Wake Up

Chapter 8

Sportacus had only just finished his morning calisthenics in his airship when something struck the hull outside with a bang and set the floor rocking under his feet. He tumbled and rolled across deck as another hard object hit the exterior of the gondola, then another. Bang! Bang! Bang!

He managed to crawl over to the pilot seat and steered the ship out of the line of fire. Banking around Sportacus searched for the source of the attack. He squinted down at LazyTown where small shiny objects came shooting up in an erratic pattern. They looked like mail tubes.

Something was not right. With the airship hovering safely out of range Sportacus ejected the skutla out of the gondola and pedaled hard to intercept the next canister. He snatched the whistling projectile out of midair and darted down towards town to land.

Sportacus jumped out of the hovering transporter and uncapped the canister. He scratched his head at the letter inside. It was gibberish, sloppy handwriting scrawled with a runny pen. Discarding the tube he jogged towards the mail chute.

Looking around Sportacus didn't see who had been shooting all the letters. In fact, he didn't see anyone at all. The air was hot and heavy in the silence after all the wind turbulence he'd endured. His footsteps made the only noise to accompany him through town.

Nobody played in the playground or sat in the shade of the park. The community garden looked as though it hadn't been tended to in a long time, the plants all shriveled and brown. Sportacus' brow wrinkled deeper with every block he paced. LazyTown had never felt so empty before.

"Sportacus!" a crackling voice piped out from a lamppost and stopped Sportacus on the sidewalk.

"Pixel?" He looked around and up at the post. A camera zoomed its large lens on him.

"Come to my house," Pixel's voice sputtered and popped through the camera's speaker before the device powered down with an electric whine.

Sportacus found the door unlocked at Pixel's house. He fanned himself as he entered. The A/C unit chugged and halted in sporadic lurches, puffing out weak wisps of cool air before shorting and leaving the house to its stifling heat. Screens blinked and buzzed with stuttering resolutions as they flickered between displaying properly and glitching out. Sitting at his desk Pixel hunched over his keyboard with one small fan circulating stale air around him and his visor propped up on his forehead, fogged over with humidity.

"I'm here," Sportacus said. "Where's everyone else?" Pixel looked up from his work and Sportacus frowned at the deep shadows under his eyes.

"We're in big trouble, Sportacus," Pixel said. "The kids, they're all... They need your help right away."

"What trouble? I haven't heard anything," Sportacus touched the crystal centered on his chest with a frown. "You look exhausted, have you been getting enough sleep?" Pixel shook his head and turned back to his computer.

"I can't sleep, it's too dangerous. I've been trying to figure this out before it's too late."

"What is 'this,' Pixel?" Sportacus gripped the back of Pixel's chair. "What's going on?"

"It's a nightmare," Pixel mumbled. He finished typing on the keyboard and gazed at the screen in front of him. The light casting on his face gave him a sickly pallor. Endless lines of data stuttered across the screen and made the processor click and stall until finally it cleared to black. The boy turned his chair around. "Someone's been messing with us in our sleep, taking over our dreams. He's got everyone else now but us. You can go into the dream," he pointed past Sportacus to the opposite side of the room, "and save everyone."

A large helmet bristling with prongs and antennae rested on a bed of cords and wires, hooked up to the large array of computer towers against the wall. Sportacus approached the device and lifted it carefully. All sorts of lights blinked across the helmet and it thrummed in his hands.

"I'll do it," Sportacus said, "but how?"

"Put it on," Pixel said, "and go to sleep. It's the only way you'll be able to find them. When you do, help them wake up. I'll keep tabs on everything here, and I can pull you out if anything goes wrong."

The helmet sat heavy on Sportacus' head with all the wires dangling off of it. It hummed against his ears and made his scalp itch and sweat with the snug fit. His eyelids drooped and it felt as though his entire body grew heavier all at once. Pixel turned back around and lowered his visor, watching the computer feeds.

Sportacus sat still and waited to sink all the way into sleep. The vibrations from the helmet made everything fuzzy around the edges through his narrowly slit eyes. It started to give him a headache and the mild vertigo made it difficult for him to doze off.

"I don't think this is working," Sportacus said. "Is there another way?" Pixel didn't answer him, focused on the monitor in front of him. After a few more seconds Sportacus tugged the helmet off and got to his feet. The room still turned slightly with the residual vibrations from the machine and Sportacus placed his steps carefully through the cluttered room.

"Pixel?" Sportacus tried to make sense of the screen. It displayed meaningless strings of characters to him. He turned the chair around to get Pixel to look at him. Once they were face to face he stepped back.

Pixel's visor obscured his eyes with fast scrolling lines of data. He sat motionless and silent while his lenses flickered and glowed like all the other computer screens in the room. Sportacus stared at him a moment longer before turning away. He walked out of the house and into the dream.