her den.â
4
B ERKELEY S PRINGS
V IRGINIA
J ESSE
I âM NOT ALONE.
I look around, but no one else is visible in the black dreamscape. I listen as carefully as I can, but I hear nothing out of the ordinary.
No, thatâs not quite accurate. Thereâs music surrounding me, a ghostly orchestral hum like you sometimes hear in the middle of the night, conjured by the vibrations of the air conditioner. Maybe real music, maybe imagined. Almost subliminal.
Thatâs new. And on another night I might have paid more attention to it, perhaps even tried to trace it to its source. But tonight I have bigger things to worry about. The sense of someone watching me is so strong that it gives me goosebumps. Is it the avatar girl again? The mere thought that a stranger might enter my dream is so unnerving that my spirit wavers briefly, and for a moment Iâm tempted to wake myself up, to flee the dreamscape. But my hunger for knowledge is greater than my fear. I need to understand how other people can enter a world that my mind created, and what they can do to it oncetheyâre here. Not to mention the sheer stubbornness factor: Iâm damned if Iâm about to be driven out of my own dream.
Slowly I begin to walk, but my attention is less on the doors this time, and more on the darkness surrounding them. As I come to each door the ghostly music seems to get a bit louder, then it fades again. The melody is changing each time, very subtly. Like each door has its own musical theme. Weird.
Suddenly I see a flash of movement off to one side. I turn toward it and see the avatar girl standing there, watching me. Why didnât I see her before, when I looked in this direction?
As soon as my eyes meet hers she turns away and starts walking.
âWait!â I cry out. âJust for a minute! I want to talk to you.â
She shows no sign of having heard me. Sheâs walking quickly, speeding up bit by bit but not running outright, moving off into the darkness. I follow her, mirroring her pace, not wanting to close the distance between us (because what would I do next, tackle her to the ground?) but hoping that if she realizes Iâm not a threat to her sheâll slow down and talk to me. I have questions that only she can answer, and Iâm not going to let her out of my sight before I get a chance to ask them.
The music seems louder, now that Iâm focused on her. Maybe thatâs just an illusion. Or maybe itâs easier to hear such things when youâre not paying attention to them. The arches are changing shape as she passes them, too. Crystal spines vanish in a puff of glittering smoke. Stone arches stretch upward, sides thinning out, rounded tops transforming into a graceful point. The new shapes, tall and peaked, remind me of an Arabian palace.
Itâs a shape that has meaning to her, rather than to me.
The implications are chilling, but I continue on. The only thing worse than having a stranger mess with your dream, is having that happen and not knowing how they did it. Or why.
As we approach a dense cluster of archways she breaks intoa run. With a start I realize that the pattern of these arches is familiar: this is the cluster where she lost me the last time, when I couldnât follow her through an arch. I can see from the way her body is tensing for one last burst of speed that sheâs about to try the same trick again.
Not on my watch.
Her final dash is sudden, but Iâm right behind her, and Iâm ready for it. As she enters the arch I launch myself at her, closing the gap between us with all the reckless ferocity of a baseball player sliding into home plate, grabbing hold of her so that she can no longer pass through the arch alone. The force of my momentum knocks us both off our feetâand then suddenly weâre falling through the archway together, and we hit the ground on the far side with enough force to drive the breath from my body.
Fear and elation
4
B ERKELEY S PRINGS
V IRGINIA
J ESSE
I âM NOT ALONE.
I look around, but no one else is visible in the black dreamscape. I listen as carefully as I can, but I hear nothing out of the ordinary.
No, thatâs not quite accurate. Thereâs music surrounding me, a ghostly orchestral hum like you sometimes hear in the middle of the night, conjured by the vibrations of the air conditioner. Maybe real music, maybe imagined. Almost subliminal.
Thatâs new. And on another night I might have paid more attention to it, perhaps even tried to trace it to its source. But tonight I have bigger things to worry about. The sense of someone watching me is so strong that it gives me goosebumps. Is it the avatar girl again? The mere thought that a stranger might enter my dream is so unnerving that my spirit wavers briefly, and for a moment Iâm tempted to wake myself up, to flee the dreamscape. But my hunger for knowledge is greater than my fear. I need to understand how other people can enter a world that my mind created, and what they can do to it oncetheyâre here. Not to mention the sheer stubbornness factor: Iâm damned if Iâm about to be driven out of my own dream.
Slowly I begin to walk, but my attention is less on the doors this time, and more on the darkness surrounding them. As I come to each door the ghostly music seems to get a bit louder, then it fades again. The melody is changing each time, very subtly. Like each door has its own musical theme. Weird.
Suddenly I see a flash of movement off to one side. I turn toward it and see the avatar girl standing there, watching me. Why didnât I see her before, when I looked in this direction?
As soon as my eyes meet hers she turns away and starts walking.
âWait!â I cry out. âJust for a minute! I want to talk to you.â
She shows no sign of having heard me. Sheâs walking quickly, speeding up bit by bit but not running outright, moving off into the darkness. I follow her, mirroring her pace, not wanting to close the distance between us (because what would I do next, tackle her to the ground?) but hoping that if she realizes Iâm not a threat to her sheâll slow down and talk to me. I have questions that only she can answer, and Iâm not going to let her out of my sight before I get a chance to ask them.
The music seems louder, now that Iâm focused on her. Maybe thatâs just an illusion. Or maybe itâs easier to hear such things when youâre not paying attention to them. The arches are changing shape as she passes them, too. Crystal spines vanish in a puff of glittering smoke. Stone arches stretch upward, sides thinning out, rounded tops transforming into a graceful point. The new shapes, tall and peaked, remind me of an Arabian palace.
Itâs a shape that has meaning to her, rather than to me.
The implications are chilling, but I continue on. The only thing worse than having a stranger mess with your dream, is having that happen and not knowing how they did it. Or why.
As we approach a dense cluster of archways she breaks intoa run. With a start I realize that the pattern of these arches is familiar: this is the cluster where she lost me the last time, when I couldnât follow her through an arch. I can see from the way her body is tensing for one last burst of speed that sheâs about to try the same trick again.
Not on my watch.
Her final dash is sudden, but Iâm right behind her, and Iâm ready for it. As she enters the arch I launch myself at her, closing the gap between us with all the reckless ferocity of a baseball player sliding into home plate, grabbing hold of her so that she can no longer pass through the arch alone. The force of my momentum knocks us both off our feetâand then suddenly weâre falling through the archway together, and we hit the ground on the far side with enough force to drive the breath from my body.
Fear and elation
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