Chapter 6

New chapter

I got a peak of what awaited me outside.

The hospital was a nightmare. People were sleeping. They had people stacked on top of each other, some others were on the floor and others had to share beds. Only a few were the ones who weren't sleeping. They were crying, I couldn't blame them. The whole place made me want to cry too, it was too...Depressive.

The lady with the red sweater was sitting outside, her eyes fixed on a phone she was holding with her right arm. Spencer was drinking water.

Caitlin went outside first.

"So is he really awake?" Asked the red sweater lady putting her phone back in the jean's pocket.

"Awake and Alive" Said Caitlin making a gesture with her head for them to look at the door where I was.

"It was about time Daniel, I was getting tired of sitting here already" Said the lady as she stood up.

I looked at her as a stranger, who was she? I didn't have a clue, but maybe on the way I would remember who these people were.

"Why are you looking at me like I'm a stranger? Why is he looking at me like I'm stranger?" Asked the lady turning her word to Caitlin and Spencer.

The boy gave a "You know why" Look.

"Okay then, I'm Athena and I'm friends with your friends" Said Athena

She then took her phone out.

"You'll get used to it" Said Spencer.

"We're the lucky ones who haven't gone to sleep, When it first started, I didn't know what to do, My parents fell asleep, I tried waking them up with any known way but they wouldn't wake up, the same happen with Caitlin, and boy when we knew you were asleep and that your mother was too, at least we needed to get you out of there or else... They would take your body"

That was indeed a lot to process, my "friends" were making my life a whole lot different now. I don't think they understood that my "real world" just fell apart and that I didn't knew a single one of them. I wanted to cry, to yell, and to be in my mother's arms. But now, I didn't know if those hugs were even real... I didn't even know myself.

"Okay, we need to go now" Said Athena, she started walking with a fast pace.

"Come on!" she demanded

The three of us followed her.

Of course, I had a lot of questions like: Why are we leaving? What's the matter? Can I have a hamburger? But Spencer and Caitlin seemed fine with it, although they looked worried as if they remembered something.

I could perfectly hear the rain and the thunder outside. People were sobbing on chairs looking at their half dead family member's. I almost tripped on one dude's head.

"We aren't the only ones whom haven't sleep yet" said Caitlin as my face looked in awe at all of the people. There were only a few of them...

Don't get me wrong when I say "Awe", it's an "awe" of: Wow, this is terrible, not an "Awe" of: Hoy s**t this is amazing!

"Are they dead or with some kind of disease?" I asked carefully watching my step, I didn't want my shoes to end up in someones mouth, or even worst.

"No, they aren't, they just went to sleep" Said Spencer as we were going down stairs.

"Sleep?" I asked sarcastically

"He asks a lot of questions" Said Athena.

"It's something that started four months ago Daniel, people suddenly started to fall sleep, it cause a great fear among us, One after one people fell asleep naturally" Said Spencer as we passed a corridor with pictures of the founders of the hospital.

"At first it was naturally, but then it got worse when those things appeared" Said spencer

I finally knew where we were going, to the main exit. Even here there where piles of body on top of each other, I swear I wanted to throw up, those people looked like they haven't gotten a bath for years!

It stopped raining, but there were still dark clouds.

"Who are they?" I asked

"Their names are Dream Eaters, they can transform into anything they want, they give you a nice dream while you sleep but in real life, they're eating the conscious out of your brain" Said Athena looking at me in annoyance.

"We'll tell you more about you and how the world has changed Daniel, but right now we really need to get out of here because a big wave of Dream Eaters is coming to the hospital" Said Athena,

We went outside.

You're probably thinking right now

Oh Daniel, how did you managed to get over your dream life?

What are exactly dream eaters?

How come this people saved you but not the other members of your families, or even better, their family?

Trust me, I don't have a single clue of what is going on. You're trying to understand what the hell is going on, imagine being in my situation of not having a clue where I was or who are the strange people whom I've just met. I still didn't want to accept my situation, but after all the weird things I've been through in my life, from roses in a forest to meeting a guy name Diarkar who says that I'm a Dream Escaper, well, I guess I coupled with it, it wasn't easy but I managed to do it.

Diarkar.

Okay, it's true, I barely knew who this people were but, if they knew about all the stuff in dreams (I'm still spaced out on that subject, so don't ask) maybe they knew who this weird guy was. I wanted to tell them, but I didn't trust them yet, who knew, maybe it was a trap or something, or maybe it wasn't. 

Ah crap. Why do I over think stuff? Why can't I just be like the main protagonist of all those books I've read in the Midnight city library? I'm not really a hero, although I wish I could be like them. Everyone likes a hero, nobody likes being normal.

Okay, I wasted time thinking about this. Moving on.

Outside was different than the hospital. The city was like a ghost town, I couldn't see a single clue of life in there. The interesting part was, that the buildings weren't destroyed, in fact, they looked like new, sunlight sparkle from their windows. If it weren't for the fact that I'm confused about a lot of stuff (and all of you know it) I would have enjoyed that sunlight.

You might be thinking right now

Daniel, how would Los Angeles look like without people? It's almost impossible to do that.

Well, imagine your hometown without people. Yeah, that's how it was there.

"Where exactly are we?" I asked again.

"Los Angeles, well, Los Angeles without not many people" Said Athena

There wasn't a single car outside, pure nothingness washed over the city, as if someone grabbed an eraser and decided to erase all the people and the cars.

Spencer pull out his phone, he started pressing buttons on it.

Buttons Daniel, really? Buttons.

Don't bother me, I wasn't on my world, or at least the one I thought was my world, and yes that's the only thing I could of think of.

"Okay, I just send a message to the camp, they'll be waiting for us" Said Spencer.

Now there was a camp? I wonder what other surprises I'm going to find with this people who are so called "My friends".

And you might be thinking

Daniel, if you didn't know this people and what they were talking about, then why follow them?

What other possibility of surviving I had? Besides maybe there was somebody on this so called "Camp" who could help me.

"Where is this camp?" I asked

"Less questions, more actions, by the mountains, let's keep moving" Said Athena walking away.

The three of us cached up with Athena. I started thinking about the people that are left in the hospital. What were they going to do? I was worried about them, they were going to "Sleep" and go inside the Dream world. You know, I haven't gotten time to think about my life on the other side.

I always felt like I didn't belong there, like I belonged in another place. My mother always told me that I shouldn't think about that, it would only do harm from brain. My mother, my mother always kept secrets from me. I never got see her I turned 10, she went to work full time and since then, I haven't seen her but, I always felt like she was hiding something from me.

We walked silently through the lonely city. The heat was starting to bother me, even white smoke was steaming from my body. I sweated and sweated until my shirt was wet. I wondered why it was so hot, then I remembered I had my brown coat on.

Caitlin gave me a you're-so-stupid look.

And so we kept walking.

We came into Downtown Los Angeles, the big skyscrapers rose to the sky. They made me remember the Midnight city skyline. The only difference was that this skyscrapers didn't have a glass side walk with a panoramic view.

Caitlin came over beside me as spencer and Athena talked about the fastest way to get to the mountains.

"It's pretty weird huh" Said Caitlin.

"I wouldn't want to be in your feet right now, my whole life gone... not remembering the one whom I love is my worst fear" She said.

Her dark silk hair glittered on the sunlight as grabbed my hand and leaned her head over my shoulder. I felt a weird sensation in my stomach, like if butterflies were having a party inside me.

The only time I've felt this way was when I and Regina went to hike a mountain. It was getting late and we got lost. She grabbed my hand and we both oriented ourselves with the stars. We got out of the mountain in the early morning, yeah, it took a long time but, I enjoyed spending time with her.

"I think I successfully lived your worst nightmare" I said.

"I know that you still don't trust us" Said Caitlin

You nailed it I said in my mind

"But please give us an opportunity, we'll tell you when we get to the camp, we don't want Dream Eaters to make sleep" She said hugging my arm.

She was being too sweet with me, I wonder what she had to do with me when I was in this world.

"Were you my-"Athena stopped walking and Spencer looked in every direction.

I heard a low screeching sound in the distance, like someone was putting his or her nails on a chalkboard and decided to torture someone with the sound of it.

Caitlin let go of my arm and took out a silver rectangular piece of metal, she then put one of here thumbs on it and suddenly, the thing transformed into a gun. I've never seen something like that in my life, Spencer and Athena did the same thing.

"They're getting closer" Said Athena

"They've been really aggressive lately, do you think it's because of-"Athena put a hand over Spencer's mouth and made a gesture with her to hands to shush.

"Diarkar has been making more appearances lately on our world" Said Athena.

I jumped when she that, they knew about Diarkar? Maybe the time was now to tell them about my dream.

"Keep moving people! We don't have much time, night is about to fall, we need to find shelter" And Athena walked away.

Or maybe not, everyone was in a hurry.

"The Dodger stadium is close from us, we can go take shelter there until its day again" Said Caitlin.

So Athena led the way and everyone was walking again.

Remember how I told you about time in Midnight city? Well I was trying to fight my drowsiness the whole time! It wasn't fun at all, here in this world, in the real world (I'm coming to terms with it) in the day, people would do their activities but at night they would sleep. I wasn't much of a fan of my new time.

We arrived at the dodger stadium. The sun was beginning to set, the sky turned into a dark purple color. Safe to say that there weren't any lights on in the city. The building's windows turned into the dark purple color of the sky.

I've never been into a baseball stadium. So when we arrive at the lonely stadium, I felt like I was in a theater.

Okay, not my best metaphor but you get the meaning. The thing was huge! I wouldn't even thought about such sport could exist.

Inside, it was even bigger. Although the field looked out of shape, the grass was really tall, and when I mean tall, I mean that it covered my feet in it. Inside there were a lot of stores, from food stands to souvenir stores. You can guess that there wasn't food or souvenirs. The whole place was wiped out.

We sat on the chairs that were the closest to the field.

"In a scale of 1 to 10, how much possibility is there for the Dream eaters to catch us?" I asked

Athena was drinking water from a bottle that said: Water is good. Caitlin was falling asleep. Spencer was looking at a ball he found on the field.

"I'll say an 11" Said Athena

"Oh come on! You have to be kidding me, out of all the places we've been through Athena, you brought to the one place where they can put us to sleep!" Protested Spencer.

In fact he was right, it was an open air stadium, maybe we could hide in the bathrooms or in the stores but that wouldn't make a lot of sense, or would it? In Midnight city, the cops could find where you were hiding with a "mental detector", the thing could read anyone thoughts, so if you were thinking about getting trapped, Boom! You went to Jail.

"Calm down, just look out for anything that's out of place, either wave Spencer don't raise your voice to me, remember I'm the older one here, maybe with a kid complex but I'm in charge of this unit" Said Athena putting her water bottle on the floor.

None of us talked after that. Caitlin fell asleep, she leaned her head on the stadium seat and used her black jacket as pillow. She needed to rest, she looked really tired.

"Okay man, sorry we couldn't inform you about everything, but believe us when we tell you that we're your friends okay? I'll show a picture tomorrow" Said spencer sitting next to me.

"Oh wait, I can't sleep, I need to look after you, you don't have a prism!" said Spencer.

He grabbed something from his pocket (how long where does pockets?). It was a rock or something like that.

"This is a prism" Said Spencer, he showed it to me like if the piece of rock was a gold coin.

"We've found out that if you carried this rock in any part of your body, it would bring protection from the Dream eaters, although that wouldn't stop you from going to sleep" Said spencer putting the prism in his pocket.

The word sleep was something that resonated in my mind. I've always thought of sleeping as something useful and maybe fun to do because you start dreaming. But for them, it was the opposite way, they were afraid of sleeping.

"What's the whole deal with the sleep?" I asked Spencer.

"It's something that just happens, we don't even pay attention to it because it just happens, if you go to sleep, then you go to the Dream world and your memories get replace by the ones that are in there" Said Spencer

"But what about the prism, can't that protect you from the sleep?" I asked.

He yawned. Now that I was close to him, I could see that his shirt had some holes in it. I wondered where he got them, but then I remembered how everything had collapsed when this "disease" thought it would be fun to poke some fun on earth.

"Nah, they only protect you from dream eaters, they kind of put a shield around you so they don't come in your mind, but still, it's safer if we stayed away from them, it's true that we can't difference how they look like, but since they're spheres of energy, we can detect when there's an awful lot of energy in one, then we know it's a dream eater" Said Spencer.

He looked worried and sad. Who knows what Spencer, Caitlin and Athena have been through? A stroke of guiltiness hit me. What if they've been through all because of me? I tried to put those thoughts at side but they kept bothering me. Still, I wasn't quite sure with them, at least not yet. And I'm still wondering why they kept me in a hospital instead of their "safe" camp? I waited eagerly from the answers of my questions, but after a while of thinking and trying to give answers to them.

After a while Spencer fell asleep on the stadium seat. Athena was playing a Pac man on her phone. I could listen to the waka-waka sound that the game made.

She then turned to see me.

"You should go to sleep too, Daniel" Said Athena putting her phone on her lap.

"We need to reach the camp by 3 P.M tomorrow"

"What if I don't come back?" I asked worried to Athena.

"Daniel, only a few have woken up from the middle realm of dreams, we like to call them: The Escapers, because deep in their mind, their trying to break free from the dream that keeps them in the Dream Universe, if you-if you're the one then, there's no need to worry" Said Athena smiling.

The one I thought. I remembered what Diarkar said in my dream: That I was this millenniums Dream Escaper, but now Athena reveals to me that there are only a few others who have woken up.

I wonder where I'm going to end.

After a few minutes of thinking, I fell asleep.