The Dreamtrap - 24. Chapter 24

- XXIV -

By Monday night, Henry abandoned all hope that he still had splashing on the bottom of his soul. He painted probably twenty (if not more) exits by now, and each one of those would inevitably disappear. Some would disappear in an hour, while the others would last up to three hours; however, it didn’t matter how long the portal would be present in the goddamn painting – eventually it would erase itself as if it was never there.

Right now, it was 11:15 on Monday night, and Henry’s eyes felt like someone rubbed a hell of a lot of sand into them. Ever since Julian and he got here (which was on Saturday morning), Henry got maybe nine hours of sleep total – even with Gabriel’s promise of letting him sleep for four hours in a row, it didn’t exactly happen that way. Julian (who slept even less than that, to Henry’s gloomy and almost indifferent surprise) would make sure that he kept the artist awake until it seemed that Henry was about to collapse on the floor. Then he would reluctantly let him get some sleep, but never longer than two and a half hours.

...“It’s gone,” Julian said sharply, yanking Henry out of a half-sleeping state.

“Nngh...” the artist replied, opening his eyes.

“The exit is gone,” the blond said in the same sharp, impatient voice. “Get up!”

Henry gritted his teeth yet again, suppressing a very strong, almost hysterical desire to tell Salamander to go fuck himself in every way imaginable, but he bit his tongue and got off the chair where he sat for the last half an hour – this particular exit did not last long at all.

He rubbed his eyes furiously and walked up to the painting, reaching for the palette. Suddenly, he stopped and stared at the painting, wondering whether he was seeing things, which wouldn’t surprise him a single bit – ever since he was a kid, he had to have at least seven hours of sleep every night, and not nine hours in three days. He leaned closer, frowning thoughtfully, and then realized that he wasn’t hallucinating.

“They are back,” he muttered, and Julian turned around, looking at him with a small frown. “They are back,” Henry said again and glanced at the unconscious men on the bed for a second.

Ever since Saturday morning, there was no trace of Desmond and Raven anywhere in the painting. It was as if they simply disappeared off the radar; the painting would still change, it would replace some mirrors, would throw in those eerie red eyes, it would change the woman’s expression, but it would not capture a single reflection of either man.

Julian crossed the room in several quick steps and stared at the painting without blinking. Henry was right – both men were clearly visible between several mirrors on farther right.

“Right here!” the blond smacked his finger into one of the mirrors in front of Specter and Raven. “Paint it right here! It’s in front of them...! They should be able to see it...”

“They are back?” Gabriel said incredulously when he walked into the room with a fresh pot of coffee in his hand – Henry had no idea how many of those they emptied by now.

Rayhe slammed the pot onto the dresser and quickly walked towards the painting.

“Right here,” Julian repeated. “In front of them...”

“No,” Gabriel immediately shook his head. “It’s not in front of them,” he glanced at the blond. “This is an illusion! Look here...” he pointed towards a row of mirrors. “Those are reflections, not the actual thing... You can tell it by the way their shadows lie on the floor. This is not in front of them, this is behind...! Put it right here,” he moved his finger to the opposite corner of Julian’s initiate order.

Salamander frowned at that.

“No,” he said slowly. “This...” he pointed at the same row. “...is the actual thing! This...” he swiftly moved his finger. “...is the reflection...!”

“No!” Rayhe replied heatedly. “Open your eyes and look...!”

“My eyes are open,” the blond said through his clenched teeth. “And if you...”

“Oh, for fuck sake...” Henry said somewhat loudly, interrupting both men. “Are you going to stand here and argue until they disappear out of the painting again?”

That immediately put an end to the argument.

“I’ll put it right here,” Henry said shortly and pointed at the mirror in the perfect middle of both orders.

Julian gritted his teeth and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

“Fine,” he said tightly. “That’s fine...”

“Paint,” Rayhe muttered after Henry gave him a questioning look. “Paint...!”

They watched the artist quickly create yet another exit – it didn’t take Henry longer than five minutes to be able to paint those portals by now. Gabriel walked to the dresser and filled his mug with coffee, his hands shaking, eyes red and tired. He slept as much as Julian did – they would switch shifts, and he kept loading on caffeine even though he suspected that didn’t do much for him anymore. He left the coffee pot alone and walked to the bed, setting his mug onto the nightstand and lowering himself onto the edge of the bed, next to Desmond.

“Call his name!” Julian said suddenly, and Gabriel looked up. “Call his name,” the blond repeated. “He can hear thoughts, there is a chance he would be able to hear you...”

Gabriel rolled his eyes with unhidden, frustrated annoyance.

“Yeah,” he said sharply. “And I have never even thought of that before your genius brought it up! I’ve been calling his name ever since he slid into this goddamn coma...!”

Julian shook his head impatiently.

“You didn’t have the painting then,” he said with the same irritated intonation. “Call his bloody name, Rayhe! That might lead them to the exit!”

Gabriel blinked at that several times, and then he leaned closer to Desmond and started talking to him softly.

****

Behind the mirror

______________________

“There is something there,” Raven said in a tight, quiet voice. “You see it?”

Desmond narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, an intent frown crisscrossing his forehead. A minute later, the frown smoothed out. “It’s another illusion,” he sighed. “No thoughts, no feelings,” he answered Raven’s silent question. “It’s an illusion; let’s go.”

Raven sighed and followed him.

“Wonder what it is this time,” he muttered, and Desmond shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said indifferently while they were getting closer to the illusion. “Just remember, this is nothing but...”

They came to a dead stop at the same time, their expressions similarly dumbfounded.

“What the...” Raven said incredulously after a few minutes of stunned silence.

They were staring at themselves in the middle of the mirrored floor; both of their illusionary selves were ass-naked, and it seemed like they were in the middle of a very intense sex session. Illusionary Raven slowly turned his head and looked at the original with a lazy smile. He gave him a slow wink, and then his back tightly arched while he let out a loud, unrestricted moan, his eyes rolling backwards.

Desmond tilted his head to the right, bending sideways with a thoughtful frown, watching his illusionary self perform some impressively creative move while shifting the position.

“Huh...” he said somewhat appreciatively. “I will actually try this with Rayhe after we get out of here... That looks...”

“Are you serious?” Raven interrupted him with quiet restraint in his voice.

Desmond looked at him and shrugged.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean...” He glanced at his mirrored twin who performed yet another move, which caused Raven’s copy to moan, ‘Oh, hell, yes...’ while his hands dug their fingers into the floor. “This looks like fun, so...”

Raven’s eyelid twitched ever so slightly.

“You are just going to stand here and watch?” he interrupted the ex-assassin with the same tight, quiet restraint in his intonation. “Really?”

Desmond blinked a couple of times and glanced at their copies again. It seemed like Raven’s twin was getting closer and closer to the edge, both of his legs wrapped around mirrored Desmond’s neck, his hands helplessly digging their fingers into his own wildly bucking hips.

“Errr...” Desmond said, and Raven rolled his eyes with a short, irritated sigh.

“Let’s go,” he said through his clenched teeth and walked towards his nearly climaxing illusionary self. “Fucking A,” he muttered under his breath, kicking one of his feet forward and causing the illusion to burst into a cloud of white smoke.

“And you called me fucked-up,” he said after five or so minutes, his hands shoved into his pockets.

“You are,” Desmond nodded, not looking even remotely embarrassed. Raven shot him a dark look.

“I am not the one who was getting off on watching ourselves fuck,” he said pointedly.

“I wasn’t getting off,” Desmond shrugged, pausing slightly at yet another intersection. “I was memorizing the moves,” he nodded and started walking to the right. “You have to admit...” He threw a quick glance at his gloomy companion. “That was impressive...! I have to give it to whoever is doing this shit to us... They have some good imagination...!”

“Please!” Raven said in a low voice. “It’s not their imagination; they got it from my head!”

Desmond slowed down just a tad and looked at him with a small frown.

“It was Julian’s invention,” Raven nodded. “Keep walking.”

Desmond pressed his lips somewhat tighter at this bit of information and picked up the pace once again.

“And yes,” Raven said several minutes later in the same low voice. “It is fun... You should try it really,” he nodded with a small smile.

Desmond’s expression clouded with slight annoyance, as if he couldn’t believe that he just complimented Salamander, even though it was unknowingly. They walked in silence for a while, Raven’s hands still in his pockets, Desmond’s posture tight. Suddenly, the ex-assassin slowed down somewhat, a puzzled expression crawling onto his face.

“What?” Raven frowned when Desmond slowed down even more, intently staring into the floor.

“Shhh!” Desmond’s hand flew up, telling Raven to zip it.

“Oh, hell,” Raven thought desperately. “What now...?” He glanced around, positive that Specter just heard more clanking sounds – those damn nightmarish claws stuttering into these bloody mirrors. He gritted his teeth, looking for an alcove. He saw one several feet away from them, and he was sure that’s where Desmond would go, so he just blinked rapidly when instead of doing that, the other man turned around and slowly started to walk back to the intersection they passed several minutes ago.

“What are you...” Raven followed him with a deep frown on his forehead.

“Shhh!” Desmond hissed again, with more impatience this time.

Raven gritted his teeth and locked his jaw tightly, saying nothing else. Desmond cocked his head slightly to the left, clearly listening to something only he could hear – no matter how hard Raven tried, he heard nothing.

They backtracked to the intersection, and Desmond hesitantly took the left fork. Raven sighed inaudibly, following him closely. Suddenly, Specter stopped, frowned deeper, and turned around yet again. Raven almost said another ‘What?’ but then he just sighed again and kept silent. They came back to the intersection, Desmond narrowed his eyes, and then took the diagonal fork instead; this time, he moved with less hesitation.

“Yeah...” he muttered a minute later and walked faster.

“Wha...” Raven started saying, just to be shushed impatiently yet again.

“Bloody hell,” he thought warily. “Don’t tell me he is having auditory hallucinations...! Crap, that would be disastrous, to say the least...”

He helplessly gritted his teeth when they got to another wild intersection, which didn’t look like an intersection at all; instead, it looked like some demented, twisted spiral with several paths sticking out of it in all possible directions. To Raven’s disbelief, Desmond didn’t even slow down this time; the ex-assassin smoothly turned left, walking even faster by now.

Raven let out a small, quiet sigh, easily keeping up with Desmond’s pace, glancing around every several seconds. Desmond mumbled something else that Raven didn’t even try to decipher, and then he dove into an alcove on their right. Raven frowned at that, thinking that they were going to end up in another dead-end, when to his enormous surprise, that wasn’t the case – the alcove turned out to be yet another path. He looked at Specter, thoughtfully narrowing his eyes. It was obvious that the man did not have auditory hallucinations; whatever it was that he was hearing right now, was leading both of them somewhere.

“If this is another trick...” Raven thought warily, and then suddenly, he heard that nauseating ‘clank-clank’ again; he broke in cold sweat when he realized that Desmond missed it completely – he was so caught up in whatever it was they were following that he didn’t pay attention to anything else.

“Desmond!” Raven called in urgent whisper, and gritted his teeth at impatient and angry ‘Shhh!’

He lunged forward and grabbed the other man’s arm, forcing him to stop. Desmond whirled around, his expression frustrated, dark, and downright pissed off.

“What?!” he hissed, his green eyes narrowing to mad slits. “What is...”

“Shhh!” Now it was Raven’s turn to shush him.

Desmond’s jaw locked tight, his expression clearly saying several very unkind things at once, when there was that sound again, and Specter’s eyes widened at that.

“Yeah!” Raven thought furiously. “No shit!”

“Goddammit...!” Desmond muttered, glanced around quickly, grabbed Raven’s shoulder, and yanked him into the nearest alcove. “Okay...” he whispered almost inaudibly into Raven’s ear. “We wait until it walks by, and then we charge... I am not taking any chances...!”

“Charge where?” Raven thought without opening his mouth.

“Home, I hope,” Specter muttered, and Raven stared at him without blinking.

****

Sleepless reality

____________________

“It’s fainting,” Julian said sharply, watching the painting like a very wary hawk.

“Okay,” Henry shrugged with slow puzzlement. “When it disappears, I’ll make another one...”

“No,” the blond looked at him without blinking. “Refresh it...! I want it to remain there. I don’t know if the time-flow over there is the same as here; ten minutes in reality might be a week in there... Therefore, refresh it and keep it alive!”

Henry sighed and reached for his brush. It took him less than a minute to make several quick, refreshing touch-ups of color, and the portal came back to blue vividness. Henry looked at Gabriel with a small frown; it seemed like Rayhe didn’t even hear those several sentences the artist and Salamander just exchanged. Gabriel kept muttering something into Desmond’s unresponsive ear without looking up.

“Don’t worry about him,” Julian said sharply without taking his eyes off the blasted painting. “Just be ready to refresh it again when the time comes...” He looked at Henry. “Do not fall asleep,” he said quietly, and Henry sighed once again.

“I won’t,” he nodded and leaned on the wall, figuring that it would be safer for him this way – if he sat down, he probably would doze off, thus pissing the blond off, which was never a good idea.

He stared out of the window for fifteen minutes or so, darkness outside caressing his tired eyes, creating a comfortable illusion of safety.

“Again!” Julian said as sharply as before, and the artist blinked somewhat rapidly, tearing his gaze away from the window.

“Holy hell...” he thought dumbfoundedly. “Did I just fall asleep with my eyes open...?”

“Again!” Julian repeated with more impatience, and Henry stumbled towards the painting.

He frowned when he realized that the blond’s worry was very much justified – the portal looked faint; so faint that it looked like it was about to disappear any minute. Henry bit his lip, frantically smashing his brush into the palette he never put aside. He quickly placed several trembling strokes onto the canvas, bringing that portal back to its blue, vivid life. Then he looked at Salamander with a small frown.

“How long has it been since I refreshed it?” he asked, and Julian glanced at the clock.

“Fifteen minutes,” he said shortly, and Henry frowned deeper.

“How long has it been since the first time it started to faint?” he asked.

“Half an hour or so,” Julian answered tightly, and the artist bit his lip harder.

“It seems like it wants to disappear,” he muttered. “And it was fainting much quicker than it did the first time...” He looked at the painting again. The portal seemed to be fine for now. “Julian, I don’t think I will be able to keep it up much longer,” he said slowly without even noticing that he just called Salamander by his first name. The blond didn’t seem to care about that.

“I know,” he said tightly. “Keep it alive for as long as you can.”

“I could paint another one right next to it,” Henry offered, and Julian immediately shook his head.

“No,” he muttered. “There is a chance they might cancel each other. Just keep this one alive for as long as you can,” he threw a quick glance at Henry, and the artist stiffly nodded without looking away from the painting.

...The portal started to faint rapidly right after Henry almost let out a shaky, relieved breath, seeing that it looked just fine.

“Dammit...!” the artist muttered busily, his brush flying above the canvas. He took a quick breath after he brought the portal to life yet again. He glanced at the clock. “Shit...” he squeezed his eyes shut for a short second – this time, it has only been ten minutes before the exit started to disappear. He had a very bad suspicion that soon enough, he would be too late (his hand could only move that fast), and that the exit would disappear for good before Henry would be able to finish his last refreshing touch.

“Just keep your brush ready,” Julian muttered without looking at the artist, and Henry gave him another stiff nod, registering Rayhe’s soft mutter somewhere deep inside his brain.

****

Behind the mirror

_____________________

...“Okay,” Desmond muttered after yet another nightmarish apparition walked by their alcove. “Let’s go...!”

They quickly walked out of their alcove and took several steps forward, when they froze dead in their tracks. Right there, in front of them, was an exit – that damn blue portal, which wasn’t blinking or disappearing, which meant they still had time. The problem, however, was the fact that there were at least six of those grotesque creatures right in front of it, and neither creature would move away. All six of them stayed rooted to the mirrored floor; it seemed as if they were waiting for some sort of inaudible signal, their eyes glowing the same dull-red, their tails twitching slightly in the same nauseating rhythm.

Raven’s eyes widened to a comical degree when all of a sudden, one of the mirrors next to those things slightly shimmered, and then there was yet another apparition stepping out from nowhere, joining its fellow coworkers.

“They breed from the mirrors...!” Raven thought in dull astonishment. “Holy fuck...! They breed from the mirrors...!”

Desmond gritted his teeth almost audibly, grabbed Raven’s arm, and dragged him back into that alcove again.

“Okay,” he hissed into Raven’s ear once they were out of sight and hearing range. “Here is the plan... Cover us, and we will run, okay? This is our only goddamn chance; I don’t think we’ll get another...! Therefore, here is the plan... Cover us until we get to that bloody portal...! Mind you, we don’t have much time...! Methinks that the damn exit will jump soon, so...” He took a quick breath without moving away from Raven’s ear. “Cover us, and I will run fast, I promise!”

“They will hear us,” Raven thought quickly.

“They won’t see us,” Desmond answered in barely audible whisper. “That will confuse them just enough for us to get to the damn exit.”

Raven bit his lower lip hard. It was at least four hundred feet to that exit, he knew that. He also knew that he almost lost it when they had to run for some lousy two hundred feet between them and that short wall the first time he introduced Desmond to his ability. Raven cursed desperately in his head when he remembered those half-hearted efforts he was trying to induce on himself several times a while back. ‘Try harder,’ he recalled. ‘See if you can prolong it...!’

He gritted his teeth yet again after he remembered his own response to himself back then – ‘I’ll do it later!’

“Fucking hell...” he thought, his eyes closed. “Never mind self-punishment now...!” he locked his jaw tightly. “Just pray that you’d be able to do it; you don’t have time...!”

They carefully left their alcove, standing rigidly close to the wall, never taking their eyes off the standing still grotesques straight ahead. Raven felt a cold shiver shoot down his spine when he realized that now there were eight of them.

“Okay,” he thought quickly, staring at Desmond intently. “When I say, ‘Run!’ you run, got it? Don’t wait for anything, don’t look for anything, just run...! And whatever happens, don’t stop...! If I sound hysterical, run faster... Do you understand me?” He threw an almost desperate glance at Desmond, noting that the portal shimmered ever so slightly – the damn thing was about to start blinking, which was never good.

Desmond gave him a quick, hard nod without looking away. Raven took a deep breath and looked at the portal again.

“Oh, bloody...” he howled desperately in his head when he saw the blue light start pulsating rhythmically and rather quickly. “Goddammit...! We are not going to make it...!”

Desmond gritted his teeth so hard that Raven could hear his jaw creak. Suddenly, the portal blinked one last time, and then it became still again. It never disappeared, never shimmered – it remained still again.

“What...” Raven blinked rapidly. “How...?”

Desmond grabbed his hand, squeezing it hard, which Raven correctly translated into, ‘Never mind what and how, just bloody go!’ Raven nodded rapidly, took another silent, deep breath, and narrowed his eyes. He wrapped his fingers tighter around Desmond’s, and without thinking anything else, wrapped a blanket of invisibility around them. Usually, that blanket was light, comfortable, and pleasant; now, however, it was thick, heavy, and suffocating as hell.

“Run!” he thought wildly, and Desmond hesitated for a second or two.

Raven was about to unleash all his fury on Specter’s head when he saw the ex-assassin tearing almost all buttons off his shirt in one quick, impatient move. He turned around and threw all those buttons behind them. Little plastic circles bounced off mirrored walls and floor, creating quite a few sounds.

Every single one of the apparitions turned their head towards the noise for a second or two, and then all of them took off at the same time, flying by two men in a quick, nauseating wave of deadly silence. Desmond grabbed onto Raven’s hand harder, and then they ran.

Raven honestly thought that it would work and that he would be able to cover both of them until they got to the portal, which flickered ever so slightly again – Desmond didn’t lie when he said he would run fast. They made it half-way through, when all of a sudden, the pulsating of blood in Raven’s temples became too much; suddenly, all he could see was blackness spiking violent-red, and all he could hear was a loud, furious roar of blood in his ears.

“I can’t,” he tried thinking but it didn’t work. The furthest he got was ‘I,’ and then he could feel his hand losing grasp on Desmond’s fingers while that thick, suffocating blanket was reluctantly sliding off them. Raven never even realized that he lost that invisible blanket because the reality decided to turn itself off for a while, and he let go of Specter’s hand, slamming hard into the mirrored floor.

The minute the grotesques heard the slam of his falling body, they turned their heads in the same synchronized motion.

“Fuck!” Desmond growled, when all eight pairs of glowing red eyes locked on his very visible self. “Fuck...!”

He yanked Raven’s arm, throwing the unconscious man over his shoulder, and lunged towards the portal, which started pulsating rhythmically once again. The grotesques never made a single sound, but Desmond knew they were right behind him – he saw how quickly those things could move and he heard that nauseating, very loud clanking, which sounded too close by now.

He forced himself to run even faster, and the minute his body obeyed, there was a dry snapping sound very close to his leg. Desmond immediately knew that one of the grotesques almost locked its jaw on the back of his knee.

The portal was blinking nonstop by now, and when Desmond performed a final desperate lunge towards it, he expected to experience another very hard impact with the cold mirror, since he was positive that the damn portal was about to disappear. “And then there will be teeth...” he thought almost indifferently and leapt forward, never letting go of Raven’s limp body on his shoulder.

There was no hard impact; in fact, there was nothing – just stars-filled silent blackness.