The dreamers (Working-title)

Chapter 3: Trish

Chapter three - Trish

I open the door.

Light streams in and I'm only vaguely aware of my associate yelling "Sprint!" and the growing line of energy making its way up and down the wall, across the ceiling and floor and up and down the other side of the wall.

As Aisha wheels out Adam and Tark, Jess and William carry out the device, I notice two things. 1) Thalia, Jed, Murray, Becca, Robin and Jason are all on my side of the line. 2) Chloe isn't.

The entire corridor is torn in half.

If you've never experienced a reality split then there's not really much of a way to explain it. You feel terror, pain and ecstasy all at the same time. The little symbols on the back of our hands seem useless as you can no longer tell. Then there's the view.

There's no way to describe nothingness. It's not just black eternal emptiness, and it's not white like a blank page, it's literally nothing. There's my friends, corridor, a square of energy, about ten centimetres of absolute nothingness, another square of energy, more corridor and then there's Chloe, and Them.

Chloe missed her moment and as the split began the shock wave must have forced her to the floor. They nearly have her. Chloe has her knife and she's slashing back and forth at the people, no, things trying to grab her. Leaning over her right now is the one with Jason's bullet hole in it's head. Chloe slashes at its hands, kicking at its body. The nothingness has expanded to thirty centimetres.

Suddenly, right where Jason's bullet hole was, an arrow has materialised. As Robin reloads her crossbow, Jason fires a few more shots into Them. Becca's sword barely reaches across the now almost meter long gap. Murray grabs the gun from Becca's belt and fires a few of his own shots.

I swear at least two of Them hit the floor as Chloe gets up, hoists Jason's one and drops it into the nothingness. Nothingness has no gravity so, as another couple of Robin's arrows appear in it, it just floats in the nothingness where the floor would be. The gap is now at least three metres long but Chloe is able to cross when she's just jumping on one of Them.

Chloe gets to the other side and is caught in Robins arms. Robin fires another two arrows into some of Them and I swear I see a little bit of blood. There are at least four of Them on the floor plus the one in the middle of the ever expanding nothingness, which is at least five metres across now.

As They fade off even further into the distance, the few we have taken down seem to be a victory. Thalia and Jed have already made it outside and I follow Jason, Becca, Chloe in Robin's arms and Murray, who's grinning like an idiot with a smoking gun in his hand out of the building.

The device is resting on the floor, Thalia and Jed are recovering, Aisha waits behind Adam, Tark is readjusting his clothes, Jess and William are resting their arms (which is probably reasonable, the device is pretty heavy and I doubt Tark was helping).

Robin sets down Chloe, who is understandably shaken. Jason takes the bullets out of his gun to count them. He holds out a hand to Murray so he can count the contents of that gun too, Murray seems a little disappointed but hands Jason the gun none the less. Becca has stuck the sword in its sheath and hooked it up to her side.

I'm fairly certain that Tark is talking to me when he lets out a muffled, "Where to now, Triangles?" Triangles is somewhat of a weird nickname but I think it comes from the time he asked how I track people. I said something about triangulation and all he heard was triangles.

I racked my brain to try to remember what was next in mine, Robin and Murray's plan but I found myself too hooked up on the reality split. A quick look behind me showed that Their side of the corridor was still getting further and further away. But in reality it's not really that far, there's only so long before reality heals itself and there are other exits. Regardless of what's going on there, we need to focus, and move.