Chapter Twenty

Everything was gray. All that I could see was a dense, heavy fog that crept stealthily into my vision and hid any figures that might have been lurking in the vicinity. I was rooted to the spot in the midst of all that filmy nothingness, adjusting my blurry vision every few seconds and trying to remind myself that this was not real life. Because no matter how hard I drilled that fact into my mind, there was still a lingering fear of my odd blindness, and a solid conviction that wherever I was, I was not safe.

Though I was completely stationary, everything around me seemed to be in motion, swirling and shifting and distorting my senses until directions became nonexistent. The only thing I was certain of was that there was something solid beneath my feet, but the fog was so thick that I couldn't see my shoes, if I was even wearing any. I had arms, I had legs—I could feel them—but when I reached out, they were concealed in gray mist. And in my head, everything felt not quite there, a little dizzy, as if I'd stomached a few too many loop-d-loops on a theme park roller coaster. Thus, when I began to hear faint whispers in the back of my mind, I told myself that it was simply my spinning subconscious in action.

Until they got louder.

Focus, Parker, urged the whisper. This is your dream—your rules.

I squeezed my eyes shut and brought up my hand to pinch the bridge of my nose. That little guiding voice is generally supposed to know best, so I trusted its murmured words and, behind drooped lids, imagined that the fog was thinning.

Good, Parker, very good.

I peeled my eyes open very slowly, suddenly feeling incredibly exposed. It was that sensation of being watched, that pressure drifting over your shoulders that doesn't exist. I felt it deep in the rush of my bloodstream—the unmistakable feeling of eyes on me. It was an itch I couldn't scratch, and when I looked up to see nothing but gray again, its faint tickle spurred me to turn on my heel and greet the watcher behind me.

I found people and a voice.

The people registered first, because they were evidently visible. Blurry on the edges, sure, but still people nonetheless. It was a great crowd, dozens of bodies thick, just hundreds of humans milling around. Their destination seemed to be nonexistent; they wandered as one being, but with the listless steps of individuals.

The voice came back as I watched these people from some kind of elevated vantage point. It begun as low buzzing in the back of my head, like static on a radio, before almost seeming to tune itself until the electric feedback became words.

Can you hear me, Parker?

I glanced over my shoulder automatically, thinking that I was being addressed from somewhere behind me. But even as I whirled, I knew that I would find nothing—I knew that the voice was inside my head. And I knew, instinctively, whom it belonged to.

“Yeah. Hey, Laury,” I said, though I neither felt my lips move nor heard any audible trace of my voice. In comparison to the situation, my words sounded pedestrian and lame, but the fact that I was communicating with someone someone in the waking world made me slightly less concerned about being profound.

You're on a hill, observed Laury—or rather, her disembodied voice. You need to get off of it. Whatever you're looking for, it's down.

“You can see where I am.” It wasn't a question, and I didn't move from my place. “How?”

I'm inside your head, at the pit of your consciousness. I have, essentially, infiltrated your dreaming mind. Whatever you see, I see.

I blinked at that, slightly disconcerted by the idea of another person borrowing my eyes. I felt the sudden need to touch my face, just to make sure I was real. My skin felt slightly filmy, like gauze, but it was there. Maybe it was only the faux senses of a dreamer, but it was convincing enough.

Please tell me you're not just going to stand there and admire yourself, Laury snapped after a moment. We haven't got all day.

“Right.” I shook my head. “I'm on it.”

With light footfalls, I began to make my way down the hill. Each step seemed to hover a little bit off the ground, and though I knew that I was traveling down an incline, it felt for all the world like I was strolling across a completely flat surface. The only indication that I was actually moving was the fact that I was obviously getting closer to the crowd. Every time my feet met with the cloudy ground, I was one step lower, one step nearer, one little step closer to ending it all.

Remember, Parker, that this is all you, Laury said as I reached the people. Everything in this place is of your own creation, and you can control it as will.

Her words washed over me, and I made some sort of affirmative sound in the back of my throat as I merged with the crowd. Almost immediately, I felt a hundred pairs of eyes swivel toward me and rest on my face, blankly appraising this newcomer to their world.

My world, I corrected. This was my world, my dream—it didn't even exist. So, if I didn't want these people to look at me, all I had to do was wish their attention away.

Blink.

Just like that, all the endless bodies were strolling along again, their focus diverted in a fraction of a second. I thought I heard Laury mumbling some word of praise, but her voice was so quiet that I shelved it in the back of my mind and just kept walking.

As I ducked and elbowed my way through the fuzzy group, I once again became increasingly aware of a stare drilling into the back of my neck. I swallowed hard and willed it away, but the unseen gaze did not waver.

“Laury,” I mumbled, slowing down, “there's someone watching me.”

The medium swallowed—and odd sound to hear inside one's head—and replied, Turn around, then.

With some trepidation, I did as she said, cringing prematurely in anticipation of the worst. But rather than a deformed creature from the depths of my nightmares, I found that staring back at me was none other than Logan Dearborn.

“Laury,” I hissed.

This Logan was a dream creation too—I had to remind myself of that. Yet despite the soft light around his figure and the lack of recognition in his eyes, there was something more alive about him, as if he had been given another layer of solidity.

“Laury, why is he following me?” I asked clearly, not daring to break eye contact with the pale green eyes of this imaginary Logan.

It happens sometimes, Laury said, sounding frustrated, perplexed, and awed simultaneously. You're in control, but only because you've managed to put a leash on your subconscious. It still has some leeway, and occasionally it'll materialize the people and things that you need or want most.

“But I don't get it,” I replied, beginning to feel seriously uncomfortable with this confrontation. “I wasn't even thinking about him.”

The medium laughed brightly. Oh, but darling, this is your subconscious. It knows you better than you know yourself.

I chewed on my bottom lip, staring at the recreation of my best friend. That this wasn't the Logan who was furious with me, who had stormed out of my house less than an hour before; this was an illusion. But that was hard to fathom, especially when I saw the tips of his sneakers lifting as his toes curled in that old habit, or as I imagined that I could smell a whiff of his familiar toothpaste.

“What do I do?” I was aware that, though no words had actually left my lips, my voice sounded desperate. I took a step back, only to have a blank-faced Logan take a step forward. I shuffled backwards again, and we repeated this awkward dance until Laury broke the silence.

You need to keep going, Parker, Laury said. Do your best to ignore him and just find what you're looking for.

“Sure,” I said shakily, walking backwards and nervously licking my lips. To distract myself, I asked, “Just wondering, though, what exactly am I looking for?”

I could hear the smirk in Laury's voice. Oh, trust me, darling. You'll know.

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I kept walking. Logan kept following. I wound my way through the crowd and tried to ignore the feeling of his eyes on the back of my neck. After a while, I began to recognize random faces in the throng of people. Dr. Hennessy, girls from my old swim team, Stella from across the street. Every now and then they'd find their way into my vision, their gazes sweeping impassively over my features.

Time in dreams is always strangely distorted, sometimes freezing and sometimes catapulting forward at light speed. There were moments when I would blink and feel my consciousness fold around me, trying to pry the control of the dream out of my hands. Time would come to an infinitesimal standstill, and my legs would quiver like I'd just stepped aboard a rocking boat. It was a game of tug-of-war between two parts of my mind; a silent battle over lucidity. And all the while, as chaos filled my head and faces shimmered around me, Logan remained at my heels, a fact in the midst of all the unreality.

When I stepped, he stepped. When I froze, he did the same. It was in equal parts chilling and fascinating; reassuring and unnerving; eerie and completely unsurprising. A few times, quite abruptly, I felt this pull from behind me, some kind of magnetic attraction that begged me to turn around, run back to the completely imagined figure of my best friend. When that happened, Laury would murmur something in my head about continuing, and I'd sever the connection and trudge on.

That worked for a while—until out of the blue, everything began to fade. My vision became hazy and discolored, nearly blinding me, and the fog returned so completely that it blurred and muffled everything. All I knew was that Logan was still behind me, still standing there, still endlessly staring and driving me mad.

I didn't know where he was, where anything was, but I whirled around and around, a strange anger building in my chest. I heard Laury's distressed voice, demanding to know what I was doing, but I was hardly sure myself. I could only strike out blindly, furiously, and try to steal back the power that had been wrested away from me and was suddenly being used to turn my dream into a nightmare.

And then it went away.

Just like that: the fog, the fury, the fear; they all disappeared as quickly as they had come and left me there, standing not in the endlessly gray, crowded prison of before, but in a section of the woods behind my house. I knew this place well—everything down to the woodsy smells had been perfectly recreated in my mind.

I was facing a tree. Its bark and leaves were surprisingly clear, but I still knew it was a dream because of the way its gnarled trunk twisted and rose into infinity. That, and the omnipresent feeling of Logan's gaze, which seemed to have become a permanent fixture in this dreamland.

I sighed inwardly, staring down at my hands. From somewhere that seemed farther than before, Laury's faint voice trilled, Parker? What just happened? Where did you go?

“I didn't do anything,” I replied, annoyed. “It just happened. Can't you see me?”

I can't see anything, and I can hardly hear you. You've practically disappeared.

Those words made me straighten slightly, as all of a sudden, I felt the gazes on my back multiply. I heard a sharp intake of breath leave my lips, and Laury called my name.

Turn around, uttered a voice, this one different, foreign. Turn around.

Slowly, fearfully, I turned around, praying that the only figure I'd find behind me would be the same, emotionless Logan. But even as my feet shuffled across fallen pine needles, I knew it wouldn't be him. Not here, in this scene. When I made it all the way around, my suspicions were confirmed: no Logan. Instead, before me lay an endless expanse of shark-like grins, penguin suits, and a million pairs of ebony eyes.

“Laury,” I whispered, hardly daring to breathe. “They're here.”

They leered at me.

I heard a muttered expletive from Laury's end, then a long, calming breath. They're all in your head, Parker, she reminded me. This is imaginary. No matter how real it feels, it's your dream, your control.

My dream, my control.

I took a shaky breath, staring at the mass head on. These were the men from my nightmares, the ones who had haunted me day and night, taking it upon themselves to make my life hell. But here, for once, they weren't real. They were products of my imagination, and I had power over them all. So if I were to move my hand just there...

Let the little girl pretend she's in control.

I jumped back, having been assaulted once again by that smooth, low, unfamiliar voice. My fingers flew to the side of my neck, a habit even in my dreams, and I was imagined that there was a pulse. My heartbeat—strong and real even though it wasn't, a steady drumbeat that slowly, slowly calmed me down.

Deep breath in, deep breath out, and the monsters began to move. As I had previously intended, they began to spread apart, separating at the center to create a pathway between them. And while they moved, their bodies began to shift, morphing from humanoid figures into tall, looming shadows.

Another huge, gulping breath (these were becoming second nature), and I took a step forward, then another, scuffing the uneven ground with the heels of my shoes. Laury asked what I was doing and I told her, quietly, all the while keeping my eye on the shadows.

They parted like the Red Sea to Moses' staff, and I tried to forget that though they had spread, the figures were still here, encasing me in a semi-transparent tunnel. It's just a dream, I told myself again and again, as fear struck like lightning. I went so far as to close my eyes and wish that Logan would once again appear behind me. My thoughts were so shaky, though, that nothing happened.

At the end of the dense tunnel, the creatures had congealed to form a solid, dark wall. The beginnings of panic clawed at my throat and tinted my vision red with fear. I glanced behind me, anxious, to see that they were closing in behind me, trapping me. The already dim light became nearly pitch black, and my breath came in quick, terrified pants as the darkness shrunk and shrunk.

But there was a voice that spoke to me from the tiny niche in my brain that wasn't breaking down. Maybe it was Laury; maybe it was of my own creation. It reminded me calmly that this was just a dream, that this nightmare was my invention, and was therefore subject to my destruction. And it told me, in a firm, irrefusable tone, that all I needed to do was run.

It seemed to almost pilot my movements, because a second later, I was leaping forward, straight into the center of the unearthly barrier. A shriek tore from my lips as a heartbreaking chill rushed into my bones. I pressed my hands over my eyes until I hit the ground again with a yelp. Thankfully, I had enough sense to mentally soften the earth beneath me.

For a moment I simply lay there, contained in a self-inflicted darkness, catching my breath. It's a strange thing, to have your eyes closed in a dream: you can see everything inside your head, all the swirling thoughts and emotions, connected by a glistening channel that stretches between sleep and reality.

But I had to get up eventually, and when I did, I found myself alone. I was still in the woods, bathed in its dim light, but the shadows had dispersed. All that was left of them was a residual chill in the air.

I lifted my head and saw, mounted on a tree at eye level, an oval mirror that matched the one Rose's necklace. It was tarnished on the edges and the reflection was slightly distorted from grime, so I had to look closer to see myself. Except it wasn't my image that I saw, staring out from the glass; it was that of Rosemary, my long dead sister, matching my movements to a T. She wore the mirrored charm around her neck.

“I found it,” I breathed to Laury, tilting my head and watching my sister mimic the action. It was her, most definitely. I stared straight at her eyes to see if there was any recognition, but she remained stoic, as if she was only a projection.

What is it? Laury questioned, still unable to see.

“A mirror.” I reached out to touch the flaking gold paint on the sides, losing sight of my sister to inspect it more carefully. “The mirror, actually,” I amended, and scratched at the surface until dry paint got under my nails. “What do I do with it?”

Destroy it, was the medium's immediate answer. Find something heavy and break it into pieces. It needs to be completely obliterated.

I swallowed hard, trying not to think of shattering Rosemary's face. “Right,” I said. “Not a problem. Let me just find—”

I froze mid-sentence, because suddenly, another icy wave swept through me. I felt utter fear—not the panicky kind, but the kind that seeped in so slowly that it shocked me into placidity. With slow, measured breaths, I leaned back and returned my focus to the mirror. Now, instead of Rosemary, it was in fact my impassive face that filled the mirror. But over my left shoulder, close enough to touch, stood another figure. A familiar, chilling, unmistakable figure.

It was the auburn-haired boy, spun from nothingness and without my consent. He lingered there, in my dream, a supposed figure of my imagination. He wasn't meant to be real, not here, where everything was under my control. Yet although I willed him to disappeared, he stayed in place, unmoving. A fact, not a pawn.

His abysmal eyes met mine in the mirror, their pull almost magnetic in nature. The darkness, though repulsive, seemed to draw me in effortlessly. From somewhere that I could no longer fathom, I heard Laury shouting my name. A shiver of dread snaked up my spine.

And the monster smiled.

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Dedicated to Alyssa for the fab-u-lous banner on the side right there.

A/N: Sometimes I feel like this story is turning into a bad horror movie. You guys would tell me if it was, right?