Insomnia

9

She was returned, disoriented, to an alley in Somnus.

Before her stood a shimmering black door embedded in faded brick walls. The ethereal darkness of the wood was meant to mimic the shifting quality of sight behind closed eyelids. As she stared into the door, Esme felt a series of images leap from her consciousness, splattering themselves across the closed portal. Flickers of thought, possible worlds to explore, streamed across the surface.

This was an image repository, a place to store access keys to dream worlds. Max had provided her the location of this one for their meeting. Messaged dream requests like the one she used earlier could hold far less detail than these units, and generally created dreams of a lower quality.

Esme took a deep breath, releasing her focus on the public world and returning to her local dream. She summoned a private repository to her location, the ebony door crushing a few bluebonnets as it materialized. Esme took a deep breath and focused her attention on the rhythms she'd collected from the other three Psions. She began with Phoebe's. The frequency pulsed through her vision as each moment of this world began to filter through her brain at a different Tempo than normal. Her own heartbeat slowed to keep time with this new frame of reference.

This rhythm had a stately quality to it, elegant, strong, and proud. The broad shoulders of a waltz paired with the lilting shuffle of a tambourine. Esme hadn't known Phoebe for very long, but she hadn't expected the woman looked at the world with this attitude. Observing new perspectives constantly surprised her.

By mirroring the pace and shape of Phoebe's mind, Esme would be able to locate and infiltrate her dream.

The door solidified into a beam of pure light. She felt Somnus tear away from her as it attempted to create a template world based on this rhythm. Esme resisted the impulse, instead pressing her mind against the spongy wood, and pushing deeper, further. To depths only she had known. Places that belonged to her. That were hers by right of conquest. By the simple right of true and honest knowing.

A flicker of dissatisfaction. The Knightmare had plumbed these depths too. He had to in order to touch the minds of others. But he brought only pain. Despair. That meant he hated this place. Why else would he scourge it with the whip of his own twisted pleasures?

Unlike the Knightmare, Esme loved the worlds beneath this one, the multitude of personal dreams which supplied the data that made their shared universe possible, from which she could build entire universes of her own. She was certain her artistic affection granted her a truer claim to them.

Esme fell through the earth beneath her feet. There was only darkness. Cold. Her mind rejected the nothing. Light began to return to this place, millions of glowing specks - a diamond studded gown of night. Her heart, in tune with Phoebe's existence, called out to a like-minded world. One light swelled amidst all others. It filled her attention, and dominated her empathy.

The rhythm of her soul reached out and touched the light. There was a brief, jarring moment of discord as small imperfections in her cloned perspective became clear. She made alterations. Darkened the tone of the waltz. Threw the tambourine with a more violent rush. Soon the light smiled at her, and welcomed a like companion.

Esme stepped into Phoebe's dream.

Tall robes covered her body, flaring at the shoulders and pooling onto the ground by her feet. Esme looked around and noted the slightly inhuman appearances of the people surrounding her. There was no common thread to the mutations, only the clear theme of fae. She altered her own face so that it stretched out to more appropriate dimensions. A simple application of Belief.

She felt out of sync with the world. Or rather, that this world was out of sync with her. That meant she lurked near the outskirts of the dream, at the barest edges of Phoebe's consciousness. Esme took another breath and shifted.

A tower. Dusky black walls and torches. The rhythm was right. Esme was as close as she could come without coming into contact with Phoebe. She turned a corner in the winding hallway. There was a chamber cut into the stone, small in diameter but with an exposed ceiling that opened the room to the broad skies above. It was a laboratory, that much Esme could tell. Stained vials and colorful gases intermingled with scattered sheaves of paper whispered of the occult.

This was Phoebe's local dream, beneath the Homespace bridge, and inside her mind, some combination of subconscious urgings and semi-lucid choice.

Did the scientific nature of her laboratory indicate some obsession with manipulating others? Was it a sign of a god complex, a desire to know humans at their deepest level? A sign that Phoebe Zhang was the Knightmare?

She'd already failed one test. Esme would have expected the Knightmare to detect her intrusion in this place immediately. The Knightmare would never tolerate a probe of their most intimate space. At least, Esme wouldn't have allowed it if she were in that monster's shoes.

Esme took a seat in the middle of the laboratory. Phoebe was a few floors away - flashes of her experience bled over onto Esme's thoughts enough to tell her that much. Esme slowly increased her intake of Phoebe's perspective, and flickers of her memories filtered through her consciousness.

A double funeral. Not long after the Disaster. It was held in Somnus. The new pope had given special dispensation to allow religious ceremonies to take place in dreams. There weren't enough priests left alive to conduct them in person. Esme felt herself inhabit Phoebe's body - feeling the cold chill of the church bench. The vague smell of burning candles. The stone walls of the digital cathedral made her sad.

School. A memory of the real world. After her parents had passed, she was taken to one of many government relocation centers. Nine years old and alone. Her teachers praised her for taking to academics so easily. She didn't think much of it. There wasn't much else to do. Except sleep.

Esme scowled. This was leading nowhere. With a gentle push, Esme delved deeper into the woman's consciousness, emphasizing moments of pain. Both causing and receiving.

Falling into a geyser during a field trip to a dream replica of Yellowstone.

Heartbreak.

Anxiety in the days leading up to a tournament.

A slap across the face from her best friend.

Two thousand unread messages.

Bullying a new arrival to the center. Deep shame.

Esme withdrew from the memories with a sigh. No positive indicators that Phoebe Zhang was a psychotic serial torturer. Perhaps she was expecting too much. After all, it was unlikely that she'd uncover the smoking gun in a single night's work.

Vaguely curious what Phoebe was doing in a strange world like this, Esme ascended the tower steps and peeked through the upper room. It was dark and hard to see. She squinted and made out two shapes lying on the floor. One was Phoebe, though altered to better fit this world. The other was a man she didn't know. Their bodies were coiled together in an unusual way and she couldn't quite --

Oh. Wow. Esme filed the image away for future reference.