The Nocturnal Vol 1 : The Awakening

Chapter 6

We had just witnessed the birth of a whole galaxy, and he thinks of war...

From the corner of my eye, I observed the salty traces of Vaness' tears on her cheeks and found myself beating my eyelashes to make mine disappear. This momentum made me realize that there were still so many things I didn't know about Remi.

A real mystery, that one!

- 'Come on, Vaness, it's your choice now,' Erwan said eagerly.

Carefully, Vaness came to stand under the tree and looked up to the sky.

- 'So, Vaness, what are you doing?' Erwan cackled after a few minutes. 'You'll see that she's still asking herself a million more useless questions.'

- 'I was just wondering if the colour of the spheres and their position around the tree created a kind of dream classification? Dark colours for dreams of action? Light colours for emotional dreams? Is a dream at the bottom of the branches less intense than another at the top of the tree?'

- 'No, but seriously? Pick any one, take the one that shines the brightest. Isn't that what girls usually do?' he said, turning towards me.

I took the opportunity to stick out my prettiest tongue at him. What a jerk! Thin as coarse salt.

- 'Well? Should I call the fire department?'

Confused, she then hurried to touch a red and pink sphere, halfway up the tree and, once through the waterfall, we found ourselves sitting side by side in a wagon. Immediately, the safety bar engaged and individual harnesses fell on our shoulders.

- 'Why do I have a bad feeling about this?' I stammered.

- 'I don't know,' she replied, 'but I have the same strange...'

In a squeaky noise, the wagon started off in a hurry. Right turn and left turn followed by a slow and long jerky climb. When it reached the top, the machine came to rest for a few seconds on a steep slope. Behind us, I heard Erwan yelping with happiness and clapping his hands.

- 'Let's go!' he shouted as the wheels started to move.

I just had time to tighten my fingers around the harness as the wagon slid into the void. Descent to ninety degrees then triple looping ascent, wavelet course, twisting ascent, head up, head down and again a descent. The wagon was going so fast that my cheeks, and those of others, slammed in the wind. Tears ran from my eyes, while Vaness' cries accompanied mine, covering the boys' laughter.

- 'Mommmyyy, I want to come down!'

- 'Aaaaaaaah!'

After what seemed to me to be an eternity, the wagon finally stopped in a crash, leaving us both dishevelled and our cheeks reddened by the cold.

- 'I love roller coasters!' Erwan shouted as he got out of the car. 'Again, again!'

- 'No! No! No!'

At the sound of this violent cry from the female heart, Erwan's smile disappeared.

- 'My organs need to recover...' I added nauseously. 'I am gagging. Can we sit down somewhere?'

- 'I need a break, too,' Vaness said. 'I thought I was going to die!'

- 'We are in a dream, no one dies,' Remi replied with a mischievous smile on his face.

- 'Perhaps, but you don't know,' Vaness replied, with one hand on her heart.

- 'What do you mean?'

- 'There are many things we don't know about this world.'

- 'My dreams are not dangerous. I know what I wrote anyway,' he replied, obviously somewhat offended.