Happy Australia Day.
Chapter 9.
I woke to the sun on my face and the sound of laughter. There was an odd pulse in my head, a rhythmic pounding that drummed inside my brain. It hurt. The light was too bright and had a strange glow to it. There were things hanging in the air, small glowing things like tiny suns. I shut my eyes again.
Although my head pounded, my body felt amazingly light. Whatever I was lying on was soft, fluffy almost. Before, where the scent of decay and disinfectant reigned I could now smell baking cookies. People around me talked, exclaimed, excited and astounded. Tones of voices wafted through the air. Some tones were scared, frightened people in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fingers on my face, prodding, poking, pushing at my skin. Fingers at my wrist, pressed against my pulse. "Robin?"
My eyelids fluttered. I felt weak. Defenceless. Caught out in the open. I was trapped. The lightness of my body was suddenly a pressing weight. Couldn't move. Pinned. There were people touching my face and I couldn't stop them. My mask! My eyes!
With a surge of pure will, I flung an arm across my face and rolled, curling up in a ball to protect myself.
"Easy does it, son, you've had a hard knock."
I panted, the effort to move extreme. Movement over, my body locked up again.
"Settle, young one," another voice said. "Here, help me lift him."
"Is that wise?" someone asked.
"He is the channel. He is the dreamer. His mind cradles many. Reverence."
I opened my eyes. Hands under my arms, hands around my knees and I was lifted up, and over, and propped up in a wicker chair. So many people surrounded me, people I didn't recognise but they all stared at me in awe. I summoned my strength to speak. "Whrrmi?"
There was a young woman at the forefront of the group, blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, slender. She wore a white sundress, covered in yellow flowers. She smiled at me. "Such strength of will," she said. "Astounding." She knelt and patted my knee. "You are in the dream," she said. "I am Dream Catcher."
"'at?" I blurted and desperately tried to shake my head. "'o."
"Lost and alone for so long," she said in a sing song tone. "Now, I have so many friends." She spread her hands wide and danced in a circle.
Other faces swam before me, shifting and changing, growing younger with every passing moment. Old Grandpa Henry, so old and sad, now grinning broadly as he clutched his precious picture and danced on new legs with the Dream Catcher.
All of those I'd seen, aged and lost, were young and new again. Dancing, celebrating.
But not all of them. I caught a glimpse of Scott, the same as always. I saw Megan, slightly younger, fretting. I saw the little girl who'd been showing her picture crying.
My hands were like dead weights. My feet were stuck to the floor. My back was fused to the cushion on the chair. I couldn't move, couldn't get up to see why the little girl cried.
I peered through the gaps in the ocean of dancers, watching as a young man with dark hair held a flower out to the crying girl. "Laura, it's me," he said, his voice lifting over the revelry. "It's Poppi. Why don't you know me?"
Laura cried harder and pressed into Megan's side.
"Sss…" I hissed, trying to speak, but my jaw was like ice, even my tongue was heavy. "Ssssstp."
Dream Catcher stopped her dance and knelt before me again. "I cannot help you move," she said, sadly. "Our minds are fragile, old. We could not enter the dream without you. Your mind is sustaining so many now. It is a burden for you and a gift to us. A chance to be and live again."
"'o," I told her, teeth clenched in effort. "Ffffffffnd c-hr."
"The catcher is lost," she said mournfully, with a shake of her head. "Lost and gone." She patted my head, a kindly gesture. "Rest. Strength will return when you become used to the strain. Rest, then talk." She danced away again, celebrating with Henry and the other reborn.
There was nothing else to do but do as she said. I rested. I waited. I watched.
Movement returned first in my pinkie finger. Ironic really, there are all sorts of movies that show movement returning gradually to a paralysed patient via their fingers or toes wriggling, but that's how it was for me. First the fingers and toes. Then the heaviness began to slowly subside from all my limbs, flowing away from me like heavy water, though the headache remained. If anything, as my limbs got better, my headache got worse.
People were still dancing and celebrating. Some of them, married couples I hoped, were getting cosy in corners. The group for doctors, nurses and visitors had grown steadily while I'd been recuperating, their eyes falling on me like I was some sort of saviour, going to leap to their rescue. I was watched, not just by the doctors and nurses, but by the reborn and Dream Catcher herself.
She seemed… perplexed, curious. Not what I'd expected from a criminal mastermind. She studied me and I studied her right back.
Things were making sense. Somehow, Dream Catcher had become lost in her own dream, her body left behind. Not Alzheimer's at all, but something that looked like it. When I broke the inhibitor, and boy was Batman going to berate me for that, I'd sucked everyone around us into her dream state. Either because I was the closest, or because my mind was the strongest, somehow I'd become the host for this dream.
And if I was the host, I was also the master. I could stand if I wanted it bad enough.
It was still an effort and I felt like I was moving through mud, but I managed to stand. I reached into my belt and retrieved my bo staff. As it extended, I was momentary glad it was still an available option here in the dream world. I had to lean on it heavily to remain upright.
I forced myself to speak. "You're Dream Catcher. You're the one responsible for this."
"Ahh, no," she said and waggled her finger. "That would be you, young one. You broke my inhibitor."
"Yes, but you sucked us all up in here."
"I am old," she said mournfully. "It was unfortunate and yet inevitable. My mind no longer works as it once did."
"And you were already trapped in a dream."
She looked surprised, then turned sly. "Smart one. Yes, I was trapped in my own dream. While I could not infiltrate others dreams, I could have my own. And now we are trapped in yours."
"Did the inhibitor trap you?"
She considered. "I don't know. Perhaps. Certainly it held my body in place instead of allowing it to accompany me." She tilted her head and regarded me curiously. "Someone has been affecting your dream state. It surrounds you, envelops you, makes you sad."
"Who?" I asked. Maybe I could get answers after all.
Dream Catcher shrugged. "Amateur. The tendrils are weak and unsophisticated, but allowed yourself to be drawn in."
I frowned. "I don't allow anything."
"Hmm," she said. "Interesting. What were the dreams?"
"None of your business."
She gave me a sultry smile. "Ahh, those dreams.
Damn it, why does everyone automatically assume it's those dreams. I scowled at her.
"Dreams cannot create thoughts that do not already exist. They must exist in the mind before a twister can use them."
"I read you implant thoughts."
Dream Catcher shook her head. "I could twist the natural order of thoughts, give a flight of fancy a stronger hold, but said flight had to be acknowledged first. The bank manager who fantasised about robbing his own bank. The jeweller who already stole jewellery, the thoughts already existed. I just enhance."
I waved my hand. "So, what's all this then? An enhancement?"
Dream Catcher looked around. "This is where you perceived we should be. So we are."
I shook my head. "So, what? If I thought we were at the Grand Canyon—"
The room warped. The floor tumbled away. Suddenly we were shooting above the old river bed, warping through the sky and the red rock was cutting a winding chasm in the earth beneath us. Just like it had been when I'd shot over it in the Batplane a long time ago. "Holy shit," I blurted, staring at the world zipping by beneath my feet.
"Marvellous, isn't it," Dream Catcher said, dancing through the sky over to the others I'd brought with us. "We can go anywhere, anywhen. We are free to explore."
"This can't be right," I said.
"Dreams have no limits," she told me, while others exclaimed and marvelled.
I remembered what Batman had done next, dipping into the Canyon to dip and sway, shooting along the ragged walls. The dream followed and we spun through the air, cutting down and close to the walls.
Reborn gasped and laughed, exclaiming delights at things they thought they'd never see again. Little Laura cried harder.
I glanced at the crying girl. I had to protect her. "We don't belong here. How do we get out?"
Startled fear. Reborn turned to me and cried out denial.
"Please," one of them said. "Don't make us return."
"I'm old, dying." "My body hurts every day." "I don't want to go back."
I frowned. "Your families are back there." I thought of Resthaven again, and we were there. "Your loved ones. They're all in the real world. You can't want to stay here."
"They don't care." "They only remember when it's convenient." "I only see my grandchildren at the holidays."
I ignored them, as best I could. "The dream catcher, that's how we get out. Where is it?"
"Lost and gone and never coming back," Dream Catcher sang.
I shook my head. "We can find it again. With all of us looking we can find it. I need to get back." I gestured Laura and the doctors and nurses. "They need to get back. We don't belong."
Dream Catcher dismissed them with a glance. "If they didn't belong, they would never have fallen into the dream."
I rubbed my temple and leant my head against my bo staff; the headache was getting much worse. Spots were appearing in my vision, clouding my judgement. They were old, true. There was not left of life for them. Why not allow them to live in a dream world where they could travel to their hearts content?
It felt like something was worming its way into my head. Worm and slither and slide. I shook my head to clear it. "No, we need to find the—" What? What did we need to find? There was something wrong though, something I should be remembering. I closed my eyes. What did I need to remember?
"Lost in the dream. Stay with us."
"Stay with us," the reborn chorused.
Dream Catcher spoke, "Why leave when we have everything we need right here. We can slip away into nothingness happy." Her words washed over me like liquid silk. "Take us places, Robin. Help us be happy."
Someone said, "I want to see the Great Barrier Reef."
I'd seen that in pictures. Beautiful. Tranquil. Crystal clear water. White, sandy beaches. I imagined the sun would be so warm on my face. Hundreds of brilliantly coloured fish darted though waving coral. Dolphins played happily, dashing through the water. Warm water which beaded against the skin. A small island, a single palm tree. Heat and the smell of salt. Wind through my hair.
Delighted sighs. Splashing waves. Giggles and gleeful laughing.
My head throbbed.
"The Himalayas."
Majestic mountain ranges. Clouds speckled the valleys as we were lifted above the land. Not cold, because we were still wet from the beach. White, powdery snow, flakes falling from the sky.
My head pounded.
Time…
…passed.
But I was already gone.
