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Nora~~

Some say dreams are visions from God. Others say they're neurons firing in our brains. I say they're both.

As Dad and I walk through the woods, the humidity thick and dampening my new business-casual attire, I hold out my hands in front of me. Ten fingers. Ten thin, slightly crooked fingers.

Dad claims dreams are the latter, but after five years of therapy to help me with my own dreams, I've found I'm unable to take his stance.

"Keep up, Nora," he says from up ahead where he stands in a patch of shade. I've lived in the same town in South Carolina for all of my life. If I didn't think it was a good idea to venture this far into the woods when I was eight, I'm not finding it any wiser at sixteen and dressed in a satin blouse.

Dirt clings to my flats, and I'm grateful Dad told me to change out of heels right before we walked out the door. He's never taken our one car to work, leaving it for Mom, but I didn't think he walked through the woods to get there.

I've had to count my fingers five times since we've left just to convince myself that I'm not dreaming.

I do my best to keep up. Dad knows the terrain of this path like the back of his hand and his dress shoes don't threaten to slip off his feet with every step like my flats do.

"Are we far enough from any sort of civilization that you can tell me now?"

Shaking his head, he braces his hand against the bark of a tree for only a few seconds, pausing to take a breath. "Your boss will do a better job explaining than I would."

Dad's always kept his job a secret from me and my two siblings and for as long as I can remember, I've known that when I turned sixteen, I would be going to work with him. Keagan, my brother, and I have tossed theories around, most fantastical and wild. A drug lord. A crime lord. A superhero—a favorite theory of mine from when I was eight. A monster hunter: that was Keagan's.

I catch up with Dad, keeping right behind him to watch how his feet navigate the ground.

Even though he's my father, I want to scold him for walking by himself every day, a task that has been frowned upon for decades. A twig crunches under my foot. I shouldn't be surprised. Both of my parents have made me walk to and from school with only Keagan for company once he was old enough to join me at the high school.

Ahead there's a clearing in which sunlight pours.

It's in that empty clearing that Dad comes to a stop.

"We're here."

My heart sinks at the same time that it starts to race. Dad's either led me into the woods and is planning to abandon me or he's discovered an impossible magical portal to a fairy realm that he's about to open.

A hand taps me on the shoulder, and I yelp, whirling around.

Coming face to face with the culprit has my brows narrowing even as I fight off a laugh. Aaron, who I will go to my grave swearing is the cutest boy in my grade—not hot—just heart-meltingly cute, grins at me. Blond hair, blue eyes, and all the manners of a South Carolina boy. Cliché? Very. I hated myself the moment I felt butterflies in my stomach. Our dads work together, and we've spent the semester comparing our notes and theories about what we think it is that they do. There was also a period when he believed his dad was a superhero.

Aaron's dad, Mr. Martin, walks past mine and presses his hand against the air as if he's a mime trapped in a box. There's a ripple throughout the clearing, a seam being bent, followed by a streak of light that's a little taller than him. The light spreads outward, revealing a room with dark walls and light floors. Inside, people mill about.

Aaron swears, and if his dad were to have heard, he'd be in trouble.

No. No. Tell me his dad didn't actually end up opening a portal into a fairy realm.

As I near the doorway, I can see that there's something unnatural about the air around it.

Dad comes alongside me. "They're screens."

Inside, the floors are made of a white marble, the walls a deep blue, almost black. At the back center of the room is a receptionist desk that seems to have sprouted up out of the floor. A woman with pale skin and jet-black hair sits behind it. She's almost a reflection of the room itself. The smile she gives us is framed by plum lipstick. It's to her that our dads lead us.

People exit the lobby—for that seems to be what this is—from two hallways on opposite ends of the room. Some wear pristine white lab coats. Others are dressed in business casual like myself. A few spare us a glance or two while the rest are focused on each other or their holoscreen tablets.

The woman behind the desk eyes Aaron and me in a manner that makes my skin crawl.

She doesn't look at us like we're two sweaty teenagers, but rather a gift—a prize, and it hits me that I have no idea where I am right now. No one besides those in this room knows how to find me.

"The other ten have already arrived." Her accent isn't a southern one that I'm used to. I can't place it, though I'm certain it's an American one.

I know I should smile at her like Aaron does, should try to make good first impressions today, but I can't—not with the way she looks at us.

She taps on the holoscreen of her computer. "I'll call Doctor Cobbs. He should be here in about a minute."

Dad lays his hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. He stares at me, long and hard, as if memorizing my face. Finally, he lets go and says for me to have a seat with Aaron. He has to get to work.

As disappointment curls in my gut, I make my way to the chairs lined up against the wall, Aaron on my heels. I'd been certain that whatever Dad's job was, he'd show me the ropes, give me the grand tour when I finally learned the truth.

I work my fingers through my hair. The humidity got to it and now there are tangles to be sorted through. "My mom cried this morning," I say once we're both seated.

Aaron shrugs. "Both of my dads did. We're just growing up. You know it's harder on parents than it is for us."

Drawing my hands out of my hair and into my lap reveals strands of curly brown hair threaded through my fingers. I brush them away before Aaron notices. "None of this feels off to you?"

Aaron lifts a light brown eyebrow. "Sure, the location is off putting—"

"Nora Everley," a deep masculine voice says. I look up and find a man in jeans and a blue collared shirt staring down at us, his skin a sepia, reddish-brown, and his hair cut short. "I'm Doctor Cobbs." He holds out his hand to Aaron who stands. "And you are?"

"Aaron," he says shaking the outstretched hand.

Cobbs's dark eyes flick back to me. "I know you've both waited long enough to find out what it is your parents do. I don't wish to delay your discovery any longer. If you would both come with me." Cobbs holds out his arm toward the hallway to the right.

As we follow him, the hallways start to feel endless when with every step I know I'm putting myself closer to the truth—a truth that will either be delightful or—as I'm starting to suspect—jarring.

Cobbs rushes us past a doorway that reveals what looks like a warehouse. There are beds that look like they belong in a doctor's office and people sleeping. I don't have time to process anything else in the room before we're continuing down the hallway, whisked away from the room.

"What was that?" Aaron asks.

"The Hall" is the only explanation Cobbs offers.

A few twists and turns later, Cobbs brings us to a stop in front of an open door. The walls are made of what looks to be grayish-blue sheets of metal, the floors a slightly lighter shade than the walls. A man, middle-aged and dressed impeccably in dress pants and a white shirt that draws the eye against the dark blue colors of the room, stands in front of a desk. His pine-green eyes land on me as Aaron and I enter the room.

Across from him are three levels of desks. The desk on each row stretches across most of the room. The ten teenagers the woman at the front desk mentioned are spread out along them. Aaron and I easily find room in the second row beside one another, the hair on my neck standing up the whole time.

As I face forward, I find the man still staring.

"What's your name?" His tone comes across as bored.

"Nora—"

"I already know who you are, Miss Everley."

After Aaron introduces himself, the man claps his hands together to call for attention as if we all weren't already focused on him.

"Now that we're all here"—smiling, he holds out his palms and gives a slight shrug—"let's begin. I am Doctor Richard Pace. Welcome to OneirTech, one of the few companies entirely devoted to the scientific study of dreams. Does anyone know what the correct terminology for that is?"

One teen makes a joke about it being called dreamology, which earns him a few snickers but not from me or Doctor Pace.

For all those years that I was in therapy for having difficulty distinguishing between what was real and what was a dream, Dad was working for a company that studies them.

Pace's mouth twitches. "Oneirology. My family founded OneirTech in the year 2002. We celebrated our eightieth anniversary a few years ago. We study what it looks like inside of a dream from both perspectives. From within and without. Your job is to go to sleep and dream."

Some might say I've just won the lottery of jobs—to spend my weekends sleeping. I'm inclined to disagree.

"When you begin dreaming, you will be in a world with others, including those around you."

I flex my fingers, itching to bolt.

"We sleep in that room?" a girl in the front asks. "With all the beds?"

Pace doesn't look at her, his gaze fixed on me. "Yes, Miss Dacy. You'll be linked into a machine called the Hub. My great-grandfather invented it, and it's what makes it possible for you all to dream together. To live inside the dream."

My heart misses a beat, and I feel the breakfast Mom insisted on making me start to come up. I swallow it back down, cringing as the acid burns my throat. Live?

Aaron on my left flicks his eyes my way, while the boy on my right fiddles with his thumbs. "What exactly do you mean by live?" the boy asks.

Taking a deep breath, Pace shuts his eyes, and as he does so, I gain a moment of reprieve from his heavy stare. "We will watch you while you are in the dream to see what the dream world looks like for someone who is not asleep. My oneirologists and I have designed the dream to make you feel like you're in the real world. Time passes just as time out here does, and you won't remember where you are when you are dreaming." He cocks his head, his eyes back on me, a slight smirk on his lips. "Isn't that right, Nora?"

I clench my hands, hiding my fingers. "Yes?"

"I hope you disappoint me, Nora." He's silent for a few seconds, his eyes distant before he snaps back into focus, a grin spreading across his face as he takes in the other teens. "Now I will take questions."

The boy on my right asks his again.

Pace ignores it. "Any other questions?"

The girl who spoke earlier in the front row raises her hand. Her noirette hair is braided back into cornrows that reach the bottom of her shoulder blades.

"Yes, Miss Dacy?"

"How long will we sleep for? Do we go home tonight and come back tomorrow morning or will we remain asleep for the weekend? My dad told me I'd be back in time for my play tonight. He said he already let someone know."

His lips turn down into a frown. "You'll only be sleeping here once."

A chill runs up my spine. I need to get out now.

The boy on my right huffs out a laugh. "That's all?"

"Of course, that one time will be for the rest of your life."

Hello! I've finally finished the rewrite and edits of Asleep, and I'm excited to share it with you! For those who don't know, this is the first novel I ever wrote and is what inspired my love of writing. It's been through many rewrites and has even won some awards. So count those fingers and let's go on a journey.

~Mikaela