next to it, an expansive bed. The kitchen area is just right for camping out and I feel a sadness sweep over me as I remember distant childhood summers with my parents. The thumping stops suddenly and I turn to the stranger standing in the middle of the room.
“We don’t have much time,” he says, walking towards me.
“Much time for what?” I say. “Who are you?”
“You have to leave this place.”
“Who are you?” I repeat.
“My name is Laars.”
“Laars…”
“They’re coming down the chimney,” he says.
“Who-” I say, before the sound reaches me. Beating wings.
I freeze as Laars wraps his arms around me. His embrace warms me and despite the oncoming horror, I want to stay.
“Wake up, Abby,” he says. “You have to leave right now.”
I woke up in complete darkness. Tossing and turning, I tried to will myself back to sleep. I felt like a fool, wanting to see him again. I was even willing to face the demons again, just so I could have another moment in his presence. To feel his warmth. When I did finally drift to sleep, the sun was already peeking through the blinds.
Two more weeks of torture followed. Getting out of bed became a battle that cemented my original reluctance to be there. Then it got worse...
I had been barely making it to my sessions on time, just keeping me under my group leader's radar. One morning, I missed my first session, reaching the tank room three minutes after training started.
"A word Abby," rumbled my group leader, Thomas Evans. He was about a foot taller than me, with an ageless face that kept me guessing. He could have been thirty as easily as fifty.
My stomach tightened. "Yessir," I mumbled, following him. We walked down a corridor I had never seen and I had to squint against the bright white walls. Thomas stopped suddenly and my sneakers squeaked as I tried to avoid bumping into his broad back.
"Here," he grunted as a door slid open to our left. I hesitated and Thomas frowned, motioning impatiently for me to enter.
"Coming sir..." I scampered into the dark room and a swish told me the door had closed behind us.
A green light glowed faintly in the room. It intensified and became bright white, burning into my corneas. I tried lifting my hands to block my watering eyes but large hands gripped them, holding them together at my chest.
"Hey," I said.
"Fear training," said Thomas, as my eyes adjusted to the light. I opened them slowly and swallowed. "Sit," he said.
At the centre of the room, a chair sat bolted to the floor. Wires wrapped around its base, connecting the chair to a series of seven-foot tall screens lining one wall. These screens filled the room with the brightness of the sun.
"We're ready sir," said a blond man standing at what looked like a control panel.
Thomas turned to me. "Sit!"
I scrambled to the chair, feeling like a six-year-old at a dentist’s office.
"W-what's this about?" I asked.
"We feel you're ready for this."
"This isn’t because I was late this morning...?"
Thomas’ mouth twisted into a half smile. "No," he said, "Your test results show potential. But something's holding you back. Fear training will take care of it."
"Fear training." I repeated with an internal shudder.
"You have to learn to control fear in space. Otherwise you and your entire team could die if things go... Awry. The goal of this session is to get you to face your greatest fear... Your worst nightmares... then suppress that fear so you can complete the mission. Today your mission is simple... Find your way out of our dreamscape maze alive."
Panic spread to my toes as I leaned back into the green leather and let Thomas fasten my hands and feet to the chair. I knew what was coming and I could sense them hanging from the roof of some dark cave in the recesses of my mind... Waiting...
"Don't move," said Thomas, placing a glass helmet over my head. A small hiss accompanied a tightening sensation as the helmet closed around my neck. In an instant, solid black replaced the blurred whiteness as the glass darkened.
Bats.
Swarming and flapping.
Getting closer.
It's dark and I'm in a garden surrounded by hedges, their leaves rustling in the night wind. The bats are somewhere near and I look up. Inky sky looks back. The hedges are about fifteen feet tall on either side of me. I have to get out. The flapping gets louder as I start moving. At first I am twisting through a labyrinth, jogging. I stop at each turn and my heart pounds harder and harder, dimming the sound of the impending attack.
For a moment, I think, “I can do this.”
Then I see them.
A sliver of moonlight illuminates the maze in front of me and I freeze. The leaves surrounding me aren’t leaves. They’re thousands and thousands of beating wings.
I am paralyzed as the wings flap faster and faster, accelerating to match my thumping heart.
“Move it, Abby,” a voice echoes in my head.
I scream.
Wave after wave of bats rise off the hedges, swarming around me, building up to a crescendo of throbbing darkness. For a moment, I am paralyzed with the sound of my own panic filling the air.
I run.
Zigzagging through the maze, without looking back, I feel a rush of air… of something… push me forward.
“Not that way,” says a voice from the bushes.
I scamper to avoid the left turn I’m about to take, skidding to a halt. I know the voice and almost immediately, my terror diminishes.
“Laars,” I call out as he steps from the shadows.
He smiles and I run to him, burying my face in his chest. His arms are strong, and the sound of flapping wings all but disappears.
“What the-?” snaps another voice in my head. “Who’s that?” I jump and look up at Laars. I can’t see his face and he vanishes as the bats swarm around me, their bony fingers scraping against my arms, tangling my hair. I crouch into a ball, wrapping my arms around my head, unable to move as they suffocate me.
“Wake up, princess,” said Thomas. I groaned and tried to ignore the incessant throbbing in my head that kept my eyes shut.
“Abby!” His sharp tone snapped me out of my fog.
“Yessir,” I said.
“What just happened in there?”
I shook my head as the room came back into focus. My helmet was gone and I inhaled the sharp clean smell of the lab, lifting the fog from my mind.
“You failed your mission, Abby,” he said, standing straight.
“Failed?” I asked, wanting nothing more than to bury myself under a thick comforter for a week.
“Who’s Laars?”
“Laars?” I squeaked. A vision? An illusion? A figment of my imagination? “I dunno.”
Thomas grunted and unfastened my hands and feet. I had forgotten about my restraints. Now looking at the pink welts they left, I felt like a prisoner more than a trainee.
That night, I swallowed three Esa capsules, powerful stimulants that could keep me up for days. I’d had enough nightmares to last a lifetime. The lights went out at ten and I lit a candle, its lumens just less than anything the light sensors could pick up. Staying up after lights out was a no-no for students of the Reclutamiento. Then again, so was stimulant use.
I was briefly tempted to turn on a lamp and deal with the consequences, but the thought of my mother’s disappointment stopped me. Instead, I curled up on the bed against my better judgement and closed my eyes. Colours danced behind my eyelids and I enjoyed the show, knowing that sleep would not come.
“Abby…”
“Laars?” The sky is filled with lights, like a cross between aurora borealis and fireworks. I am on top a small hill, with a full view of the light show. "This isn't real… is it?"
"It is," says Laars, stepping closer. I gasp as I get my first real look at him since the bat dreams started. His face is otherworldly but warm. The
light show around us suddenly seems to come from him.
"You're n-not real," I stammer.
Laars is silent as he reaches over to tuck a lock of loose hair behind my ear. Tiny pulses of electricity flow through my skin where his fingers brush lightly. "I am real, Abby," he says. "You know that."
I swallow and nod, struggling to keep my breathing steady. Above us, the lights shimmer and sparkle. "Where are we?"
"A special dreamscape I created for you."
"Dreamscape?"
"That's what humans call it."
"You say that as if you're not..."
"Human?" says Laars smiling.
I step back, just out of his reach. My lips feel tight and my hands tremble. "Not real," I mutter.
"What about your demons?" Laars asks. "Are they real?"
"That's different..." My own voice sounds hollow as it trails off.
"You are more than just a physical being."
"What are you?" I ask, forcing myself to meet his steady gaze. His eyes are navy blue, swirling around some unknown depths.
"I can't tell you that yet," he says, "but if you conquer your demons, we'll meet... In the physical world."
My mind flutters into chaos at his words. Fear? Longing?
"What if I don't want to meet you?" I say.
He raises an eyebrow. "It's your decision. I know I want to meet you..." His voice trails off as he turns to face the light show. I suddenly realise the patterns match his swirling eyes.
Before I could speak, he grips my hand. Warmth spreads to my toes.
"I can't protect you forever," he says. "It's in your hands now."
The following night, Thomas summoned me to his office. My heavy boots thumped and echoed in the pale halls, matching my heartbeat. I stopped in front his beige wooden door. Under a hologram of his face