The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle #1)

Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

When Miya returned from the dream, her eyes were already open, but she was unable to move—paralyzed even though she was wide awake. Her heart crashed against her ribs, and her breath caught in her throat, every tendon and muscle taut with desperation. She couldn’t open her mouth, scream, or even gasp for air. All she could do was look right in front of her.

The phantom woman from the dream hovered directly above her, her face inches away as she mirrored Miya’s prostrate form. Miya could see the mask clearly now—a hard, bone shell, shaped like a raven’s beak. It extended down her face in a sharp V, past her lips and over the edge of her chin. The mask was decorated with gleaming black and purple that swirled together like oil and water, slick against the smooth, flawless ivory. Her lips—quirked at the edges—descended towards Miya’s.

Miya squeezed her eyes shut, trying to kick and thrash—whatever she could do to get away. Her skin crawled with spiders, invisible parasites burrowing their way inside her until she was unable to fight the fear any longer. Miya implored the spectre, bargaining with the only thing she felt the woman might want.

I’ll go back to the dream, Miya told her . I’ll follow you—wherever you want. I swear. Please, just let me go.

Air rushed down Miya’s throat with such force that her lungs burned when she finally managed to gasp. Her eyes shot open, beads of sweat trickling down her face as she tore over every inch of her room. The apparition was no longer there.

Miya’s hand twitched as she flexed her fingers, testing her ability to move. She breathed in again, this time slower, willing herself to stop shaking but with little success. She’s no longer here , Miya repeated. Her mind was racing, her senses screaming, but she had, somehow, regained control.

Miya sat up, remembering what it was like to be inside her own body. She had the distinct sense of having gone somewhere she shouldn’t have—somewhere she risked never coming back from. A bizarre thought to have about a nightmare, but Miya knew in her bones that this was more than a dream. She’d looked into Medusa’s eyes and barely evaded turning to stone.

For a brief moment, the fog lifted, and she remembered the events of her first dream—the one that came before last night’s. Not only that, her knowledge of the fable had returned. In a frantic tumble, Miya threw herself at the bedside table and reached for her journal. She couldn’t afford to forget again; she had to write it down. She needed to know what came next. But the second the tip of her pen connected with the paper, Miya had no idea what to write. She stared down at the lines, her mind as blank as the page in front of her.

The dreams and the fable were gone.

For most people, being held hostage wasn’t something they’d ever have to think about. Aside from popular fiction and movies, the experience was far removed—too foreign to even conceive of. Miya never thought about what it might be like to be held against her will either, until now. But her kidnapper wasn’t a faceless man asking for ransom, an international crime syndicate, or a serial killer with perverted tastes. No, nothing like that. She was held hostage by her own nightmares. And like any hostage, she couldn’t talk about her kidnapper. She was restrained, blindfolded, and gagged by the absurdity of what was happening to her.

A week passed and her insomnia stopped, but she was more exhausted than ever before. Every night she fell into darkness as though not having slept for days, yet she barely noticed time passing. Miya constantly heard howls—inside of her, outside her, around her—everywhere and nowhere all at once. When morning came, she could barely sit up, let alone stand without almost falling over. She’d promised to see Hannah off on her last day in town, but everything from their lunch together to the hug goodbye slipped right past her like a remnant of one of her dreams. Her head was swimming, her vision was blurry, and her mouth was parched. The backs of her eyes felt like thousands of tiny, invisible needles were shooting through them, day after day. She hardly perceived her surroundings, like she was living in an alternate plane—one that was only thinly connected to the world everyone else lived in.

She learned that what happened to her was known as sleep paralysis or Old Hag Syndrome—a not-so-well-understood phenomenon where the mind wakes up, but the muscles remain asleep. The experience was often accompanied by terror, hallucinations, and the sense of an intruder somewhere in the room. But Miya knew she wasn’t hallucinating, and nothing from her research explained why she kept hearing things.

She strained to summon back her dreams, but she could only remember one thing clearly: the intruder. Miya documented her appearance, but questions remained. Did the intruder step out of Miya’s dream and into her bedroom? Or was she on the outside all along, watching Miya while she dreamt of her? Perhaps the intruder was the one causing the dreams and the howling. Perhaps she was trying to show Miya something.

Miya had entertained that she was hallucinating, that medical science offered a more likely explanation. The intruder could have been an afterimage, a projection resulting from the intensity of the nightmare and from recent stress.

She could have rationalized it all day, but in truth, she didn’t buy even the soundest rational explanation for what happened. The phantom wasn’t her creation, and she was all too certain of that.

After all, Miya knew who the phantom was.

Even if the details of the fable eluded her, she could never forget the dreaded kidnapper: the Dreamwalker. Now, she was sitting at the foot of Miya’s bed.

The question was why. An obvious possibility came to mind—one she’d rather not have contended with. She had no desire to become the next Elle Robinson.

If only Miya could remember her dreams, she’d have some way of knowing what came next—or so she thought. Instead, she was trapped, glimpsing shadows only to spin around and find nothing there. She’d tell herself she was spooked, jumpy and reactive. There were shadows everywhere. They couldn’t all be ghosts.

Miya fished through her bedside drawer and pulled out her playing cards. Shuffling the deck, she closed her eyes and took deep breaths, banishing the prickles on her skin and the tightness in her chest. If she was as good a reader as Hannah claimed, maybe she’d see something that could help . As the cards slid through her hands, she melted into the darkness behind her eyelids until her finger clipped one of the cards mid- shuffle. The deck scattered to the floor. Sighing, Miya cursed under her breath and picked three cards from the spill in front of her.

Upon glimpsing them, she slapped them face down onto her futon. The six of diamonds—the card of distant lands and journeys—followed by the queen of spades and the dreaded joker. Queens represented truth, and in this case, uncomfortable or unwelcome ones. But just as her king, the queen of spades signalled the presence of a spirit.

And the joker? Well, he didn’t know what was going on. The card was as good as the glaring hole in her memory.

As Miya’s brain sprinted around the inside of her skull, she felt a vibration against her leg and checked her phone.

Get out of that hole, will you? Go to Hat Ranch Anniversary party, meet some boys, have a damn hot dog.

Miya stared at the words on her screen. It was Patty, no doubt noticing she hadn’t left her basement since...she wasn’t sure. Miya had no desire to go anywhere, but she had even less desire to agitate her landlady—and a distraction wasn’t a bad idea. The excursion would be better than mental gymnastics that tested the limits of her sanity. Besides, the event wasn’t too far from her sanctuary; if things got difficult, she could always stop by the swings.

Miya texted Patty that she was on her way out but couldn’t promise to charm the pants off any boys. A thorough shampooing later, she pulled on her favourite old jeans and her varsity hoodie. Her concealer was almost dried out, but she managed to salvage a few drops for the dark circles under her eyes.

How she wished Hannah was still here. How she yearned to tell her about what was happening. But Hannah was still settling into Burnaby and shopping for a new telecom deal. It didn’t help that UBC had not yet responded to Miya’s statement, and none of her job applications were getting bites. Without Hannah, and without a clear path ahead, there was little to look forward to.

Miya gave her face a hearty slap in case she was floating away to that other realm. Grabbing her keys, she shoved her wallet and mini umbrella into her backpack and sneaked out the door. The forecast predicted rain later, but for now, the setting sun was a sight to behold—purplish rays bleeding out of a stunning, orange sphere, then swirling into a darkening backdrop before disappearing into deep blue clouds. For a moment, those waves eclipsed the beauty of the sky; they reminded her of the Dreamwalker’s feathery robes and violet aura. Miya wondered if she was still watching.

When she arrived at the ranch, she scanned the area and evaluated the crowd. She saw a middle-aged, balding man with a potbelly and a dangerously undersized t-shirt that read Keep Calm and Drink Beer. Judging by the alienesque protrusion erupting from his midsection, Miya figured he had no difficulty with the “drink beer” part.

She tried to remove herself from the traffic and stand in a corner somewhere, watching people as they passed. It was mostly families with kids; the parents look bushed while their squealing bundles of joy ran around in the most uncoordinated manner possible, smashing into people and knocking things over. Miya spotted a few couples, most of whom were flaunting grossly unnecessary public displays of affection. Then, from the corner of her eye, she caught a familiar face—then two, and finally three: girls from her second-year journalism class. They were in a group project together, and Miya had bailed right before her probation. She hadn’t said anything to her classmates, dropping out last minute and leaving them with her share of the workload. They seemed happy—laughing as they held their drinks and walked through the crowd, cheerfully greeting people they recognized. They’d have a few choice words if they spotted her.

Miya ducked away to evade them, but dodging her own feelings wasn’t as easy. You’re a piece of shit , she told herself, the words stinging more than she anticipated. Salty, warm tears spilled over her cheeks and lips. Why was she crying now ? Miya dug her nails into her arm to try to quell the disappointment, but it only gave way to something else, something far worse. Panic flooded her senses until she was convinced there was no escape.

Her chest tightened. Her stomach seized with pain and nausea. The voices around her began to distort, ordinary chatter morphing into waves of low-frequency white noise. Colours bled into one another, the moving bodies turning into floating blobs until she couldn’t differentiate people from objects. The sensation of immobility writhed up her body like a rope—as though someone had tied her up and left her out for spectacle. There were thousands of eyes on her, boring into her skull, tearing through her clothes, burning her flesh—only she didn’t know where the eyes were watching from. Each breath drew shallow like her lungs were filling with smoke.

She didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to be around the townspeople.

Her mind spun like a wheel, the thoughts cycling faster and louder: Get me out. Get me out . Get me out .