World's End

Chapter Fourteen

Marissa was flying in her dream. She was weightless, no clue as to where she was going but she felt free. Like none of the weight of life was on her. The wind pushed at her hair, freeing her vision of any loose strands and she could see a golden city. Even though she was dreaming and she knew none of this was real, a sudden sense of foreboding filled her and her gut dropped.

And then she was falling.

Down, down, down she went. She was still going forwards but she was falling in a direction that would land her in the golden city. Does it hurt to fall in dreams?

Marissa remembered what Ellie Rae's mom had told her once when she'd had a nightmare. She had said,

"Dreams cannot hurt you unless you allow them to. You are the only one who can make that decision."

Marissa was hurtling towards the ground and breakneck speeds, not giving her many options but to curl into a ball and think 'I choose not to be hurt, only I can choose when.'

She crashed into the ground seconds after she thought that and rolled to a stop at the foot of a flight of stairs. She lay there for a moment, blinking as she stared up at the sky.

She wasn't hurt.

She fist pumped the air and yelled. At least she could have some control over what she was doing. Then she felt the slight twinge in her shoulder from where she had landed mostly and winced. Okay, some control. She could deal with that. It was better than none at all.

Marissa slowly got to her feet and dusted off her jeans, slowly looking around as she did so. She had no idea where she was. Her understanding of dreams was that your mind takes people and places it had seen or been to before and reused those to create dreams. This was not a place Marissa had ever been to before.

She looked up and squinted. The sun was in the middle of the sky, beating down on her but she didn't feel like she was hot. At least her brain gave her that courtesy. She looked up at the golden city itself and tried to figure out why it made her feel so uneasy. She was interrupted by a voice.

"Adonis, come quick. The meeting is starting!" Marissa spun around, eyes wide. Adonis? The voice had come from a young man, dressed as though he belonged in a city made of gold and he was looking right at her. Marissa frowned, mouth gaping as she tried to figure out what was going on.

"Yes, I'm coming! Had to close out the other meeting I was in. Surely I told you that earlier, Dalton?" A woman's voice came from behind Marissa. She turned around just in time to see a young woman – presumably Adonis- walk right through her. Marissa gave a yelp of surprise. Adonis didn't even seem bothered, like walking through people was normal in dreams. Marissa blinked a few times as she watched Dalton greet Adonis with a kiss on the cheek and he offered her his arm. They didn't even know she was there. This was one hell of a dream because Marissa's dreams usually involved people talking to her. But also Dalton hadn't entirely spoken to her- he had spoken through her, right to Adonis. Like she wasn't there.

But then again, she was exhausted and her brain was probably trying to give her a break.

Adonis and Dalton walked up the stairs, talking amongst themselves as they entered the main doors of the golden city. Or was it a golden hall? Marissa, out of pure curiosity, followed them. Curiosity did usually kill the cat but because this wasn't real, it couldn't hurt to be nosy. Sometimes following your nose delivers you to exactly what you need.

The same can be said when there is food involved.

She slipped through the door just before it closed behind the two people she was following. Just because Adonis walked straight through her didn't mean Marissa wanted to find out if the same thing would happen if she tried to walk through a wall.