The Catcher's Dreams (FEATURED)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - pt. 3 of too many colors to count

"I'm gonna scream," Drake told the Ayis. "I'm gonna be in a lot of pain. But don't do anything, okay?"

"That sounds like a choice," Crooked Mouth said. "No. It is our job to ensure your well-being."

"Don't do anything," Drake said.

The Ayis shuffled discontentedly.

"Good." Drake leaped up the stairs, two at a time. They creaked good luck.

"Thanks," he said to them and the applauding air. He entered his bedroom, feeling the shadows of wasps poke through his subconscious again. No. However hard they stung, he would keep on going.

"Hello," he said, walking to his desk and peering down at the mirrored rock. "Together we'll do something great." His glow clustered into view, full of specks and blobs of different color. "Come on." He took a deep breath, opened his fist, and spread his palm over the entire surface of the rock. He then proceeded to emit a thin screech. The wasps stung his hand like a chorus. Smoke wafted.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths helped him get in the glows quicker. There was a slight popping sensation whenever he'd collected one bit of glow, and his hand would pulse with color. The smoke, which he expected to have a smell of burning flesh, smelled like the glows he was slowly collecting.

He felt a small ping of success jolt through his ocean of pain, electrifying it for a second, whenever he felt a popping sensation, his hand pulsed, and the smoke's smell changed a bit. Lemons. He smiled – a bitten-lip smile. Lavender honey. Caramel apples. Miniature marshmallows heated in a microwave. They were all slowly going. In a little screen in his mind he could almost picture the glowless people blinking, confused, and then getting their lives back.

Slowly, the pain melted into whiteness and he shut his eyes. He couldn't really smell anything anymore, or even feel those pulses. Where were the pulses? It was all white, white, and noise. White noise.

At some point he heard a scuffle downstairs and a flock of voices in Sichuan dialects. At another point, there was a laugh of excitement from beyond the wall. They were arrows steaming with color, piercing through his whiteness. Those were the things that helped him keep going.

"I'm just going to pause for a second," he muttered to himself, opening his eyes. His hand was numb and stuck to the rock's mirrored surface, even when he tried to pry it off. His glow was considerably smaller and the blobs of color pulsed in place instead of having to have to wiggle around each other. His palm was like a vacuum, pulling on the shape of the colored blobs until they shot into it with a gentle pop. It didn't even hurt anymore, but the room was full of dusty smoke. Drake coughed. The smoke wasn't coming out of his hand, just loitering about. Soon there were only three blobs left – mattress-crisp white, a worn-out gold, and black. He forgot who had the black glow.

The creamy mattress white, pulled like taffy, gave in. The smoke smelled like salami.

Then the gold. The air blushed to white roses ubiquitous among autumn backyard bushes.

Stop!

Drake blinked. "Mama?" He wasn't sure if it was even her voice.

Drake... The voice was sobbing. Whatever you do...don't take the last bit of your glow, please.

"Why?" Drake asked.

And then everything disappeared from view.

A beach, broken from shards of contrasting dark glass and pink marble, groaned below a half-smile sun. The sky was eggshell white.

Drake wanted to ask what was happening, but he couldn't find his mouth. Even when he tried to claw at his face with his hands. Then he found out he didn't have hands.

He could feel the unbearable coldness, though. Was the sun not working?

There were two people standing on the far end of the beach, wearing long, shimmering trench coats, dull in color but catching the reflection of light off the waves and playing with that light like a kaleidoscope. One was shorter than the other, with raven-wisp hair. Mama. And the other – tall, with hair that was a question between gold, silver, and white.

Drake squinted. The tall figure's trench coat billowed, revealing a surprisingly plain shirt and pants underneath.

Father?

Then a third figure appeared, short and awkward, trench coat miniature but still unfitting: long and spilling in the sand. Dark hair unkempt, the third figure clung at the bottom of Father's coat. Mama offered her hand, and the third figure took it.

Because that's not just someone else's dreams...those are the last of your dreams. You've seen what happens to people whose dreams get taken away, haven't you?

Drake looked down at the mirrored rock, seeing the smoke dissipate before his vision. The rock gave him an adamant stare. The blackness inched closer to his fingers, an impatient wriggling fish at a carnival game. Drake's eyes hardened.

"No, Mama," he said. "I won't end up like them."

How do you know? You're taking away your own glow! Your dreams! She was feverish again.

"I'm not taking away my dreams," Drake said firmly, pressing his numb fingers closer to the rock with his other hand. "My dreams are coming true."

There was a small flash of passing sunlight. The smoke applauded. The black smudge turned into the shape of the wriggling fish it was and flew up into Drake's fingers. His veins shadowed. Dog food filled the smoke. Drake pulled his hand away, releasing the last of the smoke. The surface of the rock dulled. Drake fell to his knees, looking at his hand. It wasn't blistering like last time, but gleaming a marble-white.

Out of the fog of Drake's mind, the darkened shape emerged. It was a dragon, breathing fire to clear its way. The fog caught fire and disappeared into a gentle splattering of raindrops, which then dissipated into nothingness. Drake's mind finally felt clear.

Far away, a man stopped sitting and went to find his daughter.

Far away, a boy with a violin came out to his parents.

Far away, an ant that fell into a hole in the concrete, a hole full of leaves, got up on its spindly little feet.

Close by, a girl now had two cats and a mother – but not a brother. (But who needed a brother when you had two cats and a mother?)

And here, a dragon of a boy, who had done a bit more than simply wake up, fell to the ground and into a blissfully dreamless sleep.