It happens in a dream.

A hand wraps around her wrist. A man’s hand.

He hates this part.

“What are you doing?” she asks. “Who are you??”

Kara struggles to place him. There’s something familiar about his face. But she doesn’t know where she has seen it before.

“You asked me to do this,” he says firmly.

More to himself than to her.

“I need you to trust me.”

“No!” She pulls away. Her eyelids flutter. This is becoming a nightmare. Her head twitches, struggling. She is trying to wake up, but her body won’t let her. Not yet. Not until it believes there is real danger.

He can’t let that happen.

“Kara, breathe. I’m not going to hurt you. You know me. You trust me.”

The same thing that made Dreamland mind-numbingly boring to him gave him a useful advantage in this one situation. His will be done.

He’s right. She trusts him.

“I’m going to take you somewhere,” he says. “Just remember: You asked for this. This will all make sense soon.” He grabs her hand again. This time she lets him take it.

They walk. Scenery flies past them, faster than they are moving. Faster than they can comprehend it. The rules of time and space have no hold here.

Why would they? 

The world stops spinning. They’re at a pool of water. Clear. Deep. Kara can’t help it. She peers in closer.

“Do you remember why you’re here?” he asks.

She shakes her head no.

“You will. Look closer.” Kara leans toward the water. She sees her own reflection looking back at her with the same puzzled expression that she has. The reflection of the man’s face appears over her shoulder.

Where does she know him from?

She tilts her head, trying to put the pieces together. But everything is foggy, like it so often is in a dream. She notices that her reflection did not tilt its head to mirror hers. She looks at the face of the man.

Where does she know him from?

The reflection puts two and two together before she Kara does.

Its eyes grow wide in horror, and its mouth starts to scream.

Dreamwalker.

Kara feels his hands on the back of her head as he shoves her face first into the water. It’s icy cold. His rough hands push her deeper. She struggles to breathe, thrashing then—

She breathes deeply. She is not drowning.

He has not pulled her head back up. She has not felt the yank of a hand on her hair. She is now watching (suddenly certain) from the other side of the water.

Her reflection is still drowning, sputtering, eyes wide in fear, inhaling bubbles, thrashing, and finally it stops.

Everything hits Kara all at once.

***

Ace stumbled out of the bar, squinting against the noonday sun.

He reached into his pocket for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Only one left, and it was broken. He tried to light it. No dice. He tossed it to the ground with a curse.

“Ace Harrington?” a young woman asked.

Ace peered down through his blurry double vision.

“Who’s asking?” he slurs.

“It really is you?”

“How’d you find me?”

“I’ve spent the last four years searching for you. I need a Dreamwalker.”

Ace’s demeanor changed instantly. He buttoned right the fuck up, taking a step back from her as if she were dangerous.

“I don’t do that anymore,” he gestured at the bar behind him and at his general state of inebriation. “Clearly.”

“You’re the only person who can help me. Buy you a coffee?”

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He waved her off and started to walk away.

“And a fresh pack of cigarettes?”

***

Kara sat across from the rumpled looking man whose combination of boyish features and poor personal hygiene made him look either 22 or 57. It was impossible to tell. He puffed away on his lifeline, his coffee untouched.

Kara sipped her latte, regarding him as a priceless artifact she had finally uncovered.

“Tell me about it.”

“About what?”

She gave him an impatient look. “The Dreamwalking, what else?”

“It’s hell,” Ace said. He took a long drag before stubbing it out and immediately lighting another one. “What do you want to know?”

“How you do it.”

He shrugged.

“You know how the second you wake up, your dreams begin to fade? You just remember little glimpses of details, even though at the time, they were vivid and important and all-consuming? But also, you’re coming out of sleep. For eight hours or so, your unconscious took over, and your thinking mind got to take a backseat?”

Kara nodded.

“Well, that doesn’t happen to me. My conscious mind is always aware during every single moment of my dreams. I remember everything that happens in them as clearly as you remember what you did yesterday. So, when I wake up, I don’t feel rested. I never get a moment’s peace. That’s why they call us The Sleepless.”

He did have pitiable bloodshot eyes.

“I long for death,” Ace said.

He wasn’t melancholy about it. Just matter of fact.

“Why haven’t you killed yourself?”

The words were out of Kara’s mouth before she could even think to stop them. She slammed her hand over her lips, mortified.

Ace gave her an amused look.

“I’m afraid,” he said simply. “I have no idea what awaits us on the other side, and I am terrified that for me, there will be no rest there either. That it will be just like Dreamland. An unending, boring wasteland.”

At this, Kara leaned forward in her seat.

“What’s it like?”

“Dreamland?”

She nodded.

“You know how in dreams, anything is possible? Well, when your conscious is experiencing what the unconscious is manifesting, it can be unsettling. And unlike mortal sleepers, we experience it all in real time. Real boredom. Agonizing fear. Drawn out for hours.”

Kara’s face grew tight. This description stirred something in her.

“Can’t you just stay awake?”

Ace looked more annoyed by this question than by the suicide one.

“I’ve tried. My body still needs sleep. It always betrays me eventually.”

“And you can go into other people’s dreams?”

Although Kara was trying to ask this question with the same measured curiosity she had used with all the others, the tensing of her hands around her coffee betrayed her. Plus, Ace knew, she had sought him out for a reason.

“Years ago, I had a… mentor.” Ace winced at the euphemism but did not elaborate. “She showed me that Dreamland is all connected. It’s all the same realm. Most people don’t venture outside their own little ids, but sometimes it does happen on accident. The thing is, when Sleepies like yourselves run into one another, you almost never remember it in the morning.”

“But it’s possible?” Kara stopped trying to hide her excitement.

“Anything is possible in Dreamland,” Ace shrugged.

“How does one… become a Dreamwalker? Can you make me like you?”

Ace’s eyes flashed angrily.

“No,” he said. “I can’t. It’s impossible. This is an innate talent that you’re born with.”

“Don’t lie to me,” now it was Kara’s turn to look angry. “I know that’s not true.”

“How?”

“Because it’s so clear that you remember what you’re missing.”

Ace was annoyed, but Kara was right.

“After everything I told you, you still want this? The process is irreversible. You would never know a moment’s rest again. It’s a living hell. Why would you choose this?”

Kara stared into the now-cold coffee in front of her.

“It’s my sister. Our parents died when we were very young. She’s all I have left in this world. Five years ago, I—uh. There was an accident. Left her in a coma, in the hospital. I went to see her every day, talked to her. They said she could hear me, but—”

Kara shrugged.

“Then one night I saw her. In a dream. She was crying for help; said she was trapped in there by someone. Some… thing. But I couldn’t ever find her again, I can’t control my dreams. Not like you.”

Kara gave Ace an admiring look that sent an unwelcome shiver of pleasure down his spine.

“I went to a medium, and she told me it was real. Melody is in there. In Dreamland. I have to go get her out. I’m her sister. She’s my responsibility.”

“You need a Dreamwalker,” Ace nodded. “But why don’t you just ask me to go in for you? I used to run… errands for people all the time.”

Kara shook her head.

“It has to be me. She’s too scared. If a strange man comes for her, she’ll just run and hide deeper. I’ll lose her forever.”

Ace sucked on his cigarette even though he had burned it down to the filter.

“I’ve never turned anyone before,” he said softly. “The experience was... non-consensual, when it happened to me.”

“How did it happen?” Kara asked breathlessly.

“There was a witch. A Dreamwalker who had a fixation with me. She met me once in Dreamland but couldn’t find me in the waking world. I was just a kid.”

He looked away.

“Anyway, it wouldn’t have been as satisfying for her to seduce me while I was asleep. She wanted me awake for it. Aware. She found me one night and made me into this.”

“I’m so sorry,” Kara whispered. She didn’t know what else to say.

Ace gave her a bitter smile. “It’s okay. I never forgave her. And eventually, I killed her. I promised myself I would never, ever be that kind of predator to anyone else. And I would never inflict this hell upon anyone, even someone willing. Even for a good reason.”

He stood up.

“So, thanks for the cigarettes, but no. I won’t do it.”

“Wait!”

Ace didn’t turn back, so Kara had to run after him.

“Please, you have to help.”

“Go away, kid. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I know. But my sister, the one who’s trapped in there. She’s a Dreamwalker.”

Ace froze.

“She’s conscious in there?”

Kara nodded.

“She’s been conscious in there for five years?”

“If she’s still alive.”

 “She’s alive. No one dies in Dreamland.”

Ace saw real desperation in Kara’s eyes.

“Do you have a place for us to sleep?”

She nodded. “There’s a hotel just down the road.”

***

Kara stares at the pool of water. Her reflection is a corpse, floating just below the surface.

Ace stands next to her, somber.

“I brought you to hell,” he said bitterly. “What you do next is up to you.”