C2 Chapter 2

There was a murder that night. Enrique Ortega woke up feeling extremely agitated, with the scene still fresh in his mind. Once more, his dreams had revealed another victim.

"Have you ever had a nightmare, Jeff?"

They were standing out on the library terrace, far from the tables where the other students were studying. Enrique leaned against the railing, oblivious to the fact it was covered in a layer of dust which would dirty his coat.

"Who? Me?" responded Jeff, turning toward him. He leaned on the railing with his hands and looked sideways at Enrique. "I mean . . . sure, we all have nightmares sometimes, Enrik."

But Enrique was not referring to just any kind of nightmare. Enrique stood looking out into the distance, contemplating the skyline, which was dense with buildings. It was just like in his own country – on his world – where winter started in June and the first of the cold winds could already be felt. The only difference was that Albion was in the Northern Hemisphere of Terros, at least according to an encyclopedia that he had perused in Francis’ bookstore. Jeff observed Enrique for a moment before speaking.

"Well . . . some nightmares are worse than others, right?" Jeff asked.

"And some people need to stop dreaming and come back down to earth," came a voice from behind them.

"Carol!" Jeff exclaimed, turning around and seeing their friend behind them.

"You forgot this," Carol said, holding out a small wallet in the palm of her hand.

Jeff’s eyes opened wide as he saw it; he patted both of his pockets nervously, before holding out his hand and hanging his head in shame.

"And where is my thank you?" Carol teased.

"Tha—"

"You were lucky. Carol found it in the first floor hallway," Lindsey Whitelock interrupted, coming toward them with quiet footsteps. Her long reddish hair, confident posture and blue eyes inspired respect even through her oval-shaped glasses.

"Hey, you’re in our performing arts group too," said Jeff.

"Yeah.”

"More than that, she’s also in our class, Jeff!" Carol pointed out.

Jeff stayed silent. Enrique, who was still staring out into the distance, turned back to look at his friends. Lindsey sighed and looked away.

"Uh . . . you are too," responded Jeff.

"Jeff Johanstown, right?" asked Lindsey, closing her eyes as she removed her glasses.

"Yeah.”

Lindsey’s face became serious; she tilted her head to one side and regarded him with a sideways glance. "You should pay more attention to who’s around you . . . you never know when a murderer might be living among your dreams, stalking you," said Lindsey in a half-whisper and squinting her eyes.

Jeff froze, staring perplexed at Lindsey, while Carol covered her mouth with her hand to hide her amusement. She could only keep it in a few seconds before laughing out loud.

"You should see your face!" blurted Carol, as she continued to laugh.

"You even scared me," said Enrique, leaning back against the railing in a relaxed pose.

"Get him a mirror," Lindsey said earnestly, putting her glasses back on.

Jeff glanced back and forth between them.

"Huh?" "What’s going on? I don’t understand!" he said, still a bit scared.

"They’re lines from the play we were practicing yesterday," Carol said, still unable to contain her laughter. "Something the villain says," she laughed, "but Lindsey, you made it much spookier today!"

"That’s what you get for not remembering my face," said Lindsey Whitelock, glaring at Jeff.

"The girls at this university give me the creeps," proclaimed Jeff, turning away from everyone to look out over the balcony.

Everyone laughed. That was the world that Enrique wanted to live in, not the uncanny world of his dreams.

"I have something I need to do," he said as he left his friends behind and headed for the stairs.

Enrique arrived home feeling completely frustrated. He had not been able to find anything at the library that could help explain his dreams, and he had to admit it had been naive of him to think he would find it there.

Enrique stood before the mirror and stared at his own reflection, wondering whether things would ever return to normal. Could a friend of his end up dying in one of his nightmares? There was so much he did not understand. Were the dreams premonitions that gave one day’s warning? Was he seeing a parallel world in his dreams? Or was it actually him doing the killing and was the shadow a representation of himself?

Not even a week had passed until he had a new vision, but this time with one important difference: he was the victim.

Enrique woke up in his room. Through the window, he watched as the cityscape transformed into cubes that were pulled apart and sucked into the void, a huge puzzle being suctioned away. The now typical purple and dark sky appeared. His bedroom was floating in the void. The sides of his room looked like they had been sliced off by a huge but meticulous blade, leaving – except for some parts of the floor and roof – the structure untouched. On the other side of the door, there was only nothingness; and there on his bed, he could see his body, in the same position as when he had fallen asleep.

The darkness of the void was absorbing him. Enrique would have been sliced in two with a blow from the monster’s claw if it had not been for the fast intervention of the hooded warrior.

The creature had appeared behind him, materializing out of the shadows – a looming, giant mass in the corner of the room. Enrique came to, still confused and unable to see clearly; it took him a moment to piece together what had just happened. The hooded figure had pushed him out of the monster’s path and was now just six feet away, standing with his legs apart. His hands were still crossed before him, emitting a luminous golden field which seemed to impair the monster’s coming attack. The light afforded Enrique a more detailed glimpse at his protector; he wore a cloak adorned with golden and silver details at the edges, and beneath it, a beige battle tunic. He could also make out that the hooded figure was wearing boots and gauntlets made of brown leather. But the most striking thing was the white, oval-shaped mask that covered the hooded figure’s face and featured two thin horizontal slits for eyes. The beast was even more terrifying up close: a strange combination of flesh, armored scales, tentacles, claws and other kinds of body parts which gave it a hideous form. The monster breathed in a frenzy, each of its extremities seeming to move independently from the others. Its eyes were not visible. Its head – if it could be called that – was some kind of twisted turtle shell, cleaved in half.

"Move!" yelled the warrior, his voice distorted through the mask. Enrique understood the message. Desperately, and still not understanding how his body was in two places at once, he bolted up and ran to his bed in the opposite corner of the room.

The hooded figure leaped backward, cutting a horizontal slash with his arm. A golden explosion shot out from his hands, destroying one of the monster’s claws and causing it to shuffle backward with a loud shriek that shook the bedroom. Enrique fell to the floor, covering his ears and overwhelmed by the sound. The monster countered with its remaining claws and tentacles, attacking the warrior who now zigzagged throughout the space in a flurry of nimble jumps, launching more golden rays from his hands. The rays were smaller than before, and more precise – slicing off the monster’s extremities one by one. The tentacles fell inert to the floor, evaporating. The monster let out a terrifying, agonized moan that paralyzed Enrique in a state of fright. The hooded figure had come to a halt near the window. He now hurled a bright, golden ray across the room, which lit it up, and struck the monster on one of its thick, armored scales. It careened off on contact. For a brief instant, the masked figure appeared confused, allowing the creature to launch into another counterattack.

The monster lurched forward, dragging its trunk toward the hooded figure, sacrificing its scales and hard outer parts to block the warrior’s rays. Strangely, the sight of Enrique’s body lying inert on the bed went unnoticed by the monster, who now focused the entirety of its force against this most powerful foe. Once within striking distance, a big claw with jagged teeth and an eye in the center emerged from the monster’s upper half, violently tearing open its own skin. A series of fluids shot out from the tip. The masked figure was close enough to clearly make out the eye and the pincer-like claws. With outfacing palms, and his forearms fixed in the shape of an ’X’, he commanded a field of golden light to appear before him. A tremendous force exploded as this energy came into contact with the monster, propelling the warrior backward through the window, breaking it and obliterating the entire wall. The monster continued in its advance toward what had been the window, and – still hacking at what was left of the wall – it too fell through the gaping hole.

As the hooded figure fell through the void, he could see the monster above him, clinging to the splintered structure with its two remaining tentacles. Seeing this, the warrior pivoted in mid-air and pointed his hands downward. A tremendous explosion issued forth from his hands, breaking his fall; he then quickly launched a second, more powerful burst that sent him flying back toward the monster above. The creature struck out with its jagged claw, which the warrior dodged with a quick movement of his torso, but was not fast enough to prevent a piece of his cloak from being ripped away by the grazing blow. The hooded figure propelled himself once more with a guided explosion, leaping toward the outstretched claw and – before the monster realized what he intended to do – he shot a golden ray at the only gap in its armored skin, at the base of its giant claw. A jet of steam began to gush from the monster, who now bellowed in a frantic rage. An instant later, a golden explosion ripped it apart and brought it to its death. Enrique watched as his protector leaned exhausted against the wall, but before he could shake himself from the state of shock, he woke up.

He was lying on his bed but was out of breathe.

He bolted out of bed, noting that he was bathed in a cold sweat. He took deep breaths, in and out, trying to convince himself that it had only been another nightmare. But the comfort of this thought was short-lived, for as he looked to the ground, he caught a glimpse of the torn-off piece of the masked figure’s cloak. The next morning, Ortega asked his landlady if she could retrieve his metal box for a moment; he had a new important item he wished to keep there. Later, he returned the box to her with the piece of cloth inside.