"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

- Benjamin Franklin

08:11 a.m

9 days earlier

The Pixie Diner was the sole establishment for food and gas for the last 200 miles to the town which Vashmir Commons lived and died. As seen in most road trip movies, the roadside diner had the full 80's ensemble in its design. From black and white chequered tiles floor to the red leather upholsteries of the seats. The metal lining of the bar was lined with chrome plated metal, the counter-top marbled, and a jukebox settled neatly in the corner playing pop music from the old decade.

With the pandemic spreading, the diner though, had just two other patrons at the barstool while Tim and Stella sat in a corner booth. Clay struck up a conversation with the sole waitress at the bar, who also doubled as the cook that day, as she was the only one working. Though from the distance, Tim could not hear what the pair were talking about.

But his mind was distracted by the intense staring contest that had erupted between him and Stella, the two of them not having said a word to each other since waking up from their sleep. Not wanting Clay to overhear their predicaments, there had been a wordless, mutual agreement on temporary silence.

Tim was the one who broke the long silence with the first accusation, “You haven't been taking your medication!”

Not willing to be put in the hot seat, Stella, replied, “Well, you have Sin!”

“I don't think my issue is as pressing as yours right now.”

“I'm fine. Nothing has happened all this time.”

“What if you get killed?”

“By who? Sister?” she was genuinely surprised by the thought. “She's not going to hurt me.”

Even though Tim did not fully trust the dream entity, Sister had yet to lead him astray. “Just be careful. We don't know what her game is.”

“Right. Well, for now at least, I'm pretty safe,” Stella reluctantly agreed, realizing that despite their relationship, Sister and her were still in a way, strangers. “But your hunter is openly after you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“That's what my brother said at first,” she punctuated with a look of worry. “Look at him now. Can't go a night without taking that damn Somnidin.”

Tim replied, “Well, compared to your brother, I have a little more options,” referencing his ability to jump into other peoples' dreams, and his experience killing The Father once. Though the latter event was something Stella had yet found out.

“I don't know how you do that,” she rested her head on her hands, looking at him quizzically. “I've never heard of anyone jumping dreams before.”

“Me neither,” he admitted. “I only found out about it yesterday.”

“And how long have you had Sin?”

“Just four days, maybe,” they fell into a short quiet as they contemplated what else to ask of each other.

Stella's tone shifted grimly as a question popped into her head. She asked, “Were you there?”

It didn't take his keen sense of deduction to know what she was referring to. “Yeah. Looked him in the eye till the last second,” he recounted the death of his father just a few hours ago.

Stella took his right hand and cupped it in both of hers. Her small hands just barely encasing his fist. “I know you're not the type but...you can cry you know?”

“I'll do that once all this is over.”

Sighing, resigned to the stoicism of Tim's emotional state, her only card left of a helping hand was to offer him her share of Somnidin.

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He replied, “Thanks. I'll get some from you when I need it.”

“Don't take too much though. It's addictive.”

“So I've heard,” he stared out the window and at the empty highway, recollecting how throughout the drive there they had not seen any significant traffic. The bell above the door chimed out as the two other patrons left the diner. “Which reminds me, we have to set some rules.”

“For what?”

“The only thing I know right now about this 'dream jumping' is that it only happens when I'm physically close to another sleeping person with Sin,” he explained his observation. “And since we don't want Clay to find out-”

“We?”

“Yeah! If Clay finds out about this, he's going to lose focus. He's just gonna worry about me as well and, knowing him, he might just go all hero on us and do something stupid like,” he held out two fingers to air-quote the following words, “self-sacrifice.”

“You have a point there. He tends to get all dramatic when pushed,” she recalled the incident with the drug dealer, Adam.

“Right, so that means when he's sleeping, I have to stay awake. So I can only sleep with you.”

Stella raised her eyebrows and pulled a playful grin, replying, “Sexy.”

Immediately realizing his mistake, he waved his hands in vehement denial, “No! Not like that! I mean, I should only sleep while you're asleep, or at least, when Clay's awake. And one of us should take Somnidin so we don't both get in trouble with me jumping dreams. Don't want a repeat of me bringing that Sawman to you.”

“That's too bad. Guess I'm just not good enough for you,” she smiled playfully.

Sarcastically, he laughed, having gotten used to her playful advances. “You're pretty, but not my type.”

Clay returned to the table with a tray of food in hand. Three identical breakfast set of sausages, scrambled eggs, bacon strips, and cups of coffee. “You guys won't believe what I've found,” he exclaimed as he passed the food around before taking a seat beside his sister. “Alright, the waitress says Vashmir's town has been blocked off. No one has gone in or out in the last twenty four hours.”

Shocked at the new information, Tim exclaimed, “What's happened there?”

Clay explained, “A riot apparently. People going crazy, looting pharmacies for Somnidin, raiding police stations, all that junk. The rioters barricaded most of the main roads and the cops are struggling to contain the rest.”

Stella asked, “Why haven't we heard about this?”

“The media's been down since yesterday,” Tim theorized, based on his talk with Gordon Barber the previous day. “If cities like ours just went down, I guess it's safe to say that small towns probably got taken off the grid even earlier.”

The girl gracefully sliced through the sausage on her plate, “Guess we can't get to the Common's place then,” she took a slice of the meat, brought it delicately up to her palette, and ate it with a closed mouth, chewing softly.

Her brother on the other hand, clanked through his meal. The metal utensils clinking the ceramic loudly. After swallowing the eggs he had practically shovelled into his gullet, he continued, “Not true. Turns out, their place is on the edge of the town. We could go off road, circle round the perimeter and sneak in.”

Nodding with approval as he chewed off a strip of bacon, Tim replied, “That could work. Sneaking around angry mobs, armed policemen, violent looters, and crazy Somnidin junkies; to look for the home of a dead man murdered by viscous dream entity. Sounds fun.”

XXX

012:22 p.m

9 days earlier

Clay snoozed quietly in the back seat, his body laying across all three of the seat cushions. Having happily passed over the driving detail to Tim, he took two pills from his diminishing supply of Somnidin and promptly fell asleep. In the passenger side, Stella also decided to take a short nap, her seat tilted backwards at a gentle incline for comfort.

For Tim, the past hour had been spent staring at an increasingly bleak highway. Initially, there were a few cars passing every other ten minutes or so. But as they got closer to the town, the numbers dwindled till him not having seen another vehicle in almost an hour. He had been unable to turn on the car radio either and was left with listening to the rumble of the engine. With plains on both ends for as far as he could see, and dark clouds that hung in the distance, his bile forebode only intensified.

“There's no rain either,” he muttered to himself, staring at the clouds. “Creepy. I don't like this.”

Stirring from her sleep, Stella replied, “Neither do I.”

Tim took a quick look to his side to find her seemingly fresh and fully awake, having none of the symptoms of having just gotten out of her sleep, the elegant teen simply readjusted her reclined chair upright and sat with her hands cupped neatly in her lap, scanning the outside world. The car started up a long, gentle hill.

“How was your nap?” Tim asked, feeling slightly more energetic now that he had a companion to talk to again after the long drive.

“Didn't run into my brother,” she stated, though not the reply he was expecting. “So the dream jumping thing is uniquely you I'm guessing. But then again, he has Somnidin.”

“Did you talk with Sister?”

“I did. She told me about all the things you did, and how you killed that Father creature once?”

Taking a quick look in the rear view mirror to make sure Clay was still asleep, Tim replied, “I did. Or at least, I thought I did.”

“That might be a key to how to beat this thing, what you did.”

As they lolled over the edge of the hill, Tim slowed the car to a halt. “One problem at a time,” he said, staring in shock and awe at the scenery before him.

“One problem at a time,” Stella repeated, equally stunned.

Black smoke continued to rise from half of the buildings of the town of Roagnark, with cars burning in the streets. A makeshift barricade had been formed a couple of miles down the main road, blocking the entrance with scorched abandoned cars. Blue and red lights of emergency vehicles flashed across the canvas of buildings of the two mile long town, occasionally flickering out, followed by flashes of flame.

Under her breath, Stella whispered, “Ocean of fire.”

“What?” Tim asked, unsure if he heard her right, nor of the meanings behind her words.

“The town,” she explained, “It's like the ocean has been set aflame.”