Alex spread her arms wide, motioning that there was more than enough space for Jim. The glass door slid open, and he stepped inside her prison. He looked around, nodding as he appraised the room. “I like what you’ve done with the place. It’s got a European flair to it.”
Alex playfully shoved the mech rider as she walked past him to sit on the bench. “Shut up. What did you bring, anyway?”
“Some snacks. Figured it had been a while since you’d eaten anything. They kinda forgot to feed me while I was locked up. You would have thought I got sent to prison or something.”
“You didn’t use the magic wall?”
Jim raised an incredulous eyebrow at Alex before she leaned over to the magical hole in the wall and took out a pulled pork sandwich. “No,” Jim exclaimed, his eyes wide. “I would have definitely used that if I’d known about it.”
Alex offered the sandwich to him.
“Yeah, it’s this new thing Myrddin was working on, I guess. It’s kinda freaky, but I don’t know, pretty convenient. But anyway, let’s take care of this food.”
The two dug into the assortment of snacks Jim brought, demolishing them quickly before turning to the magical hole in the wall. They thought of whatever they could to satisfy the hunger that had been awakened in both of them from grapes and apple slices.
As the two ate from the treasure trove of junk food they’d supplied themselves with, Jim noticed the Jung book on the floor. “I don’t know you were into Jungian psychology,” he mused.
Alex grabbed the book and threw it onto the pile of blankets behind her. She didn’t want to talk about her dreams. She’d just started to feel normal again. “Oh, that was the wall screwing up what I was looking for.”
“Oh? What were you looking for?”
Alex couldn’t think fast enough, caught in her badly thought-out lie. “Uh, I don’t know anything about Jung or psychology, but I was trying to find something about dreams. You know, like how to interpret them.”
“Gotcha. I only asked because my mom has tons of that stuff lying around. She’s a Jungian therapist. I’ve read a couple of his books just ‘cause they’re everywhere in the house, but I don’t understand most of it. The dream one is a little easier, though. It made some sense.”
“Do you ever have nightmares?”
Jim looked taken aback by the question. His brow furrowed. “Why do you want to know?”
Alex thought Jim’s response was odd. Usually he was fairly candid, but Alex noticed that he had thrown up a wall in a matter of seconds. “Is that a weird question?”
“A little bit. Most people ask what you dream about, not what you have nightmares about.”
“I didn’t ask what you had nightmares about. I wanted to know if you ever had any.”
Jim still looked uncomfortable, but he finally answered. “I didn’t use to have nightmares, even when I was a kid. But recently, yeah, I’ve been having them. Really bad ones, too. The weird thing is that when I wake up, I don’t think what I’m dreaming about is even remotely scary. It’s…I don’t know…like a…”
“Color. Is it a nightmare about a color?”
Jim glanced up from his food, his bottom lip trembling. He looked as if someone had told him how he was going to die; his face was pale. “How did you know?”
Alex tapped the side of her head. “Because I’ve been having the same dream almost every night. Just this green color.”
“Like from the meteor?”
“Exactly.”
Alex and Jim exchanged glances. How was this even possible? Jim was the first one to try to offer an explanation. “It must be from what we saw, you know,” he stammered. “That green stuff with the meteor was pretty weird.”
“It was more than weird, Jim.”
“People don’t have the same dreams.”
Alex didn’t know why she wasn’t convinced by what Jim was saying. Minutes ago, she’d been telling herself that her color dreams weren’t strange. Hearing Jim act like everything was okay was casting light on the situation’s unnaturalness.
Jim was still trying to explain away what they had both just realized. “We went through a traumatic experience together. Of course, we’re going to have similar dreams. People who fight in the same battles or war or whatever probably dream the same crap—the color red and everything.”
“I don’t think this is the same thing, Jim.”
Jim looked as if he were ready to run out of the room. His fear was palpable. He had the gaze of a small animal, something that realizes it is prey and its life is not its own. Whatever was going on deeply disturbed him. Alex could see it in his haunted eyes.
The silence stretching between them was broken by the crackling of the intercom and Alex’s dragon anchor roaring to life. “Alex, we need you in Bay Seven.”
“Bay Seven? We have a Bay Seven?”
There was an audible sigh. “Does no one go over the site maps anymore? It’s Level Seven, directly below where you are. Bring Jim as well.”
Alex sighed, irritated that she wasn’t going to get a moment to finish the conversation. “Well, you heard the man,” Alex muttered as she walked past Jim, who was still rooted to the spot, his eyes distant as if he were dreaming while standing. “Hey! Jim!” she shouted.
Jim snapped back to reality. “Sorry. Let’s go.”
Part of the docking bay had been converted to a quarantine area, and that was where the alien’s ship was. Myrddin and Roy were next to the ship with the technicians who were looking it over.
Roy waved Alex and Jim over when he saw them enter. “Glad to see you two didn’t catch any
