Alive at Sunset (Rituals of the Night Series Book 2) (3 page)

Bowling Green was her new home.

Lucky finally gave up on trying to stand. She lie down beside Luna’s roller blades, her head on her paws as she stared straight down the road. Luna realized her Border Collie had worn herself out more than Luna had originally thought.

Luna suddenly had a slight feeling of foreboding -a feeling of being watched. She didn’t know which way the feeling was coming from. She did a turn to survey the area and didn’t see anything out of the norm. People drove and walked past her without a second glance. She furrowed her brow, confused.

Why did she feel like she was being watched if not a single person noticed her? She glanced down at her dog, but Lucky’s eyes remained on the road far ahead of her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a bright blond head of hair. It was the same glint she had noticed when she had been at the café with Amanda earlier. She turned to see it better, but she couldn’t spot it again as it disappeared from sight.

She frowned to herself. Was she seeing things? Were memories of her past haunting her again after all the time of peace? What was the matter with her? Why couldn’t she let herself move on from what was over and done with?

N
ot too long after their trip to the middle of the town, Lucky regained her energy once again. Luna gripped uncertainly at the dog’s leash. The flash of blond hair made her feel sick. She wanted to go to the hospital to see that her enemy was still in the trap of his coma. A sickeningly familiar feeling in her heart seemed to demand it. She turned, and Lucky began to lead the way. As the large building came into sight in the distance, Luna felt her heart rate began to quicken.

She stopped in her tracks, feeling the sweat pouring down her face. Why was she putting herself through something that wasn’t necessary? There were plenty of people with blond hair -it didn’t mean it was Chance.

I’m just barking in the dark,
she thought to herself.

Lucky looked up at her as Luna continued to stare, petrified, at the building. The dog could sense the fear pulsing through her veins. She couldn’t decide if she should go in or not. What would she do if he was missing from his bed?

It’s not possible,
she reminded herself.
Max told you himself. You trust him.

She let thoughts of Max comfort her as she turned her back to the building. She was walking into her past, letting the memories of her horrors trap her instead of moving on. Her therapist had warned her of something like it happening. She supposed she only had herself to blame for continuing her weekly visits to Chance.

It was the only peace of mind she could offer to herself.

After arguing with the voices in her head, she decided her best course of action would be to let it go. Twenty minutes later, they returned home. Luna took off her skates and unhooked the leash from Lucky’s collar. She set down the blades beside the door, glad to get the hard plastic off of her tender skin. Her feet throbbed as she stooped down to stroke the dark fur on her dog’s head again.

Lucky bowed her head at Luna’s touch and then backed up from Luna cautiously. She barked once and continued to turn to run from the room. Luna smiled after her dog before she moved down the hallway to her room. She was about to sit down on her bed when a ring sounded suddenly. She looked at her table where her small touchscreen phone was sitting. She forgot about her sore feet as she stood up to answer it.

“Hello?” she asked; her attention was only vaguely focused into the phone call as she moved back over to her bed.

“Hey, Luna,” she recognized Max’s voice on the other end of the line. “I think we’re past due a conversation.”

Max Cazmea was her oldest and closest friend. He hadn’t always been her best friend though she had known him a majority of her life. After the murder of her other friend, Violet Bulrney, she and Max had survived the terrors of her senior year of high school and had grown closer only to drift apart once more.

It seemed as if both of them didn’t want to admit that what they had gone through had been real. Even though they had experienced it together, they knew how crazy, how inane their adventure had been. Part of them felt as though it was easier to forget about it if they avoided each other, no matter how good of friends they were. Deep down, they knew that if anyone else caught wind of their DreamWorld conversations, heard the claims of the things they had been through on that faraway day, then they’d be on their way to Juniper Hill.

“It’s been a long time, Max,” Luna said, saying the only thing that came to mind. She couldn’t remember the last time he had called her. For that matter, she couldn’t remember the last time she had gone to visit his apartment. They had drifted farther and farther apart since that day, Luna realized suddenly.

“I know, I’m sorry about it. I’ve been meaning to call, I’ve just been really busy, you know,” he said. Luna knew that he wouldn’t exactly tell her why he had been so busy. “So, how’s life been for you? Last time I heard from you, you were getting your own place away from David.”

“Yeah, it’s been great living on my own; I’ve been here for a little over a year now. I just got out of college for summer vacation,” Luna replied. Part of her was wary for his call. He used small talk sometimes (usually when he was bored), but most times, he only called when he had something important to say. Luna could hear that tone in his voice, and she knew that he had an underlying reason for calling. Her heart sunk into her stomach at the thought. “How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been alright…” Max said trailing off.

“But?” Luna asked. She bit her lip, waiting for him to drop the weight on her.

“It’s just that I called to talk to you about something serious. Something that you probably don’t want to hear about, and really I’m not glad that I have to be the one to tell you,” he said. His voice wasn’t friendly; he sounded bitter and slightly worried. The more he talked, the more obvious that tone became. It was a business call.

Luna felt her average bliss sink away into nothing as she sunk down to her bed. To her, that was the worst news she could get -higher even than hearing of a death in the family. She hated the feeling of dread that his words casted over her. He was the most knowledgeable person that she knew so when something bothered him, chances were it wasn’t a joke.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

“I think, and you need to hear me out on this one before you stop me. I
think
that something might be wrong again in DreamWorld,” he began, the words slipping over his lips rapidly. “I’ve had this hollow feeling for a few days now. I don’t like it. It feels familiar, Luna, too familiar. I wasn’t able to pinpoint what it could be at first, but then I thought about it. The more I thought about it, I realized why it felt familiar- I’ve felt it before. It was the same feeling I had when Chance had been plotting. This feeling was right before, and I’m positive that if I’m feeling it again, then it’s right now.”

“What? What could possibly be wrong in DreamWorld anymore?” Luna asked feeling a chill of foreboding in her stomach. “Max, Chance is gone. He can’t hurt us through dreams anymore. He’s not Chance anymore, because we beat him…we-we won. He forgot about all that- you said so yourself!”

In their senior year of high school, Chance Welfrey had been Luna’s (and Max’s) worst nightmare come to life. He was a killer, the kind horror movies broadcasted. Back then, he had murdered two cheerleaders (ones that had been his friends) in cold blood.

Then, he had targeted Luna and Max through their dreams. That’s when Luna had first been exposed to the horrors of DreamWorld. DreamWorld -the place where the rules of reality were backwards. He had shattered the blissful naïve nature of her with one fearsome blow…literally.

At the end of their ordeal, things had blown up to end with cataclysmic consequences like a volcano that lie dormant for centuries. Things hadn’t ended before Chance had been able to take out one more victim -her closest friend, Violet. Then, when Luna’s life had hung in the balance, she had reversed the curse that Chance had created, to mix DreamWorld with reality, and he had lost his memory completely -a victim to his own cruel game.

The thought that the bizarre problem she had faced years ago could present itself to her once more frightened her. She had barely survived it the first time; she doubted she could survive it again. She thought about all the people that had already fallen to Chance’s cruel blade; how many more would fall if he came back?

“I haven’t been feeling right lately, Luna,” he said again as if he thought she wasn’t truly listening to him. She was listening to his every word, scrutinizing each one for the hidden meaning of it.

His tone was serious, which meant there was all the more reason to believe him. Luna couldn’t think of a thing to say. A cold rock of dread sat solidly in the pit of her stomach. She was baleful as she waited for her old friend to speak again. Her mind was an empty canvas -no matter how much she wanted to decorate it with words, the creative part of her mind had simply given up.

“I know to trust my gut. Something is wrong,” Max conceded. “Luna, I need your help. Please say something.”

“What do you want me to say?” she asked gravely. “This is the worst news ever, Max.”

“I know. Trust me, I know.” Max sighed. “I need to know, what are you thinking when I’m telling you this? Do you believe me?” 

Luna chuckled nervously, not wanting to think that he could be right. The thought was mortifying. “You really want to know what I think? Nothing’s wrong. We fixed everything that was broken. My Teardrop of Knowledge hasn’t acted up because everything in DreamWorld is fixed. There hasn’t been any more ritualistic murders, and Chance is in a coma, he has amnesia!” Luna blurted out trying to ignore the image of the boy with shocking similarity to Chance.

“I’ve thought about other things too,” Max whispered. “If you don’t believe me about that, then I’ll make you think about it from a different way.”

“What else has come to mind?” Luna asked warily. The more he spoke, the more anxiety filled her veins.

“I’ve been thinking mostly about a problem that I didn’t consider three years ago.”

“What is it?” Luna asked.

“Chance was really smart with DreamWorld. I’m sure he knew the risks he was taking with fusion. What if he found a loophole, a way to recover from his coma, Luna?” Max asked. “What happens then?”

“He would be pissed,” Luna said, “but that doesn’t matter ‘cuz there’s no way that can happen again, right? You said stopping him in fusion would erase his memory forever.”

“I never wondered if he had a backup plan though. Just listen to me here, Luna. Forget what I said for a little while, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed reluctantly. “What are you thinking?”

“Answer me this one question. What do you think would be his number one priority if we failed in permanently erasing his memory?” Max asked, sounding a bit frantic. “What do you think he would do if he did come back?”

“He’d come after us again,” Luna whispered, not realizing that it was her that had spoken. “He wouldn’t want to kill anyone else until we were six feet under. We made him fail, Max.”

“Exactly,” Max said.

“You really think he could’ve found a loophole?” she asked.

“He was smart, Luna. Psychotic or not, he knew how to plan, and he knew how to manipulate. If he’s coming back again, we need to be careful, keep an eye over both shoulders. I don’t know what he’s planning this time, but, Luna, I know he wants us dead. I don’t think he’ll let us die peacefully either. We might be on the verge of something serious here,” Max said.

After her old friend had spoken, Luna felt a sharp pain jab into her stomach. It was so fierce and so unexpected, it paralyzed her instantly. Max’s warning was already forgotten. The pain felt cold all the way down to her muscles -to her blood. The pain throbbed from the ice as it spread out in radiating waves down her arms and legs and sat erupting in her fingers and toes.

Luna’s hand clenched around the phone as her body tensed in pain, and her finger hit the end button before she dropped the phone to the floor. It thumped loudly on the hard floors, but it was long forgotten as she grunted in pure agony. She felt like she was being gutted one organ at a time. She would give her soul away in that moment to get the blinding pain to stop. To her dismay, it merely got worse.

She bent forward and lost her balance, toppling off her bed to the floor. Her stomach was a hot pit of pain. She curled up into a ball on the floor, her arms tight around her stomach. She didn’t know when tears had started streaming down her face, but they soaked the floorboards beneath her head. The left side of her face was soaked in the warm, salty water, and her eyes were burning as well as they ran dry.

The pain flashed through her body again, and she retched, worried that she would throw up. Nothing came up, but the burning pain ate at the back of her throat, making her feel as if she had swallowed bleach. Every breath felt like she was breathing in fire. The pain was far worse than anything she had felt before. Even when Chance had stabbed her, she hadn’t been in so much agony.

She thrashed aimlessly in her spot on the floor, trying anything to get the spreading pain in her joints to dissipate. No matter what she did, the pain only intensified. Finally, she hit the point where she was sure it was going to kill her. She wouldn’t be able to handle it much longer, the way it was choking her of her every ounce of hope. The pain slid up to her brain -the world’s worst migraine. Before she was ready to scream her last ounce of strength out to the world, the pain dripped out of her head like saline solution in an IV.

The throbbing aftereffects still radiated for a few moments until finally the pain in her gut receded as well, and she was left a sobbing mess on the floor. She gasped for air, trying to get a hold of herself. Part of her suddenly realized that she had been suffocating during her struggle.

As she caught her breath, she couldn’t help but wonder. What was happening to her? Nothing in the physical realm could’ve caused her pain so deep. No, only one universe could cause such terrible things in the real world. Was Max right? Could her senior year experience happen all over again?