“I’m quite certain I’ll find my place in Hollywood, regardless of the era.”
I raised my eyebrows, but I wasn’t about to dash her dreams. I was also a performer, after all.
“Well, I know a few other folks who are stuck here. As soon as we figure out how to stop the nothingness storms, I’m going to try and find a way to send them home.” I tried the door again.
The woman burst out laughing. “Oh, aren’t you pure and sweet? When the Dream realm is erased, there will be nothing to hold me here. I’ll be able to return.”
“Or you might be erased with the rest of Dream,” I pointed out.
“Mortals are not affected. I tested it on another dreambound. He was fine.”
“Where is he now?”
She waved her hand as if it we inconsequential. “No idea. He wandered off, as everyone does after a while. Eternity in this insane landscape grows tiresome.”
“Oh.” She caused the nothingness storms? “How’d you do it?”
The woman shrugged one elegantly exposed shoulder. “Nightmare beings not content with the status quo, a potion allowing me to dream powerfully, and a great deal of energy and intention. It took a while for everything to line up, and I have a few things left to do.”
“Like?”
She grinned. “You’ll find out. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She stood, patting the back of the couch. “The fainting couch is quite comfortable, by the way.”
While I stared, wondering why the woman switched topics, she headed to the back of the house.
Before I could even think to rush forward and stop her, she was in the kitchen and the walls melded together, leaving me no way out.
“What? Wait!” I slammed my hand against the wall. Drywall would have given to my attack, but whatever she’d done to the inside of this house had turned it as hard as stone.
“Fuck.” I shook out my hand, wincing. “Nic!” I shouted with my mind and my voice. I ran to the window and pulled back the curtains just as Geraint swung a baseball bat at it. The bat shattered, the glass remained unharmed.
I slammed my hands against the window. “Geraint!”
“I’m going to find Nic.”
I couldn’t hear him, but I could read his lips and I nodded.
Just then, sirens pierced the silence. Those, I could hear, and suddenly I remembered what else had plagued the fifties. The threat of nuclear war.
Geraint looked up at the sky, then back at me, eyes wide.
“Shit!” I threw a chair at the glass and narrowly avoided getting brained by it as it bounced back at me.
Geraint held up a finger and ran off out of view.
“No, no, no...” Apparently getting rid of me was on the woman’s to-do list. I suspected an atomic blast in a forgotten dream would be devastating enough that I wouldn’t survive it. The American dream might be forgotten, but nearly the entire world knew what happened when a nuclear weapon exploded.
Geraint returned with the others. I put my hands on the window. Nic attacked the glass, but it resisted the tendrils of shadow he used to try to drain the creation of its power.
Ash shouted and pointed to the sky. Robby held Casey. Geraint attacked the window with his sword, and Dio went crazy, throwing himself at the glass with hands partially shifted into paws with dagger-like talons.
I even tried draining the essence from this side with no success.
Geraint put his hands on the glass, and I touched mine to his, the barrier preventing us from making physical contact.
Nic placed his next to Geraint’s.
“Fucking go!” I pointed away from me when Ash danced around, urgently gesturing toward the sky. Dio grabbed Nic, and they argued before Dio shoved Nic away.