“You want to fight?”

  Lucy’s words came out with an uncertain tone that was almost too palpable, not helped by the sudden silence that had settled in from the wind and waves nearly going still. She maintained eye contact with him, her mouth still open, unsure of where to go from there, and though she expected her reaction to garner some annoyance from Cole, he instead nodded firmly.

  “I’ve done it before,” Cole said. “Sometimes, when I’m in this damned dream. But I always got tired or fed up fighting those things over and over again. But with you around, instead of just me…”

  He thrust his fist out toward Lucy, who, after a bout of astonishment, raised her own fist to bump Cole’s. Cole smiled, and again Lucy felt that it suited him far more than his scowl. His Dream seemed to believe the same, as the skies behind him looked just the smallest bit brighter.

  “With you around,” he continued, “I think we have a shot.” He brought his fist back to his side, turned to look out across the featureless waters, and groaned loudly. “I really fucking hope, at least. If this keeps going on, I swear I’ll just drown in my own exhaustion.”

  Lucy gave a small sound of agreement. Though he didn’t give any details, she could tell from his words and the way he looked out over the endless grays and blues that he had been stuck with this Dream for countless nights spanning months, possibly even years. Likely ever since he had witnessed…the incident with his brother. Her curiosity burned bright in that moment, but she felt, from Cole’s solemn tone and the way he was focused now on moving forward, that it was better for now to lay those troubling memories to rest. In many ways, it reminded her of when she stood before the clouds in her Dream not long ago, choosing to abstain the path of endless reminiscence and follow the path of knighthood. Perhaps all decisions like that caused the skies to lighten and open up, if hers and Cole’s Dreams were any indication.

  “So,” said Cole, “what should we do?”

  “You’re asking me?” said Lucy, ripped out of her ponderings. It sounded more foolish than she’d expected, and she expected Cole to be ticked off at her.

  But in actuality, he laughed. “Well, you said you were my ‘knight’ or something. I’m no princess, but I expected you to lead the way. Looks like we both gotta think, then, huh.”

  “Th-that’s right,” Lucy said, still regaining her bearings. “Sorry.”

  Cole laughed again. “I take it you’re new to this?”

  Lucy nodded, wanting to shrink away into the depths of her armour.

  “Well,” said Cole, “I work in construction. Whenever we got a new guy working on-site, some fresh-faced kid like you, there’s one thing we always tell ’em: ‘Quit saying sorry!’ Because we can always tell when they’re working their damnedest, just like how I can tell you are, right now.”

  “I see,” said Lucy. “Thank you.” She smiled, and found that she didn’t have to force it, for she’d seen colour and a host of as-yet lost emotions return to Cole’s face while talking about his workplace. It was as though several parts of himself had returned in that moment, re-completing his soul after the storm of his Dream had broken and scattered them off, and though she had brought this about unintentionally, she was glad to see him as less a whirlpool of unstable emotion and more as the full-fledged person he existed as in the waking world.

  And that gave her all the more reason to uphold the oath she’d given when she first arrived in his Dream.

  As if having read her mind and seen the responsibility she was weighing, Cole returned Lucy’s earlier gesture and patted her on the shoulder. “You’re doing fine. Let’s focus on what to do next, alright?”

  Lucy nodded with a smile. Perhaps it was the mist and the constant swaying of the boat, but Cole was reminding her more and more of her father, especially in what he had just said. While she could only guess that he was in his thirties or, possibly, early forties, she wondered if he might have a daughter, or any children in general. Did his dreams influence how he was in the waking world, how he was around his children? And would rescuing him from this nightly predicament have effects felt not only on himself, but in those close to him?

  Thinking about this, while gazing out across these vast seas that none except Cole had seen or known existed till now, Lucy was swept up into the heavy but silent realization of the magnitude of the effect she might have on not just a single life, but all those other lives who came into contact with that life day after day. It was very much like how the King had described the inter-connectivity of the Lattice of Dreams, and she wondered if, like an unseen tidal wave, the effects on Cole in the waking world would have ripple effects on the consciousnesses of others as well. It was a fanciful idea to behold, and she made a note of having to ask the King about this the next time she went to see him.

  And that next time could not be now, not until she had fulfilled her mission of saving the Dreamer alone on this boat with her.

  And how exactly would she go about it? Cole had made it clear that he’d resisted the arms, the main adversary of this recurring nightmare, countless times to no avail. Was this a fruitless situation, then?

  Logically, it seemed so, but Lucy felt the intuition that this wasn’t true—at least, not anymore. After all, just her presence alone was enough to disrupt many aspects of the Dream, most of all being Cole’s demeanour and level of hope. Then, perhaps, with her being here, there was something they could accomplish that Cole could not have done on his own…

  “Cole,” said Lucy, “were you ever able to row away on this boat?”

  “Not even once,” he said, groaning. “Rowed as hard as I could a couple times, all that did was tire myself out. And make an easy target for them.”

  “That’s…unfortunate. Sorry you had to go through that.”

  “There you go again! You weren’t even here yet, so where’s the blame coming from?”

  “Right…” Lucy fought against herself saying ‘sorry’ again reflexively. Earlier, she had correctly assumed that Cole would want a stout and confident companion, and so it would be a benefit to both of them if she followed through on that deduction. She nodded firmly. “Gotcha. Well, I have an idea, then.”

  “Really?” Cole looked at her wide-eyed, then laughed and smacked her on the shoulder. “Glad one of us can think clearly in this god-awful storm! Let’s hear it, then.”

  Lucy opened her mouth, but the moment she saw Cole’s expectant face, there came the sensation of sinking through her heels and heaviness in her face that made her want to drop her gaze to the ground. She had never been one to suggest a course of action, whether it was amongst classmates in school projects, or even with family members when they were out and about and wondering what to do next. It was always because of that narrowing of the world, the way all of existence folded in to make it seem as though everything hinged on her decision. And here now, in this one spot of calm within the storm, with the world’s sole inhabitant staking her future on her, the weight of that responsibility crashed over Lucy like a tidal wave.

  “What?” said Cole, his brow furrowing. “You just pulling my leg?”

  “No,” Lucy forced the word out, desperate to escape the encroaching clutches of her voice getting stuck in her throat. She opened her mouth again, intending to relay her idea, but she choked at the bitter taste of sea mist that had grown thicker, in time with Cole’s expression hardening.

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  “Then what?” Cole said. “You don’t know how long I’ve had to deal with this crap. Now you’re saying I can trust you, and you have an idea to finally get me out, but you won’t tell me?”

  He kicked at the water at the boat’s edge, sending a huge splash raining over the waves, then turned his back to Lucy. “Fuck it! If you’re gonna give me shit like this, I’d rather you get the hell out. Don’t need some kid playing hero.”

  Walking to the other end of the boat, he plopped down into a sitting position with his back ostensibly aimed at Lucy, hiding his face completely.

  Lucy took a step toward him, intending to spit out what she had intended to say, but she stopped, hand outstretched, and stood still in the middle of the swaying boat. She’d get these feelings sometimes, that when the person she was speaking to was upset at or disappointed with her, they would sense her rushing to assuage the situation and thus anything she did to be forthright about fixing things would sound hollow to them, making their distaste for her even stronger. It had happened with Thomas, with her mother, and…even with Kathy, the very last time the two of them had spoken together.

  Thunder crashed in the distance, sending the waves and the boat’s movements into disarray, yet all Lucy could think about was the lump in her throat. Looking at Cole’s back, which hadn’t budged an inch, she wanted to say, “I’m sorry,” but she knew this would only make him more impatient with her.

  Understanding—she was supposed to be aligned with Understanding. But how was she to understand the people she rescued if she herself were impossible to understand? Cole had had a point during his outburst, and it made Lucy’s armour weigh heavy on her, the sogginess of her tunic making her ache to the bone.

  In her mounting discomfort, Lucy opened her mouth to try speaking again, but another rumble of faraway thunder stole her conviction away so that only a silent breath escaped her lips. Frustrated with herself, she groaned and turned away from Cole.

  Her gaze went to the boat’s upper pair of oars, the ones she had been rowing during their escape from the whirlpool. Before she knew it, she had sat down in her rowing position again, both oars in hand. If she couldn’t get herself across through her voice, she might as well give a nonverbal explanation a try, no matter how pathetic it would seem now in this tense situation.

  She rowed a few times in big, long strokes that produced loud splashes.

  “The hell’re you doing?”

  Looking over her shoulder, she saw Cole looking at her. This was what she had wanted, but still his sharp gaze was difficult to take in. Despite that, she fought against the urge to freeze and turned back to look at the front of the boat, rowing again and again.

  “Hey, hey, what the hell?” said Cole. “You know you ain’t gonna get anywhere if it’s just you rowing.”

  She heard the creaking of the board’s wooden surface as Cole shuffled and moved around, and a moment later there came the splashing of Cole’s oars. “There. There. Now we just gotta match each other, right?”

  Lucy looked over her shoulder at him and nodded. She stopped rowing, then started back up again with a deliberate pace. Cole matched her and, soon enough, the boat began treading water.

  “There you go,” said Cole. “Mind telling me where you plan on going?”

  Lucy took a deep breath. She opened her mouth, and found that now it was a lot easier to get the words out, with her mind and body in constant motion, with the world not at a standstill waiting for her voice. “Land. Or just somewhere above water. You said you’ve never been able to row away on your own, right? So maybe we can find somewhere safe out there.”

  “I see,” said Cole, still rowing fervently.

  They rowed on in silence, and Lucy felt the strings of anxiety ringing through her as she gazed out across the featureless sea that they were traversing.

  Then, Cole said: “Kind of a longshot, eh? Don’t see anything out there for miles and miles. But…maybe there is something out there, something I never saw ’cause I just plain couldn’t get this damned boat to budge.”

  Lucy let out a quiet sigh of relief. Her hair had stood on end when he’d raised the main skepticism undercutting her idea, but thankfully, Cole’s newfound hopefulness was weighing out his past pessimism. “That I agree with,” she said. “So let’s keep going, then.”

  “Hmph.”

  Lucy looked over her shoulder briefly to see Cole looking pensively. “What’s wrong?”

  “Is that what you were trying to tell me earlier?”

  Lucy almost lost hold of her oars, but she managed to call back: “Yes.”

  Cole gave a disgruntled sigh, and Lucy imagined that he would have brought his palm to his face if he weren’t in the middle of rowing. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he said: “Lucy, you’re a good kid and all. I can tell. But you gotta learn that people aren’t gonna be patient all the time. You gotta decide. You gotta speak up.”

  He paused, then said in a voice that was difficult to ascribe to a particular tone: “If you’re gonna be a knight, you need to act like one.”

  It was as though the words had been spoken by the King back in her Dream, as Lucy heard that statement reverberating everywhere around her, flooding into her mind. It was suffocating, but only because she knew it was true. It would have been easy for her to say to herself that the frustration and helplessness she felt stemmed from messing up her first attempt, as that could be easily brushed off as naive optimism, a coach or teacher giving her the easy advice of: “No one gets it right the first time, so stop being so hard on yourself.”

  But Lucy knew, sure as the storm that kept raging against her and Cole, that the well of frustration ran deeper than that, into the question of whether she could ever rise beyond the incompetence of this first attempt. It was as though a gap had opened up and widened in the walls of existence that made up herself, as far away as the sun’s light in this eternally storm-ridden world. Her cheeks burned with moisture, and she hated it as that did nothing to help with situation, or Cole’s.

  “Hey! Why’d you stop?”

  Cole’s loud, impassioned yell brought her back to the present, where she had stopped rowing completely. Her first instinct was to apologize, but remembering their earlier exchange about that habit of hers, as well as Cole’s current mood, she kept her mouth shut and resumed rowing at her previous pace, or at least what she thought she remembered of it. After three rows, however, she realized they weren’t moving.

  “Why’re you so slow?” Cole yelled, struggling to be heard through a sudden increase of intensity in the rain. “Didn’t you hear me? They’re gonna get to us!”

  Lucy’s heart dropped. Turning around, she saw a large mass of dark silhouettes littering the waters behind them. They came closer with each passing second, and with the boat stuck, it didn’t take long for them to come close enough for Lucy to recognize their forms.

  They were, of course, the arms from earlier.

  “You see now?” Cole yelled. “Let’s get the hell outta here!”

  “Wait!” Lucy let go of her oars, stood up, and turned around to face both Cole and the fast-approaching arms. “I can—”

  There was a sudden surge in the storm’s intensity and Lucy ended up gargling and sputtering rainwater. Thunder crashed as she recollected herself.

  “I can scare them off!” Lucy yelled, struggling the same way Cole had. “I did it before!”

  “No!” Cole shook his head vigorously. “Can’t see or do shit in this storm! What if you slip and they get you?”

  “I…”

  The arms would close in on them at the speed they were going. Cole was already tired out from all the rowing they just did. Rowing in the storm while those arms lunged at them was dangerous, too.

  All of those were reasons Lucy knew she could have used to justify her taking action. But she couldn’t build the strength in her voice to shout this out and go against Cole, to claim that she was about to take their fate into her hands with her own decision. But, at the same time, she couldn’t just sit and let both the storm and the arms crash over them.

  Without saying anything, she let go of her oars and stood up, facing the back of the boat with her sword drawn.

  “Wait! Wait!” Cole screamed. “Did you not hear a word I said?”

  “They’re right behind you!” Lucy shouted. “Please, get out of the way!”

  Lucy was slightly bluffing, making it sound as though the arms were close enough to reach out and grab Cole then and there, but they were close enough now that when Cole looked over his shoulder, his body jolted, he dropped his oars, and ran over to the front with panicked eyes.

  Lucy wasted no time running up, but just as she made it to the back of the boat, the entire surface went topsy-turvy, Lucy’s right foot slid forward, and she fell backward.

  “Lucy!” Cole’s yell was barely audible in the downpour.

  Lucy’s back ached and her ears rung from the impact, but she found that hearing Cole’s voice, however faint, cleared her senses and rebounded her lost energy, much like finding the key words to a word problem with minutes on the clock in a timed exam. She sprung back up, picking up her sword where it had fallen, and assumed her stance for taking a swing. She was worried about slipping again, but despite the water pooling in the boat, her boots weighed down onto the surface solidly.

  Holding her sword with both hands and shifting her weight to her right foot in front of her, Lucy assumed the same pose she’d had the last time they faced the fiendish arms. Despite this, the arms continued homing in on the boat, clearly unfazed at facing the one who had wounded them not long ago. Did they have vision, or memories? Or were they just driven by a relentless instinct to come after Cole, no matter where he was nor who he was with? It was a terrifying thought, that such intense hatred and loathing seethed into these monstrous things to make them unstoppable and unkillable, and Lucy heard her breath hitch. However, because of the storm raging against her, the downpour of rain obscuring the hideous stalks’ full forms, and Cole screaming something unintelligible but undeniably fervent behind her, Lucy readied her grip on her sword, waited for her targets to close in just enough, and swung.