Chasing Imagination

Amy

Things were changing almost beyond recognition. Markus seemed to think so, and I agreed. No one believed me capable of what I had done—and those things were nowhere near as terrible as many things that other Dreamers had done.

The weather outside was getting steadily warmer—we were well into April by now, and an unusually warm spring had hit South-East England. Londoners were out in Hyde Park and travelling down to the beach to enjoy the good weather, all of them spending time with their friends in their innocent, carefree lives.

Sometimes I found myself wondering what it would be like if I was still up there.

And I hated myself for thinking about it.

The thought of sunshine up above made me sad. Many of the Dreamers seemed to be used to it, but when a weather report came up on one of the TVs, I could see longing and regret in a few faces.

‘I want to go out,’ I said, almost absent-mindedly one late afternoon. I sat in the common room with Casper, Felix, Jay and Kira.

‘Me too,’ said Kira wistfully, though she said it with a sweet smile.

‘It’s not possible,’ said Casper regretfully. I noticed Kira’s face drop, and assumed that mine had done the same.

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Not even once? Not even in disguise?’

‘Whoa, she’s getting into this now,’ said Felix enthusiastically. Jay laughed; the rest of us looked confused.

‘What?’ he cried in self-defence. ‘Admit it: three weeks ago; a month ago; however long ago it was that you ended up down here, you would never have said that.’

It was true; he was just one of many who noticed that I was changing.

‘I think it’s nice,’ said Casper, defending me. I smiled at him, but the one he returned was a little hollow. Was this still about me? Was it about Matt? Or was it just something else that I didn’t know this time?

I was fed up of it. I liked Casper, but he annoyed me too. I wished he was a little happier. He smiled and made jokes, but behind all that he was always so distant. However warm his laugh may be, it never quite managed to defrost the frozen lakes in his eyes. That winter’s chill was omnipresent.

‘Seriously though,’ Kira said, ‘Amy’s right. We don’t go out enough. They do it in Europe.’

‘Europe isn’t ruled over by Robert Cattermole,’ grumbled Jay pessimistically.

‘You say it like they’ve got it easy,’ Kira pointed out. ‘Would you really rather live in a country ruled by one of their dictators?’

‘No,’ said Jay plainly, speaking his mind.

‘I’d like to be ruled over by none of them; don’t mean it’s ever gonna happen,’ Felix pointed out. It was a fair point. I had gradually been getting used to conversations like these with the Dreamers; conversations which revolved almost entirely around speculation. Speculation was so closely related to imagination that I had never talked to someone in this way before I came down here. They were interesting topics to talk about, but I still wasn’t very good at them.

‘It would be nice,’ said Casper, still in that same awful pessimistic tone they were all slowly adopting.

All at once, the stagnant mood of the afternoon changed completely beyond recognition.

A man who I had never met before came thundering in, swinging round the door, almost too out of breath to talk.

‘Marauders!’ he gasped, clinging onto the doorframe with one hand as he bent over forward. ‘Marauders...in the base.’

Jay was first to his feet, closely followed by Casper.

‘How many?’ Jay cried as the man went to charge off towards the next room. ‘Tristan?’

Tristan’s panting face appeared back in the doorway.

‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Twenty at least.’

Casper’s hand was round mine before I knew what was going on, and I was being dragged off in the direction of the door. Suddenly, I began to hear gunshots. They were distant and muffled by numerous walls and tunnels, but they were the unmistakable sounds of bullets being fired.

‘What do we do?’ I cried frantically, rounding on Casper. Behind me, Jay, Felix and Kira charged out of the room and down the left hand tunnel; a tunnel which I knew led to the armoury amongst other things.

‘Guns,’ Casper breathed, his eyes on fire. ‘Come on. Where did you leave yours when we got back last week?’

‘I...uh, I can’t remember. It might still be in my room.’

‘That’s good,’ Casper said. He made to dash right, in the direction of both our bedrooms, but hesitated.

‘Although, I get the feeling we might need something stronger than stun-guns,’ he deliberated, turning to the left and looking at Felix, Jay and Kira vanishing round the corner amongst throngs of other charging people.

It didn’t take me long to work out what he was saying.

Bullets.

‘I can’t!’ I cried suddenly, wrenching my hand from his as though he was going to try and force a gun into my palm and pull the trigger for me. ‘I can’t do it!’

‘Amy...’ he looked uncertain. ‘You can’t fight Marauders with a stun gun. They’re not going to show mercy on you. If you do it to them, you’ll lose.’

He looked like he didn’t want to say what he was saying. But it left his mouth all the same. And I was afraid. Of him. Of me. Of the Dreamers. Of what any person could become if they put their mind to it.

Casper wasn’t evil; none of the Dreamers were. But they all seemed to possess this...this darkness, somewhere deep within them. And I wanted to believe so badly that the same darkness would never creep into my body, infecting me like a contagious disease. I wanted to believe that I could somehow remain good and innocent in a world of war and insanity.
I wanted to believe it, but it wasn’t going to happen.

‘Please,’ I begged despondently. ‘I don’t want to be a murderer.’

He looked me straight in the eye. ‘You murder, or you get murdered. It’s the way of the world Amy.’

How had anyone let us live in a world like that?

‘I thought the Dreamers were meant to be better than that.’

It hurt me to say it, and when I looked up, I could see that my words had hurt him too. But beneath that hurt was a hunger. It had infected him years ago when he joined the Dreamers, just like it had infected everyone else down here, and it was not going to let go.

‘Casper!’

It was Matt. He sprinted down the corridor from the armoury and in the direction of the gunshots past us.

‘Matt.’ Casper looked up. He was scared of many things, but his look was almost one of disinterest.

‘What are you doing? Come on—both of you!’ Matt made to leave, grabbing my arm as he went so that I took a few steps away.

‘Don’t touch her!’ Casper roared, completely unprecedentedly.

Matt looked stunned. ‘What?’

‘She’s not ready for it!’

Matt was bordering on disbelief. ‘Not ready? I’m afraid we don’t get a choice, Casper! Not you; not Amy. If you’re not ready, you’re gonna get caught out.’

It was as if I wasn’t there. ‘I don’t want her to have to do this,’ Casper insisted. It didn’t matter that one moment ago he had been trying to persuade me to kill people. Now that Matt was here, saying the same thing, Casper had almost instinctively taken the opposing side.

‘I wish it were that simple!’ Matt shouted, ‘but it’s not! You know it’s not!’

‘Do you realise what killing does to someone?’ Casper roared. I backed off; I had never seen him or Matt this fierce. Once again, seeing what these supposedly good-hearted people could become scared me. ‘It’s not my fault you’re fucking inhuman!’

Matt’s eyes ignited and he stepped towards Casper, towering over him. ‘I’m inhuman? You’re the one who laughed the first time you shot a man in the head!’

Casper looked like he had been punched. He staggered backwards until he fell against the wall. I ran to him, glaring at Matt. I didn’t realise how angry I looked until he held up his hands slightly and began to back off.

‘You coward!’ Casper yelled down the corridor.

‘Casper!’ I cried, throwing my arms round him. ‘Casper what’s going on?’

‘That bastard,’ he muttered, righting himself and running a hand through his hair.

I hated to ask, but I had no choice.

‘What did he mean?’ I whispered. ‘About you laughing...?’ I couldn’t even bear to finish the sentence.

Casper’s eyes were marble. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Casper!’ I grabbed him. Somewhere too close by, I could hear the gunshots getting louder and more frequent. They were growing nearer, and we were still unarmed.

He wouldn’t answer me. But as the loudest and therefore closest gunshot yet was fired, he gripped both my hands in his, holding me there in front of him.

‘Take a stun gun. Please.’