Leo and I shared a look of mutual concern at the sound coming from the void of a hallway. I couldn't tell if it was human or beast, yet the desperate sound drew me toward it as if I had the means to save it from some cruel fate.
"Where are you going?" Liza grabbed my shoulder when I took a step toward the darkness.
I spun around and faced her with narrowed eyes, unsure how I should respond to her question. Where was I going? And why? To save what may be a demon?
"Kev," Liza whispered urgently, her dark eyes wide with worry. My lips were sealed; the scream sounded again, tugging harder at my heart. "Listen to me: whatever is over there can't be good."
Samira agreed with Liza, hugging herself with her arms to make her terrified state evident to anyone looking. "Listen to Liza, Leo. The 'evil' man runs these dreams, not God."
"The evil man," Leo began, sounding simultaneously understanding and stubborn, "is not here. Right now, it's just us." He gestured at everyone, myself included. Then, turning to me with interest in his eyes, he said, "If we are all 'sleeping,' we can treat this situation with dream logic; we won't get hurt in the real world."
My lips twisted with uncertainty. As much as I wanted to explore the void, I couldn't be sure harm wouldn't come to my physical body. "When we're transported here while awake, we can get hurt. But Liza and I have been having nightmares here and out on an otherworldly field where there's nothing but war and death for over two years now, and when we die in those dreams, we don't die in real life ..."
"Is it worth the risk?" Liza continued, her hands on her curvy hips.
I had to look away from her. Not just to lessen the guilt her questioning expression brought on but to hide a blush that was warming my face. I wanted to see Liza after this dream in person. I thought of the Bloomfield Harvest Festival, and at that moment, I knew I would have to go.
The scream came a third time. Now, Nadine looked concerned. Maybe she suspected the voice to belong to the 'body' too? That was my guess and probably what Leo thought if I could read him half-decently.
"I have to investigate," Leo finally declared, the distress call seeming to have worn at his patience. "If that sound is coming from a human, like us, it would be wrong not to help."
Samira stared at him, her hands beginning to reach forward to catch him before she hesitantly pulled them back against her chest. She clasped them together and placed the knuckled against her mouth, her gaze falling to the floor.
Nadine crossed her arms and stepped toward Samira, away from the hallway and toward the main dimly-lit blue room. "I'll stay here with you in case anything happens."
"What could happen?" I asked, sincerely skeptical. Honestly, I had been gored in a previous dream, nonetheless, by hideous, vampire-like monsters. You can't get more grizzly than that.
"Not much, I guess ..." Liza mumbled this. Then with judgment, she said to me, "If you wake up with that eyeball-spotted leg missing, it's your fault."
"Well," I said, slightly annoyed by her righteous tone, "If you girls are attacked by the evil man while Leo and I check out whatever-the-hell is screaming, and you all wake up maimed, just know it's your fault too."
Samira, Nadine, and Liza all gave me a sour look. Even Leo appeared to be unhappy with my comeback.
I let out a heavy sigh. "I'm not trying to wish any of you ill, you know? What you said just bothered me, Liza."
"Oh, you made that clear," she quipped.
Also sighing, Leo cleared his throat and said, "Kev, are you coming with me?"
"I am." Leo and I turned our backs on the reluctant three and headed into the darkness, where the oil lamps' light couldn't reach.
We trailed our hands along the walls since we couldn't see where we were going. Eventually, we lost sight of the lamps and everyone else. Our footsteps echoed, and I could hear us both breathing. Hell, I thought I listened to both of our out-of-time heartbeats.
When the scream roared, it bounced around us and shook the stale air. I covered my ears since the loud sound was giving me a headache.
"I still can't tell if a man is making it or a woman," Leo said.
"Same," I agreed. Suddenly, the next step I took sunk me a foot deep into some water, or water-like fluid that pooled on the ground. I heard Leo slip in beside me.
"Shit!" he yelped.
I slipped too once my second foot entered the pool. My clothes were soaked, and the water in my mouth tasted almost metallic. Rusty, maybe.
"Should we keep going?" I asked, unsure if I wanted to continue if he intended to turn around.
He answered, "Keep going," and got up onto his feet, to my relief. The water splashed me as he did, but I didn't mind: I wouldn't have to face Liza's intimidating glare.
"That's what I was hoping to hear."
As much as I loved Liza's eyes, she did possess a kind of poison behind her sweetness. Especially nowadays.
We found ourselves waist-deep in cold water, shivering but determined. The scream sounded closer and closer until we could feel it vibrating along the water's surface.
Small bright red orbs began to float about in the water, some deep, some on the surface. Eyeballs!
"What the hell?" I stared at the tiny pupils, which all turned to meet mine.
"Just like the marks," Leo murmured.
When I looked back at him, I could vaguely make out the general structure of his head against the faint red light the eyeballs emitted.
I would ask him if he felt it, too, a shift in the air pressure, but before I said a peep, the floor dropped out beneath us. We gasped, then sunk, our heads yanked beneath the water's surface.
We heard the scream. Underwater, it seemed to pierce our skulls. We both thrashed in pain.
His right arm and my right leg started to emit a reddish-gold light. Looking at his arm, uncovered by the short sleeves, I could distinguish each eye and the lines connecting them. All the while, the floating eyeballs watched us go deeper and deeper ...
Looking down at the emptiness, I saw the red silhouette of a person. Hairless, sexless, motionless.
My body came to a rest a few feet from the flesh-sack.
The scream made my head explode when it opened a single eye at the center of its face.
*
I shot up in bed, coughing up rust-tasting water.
Dark, all dark. I couldn't see. I began to panic ... until my three dogs woke up and whined, giving me kisses to reassure me that we were safe, that nothing was wrong.
Only something was very wrong: I left the dream. Hopefully, Leo would be okay in the water without me. I don't know what the fuck that cyclops was, and even with the support of my furry family, the vision made me tremble; it made my stomach lurch and the room spin.
"Good boys," I said to them, giving them hugs and pats.
Yet, my right leg began to pulse in white-hot agony. I gritted my teeth and groaned, reaching forward to clutch my leg. It felt lumpy. Oh, God.
Tearing my sheet away, I yanked up the leg of my sweatpants. This time, I couldn't hold in a scream.
Actual eyeballs had taken the place of the markings. They blinked with eyelids formed from the skin of my calves and thighs, looking around bloodshot irises glowing crimson red.
My dogs whimpered and leaped off the bed. I hyperventilated.
Liza was right. Fuck. No. I don't want eyeballs on my leg!
I breathed harder and faster until sleep took me again.