The Dreaming: Dark Star (Book 5)

Old Shalon's journey begins

Old Shalon:

I woke up with a start from a bad dream. Something about a young girl in the desert—some girl surviving alone in the desert. You know, I've had these dreams since I was a young girl—it's always the same. It's always a different dream, but it's the same setting and the same young girl, although sometimes she's a different age. It's always... bad. It's not bad like things are bad now, it's really bad. It's post-post apocalyptic bad.

The world is unrecognisable. But there are still people alive. They're struggling to survive. Not in the privileged way we struggle now, but really truly struggling. No food, no water, no books, no nothing. It makes my life look like a walk in the park.

I always thought these dreams were just dreams—a figment of my disturbed imagination. But now, after everything that's happened in the last week and everything I've learned—I start to think that maybe, somehow, it's not just a dream. It's the future, a future. Perhaps it's the future that Blue Jay is trying to prevent. So the question becomes: who is that young girl? I always thought she was a representation of myself. Like an inner child or some bullshit like that. But if the dreams are the future, then that girl is someone who lives in the future. So why the hell am I dreaming about her? How the hell am I dreaming about her? And how the hell have I been dreaming about her since I was a child? [This is boring! Make it a dialogue!]

"I don't know," Lyle answered, shaking his head. "You'll have to ask Blue Jay. I'm not the guy with the answers—he is."

"You keep saying that—you keep talking about this guy like he's the Wizard of f#cking Oz. But listen here—my name is not Dorothy! And I don't have no goddamned ruby slippers."

Lyle started laughing. "Haha—yeah and I don't see no goddamned yellow brick road, either, but we still have to make our way over there." Lyle pointed in the distance, across the water to the downtown core.

"Well, I'm not ready to do this, but I don't see that I have any other choice in the matter. So how do you propose we do this, then?"

"Well, I heard we might be able to pass over the old Cambie Street Bridge."

"You heard? From who?"

Lyle shrugged.

"Oh, let me guess—Glenda the Good f#cking Witch of the North floated down on a bubble and whispered it in your ear."

Lyle snickered. "Man—you're funny, you know that?" he asked after a minute.

"Well, I'm glad I amused someone." I wiped a grin off my face. "So you think we should check it out?"

"Yup," he mused. "I reckon so."

"Okay, well let's ship out then."

"Okay," he answered, looking around his apartment, like he was thinking about what he should take.

"You ready for this?" I asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders and when he looked at me there were tears in his eyes. "Ready as I'm ever gonna be."

I looked around too—it was a well-cared for place and the artwork amounted to an entire life's work. I couldn't imagine how he could leave. I myself never would have left if the bastards hadn't stolen everything from me.

I got up with a groan and walked down the hall with Nicole trailing close behind. "Give me a hand," I told her—and I lowered myself down into the fray of children chilling in the sun in the backyard.

"We're moving on out now," I told them, so get your shit together.

The kids looked at me with blank faces. They didn't have any shit to get together. They were products of this mess—they weren't like me and Lyle, collecting memories of a dead era. They lived day to day. They didn't live in the past or the future. They survived every day by being in the present. They spent each day scrounging or stealing food. They spent each night trying to keep warm. Some of them, like Money and Nike, had a stash, but most of them lived with just the clothes on their backs.

I looked at their gaunt, expressionless faces as they all stared up at me, waiting for me to explain myself. They hadn't eaten anything, but they weren't complaining. "You're good kids," I said out loud. 

A few grinned, but many still just stared at me.

"Let's get going," Lyle said from behind me.

This jolted everyone, including me out of our trance, and kids started crawling through the blackberry bushes to the alley outside.

Me and Nicole and Lyle went last. We started walking down 25th until we reached Cambie and then we headed North, to the bridge.

Vancouver is a hilly city, but it was downhill all the way to the bridge. When we reached Cambie and Broadway, Nike tugged at my shoulder.

"What?" I asked her.

She pointed at a hill in the distance up Broadway near Main. And that's where I saw a group of twenty or thirty children. They must have just seen us as well, because they started running like a horde towards us.

"Oh Jesus," I said.

"What?" asked Lyle.

I pointed.

"Oh Jesus," he repeated my sentiment. It was difficult not to be afraid although I knew they probably only wanted to come with us. People one on one I can deal with, but groups of people—groups of children especially are difficult to guage. Scenes of Lord of the Flies popped into my head. [*Like what?]

The child-horde arrived panting, red-faced and too breathless to speak.

Finally a young boy wheezed, "We want to come with you."

"Where in Sam's blazing hells do you think we're going?" I asked the group.

The boy who seemed to represent the horde shrugged his shoulders. "We heard there's a community over there." He said the word 'community' like 'Ka-moon-ity.'

"Community, eh?" I copied him. "Where'd you hear this from?"

"I don't know, it's been goin' round."

I looked at Lyle.

"What choice do we have really?" he asked.

I turned back to the kids. "Okay, fine. You can come—but don't expect anything from us. We're not feeding you. Got it?"

"Got it!" the boy said, beaming. "You heard that?" he yelled to everyone behind him. "We can go!"

A cheer rose up.

For a moment everyone was happy and it infected me as well. I smiled at Nicole, who squeezed my hand.