Chasing Imagination

Casper

The following day, we ended up walking a lot. We trudged through icy rain through grey towns and cities, took trains whenever we could, but tried to stay low too, and by early evening, I could see it. By early evening, we had got back onto a train, congested with the rush hour masses, and we were chugging into the outskirts of Berlin. I didn’t know exactly where we were going, so I chose a stop with just an educated guess, and helped Amy off.

I could have fainted with the relief. We had made it.

Amy clung to me, exhausted and sorrowful, her blonde hair matted and damp, her face pale and bruised.

‘We’re here, honey,’ I whispered, holding her a little closer. I doubted I looked any better myself, but seeing that renowned walkway through the station and into the Berlin underground tunnels made unprecedented life surge through my veins. ‘We’re so close.’

‘Where do we go now though?’ she asked, her voice ragged, as though she needed to cough, and fragile. ‘It’s all very well being here, but how do we find the group who so notoriously want to stay hidden?’

She made a good point, but mine was better.

‘I managed to contact the Master this morning,’ I said. Her large eyes, so cold a moment ago, looked up into my face, sparkling with unshed tears of happiness.

‘Really?’ she asked. ‘But you never told me. How did you—‘

‘We Dreamers have contacts,’ I told her, a little proud of myself. ‘It seems that, although no one has heard a thing from Markus for nearly a week now, and I don’t deny that that scares me, he contacted Berlin sometime during the invasion, being the genius he was, and even thought to give the Master our phone numbers. I didn’t want to wake you, because you looked more restful since you have done since we left London, but he phoned my mobile and we spoke and arranged a meeting point. In fact, considering my previous assumptions of Mr Eisenberg, he seems surprisingly nice; not nearly as pretentious as I expected.’

‘That’s good,’ Amy said. ‘Do you think he’ll let us stay here?’

‘Of course,’ I said. For once, it was something I could be sure of. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Dreamers looked out for other Dreamers. We were so small, and so powerless compared to the monster of a government we suffocated under, but that meant that every one of us was deemed necessary. The Dreamers would always be there for each other.

‘So, how do we get in then?’ she persisted.

‘He said he’d send a couple of people out to meet us,’ I explained, ‘check us out and whatever; make sure the coast is clear; that we are who we say we are; that we’re not being followed, et cetera.’ I glanced down at my wrist. ‘In fact, we’ve made good timing, even if we had to rush a bit towards the end. They’ll be just off the metro tunnel in about ten minutes.’

I led Amy through the chaos of the station and into the underground, checking all the while that no one was around on this windy, dark evening. Although there were few people up above, however, there were considerably more down in the tunnel below. Stupid to be honest; it was a Friday. Never a good time for heading into a city underground station at nearly half eight in the evening; everyone else in the vicinity was off out for the night.

Still, perhaps that was better than if there were only a few people, and we couldn’t ever expect there to be none. At least with big crowds, we could blend in seamlessly. No one would notice the twenty year old boy and his girlfriend walking through the station. In fact, on a Friday evening, we seemed to belong down here as much as anyone.

So we wound our way through the bustle of the busy metro station, ducking in through the tunnel that led off the main track, able to expertly dodge the ticket machines undetected, before heading down some deserted stairs into a long, narrow tunnel, lit at regular intervals with dim strip lighting from above.

‘Stay where you are.’

The foreign, slightly accented voice echoed through the tunnel, making me freeze where I stood under one of the lights. I felt Amy’s grip on my hand grow so tight and vice-like that it was probably cutting off the circulation to my fingers, but I didn’t care. Instead I just squeezed it back, trying to reassure her, though my heart was a drum beating as fast as the rain had been falling outside.

There was a loud, clicking sound, accentuated by the echo of the empty tunnel, and then a woman stepped into the light from through an old archway, round the corner.

Her hair was straight and dark with artificially coloured streaks underneath, and her olive-toned eyes were stone cold. I sighed. So much for my faith in the Dreamers.

‘Names?’ she demanded.

‘I’m Casper, this is Amy,’ I breathed, growing a little dizzy at the sight of the gun pointed in my face. Beside me, Amy looked even worse. Her eyes were fixed on the little death-dealing machine, enthralled but terrified, her breathing coming in uneven gasps.

‘Chill, Sonja,’ came another voice from behind her, and a second person, this time a man, with floppy hair in a similar style to mine, but brown, stepped forwards beside her, followed by a third, also a man; dirty blonde and lightly tanned.

‘Shut up Carl,’ Sonja muttered, her icy eyes fixated on mine. Personally, I agreed with Carl.

‘Seriously, calm down,’ he insisted. ‘They ain’t about to do anything to us.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I can make a pretty educated guess.’

‘Damn, shut up you two!’ the third, still unnamed man insisted. ‘You’re like an old married couple.’

This just earned him a murderous glare from both of them.

‘Lower the gun, Sonja,’ I said coolly.

‘Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?’ she cried incredulously, too highly strung, too angry. Obviously, she was having a bad day—emotions gone mad perhaps—and was just taking it out on everyone else. Or maybe she was just another Leah; a storm always waiting to explode.

‘Right,’ said the other man, stepping in front of her in an official way. ‘I’m Nikolas. These two...well, you’ve already heard a bit about them. Anyway, you’re Amy and Casper, which is good. Have you been followed in here?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said truthfully, still puzzled at the situation. It was pretty different from the reception I had expected. ‘I hope not.’

‘Good, good,’ he said casually.

‘Have you had any contact with the Londoners?’ I asked desperately, unable to wait a moment longer to find out.

Sonja groaned, sinking against the wall and giving Carl a look that was meant to be private. ‘Can’t this wait?’ she complained. ‘I’m busy.’

‘I think this is pretty important, actually,’ I replied coolly. I was prepared to argue if I could find out what had happened to any of my friends.

‘Actually,’ Nikolas said, his positive tone making my heart leap dangerously, ‘three of your lot arrived here yesterday.’

Unprecedented hope surged into me. Amy’s eyes widened and I heard her gasp.

‘Seriously?’ she asked.

‘Who?’ I added eagerly.

‘Uh, do you know Linzy, Dan and...Leah, is she called?’

For the first time since the invasion, I felt hope. And it was such a beautiful feeling.

‘No way!’ Amy exclaimed. ‘They’re here? Are they alright?’

‘They’re fine, as far as I’m aware,’ said Nikolas with a casual shrug. Despite his collected exterior, however, I could see how he couldn’t fail to be moved by our sudden joy.

‘They your friends?’ Carl asked in his strong German accent.

‘Yeah,’ I said, almost giddy. I had begun to expect never to see any of my friends again. In my opinion, I was lucky if any of them were still alive and free.

Sonja watched us with hawk eyes as we laughed away the tension that had been bearing down for several days. Nikolas soon replaced his calm, collected face, but Carl remained smiling boyishly, enlightened by our happiness.

Eventually, though, all good things had to come to an end, and there were still many other people hurt, captured, dead or otherwise in danger.

‘Have you heard from Nightshade?’ I asked, lowering my voice, which trembled as I said her name. ‘Or Markus?’ Fear was building up inside me again.

‘Well the Master heard from Markus a few days ago, but he didn’t tell me anything specific,’ Nikolas said. ‘He’s alive, but anything may have happened to him. As for Nightshade...I’m afraid there’s been nothing. We’re all very concerned about her.’

I nodded. ‘So am I.’

‘Nik?’ Sonja said, standing upright again. She gave him a very purposeful look, and he nodded, evidently understanding what she was trying to silently communicate to him.

‘Yeah,’ Nik said, back in this moment, ‘both of you two, go check that the coast is clear of Soulless. I’ll take Casper and Amy back to the base. You guys can meet with the Master and find your friends.’

Sonja and Carl disappeared behind us, back the way we’d come from, their guns out. I was a little glad to be rid of them. Well, Carl was nice. But I could already see that Sonja wasn’t in the mood for guests. Maybe she was the one having to give up her bedroom for us or something.

I knew for a fact that the Berlin base was a similar size to London. In other words, it was pretty huge. And entering through a large door, considerably more conspicuous than the one in London, I could see people bustling about and moving in all directions through the huge main room we stepped into. Glancing round, I saw that there were at least eight tunnels leading off of this main room, all in different directions. Well, it seemed we would have time to discover where they all led to. It was likely that we were going to be here in Berlin for a long time.

I briefly wondered how we were going to find the three people we knew in this colossal place, until I heard a familiar voice from the right.

‘Casper!’ Linzy cried, bouncing up from a chair and running over, Dan following shortly behind. ‘Amy!’ She threw her arms around first Amy and then me.

‘It’s so good to see you!’ Amy cried, looking as if she was on the brink of tears. Nik saw what was going on and politely moved a little further away.

‘Come on,’ Linzy decided abruptly. ‘We’ll take you to the Master. He’s a really nice guy actually, especially after everything I heard about him from Phil.’

The mention of Phil sent a sharp pain stabbing through me, and reminded me also why we were here.

‘Have you heard any news?’ I asked. ‘I know that Markus is alive and free...or rather, he was a few days ago, but I know nothing else.’

Linzy grew solemn at this. ‘I don’t know much,’ she confessed.

‘Zach died,’ Dan said sorrowfully. My chest dropped. I didn’t know him well at all, but it was still sad and still a great loss.

‘Oh,’ Amy whispered. ‘He was the one you helped out of the base?’

‘Yeah,’ Dan sighed. ‘He was suffering from pretty serious burns, but only after we got him out did we realise he’d also been shot. He died only about ten minutes after we got him above ground.’

‘Oh,’ I said, echoing Amy’s word. There wasn’t a lot else I could say.

‘And he told us that Aled is dead,’ Linzy continued.

‘Aled?’ I asked, the hole in my heart being prised open just a little further.

‘No,’ Amy said in disbelief. Like Zach, I didn’t spend a lot of time with Aled—he was quite a bit older than most of our group of friends, but it was still another shame and another loss. I still chatted to him and laughed with him and thought he was a nice person.

And now he was gone as well.

‘I’m sorry,’ Linzy murmured, as sincere as I had ever seen her. ‘I wish we didn’t have to be the bringers of bad news.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I said. Zach...Aled...Wolfie...it was all so terrifying.

‘Come on,’ said Linzy, trying and failing to lighten the situation. ‘Let’s go and see the Master.’