by E. J. Mellow
I slap off my alarm, restraining myself from throwing it across the room. This isn’t fair! I don’t care if it is just a dream and means nothing. I need to find answers. I have to get back.
I close my eyes. My mind races with everything that just happened, making the task of falling back asleep pointless. Dev’s words stab at my chest. I don’t want you here. Tears brim my eyes again. Why do those words hurt me? I’m not supposed to care about him. But the heart is a notorious rule breaker and logic its worst enemy.
Glancing out my window, I decide it’s too bright in my room. Grabbing my drapes, I feel a tingle on my left arm and gaze down to flawless skin. No evidence that I was hit by a burning mass. There might be the slightest tinge of pink, but that could merely be me trying to convince myself.
That pain felt so real. I need to get back there. I need answers.
Over the next couple of minutes, I try everything to bring my mind to unconsciousness. I listen to calming music. I make myself chamomile tea. Nothing works. Lying restless in my bed, I stare up at the ceiling, my eyes burning. Unrest shifts in the back of my mind like I’m forgetting something, some detail that’s possibly important, but I’m too distracted to care. With each passing second, my mind moves farther and farther away from reason. I’ve never felt so determined yet so helpless.
And that’s when it hits me.
I jump from my bed and run into my bathroom, opening my medicine cabinet. I move my eyes over the contents on the shelves until I find what only desperation and lack of reason has brought me to. I stare straight at the box of sleeping pills.
— 20 —
THE SLEEPING PILLS are small in my hand, nonthreatening and white, but my forearm aches from the weight of them. Bad decisions can be surprisingly heavy.
Glancing into the mirror, I study sunken eyes rimmed with dark shadows and hair that falls disheveled and knotted. I don’t know this girl.
Pinching away another wave of frustration that threatens tears, I search back in my mind, disoriented between what is now and what was then. The only certainty I hold on to is that I’ve begun to hate it here.
Have I gone crazy? Is any of this even real?
As I gaze at the face in the glass, I know there’s only one way to answer my questions.
I pop the pills into my mouth and swallow.
—∞—
When I open my eyes again, my familiar tree is not what greets me. Instead, I find myself standing on the edge of a giant city square, the impressive City Hall building looming at the other end. My body swells with satisfaction, and a strange tension in my chest evaporates. It worked! Did I wake up here because I was so determined to get to this location?
I don’t have long to ponder this, because I realize the passing pedestrians are all regarding me with confusion. I look down at my pajamas. Shit.
Speed-walking to hide under the canopy of trees circling the square’s edge, I quickly switch my clothes, now easily camouflaging into the rest of the crowd. I can definitely get used to this trick. I turn in the direction of City Hall and meander my way through the swarm of people. Everyone is hustling and bustling, not taking a second glance at just another girl in black.
Walking up the marble stairs, I tip my head down as I pass the armed guards lining the front of the building. Just like the people in the crowd, they pay no mind. I stop inside the front landing of the open rotunda, finding myself in awe once again. Nothing has changed. The giant map on the floor still slowly moves just as the earth must spin. People mill about, shuffling into doors that line the circular space. If anything, City Hall seems busier than ever. I search for one door in particular, remembering how Dev said he needed to talk to the Council right before I woke up. If I had to go on any of my hunches, it would be that the room they all entered the last time I was here is where they are now. Gazing across the room, I zero in on what I’m searching for. More impressive than any other entrance here, this door sits at the exact opposite end from where I stand. My heart skips a beat in anticipation. I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do once inside, but I’ll figure that out when I’m there.
Upon my approach, I take in the four men standing in front of the door, two on either side. Each holds an Arcus and wears the black armbands with a glowing lightning bolt. My stomach twists in nervousness as I try my best to appear like I belong and walk past them.
Two of the men step in front of me as I reach the threshold.
“What is the state of your business?” one asks in a hard tone. My hands grow clammy as my mind races for a correct answer.
“I’m supposed to be in the Council meeting,” I say evenly, regarding the man who spoke. He has reddish-brown hair and a clean-shaven face. His beady green eyes move to his companion, where they share a look before coming back to rest on me.
“We’ve never seen you in a Council meeting before. What is your position?” Despite my terror of not knowing how to answer, I can at least have solace in the fact that I chose the right door.
I open and close my mouth a few times, trying to dig myself out of this hole. With my telling expression, the two men stand straighter, gripping their Arcuses tighter. This isn’t good.
“I need to speak with Dev,” I finally say. At least this shows I know someone on the Council.
The men glance at each other again, and the two guards who were standing farther off move closer. “What is your business with him?” asks the brown-haired guard.
“It’s just that, my business.” I hold my eyes to his, and they both stiffen at my brazen tone.
This is ridiculous. I try to see if I can move them apart with my mind—I could move other objects here, why not people too? As I stare at their forms, all my thoughts focus on them moving so I can pass. My head swims and prickles with the energy, but nothing happens. Why didn’t that work?
“What are you doing?” asks the redhead again, eyes narrowed. In my panicked state, I decide to do something desperate. I try as best as I can to slip past them and grab one of the door handles. They both clasp onto my shoulders and have me pinned to my knees with my arms shoved behind my back before I even have a second to reach the doors. Damn, they’re fast!
“Get off me!” I wriggle and roll under their grasp, but it only causes the two other guards to come to their aid and hold me down as well.
Something binds my wrists together and fear washes over me. What have I done? What will I do? I shift my wrists, touching the material that pins my arms back. It feels like plastic. The guards stand me up and begin to shuffle me to another side of the hall.
“What did I do?” I ask the redhead, who is holding one of my arms as they drag me away. He doesn’t even give me a cursory glance. “Am I to believe it’s against the law to need to talk to someone?”
Still nothing.
I want to scream in frustration. I didn’t come all this way to be stopped now! I feel the material around my wrists again.
Plastic…I can work with plastic.
I imagine the binds as thin pieces of string, easily breakable thread. After the icy-cold energy leaves my body, I know it’s worked, feeling a slackness around my wrists. Elation courses through me. I can’t move people, but this will do just fine. I furtively glance to each guard at my side, gauging their grips on my arms and smile to myself. Not tight enough.
Easily and silently I snap my wrists free and in one quick movement plant my feet and reverse backward out of their hold. Those self-defense classes I took with Becca came in handy after all. Each man is caught off guard, and I’m able to turn and run back toward the doors. My heart pumps fast in my chest. There’s yelling from every direction, but I dare not look around for fear of losing momentum.
Fifty paces away.
Ten paces away.
I can almost feel the handles around my fingers when my body gets thrown to the ground. I scream and flail about as two guards pin me down, and my face presses securely against the cool marble floor. My body aches from where it smacked against th
e hard stone. Finally, defeated in my last heroic attempt to reach the doors, I stop struggling.
This time, four guards drag me out of the hall, and from the silence that fills it, I don’t have to look around to know everyone has stopped and is watching me.
We walk down generic white hallway after white hallway while anger and embarrassment burn hot in my chest. My arms feel bruised from the guards’ grip, and if I wasn’t so irate, I know I would break down in tears.
Eventually, we stop in front of a middle-aged woman behind a large white desk that sits at the very end of one of the hallways. She wears the common black threads and has pitch-black, chin-length hair and charcoal-gray eyes. Her skin is as white as Aveline’s, and if it wasn’t for her hawkish nose and sour-shaped mouth, she could pass as pretty.
“She was caught trying to trespass into a Council meeting unauthorized,” the redhead reports, and I want to roll my eyes. When he says it like that, it makes it sound so much worse than it was.
The woman keeps her gaze level with mine, assessing and categorizing whatever she sees. “What is her name?” she asks in a voice that matches her tight demeanor. She moves to tap something into a tablet in front of her.
“We did not acquire it,” Red answers. The woman snaps her eyes up to his, annoyance flashing. “She broke free of our binds before we could do so much as drag her from the area,” he states in a way of an explanation.
“Broke free of your binds?” the woman says in astonishment, eyes widening as they return to me.
I can’t help myself. I smile smugly.
“Yes, ma’am, but we were able to restrain her again.”
“Obviously,” the hawk woman exclaims coolly as she scrutinizes my grinning face. I don’t know what’s come over me, but I hold my expression. I’m not one to usually defy someone older than myself, but as of late I’ve been doing a lot of things that aren’t like me. Why stop now? Plus, I have a feeling I wouldn’t like this woman anyway.
She leans forward, crossing her arms over her tablet. “What is your name?”
I want to say something smart, something obnoxious, something someone would say in a movie that would make the crowd laugh, but my newborn rebellion seems to have only taken me so far.
“Molly,” I answer with unoriginality.
“Molly,” she repeats like she’s tasting the name in her mouth. Leaning back over her screen, she types something in. “Cell A12,” she replies curtly with disinterest, not looking back up as they drag me away.
—∞—
I’m in a stark white holding cell. The entire space is empty except for the bench I sit on that’s attached to the far wall. Opposite me is the door I came through, with a tiny window leading out to the hallway. The light in the room is eerily depressing, even with the bright swirling of the blue-white light that hangs in strips across the ceiling. This place reminds me a little of where they might operate on aliens in a sci-fi flick.
I’ve wrung my hands red waiting for a fate I’m uncertain of. The anger I felt when I was first brought here has subsided a bit, but I know it can easily surface at the first presence of a confrontation. I told the guards over and over as they ushered me here that they needed to get Dev, that he would explain everything. I have no idea if they were even listening—no one responded or showed the smallest reaction to my words.
I stare at the white door, thinking of how empty it is, how it’s void of anything original, when the familiar warmth of energy moves through my veins. My curiosity piques at what my mind picks up on subconsciously. I hold on to my thoughts, not moving my eyes from the entrance.
Excitement travels over my scalp as I watch the door flicker and disappear. Suddenly, it’s no longer there. I stand and slowly walk forward, staring at the open space. I can leave. But where would I go? I’m pretty certain this is some sort of jail, and if these people are anything like us humans, they have guards at every turn. My heart sinks. I can’t possibly escape from here. I sit back down, deciding the best plan is to bide my time and see what happens. If anything, I’ll eventually wake up and escape that way. The anger I’m holding down bubbles with the thought of going through all this and still not getting any answers. Quickly imagining the door back in its place, I watch it materialize, closing me in once more.
I’m studying my black combat boots when my cell finally opens and two new guards walk in. Dev enters behind them, his face frozen in a fierce glare. My stomach flips at the sight of him, and I stand. He doesn’t even look at me before he turns toward the men.
“Please leave us,” he says in a tone that’s not a request. The two men glance between one another and then back to me. “Now,” Dev says terrifyingly soft. At this, the guards don’t hesitate. The cell door closes with an oppressive click and I brace myself, preparing for the wrath that’s surely to come.
Dev slowly turns, fixing his chillingly hard blue eyes on me. “What are you doing here?” His voice is firm and low, void of any friendliness.
“Hi to you, too.”
“It’s morning where you are, so I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?” I’ve never seen him so angry before and never directed specifically at me. I have to admit, it threatens to knock down my wall of composure, but luckily this thought only fuels my anger. I narrow my eyes and decide to use a tactic that he’s used on me: diversion.
“You know I can get out of this cell easily,” I say, sitting back on the bench, faking a casual demeanor. At least I hope it looks that way.
He waits a breath, his eyes probing as he regards me. “Yes, I know.”
“What else do you know?” I demand as I cross my arms over my chest.
Dev ignores my question. “How are you here right now? What have you done?” His tone is hard, yet he seems to be fighting with another emotion. I remain silent, staring at him indignantly. I can practically see his mind churning and then stopping on some sort of conclusion that brings worry to his face.
“Molly, what did you do?” he asks, his voice laced with concern rather than anger.
I decide to tell the truth. “I took sleeping pills.”
“What?” His eyes widen and he takes a step closer. His reaction for some reason makes me feel smug.
“I think you heard me just fine.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?!” I edge forward on the bench, my hands in fists by my side.
“How many did you take?” he continues, obviously sticking with the argument he’d rather have.
“Don’t worry about it,” I return curtly and stand, walking to the other side of the room.
“Molly.” Dev says my name like he’s reprimanding a child. I bristle.
“Let’s stop with the evasion, Devlin.” His eyes narrow at the use of his full name. “Tell me what’s going on. I would never have taken the sleeping pills to get back here if you would just let me know what’s happening. Why does this place feel so real? Why can’t I stop dreaming of it? And why do I have these powers?”
“Inquisitive, aren’t you?” he responds dryly. Despite his attempt at humor, I remain silent, glaring at him. He lets out a sigh. “I should never have brought you into this.”
“INTO WHAT!?” The frustration bursts through the very center of my body. It’s so strong that it feels like lightning is flashing inside every vein, and I can almost hear the thunder. The lights in the room seem to flicker with my palpable anger.
Dev’s eyes whip to mine, and I’m shocked to see they look a little scared. “Did you just do that?”
“Do what?” He watches me carefully. I cross my arms and turn away from him, not understanding what he’s talking about. “So, are you going to answer me? Or just do what you always do and avoid my questions?” I push our conversation back to where I need it to be, my anger still white hot.
Dev puts more distance between us by walking to the wall furthest from me and leaning against it.
“After meeting today with the Council, I’ve
come to realize this is too dangerous for you, and there’s too much at stake. Especially after I saw you up against one of them.”
“What’s too dangerous? The Metus? Are you talking about what happened earlier?” I take a step closer to him. “I was caught off guard, Dev! If I had known what that thing was, I could have taken it down. But once again, because someone keeps me in the dark, I’m left to my own devices when it comes to this place. And while we’re on the topic, why does it really matter? You guys keep telling me it’s all just a dream, right? So then what’s the big secret?” I pause to see if he’ll respond to any of this. He doesn’t. He merely keeps his eyes level to mine, his jaw clenched. I can feel the pull of energy between our bodies, heightened by our anger.
“You know what I am beginning to think?” I continue after a moment, securing my feet to the ground so I don’t respond to the urge to move closer. “I’m beginning to think this is way more than that. This place is too real, too organized and functional. I looked up the words Terra Somniorum, and guess what? It means just what you said, but the funny thing is, I don’t know Latin, Dev, so how could I imagine a place with that name?” His eyes spark, and knowing I hit a nerve, I push on. “You guys have names for what you are, and a city that you say is fueled by Dreamers. Each person here seems to have an occupation and a purpose. You and Aveline go on your so-called rounds to protect this place, from what I’ve gathered. You tell me some things that you deem innocent enough to let me in on but stay close-mouthed about others. If this weren’t more than a stupid twenty-four-year-old’s dream, I don’t think everyone would be so secretive. And you want to know what makes me believe more than ever that this place is more than you’re letting on?” I ask rhetorically, unable to keep my body from moving toward his, leaving a mere foot between us.
