I groaned and rolled over, but then instantly regretted it. A wave of nausea overtook me. In what seemed like hours to me, it passed in a matter of minutes. Slowly this time, I pushed myself upright.
“If you resist again, unwanted restraints will be placed upon you. Once you feel ready, enter the room to your left to join the other Dreamers. J87 has allowed you rest before meeting them so you can prepare yourself.”
I swallowed hard and let out a deep breath. I wanted to ask questions, but I couldn’t seem to focus on anything. My head was spinning horribly and I nearly collapsed back onto the ground. Instead, I pressed one of my ice cold hands to my forehead, smoothing my pounding mind.
After waiting a few minutes to allow me to think, I gasped out,” What did you do to me? Why do I feel this way?”
Talking made my nausea return and I fell to the floor helplessly. When my head hit the ground, bright lights popped before my eyes in a wonderful rainbow of colours. The pain came next, making me curl into myself.
“Even while unconscious, you struggled against J87. A drug was needed to subdue you’re valiant efforts, which had a 0% chance of success. The nausea and dizziness will pass soon, but you will feel weak for approximately an hour.”
J87 spoke the truth, already the sick feeling was beginning to leave my body. Soon, I was able to stand up, but I had to rely on the wall for support. Just feeling weak didn’t quite cover it; I felt like I was going to drop down dead any second.
“Enter the room to your left to join the other Dreamers.”
The wall a couple of meters ahead of me slid up silently, but I jumped anyways, not expecting the wall to suddenly move. I couldn’t see inside of the room, but I prayed with all my heart for it to have normal people inside. I needed some answered desperately.
I flattened myself onto the wall and edged forward quietly. Being barefoot had its advantages. At the corner of the door, I could only see half the room. It was small and dimly lit. I could see no other people.
Taking a deep breath, I slipped inside, keeping my back against the wall the whole time. As soon as I was in, the door shut.
There was three other teenagers inside, who all looked like normal humans, aside from the fact that they all looked starved and ill. There was two boys, one with ash blonde hair and the other with dark, and one girl with straight black hair. They were all sitting apart from each other and didn’t seem all that friendly. The dark haired boy hadn’t even bothered to look up, but instead had his knees pulled tightly up to his chest and face buried in his arms.
The girl was glaring at me, face twisted up with anger and growled harshly,” You Jacqueline?” Her voice was hoarse and rough, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time.
I was taken aback. “How do you know my name?”
“It was announced,” she explained. Suddenly, she smiled, eyes gaining the same insane look the little albino girl had when she attacked me. “Welcome to Hell.”
Most of my strength deserted me then and I slid down the wall, landing heavily with my legs splayed out awkwardly. “We’re not in Hell,” I murmured, staring blankly at the floor between my feet. Staying conscious was a task that required all my concentration.
“You’re right. We’re not in Hell; we’re in the Dream Lab, which is basically Hell in another language,” snarled the girl, raising to her feet and stumbling towards me. I lifted my head and looked her in the eyes, which were dull and sunken.
“You really shouldn’t be walking in your condition. Resting should be your main objective,” I sighed, eyeing her frail form. “Can you explain what the Dream Lab is? I’m new here.”
“Shut-up. You can’t rest here,” she growled back, not bothering to answer my question. I hadn’t expected her to. She was nearly five feet away from me.
“Why are you coming over here?” I asked, scooting further down the wall. What if she was going to attack me like the albino children?
She looked at me with disgust, but stopped and fell to her knees. Without thinking, I lunged forward and grabbed her shoulders to steady her.
“Whoa! You alright?” I exclaimed, becoming quite worried.
She fell forward onto me, nearly knocking me backwards. Her ribs jutted into my arms and her forehead rested against my shoulder. Her breathing was even, rough and ragged. Slowly, I pushed her off of me and rested her on the floor, where she lay with her eyes squeezed tightly shut and panting, sweat beginning to show on her pale face.
I felt like I was going to collapse as well, but I forced myself to remain conscious. “Can you hear me? What’s wrong? I want to help!”
“Why would you bother helping me?” she wheezed out. “Why aren’t you attacking me?”
I was appalled. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be helping you? I need you to tell me what’s wrong though.”
“The other Dreamers, they’ve been through too many tests. They’re animals. Most are too shocked and weak to talk or even listen to reason. I don’t understand... We’re dead.”
Pity, fear and confusion consumed me. What the hell was she talking about? What was wrong with her?
I brushed her knotted black hair from her forehead and tried to sooth her. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay. Just tell me what’s wrong? I want to help you. Can you tell me your name?”
Her blue eyes fluttered open and she stared helplessly up at me, looking like a wounded puppy. My heart melted in sympathy. “I can’t remember. They want us dead, but they already killed us. They killed us all.” She was rambling on about nothing, obviously terribly sick and distraught. Squeezing her eyes shut again, her whole body jerked.
I slipped my hand under her neck to pull her head up onto my lap, but I quickly yanked my hand back. Pain flared throughout my whole hand and I stared at in in shock; the tops of my fingers were turning a pasty white. I had touched something so cold that it had nearly frozen my fingers.
“Don’t touch it. I’ll hurt you, as well as me. They make me do things with it. Thinks I don’t want to do,” murmured the girl as she drifted unconscious. Carefully, I turned her head away from me and pushed her hair to one side to see what I had touched.
A thick, metal band protruded from her skin, which was red, inflamed and infected, and was held in place by four, bulky bolts. Blood and puss oozed around it and dripped down her neck. It looked so sickening that I quickly covered it back up with her hair and backed away from her still body.
I looked over to the blond boy in horror, and realized that he had been staring at me the whole time. He was the most meaty of the bunch, but still thinner than me by a long shot. Only one of his pale green eyes was visible, the other covered my a length of straight ash blonde hair. He had different clothing than me as well; a white t-shirt with baggy short, while I only had a short gown and under garments.
“You staring at me ‘cause I’m good looking or what?” he said softly, voice crackling like the girls. “Don’t worry about Kate, she’ll be fine in a couple of hours or so.”
I smiled and empty smile and started to crawl towards him. “No, I’m just trying to determine if you’re sane or not. What’s on the back of her neck?” As I neared him, he looked uneasy and even a bit panicky, so I kept my distance and settled against the wall.
“I don’t know, never knew that she had something on her neck. The names Cole Harven.”
“Jacqueline Birstmor, but you can just call me Jackie,” I said, tilting my head back to rest against the wall and closed my eyes. It felt extremely good, but I was careful not to fall asleep. “Do you know what’s going on right now?”
“Not at all. We’re in this place called the Dream Lab where the Soulless-”
“What’s a Soulless?”
“Those creepy things with the translucent skin and sewed up mouth.”
“Why are they called Soulless?”
“I don’t know, that’s the name the Dreamers gave them. Continuing, they do tests on us-”
“Tests? What kind of tests?”
“If you had let me continue, I would have told you.” He sounded annoyed now, but I didn’t blame him. My mouth moved before I had time to think. I opened my eyes and started fiddling with my fingers. Slowly, my strength was returning.
“The Soulless conduct tests on us, all differing on our Life Emotion,” he said, giving me a hard look when I opened my mouth. “Our Life Emotions is the strongest emotion that we felt while alive.”
“You really believe that we died?”
Cole chuckled darkly, something I hadn’t quite been expecting. “Really dead? I don’t think so. If we were actually dead, do you really think that we would be in this hellhole? The Soulless just want us to think that we’re dead. Probably gave us artificial memories to make I think so.”
My heart throbbed. “Artificial memories? But you can’t do that. It’s impossible.”
He looked at me curiously. “How long have you been here?”
I frowned. “Apparently my whole life. I asked one of those Soulless things, but I think that I just died last night.”
Cole gaped and our eyes meet, well, I just looked at his showing eye. He raised an eyebrow. “You just died? I mean, you just woke up?”
“No, I just felt like saying I had,” I retorted sarcastically. Why did people always ask such obvious questions right after you told them? Cole gave me a sour look and I regretted being sarcastic with him. “Yeah. I just woke up or something.”
“So you came from your first tests? How the hell are you still conscious and talking?”
I looked to the ground. “Um... No. When the Soulless went inside me and starting looking through my memories, I lost it and forced it out of my body. It looked pretty shocked and said something about me being a success and hope, but I attacked it and ran.”
Cole’s jaw dropped slightly, his eye wide with disbelief. “What happened then? How come you’re not dead?”
“These dinosaur dogs starting chasing after me, but I escaped into a room with albino cannibals who tried to kill me, but a Soulless came and knocked me unconscious. I was left in the hallway outside this room and when I came to, I was told to come in here.”
Cole shook his head, astonished. “I’ve seen the dogs before, even ran from them myself. The albino cannibals are some of the first, unsuccessful Dreamers and you meeting them would explain all the cuts and gashes all over you,” Cole said, pointing to my legs and arms. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed my many wounds. They didn’t hurt. I rubbed one of my arms, dry blood flaking off onto my hand.
“What’s a Dreamer?”
Cole shrugged. “Don’t know. I do know that you’re a Dreamer, I’m a Dreamer and everyone else in this room is a Dreamer. We’ve undergone the Dream and have memories and emotions or something. I asked the Soulless, but they give confusing answers.”
“What’s the Dream?”
He shook his head. “I know absolutely nothing about the Dream. The Soulless won’t about about it at all.”
“Did you die?” It felt weird asking, but I was curious. From his comments before, I was pretty sure that he had died, but I wanted to make sure.
Cole’s gaze fell to the floor sadly. “Yes. I died, then woke up here and I’ve been going through horrible tests for two weeks now.”
“What about the other two in here?” I indicated Kate, who was still unconscious on the floor, and the dark haired boy in the corner. “Do they know anything?”
Looking at Kate, Cole shrugged. “Her names Katherine Hostler. She’s really sick and beginning to lose her sanity. I wouldn’t bother trying to talk to her, all she does is ramble on about nothing and then collapses. She doesn’t know what she’s saying or doing most of the time.”
“She was talking about how the other Dreamers and how they wanted to kill us when I spoke with her. Do you know who they are?”
“The Soulless most likely. They don’t actually want to kill us, but some of the tests they do would probably make you believe that they do.”
I bit my lip. These tests sounded pretty bad. “What about the other boy?”
Cole glanced over at him uneasily and then moved closer to me, but still keeping his distance. He cast another glance over his shoulder and lent in towards me.
“I’m fairly sure his names Luke, but he hasn’t said a word; just sits in the corner all huddled up.”
“How come you’re uneasy about him?” I looked around Cole to the boy. He looked just as starved as Kate and just as sick. Maybe he knew more about what was going on.
“He’s... Different than us. He’s completely sane which is amazing since he’s been here for ages I’m assuming from the look of him. He’s still different,” whispered Cole. Most of my strength was back now, so I pushed myself up and started towards Luke, but Cole grabbed my gown.
“Please, don’t go over to him! I told you, he’s different,” whispered Cole more urgently, but I ignored him and pulled away. He let go of my gown and watched me closely as I walked silently over to Luke and crouched down in front of him, making sure to keep my distance.
His face was hidden, so I couldn’t tell if he were asleep or not, but the quick rise and fall of his back told me he was awake.
“Hey, Luke? Is that your name?” I said softly, trying to sound comforting and friendly.
His small form started to shake and my heart skipped a beat. Was he okay? Then I realized that he was laughing. In the current situation, laughing seemed absurd to me. I gawked at him while he laughed.
Slowly, he lifted his head and our eyes met. I tried to stifle my gasp, but was unsuccessful. His eyes were a luminous golden and reminded me of the murderous eyes of the mutant dogs. His curly black hair that hugged his extremely pale face tightly and hung down into his eyes only illuminated them more. The dark bags under his eyes did the same.
“So, you’re the girl the Soulless are all worked up about? The girl with the Life Emotion of Hope, as well as the second success. You’re the one who will make the Dream reality and bring life back to his god forsaken dump of a planet.”
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