Carter wished he could say he was relieved, but while the dream had decided things were resolved, he felt that was far from the truth.
Years of resentment and pain had just been rooted up in a matter of moments. Seconds. Minutes. And he felt so utterly vulnerable in front of two strangers, like he was a mere worm under a rock they had lifted up, exposing his naked, wriggling form.
He wanted to wake up, but this was not over. Second and Minra still had yet to prove they could face their own battles as well.
He looked over at the gate, shifting his stance before assuming leadership of the group, even though he felt exposed, almost like a fraud, even though he hadn’t lied about anything regarding his own identity.
“Well. I can’t imagine the order we go in will make much a difference now,” he said, the comment more to himself as he turned and started to lead the way. “My trial is over. I’ll lead out. Stay behind me. I don’t think any of us know what’s coming, but it’s best to play it safe.”
Second nodded. He was warier of Carter now, but he knew that Carter had a point he couldn't ignore - he was the only one with a weapon. If the next situation they ended up in was dangerous, it would be good to have him up front.
Minra was last in line as they approached the gate. Some small part of her was itching to run the opposite direction, but she smothered it.
Anything for Luce. She pictured the little girl's face, her smile, her eyes.
The gate looked identical to the first, a graceful arch of delicate white bones. Carter and Second stepped through, and Minra followed without hesitation. She closed her eyes as she pushed through what felt like an invisible veil. It was a familiar sensation now, like thousands of fluttering moth wings, cold and soft.
For a moment, it was silent and dark. And then the world built itself up around them.
Darkness gave way to the harsh light of a bare lightbulb hanging down from a low stone ceiling. The three of them were standing in a small room with graffiti-covered walls.
There was an entrance leading out into a dim hallway and a single window that provided a view of the city, its frame full of broken glass. The floor was bare concrete and the chilly air smelled of mildew.
Sirens wailed outside, some two or three stories below them. On an ordinary night, they might've heard cars too. But Minra already knew where and when they were, and it hadn't been an ordinary night.
Minra felt the old dread creep over her. It was a weight in the pit of her stomach, a lump at the back of her throat. It made it near-impossible to breathe. She'd never expected to have to feel it again, but here she was, as if the past eighteen years had never happened.
She suddenly remembered she wasn't alone, and turned to face Carter and Second.
Carter looked around the colorful walls in the small, cold room. It looked far different from what he knew back on Nye.
There was an awful, musty, lingering smell in the air, and they were alone. For now, he assumed.
Carter hummed quietly, giving Minra a nod. Had he not just been thrown into two of the worst interactions and moments he could've imagined, he might not have been so empathetic, but he felt his heart tighten up. It was a strange feeling. Pity always had a bit of pride in it. This just felt like... commiserating over brokenness.
They needed to get through this together.
He set a hand firmly on Minra's shoulder as a show of support. She seemed so average, but he had no idea what horrors this dream world would create for her, or what she feared the most.
Second wanted to ask the question, but Carter beat him to it.
Instead, he looked out the broken window at the world beyond. Every part of him hated standing here in this room. It felt so suffocating and unfamiliar. The buildings outside were taller than any structure he had ever seen before, and the wailing noise coming from down below were something he hadn't even heard at Charlotte's house.
He wished they were back in Carter's forest.
Tearing his gaze away from a world he didn't entirely understand, he looked back at Minra and Carter.
Minra looked up in surprise as Carter placed a hand on her shoulder.
Empathy wasn't something she'd come to expect from him, but his expression of concern seemed genuine. It was unexpectedly comforting. A reminder that though she hadn't known Second or Carter for long, they were on the same side.
She wouldn't have to face this alone again.
Minra took a deep breath and let the words spill out in a rush. "Almost two decades ago, my country was divided by a civil war between the old regime and a group of terrorists who called themselves revolutionaries."
"During that time, my family and I kept our heads down and just tried to wait it out. We didn't care who ended up in power- we just wanted it to end. I never saw any of the fighting. I'd always hear about what happened in other cities, but it didn't reach us here. Not until..."
She glanced outside the window.
"That night- or this night, the city was bombed. I had snuck out to meet some friends. Luckily, in an unpopulated area that wasn't targeted."
Why is it becoming so hard to speak?
"But- ah, my parents' house.. It wasn't.."
She stopped, blinking furiously as the lights outside began to blur together.
"Anyways. I heard sirens, so the first explosion must've happened already. But it's not too late. There were twenty minutes between each detonation, so that gives us some time. I could go home. I could get them out of there."
Some part of her knew that she was rambling, not making any sense. She tried to stay calm, regain some composure, remind herself that none of this was real. That night was in the past, and this memory was only a cruel illusion. Another nightmare.
But it all felt too vivid and horribly real.
I need to know. I need to know if I could have saved them.
She headed for the door, gaining speed with each step.
Carter followed, letting Minra lead the way. A sword wouldn't be useful against a bomb, and it sounded like, in Minra's world, that bombs blew up on a far greater scale than even he was familiar with.
That kind of devastation, the grief of her parents, the survivors' guilt... no wonder she looked so shaken.
"How far away is their house?" he asked as he started to run beside Minra.
Second didn't know what a bomb was, but the moment he heard the word explosion, it all made sense. Anyone from his true world - not the one he had been on before this - knew that explosions happened because of TNT and creepers. TNT and creepers created two very different kinds of explosions, but both could be extremely dangerous.
And if someone used that power on a large scale...
Second hurried after Minra and Carter.
He didn't say anything - he was waiting for the answer to Carter's question.
Minra ran through the dark building. She'd been a teenager the last time she was here, but the layout of the place was still clear in her mind.
Every inch of the walls spraypainted in a hundred different colors, the floors strewn with glass and garbage and scraps of wood, paper, and cardboard. As dirty and neglected as the abandoned building was, it had been like a second home to her.
Stupid. Foolish. I should have been with my parents.
She'd left them on bad terms. They hadn't gotten along, those last few years. Her last memory of them was slamming her bedroom door in their faces after a shouting match. It made her want to scream, all a young girl's shame and regret and self-loathing stirred up again and swirling around in her head. Hadn't she moved on from this years ago?
At some point, she remembered Carter had asked her a question.
"It used to take me half an hour to walk here from home, but if we run, we could get there faster."
They finally reached the pitch-black stairwell, and Minra started down it without hesitation, taking the steps in twos and threes.
Half an hour. Minra said the next bomb would touch down in 20. They needed to move fast.
Carter kept up speed, trying to let Minra set the pace, but at the same time, knowing he could go fast. But that would mean nothing - he didn't know where to go, and this was Minra's dream. If she got left behind, they would all be done-for.
He decided to reserve his breath for the long run ahead, quietly grateful that he had years of endurance training under his belt because of the army.
"Is there any way to get there faster?" Second said. He didn't doubt his ability to run, but they didn't have that large of a window between the time they would arrive - if they got there fast enough - and the time the bomb would go off. "This isn't the real world - if there was something you couldn't have done before because of the ramifications, you could do it now."
Minra somehow reached the bottom step without tripping and falling on her face, then began to fumble around for the exit in the dark, cursing the delay.
She almost didn't hear Second when he asked her his question.
"Huh? Oh. You're right. If we could find a car- or steal one- we could get there a lot faster."
She found the door, pushed it open, and emerged into a kind of courtyard.
Garbage bags spilled out of an overturned dumpster, and a beat-up pickup truck was parked on the other side of the square. On all sides, buildings towered dozens of stories high and streetlamps glowed with a ruddy light reserved for the late hours of the night.
Minra glanced around, racking her brain for the route out of the complex. It had been nearly two decades...
"Let's.. Let's head that way." She started to walk towards a likely-looking gate in the chain-link fence surrounding the courtyard.
As she did, a figure stepped out from behind the pickup truck.
Carter had been following Minra closely. He didn't know what a "car" was, but he was going to follow her lead - that was, until he saw something (or someone) emerge from behind the wagon-like thing in the courtyard.
Without much forethought, he ran between Minra and the figure before he even knew who or what it was.
Second also grew tense when he saw the figure emerge, but he didn't know how he was going to fight it - he had the same problem that he had back when they were rescuing Anne. His fighting style involved magic he couldn't access right now, and he wasn't sure he could recreate his skills without it.
He eyed the dumpster nearby.
After grabbing a discarded, partially rusted pole, he turned towards the new figure.
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