The Children of Hypnos

Chapter 12: Too Real

It took Emery four more windows to realize that moving through them was the only way to move through the Dream. If they avoided the windows, saving themselves the confusion of going in and out and in again, they didn't advance. The landscape around them always stopped at some point, like a very convincingly-painted room. They would try to walk in one direction only to find the sparse scenery repeating itself and the same dream windows passing them by. When they went through the windows, they always came out in a new place, slightly different from the place before. More plants. Different plants. Moist earth. A stream. A tree. Rocks.

"Maybe even this isn't moving forward," Wes said after they tumbled out of the tenth window. "Maybe the Dream just wants us to think we're moving forward. It's changing the scenery around us but we're always in the same spot."

Emery didn't want to think about it. She had no idea how long they'd been there, but her stomach ached, her head throbbed, and the relief of finding Wes had worn off three windows ago. It helped to think of the Dream as an annoying detour, a place not to escape but to endure until they eventually found their way out, because the alternative was thinking of it as it actually was: a vicelike acid trip of a nightmare, endless and complex in its pursuit of their memories. The Dream wanted them to forget like a dog wanted the stuffing out of a chew toy.

Window nineteen was another chase, this time with a large worm-type creature that whipped and railed at them until Wes pinned its tail with his hammer and Emery shot it seven times in different spots. They jumped from that window, exhausted, and fell straight into the next.

It was a living room, crowded with furniture and lit by a small table lamp. Wes landed on hands and knees; Emery managed to stay on her feet for a second, then collapsed next to him.

"What kind of nightmare is this?" Emery sat up and leaned against a stack of old newspapers. The carpet was sticky, burned in spots, and stamped down. It reeked of chain-smoked cigarettes. The blinds were drawn. Ashes spilled from a dead fireplace, around which were crowded a moth-eaten couch, armchairs, and a graveyard of broken children's toys and lawn ornaments. Against one wall was a bookshelf full of homemade VHS tapes, each neatly labeled with a six-digit date. One door led, presumably, to the outside of the house. The small window at the top was taped over with more newspaper. On the other side of the table lamp was a closet door made of wooden slats, and the wall adjacent to the fireplace opened onto a dark hallway.

Wes's knees popped as he pushed himself to his feet. "I don't know, but I hope it's easy to leave."

Emery tried the door with the newspaper over the window. Locked. Behind the newspaper was a lone streetlamp guarding against the night. The street was silent. Wes tried the slatted door--also locked--then moved for the dark hallway.

A man rushed through it and ran straight into him. The man, small and pale and weedy, stared with openmouthed shock at Wes, then Emery, until a door slammed somewhere in the darkness.

"You have to hide!" he whispered. He grabbed Wes and shoved him toward the second locked door. It was a closet, and the man opened it without a problem. He pushed Wes inside, then grabbed Emery and shoved her in afterwards. She didn't have the strength to fight him, not because she was tired, but because his fingers threatened to crush her bicep. He moved Emery and Wes around like rag dolls, stuffed them in the closet together, and shut the door.

Light slanted into the closet. Emery tried to push her way out. The door wouldn't open.

"Break it down," she said to Wes.

He shook his head. "Wait."

Through the slats, Emery watched the thin man back up against a ratty armchair and the wall of VHS tapes. Two other men came around the corner from the dark hallway. One wore a t-shirt with the sleeves torn off; the other, a flannel shirt. They were both big, bigger than the thin man, and both pale. Emery could just barely see the sweat on the back of their necks.