THEN

I’M FALLING AGAIN.

This time, I’m falling sideways. The ground rushes by below me. I’ve been thrown or launched. I’m not sure which. That isn’t part of the dream.

The ground rushes by. I see pavement, a quick glimpse of people, a white truck, a wall topped with spikes. And then I see them.

The crowd of monsters tilts their papery faces up at me. They all look thin and gaunt, and they stare at me with undeniable hunger. Some bend their heads so far back I see them fall over. As always, their jaws move but don’t make any sound.

I lose momentum and crash down through the crowd. I get my arms up as I plow into some of the monsters. They fall under me as I drop to the street. The impact doesn’t hurt. Dream physics saves me again. Or maybe the dead people broke my fall.

They swarm over me. They grab at my clothes and tangle their fingers in my hair and wrap themselves around my arms and legs. A woman with ivory skin falls on top of me and bares her gory teeth.

A prickling sensation sweeps over me. It reminds me of pins and needles, a sleepy leg or arm waking up, but it’s localized in patches across my body. I tug away from the hair-pullers and look down at myself.

They’re biting me. All of them are. The dead creatures are gnawing on me with yellowed teeth. They chew on my arms and fingers and calves and …

They’re trying to eat me!

I panic even as I realize they’re harmless. They’ve been dead so long their teeth fall out when they try to bite me. Some just crumble. How long does someone have to be dead for their teeth to crumble against skin?

I push myself up and I’m back on my feet. Most of the creatures fall off me. A few have wrapped themselves on tight enough that I drag them to their feet as well. They must be very light. They’re still biting me, even the ones with no teeth left in their mouths.

Parrots, I think. These are parrots. While dream-me understands the term, on a deeper level—the level where I know I’m in a dream—I know it’s a nonsense phrase. More garbled memories.

Something pulls at my back. It’s itchy. Whatever it is, it lifts me up and out of the horde of monsters. I soar into the air and a few of the creatures come with me. They’re tangled in my limbs or snagged on my leather jacket. One’s hooked its arm over my boot. The wirework spins me in a circle and the dead things tumble away. They fall on top of others in the mob and knock them to the ground.

Someone punches me. Hard. Twice. I twist in the air and look around.

A soldier’s shooting at me. The man—the huge man—stands on top of the white truck I glimpsed earlier. It’s tipped over, so he’s standing on its side. The soldier has a video game pistol, something too big and bulky to be real.

As I look at the pistol, the soldier fires another burst at me. I flinch away, but all the gunshots just feel like punches. They knock me around and hurt a bit, but I can tell they aren’t doing any real damage.

“Please stand down, sir,” calls the huge soldier. The words echo out across the silent dreamscape. He has a good, deep voice. “I don’t enjoy doing this.”

It’s stupid. I know this. The soldier and I are on the same side. We’re supposed to be fighting the monsters. It’s all a misunderstanding.

The wires I’m hanging from sag as the dream bullets hit me. I dangle down enough for the monsters below to reach me. One of the taller ones wraps its dead fingers around the toes of my boot. Another one brushes my heel.

The light grows brighter. Part of me wonders if it’s one of those moments in a dream when night suddenly becomes day or you go from inside to outside. But I’m already outside in the early morning, so I’m not sure what’s changed.

Then I see the other man. The other man hanging in the sky. The soldier turns to face him, too, and fires more dream bullets that do nothing.

At first I think the new man is wrapped in tinfoil. He’s nothing but reflections of the sun. Every now and then the brightness shifts and ripples, as if threads of even brighter light are racing across his odd outfit.

He’s very bright.

Then the gleaming figure speaks. Its voice sounds like static. Or a distorted hum. It takes an effort to understand the words, but I do understand them, because that’s how things work in a dream.

Well, says the glowing man. He holds up his hand and it gets even more brilliant. It’s like the tinfoil man is holding the sun in his hand. Even the air ripples and twists from the heat around his fingers. That was all pretty impressive up until the part where you got here.