Dream Walker

Chapter 26 | Dancing in the Dark

Insomnia really was a bitch sometimes. Just when Callie thought she was doing well at controlling the anxious thoughts that kept her awake previously, her life continued to get more complex. Exercise, meditation, and lying in bed with the lights off had not been enough to aid the transition from exhausted wakefulness to sleep.

It was well past midnight, dawn approaching ever faster, and Callie was desperate for even a few hours of sleep. After the last bout of stretching and mindfulness, she had simply collapsed on the floor in front of her bed, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping she would fall asleep despite the discomfort she felt.

When she released the breath she was holding, she opened her eyes to see Layla leaning over the edge of the bed. The cat's face was upside down to her, and it made her look even more strange than usual. As much as Callie loved the cat, she could acknowledge how much her appearance differed from the average feline. Every feature was long and thin, like she had been stretched out.

Layla's mottled yellow eyes peered at her with stoic curiosity. The cat was either laughing at her struggles or confused at why she was lying on the floor rather than the bed. Callie lifted her hand up to hang in the air a few inches from Layla's face, letting her sniff and rub the corner of her mouth against the proffered hand. She could feel the rumbling purr vibrating Layla's body.

Callie never thought of Layla as her pet. She was too independent of a creature to be owned. She had walked through the door without asking for permission, so it would be ridiculous to say she had been rescued or adopted. If anything, Layla had adopted Callie as her person.

She wondered if Layla ever had trouble falling asleep. She doubted it. Cats slept most of the day. She was always asleep when Callie returned home. Did she dream? If she did, what were her dreams like? Could she travel too?

"Tell me what to do, Layla. Should I let some shadow lord with unknown intentions teach me how to be my best self?" The more her thoughts swirled back to Cyril, the worse she believed his intentions to be. She had realized that his ability to control shadow creatures in his own world meant he could be responsible for the attacks in her own world. Had he sent them through the veil to kill people? What purpose would that serve?

Layla's only response was a slight head tilt. Her eyes remained locked on Callie's face.

"I know, I know, I overthink everything," Callie sighed. But if she rejected his offer, would the attacks start again? Would she ever again have the chance to learn how to control her powers from someone as knowledgeable? She felt like a terrible person for even considering it without more information about Cyril's moral compass. She had spent weeks, years really, looking over her shoulder for the terrifying creatures that she finally knew came from his world.

"Here's another dilemma you can help me with: Alex or Arabella?" The question was much more simplistic than the true depth of the dilemma. It's not like she was considering anything with either of them. Well, she knew she shouldn't consider anything, and that was enough.

Her feelings for Alex had been oddly complex for a while. Even stranger, her most recent interaction with Arabella had left her insides twisted up in a knot. Sure, Arabella was beautiful, but Callie had always found something about the girl off-putting. Yet, all her previous worries had melted away with Arabella's gentle touch.

And what about Alex? Callie wasn't prone to crushes, but he had crawled under her skin and taken up residence in her thoughts for weeks. She could explain it away as lust or loneliness or just finally meeting someone who understood most of her secrets. She could find plenty of reasons to explain her fixation on him, but none would quiet her restless thoughts.

She thought back to her handful of sessions with Dr. Schoff. His head was full of notions about repressed childhood trauma or ongoing current trauma that tortured her mind endlessly. Despite having plenty of trauma from her childhood and present life, Callie had easily disregarded the psychologist's ideas. Plenty of people had fathers that passed out drunk in the living room every night and died under terrible circumstances. Even more people balanced academic and personal stressors, though she doubted most of them worried about accidentally traveling between dimensions in their sleep.