Day 59 / 02:33
Dreams of running, balancing, keeping time, those are getting easier to talk to Ms Turner about – but ever since conjuring up fantastical clouds, since opening the door, he’s been having a new dream.
I told you. Danger is lurking everywhere.
A thick, sludgy coil edges forward.
Noah’s standing in the middle of his white room. The scales are in place and his family are at the table, everything as it should be, and then – faster than ever before – in comes the Dark. It’s around his ankles, at his knees, pressing onto his chest, around his neck and into his mouth, nose, eyes, ears.
He can’t see, smell, hear, taste. He can’t feel anything between his fingers. The senses Ms Turner tells him to rely on are gone; the Dark, deeper than any night, has stolen them.
There’s no hope of light returning unless … Unless he can make it to the wall.
But his hands are tied. He can’t reach out. He’s brought to his knees, lower, until he’s crouched in the middle of his room. He cannot tap out for help. He’s panting through his nose, shallow, fast, irregular. If he opens his mouth, the Dark will take all his breath. It’s seeping in through his pores. It’s drowning him.
A glint of grey, a blink of an eye, and Noah’s sight returns. Rancid breath close to his face and he can smell again. The pressure at his throat eases, claws no longer dig so deep. With a laugh the Dark dissolves and takes with it his white and shining room. No scales waiting to hold his life in balance. No table. No mother, no father, no sister.
He’s floating in bleak nothingness, asleep, dreaming, battling to wake up.
The more Ms Turner smiles, tells him they’re gaining ground, slowly but surely, the deeper the dream-time Dark grows. Noah will have to tell her this soon. But now, as his alarm shrills, he wakes, gasping for air, frantic to beat out 5s on every part of his body.
He fumbles for his senses.
1. The sheets are soft.
2. He needs to brush his teeth.
3. He hears himself gasping.
4. He forces his eyes open to see his Family Tree, lopsided on the white wall.
5. He lifts his arm and breathes in the bitter smell of fear.
One by one he lets his senses fall away until the Family Tree fills his vision. He stares at it and remembers Juliet saying, ‘I’ll help you, Noah, I promise.’ Something to hold on to in the Here and Now.
That’s all very well, but what about your plan? You’ve enrolled your sister now. Hardly sensible.
Here and Now, Noah reminds himself. It’s taken him 16 minutes but he’s managed to use Ms Turner’s technique and it’s holding him calm. That’s something, at least.