For the second time in thirty years, the entire world has fallen asleep...
Thirty years after the Greymen caused the decimation of her people, high school drop out Rain Collins spends her days learning to pickpocket and hold her booze. Yet she long...
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We stumbled down the city's side streets, avoiding the festival preparations and muttering our disgust as we made our slow, drunken way to Dr. Farrah's gigantic building. Forty floors, hundreds of rooms, and one resident--two when Billy was too broke for his own place, which was almost always. The tower was a unique residence that doubled as the doctor's laboratory, office, research center, and whatever else she needed at any given moment--even as a nightmare, as Jenny proved. She had no staff, but she had never seemed to need any; the populous was small enough and her facilities were advanced enough that she could take care of us all on her own and still happily maintain her research.
Billy led us through the winding halls and endless corridors that led through the enormous building to Dr. Farrah's personal office. In the waking world, the building was lighter and less oppressive than it had been in the dream world, but the memory of being trapped there pulled at me. At my side, Kayle shook. She felt it, too.
Dr. Farrah's Greyman, Jenny, had kept all of us hostage here during the Second Big Sleep. No matter how good her intentions had been, the tortures we had endured had been scarred on our memories. We could never forget.
Billy, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaffected by the place. He led us down the many halls, casually pointing out rooms and their functions, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. And, perhaps, for him, it was. The place was his childhood home, after all.
"And this is her office," Billy said finally, gesturing at a solid oak door. He knocked twice, then opened the door without waiting for a response.
Dr. Farrah lay on a bed in the center of the room, fast asleep.
"Mom," Billy crossed the room and grabbed his mother by the shoulders, shaking her unceremoniously awake. "Get up."
Dr. Farrah roused, waving a hand in front of her face. "Good God, Billy. Back up. You're going to blind me with that breath," she said, sitting up and blinking hard. She smiled when she saw Kayle and me standing in the doorway. "Ah, girls. Come in. How was the festival?"
"It hasn't happened yet. That's actually why we're here. We need to talk to you," Kayle said, stepping into the room.
"Of course." Dr. Farrah climbed off the bed, straightened her jacket, crossed the room, and unstacked three chairs from the corner. She set them in a semicircle facing her desk, which she sat behind, then gestured for us to do the same. Once we were all seated, the doctor said, "What is it?"
We relayed our overwhelming fears that no one was taking the Masters seriously as a threat, that the festival was a sign of dangerously willful ignorance, that more people than my father would deny the Masters' existence altogether. There were certainly many Dreamcallers who denied and even feared their bond with Greymen. Dr. Farrah listened intently and, when we were done, agreed with our assessment: we had no time for denial.
"There are few who truly support our cause," she said. "And those who do, such as the Speaker, who has assured me that he fully intends to join our efforts in preparing for the Masters, are concerned that the city will be riled up by fear mongering of any sort, including necessary war preparations. They just don't think the people are ready. And they are probably right. We've all been through so much.
"But I think you're right, too. We can't do nothing. We've done nothing for thirty years. This is something I have been dealing with on my own for some time now. I knew no one would believe me before, but until I told them, some part of me actually believed they might see the truth. Of course they wouldn't. Didn't. The world's always been blind. Stupid. Well. It's not me they need to listen to anyways. It's their Greymen." She nodded, chewing her bottom lip. "Your Greymen!" she said, throwing her hands in the air and leaping up from her chair. "Have you met them yet? I mean, officially introduced yourselves?"
We shook our heads, no.
Dr. Farrah walked to the bed she had just vacated and bent over, grabbing it by a handle on its end. She pulled and the bed expanded, growing larger as she pulled it away from the wall. "Get in," she said, pointing at the bed. "There's room enough for the three of you. Just cuddle up. And make sure you say 'hello' for me. Ready?"
We lay down and closed our eyes. In less than a second, I was asleep.
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