The world was falling asleep.

The pace of it seemed to be quickening, people falling over left and right, sleeping in everything from gutters to pumpkin patches. Nothing would wake them up. Not shaking. Not water. Not even the classic of all wake-up classics—pinching—would make them stir. Things were getting bad.

Which made it seem wrong that at the moment I was eating Doritos and watching Star Wars at my uncle's house on a big-screen TV. Seeing some gangly dude named Luke try to save the universe just wasn't as exciting as it used to be. I turned it off, got up from the couch, and headed to bed, hours after everyone else. With what was going on in the world, I was afraid of sleep.

The stairs let out their creaking whine as I shuffled up them, eerie in the silence and darkness. I got the spooks and ran the rest of the way up the steps and down the hall and into the room that I shared with my older brother, Rusty. The pale moonlight from the window revealed his face, fast asleep. Not like the Coma of the Ka—there was a definite difference: his face didn't look like a ghost's.

By habit, I reached under my bed on the other side of the room to make sure the leather carrying case holding the Red Disk was still there. It was. Trying my best to be quiet, I slipped under the covers of the bed, and laid my head down on the pillow. Rusty must not have been as asleep as I thought, because he woke up.

“For the love, Jimmy, could you be any louder? It's hard enough to sleep as it is.”

“Sorry, you pansy. Next time, I won't breathe or move my covers.”

Rusty yawned and rolled over to face my bed. “What've you been doing?”

“Trying to watch a movie, but I can't get my mind off things. I wonder what Tanaka and those guys are up to. They should've come back to us by now.”

“They're fine, bro, quit worrying so much.”

I made a disgusted face even though Rusty probably couldn't see it very well.

“Not worry? They're fine? Did you drink a brewsky or something? The world isn't what I would call a very safe place to be right now. All we should do is worry, you idiot.”

“With those things Tanaka found, I'd say he's safer than us by far. Even with your Gifts.” He emphasized the word with unveiled sarcasm.

“Why'd you say it like that?”

Rusty pushed himself up to lean on his elbow so I could see his face. “I'm just kidding. But it's kind of lame that you can only use the Anything four times. Well, two more times, now.”

I couldn't have agreed more with him. The Anything was like a cruel trick—the ability to do almost anything, the solution to all of our problems, and yet I could only use it a limited number of times. Now that I had only two more chances, it almost seemed useless because I was so scared to waste its power. Especially since Farmer, who'd given me the Third Gift, had said that I must save one of its uses for the very end.

“Well,” I replied to Rusty, “I haven't heard anyone complain when the Shield or Ice have saved them, have I?”

Rusty flopped back down onto his bed. “You got me there, little bro.”

We sat in silence for a while. Then Rusty surprised me when he started snoring. So much for the company.

I shifted onto my side, and looked out the window. The swaying shadows of tree branches would be my only entertainment until sleep came. So, of course, my mind drifted back to the countless problems that consumed my life.

Weeks had passed since we'd left behind the misty lands of Japan. Hood, with his magic Bender Ring, had been kind enough to take me and my family back to America. He then went with Tanaka to try and find Miyoko, Rayna, and the rest of the Alliance. With every passing day I grew more and more sick with worry about where they could be.

Everything was just plain bizarre, no doubt about it. Chaos was building even as those who remained awake tried to keep the world moving along. The latest estimates showed that roughly half the world was now in a coma, the other half trying to figure out how to avoid it. But there was no escape, I knew that now. The dark Shadow Ka were fully formed, and it would not be long before their influence conquered the rest of us. The sky was gray with their strange, lingering taint on the world.

And yet there was nothing I could do. Despite my Gifts, despite all I knew, there was nothing. Not until I discovered the secret of the Red Disk and found the Dream Warden. All of which came down to some guy or gal or monster named Erifani Tup.

Oh criminy, the thought of it all gave me a headache every time.

I shifted around and faced the wall, and finally let my eyes close. But it didn't make everything go away. It's hard to think of much else when you've been told that you're the only hope to save an entire world. Even if you don't want to be.

We hadn't seen a Shadow Ka since Japan. Our plan to go to Uncle Darin's house in South Carolina and hole up there until we could figure out what to do next seemed to have worked—even though he hadn't shown up since we'd arrived. We didn't say it, but we knew that he was probably out there, somewhere, in the Black Coma. His house was out in the country, away from the major population centers where the Ka were wreaking the most havoc. It had bought us some time—time that was now wasting away …

Something snapped outside the window.

My head popped off the pillow, and my ears strained to hear something more. It had sounded like someone breaking a big stick over their knee, but then it was silent.

I should look out the window, I thought. Nah, it's probably nothing. Maybe if I hear it again…

More thoughts flew through my mind. Farmer, the old Giver, whom I had not seen since receiving the Third Gift. Joseph, who was sleeping down the hall, still holding back secrets. The Stompers. They were literally our worst nightmares according to Farmer. Now what in the heck was that supposed to mean? So little made sense.

In the haze of my weariness, I thought I heard another sound outside. It was faint, probably just the wind …

Too tired to get worked up about it all over again, I finally drifted into sleep.