Dinah had returned to the real world for the evening, ‘reality’, how great this word suddenly sounded- the quiet suburban life, with nothing but the sound of cars speeding over tarmac in the stillness, and the comfort of people asleep in their beds. One night, back in her physical body, to say goodbye. The dream devil had told her soon, she would have no need of her earthly husk. That she could stay in the dream world with him. Dinah is in an even bigger mess than she imagined. She may be learning scraps of her capability, but with Alden’s limitless power, she knows it’s only a matter of time before she finds herself too far to return.  

As the purple blue of the night draws down its blinds, Dinah sits wide eyed, contemplating. Nights are the most dismal, just between the early hours, as if you’re the only one awake in the world. Your demons creep up your bedspread and climb into bed, a foul beast that breathes its terrors into your pores.

Alden had taught her how to manipulate the dream world, how to build a house, a forest from the seams of her mind. It had not been easy, creating nothing from a mere image. But as she envisioned the chimney tops, the wicker gate, the thatched rooves and sloping pillars, the rose gardens and pebble paths of her perfect house, it had all come together, and the more she believed in it the easier it seemed, to grasp an image in that way, bits and pieces from a world she had felt, touched; and bring it into this realm of her creation. It was…surprisingly easy. But it was all very well, to go along with the devil- if you’re not afraid of being burnt.

Dinah creaks her numb limbs into action. She drifts into her mother’s bedroom like a sleepwalker, padding over rough carpet in bare feet, tripping over a pot plant bathed in the warm glow of the landing.  She peers over the rim at her sleeping form. Her muffled breath, her happy oblivion, the sheets tangled up like octopus’ legs. Laying a hand gently on her clammy forehead, she enters a fractured state of being. She remembers the tales sitting around the dinner table, her mother recounting her dreams of flying, the fear of sitting and failing her exams, of the dance hall where her parents had their first date. Of the little kid her mother had once shouted at for stealing sweets in her father’s shop. So many dreams captured in misty brightly coloured bottles of their collective memories, to be taken out, released over their potatoes and broccoli like incense.  

Dreams of sparkling ocean caves and running through supermarkets with no underwear, of your teeth falling out, of taking care of a baby that is too old to be carried but suddenly manifesting itself into the size of a pea. Of turtles multiplying and falling down plugholes, scooping them up quickly to save them from imminent death and yet they still slip through your fingers. But the most amazing ones; where you’re soaring, dipping on invisible wings, the wind billowing the sail of your imagination, over midnight woods and ocean scenes, cascading waterfalls and mountains bathed in starlight. It takes your breath away. Dreams prepare you for waking life, testing your coping strategy, triggering your survival instincts. And what about those who don’t dream at all?

Dinah catches herself peering into the swirling, pooling brightness of her mother’s mind, pulling her forward; and miraculously, she sees something new in her mother’s memories. Her mother is holding the hand of a child in a teddy rucksack and red wellies as they walk to school. They skip over puddles, fingers entwined, laughing. Basking in glorious hilarity. “Isn’t this sweet,” her mother is saying, looking down at the tiny hand of her daughter.

Dinah’s lungs squeeze in an uncomfortable way. She can feel the dream devil’s proximity like an unrelenting virus, as reluctantly, tenderly she closes a very old, and strained portal that balances her mother on the cusp.

She makes sure her mother never has the ability to dream again.

There is something awful in the heavy silence that follows. Through her mother’s muffled, but stable breathing, something is wrong. Alden is on the move, travelling closer. Somewhere infinitely closer. For she has disobeyed him, taking away his leverage. She had time only to choose one.

‘Oh god, I’m so sorry…”

Dinah is running, a panic that propels her down the stairs and out through the front door in bare feet, down side streets, past the butcher’s house with the huge conifers, past the post office, past their old primary school, past the pharmacy with the neon lights now switched off and vacant. It is so silent… just the hammering of her heart, faster towards the house on the corner, and the red SUV parked in the driveway covered in a thin layer of flower petals. She hammers on the door, until she can see lights switched on in the landing, and muffled sleepy footsteps.

“Dinah? It’s 3am! Has something happened? Jonathan go back to sleep, it’s nothing. Just Dinah...no it’s okay,” Peter’s mother fumbles with the alarm, framed by warm tones, and ties her dressing gown closer against the blustering wind. “You must be freezing…”

“Sorry, I can’t stop-” Dinah has already pushed past, up the staircase. Her mouth is as dry as sandpaper.

Dinah pushes open the familiar blue door and creeps into the gloom. She looks down carefully at the sleeping figure. She is being stupid, he would turn over and yawn, call her insane for running all the way to his house in the middle of the night, he would give her that smile and-

“Peter?” she whispers. She shakes him. Nothing happens. This is all wrong, she had seen him mere hours before, at least in this world. He had been fine. He was fine.

“Please wake up!” She shakes again. Nothing. It is then, that she notices the blood, trickling from the corner of his mouth and onto the white bedsheets like an obscene blot in the moonlight. No… the shadow with that maddening smirk, peeps from the corner of the room. She can see the ivory tips of his teeth bared.

“He’s but a distraction. Your distraction. You drove me to this Dinah, all this talk of returning home. Returning to him…Aren’t you going to ask precisely how I can travel to the real world? Aren’t you a bit curious?”

“You’re a devil you can go where you want! You-”

“I’ll let you choose what happens to your mortal flesh and bones. I can preserve you both in my caskets, or you can leave it behind-” he batters her away with a flick of his fingers as she launches a tennis racket at him. “It’s like taking a baby’s toy. I warned you Dinah, what you did to your mother, well, wasn’t that selfish?”

“You know why I did it!” Peter’s body convulses on the bed, battling god knows what demons have been concocted, and Dinah feels an overwhelming rage.

“You want to save him? Well go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”

The Devil watches as she places a sweaty hand on Peter’s head. He is testing her, if she can do this, to enter a person’s dreams just by willing it.

She follows the waves of Peter’s emotions, the swirling misty clouds of terror and releases herself onto the stream of his nightmares. Something is happening, a plague of locusts chewing at her cells. No matter how hard Dinah itches or scratches, it will keep coming, a tickle beneath the skin, larvae like. Burrowing and squirming where the eye cannot see.