The Four Dimensions of Corey Emerson

Whispers in Dreams

           I ran. And ran and ran like he told me to. I didn't stop. I was on my own and it sure as hell felt like it.

            I reached the gates of Camp Pine without anyone passing or stopping me. No one was guarding anything, which was a large surprise giving that only weeks before, the camp was attacked. When I managed to open one of the large double-doors, I heard a whisper from behind. It was calling my name. I jumped and almost screamed. Turning around quietly and guessing that it was Emerson, I gazed into the night, looking for my mentor.

            “Alice Gilderoy Trevor!” the whisper pierced the night and the moon. It was not Emerson. God, no, it was Knox of the Reliqui. “Alice Gilderoy Trevor, please come here, for a moment, I beg you!”

            I was almost out. I was almost far away from all of it... But why was Knox outside? He was supposed to be near Anthony Pine's dormitory. Where was Pine? Where was anyone? If the Caravans had returned, wouldn't the whole Camp be celebrating?

            I sighed and jogged over to the guy who had tried to kill me, days earlier. “What do you want?” I shot at him. Just then, I realized that he was in a large, boxed cage... Had he been in there since he was captured? I tried to find lock on the prison, but there wasn't one.

            “Alice Gilderoy Trevor, you have to listen very carefully,” Knox was hyperventilating almost as much as I had been, before. “You have to let me out-.” At this, I cracked up, laughing, and turned around, ready to leave Camp Pine forever but somehow Knox had managed to grab hold of my sweater. “Please, just hear me out, at least!”

            I shushed Knox and shook off his grip. I leaned against the bars of the cage. “This better be important.”

            Knox nodded. “It is, and you have to take me with you!”

            “And why would I do that?” I crooned gleefully. I think, looking back, I was in denial. “You tried to kill me days ago! And now you want to help me?”

            “Just let me go back to the Reliqui and tell them Sigurd lives! That's why I came to Camp Pine in the first place! To see if it was true!”

            I just stared at Knox. I stood there longer than I'd ever stood somewhere. I was there so long; I could no longer feel my feet. I'd forgotten how to walk. Suddenly, reaching my hands out, I gripped the wooden bars of the caged and squeezed tightly. In doing so, I felt my palms tingle as water transferred to the niches inside the wood. The bars of the cage became so bloated, that I could see water leaking onto my shoes below. Within moments, the wood cracked heavily echoing through the camp ever so quietly.

            Knox fell out of the cage and onto me as we were both pushed into the grass.

            I slipped right out from under Knox when he tried to make eye-contact moments later. “Now leave,” I ordered sternly.

            Knox smirked. “We should do this again, sometime.”

            I shook my head. “No, no we shouldn't,” I muttered, walking back to the double-door gates, only using the moon as a guide.

            Knox caught up with me. “Well, we'll have to.”

            “Why?”

            “You'll be hearing from me soon.”

            I swiftly turned on my heels and got nose to nose with Knox. “Number one, I will never see you again, number two, I never want to hear your name again... Simple as that...”