To Be A Champion

Chapter 40: Bonfire Heart

"Tom, Jody, Five, I've got you on cams. How did everyone sleep?"

Jody sighs, the dark circles under her eyes giving me her answer before her words do. "Really rough."

"The dreams again," Tom sighs. It's not a question.

"Yeah. This time, I was underwater. The waves were red, and I was walking along the bottom of the ocean." Her face gets a greenish tint as if she might get sick just talking about it. "My hands were rotting."

"And you know that your face had rotted away, and when you tried to scream, your jaw fell off." Sam shuddered. "Yeah, I was there too, last night."

"I was underground, buried alive." Tom looks at me. "You were with me, Five. Two of you."

I nod, my face scrunching up. "Yeah. It was me and Catherine."

"She kept screaming at you in French as you were trying to dig me out."

I nod. "I don't know why she was doing that. Panic maybe? She knows I don't know French."

That makes his eyes widen. "You... don't know what she was saying?"

I blink. I forget that Tom and Janine are multi-lingual, sometimes. "Do you?"

He hesitates. "She was screaming for you to get me out. Said letting me die was what would bring down your own death. I thought that was why you kept digging at the rocks even when your fingers broke off."

I look down at my hands. "I didn't feel it. Couldn't see the blood either. Everything was red."

Catherine doesn't get future visions. So why would she say that?

I swallow and push that thought away as another comes. "That was the first-the first dream I've had like that. Is it always red?"

Tom's face is grim. "Yes. Everything's always red."

"And, just to be clear, it feels like everyone on Mor is with us in the dreams, right?" Sam asks. "Like we know all these people because we see them every night in the red world."

"Yeah," Jody sighs, and Tom gives the same answer. It leaves my head sinking into my stomach.

"Great. Well, either the fungus has reached some particular level in our blood to make this happen, or... or we're all imagining it because we know there's fungus in our blood. Even Amelia's had them, apparently. Good to know we're all in this horror together."

"Is this how your dreams have always been, Five?" Jody asks, as if the horrible thought has struck her. "You were made with an off-brand version of the fungus in your blood for the... what did you call it? The hivemind?"

I shrug. "The dreams started when I was fifteen. When the hivemind was supposed to be triggered and then went wrong because not all of us in the project were alive. I have had dreams of my... others' pasts, sometimes even future events. Sometimes I see my own future events. I can't work out how that's the fungus, though. Maybe a gift from God because of the troubling way I was made?" My voice wavers as I say that. "But yeah. I've had dreams of them. When people... talk about their past, sometimes my mind latches onto them, and I see it through their eyes as if we're connected. I feel what they feel... I've seen through the eyes of saints and monsters."

I pause, wondering if I've said too much. It's odd, something I've worked so hard to keep a secret for so long now just out in the open. Still, I don't want to make her feel bad for me, not like this.

"It's not always... horrifying like these dreams. I've never... I saw myself get bitten long before it happened, felt myself dying. But even it wasn't like this." I feel an overwhelming need to change the subject. "Sam, we're on the right track to the laird's house, right?"