Every time the skyscraper collapses, it seems to happen just a little slower.
The roar comes first. Then the dust, fanning out about the foundation into the street below. When the smoke’s serpentine tendrils wind up the walls to squeeze the life from the building, I always press my sleeve to my nose. But it's never the smoke that poses any real issue, I’d long realised; once the smoke rises, the building falls.
Not a heartbeat before expected, the building trembles beneath my loafers, drunkenly swaying to the left, catapulting me into the rail. There's no time to drag air into my lungs before I'm slammed into the roof floor which forces my breath out in a broken sound that's half-gasp, half-scream. Nor is there time to focus on the hot concrete searing my cheek.
Because that's when the building sings in the voices of its cruel choir — the stinging soprano of shattering glass and the rich alto of crumbling concrete crescending into a song like the shattering of the world.
Black.
Again.
* * *
“So this building is going to collapse?” the woman asks from her seat on the floor, doubtful. “How d’you know?”
“I know because it has collapsed, and it’s going to again.” I continue scanning the ground for… Well, I wasn’t quite sure what, but whatever it was, it was damn good at hiding.
The street below is packed with cars, each one an exact copy of the ones to its front, rear and flanks. On the sidewalks, pedestrians lumber from one end to the other, only to disappear then reappear at the top of the street and begin the process all over again.
“We’re on top of it,” she says.
I couldn’t be sure that was intended to disprove the first half of my statement or point out how stupid it would be to stand on a building I know is soon to be a pile of rubble. Not that it matters. If the building collapses before I solve this dream’s mystery — again… — it’ll just restart. And it’s not like things can get much worse for her either, because assuming this is her dream, she’s dead and this is a replay of how that happened…
Finally, I meet her gaze. She’s staring at me, a raised brow half-hidden beneath her dark bangs, perhaps waiting for a response that she seems to realise would not come. “And that?” She gestures to the sledgehammer I'm leaning on. It's a crude thing, with a head of dirty gold and a long, slender handle of rich wood.
"The hammer's a guide," I say. "It gets lighter the closer I get to resolving one of these messes."
She groans, flopping down onto the floor, “You realise how little sense that makes, right?”
“None of this makes any fucking sense,” I grumble, but what I don’t say is because you shouldn’t be able to talk to me or even see me, and yet here you are wearing my ears out . “Look around you,” I say, failing to conceal my impatience. “Does any of this make sense ?”
I gesture to the dreamscape around us. The building we’re standing on is tall, in typical skyscraper fashion, but those surrounding us — which go on in each direction as though copied and pasted — are spindles rising infinitely into a black sky, despite the sweltering heat and blinding sun that brings it.
The woman pays our surroundings no more than a passing glance before a look that was equal parts confusion and amusement contorts her features. “You … are a madman,” she says and lets out a laugh that echoes through the never-ending city.
She doesn’t get it. None of them ever do.
Dreams break all the laws of, well, everything , and yet they make perfect sense to the dreamer, at least until they wake up. But for me — a dream walker, lucid dreamer, or whatever other names there are to define me — I’m aware when I’m in someone’s dream, so I can use reality as a point of reference.
But this is her reality, so there’s no convincing her it isn’t real.
The brain is quite impressive in that regard — capable of subconsciously crafting an unending number of worlds which defy comprehension.
“There’s a fire down there," she says, interrupting my reverie. Her tone is matter-of-factly, as though pointing out something as mundane as lint on a shirt.
Despite her calmness, I stiffen. I throw myself at the rail, squinting down into the street, now semi-obscured by the gathering smoke. Sure enough, on the ground floor of the building across the street is a red glow. Fire means the loop is nearing its end. Fire means whatever I'm looking for should be along any time now.
And there it is. There he is, rather — a man entering our building crushed under the weight of a backpack. A bomber, perhaps?
"This isn't as heavy as I'd've expected."
I turn to see the woman holding the hammer. She's struggling, yes, but she shouldn't even be able to lift it.
I'm right, then. That man is the vengeful soul. He’s my target.
* * *
The man is below us, heading into the bowels of the building, unbeknownst to our pursuit.
Our footsteps reverberate through the stairwell as we tiptoe down the stairs. There’s no real point in tiptoeing, of course, because no one should be able to perceive us as long as the woman doesn’t let go of my hand… and I don’t let go of the hammer. The hammer in question is gradually becoming lighter, though it’s still heavy enough to make my arm ache.
“So let’s say I believe you. That this time loopy dream whatever is a replay of someone’s death,” she whispers, so low I barely hear her. “What about us? What are we? Like gods or something? Or are we dead too?”
You’re dead , I think, but instead I say, “I don’t know.”
She groans and the sound makes the shaft shiver. The man below looks over his shoulder and up the stairwell, angling his head this way and that, and for a moment his eyes seem to meet mine. A stillness settles upon the stairwell, and my blood runs cold. Then with a shrug, he continues his way, and I let myself breathe again.
He didn’t see us — that I know, but he might know we’re here. I chase the thought away. It was a nonsensical notion. But hasn’t everything about this dream been nonsensical so far?
Yes, and surely you’re imagining that hammer getting heavier , I catch myself thinking.
“You say you’ve done this countless times, so how could you not know?” she presses.
“Because I don’t.” I turn to her, holding up the hammer. “What I know is this is getting heavy again, so he’s getting away.” I point into the stairwell, and her eyes follow.
“ Got away, it looks like.”
My gaze snaps back to where the man should’ve been. Nothing. Shit.
“Head back to the roof,” I say. “I’ll go alone.”
“Why should I?”
“For your own safety.” I scowl into the stairwell, looking for a sign of the man I know isn't there.
“Gods don’t need protection.”
“You’re not a- Don’t you listen?”
“Dead people don’t need to be protected either,” she points out.
“I didn’t say you’re dead.”
“Ehh, it would make sense if I am. And if I am, then this is my dream. I should go.”
She has me there, but I refuse to let her have her way, and I haven’t the slightest idea why. “Don’t speak what you don’t know. Go to the roof.” I hoist the hammer onto my shoulder and begin sprinting down the stairs. I don’t look back to see if she complies.
* * *
The basement is flooded, and the stench of the vile water is probably strong enough to burn my face if not for my beard. The only clear way forward is towards the door at the end of the room. And the only path towards that door is drenched in foul sludge. Sewage, maybe? It was a disconcerting thought, given that I'm going to have to dip my feet into it.
Bet she'd be glad she stayed behind if she saw this , I think, before steeling myself and dipping in a foot. The water's cold and my shoes become slippery as it saturates my socks. I swallow down the urge to retch, and press forward.
The lights overhead flicker, and it occurs to me I hadn’t considered the possibility of underwater exposed wires before stepping in. Doesn’t matter, I suppose; were there wires, I wouldn’t still be wading through shit. I’m not sure I’m happy there weren’t.
I reach the door and find myself hesitating. Not only because this damned hammer is heavier than it’s been since I started down the stairwell, which it should not be, but because the prospect of this being over after living this dream a million times was surreal. But then, what isn't surreal about the mind’s fabrications?
I grip the rusted doorknob with my free hand, and upon finding it too heavy — or maybe rusted into place — I set down the hammer and pull on it with both hands. It gives, and I find myself staring down the nozzle of a revolver.
The bomber brandishes the gun in my face. “So I was right about being followed. Where’s the other one?” he hisses.
My eyes dart around the room and land on the backpack sitting on the floor behind him. The bomb , I think, and in a moment of clarity, I realised I’d assumed he carried a bomb. Was I going to die because of an assumption? I almost laugh.
The man clicks his tongue. “Look at me and answer the question.”
“There’s no other one.”
“The only thing I hate more than people who get in my way are liars,” he says, pulling back the gun’s hammer.
“Put the gun down,” I try to say, but the words slur into a scream as heat flares beneath my ribs. I don’t hear the gunshot. The second shot seems silent too, and the blow to my chest is almost painless.
I feel my body hit the wet floor, though, and I taste the putrid water as I open my mouth to scream. And I see her, glowing hammer in hand, like an angel of life and death, heaven and hell, coming to me.
And it’s then I realise that whether dead or alive, I want her by my side. Forever.
Black.
Again.
* * *
I find myself on my knees in a corridor as black and as unending as space. But the sky was peppered with doors, not stars, each different in shape, size and style. None alike.
Somehow I know each one opens into another dream world, another realm built by the minds of the dead. Except those behind us, which are crossed in red.
The hammer lays to my left, the sun-bright glow of an instant ago gone and it now has a weight that presses it into the floor? To my right, he lies on his back, eyes closed, breathing. I wake him, taking in his features, recognising them after so long.
“Alice?” he says, and the memories rush back to me. “Hey there,” I say. And then I add, “Callum.”
I help him to his feet, and his lips tremble as he forms the words. “Are we … alive?”
“You already know the answer,” I say. “It’s quiet,” I begin.
But he already interrupts me. “Less quiet now that you’re here.”
“How’d you save me?”
“I followed you. When I saw you on the ground, I just … grabbed the hammer. It was … weightless. Once I reached you-”
“It lit up and we ended up back here,” Callum finishes, “That’s how solving dreams works. I suppose we were the vengeful souls in the end, huh?”
I look at him, holding eye contact. “Yes, we. You don’t have to traverse these worlds alone anymore.”