by S. K. Holder
‘You’re awake.’ Luke switched on the light. He sat on the end of Connor’s bed. Dressed only in boxer shorts, he rested his elbows on his legs. His hands flopped between his knees.
Connor’s relationship with his brother had changed. It had become awkward, tight and uncomfortable. He hadn’t been himself since coming home and neither had Luke. Connor blamed his brother for the tension. He wouldn’t let him talk about Narrigh. And the more obstinate Luke became when he broached the subject, the more Connor was convinced his brother was hiding something.
Luke spent most of his time brooding in his room, shutting him out. And he would shut him down whenever he brought up the subject of their unforeseen adventures. Each time Connor tried to get Luke to talk about Narrigh or Odisiris he would become upset or angry. He would tell him the worlds were not real and he should put them out of his mind.
He found it impossible to follow his brother’s advice. Despite the Authoritative Voice no longer invading his mind, he couldn’t get Narrigh out of his head. Or the other place…
Riley was the one person he could talk to about his time in the game world. Riley, his best friend, mostly listened and Connor doubted he believed most of what he said. However, Riley could not deny what he saw: his and Luke’s disappearance from Luke’s bedroom and their sudden reappearance seconds later.
Connor had not told Luke about the past-telling he had received from a soul-less entity, known as a Traceless One, while in the world of Narrigh. The Traceless One had told him he had created a Dark Window inside his mind to conceal the visions that plagued him. It had unlocked the Dark Window for a short time and played some of his past memories back to him. They were supposed to be memories of the time he had spent with his dad in Odisiris. Except, he had never been to Odisiris, and he didn’t know his dad, so the memories couldn’t have been real.
But there was something...
He had his own theory of what happened, a way to make the illogical logical. Anyone on Earth who travelled to Narrigh, through The Quest of Narrigh online game, became one of these Citizen people and when they returned they were normal again. That was as far as his logic went.
He sat upright, blinking under the light’s glare. ‘You don’t have to keep checking up on me. I’m okay.’ The words sounded absurd. He said them anyway. He didn’t want his brother babying him anymore. He had grown up since returning from Narrigh and considered himself a man of thirteen years as opposed to a boy. He had even started doing push-ups to build his strength, just in case he were to end up in Narrigh again and needed to defend himself.
Luke subconsciously caressed the palm of his unmarked right hand. ‘You’ve been having nightmares. I’ve heard you cry out in your sleep, twice this week.’
‘I can’t help it. I think that’s how it works.’
‘How what works?’
Connor took Luke’s query as a sign. Maybe now they could talk about what happened. Not talking about it was abnormal. He hadn’t mentioned Narrigh in over a week. Time for his brother to calm down and gain some rational perspective.
He snatched the Worral Stone from under his pillow. He took it with him everywhere. He hadn’t had the chance to tell Luke about his stone. ‘Look at this.’
Luke took the smooth grey stone from him. ‘What is it?’
‘A Worral Stone. The Gifted Ones carry them.’
All Gifted Ones had a Worral Stone. If he was no longer a Citizen, how come he still had the stone? ‘Osaphar said you couldn’t bring anything back, but I kept the stone in my pocket and it’s still here. It’s real Luke. I’m a Dream Emissary, a Gifted One. I can enter the World of Dreams−’
Luke drew himself up, sighing. ‘We’ve talked about this. Narrigh and Odisiris aren’t real places. Everything we experienced was an illusion, a mind warp. They only exist within the game and we don’t play the game any-more do we?’ He gave him a stern glance.
Connor couldn’t quite meet his brother’s eye. ‘No.’ It wasn’t for lack of trying. There were things that didn’t add up about his Narrigh experience, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.
Luke had locked his laptop away, and Connor couldn’t install a new version of the game on his mum’s computer without access to her password. They stocked a PC version of the game in his local gaming store, which he couldn’t afford. He had tried to access his brother’s Tridan Entertainment account in an internet café, the account was locked.
Dedicated to his investigation, he had searched for Narrigh on the internet and found it saturated with ecstatic reviews and gaming tips. He found nothing on Odisiris. He was pinning all his hopes on Riley’s cousin, Toby. Riley was going to ask him if they could access the game from his account.
‘Do you think any other players are stuck in Narrigh?’ he asked his brother.
Luke tugged at his fingers, making them pop. ‘Nope.’
He was making progress. His brother was mildly agitated as opposed to incensed. He could tweak conversation out of him, thread by thread. Delicately. ‘How do you know?’
‘It would be all over the news wouldn’t it?’
‘They don’t put everything on the news, not real secret stuff. If we got stuck in the game, other players must have got stuck in the game too. The Sentinel I spoke to in Narrigh said he met a man who came from Earth. He said his name was Hoowood. I think he meant Howard. The Dal-Carrion got him. You know those big birds with the tusks? Someone might have reported him missing. Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to figure out what all this means?’
‘I already know what all this means.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah. It means we should stop gaming.’ Luke tossed the stone back to him. ‘Looks like an ordinary stone to me. You need to move on from Narrigh, Connor. Forget you were ever a Citizen. The sooner you do, the sooner things can go back to normal. What happened in Narrigh is a secret between you and me. Understand?’
Connor sighed and shoved the Worral Stone back under his pillow. ‘And Riley, because I told him too. Not that I think he believes me.’
‘No one’s ever going to believe you. You want to end up in a loony house, then keep talking. If not, don’t tell anyone else and make sure Riley doesn’t either.’
‘Trust me, he won’t.’
Luke stood up and stretched his arms behind his head. ‘I’m going back to bed. Remember what I said.’
‘The sooner I forget about Narrigh, the sooner things will go back to normal,’ he whispered.
‘And quit cutting your fingers,’ his brother added before closing the door behind him and switching off the light. ‘Your blood’s red.’
‘Forget about Narrigh? What a joke,’ he muttered, after his brother had gone.
It was too early to call Riley to see if he had persuaded his cousin to let them use his Tridan Entertainment account.
He thought about the other Citizens he had met in Narrigh: Amelia, Thorn, Osaphar and Yate. He wondered what had happened to them and if he would ever see them again. He also thought about the Citizen, Skelos Dorm, who he had accidently killed when he had attempted to take a magical artefact from him.
He didn’t know if he would ever unlock the Dark Window again.
He reached for his Worral Stone again and rolled it between the scarred fingers he had sliced open, multiple times, to check for Citizen Blood. He had been disappointed to find that his blood was red and not indigo.
He didn’t think he would want to be a Citizen so badly after everything he’d been through. He learned he had come from Odisiris when he was in Narrigh and that he came from a superhuman race known as Citizens. On Earth, he was a normal boy. There was nothing special about him. He couldn’t self-heal or run at lightning speed and he didn’t have heightened senses. He didn’t have a strange Authoritative Voice inside his head, making sarcastic remarks and telling him what to do. His Gift was all he had and he was barely clinging on to that.
He had no idea what he was seeing as he slept. He had incomprehensible d
reams. As for the nightmares, they ensnared him in his sleep. His nightmares were shadows, screaming writhing shadows full of pain and turmoil.
He was sure the nightmares would take him to the World of Dreams if he allowed them to continue. He already felt as if he was making them happen, honing in on them somehow, despite the fear and anxiety that accompanied them. He was a Gifted One: a Dream Emissary and a First Status Citizen. Entering the World of Dreams was his special ability. It allowed him to see the past, present and future. It was the only ability he felt he still possessed, and yet he had no control over it. It had to be real. All of it. But how did it work? He had to know.
FOUR
‘What are we looking for?’ Riley swept back the jacket hanging on Luke’s bedroom door. ‘Toby said he can’t trust me. Can you believe it? That’s the last time I lend him your headphones.’
‘Yeah, I’m gonna need those back,’ said Connor. ‘We’re looking for the key to his filing cabinet. It’s where he keeps his laptop.’
Connor had decided to do his reconnaissance, which he called ‘recon’ for short, on Luke the very next day. He had wasted no time. The moment Luke had left the house that morning, he had set about searching his room. He hadn’t even taken the initiative to find out where his brother was going or when he would be back. He knew Luke had left his laptop behind. He had spotted the laptop charger on top of the filing cabinet; he usually took both out with him.
Luke had to have a spare key. All filing cabinets came with a set of two keys. Minimum. Connor deduced that Luke would have one key on him and would have left the other one at home.
He pulled out Luke’s sock drawer and squeezed and pounded the assortment of mixed up socks. If Luke was going to leave a spare key lying around his sock drawer was one of several potential places he could have left it. It was one of the lists of hiding places he had compiled in his LUKE RECON PLAN, which also included: checking under the bed, under the floorboards, between his books, behind the curtain rail and on top of his wardrobe.
‘Luke wants me to stop talking about Narrigh. I mean come on, when do we ever stop talking about it?’
‘Well you could talk about something else,’ said Riley. He lifted the edge of a football poster on Luke’s wall and peeked behind it.
‘What do you mean?’ Connor squeezed a balled-up pair of socks in his hand.
Riley’s shaggy hair flopped in front of his face, brushing against his short eyelashes. It failed to hide the sceptical look in his eyes. ‘You were all for it the other day. You wanted to find out what went on as much as I did. And I’m only talking about it with you, so what’s the big deal?’
‘The big deal is, talking about it is making you act weird. You’re self-mutilating. You keep getting this zombie look on your face, and when someone cracks a joke in class, you look as if you don’t even get it. And besides, technically I don’t know anything. One minute you were there and the next you were gone. For all I know I could have dreamt it. I was knackered that night and I ate a ton of sugar. You know you can hallucinate on that stuff.’
The light streaming in from the window made the cuts on Connor’s hands look like horrific gashes. He had used a shaving blade to cut the tips of his fingers to check the colour of his blood. He hadn’t thought he was being obsessive until he had run out of fingers and used a knife to slash open the palm of his hand. He was lucky he hadn’t ended up in the E.R.
He threw the socks back in the drawer. ‘You don’t believe me. I knew it.’ He had heard about this. There was a word for it; he didn’t know what it was called: individuals who experienced some kind of paranormal event, and then later dismissed it with a rational explanation in a bid to dispel the C-R-A-Z-Y. Crazy wasn’t a label you wanted hanging around your rational neck.
Riley went through Luke’s coat pockets. His cheeks burned red. He wouldn’t look Connor in the eye. ‘I didn’t say that. A lot of what you say sounds credible. We just don’t know anyone else who’s gone to Narrigh, or that other place you made up, I mean talked about…an-and you don’t have any proof.’
‘You mean Odisiris?’
‘Yeah,’ said Riley, with a slight eye roll. ‘There’s no mention of it anywhere in The Quest of Narrigh, not even in the backstory. And there are no Citizens. I made Toby check the game four times. And you don’t have any superpowers or indigo blood. I mean stuff like that doesn’t just disappear, right?’
‘Odisiris was mentioned in the game’s backstory. You saw it. And you’re only a Citizen in Narrigh not on Earth.’ What was Riley’s problem? The concept was simple enough.
Riley nodded. ‘You scrolled through that backstory so fast I didn’t see anything, did you?’
Connor frowned. He thought he had seen something about a dangerous artefact and another world mentioned in the script. He hadn’t been paying that much attention. He was sure Odisiris was mentioned in the story somewhere. ‘They could have changed the game’s backstory while I was gone.’
Riley didn’t argue with him. He sauntered to the filing cabinet. He rattled the drawer handle. ‘What if Luke’s taken his laptop with him?’
‘He never takes it anywhere with him, not since we got back. Try pulling it out.’
Riley wheeled out the cabinet. ‘Toby said Narrigh’s got a new expansion pack.’
‘That’s not a lot of help, Riley.’
Once he had finished looking in the sock drawer, Connor kicked up the rug. He got down on his knees and ran his fingers along the grooves in the floorboards. All were locked in place. He went through Luke’s drawers and delved into every box and bag he had rammed under his bed. He stood on a chair and checked on top of the wardrobe. He walked his fingers through the countless magazines and books on Luke’s bookshelf. The spare key was not hidden amongst any of them.
‘We could contact someone at Tridan Entertainment,’ said Riley.
‘And what would we say? Hello. I think your game kidnaps people.’
Connor found The Quest of Narrigh’s gaming guide shoved in the back of Luke’s bookshelf. He flicked through the ragged pages. He hadn’t a clue what he was looking for: races, factions, maps. Nothing stood out. It was what didn’t stand out that was the problem. There was nothing about a rift between the worlds of Odisiris and Narrigh. In fact, the guide didn’t mention Odisiris at all.
‘Found something,’ said Riley. He passed Connor a bunched-up piece of paper. ‘Looks like a phone number.’
‘It’s probably some girl’s number.’ Luke never had a problem getting girls. He had no idea why they were drawn to him. He was rude to most of them and only took them to the cinema and McDonald’s along with his friends.
Riley pulled on one of Luke’s hooded sweatshirts. ‘Ring and find out. If you’re going to do a recon, you have to follow up every lead. Dig.’
Connor sighed and smoothed out the ball of paper. He rang the London-based number from his mobile phone. A woman with a croaky voice answered. ‘Kane Brailey’s office. Can I help you?’
Brailey? That was his surname. Connor hesitated. The woman on the other end of the phone sounded official and business-like.
Riley gave him a nod of encouragement.
‘What’s the name of this office, please?’
‘Tridan Entertainment.’
‘Sorry wrong number.’ Connor stabbed the end call button.
‘So?’ said Riley. ‘Is it anything?’
‘It was Kane Brailey’s office.’
‘Who’s Kane Brailey?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never heard of him.’
Brailey wasn’t his mother’s maiden name, which meant that if this Kane Brailey was a relative, it would have to be on his dad’s side. He didn’t know any relatives on his dad’s side. His mum had said they didn’t have any. And his dad had walked out years ago, ‘when he was a baby,’ his mum had said.
Connor gazed out of the window, squinting against the sun’s glare. This wasn’t the kind of information he had expected to find. This was family busine
ss. Private family business that left him blindsided. ‘I’ll ask Luke about it later,’ he said.
Something funny was going on. People who he thought he could trust were keeping things from him. He slipped the paper into his pocket. ‘Keep digging. We need to find that key.’
FIVE
The following week on a cool September morning, Connor followed Luke into central London.
Despite dredging up Luke’s bedroom, he never found the spare key to his filing cabinet. Fortunately, another opportunity had arisen. Luke had left that morning with his laptop, something he had not done since returning from Narrigh.
This particular morning, Connor had watched Luke slot his laptop and charger into his bag as he made his way downstairs without having breakfast. Luke had a serious look on his face, more serious than usual, and his clothes were so creased he looked as if he had slept in them. Connor had been hunting for his football boots, in the mountain of footwear piled on the shoe rack in the hall, when his brother had walked out the front door, completely ignoring him, which wasn’t like Luke at all.
It was a Friday morning: a school day. Connor had left the house dressed in his school uniform. He caught the London underground to Liverpool Street station. He found it hard to keep Luke within his sights with all the people milling about, but he had a feeling he knew where Luke was heading, and it wasn’t school.
The train was packed with commuters on their way to work. Connor clung to a pole in the carriage aisle with his school rucksack swung over his shoulder. For most of the journey, he was trying to work out what he was going to say, or do when he caught up with his brother. Should he confront him about Kane Brailey or rather seek out the man himself?
The train pulled into Liverpool Street station with a loud screech. He spotted Luke from the back as he stepped onto the platform and edged his way towards the exit. He tried to jostle people out of the way. Everyone around him seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace.
