Hastily, before the flustered Kevin changes his mind, I follow. She twists the doorknob and opens the door. Wide-eyed, I traipse after her.
We’re definitely no longer in the town. The door behind us slams shut and I jump. It’s not the sound that freaks me out, though. The Bubble, whatever it is, is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The door at my back is just the beginning. Yawning out in front of us, for as far as I can see, are thousands more doors. Every single one is plain varnished white. My jaw drops as I take it all in.
‘What is this?’ I breathe.
‘What it’s really all about,’ Ashley tells me. ‘The dreams and visions of the entire world.’
‘You mean...’
She nods. ‘Each door represents someone’s subconscious mind. Go through any one and you’ll see what they are dreaming at that moment.’
The vastness overwhelms me. I was wrong: there aren’t thousands of doors, there are millions. ‘This is absolutely nuts.’
‘You bet it is,’ Ashley agrees. ‘The Department doesn’t usually let normal people inside because they say it’s too dangerous, both for us and the people whose minds are locked away here.’ She shrugs. ‘I think they just don’t like to share.’
‘Have you ever been inside? One of the doors, I mean?’
‘Sure. We used to sneak in here all the time when we were teenagers. Bron, Kevin, me, a few others.’ A shadow crosses her face. ‘That was a long time ago now though.’
The immensity of it all terrifies me. My stomach tightens; my breathing is becoming shallow. I start pinching my fingers, one after the other after the other. Ashley frowns at me, confused.
‘We should go,’ I whisper, aware that my heart rate is increasing at an alarming speed.
‘Yeah. It’s probably better not to get on the Department’s bad side.’ Recognising my fear, she takes my arm and gently pulls me round. I realise that the door we came through is black, rather than white. At least it means anyone venturing in here knows how to get out.
Just as my vision begins to swim and blur with distressing familiarity, Ashley wrenches the door open and we’re out, back in the brilliant sunshine and relative safety of the town. Oddly, Kevin seems to have disappeared.
‘It’s quite something, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘When you realise how many people there actually are out there.’
I swallow down the painful lump in my throat and try to recalibrate. ‘Yes,’ I croak. Not to mention the fact that each door looks identical to the one I came across at the gateway to the Somnolence forum. My gut reaction about the website was right. Rather than ask Ashley about it, however, I err on the side of caution and focus on what’s really bugging me. ‘How do you do it in the real world?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asks, noticing Kevin’s absence and turning around to look for him.
‘I mean, it’s easy for me. I don’t go out. I don’t touch many people. But for someone normal, it must be terrible. You could touch hundreds of people in a day. End up in hundreds of dreams.’ The thought terrifies me. Ripping through three nightmares was bad enough; to deal with dozens on a daily basis would be impossible. I look at Ashley and realise she’s stopped searching for her would-be beau and is staring at me instead.
‘Eh?’ she says finally, frowning.
‘You know. When you touch someone and then you...’ My voice trails away. It’s obvious from her expression that she has no idea what I’m talking about. My stomach knots even more. ‘Forget it,’ I mutter.
‘Zoe, what are you talking about?’
‘Nothing! Ignore me. I’m just finding it hard to get to grips with all of this.’ I wave a vague arm in front of me. Her eyes are still narrowed in suspicion.
There’s a sudden clip of heels to my right and two men appear, both wearing similar uniforms to Kevin’s. I’m relieved by their interruption until I realise they’re both glaring at me with cold, hard stares.
‘Shit,’ Ashley mutters.
‘Stop there!’
‘Oh come on,’ she protests. ‘We were only inside for a couple of minutes.’
‘Step away from the woman.’
I tense. Why do they want me to move away from Ashley? From his tone of voice, the first man seems to think she’s dangerous. He pulls out a gleaming set of handcuffs. When he steps towards me, however, I realise that it’s not Ashley who they think is the dangerous one: it’s me.
‘You’re coming with us,’ he grunts, grabbing my wrists and snapping on the cuffs.
I’m so taken aback that it takes me a few seconds to react. ‘What? Why? I’ve not done anything!’
‘Leave her alone, you pricks!’ Ashley yells.
I try to pull away. ‘Who the hell are you? You can’t just imprison me like a criminal!’ My voice wavers slightly.
The man stares at me. ‘Yes, we can.’ Then he raises up a baton and brings it down towards my head and everything goes black.
Chapter Nine
Then they came for me.
Pastor Niemoller