Chapter 3

  The next dreamers

  Ever since the moment where Jones had snuck in and taken Madison’s phone, she had locked her door to prevent him from coming in. Therefore when he woke up and walked past her room, he didn’t even bother to try and wake her up, unaware that she wasn't even asleep. Instead, he went to the kitchen to grab a meal out of the freezer. Madison had left a note on his door for when he would wake up saying that she cooked food for him. While he was happy with the food she made, he also missed freshly made warm meals like his parents used to do

  The scent of some caught in the wild bunny made in some sauce started to spread through the house as he waited, watching the oven go with his stomach growling. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with all the free time he had these days. He could possibly train more or take his place back on the couch.

  In the end after taking the plate, he went to the garage outside, having a singular fork to eat the meat as it wasn’t warm all the way through. Being in the garage now, he was rather surprised with the amount of weapons that were here, walked past all the guns, swords, hammer and so forth, looking at everything that was available. There was a lot here, even things from long ago as in the back, there even was a war uniform. He didn’t know which war it was as he never really cared for the history.

  He continued to look around, eventually finding a side room holding boxes and boxes of ammunition. His eyes grew big seeing this, going to one box and pulling out a couple of bullets. While he knew that the bullets didn’t fit for every gun, he didn’t know what bullets were for which gun, grabbing some bullets to inspect them.

  As he looked back at the other room to try and figure out which gun it was used for shooting these bullets. That’s when the world seemed to collapse. The entire house started to shake, causing Jones to yell in fear, dropping the bullets as he fell against the wall. “Earthquake? Here?” He knew what to do during one, going in the doorway and standing still as the earthquake seemed to disappear more quickly than expected.

  Just to be sure, he stayed there for a while, waiting for anything else to happen. That’s when he heard his name being yelled from inside the house.

  “Jones! Jones! Where are you!?”

  Not sure how she would react seeing him here especially with the ammunition, he knelt down, scrambling to get all the bullets off the ground. Hearing her approaching, he put them in the robe and closed the door, trying to quickly tiptoe to anywhere else so that the chances were smaller of her connecting him with the ammunition room.

  Her yelling continued, throwing open doors until eventually storming in the garage. She saw him standing next to some swords and quickly came to him, seemingly very concerned about him. “Are you alright? That felt like a big one. Anyway, we're late already for the new recruits. We need to leave now!”

  She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the garage, going back towards the drying machine where she grabbed his clothes and threw it at him. “Get dressed and meet me out front.”

  Still having the bullets in his robe, he waited for her to leave the room before taking them out and frantically looking around for a good hiding place. Even in this room, there were old looking ornaments everywhere, one of which seemed to be an old barrel with the word Polvora written on it.

  At first he tried to open it, but with no success. Instead, he tilted the barrel and put the bullets underneath the barrel, dropping it and getting dressed. Once he left the room, he felt much better, thinking she wasn’t going to kill him for having her bullets with him because, how much did he actually know about her?

  Once he got to the front door, he saw that she had already grabbed the car and put it in front of the door, backseat door open for him to sit. He wasn’t happy with it, getting in the car while also having grabbed his phone to play the limited games he had, or look at the news if he found the strength. “Why can I not sit in the front row? I’m big enough to be allowed to sit there.”

  “Because…” She pushed down the gas as the car made a sharp turn and then followed the path through the trees. “Cops are still looking for you as you’re a recent case and if the cops see you, they’ll stop me and arrest me and if you forgot, I don’t have powers.”

  He grumbled a bit, leaning back and opening up his phone, starting to play a game where he had to shoot targets with a bow. Ever since he had gotten his dream and saw the possibility in different genres of movies and games in that other world, he found what he had access to rather boring.

  It therefore didn’t take long for him to turn the game off and instead go through the news again. There wasn’t really an update on the missing child’s case as the cops didn’t make any progress. In the end, he just put his phone to the side, not really interested in his phone, looking outside. “I didn’t expect an earthquake today.”

  His words came out so casual that Madison threw him a quick glance, repeating his words in her head to try and figure out if she misunderstood him. “Earthquake? Oh yeah, it doesn't happen too often, maybe even the first time there.”

  “Hmm?” Jones turned to look at her using the back mirror, seeing that she gave him a quick glance every once in a while. “Honestly, I just hope that things will go with the new guy.”

  Madison nodded slowly, thinking of the moment the dream and what had happened in it. “This time it's actually more than one, so perhaps everything will go faster.”

  “Hah, just like you did with me after which I passed out crying. Right…” His skepticism was perhaps a bit misplaced seeing the strange things that were happening here. “So, how did you make it to my place in time? We’ve been driving for a while now and we’re still on the highway.”

  “Well, when I get the dream, it doesn’t only show me who and what, but also where and when. I get the dream before them so I can reach them in time. Right now we have…” She looked at her dashboard at the digital clock there. “Euh, around twenty-two hours to reach them.”

  “What!? Twenty-two? What do you expect me to do during that time!?” He looked back at his phone but he knew that it wouldn’t survive ten hours as he barely charged it since he was here. He preemptively groaned, sinking down in his seat while pulling down on his cheeks. “Aaaaaaaaaaaah…”

  That was already enough to get on Madison’s nerves, reaching to the bag on the passenger seat. She took out her book and threw it at him. “Here, since writing in it once, it’s connected to me. Whenever I dream, the dream gets written down in it. You can either reread your story or read the story of the ones that we’re going to.”

  He took the book as it looked rather fancy but also dull as the cover was old grey but the edges had some kind of gold plated finish or something that looked like it. “How does that work? You write something on a paper and your dreams get written on it then?”

  “I don’t know, it just works. I don’t have an explanation for everything.” She put her foot down on the gas, irritated with Jones’ behavior. “Now shut up and read, we have a long way to go and I’m not going to sit here and take your whining.”

  While hurt, he understood. Though rereading his dream didn’t seem to welcome, knowing that the capture of his family in the dream felt as real as the disappearance of his real family, basically losing two families in one night. Eventually when opening up the book, he skipped his own story, going straight to the newest one.

  What he had noticed from just skimming the pages was that there were drawings every once in a couple of pages. Though looking at the pictures made his own dream look like a nice nap, seeing collapsing buildings and two beings of extreme power fighting each other with a third one just standing there surrounded by fire.

  The other drawing showed a room infinitely huge with burning candles everywhere with the guy from the fire standing in it, seemingly tending to the candles as another drawing showed that one of the two powerful being was a demonic spawn as the other one was a heavenly spawn.

  All in all, nothing that he wanted to deal with. “Which one are we picking up? There are drawings of the dream but from these, I can’t really discern who our target is.”

  “All of them.” Madison finally slowed down again, not wanting to be stopped by cops with an abducted child in the backseat.

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  “All of them? You do know that one of them is a literal demon in human form?” He turned the page with the demonic guy standing next to some corpses towards the mirror, showing her when she looked back.

  “Yes, but they’re just children. We can’t abandon them. Not only that, I don’t want to wait another thousands of years to get this chance again.” She seemed very adamant about it, not even slowing down for a bit. “Once we explain everything to them, things will get better.”

  “Yeah, somehow I doubt that.” He grabbed the book a bit better again, starting to read the story from the beginning. The story itself was rather boring, telling how the one below made a human to do what he wanted, to put some kind of beacons over the earth so it was more easy for him to emerge and rule.

  On the other side, the one ruling above had sent his own servant, knowing about the one below’s plan, making his own human to stop the demon. At first the demon, named David, didn’t suspect anything, exploring his powers and traveling around to put down the beacons while the angel named Angelica followed him, hiding and disabling the beacons.

  The third guy who was unable to do pretty much anything was another half god like Jones, child of a long forgotten god but since his disappearance, adopted by the new one. He was tasked with sitting in a room, waking up to then attend to the candles that showed who was alive and who wasn’t. Once the demon and the angel started to mess with human lives and the candles went crazy, he got out of his safe haven for the first time ever, going to find whoever was doing this.

  In the end, the three found each other in a big city where the demon had gotten the order to take down the angel, fighting and tearing down huge parts of the city. When the angel got mortally wounded, she rigged herself to explode on her death, taking the demon with it. The dream ended with the demon about to kill the angel, making the faith of that specific world uncertain.

  Jones closed the book, looking out the window to see the landscape passing by. If these were the people part of the whole gran project of whatever being was watching them, if there was a being watching them, he wasn’t sure what the game plan was but he didn’t like it a single bit.

  Trying to remember his own dream, he closed his eyes again, bringing up the vivid memories of the world he lived in. The clouds in the sky with the ground far below them. What he wouldn’t give to see his brothers from that world again. It was so weird to get a deep love for both families, shaking his head and waking up. He had to choose one family to focus on. Perhaps he could get his parents back in this world if they did whatever the powerful being wanted.

  Eventually, he got tired of the thinking, closing his eyes to try and rest for the time that they traveled, only waking up to take a bathroom break and eat whenever Madison woke him up. The closer they got, the more he started to dread their plan.

  Madison stopped the car in a dilapidated neighborhood, renting out a room at a motel for her and her son. Nobody bat an eye at how old she was compared to him, just accepting that he was her child, and honestly? He wouldn’t do it either. Once in their room, Jones sat down on the bed, looking at Madison. “So what now? What’s your plan?”

  She had been eating a burger as she looked at the time passing by. Both knew that the kids would wake up the next morning, giving them some time.

  He expected her to prepare something, maybe an escape plan in case there were other people. Maybe even if somehow cops showed up but she was just sitting there, waiting.

  “Well, just like I did with you. I wait for them to wake up and explain everything. It worked out didn’t it?”

  That answer wasn’t something he liked, biting down in his own burger and shaking his head. “Except that you had to break in because I passed out crying about my parents being gone.”

  “Come on, grow up.” Madison obviously didn’t like what he said, shaking her head and getting up to go to the bathroom. “Go to bed, I brought you here to help me, not to hate on me.”

  Jones sighed, putting the wrapper of his burger aside before going to bed. He didn’t have any pajamas, having to sleep in his clothes. Perhaps after this trip, he could convince Madison to go out and buy some clothes for him. For now, he found it difficult to sleep, having slept a lot the past couple of days.

  It took until the sun rose before he finally passed out, Madison sleeping in the same bed as him and seemingly not having the same problems he had.

  That morning, he was woken up by Madison’s obnoxious alarm blaring through the room. He felt rather bad for what had been said between them. He knew that she didn’t have it easy with her life so far, having seen many horrible things.

  The alarm had the intended effect of waking Madison up. She quickly shut it off, finding the alarm even more annoying than Jones did. She saw that he was awake as well and nodded, gesturing to him to get his clothes on. “Get dressed.”

  He didn't really move much as he had slept with his clothes on getting up without even washing himself as she did the same. Once up, he looked up to ask her about food or at least something to not smell as bad, but she was already at the door waiting for him.

  “Don’t be so slow, this is exciting!” She was much more vibrant today, not being upset about their conversation the day before. “Let’s go.”

  Without stopping her, he followed her through the streets, having his hood pulled down over his head to not be recognized. They didn’t walk for a long time, ending up at a row house where she looked around.

  “I’m going to try and get their attention, you try to move to the back and find another way in.” She looked around for some rocks to throw at the window, which in his eyes would be very weird for an old woman to do that.

  Not wanting another fight like yesterday, he just nodded and went to the first alley that went around. Due to it being a row house, it wasn’t fully clear how to get where he needed to be, seeing that the only way in the garden was by going through all of them.

  “Let’s hope that nobody is awake yet.” He took a deep breath, hopping over the first fence and quickly going to the next garden, counting the houses for the one that he needed to be at. Some fences were easy to get over while others were big and he had to actually climb fully.

  Once he finally landed in the right garden, he could feel his back being soaked from the sweat, panting as he went to the backdoor. Just as luck would have it, the door was unlocked, letting him go inside. He wondered how many people left their backdoors unlocked when surrounded by gardens, shaking that thought out of his head. “Focus.”

  Jones reached the front door with ease, not even thinking about possible pets. Though he didn’t really want to open it, knowing how unstable Madison could be. Instead, he slowly crept up the stairs, figuring that the people they were looking for were sleeping upstairs. The only reason he thought that was because he slept upstairs as well.

  Yet again, he found himself being lucky as he heard voices coming from one of the rooms with one sounding very angry.

  “…not right!” Followed by a loud bang from something breaking and falling down. Silence followed after this bang, allowing Jones to come closer and slowly open up the door.

  There were three people inside, all too focused on the broken bed to see him having opened the door. As the book had predicted, there were two guys and one female. One of them had black hair s the other seemed to be brown blond. The female was almost comically blond, yellow hair that it almost looked fake.

  The guy with black hair looked at his hands before looking at the girl. “What is this?”

  She looked at her own hands, grabbing a piece of wood and crushing it with ease. “What? Were the dreams… real?”

  The brown haired guy was less confused, going to a desk and taking out a light.

  “Don’t do that!” The girl quickly came forwards to try and stop him, reaching for the lighter. “What do you think that you’re doing? In the name of all that is holy.”

  He shrugged, not thinking that his actions were so stupid. “Seeing what you two just did, I’m pretty sure that things… who Is that?” He had seen Jones at the door and pointed at him.

  While he had planned to eventually reveal himself, he wasn’t ready to be seen so soon. He stood up completely and fully opened the door. “Euh… I’m Jones and I’m here to explain what is going on right now.”

  The guy with black hair pointed at Jones, mouthing something as Jones felt his something pulling him down, falling down onto the ground. “Ah what!?” He couldn’t move anymore, feeling literally everything stop working as he was forced onto the ground.

  “David!” The girl shook her head, disapproving of his actions. “Don’t do that.”

  The guy named David stopped, letting Jones go as he gave the girl a curious look. “In my dream, we fought. With these new powers, we can conquer the world.”

  “If I may interfere for a second.” Jones got up, groaning as he felt some limbs feel weird still after being pulled down. “I came from far away to try and recruit you for a noble cause.” He tried to sound noble, straightening his back. If I may introduce myself, my name is Jones, controller of clouds.”

  David didn’t look entertained, shrugging and looking away. “David, that’s Angelica and Zoi Thanatos.” He pointed at the other two before focusing back on Jones. “And what was that? Controller of clouds? I can’t do the same, even conjure them, transmute them. So I’m better.”

  Jones tilted his head a bit, looking angry at David. “Are you always an asshole?” He rubbed his arms to get that weird feeling out of them, shaking his entire body right after. “Anyway, I got a dream just like you people. And when I woke up, there was this woman, able to share the dreams and find us. Apparently, we’re part of some kind of ancient power's plan to spread fantasy in this world or something.”

  Hearing this, both David and Angelica seemed excited while Zoi seemed rather neutral, waiting for more information although with a bit of a frown. “Another god? I don’t know about that.”

  As they were standing here, Jones finally figured something out, turning back to Zoi. “Your name is Zoi Thanatos? Your parents named you Zoi Thanatos? So all your last names are Thanatos?”

  Him saying this seemed to cause some confusion between the three. David slowly shook his head, slightly pointing at him but also not really. “Weird, I only know his name from the dream. Brother?”

  Zoi himself didn’t seem to remember anymore, shaking his head as he grabbed his wallet to try and find an identity card.

  Jones wasn’t sure how this could be as he remembered both of his real and dream life’s names. “I guess the dream affected you three more than it did to me. Should we go to the woman who will explain it better than I can?”

  “My name was Zack apparently. Why don’t I remember that? I barely remember anything from here.” He put his wallet back down as he looked around the room. “But sure, let’s go down and meet that woman of yours.”

  He was happy that Zoi just wanted to get this over with and talk to Madison as he couldn’t give him an explanation for what was happening. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to go that smooth as Angelica remembered something more important. “What about our parents?”

  “Ah, well…” He lifted his hands up in an “I don’t know” gesture, stepping to the side so they could go downstairs or wherever their parents slept. “For as far as I know, they’re gone permanently.