The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

"Twenty-seven" (Draft 2)

"I'm real, and so are you. I'm sure I'm not sleeping."

"It's her!" Angel said. "Joy knows, and she's in her room rocking back and forth like an idiot, because she knows. Well I'm not going to be that. I'm going to get out of this. I have to get out of this!"

"Angel, listen. I know that you're not lying. Don't flip out on me. If you see anything else, you tell me, and I'll tell you if anything weird happens. All right?"

Angel just nodded.

"We'll go and see Joy."

Morpheus watched as they joined hands and moved down the hall. Amadeo went into the room first. He just stood there. And then Angel came in. Morpheus didn't see Joy there. "I can't see her!" Angel said.

"Me neither. She's not here," Amadeo said.

In a panic they moved through the house searching rooms. They found Ardor in the kitchen, and Gabriel in the living room, and both were scared but couldn't say why. In the dim dinning room they found Dolores crying. "There was someone here," she said.

"With Joy?" Amadeo asked.

"No, a man, he just looked at me!"

The five of them stayed together, but they could find no one else in the entire house.

And then Morpheus tried focusing on Shade. He was still there in the house, but Morpheus didn't see the other's in the hall even though Shade was in the living room.

He ran to the window again. The clouds were spreading, and there was a cold wind. And then the tower was shaken.

He went back up to the watching room. Some of the mirrors showed static in the pictures, interference. He went to his room and found a small pack. He took several of his small mirrors and set them carefully inside. He picked up a tee shirt and used it for cushioning then placed several small glass bottles inside. He put on his faux-leather jacket then ran back to the watching room. He called his Djinn into the bottles. "Do you want me to put you in the pack, or can you hold to the epaulet tight enough?" Morpheus asked River.

"You'll be careful with the pack?"

"I'll have to be."

"Put me in the little pocket where I can look out if I like," River said.

Morpheus put River into the pocket and held the straps of the pack tightly in one hand. His wings sliced out through the back of his jacket. "OK, this is how it is: I've got no idea where Opium is, but I've got to find her, or Jibril. Joy's snapped, and it's obviously created a tear somewhere, because bits of their world are coming over, and bits of this one are going."

He ran down through the maze. When he got to the doors he found them hard to open. He pushed hard, strained, and finally the door gave and the wind came into the room. Morpheus pushed out against the wind, and he flew up. From the sky Morpheus saw that the regions still shifted. Here and there he saw mild skips, worst where the storm was. It remained centered at Limbo, but as Limbo shifted toward the center of the land the storm came in contact with other regions.

If it continued...

It had to be stopped. This world would be destroyed if it wasn't, and so might other worlds.

Morpheus made his way down to his father's house. Inside his brothers were all awake. Several were watching the storm as it passed their region. "Is Opium here?" Morpheus asked.