Lucy nodded and quickly did as he asked, lifting Derrick up slightly from the shoulders. Cole went to one side and turned Derrick on his side so that when he heaved, the water he dislodged ended up on the boat’s surface. Cole patted his back firmly but gently, and this helped his brother continue to expunge the remnants of the waves that had claimed him.

  As Lucy worked on propping him up, she noted how his face was very similar to Cole’s, with the main difference being that he was much more youthful. It was then she became aware of his shorter stature, and thus that he was a teenager: no older than sixteen, perhaps. So then how many years—no, decades, had that memory haunted Cole? And if Derrick opened his eyes now, would he recognize his own brother?

  As Lucy pondered this, she looked at Cole, intending to see if the difference in years had truly made him as dissimilar as she was thinking—but when she gazed at him, she found herself looking at another Derrick. No—it was still Cole, but he was much younger now, likely the same age as Derrick or a little older. They really did look like alike, but what set them apart was the fierceness and hardness in Cole’s expression, the face that was used to scowling even at that age. Perhaps he’d been a troubled person even before the incident, and Lucy found herself wondering if the two brothers were on as good of terms as she had previously imagined. Maybe it was only after losing him that Cole learned how much that connection to his brother meant to himself. Thinking back to Kathy and Thomas, Lucy could certainly relate.

  Regardless of any past squabbles or difficulties that would have strained the brothers’ relationship, there was no denying that Cole sincerely cared right now, patting Derrick’s back continuously while gazing down at him with tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “Cole…?”

  Derrick whispered his name, coughed violently, then looked over his shoulder at his older brother. His half-lidded eyes were awash with exhaustion, but in them Lucy saw surprise and relief.

  “Derrick! Derrick!” Cole called out, shaking him by the shoulders. His voice had changed as well, taking on a boyish youthfulness. With that voice and his smaller stature put up against the raging storm and boundless sea, Cole’s smallness against his oppressive Dream became only more tragically apparent, and Lucy’s chest tightened as she watched the two brothers.

  In the silence broken only by the coursing water, Derrick opened his eyes once more and met Cole’s. Cole gasped and said: “Derrick! Can you hear me?”

  Derrick’s face was still weary and stiff, but he managed a small nod. “Thank you…Cole…”

  “You’re okay, right?” Cole’s voice took on a note of desperation Lucy hadn’t heard before, not even when they were under attack. “I wasn’t too late?”

  Derrick shook his head slowly. “No…Even if your body was, your heart was already reaching out…Always reaching out…”

  As Derrick coughed again, Cole looked at him incredulously. “But…that doesn’t make any sense! My body failing to do jack shit is why…why…you drowned.”

  Cole’s lips quivered and he wiped away at his eyes in frustration. He seemed remiss to accept Derrick’s words, but Lucy knew they rung true—or at least, she wanted to believe they rung true. She wanted to believe it was enough to carry that intention to reach out, to leap forward and help without pretense or expectation, inside oneself regardless of their physical ability. After all, by the King’s words, it was that very steadfast goodwill that had allowed her to become a Dream Knight.

  On the other hand, it was because Cole couldn’t let go of his good intentions—and the failure to make them a reality—that he’d been trapped in this maelstrom of a Dream for nights on end. And for Lucy herself, her spectre-like ineffectiveness in the waking world made it all the more painful to know she would be leaving the land of the living while her mother, Thomas, and Kathy were all going to continue spiralling downward into their own abysses.

  Although the storm had stopped, Lucy felt a shadow fall over all she could see, and she fell to her knees from sudden weakness. They had succeeded, but this overpowering helplessness and the sight of Cole holding onto Derrick, whose life was quickly fading, made it seem as though the lightless depths of the ocean would swallow them up after all. Lucy hung her head down, but she looked back up at the feeling of something on her shoulder.

  A glowing golden hand, seemingly made of light, gently patted her shoulder. As her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she saw that it was not just one hand and the arm attached to it, but several glowing arms emerging from thin air like miraculous beams of light.

  This was bizarre and entirely unexpected, even for a Dream, but Lucy found herself moving her gaze on a hunch toward the edge of the boat where they had pulled Derrick aboard. Across the water, all of the fiendish arms had disappeared, and if Lucy squinted hard enough, she could see what seemed to be glowing particles flitting about the open air.

  The same glowing arms were patting Cole on the back as well. As he stared at them, Lucy expected him to be frightened or at least surprised, but he wore a relaxed, almost nostalgic look.

  “You’re tired, aren’t you…?” said Derrick.

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  “Of course I am!” said Cole, and there was a hint of the weary rage he’d had as an adult. But this quickly gave way to a tearful gaze. “But how can I relax when you’re…when you’re…”

  “It’s okay,” Derrick said, his voice not fading away weakly for once. As he spoke, one of the glowing arms patted Cole on the shoulder. “You can rest now, Cole. Please, let yourself rest.”

  Cole gazed at his brother wordlessly, then looked to the arm patting his shoulder with a hard expression. He reached up an arm grabbed it firmly, and Lucy could already sense the rage that would cause him to fling the arm away just a few moments from now. But to her surprise, Cole’s gaze softened and he let go. That arm and its brethren began soothing his shoulders and back, bringing how down to sit, and when he slowly lay down, all of them stood off to the side, like patient caregivers, save for one that patted his head gently. His eyes misted, and then he closed them. Moments later, the deep and even breaths from his figure indicated that he had finally, for the first time in this Dream, fallen asleep.

  Lucy watched him silently, aware now that in this form he was younger than her. With her armour and sword, she truly felt like a guardian looking over her protectee, and in this there was the elation and relief of seeing that he was safe and comfortable enough to sleep in peace. Cole’s sleeping form even reminded her of Thomas, despite the two looking nothing alike, and in this reminder of her responsibilities she felt motivated—but also exhausted.

  “You can rest, too, Lucy.” Derrick had turned his head to look at her, wearing a gentle smile.

  The glowing hands softly patted her shoulders and back. They seemed to have an ameliorating effect, as Lucy’s muscle aches were replaced with a warm languidity, much like when her father had placed on a heat pack on her back after an unfortunate accident in gym class. Her eyelids grew heavy, but she couldn’t let go of the question that sprung in her mind: “You know…what I am?”

  Derrick nodded. “I’m from Cole’s subconscious. So I’m connected to the collective unconscious.”

  Lucy gazed at him wordlessly for a while, then nodded slowly. The King from her Dream was also connected to the collective unconscious, so it could be assumed that Derrick—or at least, his representation in this Dream, had some level of the same knowledge as the King.

  As if sensing that she had come to this realization, Derrick smiled and said: “I don’t know everything about you, not like whoever you’ve met in your Dream. But I know that you’re tired, and need to hear that it’s okay to be tired.”

  “It’s…okay?”

  What Derrick was saying, though well-intentioned, frankly sounded bizarre and unnecessary. Of course it was fine for Lucy to admit she was exhausted after the whole ordeal. And, now that the ceaseless storm and tenacious arms had gone, she found that she was finally able to catch her breath.

  And yet, when she looked at Cole’s sleeping figure, her shoulders tensed and her mind wandered away from peacefulness to a mild but definite alertness. Where did that come from? As she continued gazing at the Dreamer, she was overcome with thoughts swirling about in her mind, and she focused on listening, to the little insidious words they whispered:

  Don’t abandon him yet.

  What if this isn’t the end? What if he suffers again because you gave up now?

  You messed up so many times along the way. You owe him too much to get lazy now.

  “Don’t let them get to you.”

  Derrick’s voice had come from above, and around her, swimming into her mind much like the King from her own Dream. But when Lucy looked back up, she found him still laying there on his side by the edge of the boat, smiling kindly.

  “Cole needs to rest,” he said. “And he can only do that fully if you rest, too.”

  “I…I understand,” said Lucy. She was older than him by at least a handful of years, but his words had the soothing and reassuring effect of hearing those same words from her mother or father. She wanted to relax at last, but something of Cole’s echoed in her ponderings. “And you, you’ll be all right?”

  “Yes.” Derrick reached his hand out and lay it on Cole’s arm, gazing at his older brother’s peaceful expression. “We’ll be all right, from here on out.”

  Still holding Cole, he looked at Lucy and said: “Thank you, Lucy. And sorry that this had to be your first Dream. It…must have been very tough for you, dealing with both of us.”

  “Not…not at all.” And Lucy meant this, with all her heart. While Derrick’s arms had been exhausting to hold out against, and Cole’s capricious personality had brought with it its own set of ordeals, Lucy felt a deep sense of contentment at having been here, in this Dream, as the Dream Knight who had finally reunited Cole with more pleasant memories of his brother.

  Lucy knew this was all true, but she did not fully comprehend why. She wanted to try, but she could not even begin to put any of her more sincere feelings into words. Some of this she attributed to the soothing effect of the arms at her back, lulling her closer and closer to a slumber of her own. But she felt, also, that there was a gulf between herself and Derrick, highlighting her inability to fully express herself in a way that could be taken fully and completely without missing all of the nuance and genuine feeling before a being of the collective unconscious, of the purest feelings and thoughts and emotions personified.

  She knew, then, that she would have to strive for closing that gulf. She would bring her alignment of Understanding the farthest she could take it, all so she could express what she felt in moments like these.

  Moments like these she was hoping to have with Thomas, and her mother, and Kathy.

  Although she said not a word further, Derrick’s smile grew wider, and she was relieved to at least see that even the few words she had said brought about some positivity. Derrick said, “Thanks again, Lucy. Now, have a good rest.”

  He looked again at Cole sleeping on the boat’s surface, and Lucy followed his gaze. This time, her mind wasn’t awash with a million piercing whispers, but instead she had that floating feeling of wakefulness fading away, of the mimicry a child feels when they see their parents asleep and feel that it is time for them to get some shut-eye as well.

  With that, Lucy nodded and sat down. A moment later, she began lowering her head and back, and the arms around her took care to fix her hair so that the long locks wouldn’t fall over her face. One of them stroked her forehead, and she felt that this particular hand felt bigger and older, like her father’s on those cherished weekend nights when he was home and able to see her off to sleep. A single tear, mingled of happiness and sadness, slid down her cheek as Lucy let go of the storm, of the fiendish arms, of hers and Cole’s frantic rowing, of everything save the gentle swishing of water flowing gently beneath the boat that now served as her bed. She was, in someone else’s Dream, falling asleep.

  And that was when she began falling through reality.