Chapter 5
After walking for what felt like hours, the Dreamchasers finally reached the fresh air of the outside.
But something felt different…
The Dream World still felt and looked nearly the same as every time, but now… It was a lot darker, a lot less lively.
No Flower deers, half-their-size Dreamlings, fairies or unicorns.
It was really quiet…too quiet.
"Oh no… Its power is already affecting the Dream World! I must go back inside! And you kids get as far away from here as you can! That is, if you want to live, we have no idea what it could do to you, maybe you all are his main target and we cannot risk finding that out." And just like that, Agent Strick disappeared back into the facility.
The Dreamchasers stood there for a minute. Then Zoey finally gestured: "Let's go".
Everyone followed. The Dream Bandit led them to a pretty remote place. And then, Izzie crouched a little bit.
"Hey! Z-blobby! We're here - it's safe for you to come out now!" The 11y/o whispered to a bunch of bushes.
Nothing moved.
Logan and Cooper shared a look. Logan did the "She's crazy" sign, with a little whistle and a hand.
Suddenly, the bushes started moving and Z-blob actually came out.
Cooper gave his friend the "Really?" look.
Z-blob made his way into Izzie's hand and made a little wiggly move.
"Yeah, we saw Mateo, but he… wasn't really Mateo anymore. He was so… wild and angry." The girl spoke as if she understood the snot.
Logan shot back with the "Yeah, as I said – she's crazy!" expression. And then Zoey butted in:
"Nobody here is going crazy, Logan. Well maybe except Mateo, but Izz knows what she's doing."
"And sorry for not taking you Z-blob, we thought that if we had brought you with us, you might have been taken to some lab for experiments! Since all the books that Zoey and Mr. Oz read said that the creations of corrupted Dreamchasers disappear! And you should be one of them! Thank the turkey's you're not though."
"Oh. Yeah, that actually makes sense." The guy with the baseball hat thought to himself.
"OK, OK! Enough of this chit-chat! We have a Mateo to save! Logan, what's your plan?" Zoey got straight to the point. And began looking cautiously eyeing the little Dream garden they were in, while also keeping focus on Logan.
"Alright! My plan is to break in to the facility, while using help from the inside, find Mateo and then, a way to calm him!" Logan explained confidently.
"I can't even begin to see the plot-holes in this thing." Cooper slammed a hand onto his head. "Like, where are we going to find help from the inside? And what could possibly calm a Mateo like that?!" The boy was getting more and more frustrated.
"Couldn't agree more" Zoey admitted.
The adorable snot of glob that was frozen for a few minutes suddenly started jumping up and down like crazy.
"Woah! What's with the snot?" Logan commented.
"I'm pretty sure that he's saying something like-" Izzie cleared her voice and tried to change into a super cute one."-""Look! Night! Dream World doesn't have nights! Mateo usually afraid of nights! But now, it exists! Everything for a reason!""
Everyone took a moment to process all this.
"He's right - it's actually night! And, if we trust the adorable glob of snot, we might get Mateo back!" Izzie was the first one to talk.
" So, basically, what he said means that we either have a way to calm him or to destroy him. Great! If we take the good end of this thing, then we only need someone on the inside to help us navigate through that maze and probably some back up." Cooper summed up what they were going to need.
"We can take care of the back up." Zoey and Logan said in unison.
Cooper, Z-blob and Izzie shared a look.
"We'll take of the inside." The other part of the group understood, what they're going to do.
"We'll meet up tomorrow here at the same time, it might be too late, but it also might be exactly the time we need." Zoey mouthed those words as someone was approaching. "Now go!"