drenched. Puddles of water were everywhere, and she sat in the middle of the biggest one.
Laughter came from behind her, and she spun around. Hunter was there, picking his way along dry patches of ground. He didn’t have a drop of water on him.
Suddenly, everything came together. He had done this to her – he had caused the explosion! Anger raged through her, and she started to rise, ready to pummel him into oblivion with her fists, when a better idea struck.
Doing as she had before, she imagined a giant bucket dipping into the lake to pick up huge amount of water. But this time, it would carry twice as much water as before. As she did that, she allowed the water to be touched by a hint of frost, making it as cold as possible while remaining just short of freezing.
Then she threw it all right on top of Hunter.
He gasped as the water fell on his head, then slipped and fell as the stream engulfed his entire body. Nora placed an invisible border of air around her so the water from the lake wouldn’t get to her. Only when the pouring stopped, with Hunter lying helplessly on the ground just as drenched as she was, did she let the border of air dissipate.
She walked over to him smugly.
As she moved closer, she noticed that he was shivering. He had gotten up to his hands and knees, with his head down and his body trembling.
Doubt suddenly filled her. Had she hurt him? Did she make the water too cold? Did she pour too much?
Then his head swung up, and he looked at her. Mirth filled his eyes, and an enormous grin stretched across his face. He wasn’t shivering at all. He was shaking with laughter! Probably laughing at her. Her irritation returned, and just as she was about to think of something else to do to him, Hunter was at her side.
There was no movement that she saw. One moment he was on the ground, wet and laughing, and the next he was standing beside her, dry as a duck and holding her arm. It took all of her dignity not to claw his eyes out for what he’d done.
“Before you do anything else,” he said quickly, “realize that I know a lot more than you, and I could counter before you even knew it.” Then he pulled his hand away and frowned. “And you’re still wet.”
Abashedly, Nora realized she was. Could she change that, too? She imagined herself in the same clothes, dry as they had been.
Nothing happened.
She closed her eyes and tried again. When she opened them, her clothes were as wet as ever.
Hunter smiled. “Remember what I said. You are ju
st a reflection, but everything else is part of this world. You and everything that came with you – clothes included – are reflections. Instead of thinking of dry clothes, think of taking the water out of them.”
Nora closed her eyes and tried again. This time, like Hunter suggested, she imagined the water being pulled out of her clothing. She saw the cross-weaves of the fabric in her mind’s eye, and thought of tiny little droplets coming out of the clothes and evaporating into the air. As she did that, she realized she was completely dry.
Hunter laughed. Nora looked at him strangely for a moment, but then she began to laugh, too. His laughter was contagious, and being here with him felt wonderful!
For the first time in her life, she was in full control of nearly everything around her. Her annoyance gone, she laughed with pure joy. This truly was an amazing world Hunter was showing her. An astounding world! One that was brimming with endless possibilities. She felt euphoric as she let her laughter sweep her away. She spun around happily, and Hunter laughed even harder.
Finally, with the laughter starting to subside, Hunter looked at her somewhat seriously.
“You did a fantastic job back there,” he said.
“Thanks.” Heat crept up the back of her neck. “At first, I couldn’t believe you were responsible for the explosion!”
“Yes, but even though I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you, you handled it by yourself like a pro. Your mind is a lot stronger than I would have thought.”
“What do you mean?” Nora asked, curious.
“For most people, the first time they come here, they panic so much in those flames they seize up and rip themselves out of this world. It’s just like when you wake up in the middle of a nightmare. Your mind can’t handle the pressure, and it wants to escape. You, however, fought it all off very well, especially that water touch at the end. That was something.”
“Wait, what did you just say?”
“Hmm? About what?”
“About ‘most people.’ Are there others you’ve taken here?”
“Well, yes,” Hunter answered slowly. “Never mind that. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“You did.” Nora refused to let him push aside the comment. “Who else have you brought here?”
“Not many, personally,” Hunter answered. “But I’ve seen people here. Sometimes, people stumble upon this place in their own dreams. Everybody has access to it, you know, but most people don’t realize it. In fact, I don’t think anybody really realizes it. Whenever you go to sleep, you have a chance – however small it may be – of drifting into this place. That’s when you have your most memorable dreams, the ones you’re sure mean something. Because this place stands out so much in your mind compared to your regular dreams.
“I don’t know exactly how it all works,” Hunter admitted, “but from what I’ve pieced together… I think that right here, right where we are right now, that this place is a…parallel plane to our regular lives. Maybe to our regular dreams, even. And like I said, everybody has the ability to enter this…plane.”
“Like a parallel universe?” Nora asked.
“Sort of. But not exactly. It’s more like…two sheets of paper held parallel to one another. If one sheet of paper has something drawn on it, and you shine a light through it onto the other sheet, the shadow of the drawing falls onto the second piece of paper. I know it’s confusing – it doesn’t even make much sense to me – but I think that’s sort of how this place works.”
“So our real world is the paper with the drawing,” Nora said slowly, “…and this world is the second sheet, with the shadow falling onto it?”
“Yeah, exactly. That’s the best way I can think of it. I know it’s not very elegant, but it’s been useful to me. A bit hard to grasp though, right?”
“No, I think I got it. I have another question, though.”
“Ask away.”
“How did we get here? How did you bring me here?”
“Ah.” Hunter smiled. His eyes glimmered with a touch of satisfaction. “That. That has to do with what I showed you at school.”
“With your mind-reading ability?”
“That’s right. When we touched hands in the real world, a sort of…wrinkle…occurred. It happened right before all the thoughts came flooding into your head. That wrinkle, I think, had to do with reality shifting slightly right before the thoughts came. But I learned that if I time it right – if I let you experience that flood of thoughts just as you’re falling asleep – in that last split-second, your mind, and mine as well, shift into this realm. And you come here. The World of Dreams.”
“That’s amazing,” Nora breathed.
“I know,” Hunter smiled. “One more thing you should know; Time flows differently here. Sometimes, it goes faster than in the real world, sometimes, much slower. Usually, though, it’s faster. So everything we’ve experienced so far – from me jumping off the car all the way to this conversation – has occurred in the span of only a few seconds in the real world.”
“Wait, so in the real world, we’re both asleep? On top of your car?”
“That’s right. And as soon as we go back, we wake up.”
“How do we go back?”
“I’ll show you. Not just yet, though. What I was just saying, about time flowing differently, that’s more important. Now, do you remember when you took your first step, and you stumbled toward me?”
“Yes, I do.”
“What’d you feel, when it happened?”
“What did I feel?”
“Yeah, like what was that like for you?”
“Um… I felt dizzy. Like I lost my sense of gravity. Kind of like I couldn’t say which way was up and which was down.”
“Did objects kind of…streak together for you?”
“Oh that’s right! Yeah, my vision blurred a bit and all the colors merged, too,” Nora enthused.
“Okay, well, I call that a glitch. And what it is, I think, is your body protesting you entering this realm. It’s nothing to worry about, unless it happens in rapid succession and doesn’t stop.”
“Does that happen often?”
“No,” Hunter admitted. “But when it does, you have to watch out for it. Like I said, sometimes time flows faster here than in the real world, but – sometimes – much slower. It’s rare when it flows slower, but you have to be careful then.”
“How come?”
“Because if it flows slower here, you might get caught sleeping for a very long time in the real world. Days, weeks, or even months can pass in seconds. Years, maybe, if you don’t get out fast enough.”
Nora gasped. “Years?”
“Yes. And nothing will wake you. Your only clue to that happening is if those glitches occur over and over right when you get in. If that happens, you need to get out as fast as you can. You never know – every second longer you stay here might be another few hours you’re asleep – or more – in the real world.”
“Has that…ever happened to you?”
“Once, when I was much younger. I came here, and wave after wave of those glitches attacked me. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t think too much of it, though, once they stopped, and stayed for maybe half an hour. When I got up in the real world, nearly ten days had passed.”
“You were out for ten days?” Nora marveled.
“Yeah.” Hunter grinned. “I found myself in the hospital when I woke up. I had no idea what was going on. The doctors thought I had fallen into a coma in my sleep. I gave the nurse quite a scare when I shot to life in the middle of the night.” He laughed. “That’s the only danger for you here. Getting caught when time flows slowly.”
“But you said that doesn’t happen very often?”
“No, it doesn’t. Usually it’s flowing a lot faster, like right now. It all comes in waves, I think. Maybe the best way to think of it is…the scale of time oscillating back and forth. Like a pendulum.” He made a sign with his hands designating one. “When it swings to the v
ery right—” he brought a finger to the right, “—time here is much slower than in real life. And as it falls back and swings to the left—” he motioned with his finger to the left “—time here gets faster and faster, until it peaks as it hits the very left. And then it goes back. On and on again, back and forth, in a cycle.
“Now, one thing I’ve realized,” he continued, “is that it’s not a perfectly even pendulum. Most of the swing is spent in the zone where time is faster here. Only a small sliver—” again, he motioned with his finger “—of the pendulum’s swing is spent in the zone when time is slower here.”
“I think I get it.” Nora smiled. “You explain it very well.”
“Nah.” He waved the compliment away. “You just pick it up very quickly.”
“Maybe. So, what else does this place do? Now that I’ve gotten the entire airplane safety lecture,” she added with a wink.
“Oh, I can show you,” Hunter replied with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
Chapter Ten
~A Watcher~
Exhilaration and excitement coursed through Nora. She’d spent the last few hours exploring this world together with Hunter. Reality really was mutable here, and she couldn’t believe the things she could do.
You could go anywhere. Really anywhere. You had to know your spot to get to it, though, which meant you have to have been there in real life. Unfortunately for Nora, she hadn’t been any farther than the border of the town where she grew up.
Fortunately, Hunter had.
“Ready?” he asked, after explaining how traveling would work. She nodded and took his hand. Instantly, everything around her started streaking in one direction. Landscapes raced by, towns and cities and mountains and highways and rivers and fields, all flashing by her in the blink of an eye. It didn’t feel like she was moving – there was no wind in her face, no resistance from the air like when you put your hand out the window of a speeding car. But everything around her changed, rushing by.
Finally they stopped, and Nora found herself atop a lush green hill, where wild flowers and grasses grew as far as the eye could see. The sun shone brightly above them, radiating heat onto Nora’s body.
