Hurricane Heart

Hurricane

We were about twenty minutes walk into the wood when I finally decided that it was secluded and quiet enough for us to proceed. Arjan looked both uncertain and confused, plus pretty scared too.

‘Come on,’ I said, leaning against a tree. ‘They’re not going to attack us out here. Now, tell me about this dream.’

‘Dream?’ he repeated, unable to keep up with my continuously running train of thought, much the same as most people. ‘Oh yeah. Well, I’ve told you everything I know. But as I’m sure you’ll understand, I’m useless at interpreting it—it’s not like I’ve had any practice, is it?’

‘Ok,’ I mused. ‘So the machine went off once I shot the last dictator?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, that’s straightforward.’

Another thought came to me.

‘Do you think it’s a prophecy?’

‘What?’ he asked. ‘What’s a prophecy?’

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. ‘I was forgetting how little you know about everything.’

He looked offended. ‘Not everything,’ he told me. ‘Just imagination.’

‘And everything that might be even slightly related to it. Which, in my books, counts as quite a lot.’

‘Whatever,’ he muttered, learning by now that there really was no point in arguing with me. It never got anyone very far.

‘A prophecy is like a prediction of the future,’ I explained briefly.

‘That’s just something from stories,’ he said. ‘It’s no more real than a vampire or a ghost.’

‘From stories?’ I challenged abruptly. ‘So, you mean to say that Nightshade just happened to predict the start of a war mere days before it began?’ I ignored the sharp knife of sorrow that shot through my heart at the mention of the name Nightshade. I had never even met her, but we all knew who she was. Had she undergone It—I couldn’t even bear to think the word—yet?

‘What’s Nightshade?’ Arjan asked. ‘What war?’

I huffed and didn’t answer. Whatever he would say about that, I didn’t care right now. His questions were already annoying me.

‘I don’t care what you think,’ I said, ‘prophecies do exist. There are people out there who can see into the future. It’s not perfect; things never happen the way they’re supposed to; but some people just have an uncanny idea of what’s to come. Who’s to say that you can’t be one of those people?’

‘I didn’t even know what a prophecy was until a minute ago,’ said Arjan. ‘And I’m pretty sure I’m not that kind of person.’

‘How would you know, though?’ I argued. ‘Have you ever predicted anything before?’

‘Nope.’

I was getting desperate. I so badly needed my idea to be right, yet we still hadn’t even worked out what the dream meant—it could be a dreadful omen foretelling of strange and twisted futures. It may not just be as simple as the idea that we were going to shoot everyone and win.

‘Not anything?’ I asked. ‘Not even what meal your parents were cooking that night or what someone was about to say before they said it?’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. His face seemed honest. ‘I know you want this to be the thing you’re looking for, Hurricane, but I don’t believe it is. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just can’t see it.’

I sunk back against a tree trunk, looking dejected. ‘I know,’ I mused. ‘Come on then, tell me more about the dream.’

'Well there isn't a lot more to tell,' he admitted. 'But, I did have another one a couple of nights ago that was also pretty intriguing.'

'Really?' I asked, perking up.

He looked like he was struggling to explain. ‘It was...similar to this one, actually. Only, we were standing in the centre of this circle of Soulless—they were all standing around us, and we went up to them all, and basically destroyed them—when we took off their masks, they collapsed to the floor. Scarrus was there; we killed him last.’

‘We killed Scarrus?’ I asked, wishing that it was true. ‘Damn, you have good dreams, Arjan. And you say they were standing all around us?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ he said absent-mindedly.

‘And what else happened?’ I was eager now; determined to find out what was going on here.

‘I don’t—‘ he began, but froze in mid sentence.

We could hear footsteps.

Running footsteps.

They were close.

Fear crossed Arjan’s face and I gripped his arm so tightly that I could tell he was in pain long before I was able to stop myself.

‘Run,’ I whispered.

I shoved him hard in front of me; so hard that he staggered, before beginning to dart through the trees. I followed, soon catching up, then leading the way. I had known before I’d even taken two steps that we were running in almost the opposite direction to the car—a bad move in any strategy, but the footsteps were coming from that direction, and we weren’t prepared to face them. I only had a stun gun, and Arjan had nothing at all.

A colossal noise, yet one so short that it was over before even my brain had registered it, shot through the air, and a tree not three feet away from me groaned suddenly. Cracks began mapping their way up its bark as it creaked and moaned, a gentle plume of grey smoke dancing up into the air from where the bullet had hit it.

Soulless.

They were getting closer.

‘Keep running,’ I told Arjan. He bolted on a few more steps, but as soon as he realised how I’d become still, he stopped too.

‘Go!’ I ordered. He stood his ground.

‘Arjan, you’re the one they want!’ I snapped. ‘You go, or we’re all gonna—‘

‘Am I interrupting something?’

I had fully expected to see Scarrus. He was in the area, and Felix—the name still hurt my insides—hadn’t been sure about having killed him (which in Scarrus’s case, always meant that he was still very much alive—someone like Scarrus never seemed to get hurt for long). So either we’d scared him away, or he was getting some of his minions to do his dirty work for him.

The man that faced me was most definitely not Scarrus. A little below average height, he was beefy and firmly set, with dark hair cropped very short. His broad face looked skull-like, as though his skin had been stretched across it too tightly, and his cheeks were pink from the running. He was wearing a grey mask; something that had been designed not to look too different from medieval battle armour, and a business suit, which a better person could have worn to the office had it not been for the faint scratches that laced the sleeves and patches of dirt and dust that were turning it grey.

‘Well, well, well,’ I said, laughing mockingly. ‘If it isn’t Bruno.’

Bruno’s black eyes glinted beneath the mask. ‘Good to see you too, Hurricane,’ he replied, his voice thick with sarcasm. Like with Scarrus, Bruno and I had met on multiple occasions before, though my history with him was nowhere near as complex as it was with Scarrus.

Bruno was about to speak again, when another figure emerged into the clearing. This one was taller, though just as muscular and stocky as his companion—undoubtedly a boxer or rugby player’s build—but his hair was darker and longer, and his skin more tanned.

‘Who’s you’re friend then?’ I asked Bruno.

‘Why should I tell you that?’ the friend said in a hostile voice.

I rolled my eyes, keeping the situation light. If they didn’t know I was scared (which I wasn’t....of course I wasn’t...) they wouldn’t try anything on, and if Arjan didn’t know I was scared (which I still wasn’t) then he wouldn’t try to be brave. That was the last thing I needed.

‘Tell me something else then,’ I said, determined to get something out of them, ‘why isn’t Scarrus here? Is he dead yet?’

Bruno laughed. ‘Dead? Course he ain’t!’

I sighed. ‘I was afraid you’d say that. So, he’s too scared to come and meet me?’

This time, it was the unnamed one’s turn to laugh. ‘Scarrus ain’t scared neither. He’s merely resting.’

I didn’t care what they said. I knew Scarrus well enough to realise he would stop at nothing to get one up on me, whether that was by killing me or shoving me in an Institution. The fact that, with almost a free shot at me, he was now nowhere to be seen, was highly suspicious.

‘Anyway,’ I said, deciding to get on with things, ‘why are you here?’

Bruno raised his eyebrows. ‘So we can kill you and take the boy away.’ The casual tone with which he said it made me rather admire his attitude, even if I wanted to blow him off the face of the earth.

‘Well you’re not coming any closer to him,’ I said adamantly.

I knew what was coming next. The Soulless were way too predictable.

Bruno brandished his gun.

I was quicker.

And this time, I wasn’t open for discussion.

I fired three shots at him, one of them getting him straight in the head and another just underneath his chest, knocking him straight out unconscious. As his friend went to grab his gun, I fired at him too; fired so many times that he crashed into a nearby tree and rolled out on the ground.

‘Run!’ I yelled at Arjan. He took one step before I grabbed him by the shoulder of his shirt and dragged him in almost the opposite direction, back towards the car.

Things were getting dire. As we charged back, following our ears towards the sound of the road, I knew that more Soulless would be coming. I knew we weren’t going to outrun them. The only option was to hide, and even that was far from certain to put them off the trail.

We were almost to the roadside when my phone rang. Arjan stopped to wait for me but I gave him a hard shove in the direction of the car and he headed off, a little uncertainly, but realising that I wasn’t in any immediate danger.

‘Carl,’ I said in a cool, business-like manner as soon as I pressed the green button, a little out of breath from running.

‘Hurricane!’ he exclaimed, showing considerably more emotion than me—not that that was unusual. ‘Shit! Thank God you’re there.’

I was confused. ‘Huh?’

‘We just got word of what happened last night,’ Carl cried, unable to get the words out fast enough. ‘Otto made contact with us and explained what happened and he didn’t know what happened to you and Arjan; only that you were running, and some Soulless and some Dreamers were running after you and—damn!—we thought something had happened when you didn’t call!’

‘I was kind of...busy,’ I said, deciding on the simplest explanation that I could give. What else could I say? That I was too preoccupied with crying? Even if I did reveal this deep, dark secret, he wouldn’t believe it.

‘You should have called!’ he shouted down the phone, though his anger was only skin deep. I knew that he was really relieved that we were alright. ‘Otto said that it was insane down there.’

I had to ask. No matter how I hurt at the mere thought of it, I had to ask. I had been running from darkness for too long; now it was time to face it head on.

‘Did Otto mention...casualties? Did he say that anyone had gotten hurt?’

Carl was silent for a moment, which was never good.

‘He said someone was killed; a guy who’d just come over from Britain, and another few were wounded, all by guns, but I don’t know who they were,’ he said solemnly.

That was what I feared.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘No reason,’ I replied quickly. Too quickly. That was stupid.

I didn’t know why I was so upset about Felix. I’d seen loved ones die in front of me before. That was why I stopped loving them. It was the only way to continue with this life and not break down. And Felix was nothing special—I’d only spoken to him a couple of times.

Maybe it was the knowledge that he died for me. He died to save the secret—to save Arjan, but if I’d stuck around and helped him, it could have been a different story. I’d had a gun last night too.

Maybe it was the knowledge that he died because of me.

And that was something I couldn’t take.

I hung up without another word. Tears burned my throat, but I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated violently, turning all that sadness into rage. Every tear became a burning anger inside me. I was the Hurricane; I was the storm.

I strode powerfully back to the car, fuming to the brim with loathing for the government and the Soulless and every non-Dreamer in the world.

That was how to get rid of emotion, although I was so practiced now that I rarely even got to that stage. Normally, I could shut it out before I even felt anything.

Wow, I hated Arjan for doing this to me. He’d made me even more messed up in the head than I already was.