“I should think not,” he said. “I mean, goodness, if I had the ability to go into dreams … it sounds wonderful.”

“Not super on-message with the whole ‘giving a girl addicted to dreamdiving a pep talk’ thing,” I teased back.

“Oh, gosh, of course,” Owen rushed to say. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I get it. I really do.”

We walked in silence for a while, my shoulder practically brushing his elbow, that’s how tall he is. Or how short I am, I guess.

“It won’t be any different than the tests you did the last time you were here,” he continued eventually, “not really. This past week has been all about reminding you what it’s like to sleep dreamlessly, so your body recognizes healthy, normal sleep.”

“My body was already getting healthy, normal sleep,” I said. “Granted, it was getting a lot more of that than it should have—”

“It’s true, your body is still able to get the necessary rest when you’re dreamdiving,” Owen said, “but we don’t yet know much about dreamdiving’s effect on the brain.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“That’s probably a question best left for the doctors,” he said.

Hence: scared. Spooky stone hallways and creepy lab tests … nothing at the AM has felt like a horror show, but I worry that the slasher version of it might somehow creep its way into my dreams. I don’t really know who else is around in the facility at the moment, and who might be reachable to me in my sleep, so it’s possible I’ll just be stuck in my own head with my own thoughts. And I know that I can create new ones, that if things start to turn to a nightmare, I can turn every killer clown into a funny one (though, to be honest, all clowns are terrifying), but I’m feeling … rusty. Seven days and nights is not enough to forget how to do something—I didn’t roller skate for all of freshman year and hopped back no problem in sophomore—but dreamdiving is tumultuous and unexpected at the best of times. That’s one of the things I love about it, but I … I’m scared of what might be waiting for me there. What might have been neglected the past week that’s just waiting in the shadows for me.

And I worry even thinking about the possibility of a nightmare has sealed it into certainty.

I’m gasping for air, clawing at the ground, the smell of dirt and rot pressing in on my nose, my mouth, the earth clinging to me, squeezing in and around me, pushing me

down

down

down

down into the ground.

I breathe, blood filling my mouth, there’s the smell of burnt hair,

sharp

metal

lightning

Electricity, electric shocks sending hairs standing on their ends, the current pulling me up and turning me inside outoutout.