WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, I AM LYING ON MY BACK on the ground, a wooden floor just inches above my face. I hear yelling and banging and what sounds like a door being smashed in. Boots stomp into the room, and above me the floorboards creak and groan under their weight. Men are yelling in a foreign language, and even though I don’t understand the words, I understand the intent: Come out or be killed. This is followed by a bout of evil laughter.
I struggle to mask my breathing, but it is difficult not to gasp for air, both from the lack of space and from a wave of panic so severe that it crushes my chest, emptying my lungs. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth was Dr. Carolan’s prescription for panic. I turn my head slightly to the side and pull air through my nostrils, exhaling through my lips as silently as I can. Sweat runs down my forehead, stinging my eyes.
I blink and see Remi lying a few feet away from me, wedged under the floorboards like I am. He works his arm up from his side and places a finger to his lips. As if I need to be told to keep quiet. From the desperate look in his eyes, I know we must be in his story. He knows exactly where we are.
A boot plants hard right above my head. The thin board bows downward under the man’s weight and a protruding nail punctures my cheek. I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth against the pain. This is a million times worse than the creepy monster in the cave. I could handle that. It was a monster, not a man. Although sometimes those can be one and the same.
I feel my body numb and my brain start shutting off. Oh no. It’s happening.
I didn’t know it could happen in a dream. I think back to the Flayed Man dream and the cave, and realize that in both of them I was able to do something about my fear: run or fight back. But in real life, when I feel like I’m in danger and can’t do anything about it, that’s when I’m in trouble. I disassociate. Like I feel myself doing now.
I begin to have the sensation of floating—like my spirit is leaving my body. I hear Dr. Carolan say, A short break with reality allowed you to escape when the trauma was too intense for you to handle. Dissociation isn’t always a bad thing.
Not when it’s going to get me killed, I think, and fight to remain in the here and now. A stream of blood trickles down my face and runs into my ear, the repulsive oozing sensation slamming me back into my body. I resist the urge to reach up and wipe it out. If I move, the men might hear me. I feel it bubble and leak into my inner ear, and I want to scream.
Though the blood half deafens me, I can make out the crashing of furniture and breaking of glass. The boots stop and a second later a spray of bullets riddles down around us, opening up a dozen holes in the floorboards. Light comes streaming through in thin beams. Frozen in fear, my eyes fly to Remi. He hasn’t budged.
Seemingly satisfied, the men stamp outside and slam the door behind them. Are you okay? I mouth as soon as I’m sure they’re gone.
“Yes,” he responds almost as quietly. “Just wait.”
We lie there, unmoving, until finally I whisper, “Where are we?”
“My home. Crawl space under the floor.”
“Why are soldiers crashing around your house?”
“Genocide,” he whispers, and that’s all I need to know. That explains what he said in the Void—why he left Africa to live with his aunt in America.
I’m in the middle of an African genocide. Or at least a dream about one. A dream so realistic that it almost got us killed. Remi isn’t moving. Anguish twists his face, and I wonder if he is rational enough to make a decision for the both of us. “Remi,” I whisper. “I want to help you . . . help us get out of here, but this is your world, so you need to tell me what to do.”
Seeing the suffering in his eyes nudges a memory from my own childhood—something just beyond my reach, but it makes me feel a connection. I watch him steadily, pushing my dread aside. After a second, some of the torment leaves his face, and he blinks a few times. Dust motes and sawdust spin around in the columns of light surrounding us. Finally, he shifts and pushes up a section of attached boards above him. He eases it to one side and pries himself out.
His previous surliness has been replaced by a clinical resolve. It occurs to me that survival is the only thing this boy thinks about. Not making friends. Not being personable. Just survival. And if this is what he comes from, I can see why.
Remi squats down and sticks his face into the hole. “It’s safe to come out,” he says, and thrusts his hand down to help me crawl out.
We are in a one-room house that has been totally ransacked. But Remi’s expression is one of relief: he clutches his chest with his hand and the trace of a single tear remains on his cheek. “They aren’t here this time,” he says, and, seeing my confusion, explains in a choked voice. “In this dream, sometimes when I come up from below, or walk in the front door, or creep in the back window, my family is here.” He gestures at the floor. “Slaughtered.” He swipes the tear from his cheek and stands there looking empty.
“Remi,” I whisper, “we need to get out of here.”
“You’re right,” he says, and presses his fingers to his forehead like he can force the images away. “Okay. Wait here.” He goes to an open window at the back of the room and peers carefully out.
I poke the bottom of my T-shirt into my ear and tip my head sideways, letting it soak up the blood. I inspect the stain on my shirt and run my finger lightly over the blood-matted puncture wound on my face, wincing as I touch the hole. Real blood. Real pain. Does that mean we really could have been killed with the very real-looking bullets that lay scattered on top and beneath the floorboards? What if we never get back to the Void? What if, this time, we’re stuck here?
A sound from the street jerks me from my thoughts. They’re coming back, I think. Fear burns a hole through my stomach. I glance around to see Remi climbing out the window and waving for me to follow him. Lunging across the room, I scramble through the window and follow Remi as he creeps around the side of the house. We hide behind a wooden shed anchored to the house a few feet back from the street. From the smell, I guess it was once used to keep livestock—probably chickens, since there’s a little ramp leading up to the elevated door—but it’s empty now. I can still hear the sounds of men yelling and shots being fired, but they are coming from farther away.
I wedge myself into the corner behind Remi, who pokes his head gingerly around the edge. I see his body tense, and then he pulls back and turns to me with an astonished expression. “You have to look,” he whispers.
I hesitate.
“Don’t worry. The militiamen—they’ve moved on,” he reassures me. “Just look at the car to the right of the general store.”
I inch forward to peek around the edge of the henhouse. Directly across the street from us is an abandoned wooden building with a few scattered boxes and cans in the windows. Next to it is a rusted-out car with no wheels. And crouched beside the car is the boy from the Void—Ant—dressed in his weird hat and gloves and shorts. He’s on his own and looks scared out of his wits. Glancing up, he sees me, and raises a gloved hand to his mouth in surprise.
For a second, it looks like he’s going to sprint across the street to us. But before he can, there is a yell and a round of gunfire and the sound of boots coming our way. Remi leans past me to wave the boy back.
The boy’s eyes grow wider, and he starts tapping his finger nervously against the rusted metal of the car next to him. It makes a hollow clanging noise. I raise my finger to my lips, but he does it again. Clang, clang, clang goes his fingernail against the side of the car.
“Why is he doing that?” I hiss.
“He did that in the cave,” Remi whispers. “I don’t think he can help it.”
“Well, he’s going to have to help it or he’ll get himself killed!” I lean farther out. A dozen men in uniform are climbing into an army truck parked outside a two-story house on the far side of the general store. One pauses and then turns to walk back toward Ant. I open my eyes wide at the boy, and gesture for him to leave. But he just sits there and folds his fingers together like he’s praying and crushes his fists against his chest. He’s trying to keep himself from tapping the car, I realize.
Something’s wrong with him. He’s not going to hide. The soldier is going to find him and kill him.
The gunman has drawn his weapon. Beside me, Remi fumbles in the dirt, picks up an egg-sized stone, and launches it above the army truck. Breathless, I watch it arc through the air over the street. And then it hits one of the house’s upper windows with a crash and glass explodes over the truck. The men leap out, firing their guns, pumping the house with round after round of ammunition.
The militiaman near Ant turns and jogs back toward his truck. It’s now or never, I think, and dashing across the street, I grab Ant’s hand. I swoop him up out of his crouch and pull him in a sprint down a dirt path leading away from the main street. Remi is right behind us. “Where do we go?” I yell, and he points toward the outskirts of the village.
We are running at full speed, and I’m practically dragging Ant behind me. “Faster!” I yell.
“I’m trying,” he says. His face is white with fear, and I have a feeling that if I weren’t pulling him along, he would collapse.
“Do you think they saw us?” I ask Remi, who is pacing me.
“I don’t know.”
I feel Ant lag and see that he’s looking at something behind us. I glance back to see George running to catch up. The others must be here too.
As I try to remember who else was in the Void, I see a movement through the broken window of a house we pass. The door flies open and BethAnn and Fergus burst out, following us at a sprint.