This chapter references some editing I did on chapter 4, so if you find yourself a little confused, go back and read the edited copy of chapter 4: "Going Under" - Sorry for the inconvenience.
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"Auntie Di! Auntie Di!"
Diana heard the child's voice before she opened her eyes.
"James, be quiet!" A little girl's voice cried, as loudly as the voice she was scolding. "Auntie Di's sleeping."
"That's enough, you two."
Diana stifled a smile, keeping her eyes closed as Dom's voice calmly and preemptively ended the quarrel.
"You go back outside and play."
The sound of vague protests joined the earsplitting thud unique only to the disproportionately heavy steps of young children. Diana cracked open an eyelid, to see Dom standing in front of her in his living room, smiling. Diana grinned.
"You always could sleep anywhere." He shook his head. "Coffee?"
"That'd be great." She stretched her arms above her head, arching her back. Her muscles were stiff, her left side cold from the bay window, against which she had slept, seated on the window seat. She squinted, looking out the window, trying to remember the last vestiges of the dream she had had. They clung to her mind like fine wisps of spider silk; strong, but barely visible.
"Something on your mind?"
Diana looked across the room to where her brother stood behind the kitchen counter, measuring coffee beans into a small silver grinder. She shook her head, frowning.
"Just... I don't know... bad dream, I guess." She returned to looking out the window, a feeling of unease forming, twisting inside her.
Dom switched the grinder on. The buzz of the machine seemed deafening in the quiet room. Outside, the children played a game of chase.
"I'm glad you decided to stay the week while Arthur clears out his things."
A knot twisted suddenly, painfully inside Diana.
Arthur.
"I mean," Dom continued as he emptied the grounds into the coffee maker, flipping it on and listening to the low gurgling and slow drip of the machine. "I owe Arthur a lot – my life, in a lot of ways. But you know... blood and all that. By the way, I'm sorry about the whole -"
He trailed off, gesturing to his left arm. Diana cocked her head, confused for only a moment before becoming aware of the stiff muscles and dull ache in her left bicep. She could feel the bandages under her sleeve.
"Oh..." Diana shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, well... you know..."
She frowned, her brow furrowed, trying desperately to piece together the events in her memory; to sort the fact from the fantasy.
"You still foggy?" Dom looked over the counter and across the room, his face worried.
"I-" Diana started to speak, then fell silent. "It's like I just don't..."
"You were probably in shock when you went under." Dom crossed the room, pulling a chair up next to the window seat. "Christ, Diana, you know better – The damage you could have done to yourself – and to me."
"Yeah, well," Diana smirked at the welt, still an angry purple, fading to green at the edges. "I didn't have much choice, considering."
Dom lips parted in a half smile and he nodded, turning his head to look out the glass doors into the garden, where James and Phillipa had finished their game of chase and started up an elaborate round of make believe that involved the precise placement of twigs and rocks. His blue eyes grew distant as he watched them.
"Thank you." He said at length. "I know... it can't have been easy."
Diana nodded, swallowing hard. Resting her left temple on the window, she let her thoughts wander as she watched the children play make believe out of the corner of her eye.
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Arthur opened his eyes. His muscles ached. His body screamed in exhaustion. He looked around the room. The once warm space seemed cold and empty as he lay alone in bed. If he held his breath, he could hear the steady tick, tick, tick of the grandfather clock in the open loft outside the room. He contemplated moving; getting up, doing something – anything – to try and get his mind off of...
What?
Slowly, Arthur rose, setting his bare feet on the floor and reaching for his trousers. Dressing took effort. Everything seemed slow and clumsy, as if moving underwater. He pulled on a white t-shirt, thinking briefly about the button-up over shirt, but ultimately intimidated at the prospect of manipulating the acrylic circles through the holes.
Without conviction, he descended the staircase to the main floor of the house, padding in his bare feet over the wood floors into the kitchen. In front of him, staring, gaping at him from across the room, was the hole in the tiled back-splash where Cobb's bullet had bitten into the wall, sending glass and bits of grout flying. The remains of the glass wine stems still littered the floor. Arthur winced as he stepped over it. The abandoned gun lay unloaded in the middle of the kitchen, the clip near the center island.
The point man stood, his head swimming, his thoughts moving like grains of sand in a rough current. Arthur backtracked in his mind, trying to retrace the steps that had brought him here; to this place, in this moment.
We were at home. Or were we? Prague – no, Prague was a dream. We argued – when? Before we went under? Dom had a gun. That was a dream. No, wait, that was real. And this is -
He thought about the loaded die in his pocket, reaching for it, he balanced it between his thumb and forefinger, thinking over what Diana had said. The totem protected you from other people's dreams, but what about his? If it was possible to move between subconsciouses, what impact did that have on the use of the totem? Pocketing the red die again, he instead looked around, searching for something out of place – something to answer the only clear thought in his spinning mind.
A scratching in the living room startled him. He exited the kitchen slowly, more carefully than he had entered, and crossed the short hall into the living room, where Morpheus stood on the porch, scratching at the glass door and whimpering.
"Morpheus," Arthur said as he opened the door. The dog trotted in, wagging his tail and turning upon entry to receive the praise and ear scratches he felt entitled to. "What were you doing out there?"
Arthur looked out the door. Toward the front of the house, and spreading outward to the East and West, groves of walnuts, cedars and pines interrupted the rolling grasslands. South, surrounding the back of the house and stretching out for miles, brown wild grass swayed in the cool breeze. In the hollows, where the ground was lower and the ground coolest, a fine mist still clung close to the earth. A chill, unrelated to the weather, caused Arthur to tingle, and he recognized the sensation that something was terribly wrong; it was the same feeling he had had whenever Mal's shade showed up on a job.
"Diana?" Arthur looked around the empty porch, then out to the quiet fields. "Diana!"
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Diana started up from the book she was reading, looking around quickly.
"What is it, Auntie Di?" James asked, looking up at her with the Cobb men's blue eyes from his spot cuddled tight against her side.
"Nothing, Baby." Diana responded soothingly. "I just thought I heard something."
She stared at the pages, lost in her own private thoughts, trying to get them to stand still long enough to be understood, until the little boy poked her ribs.
"Auntie Di," He said in the screaming whisper only small children can manage. "The story."
She looked down at the child and smiled. "Right. Where was I?"
Thanks for reading. If you are enjoying what you've seen so far, please leave a comment! More chapters are coming soon (I won't lie - comments make them happen faster).
