Chasing Imagination

Amy

I wasn’t sure what had changed inside Casper's mind. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. But as we ran towards the commotion and then diverted left down the tunnel where both our bedrooms were, I was secretly glad that something had hit a chord inside him, even if it came from Matt, and even if it made me even more afraid of the monster I might currently be running with.

A monster? Could I really call him that?

I practically dived into my little room, grabbing the gun which was, as I had thought, still on the table, and ventured out to see Casper running back towards me, his own gun—most likely a bullet gun—in his hand.

‘Come on,’ he said urgently and I followed him back through the tunnel towards the main area.

I froze.

My insides seized up. I could not move. What I was witnessing was a war.

‘Nightshade was right,’ I whispered, and somehow Casper managed to hear me, or at least see my lips moving, over all the commotion.

We were still at the back, but that didn’t mean we were safe. It was like two lines had been formed; the front line of Dreamers, with at least a hundred more congregating behind, against a line of Marauders over the other side of the room, ducking in behind the furniture as though they knew the place, keeping out of the firing line.

There were most definitely more than the twenty that Tristan had estimated.

‘Keep them out of the tunnels!’ Markus roared, keeping to his own order and aiming at a Marauder that tried to run off to the left.

But it didn’t matter what Markus had said. Because, through all the chaos and confusion, suddenly the gunshots were coming from behind us.

I shrieked, whipping round, and suddenly we were not at the back, but at the front, forming our own fighting line.

A masked Marauder with a sly face gave us a sneaky smile and dashed off. Was this a raid then? Were they trying to find our weapons and plans?

‘After him, for God’s sake!’ someone, possibly Markus, yelled.

And before I knew it, Casper was no longer by my side. He was charging off after the man, firing repeatedly at him. But the other man was too fast. And he had a gun as well.

‘Casper!’ I shrieked. Suddenly I felt so vulnerable. I was alone in this stormy sea. Waves of people crashed over me, and I had to use all my strength to merely stay afloat.

‘Amy!’ It was Imogen. I ran towards her.

‘Where’s Casper?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Where’s Matt?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice echoed my fear.

A flash of black and red seemed to dash past like lightning in that moment, heading off in the same direction that Casper had followed the other Marauder in. What were they looking for? Did we have weapons that they wanted or something?

Everyone else was too busy; they were all fighting. I was the only one who had noticed the striking, redheaded woman streak past.

‘Imogen!’ I cried. She looked up from where she was craning her neck over the crowd. A sudden crack made us both dive for cover. Huddled in the corner together, I made to get up.

‘Where are you going?’ she cried.

‘There was a woman,’ I said, panting with fear, my heart hammering almost as loud as the constant guns. ‘She went that way!’ I gestured wildly, leaping up. Imogen seemed to feel as if she had no choice but to follow. I, after all, wasn’t going to be able to kill the woman with this gun. But that was a good thing, right?

Of course it was.

I sprinted off down the tunnel, my insides burning. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. We passed a long corridor where I could distantly see two people fighting, but I didn’t take time to even glance at who it could be. The underground was a labyrinth, and we all knew it. Our only hope was that knowing our way around the base; knowing every entrance in and out, where every tunnel led and how to get everywhere, would be an advantage.

Well, the others knew everything about this part of the underground. I didn’t. Not properly. I knew the base; how to get to my room and the common room and the dining hall and the foyer and Markus’s study and the storeroom, but I didn’t know much beyond that. After that, once we got to the further reaches of the base and the endless tunnels that stretched beyond, not technically Dreamer territory; just underground mazes; I had no idea what I was doing.

I skidded round a corner, my lungs burning. The redhead was further up ahead, her hair striking against her black cloak and trousers and making her stand out in the dim, grey surroundings. Pounding footsteps from behind me suggested that Imogen was not far away. I wanted to fire at the woman, but she was too far ahead, and we were both moving. I couldn’t fire like that.

‘Where...d’you reckon...she’s going?’ Imogen breathed, finally catching up with me.

‘Weapons...storeroom...database...dunno,’ I panted back, having to take such a large intake of breath afterwards that I gasped raggedly and my lungs screamed.

‘Good idea,’ I heard Imogen say beside me, and suddenly she was ahead and I was following. That was good—I barely even knew where we were going; I just knew that the armoury was along here, and the data resources room was close by.

The woman suddenly veered off to the right, leaping through a door seemingly at random. There was no way she had been able to see what was in there at the speed she had been running at.

But she was lucky. Imogen looked round at me with fear in her eyes, realising where the woman had gone.

I realised as we arrived outside, completely exhausted, out of breath and most definitely not up for fighting, that she was in the database room. Every bit of information about us—the underground map, the Dreamer entrances and door codes, plans about the raid on the Marauder base—it was all in that room on the computer, in files, or maybe even just out on the tables.