‹ Prequel: Chasing Imagination
Sequel: Martyr's Run ›
Hurricane Heart
Dreaming in Darkness
Hurricane
I left the bathroom, feeling marginally more content after talking to Carl that there were no Soulless in the immediate vicinity. Scarrus, although he had been rescued either by his peers or by the police that came to investigate the fight, had disappeared back west. I didn’t know if that meant that he had been detained or that he was going back to his friends.
As for the others, they were still around, but they weren’t too close. Not for now, anyway. Although the Soulless had come up with devious ways to not be tracked, we could still pick up faint signals from them, which currently suggested that there was a large gathering of them down in a Latvian forest.
Arjan sat, his large, dark eyes awaiting more news.
‘What was that about?’ he eventually said when I didn’t answer.
‘Nothing much,’ I said curtly. ‘We’re not about to be attacked in here, but there are a load of them in Latvia.’
‘Let’s stay away from there for now,’ he suggested, thinking similarly to me. Wherever the Soulless were, we were not going to be.
‘Where are we heading now?’ he asked, brushing his brown hair out of his face. I had to admit; I’d rarely seen a non-Dreamer who was so curious and inquisitive all the time—more proof that Arjan could potentially make a good resistance member. I reckoned he was already halfway there. I just needed to push him a little further over the edge and we had a new recruit.
Although, did I really want him around all the time? I was the lone ranger; I didn’t have partners and companions. I had friends, but I don’t imagine I valued them in the same way many of them valued each other.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, realising that this was genuine; I was, once again, following the roads, seeing where they took me. It was a good way of life; one that more people should try.
‘Finland?’ he prompted. ‘Scandinavia?’
I wrinkled my nose. It was too cold in Scandinavia, despite being beautiful and peaceful. Not to mention the fact that the rules on imagination were allegedly far stricter over there than anywhere else.
‘No,’ I said, making an on-the-spot decision. ‘We’re not going over there.’
Arjan looked a little disappointed. ‘I always thought Scandinavia looked beautiful, especially Norway. I really want to go there.’
I was about to reply to him when I realised that what he had said was far more significant than he seemed to think it was.
‘You really want to go there?’ I repeated.
He looked confused at my sudden enthusiasm. ‘Yeah.’
‘You mean, you’ve dreamt about going there?’ I lowered my voice, realising the implications if we were caught publicly speaking about dreams. ‘You’ve imagined going there?’
‘No!’ he cried indignantly. ‘I would never—‘ he stopped suddenly. He knew what I was saying.
‘You’ve dreamt without even realising it,’ I said in an excited whisper. ‘Did you not realise that that’s illegal?’
‘I’m no criminal!’ he snapped. ‘I was just thinking that it would be nice up there.’
I lowered my voice even more so that I was scarcely whispering. ‘You don’t have to hide it from me, Arjan. You’ve dreamt. Admit it.’
‘I-I...’ he stammered, looking uncomfortable more than anything else, as though I was the police and I’d taken him in for questioning. ‘I didn’t realise that that counted. All I said was that I wanted to visit Norway. Is that so bad? Do we really live in such a terrible world that that is considered illegal?’
Whilst Arjan was having multiple epiphanies about the cold world we lived in, I couldn’t have been happier. He was dreaming, and he wasn’t going to stop. He had dreamt without even realising it.
‘Well done,’ I said patronisingly. He scowled at me. ‘This is progress.’
Arjan
Lying in bed that night, I began to ponder my own dreaming. I stared up at the ceiling, too black against the darkness to properly make out, as Hurricane rolled over in the other bed, her long hair splaying out in all directions, her olive toned skin highlighted silver by the little light that penetrated the curtains.
Had I really dreamed, just like that, so easily? Had I imagined countless things in my life without even realising it?
Was I destined to meet her; to become a Dreamer?
There I was again—destiny—something else we weren’t supposed to believe in now, even though it wasn’t really connected to imagination. But it was the same with religion; it couldn’t be proven right or wrong, but the governments were mostly made up of cynical atheists, so any religious practice was strictly banned thirty-seven years ago.
So what did I do now? After this, when everything was said and done, and if I even got a choice in the first place, where would I go? Would I become a Dreamer like Hurricane; go back to Berlin or somewhere similar with her, and would it be by choice or by force?
Or would I go back home, back to a family and a house and a job, back to an almost unbearably normal, mediocre life free of excitement and adventure?
Could I do that?
No. Maybe I couldn’t. I didn’t like Hurricane, though I also didn’t loathe her like I used to, but I couldn’t return back to a normal life. There was no such thing as a ‘normal’ life for me anymore. To know that I had the ability to access these new regions of my mind with such incredible potential, and then to suppress them so suddenly, seemed impossible. There was no way I could lock them away like I had done throughout the rest of my life.
But was this life worth the danger? That was the main thing keeping me from willingly signing up right now. I would be on the run for the rest of my life, leaving everyone I loved for reasons I could not explain, hiding in the underground forever, constantly risking my life to complete tasks; perhaps some as dangerous as what Hurricane was doing now.
Because, as much as I hated her, I appreciated the danger she was in. Out in the open, she was alone and vulnerable and much more likely to be caught, and if the police took her away she would be locked up. I didn’t know much about the rules on Dreamers being taken to Institutions, or how many times she had been before, but it wouldn’t be good.
All I could hope was that she had never been before—many of the Dreamers had, but certainly not all of them.
And yet she was so willing to take risks. She didn’t mind dressing eccentrically out here and carried a gun wherever she went—without licence that alone was a punishable offence. Sometimes, it could even be punished with execution.
If I were her, I would be so much more cautious. And yet, by the sounds of it, she didn’t have a lot to lose. And that brought me full circle through my imaginings to the thing about emotions versus imagination once again.
It was true; she was heartless. She seemed to care about no one, but that must only be a mask. I couldn’t believe that anyone, not even her, would be so detached. I just had to make it my duty to slowly but surely remove that mask; remove it so carefully that she didn’t notice that that was what I was doing.
I got the feeling that she was running. The amount of times I had asked her a question, and she had responded with nothing but a silence or changing the conversation made it feel like she wanted to hide something, and that was her normal way of going about it. However tough she seemed, she was not confronting life; she was running from it.
I was awake long into the night thinking about such things—who was she, really, and what was she doing, and why? Because I still didn’t know even why she wanted me, other than that she wanted to keep me away from the Soulless. Why, though, I did not know.
Eventually, I became so tired staring up at that dark ceiling that I finally fell asleep, drifting into a forbidden dream. No one ever discussed dreams, but I couldn’t help but feel that I dreamt a lot more than the average person. I didn’t really know though...perhaps it was just me being pretentious.
It was far from a restful sleep, though. I woke up once again in the middle of the night, rolling over and seeing the green numbers of the digital clock saying that it was not yet half past three. Groaning quietly, I then realised I needed to use the toilet, and so climbed barefoot out of bed, making little sound on the soft carpet, and shuffled like a sleepwalker across the dark room. The bathroom light had been left on, and in these dead hours it was the only light to be seen.
Hurricane
I opened my eyes ever so slightly as I heard the creak of Arjan’s bed, followed by the soft shuffling of feet. I was facing towards the door, and the slither of yellow light coming from the bathroom, and I saw his shadow move into view, obscuring that glow. I didn’t dare open my eyes any further; I wanted him to think I was asleep. However sneaky it was, it showed me whether I could really trust him or not.
I hadn’t tied him up at all tonight, and I’d left the entry card in the slot by the door. He could take it easily if he wanted to. I’d even left my gun almost lazily on my bedside table. If he was quiet enough, he could probably slip round and get it. It was not a comforting thought.
He stopped, hovering slightly in front of the bathroom, and I saw him slip just a little closer to the door leading out of the room. Just one small step. Even in the dark, I could see his head turn to face it, and his breathing stopped abruptly. It didn’t take a genius to work out what he was thinking.
In the bed, I waited with baited breath, unknowingly holding my chest rigid, so that there was no sound in the room.
And then he moved away. With another shuffle and a badly stifled yawn, he stepped closer to the bathroom and opened the door a little wider. The bright light hit me full in the face, and I squinted against it, my eyes hardly open at all now, but I could go back to sleep comfortably now that I knew he wasn’t about to leave. I had never been a heavy sleeper, but I seemed to only be counting on the fact that I was going to wake up if I heard him getting changed or putting on a pair of shoes. However, that was not guaranteed.
My breathing relaxed and my heart rate returned just about to normal. He was not about to try and run. Perhaps this was the most significant change yet: he’d had the chance, there, right within his grasp, and he had not taken it.
I left the bathroom, feeling marginally more content after talking to Carl that there were no Soulless in the immediate vicinity. Scarrus, although he had been rescued either by his peers or by the police that came to investigate the fight, had disappeared back west. I didn’t know if that meant that he had been detained or that he was going back to his friends.
As for the others, they were still around, but they weren’t too close. Not for now, anyway. Although the Soulless had come up with devious ways to not be tracked, we could still pick up faint signals from them, which currently suggested that there was a large gathering of them down in a Latvian forest.
Arjan sat, his large, dark eyes awaiting more news.
‘What was that about?’ he eventually said when I didn’t answer.
‘Nothing much,’ I said curtly. ‘We’re not about to be attacked in here, but there are a load of them in Latvia.’
‘Let’s stay away from there for now,’ he suggested, thinking similarly to me. Wherever the Soulless were, we were not going to be.
‘Where are we heading now?’ he asked, brushing his brown hair out of his face. I had to admit; I’d rarely seen a non-Dreamer who was so curious and inquisitive all the time—more proof that Arjan could potentially make a good resistance member. I reckoned he was already halfway there. I just needed to push him a little further over the edge and we had a new recruit.
Although, did I really want him around all the time? I was the lone ranger; I didn’t have partners and companions. I had friends, but I don’t imagine I valued them in the same way many of them valued each other.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, realising that this was genuine; I was, once again, following the roads, seeing where they took me. It was a good way of life; one that more people should try.
‘Finland?’ he prompted. ‘Scandinavia?’
I wrinkled my nose. It was too cold in Scandinavia, despite being beautiful and peaceful. Not to mention the fact that the rules on imagination were allegedly far stricter over there than anywhere else.
‘No,’ I said, making an on-the-spot decision. ‘We’re not going over there.’
Arjan looked a little disappointed. ‘I always thought Scandinavia looked beautiful, especially Norway. I really want to go there.’
I was about to reply to him when I realised that what he had said was far more significant than he seemed to think it was.
‘You really want to go there?’ I repeated.
He looked confused at my sudden enthusiasm. ‘Yeah.’
‘You mean, you’ve dreamt about going there?’ I lowered my voice, realising the implications if we were caught publicly speaking about dreams. ‘You’ve imagined going there?’
‘No!’ he cried indignantly. ‘I would never—‘ he stopped suddenly. He knew what I was saying.
‘You’ve dreamt without even realising it,’ I said in an excited whisper. ‘Did you not realise that that’s illegal?’
‘I’m no criminal!’ he snapped. ‘I was just thinking that it would be nice up there.’
I lowered my voice even more so that I was scarcely whispering. ‘You don’t have to hide it from me, Arjan. You’ve dreamt. Admit it.’
‘I-I...’ he stammered, looking uncomfortable more than anything else, as though I was the police and I’d taken him in for questioning. ‘I didn’t realise that that counted. All I said was that I wanted to visit Norway. Is that so bad? Do we really live in such a terrible world that that is considered illegal?’
Whilst Arjan was having multiple epiphanies about the cold world we lived in, I couldn’t have been happier. He was dreaming, and he wasn’t going to stop. He had dreamt without even realising it.
‘Well done,’ I said patronisingly. He scowled at me. ‘This is progress.’
Arjan
Lying in bed that night, I began to ponder my own dreaming. I stared up at the ceiling, too black against the darkness to properly make out, as Hurricane rolled over in the other bed, her long hair splaying out in all directions, her olive toned skin highlighted silver by the little light that penetrated the curtains.
Had I really dreamed, just like that, so easily? Had I imagined countless things in my life without even realising it?
Was I destined to meet her; to become a Dreamer?
There I was again—destiny—something else we weren’t supposed to believe in now, even though it wasn’t really connected to imagination. But it was the same with religion; it couldn’t be proven right or wrong, but the governments were mostly made up of cynical atheists, so any religious practice was strictly banned thirty-seven years ago.
So what did I do now? After this, when everything was said and done, and if I even got a choice in the first place, where would I go? Would I become a Dreamer like Hurricane; go back to Berlin or somewhere similar with her, and would it be by choice or by force?
Or would I go back home, back to a family and a house and a job, back to an almost unbearably normal, mediocre life free of excitement and adventure?
Could I do that?
No. Maybe I couldn’t. I didn’t like Hurricane, though I also didn’t loathe her like I used to, but I couldn’t return back to a normal life. There was no such thing as a ‘normal’ life for me anymore. To know that I had the ability to access these new regions of my mind with such incredible potential, and then to suppress them so suddenly, seemed impossible. There was no way I could lock them away like I had done throughout the rest of my life.
But was this life worth the danger? That was the main thing keeping me from willingly signing up right now. I would be on the run for the rest of my life, leaving everyone I loved for reasons I could not explain, hiding in the underground forever, constantly risking my life to complete tasks; perhaps some as dangerous as what Hurricane was doing now.
Because, as much as I hated her, I appreciated the danger she was in. Out in the open, she was alone and vulnerable and much more likely to be caught, and if the police took her away she would be locked up. I didn’t know much about the rules on Dreamers being taken to Institutions, or how many times she had been before, but it wouldn’t be good.
All I could hope was that she had never been before—many of the Dreamers had, but certainly not all of them.
And yet she was so willing to take risks. She didn’t mind dressing eccentrically out here and carried a gun wherever she went—without licence that alone was a punishable offence. Sometimes, it could even be punished with execution.
If I were her, I would be so much more cautious. And yet, by the sounds of it, she didn’t have a lot to lose. And that brought me full circle through my imaginings to the thing about emotions versus imagination once again.
It was true; she was heartless. She seemed to care about no one, but that must only be a mask. I couldn’t believe that anyone, not even her, would be so detached. I just had to make it my duty to slowly but surely remove that mask; remove it so carefully that she didn’t notice that that was what I was doing.
I got the feeling that she was running. The amount of times I had asked her a question, and she had responded with nothing but a silence or changing the conversation made it feel like she wanted to hide something, and that was her normal way of going about it. However tough she seemed, she was not confronting life; she was running from it.
I was awake long into the night thinking about such things—who was she, really, and what was she doing, and why? Because I still didn’t know even why she wanted me, other than that she wanted to keep me away from the Soulless. Why, though, I did not know.
Eventually, I became so tired staring up at that dark ceiling that I finally fell asleep, drifting into a forbidden dream. No one ever discussed dreams, but I couldn’t help but feel that I dreamt a lot more than the average person. I didn’t really know though...perhaps it was just me being pretentious.
It was far from a restful sleep, though. I woke up once again in the middle of the night, rolling over and seeing the green numbers of the digital clock saying that it was not yet half past three. Groaning quietly, I then realised I needed to use the toilet, and so climbed barefoot out of bed, making little sound on the soft carpet, and shuffled like a sleepwalker across the dark room. The bathroom light had been left on, and in these dead hours it was the only light to be seen.
Hurricane
I opened my eyes ever so slightly as I heard the creak of Arjan’s bed, followed by the soft shuffling of feet. I was facing towards the door, and the slither of yellow light coming from the bathroom, and I saw his shadow move into view, obscuring that glow. I didn’t dare open my eyes any further; I wanted him to think I was asleep. However sneaky it was, it showed me whether I could really trust him or not.
I hadn’t tied him up at all tonight, and I’d left the entry card in the slot by the door. He could take it easily if he wanted to. I’d even left my gun almost lazily on my bedside table. If he was quiet enough, he could probably slip round and get it. It was not a comforting thought.
He stopped, hovering slightly in front of the bathroom, and I saw him slip just a little closer to the door leading out of the room. Just one small step. Even in the dark, I could see his head turn to face it, and his breathing stopped abruptly. It didn’t take a genius to work out what he was thinking.
In the bed, I waited with baited breath, unknowingly holding my chest rigid, so that there was no sound in the room.
And then he moved away. With another shuffle and a badly stifled yawn, he stepped closer to the bathroom and opened the door a little wider. The bright light hit me full in the face, and I squinted against it, my eyes hardly open at all now, but I could go back to sleep comfortably now that I knew he wasn’t about to leave. I had never been a heavy sleeper, but I seemed to only be counting on the fact that I was going to wake up if I heard him getting changed or putting on a pair of shoes. However, that was not guaranteed.
My breathing relaxed and my heart rate returned just about to normal. He was not about to try and run. Perhaps this was the most significant change yet: he’d had the chance, there, right within his grasp, and he had not taken it.