He wasn’t real. He couldn’t hurt me. Shade was a figure of my imagination, nothing more. Tomorrow, my eighteenth birthday would come and go, and none of Shade’s threats would come to pass. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. 

I was an intelligent, logical person, but the dual hearts drumming in my chest made it impossible to calm down. Doctors said I was lucky to be alive with a mutation like that. I just wished I could shut one of them off and replace it with something more useful, like the part of my brain that was supposed to make nice, happy dreams. 

“To coin a phrase from this human generation, happiness is overrated.” 

I flinched but kept my eyes scrunched closed. Two days of chugging coffee obviously hadn’t been enough to keep me up for long, but there still wasn’t anything he could do to me. No matter what he said, he couldn’t lay a finger on me. 

“Don’t be so sure.” A cold finger brushed my forehead. “You have yet to inherit your full powers. You are vulnerable.” 

“You aren’t real.” As soon as the words passed my lips, I silently cursed myself. There was no reasoning with my own subconscious. I would only drive myself mad trying. 

He sighed—a long, soft sound that chilled the air. “Believe me, child, I have tried my best to resolve this issue peacefully, but I’m afraid you’ve left me no choice. If you refuse to acknowledge my existence, I suppose I must find a way to prove it to you in the physical realm. However, for now, let us begin tonight’s lesson.”

The air warmed. Blades of grass tickled my palms, and the sweet scent of wildflowers filled my nostrils. He’d conjured the ‘teaching field’ as he called it. I’d spent many a night in this field, learning nonsense mythology that didn’t align with any real world legends. For years, I listened to him speak in his human guise without any clue that he would one day become my worst nightmare. 

“I would hardly consider myself a marewalker,” he said with a scoff. 

I wished he would disappear and leave me to dream in peace. What was the point of being a lucid dreamer if I couldn’t even make my nightmares disappear? 

“You may be a lucid dreamer, but this is my dreamscape. Now, either open your eyes and pay attention, or we’ll have to skip to the practical portion of the lesson.” 

I opened my eyes. As much as I wanted to avoid looking at the six-legged eyeless scorpion centaur in front of me, pretending to pay attention was preferable to his practical exercises. Shuddering at the thought, I resolved to focus only on a loose rivet near the top of his lectern that wiggled when he pounded his claws on it. 

“Today, we will learn about interdimensional portals. It’s only fitting that we learn about this today, as the only semi-stable specimen in existence has opened on our doorstep. I’d advise you to stay out of the woods until it closes in a few hours—unless, of course, you feel like getting frostbite would be a pleasurable way to spend your afternoon.”

He rapped his knife-like finger claws on the lectern. “Eyes up front, Miss Ortiz.” 

Looking up at him, I tried not to wince. Apparently I didn’t succeed, because he scowled. Without eyes, the expression merely wrinkled his flattened nose and twisted his mouth, but it was unnerving nonetheless.

He scoffed. “My kind has been enriching yours with knowledge for generations, and I intend to continue doing so if you would keep your insulting thoughts to yourself.”

As he droned on, I tried to keep my mind blank. It was a fruitless exercise with him standing right in front of me. I wished I hadn’t fallen asleep in the first place, but it had been only a matter of time before I passed out. Coffee couldn’t keep the nightmares at bay forever. 

Gritting my teeth, I dug my nails into my palms. The pain was sharp and much too real, but it helped me focus. It was ridiculous to be afraid of Shade or anything else in my dreams. He could threaten to mess with me in the real world all he wanted, but he would always be trapped here as the product of firing neurons. 

What was wrong with me? No one I knew spent the whole day too afraid of falling asleep to get anything done. They forgot their dreams almost as soon as they got out of bed, but I had to remember every detail. Maybe I was crazy. When I was a kid, my parents sure thought I was. They made me go to therapy for years before I caught on to what they were doing and pretended that the dreams had gone away. 

“You are far from insane, naive creature.” Shaking his head, Shade crossed his arms and front two legs. “This is pointless. You will never learn if you refuse to believe. Though perhaps a practical lesson might increase the chances of you acquiring some knowledge today.”

I leapt to my feet, looking him in the eye-sockets in an effort to appear attentive. “N-no, you don’t have to. I’ll listen, I swear.” Inside, I cringed at the thought of what my friends might say if they knew I was bargaining with an imaginary monster, but I couldn’t help it. Anything to avoid doing his practical exercises. 

He tutted. “You forget I have full access to your sleeping mind. I know you harbor little interest in my lessons. This should hold your attention, however.” He clicked his hands together and plunged the teaching field into darkness. 

Frigid winds howled around me, throwing crimson locks in my face. Swiping my hair away, I spun around in search of Shade. 

“Find the teaching field again, and I’ll consider lectures instead of drills.” Shade’s voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, echoing through the dreamscape. “Mind the voidcats.”

I hugged myself to keep from shivering. It didn’t do a thing against the cold or my fear. He wanted me to use magic to save myself, just like I had a million times before. Only this time, I knew what he was. His own lectures had told me all about the parasitic dreamwalkers who fed off their hosts’ dreams night after night. According to his stories, his people were responsible for every horrible nightmare or fantastical dream, but because I was ‘special,’ I got none of that. 

No, I got training. Training to become the perfect host, strong and powerfully magical. In reality, it was nonsense created by an overreactive imagination, but that didn’t stop the goosebumps from rising on my skin or my teeth from chattering. 

I wanted to play dead in protest against the hellish lies my own subconscious had concocted . But my ‘magic’ had another idea. It moved instinctively, shielding me from the cold with a layer of crimson feathers from head-to-toe. They glowed softly, casting a dim light around me. 

I couldn’t stop the wings sprouting from my back anymore than I could dispel the chilling darkness all around. My new weighty limbs threatened to drag me backward, but I held out my arms to steady myself. This was my halfway form, partly human and partly dragon; it allowed me to keep warm while also staying small and unnoticeable. 

The only way out of this lesson was to do exactly what Shade wanted. No matter how crazy it was to listen to the demands of an imaginary character, it was the only chance I had to wake up before my imagination scarred me with another simulated death.

“Forgotten everything I taught you?” Shade asked in an almost pensive way.

I shook my head to block him out as I peered into the blackness. If he’d kept the teaching field as bright as always, it should be easy to make out. 

There, a spot of light on the horizon—that could be it. Or it could be a glimmertrap, tempting me close enough to strangle me with its vines. I didn’t have the energy to debate how likely that was. The inner fire of my magic was already fading.

I ran toward the light. The ground sucked at my feet, squelching like a bog of molasses. After a few minutes of running, my calves burned, and I had a stitch in my side.

“Giving up so soon?” Shade asked.

I glared at the darkness, but I didn’t stop. I was just a little slower now. Who could blame me with terrain this bad? No one, of course they couldn’t. Well, no one except judgy mcjudgerface. I could almost feel his harsh gaze on my back.

Curling my wings around me to block the wind, I trudged onward. I wasn’t going to let my subconscious get the better of me, no matter how snarky he was. 

The light stayed small on the horizon, like I hadn’t crossed any distance at all. This could very well be one of Shade’s tricks to punish me for not paying attention. Or it could be a different dreamwalker’s dreamscape, meaning if I ever actually reached it, I would walk into someone else’s dream. Of course, it would only be my own subconscious’s hypothetical recreation of someone else’s dream, since none of this was actually real. It sure felt real, though. What I wouldn’t give for a roaring fire right about now…

“Mars?” The warmth of Aster’s voice was so out of place in this cold wasteland that I stopped without thinking. My feet began to sink into the mire. 

Cursing, I yanked my clawed toes from the mud and kept moving. Shade could summon whatever illusions of my crush as he wanted; they weren’t going to stop me. 

“Oh, but it isn’t me imitating the boy,” Shade said with a chuckle. “He’s very real.”

“Yeah, right.” Clenching my fists, I forced my feathers to glow brighter as I marched onward. Shadows paced at the edges of my light, no doubt belonging to voidcats that would pounce on me the moment my fire went dark.  

“Mars, what the-” Aster’s voice was louder now, more frantic. “Izzy, get the nurse. I think she’s- just get the nurse.” 

This was getting ridiculous. “I’m not going to fall for it, so you can just stop it.” But a sneaking suspicion made me pause. Was I hearing Aster speaking from the real world? It wouldn’t be the first time I’d incorporated a real-world sound into my dreams.

No, I couldn’t let my guard down. That was exactly what Shade wanted. 

But it was too late. A wave of cold slammed into me, dragging me to my knees. Shadowy tendrils emerged from the darkness to bind my wrists and ankles. My fire died down, too weak to stave off the cold or blackness. My teeth chattered louder than my thoughts as my whole body shivered violently to warm up. Fire was a distant memory.

“Hmm… I suppose this lesson will have to wait for another day. Your death would be a terrible waste of time spent teaching.” A click in the darkness banished the cold. It wasn’t warm, exactly, but at least I didn’t feel like I was getting hypothermia anymore. 

The ground fell away from me, leaving me stranded in midair for a moment before I shot upward. The vicegrip of my dream faded as I drifted into wakefulness.