Dreamscape: Saving Alex

by Kirstin Pulioff

  “I doubt that,” he said, his gaze lingering on me.

  “Don’t test it. You said the woods were full of danger? This is so much worse.” I stared him down until he looked away. He was already hurt. I didn’t want to get him killed too. I knew just enough for it to be dangerous.

  “With you leading, Goldy, I don’t worry. My life’s safe in your hands.”

  I didn’t want his life in my hands. Trying to save my own was tough enough. His cavalier charm was great when our lives weren’t in danger, but now it added another level of responsibility I didn’t want.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Rocks scuffled behind me, and Arrow’s arm encircled my waist for support as he struggled to stand. When I glanced down at his hand resting on my waist, I wondered if all my nerves were from the manor.

  “I’m ready. Where do we go from here?” His deep voice brought my mind back to the present.

  “Stay close. Remember what I said about traps?”

  “I won’t leave your side,” he whispered.

  “You already promised that.”

  “This time, I mean it.” He peeked beyond me into the hall. “I think it’s clear.”

  My eyes lingered on him for a moment before following his gaze to the corridor we had to take. “Okay, let’s do this.” We plunged through the darkness, hoping against hope that we wouldn’t run up against any more guards.

  After a moment, we left the dim hallway and entered a larger room on the other side. Bare walls encircled us, a blank canvas of gray broken by the occasional torch and a row of evenly spaced doors. Flames danced across the tops of the torches, the only movement in the still room. As our eyes adjusted, we saw, hidden in that darkness, displayed in niches between the doors, bouquets of dragon weed in brass vases. Half of the poisonous flowers wilted over the edge. My palms burned just at the sight. I looked more closely at the faded, red doors that lined both sides of the room. Chipped paint revealed hints of hidden designs underneath.

  We marched through the room, ensuring that no guards followed us. When we passed beyond it, we entered another chamber, nearly identical. The only differences were in the doors. Instead of faded red, a mosaic of colors stained the wood.

  “It’s beautiful,” Arrow said, straying from my side.

  “You can’t always see the biggest dangers. Don’t underestimate anything in here,” I whispered, pulling him back to my side. “These men don’t fight fair or by the rules. If they trick us into submission, that’s fine with them.”

  Each door called out to me. Hidden images flashed beneath the bright paint. The designs played peek-a-boo with the light. Even knowing the traps hidden behind these doors, I fought the temptation to draw closer. I wanted to know what they held.

  “What is this room?” Arrow asked as I reached for the first door. I didn’t need to look at him to see the wonder rushing through him. I felt it too.

  “The room of promises,” I said, tracing the delicate designs on the door panels. Light blue paint flaked off at my touch. I gasped and covered my mouth. When the faded paint flecked off the door, an image appeared.

  My room.

  Contrasting art pieces intersected along my wall, creating an indecipherable puzzle, showcasing my triumphs and struggles. Cardboard boxes were nowhere in sight, and my favorite treasures remained untouched on my shelves. The sheets on my bed bunched together creating an odd shape, and I saw popcorn lining the floor. Was that me, tangled in the sheets?

  My hand tightened around the handle. If I opened this door, I could be home. Re-enter my world. That’s what I wanted, right? What I had been searching for since waking up here. This was it, a way back. The metal handle jingled under my trembling hand. Why was I hesitating?

  The longer I looked at the room, the more unsettled I became. Something didn’t feel right. It was my home, yet it seemed different. This wasn’t the room I remembered, the one I was pulled away from.

  This wasn’t real. The vision offered to me was from a lifetime ago. It was what I fantasized about—going back to a time before moving was even an option. My unease increased. It was a hollow dream. If I grabbed it now, I would be stuck in a prison of the past. My trance broke.

  It was a trap.

  I let go of the handle and stepped back, turning just in time to see Arrow at the green door next to me. His hand was poised to turn the handle in front of him.

  “Arrow, no!” I yelled, running at him and slapping his hand off the knob.

  “I have to go in there! He needs me.” He pushed past me, and I grabbed his wrist.

  “You can’t. It’s a trap.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, fighting against my pull.

  “You have to. This whole manor is nothing but a trick. You can’t give in to it,” I begged, pulling him away with all my weight. “I tried to warn you before. None of this is real. Your door’s the same as mine was; nothing more than your deepest hope.”

  “It can’t be,” he whispered with tears glistening in his eyes. He backed away from the door and me.

  “You have to believe me. This is the room of promises. It pretends to give you your greatest desire. But it’s just a ruse. If you open that door, you’ll be trapped forever.” I looked at the fading image of two boys on his door. “Who are they?”

  “No one,” he said, turning away. “Like you said, it’s nothing more than a memory.”

  “It looks like a good one,” I said, letting my hand linger until he pulled away.

  “It was.” He walked straight to the doorway at the end of the room. I met him there, watching the personalized images on the doors fade. A stab of loss hit me when I turned around. Walking away from a dream, even if it was a trap, wasn’t easy.

  “Wait for me.”

  He stopped, but didn’t meet my eyes.

  “Did you want to talk about it?” I asked, reaching for his shoulder.

  “I just want to get out of here. There’s nothing good in this place,” he said, shrugging off my offer.

  I couldn’t agree with him more. We walked through another room, a replica of the one we’d already passed. Everything was the same, down to the wilted dragon weed bouquets. The only differences were the colors of the doors—saffron, silver, violet.

  “Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” he asked. His hands balled in fists at his side and tension strained his neck.

  “I know it seems odd,” I said. “But you’d be surprised how many people pass the first test, only to fail the next. Beating one temptation doesn’t mean it goes away. Don’t lower your guard until we’re out of here.”

  He nodded and followed me through the room. We stayed in the center, refusing to reveal the hidden images on each portal. Not knowing made it easier.

  We found ourselves in a new chamber with more doors. Arrow pulled me back when I strayed close to the walls again.

  “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing this time,” I said, counting out the number of doors until I reached the seventh and stalled with my hand on the knob. Arrow placed his hand on top of mine. I saw the question in his eyes and nodded. “This is the one we go through.”

  “Our deepest hope?” he asked with a straight face.

  “That’s debatable,” I said with a dark chuckle, “but it will lead us to the baron, eventually.”

  “Eventually—” The darkness greeting us from behind the door stopped him.

  “Eventually.” We stepped into an abyss of darkness. The door slammed shut behind us as we let go. “Arrow, please tell me you have more of that luminance powder handy,” I whispered, fumbling to find the edge of the room.

  After a few moments of shuffling, a small ball of light appeared in his hand, illuminating his haunted face. Just as my eyes adjusted to the new light, he screamed and dropped the powder.

  “No!” he yelled, disappearing into shadows. The walls thundered with the pounding of his fists.

  “Arrow, wait!” I shouted, scrambling after the dispersed lumi
nance powder. Without that, we’d be consumed by darkness. I pressed the granulated flakes together and scooped them into my hands. When I looked up, a mutilated face with gouged eyes and sunken cheeks smiled down on me.

  I screamed, dropping the powder again. The rough floor cut through my leggings when I tripped over my feet, crashing to the floor. I skidded backwards until I hit the wall. The sound of Arrow’s pounding fists disappeared under the hammering of my heart.

  “Arrow, where are you?” I screamed. “We need to get out of here!” The silence responded for what seemed like an eternity.

  “I’m right here.” He picked up the fallen light and cupped my shoulder.

  “D-did you s-see him?” I asked, grabbing onto him.

  He exhaled slowly. “I saw him, and the others.”

  “Others?” My heart hammered as I furtively looked over his shoulders.

  “They’re all here. Brave men,” he said sadly. “They won’t hurt you.” He pulled me up, keeping his arm wrapped around me, holding the light forward. “They won’t hurt anyone anymore.”

  My heart broke as Arrow lifted the light to the wall. Behind a glass enclosure, the remains of an army faded to dust. All I could see were faces frozen in misery, hands outstretched towards the clear wall, ivory bones encircling steel bars, searching for a way out.

  “You knew them?”

  “Some of them. Do you see the crest on their shoulders? That’s the Great Oak. These were men of the rebellion.”

  “What were they doing here?” I asked.

  Arrow’s lips tightened. “The same thing we are.”

  I stared at the men, trapped by a wrong step or temptation, and the reality crushed me. The consequences here...

  Failure led down one path—death.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. The walls of this estate bore down on me. Nothing in here hinted at the fun I remembered from my childhood. The simple maze of hallways and doors I had memorized over the years had transformed into a labyrinth of death and terror. I had to get home before I turned into one of them, defeated by a futile journey.

  I gave the feathers on Arrow’s vest a quick tug and nodded to the door at the far end of the room. “It’s time to go.”

  “But what about them? We can’t just leave them here. We have to get them out, give them a proper burial,” he protested.

  My heart ached for him, it really did. If they were my friends, I probably would’ve wanted the same thing. But they weren’t. And the pressure on my shoulders told me time was running out.

  “We can’t. Not right now. Once we’re out, we can tell someone about it,” I said.

  His eyes cut into me, and I knew he didn’t understand. Sometimes the harshest news needed to be delivered quickly.

  “I promise you’ll have a chance to make sure no one else gets trapped in Marix’s manor, but for now, you need to trust me.”

  He nodded and pulled his hood over his face. I sighed as his eyes became unreachable. The more time we spent together, the more similarities I found between us.

  “It’ll be better once we leave here,” I said, but the reassurance sounded hollow, even to me.

  We hid in the darkness. Arrow followed close behind me as I darted down hallways, going through one set of doors only to pass into another room of promises. Each room looked the same as the last, bare except for dragon weeds, painted doors, and burning torches. I knew it couldn’t last much longer.

  I had traversed these halls enough to know that once one challenge was conquered, the next awaited. When we turned the corner into a brightly illuminated hallway, I knew we’d found the next danger. I stopped. Sometimes knowing what came next wasn’t an advantage.

  “What is it?” Arrow asked, peeking around my shoulders at the empty stone path, then searching my face.

  “Our next challenge.” My voice shook. “I’ll need some rope.”

  He tightened his lips, looking like he wanted to say something. His hands lingered on mine as he handed me the rough twine.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  I wished that were possible. Before I turned back to face the bright corridor, I looked into Arrow’s eyes. “No matter what, promise me you won’t let go.”

  “I promise.”

  I untied the belt from my thigh and wrapped it around my waist, securing the rope through the belt loop and around my shoulders in a harness. “You’ll need to hold me and be ready at any moment. There won’t be any warning.” I handed him the rope and pulled away, testing his grip.

  His eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Warning for what, exactly?”

  “I told you this wouldn’t all be easy,” I snapped and bit my lip. “Just make sure you’re holding on.”

  Tears flooded my eyes, and I turned away before he could see them or the depth of my vulnerability. Up to this point, I’d had control. Now I had to let go. I blinked hard, wishing the tears away. Heroes didn’t cry.

  The slight tug from the harness gave me security as I started forward. The ground would give way at any moment. This hall continued seamlessly, every cobblestone blending into the next as we wound out of view.

  Besides the shuffling of our boots and my shallow breaths, an eerie silence filled the long hallway. I stepped tentatively, testing my weight before fully moving forward. Each solid step surprised me. Halfway down the hall, my fear let up a little. Soft cracks sounded as we shuffled forward, but the ground held.

  I stepped again and then stopped when I heard a loud click. Sand disappeared around the cobblestone under my foot, plummeting into darkness as soon as I jumped back. My eyes locked onto the black hole inches away that had almost swallowed me.

  Another click sounded, and the stone beneath me dropped without warning.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My screams echoed off the rough walls of the chasm, broken abruptly as the harness caught my fall.

  A jolt ran through my body as I swung into the wall, feeling the breath knocked out of me. I hung suspended over a dark void, staring into nothing. The rough edges of broken stones scratched my palms. I grasped at them, stopping my body from bouncing off the wall again.

  Arrow leaned precariously over the hole, his jaw clenched and brow furrowed as he tried to balance. A drop of sweat rolled down his face, and his arms shook under the strain of holding onto me.

  I wasn’t sure if the fluttering in my stomach was from butterflies or a reaction to my fall. Arrow had literally saved me, more than once now. And what twisted my stomach more was that this time I had trusted him to do it.

  Once I stopped swinging, I stretched my arms and legs out, pressing against the outer sides of the pit and holding my position. My legs buckled beneath me, threatening to give way. Slowing my heart took longer than I’d anticipated. I looked up to see Arrow watching me. The small lines crowding his forehead looked out of place, and in that instant, my determination returned. I had to remind him that I was his hero.

  “This is going to sound strange,” I yelled up at him.

  “I have a feeling nothing you say will surprise me anymore.”

  “You need to let me go,” I said.

  “What? No!”

  His desire to protect me warmed me. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to fall. But you have to let go so I can climb down.”

  He looked past me into the pit and raised his eyebrows. “We have to go down there?”

  “Do you trust me?” I asked.

  “Well, yes, but…” he stammered, tightening his grip on the rope.

  “But nothing. Unless you want to fight legions of armed men, this is the way we have to go. It’s the secret passageway. We’ll get there so much quicker… and safer. Now let go so I can climb down before I lose my strength.” I nodded towards my shaking legs.

  He looked at my legs and let go. The tug at my waist released, and my weight sunk my feet more firmly against the walls.

  “While you’re up there,” I yelled, “throw down a torch so I can see the way.”

  He leaned ove
r the opening, flickering flames in one hand. The thought of descending into a raging fire flashed through my mind. “Wait! On second thought, drop some of that luminance powder instead.”

  He disappeared for a moment and then sprinkled the powder around me. Golden flakes glittered as they descended like snow. No, not like snow; like the golden pixels that had transported me here. I shook off a couple of flakes as they landed on my legs, just in case.

  “Arrow, does this powder do anything besides create light?” I asked.

  He thought in silence for a moment. “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “No reason,” I said, starting to lower myself towards the ground. How would I begin to explain being eaten by light pixels and transported here?

  “Are you sure this is the only way?” he asked, brushing his hair out of his eyes as he peeked over the edge.

  “No, Arrow, it’s not, I just enjoy getting stuck in pits.” I rolled my eyes. “Yes, it’s the only way I know how to get through alive. Now, get down here.” I shook under the strain on my legs and the burn of the rocks digging into my palms. The narrow chasm seemed to stretch as I descended. He smiled weakly before lowering himself into the pit.

  “I’m right behind you,” he grunted.

  Arrow had an easier time, resting his back against one wall and his feet on the far side. “This is terrifying,” he muttered under his breath.

  I glanced up and saw his hand shake as he wiped away his hair from his eyes. His wide-eyed, pale face surprised me.

  “Are you really afraid?” I asked.

  “A little,” he said, sliding down an inch. “Why are you laughing?” he asked, skidding down further.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, stifling a chuckle. “I’ve just never seen you afraid.”

  “You’ve never seen me in tight spaces before either,” he said. “I prefer the expanse of the forest to this…this…pit.” Sweat beaded on his face as he looked down beyond me.

  “Ah, well, you introduced me to the Pits of Wonder, I wanted to return the favor.” I hid a smile as I lowered myself another couple of feet. My arms shook with pain. I cursed the fact that, even though he trembled with fear, his arms displayed hardly any exertion.