Sleep No More
Page 66

I start walking to the gate and though it tries to retreat, it doesn’t have as much room as before, because my world has shrunk so much. I pause for a few moments, then, remembering that I can affect reality here, I look up at a scene above my head. I stare at it so hard my eyes start to ache as I picture a future where I’m fighting Smith—fighting and winning.
Destroy it, Sierra said. The scene rolls down and I see myself wielding a huge hammer, high over my head.
That, I think with a grim spark of humor. I step into the scene and walk over to myself. I take a deep breath and then step into my own shoes and wrap my hands around the enormous sledgehammer.
I lift it with an unnatural ease. I turn and look back out at my rapidly shrinking dome. “My world, my rules,” I say before tightening my grip on the hammer and stepping out of the scene.
For three weeks, Smith has been trying to convince me of the powers I didn’t have—lying to me about my potential, and underreporting his own. But as I step away from the scene, the hammer still clenched in my hand, I’m on fire with the one secret he desperately wanted to keep from me; I am truly the master of my world. Here—especially in my awakened state—I can do anything.
I begin walking toward the gate. But I don’t just walk; I glare at it and pin it into place. It’s not easy, but the gate stays where it is, allowing me to approach.
I walk up to the curled steel and raise my hammer. But before I can strike, a niggling doubt enters my mind. The door has been getting bigger ever since that first time I saw it. And my world has been shrinking ever more rapidly.
Especially since I broke the glass yesterday.
I lower the hammer. If I smash the gate, it’ll allow Smith to drain my world even faster. I have to go in and destroy his world first.
A deep grumbling inside Smith’s world tells me I’m right as I walk through the gate and, for good measure, close it behind me. Now I’m trapped in here until one of us wins.
His world is so much bigger than when I was here last, a mere twelve hours ago, and I’m immediately disheartened at the work before me. But it’s not only Linden’s life I’m fighting for—it’s my own, and through me, millions of people whose futures Smith would be more than happy to change. To destroy.
I heft my hammer over my shoulder and swing it at the nearest scene and the surface cracks like a television screen. The image inside distorts, then blackens, and I move onto the next, and the next.
At one frame I raise my hammer, but I see my mother, walking down our hallway. I hesitate and Smith’s voice is suddenly all around me. “It’s not like when you were here last, Charlotte. These aren’t simply my dreams and memories anymore. I have enough of your world, enough of your power, that these are all possible futures. Will you destroy this possibility for your mother? Remember, you’re awake, and everything you do in this world today will actually affect the future.”
I pause, staring at the sight of my mother walking and my hands tremble.
“I could help it happen,” Smith’s voice says. “Fund that kind of research with the fortune we’re going to make. There’s no need for us not to have a symbiotic relationship. I’m happy to compromise and negotiate.”
“I begged you not to make me hurt Linden,” I yell. “You call that compromise?” And with a chunk of my heart breaking to pieces, I swing my sledgehammer, the head plunging right through my mother’s face. Every breath is painful as the image fades from sight.
“It’s a shame,” Smith’s voice said. “In ten years that surgery might have been available.”
I say nothing. Lies, I remind myself. He’s never told me anything but lies.
The next screen features a figure in white, standing next to a tall man who can only be Linden. I hardly recognize myself in the woman beside him. His love has made me more beautiful than I ever thought I could be. Happier. Complete. I have to close my eyes as I bring the hammer down on this one.
Sierra smiling and happy. My mother and a new husband. Me at my favorite college. Scene after scene I smash until my face is so wet with tears I feel them sliding down my neck.
But it’s not enough. I look up at Smith’s dark dome. I’m stopping the flow of my world into his, but it would take me years to go through every scene he could concoct in here. This is nothing but damage control—I have to find Smith. I have to destroy him.
I remember the last time I was here. It may be his world, but just like he has limited control over mine, I have some control over his. Until one of us takes over, we both share my powers. I look up at the ceiling and focus on a new scene. A scene of Smith sitting in his prison cell. Only seconds in the future. The scene draws near and I raise my hammer again, but instead of smashing the scene, I step into it.
Smith sits with his head leaning against the cell wall and watches me approach with emotionless eyes. I know he’s here on the supernatural plane, which means that his physical body in the jail cell is helpless. Can I affect his physical self from here?
If I can make him regain consciousness in his cell, his projected self will have to leave my second sight. My hammer is still poised above my head and, reminding myself that I am nothing more than a compulsion in the mortal world, I bring the hammer down, aiming for his skull.
A hand reaches out from behind me to push the hammer off course, and I feel a jolt of success as I turn and see his retreating form. Not his physical self—the one here in the supernatural plane. The part of him that jumped here. When I threatened his physical self, I pulled him out of hiding and he’s here in this scenario with me, somewhere. He can’t leave unless he can get out of this scene.