The Catalyst

Chapter 18: Dreams and Reality

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoy this chapter. You might find it a bit...different from the others (you'll see what I mean). Hopefully it will give some new insight into where the plot is going in this third part, and how the characters are going to develop.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 18: Dreams and Reality

Cyrus was woken up by the sound of sobbing.

He had been having a very odd dream. There had been a serial killer on the rampage, and it had been his job to defend the helpless innocents and battle the insane murderer. Not only had it been a fairly interesting dream, he might even have considered it thrilling if not for the uneasy feeling that had been in his gut the whole time that somehow he knew this crazy guy. Right before he woke up, in his dream he had just ripped off the killer's hood and looked him full in the face for the first time. He had also gasped in horror, for those dark, empty eyes had been horribly familiar...

At first he was convinced that the crying he heard was an afterthought from the nightmare, which had indeed contained several weeping people, mourning lost friends and family members. But as his eyes finally snapped open and the vivid visions faded from his mind's-eye yet the crying endured, he realized that it was real.

Cyrus sighed, scolding himself for being so reluctant to get out of bed. He threw off the the warm blankets, which had automatically adjusted to the perfect thickness, slipped on his slippers, and padded out of his bedroom to the living room where he, Gloria, and Dameon had set up a makeshift bed on the couch for Phaedra.

Of course, none of that would have been possible if his parents had not suddenly decided to attend a medical conference in Boston for the next few days. Darius Khadem and Iman Hosseini were definitely a bit obsessed when it came to medical bioinformatics. The day before, after the disastrous argument with Gloria, Phaedra, and Stella; after Gloria had fully explained her miserable past and Dameon had suddenly started spouting odd, vague one liners without any kind of explanation, Cyrus had come home to find an angry, rather rude note from his parents stuck to the kitchen counter. It had explained where they had gone, and that they were going to have to leave without him since he had neglected to return home.

So that was why his mother had been so eager for him to come home for Black Friday. She had been lying about the shopping, trying to persuade him to come home so they could surprise him with a wonderful trip to a medical conference with a bunch of dusty old men and women gabbling with so much medical jargon they might as well be talking in another language.

Maybe he had actually been better off almost getting killed by a bunch of rebels.

Nevertheless, the miraculous lack of parents had proved to be extremely convenient. Gloria had obviously wanted to keep Phaedra nearby but not within Stella's reach. In addition, after having spent days displaying a clear hatred for Phaedra and everything she stood for, Dameon suddenly seemed unwilling to let her out of his sight - which was a bit creepy in Cyrus's opinion - and Gloria did not want to be anywhere where she could, 'get a glimpse of that sorry excuse for a mother.'

Which was why all four of them had ended up spending the night at Cyrus's apartment. For Dameon it had been a bit difficult - his deeply suspicious aunt and uncle had found it difficult to believe the story that he came up with to explain his sudden disappearances - and Cyrus had had to step in and convince the couple to let Dameon sleepover, and board the Metro with him the next day to return to Domenos. After he 'let slip' that they were behind on their semester project, everything turned out well. Thank goodness both of them were excellent liars.