Chasing Imagination

Casper

As evening came in, I began to grow restless. Pacing around the room I shared with Felix, though he wasn't around, I checked the clock every ten minutes. It was ridiculous; we still couldn’t go for ages. The train station would still be teeming with life, and we had to wait until the very dead of night before we could act.

Some Dreamers chose to follow normal sleeping hours; others invented ones all of their own. So even when it reached midnight, the activity in the base was still almost as frequent as it would be during the middle of the day. It was always dark down here; there were no windows and no natural light. Why should it matter whether you woke during the day or the night?

Sometime before twelve, I grabbed a black, hooded jacket from the wardrobe, pulling the hood up over my thick, dark hair. At some point during the day, Felix had got the spray paint for me—I never asked how and where he got all his utensils, but it was almost guaranteed that he could have nearly anything you asked for within twenty-four hours. He was of course also the resident drug dealer, which went almost without saying—nothing too terrible, but cigarettes were banned decades ago and alcohol was stupidly expensive by now.

I now carried the spray paints, plus a token packet of cigarettes ‘on the house,’ Felix said, even though I never smoked (apparently I was welcome to offer them around, or perhaps use them to set light to something), in a large, black rucksack, moving out into the main area. The lights were turned down even lower than usual, and Jay was already standing around, looking characteristically shady and mysterious. His hood was low over his face so that I could barely see his eyes, and his back was hunched over with the weight of a rucksack. He’d also got his typical blue scarf, which he would most likely tie around his nose and mouth when we got outside, ideally to keep himself from being identified. Unfortunately, it also made him more suspicious, though the six of us going out were hardly going to be inconspicuous anyway.

It was at that moment that Amy walked through the room, head down, her dark blonde curls hiding her face, going in the direction of the bedrooms. I had no idea where she had been or what she was doing, but a sudden, spontaneous and potentially very risky thought occurred to me.

‘Do you want to come, Amy?’ I asked.

Jay gave me a very hard and very obvious nudge in the ribs.

‘What you doing, man?’ he hissed.

‘Trust me,’ I muttered.

She looked up as though she’d only just acknowledged my existence. She did that a lot; I had discovered. I could tell that, even though she had become great friends with Imogen, and was more than happy talking to other people like Matt and Kira and Linzy, she still resented me. I could see it every time she looked into my eyes, and it made me wish even more that I could take back what I’d done to her.

But it was her fault as much as mine. I hadn’t asked her to follow me. I admitted that I was foolish to let myself become so conspicuous as to let one of the members of the public see me, but she didn’t have to do anything about it. Most people would have left it, or possibly have watched and called the police—though I was glad she hadn’t done that.

But maybe her curiosity was the key. Curiosity had long since been suppressed in our world, but perhaps she had been one step closer to dreaming than most people, and it was almost fate’s way of telling her that she could be leading a better life somewhere else. The fact that she had been gifted with this curiosity that so few people had before they joined the Dreamers might mean that she was always meant to end up down here.

‘I thought you said you didn’t want me coming,’ she said.

‘I didn’t mean it,’ I lied hastily. She was an inexperienced liar; she wouldn’t see through my disguise.

Back then, I had meant it, but now I’d changed my mind. I’d assumed that she would be a burden rather than a help, but perhaps she needed this. She needed to feel...initiated into our world, and I could help her with that. I didn’t want her spending her time down here alone and wishing for something else. It would be good for both of us if she became a part of something great.

She wasn’t going to make this easy for me, but I understood that.

‘Why do you want me now?’ she tested.

I sighed. ‘Amy, I want you to come with me. I want you to be a part of this—make you feel welcome, make you happy down here.’

‘I am happy,’ she said, glancing away. Her lying hadn’t got any better.

‘I can see that you’re not,’ I said, ‘and, no offence, but you’re a terrible liar.’

She gave me a fake smile that did not reach her eyes which, despite their warm brown colour, still had an icy texture. ‘I’m happy, Casper. I have friends—Imogen and Linzy and people. I’ve already been a part of one of your little ventures.’

‘Well, stay if you want,’ I said, giving up. Wolfie and Kira arrived from the direction of the rec room, followed by Leah from the opposite direction not ten seconds later. Trust Felix to be late, but other than that we were all here and ready to go. I didn’t have time for this.

‘I’ll come if it means that much to you,’ she said with a disapproving sigh. She was already wearing a jacket and shoes that were appropriate for running in, therefore she was nearly ready to go.

‘What’s going on?’ Leah snapped.

‘I thought it was just the six of us,’ Kira chimed in. ‘Not that I don’t want you here, Amy—I just don’t know if you’re...ready.’

‘She might as well come,’ I said, acting like it was no big deal. ‘Get some experience of public resistance and everything...’ I trailed off, not absolutely able to justify my reasons for inviting Amy, apart from the simple truth that I wanted her to be there. I wanted her to enjoy her time down here—this wasn’t just a game; it was the rest of her life. And I wanted her to like me. I couldn’t stand to see the betrayal in her eyes every single moment of every single day and know that, however happy she may or may not be down here, she would rather be back with her friends and family, and I had rid her of that chance. She could have had a job and a house and a boyfriend and children, but instead she was stuck down here.

I didn’t see it as being stuck, but I was also open-minded enough to realise that not everyone felt the same way. It was never easy to leave loved ones behind, but I had never been as close to my family as some people had, so I hadn’t suffered quite such a great loss. I still missed them, every day in fact, but with no contact for the last two years, I could barely remember what their faces looked like. They both had brown hair—my mum’s quite curly, and my dad’s too short to really tell; he was tall and my mum was about average for a woman; she wore stylish square glasses...that was about it. That was another boy from another life, but this was me now.

Felix appeared from down one of the lesser used tunnels, dressed in a ridiculously oversized grey hoodie, his dark hair gently ruffled as though he had been trying out his look with the hood up, and with the largest rucksack hitched onto his bulky shoulders out of any of us.

‘Hey,’ he said casually as he strolled into the area.

Kira made a purposeful glance to her watch. ‘You’re late, Felix.’

He gave a half smile and glanced down at her from his towering six foot three position.

‘Fashionably late, K, I think you’ll find.’

She giggled girlishly—I had suspicions that she had been the first person Felix had asked to join him on this little mission, and that she had said yes without hesitation. In fact, I didn’t know why the two of them didn’t just get together. Kira seemed to have liked Felix from the day she joined almost a year ago, and he was much the same, however cool he tried to act about it.

‘We gonna go and fuck up some obnoxious government property or what?’ Leah snapped impatiently.

‘Chill,’ Jay muttered, thankfully too quietly to hear. Jay and Felix were always fantastic at provoking Leah, which never made for a comfortable night out—there’s no way I would have invited her if she hadn’t overheard Felix and Kira talking about it a couple of hours before the meeting—but now we were all stuck with her.

‘Well,’ I said, looking around and realising that all of them, even joker Wolfie and cocky Felix, were waiting upon my instruction. ‘You guys ready?’

Leah gave Amy a dark look, and I knew that she didn’t want a so-called ‘betrayer’ in on the plan, but what could Amy do, even if she really wanted to? I had a gun stowed in my pocket, and I had no doubt that most of the others did too, and it would be six of us against her if she tried to escape or grab attention.

There was a general mumbling of ‘yes,’ and ‘ready,’ and I began to move towards the way out—down the tunnel bit, through the arch, and out of the oh-so-carefully placed ‘front door.’
‘Be quiet once you get out there,’ I said. ‘And be on lookout—you can’t be too careful. And no graffiti too close to the base.’

‘So you’re gonna ruin our fun with your crappy safety rules?’ Leah demanded. ‘You sound like a fucking primary school teacher.’

I saw Wolfie actually bite his tongue with the effort of not coming out with a witty comeback that would set Leah off like a bomb.

‘I’m trying to not get us discovered!’ I hissed, keeping my voice down low as Jay pushed open the door. ‘If you want a raid like that one in St Petersburg three months ago, you go ahead and paint the walls down here, but I would strongly advise against it!’

Leah’s stare was unyielding and poisonous as it remained fixed on me, but eventually with a not-so-subtle fake cough from Wolfie, she abruptly held her head up and strode out of the room.

We all stood around in the cold, silent tunnel outside, waiting for someone to take charge. Once again, I realised a little too late that it was supposed to be me controlling this small yet very difficult group.

‘Come on,’ I said unimaginatively, turning right and heading a short way.

‘Which station are we going to?’ asked Wolfie.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘The nearest one?’

He shrugged indifferently, growing silent as we all fell into step. I could sense Amy beside me, standing there in her brown jacket and skinny jeans and boots, looking like a Dreamer, but not feeling like one. Even without glancing at her I could feel her growing more and more tense with every step, her heart hammering, her fists clenched, her eyes set straight ahead.
‘Are you alright?’ I whispered, hoping for her sake more than mine that the others weren’t listening.

‘Yes,’ she said, her tone abrupt and stiff. I decided not to persist; I didn’t want to upset her further. I just knew that there was more beneath her cool exterior. I just had to be patient. She’d find her own way in this world eventually.