Despite knowing that what she’s feeling isn’t actually happening, Princess Shuri is so shook by the sense of being covered in spiders, she wonders if it’s possible to faint when you’re asleep.
It’s not real, Shuri, she says to her snoozing self (so bizarre). This is merely one of those lucid dream things Kocha M’Shindi warned you about.
And the Kocha had warned Shuri that lucid dreams—the type where she’s fully aware that she’s dreaming—were a common side effect of “immersion phobia-therapy.” It’s the Kocha’s latest form of torture the princess has to undergo as part of her Panther training. “We must eliminate all potential hindrances to quick action,” she said as she shoved Shuri into a small, dimly lit room that had a dozen tarantulas scurrying around within it.
The princess could have sworn she would cease to exist right then and there.
Interestingly enough, the furry, many-legged creatures seemed even keener on staying away from the princess than she was on staying away from them. Which, when she thought about it, made quite a bit of sense: She was fully capable of crushing the things with a single stomp. How would she feel if a creature hundreds of times her size was looming over her?
Better yet, how would she feel if said creature seemed to fear her?
How silly she suddenly felt about being afraid.
And yet …
“Great Bast, great Bast,” she pants. “Okay, okay, okay. Not real, Shuri. They aren’t real.”
But they feel real. Far, far too real.
In this lucid dream, there are far more than twelve of the hairy little creatures. So many more, the princess couldn’t begin to count them if she tried.
And unfortunately, in this dream-space, they aren’t running away. Quite the opposite. Shuri is standing with her feet planted shoulder-width apart and her arms stretched out to her sides, and the tarantulas are all over her. Crawling up and down her arms and legs, scuttling around her midsection.
She’s breathing, but just barely.
“Not real, not real, not real. Hey, actual Shuri, wouldn’t be a bad idea to wake up now! I think we’re good on the whole phobia immersion concept!”
How do I get out of this thing? the princess wonders, trying to lift her arms or wiggle her toes. Movement is impossible. Her limbs feel as heavy as the condensed core of a collapsed star. Even within the dream, she’s frozen in place, despite the fact that her shoulders are beginning to ache from holding her arms aloft.
She wants to scream but is afraid that if she opens her mouth, the eight-legged furballs will crawl right in. Down her throat, into her belly, and …
Her body shudders in her sleep.
“Mmmmmmm!” She hums within the dream, feeling her heart rate rise. (At least she thinks it’s rising … can one really tell when not actually conscious?)
There’s the sudden, faint WHOOP of a siren from somewhere behind the princess. She twists around on instinct and a bunch of the creeper-crawlies go flying. “Huh,” she says, surprised. But now she has an idea: With her arms outstretched, the princess begins to spin. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until she’s basically a human centrifuge with tarantulas flying off her in every direction—
The siren sounds again. Louder this time. Startles Shuri so bad, she trips over her feet and goes sprawling. The spiders swarm.
“Ahhh!” she yells, attempting to scramble back to her feet.
“Shuri!”
“Great Bast, are they talking to me now?” Her voice cracks like a pubescent boy’s, and she claps a hand over her mouth.
“Shuri! You must wake!”
Wait a second … The princess looks around, but her pause has given the creatures enough time to almost completely overtake her.
The siren howls louder.
“SHURI!” The whole room begins to shake, and dream Shuri does open her mouth to scream—
Her actual mouth opens, too, apparently. And as her eyes fly open, a hand clamps down over it.
It takes Shuri far longer than she’s expressly comfortable with to recognize the figure standing over her. It’s the queen mother. Looking just as terrified as Shuri feels.
“Do. Not. Scream,” Mother says, barely above a whisper. “We must get to the bunker immediately.”
The bunker??
Shuri’s shock must be evident in her eyes because then the queen mother says, “No questions now, Shuri. This isn’t the time. Understand?”
The princess nods, too shaken to do anything but agree.
“I’m going to take my hand away now,” Mother continues.
And she does. Slowly.
Shuri gulps but keeps her lips sealed.
“Come,” Mother says. “Quickly.”
Without a word, Shuri follows the queen mother out of her quarters and into the hallway where Nakia, Ayo, and two other Dora Milaje are waiting. It’s more dimly lit than usual. Well, except for the brightly flashing fluorescent lights every few meters.
Which is when Shuri realizes the siren is still going off.
It’s the palace alarm.
“Mother—”
“Not now, Shuri!” the queen hisses.
Instead of taking a left once they reach the main hallway, the pair of Wakandan royals—in pajamas—and their guards go right. Shuri opens her mouth to speak again, but Ayo, seeming to sense what Shuri is thinking, cuts the princess a look, so Shuri thinks better of it.
Soon, they are entering the queen’s quarters. “This way,” Nakia says, heading straight for Ramonda’s cavernous dressing chambers.
Shuri looks up at the portraits of all the former queens as if to say: Do you all have any idea what’s going on?
None of them respond.
As they approach what is clearly a wall, Shuri is tempted to pipe up and ask if she’s being punk’d. She learned of the concept—basically a synonym for “pranked,” but with cameras involved—from an old television show K’Marah introduced her to on PantherTube.
But then Ayo lays her palm against a random spot on the golden wallpaper … and a panel slides open, revealing a lit corridor beyond.
Now the princess wouldn’t be able to speak if she tried.
This isn’t the first time Shuri has been made privy to some secret passageway in the palace, and she is no less irritated than she was the first time it happened. Mere months ago, Mother led her through a hidden doorway like this one—and directly to her grounded doom after she snuck out of the country for a second time. And it didn’t matter that she’d been on a mission to save the lives of countless missing girls.
She shudders at the memory.
However, after descending a long staircase into a narrow hallway and what seems like an interminable walk, they step into a space the princess hasn’t seen since she was six years old (which was when its existence was made known to her, though getting there by secret-passageway-through-Mother’s-closet is certainly new): the palace bunker.
Shuri almost stops dead: It’s been almost eight years, and the interior hasn’t undergone a single upgrade. Her last time here, they were testing a new national security system shortly after Baba was killed by that Vibranium-hungry wannabe jerk, Ulysses Klaw. And her first thought upon entering back then was Sheesh, this place is rather pedestrian. Mother had used that term a few days earlier to describe the unadorned dress the princess wanted to wear to some fancy dinner with the tribal leaders. So she knew it was fitting: The bunker was a four-walled room with nothing inside but a long steel table with a dozen or so very uncomfortable chairs; a miniature refrigerator and basket full of unperishables; and a wall of ancient television monitors that served as security screens.
So un-Wakandan. Especially considering that the woman who woke Shuri in the dead of night is wearing a shimmering teal three-piece sleeping gown set that includes a matching head wrap.
As the queen walks over to turn on the wall of technological dinosaurs—sorry, monitors—two Dora Milaje shut and seal the door. Despite the befuddling circumstances, this triggers a memory for the princess: Her other time here, she’d been fascinated by that door. Knocked on it and everything. “It’s a titanium-Vibranium alloy,” one of the guards told her. “Completely impenetrable and virtually indestructible. Queen N’Yami created it before marrying your father. The floor, ceiling, and walls are all lined with it as well.” Back then, it made Shuri smile to learn that something integral to the safety of Wakanda had been created by a woman: T’Challa’s birth mother.
She’s not smiling now, though.
“Mother—”
“Sit, Shuri,” the queen says, pointing her daughter to the seat farthest from the door.
“But, Mother, why—”
“Still not the time, sweetheart.”
As she plops down—with Nakia sliding into the chair at her right, and Ayo at her left—and the adrenaline subsides, Shuri’s vision blurs and her eyelids begin to droop. Of course whatever is going on would happen mere hours after T’Challa left to join some mission with Mr. Fury and a group of American Super Heroes who call themselves the Avengers (fairly brutal name, if you ask the princess).
So very sleepy.
“I still don’t understand,” Ramonda says, snapping the princess awake. “How could this have happened?” She rotates to face the Dora and her daughter. “Our grounds guards undergo extensive tactical training, do they not?”
“They do, Your Majesty,” Ayo says.
“So explain this to me!” She throws a hand up to gesture at the monitors.
Shuri looks … and sees nothing. Like zero movement on any of the twenty or so screens.
“I …” Nakia and the other Dora glance around at each other. “I’m sorry we don’t have an explanation as of yet, my queen. We will review the footage—”
“And what will that solve, Nakia?” Mother snaps.
A small well of panic opens in Shuri’s chest. She’s never seen Mother this … unhinged. (For her, at least.)
“We understand your frustrations, Your Majesty. You have our word that we will work tirelessly until we get to the bottom of this—”
“The bottom of what?” Shuri exclaims, not really meaning to, but clearly unable to resist.
She and the queen lock eyes, and Shuri’s mouth snaps shut. The princess holds her breath, awaiting what is sure to be quite the tongue-lashing …
But it doesn’t come.
Instead, Queen Ramonda collapses into a chair.
Shuri’s not sure which is more frightening: seeing Mother wig out, as K’Marah would put it, or seeing all the fight go out of her like a wilting heart-shaped herb plant. “Mother?”
“We’ve had a break-in, Shuri,” comes Ramonda’s defeated reply.
Which … “Huh?”
“You heard me correctly,” Ramonda says. “There is an intruder in the palace.”