Spliced

Amanda felt no discernible difference having stepped back through the door with the dreamwalking rune on it. She was relieved to find Kass and Sirius were still with her as well. They all released hands.

“So, onward then? To find the others?” Sirius asked.

Amanda gave a short nod.

Kass turned and started back the way they had come. Sirius followed.

Amanda paused and turned the other way, thinking she’d heard a sound coming from further down the corridor. But when no other sounds followed she shook her head and figured she’d just imagined it. She turned back and followed the other two.

As she walked she started to feel strange. At first her hearing changed. The footsteps on the hard wood floor ahead, and the creaks of the floorboards, all started to fade, as if she were listening underwater. Then even the air around her seemed as if her balance weren’t quite right, like the world was tilting. For a second she was worried she might faint so she paused and considered calling out for Sirius. But when she stopped it all seemed to click back together like a digital camera finding it’s focus. The words died on her tongue.

Then a second passed and it all went wonky again and faster this time. She watched as wall started to melt. She didn’t panic, not yet. She focused on feeling the ground beneath her feet. She reached out a hand to steady herself against the wall but it vanished before she could touch it.

Before her, the others vanished until there was nothing but a winding path ahead and an empty blue sky above. She closed her eyes, then realising that made it worse, that she could feel no consistent gravity, she opened them again. For a little while, as everything shifted, she felt sick.

'Relax, it’s just a dream,' she reminded herself, guessing that they’d never left the room at all, or perhaps they’d never even entered it. This she was sure was the dreamworld. Somewhere deep inside, that terrified her, but she tried to suppress the feeling. She knew the sorts of horrors this place contained, and she also knew that many of them fed off fear.

As she forced herself to relax, the dizzy feeling lessened somewhat. Then the world started to harden again, to build an image.

She found herself home, back in her own house, on the second floor, with a disconcerting feeling of deja vu and not entirely sure that this wasn’t the real world.

‘No, it’s a dream. Remember, it’s a dream,’ she told herself. It was important not to forget, although in this moment she wasn’t sure quite why.

The world started to shift again but she pushed back.

'No, stay here. This is fine.' She knew the dreamer always had some say. Dreamwalkers and dreamwalking power may be able to manipulate and shape this reality for others, but a part of this world belonged to the dreamers themselves, and Amanda was determined to keep as much control over what she saw as she could. Evil walked this world, predators hunted prey, but as long as she recognised where she was, Amanda felt she still retained some power. This reality was hers. These walls were hers. They were fragile. She knew. She felt it, but for now they were hers.

She took a hesitant step along the hallway. She stopped at the top of the stairs, glanced along the hallway to the room that both was Gemma’s and wasn’t. Her eldest daughter’s room. From deep within she heard a baby start to cry.

She started toward the call but another sound behind her stopped her. It was coming from the bathroom at the end of the hall. The room opposite her youngest’s. The shatter of glass on tile. Movement, shifting weight, creaking footsteps. The door swinging in. It creaked too even though it never did in real life. No, their bathroom hinges at home were well-oiled. But this was not home. Amanda needed to remember that.

She felt something was wrong but she didn’t know what. Didn’t know which way to go. In here did it even matter?

She started toward the bathroom, feeling some protective need to defend the baby, keep her grandchild safe. Except it wasn’t her grandchild. Not in here. She knew that, but she didn’t feel it.

She took another step, afraid of what she might find in the bathroom. Feeling like she already knew.

Another step.

She could hear growls now, soft but unmistakable. A snarl. A shuffle.

She took the last two steps to the door in two quick strides and there at the edge of the room she paused. Lily stood in front of the bathroom mirror. A shattered glass cup lay at her feet. In her hand she held one shard.

Amanda couldn’t see her face but the child was wearing a singlet and the state of her arms was easily visible. Her skin was discoloured, pale with patches of green and purple. It was flaking off, as if someone had taken a cheese grater to a fish.

In this moment Amanda was thankful that, as it was, she could not smell. There the illusion ended. But smell is such a small sense for many, all but ignored, except for when it overwhelms us. Without it the other senses take over. Amanda did not usually pay attention to her nose, and here the sight alone was enough to horrify.

Lily turned. One eye hung from it’s socket. Her mouth was rimmed red with blood. Was it hers or someone else's?

Down the hall the baby cried again, a shrill fearful cry.

Amanda turned toward it, heart wrenching. There was something wrong. Someone with it. She looked a moment too long for when she turned back to Lily the girl had already covered half the ground between them and was coming in fast.

Amanda took a frightened step backward and then she was falling. Darkness whipping by. She shut her eyes. She felt herself speeding up. There was nothing beneath her feet. Nothing where the ground should have been. She prayed for it to stop. For a soft landing. For a reaching hand. For anything. She screamed for Cat first because in here who else could possibly hear her? Then for Sirius on the off chance he was close. She didn’t know enough of how the dreamworld worked when others were in it. She didn’t know how to find someone. She didn’t even know where she was.

She screamed for Cat again and she considered creating a flame to ward back the darkness, but she didn’t dare. This wasn’t like when Cat had pulled her into Katrina’s dream. She couldn’t feel an edge that told her how to get back. In here she was well and truly lost. She couldn’t trust that any flame she created now would only be in here. This wasn’t any ordinary dream.

“Help! Cat?” She spoke to the darkness, both out loud and with her thoughts. She did not yell anymore now. Now she felt that would do nothing but bring Them, the ones that lived in the darkness. dreamweavers, nightmares, sandmen, and others whose names she did not know.

She felt her fall slow but still she flailed in the air, no ground beneath her feet.

“Help,” she whispered, quieter now. “Cat. Sirius. Somebody...” the last word trailed of her lips, lost. There was no echo, no substance to the air. She felt like she was spinning as if caught on a rope, only there was no rope and no direction of pull. And then quite suddenly she felt ground beneath her arms and hips. Soft soil like in a garden that had just been planted.

She pushed her hands in deep, glad to feel anything. Deep within the soil she felt something buried, something soft, something cold, harder when you pushed. Not thinking about what it could be she pulled it up.

She yelped in shock as she realised she’d dug up the cold dead remains of a human arm. Worse, it was attached to something, to someone. She did not want to know who. She did not want to look at this arm. This familiar arm. A part of her knew who but she kept her own mind from it. She clambered to her feet. Tripping over the ground as she rose she tumbled back down landing softly on the heap. The mound of soil she was on took shape and she realised she was kneeling on a grave. Trying not to look at the hand, unable to climb to her feet she scrambled backward and then she felt two hands touch her shoulders.

They reached down, grabbed around under her armpits and pulled her roughly up. She tried to struggle but then a familiar voice spoke.

“Relax, it’s me.”

Cat! Amanda tried to spin, unsure if this was just more of the dream.

Cat finished pulling Amanda to her feet and then Amanda was able to get a good look at her. Cat didn’t let go of Amanda’s elbow.

“How’d you get here?” Amanda asked. This Cat seemed solid, familiar. Somehow more real than anything else.

“Dreamwalker remember,” Cat quipped. She ran her gaze up and down Amanda, checking for any obvious injuries.

Amanda’s own gaze studied Cat, looked for things that were off. But Cat looked like Cat, right down to the devilish twinkle in her green eyes and the smirk on her lips. “Sirius is...” Amanda started.

“Listen,” Cat interrupted “There’s no time for that. I’m going to get you out of her and then you have to come and find us immediately. Understand?”

Amanda frowned. She couldn’t leave Sirius in here, or Kass for that matter. She started to protest but Cat interrupted again.

“It’s important. I don’t know how to get there but it’s the second floor in the other wing okay, and you have to go straight there. I have no idea which room, nearer the centre of the house. The others will be fine I promise.”

Amanda stared straight at Cat. The woman appeared serious, more so than usual, and she also seemed to be telling the truth, mostly. There was a catch in her voice when she spoke that last bit, as if she wasn’t quite sure. The unusual vigor and urgency with which she said everything was enough however. Cat had good instincts and if she honestly thought finding them right now was more important then it probably was. Besides Amanda wasn’t sure how much she could do to help Sirius and Kass. Spell caused dreamsleeps were hard to break.

Amanda nodded.

Satisfied Cat broke eye contact and looked around. “Okay,” she said, and then the world started fading. Amanda was sure there was more to the journey back but when she awoke the rest of what had happened was fuzzy.

She found herself sprawled on the floor her feet were in the room they thought they had just exited and her upper half was in the hallway. Further into the room she could see the unconscious bodies of Sirius and Kass. Figuring out which side induced the dreams she quickly pulled her feet back into the hallway. She waited a moment in case there were consequences but everything seemed to be alright. There was no sign of Cat anywhere.

From where she sat she could see Sirius’s chest rising and falling. Kass’s was doing the same. They didn’t seem to be in any distress. Good, they were both alright for now. But they were also trapped in the dreamworld and Amanda wasn’t sure how long they would remain safe.

She longed to go to them. To shake Sirius awake, but she knew if she crossed that line there was a good chance she’d end up back in that same place again. Cat had said to go and find her and to do so fast. Perhaps Cat was already trying to wake them? Except if that was the case then why not wait here until they could all move together? Did Cat and the others need help? Had that even really been Cat? It had looked like Cat and spoke like Cat and she was awake now. She was certain of that. Wasn’t she? She shook her head. Yes, she was sure, she’d done this a few times before. She was definitely awake now and Cat could do that. Cat was the only one in this house that could do that.

She decided that she could deliberate on the way given time was of the essence. Worst case she could always turn around and come back here.

It took her longer to get through to the other side of the house than she thought it would. Doors she went though came out in unexpected places and it was only after she’d already gone through a few that she realised she probably should have been making a note. She did eventually make it to what she though might be the correct hallway but at this point she was no longer sure of how to get back.

She was wandering along with an even pace, not wanting to miss anything, and wondering how she was supposed to find them when there were so many doors. Then she heard what could only be described as the sound of a wild animal up ahead, like a cross between a moose, a wildcat, and a witch.