Dreamland

Chapter Five

"Excuse me?" Luca said, his expression asking me to play along. But I had no idea what I was playing along to, so I pretended that I hadn't seen it.

Instead I focused on the dead creature, putting my machete back. It was completely black and had long curving horns at the top of its head. It was the size of what I imagined a warhorse to be and could've passed for an abnormally large wolf except for the horns and blood red eyes.

Luca walked up beside me. "That was a wolf once," he said. "But that was before Arkadus changed it in an effort to kill me." We stared at the dead thing that used to be a wolf for a while, until Luca broke the silence.

He turned to me. "Forgive me, I haven't introduced myself. My name is Callum, and you are?"

Callum? Did I have the wrong person? I looked at him. I didn't think so. I was pretty sure he was my Luca and was about to ask him about it, but his expression again asked me to play along, so I decided not to. "Alicia. My name's Alicia," I said instead.

He smiled at me like Dad would after he finished quizzing me the night before a big test when I got all the answers right. "What a lovely name," he said.

A moment later the world around us went extremely fuzzy and Luca turned and walked off. I swallowed irritation. I was beginning to get annoyed. Why did people always randomly walk off away from me, especially when I wanted answers.

I raced to catch up to him. "Where are you going?" I asked, out of breath from my little jog to catch up to him and now to keep up with him. Curse him with his long legs and me with my short ones.

"To Maddie's dream. She just fell asleep and that's why everything's blurry," he said, not slowing down one bit for me.

"Who's Maddie?" I huffed between breathes.

"The other one who dreams about me. Now the only one since you won't be dreaming much anymore."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped. Of course I would be dreaming again. I was not going to spend the rest of my miserable existence in this place.

Luca ignored me, or seemed to. After a few minutes of silence, I couldn't stand it anymore. "Hello? Aren't you going to answer my question?" I asked, irritated.

He startled, like he'd forgotten I was there. "What?" he asked dumbly, and I rolled my eyes, about to repeat the question, but before I could he said something. "Excuse me, but there's someone I have to talk to." At that he turned completely around and practically ran in the other direction.

"Wait, I thought you to had to go to Maddie's dream?" I asked, confused, turning to follow him.

"Hm?" he asked. "Oh. No, not yet."

"But then," I gasped out. He was fast. "Why were you heading toward it?" it was a reasonable question, but he didn't grace it with any sort of response. I forced myself to go faster and grabbed his arm. Immediately he became clearer and more into focus.

He stopped abruptly and his face contorted in confusion. "What . . . ?" he started to ask, but didn't expand on it. He glanced down at the hand on my arm. "What did you do to me?" He searched my face for a heartbeat, then pulled his arm out of my grasp. "What did you do to me?" he asked again when I didn't respond.

"I don't know," I said, bewildered. "What is it I'm supposed to have done you to you?"

He was silent for a while. "I . . . I don't know. Not exactly," he said finally. He thought about it for a moment. "You untangled my thoughts."