Daydream (ONC 2024)

Chapter 11: Dream Within a Dream

Darkness swirled above me as I lay on a futon in one of dozens of spare rooms in Xin's castle. Climbing down the mountain wasn't possible until the sun rose, so we'd decided to stay the night, but sleep was far from my mind. Again. Every time I closed my eyes I imagined a different face of horror. Ray's despair as Sven melted into a silver goo that stuck to everything I touched. Faella's screams as Lexington burned to ash that suffocated me. Cries of a little girl with no face as I came to end her life.

"Trouble sleeping?" Kearo's voice projected through the paper door that divided our rooms, and I sat up on my floor futon as the thin wood slid open. On the other side, Kearo sat in some flannel pajamas that had my smile near reaching my ears. "Knock it off. It's all he had." Kearo darted a hand out to mess up my hair, and in the darkness, I never saw it coming. .

"Aw, come on," I grumbled as I fought his hand back.

With the lanterns outside shining through the doors, I could just make out the shine of his blue eyes as he leaned into my room. I scooted over so he could join me, and he plopped onto the futon with his head on my second pillow and his arms folded behind his head. I slid back down, and we lay like that, me under the blankets and him on top of them until I couldn't take the silence.

"Hey, Kearo?"

"Yeah?" he turned his face toward me, but I couldn't look him in the eyes with what I wanted to ask.

"You felt when I reached my power for you, right?"

"Yes."

"So why didn't you come?" The silence following my question had my ears ringing.

"Do you want an honest answer or the words of your Guardian?" Kearo tilted his head and in the dim light I caught his lopsided smile, but the tilt of his eyebrows that shadowed his eyes told me there was no happiness in it.

"The truth would be nice. I'm not in middle school anymore." I turned in my blankets so I could face him when he talked, though I could only see his outlines in the dark—the pitch of his brow, the bridge of his nose, and the shine of his eyes as they flickered open and shut.

"I woke much as you did," Kearo said up to the ceiling in his calm tone. "Working my normal construction job, but with my eyes cast heavenward. Stars sparkled in the sky brighter than I could have ever imagined, masses swirling like swarms of migrating birds, and the scent of pine overpowered my senses from the forest edge. Each brush of the wind against my skin was so tactile that I didn't notice that I'd allowed it to lift me until I fell flat on my face."

Kearo chuckled and so did I as he lifted the blanket edge and scooted under it next to me.

"It was a lot to take in. I wandered, soaring through the air over a world foreign to me that stretched endlessly into the horizon. Below I saw the effects on humanity, how they clustered in hovels with suppressed consciousness, but also the beauty of these mountains in the distance, the bizarre foliage and wildlife surrounding all of it, as well as the people who were more awake than others, thriving with magics that emulated the deepest hopes of their souls.

"I know you think of me as this unshakable protector, but even I am susceptible to weakness of the heart. When you called to me, I should have gone, but I wasn't in a good state of mind. If I went to you, if I touched you" —Kearo's hand hovered near my cheek as a shadow— "then this became real. So I kept my distance as you made your way out of the bunker and searched for a way back to the real world."

Kearo's hand fell back to the futon, and he continued in a lower tone.

"I didn't understand your desperation to return to a place so dismal. I'm was a selfish person, I suppose, less concerned about those who weren't strong enough to thrive here and, quite frankly, frightened of what we would lose. I didn't want my feelings to negatively affect you, so I kept my distance as you gathered friends and journeyed on.