Chapter two

Two

…When I fall asleep before the voices go away�"things�"happen. Like to Kendra and Doctor Ben…

 

Selma tosses down the Gameboy. Pulling out the blankets from under her knees, she pulls one of them over her shoulders. If Selma turns her head toward the window behind her, she would see the edge of the woods that surrounded the clubhouse.

Selma could spend the night, out there among the maple trees, with less fear than in bed. Like she had the first night she’d found Kendra’s note when she’d seen Will’s scar.

 

In their last conversation, Kendra gave Selma a warning.

“If I’m right about the Center then we’re in trouble.” She said with a serious glance. “Whatever you do Selma, don’t tell them about your dreams anymore. Not if Blackfly’s in charge.” She said playing with one of her braids.

“Ok sure, it’s not like I tell them everything anyways.” Selma said shrugging.

“I’m serious Selma. Until I know for sure, you can’t let them know about the future or the places you see or the people. ” Kendra said strangely grave.

“Fine, I get it.” Selma said in a voice filled with discomfort. “But how do you know Blackfly’s so bad anyways?”

 

“When was the last time you saw Will?” Kendra hissed.

“A while, I guess.” Selma hedged around the issue of her missing boyfriend.

“It’s been a month Selma. He’s been missing a month now and no one’s reported him. He’s not like us; he never runs away”

“Maybe that wasn’t the Center or Blackfly. We don’t actually know.” Selma said quietly.

“Selma, they had my sister institutionalized and then killed.” Kendra grabbed hold of Selma’s arm; her deep brown eyes had lost their usual jovial spark. They were dark with an anger Selma rarely saw. “Now they have Will. They’ll go after you next so you have to promise me. It’s life or death.”

 

Selma nodded and then swallowed slowly as Kendra loosened her hold on Selma’s arm. After a long moment, Kendra smiled and punched Selma, lightening up the mood. Selma laughed but frowned worriedly when Kendra turned her back, she was headed to the door.

“Will’s fine. I know it.” Selma frowned and stood up suddenly. “Kendra. Stop, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Hmm?” Kendra, looked back over her shoulder. Then noticing something about Selma she turned all the way around. “What is it?”

 

“It might not be the Centre, or Blackfly.” Suddenly Selma could look Kendra in the eye. She began rub her arms nervously.

“So, what is it you want to tell me.”

“It’s about the first time.” Selma paused and then looked Kendra in the eye. “The first time I went into the coma and,” Selma paused pressing her hand to her stomach, “About what I saw.”

 

“What did you see.” Kendra whispered, and as usual Selma saw the glimmer of fear in her eyes. Kendra never hid her fear from Selma, they were both afraid of what she saw only Kendra had the choice to walk away, a choice she never made.

 Kendra dropped her bag and stepped forward. “What was your vision?”

 

 Selma shook her head and gestured for Kendra to sit down. Kendra titled her head letting her some of her braided hair dip into her breast pocket before taking a seat beside Selma.

After a long pause Selma took a breath and began.

“I can tell when they’re coming.”

“Your visions?”

Selma nodded.

“There are signs: a sound, a light, a tiredness and most importantly, a feeling. I can feel the coma coming like a big slow wave crashing in on me. Pulling me out and into a sleep as deep as the sea. I can feel it in my bones, on my skin, in my hair and in my lungs, days before it happens, getting stronger and closer to pulling me under. ” Selma breathed again and smirked.

“I can feel it now.”

 

“Are you okay?” Kendra asked moving closer to Selma, “But you haven’t told the Centre. I thought you told them everything.” To Selma’s ears Kendra sounded impressed.

 

“The visions, they come when they come.”  Selma shrugged “I only need the Centre to take care of me when I go into a coma.”

 

“You don’t trust them?” Kendra said her face was breaking into a dark grin, she already knew the answer but she wanted to hear it out loud.

 

Selma frowned, it was true she didn’t trust the Centre but she was sure they were the good guys; at least that’s what she kept telling herself.

“I don’t know.” She answered at last.

 

“I know a lot of things about the Centre from my visions and from breaking into the nurse station and records room at night.” Selma pulled her knees to her chest. “You know to see what room Will was in and if he was okay. The people who disappeared, their patient numbers are on a list. I found it a hundred times and it got longer and longer. But it always had the numbers, I didn’t know what it was until you started putting all that research together and I saw their numbers. But, before you say anything Kendra, remember they could just be a record transfers into another health center or the hospital.” Kendra frowned at Selma but swallowed her reply. “Go on.” She said.    

“So I was thinking that the people on the list were like me and Will, you know with powers except they couldn’t control what they were doing. On my first week at the Centre Jenny told me of the floor under the Center’s basement. There were these rooms that are supposed to be used for violent psych patients but they’re like forty rooms down there.”

 

“You think that’s where they all went, into this second basement?” Kendra stood up pulling out a pen and her notepad from her back pockets.

“I know, it’s where they went.”

“How, you didn’t go down there, did you?” Kendra dropped her pen and grabbed Selma’s arm, “You did.”

 “The list kept getting longer and longer and the people on it kept on disappearing. I had to see for my self.”

“What is wrong with you Selma, Blackfly could own that floor. You could have disappeared, you should have told me before you went and risked yourself.”

“Kendra, Will’s number was on the list.” Selma stared at the floor.

“Oh no. Is he alright?” Kendra whispered.

“He was there in body.” Selma took a deep breath. “I think they transferred him cause his mind is gone. Like forever.”

 

Kendra and Selma shared a moment of silence, Will like Selma had a power�"he could feel and predict other people’s emotions before they felt it themselves. He knew things in the way people stood, moved and spoke, he knew what people were going to do before they did it. He was never wrong.

The downside was he processed more then his mind could cope with, so it would shut down blocking almost everything out for hours at a time.

 He could sit in his room for days eating when he was fed, sleeping when the lights went out and going to the bathroom when he was led there but he wasn’t really there with you. He couldn’t be.

 

There were moments when he’d come back and he’d be himself. But those moments became shorter and shorter. The last time Selma had spoken to him he was gone within the hour.

 

“I don’t get it. I’ve been trying to find out what happened to these people and you knew the whole time?”

 

“Not the whole time, I only figured it out two weeks ago. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.” Selma paused and pulled her arms tight around her legs. “People don’t last very long in the basement.”

 

“You mean the Center transfers people with powers into the basement making it look like another hospital and then they mysteriously die? I figured as much.” Kendra

 

“They don’t die, they vanish into thin air.” Selma said with a frown.

 

“Ok, Selma I can take your freaky visions, I can take Will’s creepy way of talking and I can take the fact that Blackfly is trying to use people but I pretty sure magically disappearing people isn’t going to cut it. It’ll be hard enough to get the public to believe in people like you and Will let aloe some secret organization’s after you so we can pretend you didn’t suggest that, okay.” Kendra closed her notepad shaking her head. 

 

“That’s why I wanted to tell you about the first time.”

 

“What does that have to do with the missing people?”

 

“A lot. Do you remember the first time?

 

“Yeah, I was playing with your cousin, Ashley in the yard when you fainted, and then you wouldn’t wake up, even when I pinched you and pulled your hair. You know that still freaks me out. The ambulance came and everyone was really scared. Your aunt was trying to call your mom but she did hear from her for days, and the whole time you wouldn’t wake up.”

 

“What about when I woke up?”

 

“They wouldn’t let you leave the hospital. So, I asked you aunt if you were dying, and she brought me to visit you.” Kendra paused, she looked far away, “You looked pale and tired, but otherwise perfectly alright except...” Kendra trailed off looking at Selma.

 

“Except I was terrified, I kept trying to run away from a monster.”

 

“Yeah but you were probably scared of falling asleep and never waking up.”

 

Selma smiled ironically, “No there really was a monster. Two weeks before I fell asleep I started getting this weird feeling, the one that tells me my coma’s coming, but then I didn’t know what it meant. Every day it would get stronger and then I started seeing weird lights, sounds, smells, you know how I am before I go into the coma. I’ve told you this part before.”

Kendra nodded, and Selma exhaled. “Well here’s the thing, it’s not all I see. Do you remember Beth’s sleepover?” Kendra frowned but then nodded after a moment. “Good, cause I’ll never forget it. We all swore we’d stay up all night but then Rana fell asleep first.”

 

“I remember you got angry and woke her up for breaking her promise. Then this big fight happened and Beth said Rana could sleep if she wanted to, and you go mad at Beth.”

 

“I woke her up because I started to see something really freaky, but no else could see it.”

 

Kendra sat up she leaned forward, her heart was beating hard. “What did you see?”

  

“I saw a monster float into the room. It floated over every one by one like it was trying to decide which one of us to eat.”

 

“What?” Kendra screeched nearly falling over.

Selma waited for Kendra to sit up before she continued. “Then it kept going to Rana and then it put its face on hers like a kiss. When it pulled back it was sucking something out of her, I thought it was eating her soul or something, but I was the only one who could see it.”

“ My God, Girl! You must of thought you were crazy.”

“I did, sometimes I still think I am.”

Kendra shook her hair hard enough that her braids slapped her nose.

“You, me and Ashley were the only ones to last past midnight, so I saw this thing go one by one to each person and then they fell asleep. Then it kept going to Ashely but I wouldn’t let her fall asleep.”

 

“Ashely and I fell asleep some time after two, what time did you…”

 

“I didn’t go to sleep. The monster kept me up all night.”

“What was it?”

“I’m not sure, but I see it every time some falls asleep a week before my coma takes me, and when uncle Vaughn got sick, it never went away, until he died.””

 

“I don’t get it, is it a reaper? Or something else?”

“I think I do, do you know what my mom used to call sleep? She called it half death. She used to tell me, the few times she was around, that falling asleep was half way to dieting.”

“That’s horrible.”

“My mom for you.” Selma sighed. “The point is that when I had my visions I saw it in one of them reaper-monsters. Okay wait, Kendra you have make a promise before I say anymore.”

“Okay.”

“You can’t tell Ashely or Mikael.”

“Why?”

“I had a vision about their daughter.”

“What! Ashely and Mikael as a couple?”

 

“Yeah, how do you think I felt when I found out they got�"I mean will get married, I was ten.” Selma laughs but quickly becomes serious again. “Chya, that’s her name is standing on the back of a speeding red pickup. Anyway there she is holding on to this Asian kid and there’s a boy, his brother or cousin maybe, fixing what looks like a gun except it orange�"like a large flare gun. The boy’s in a panic and he turns to Chya ‘Where is it. How much time do we have before it attacks?’

Then Chya groans and yells, ‘I don’t know, two minutes tops. Whatever it is it knocked down the guy with the bird mask.’

‘Is he okay?’ The little boy says trying to stand up. ‘Jay? Are you alright?’ he shouts.

‘Nate, Jay’s a bad guy, remember?’ Rick growls still tinkering with his gun.

‘He helped me.’

‘But now he’s attacking us. Don’t worry about him.’

Chya has this look, the same look Ashely gets when something bad is about to happen and then she says ‘S**t, his name’s Jay? And we’re on a red pick-up.’

‘He’s not bad.’ The little boy named Nate whines.

 Chya turns to the boy and says ‘Sorry, Rick. My mom’s cousin told me this was going to happen.’

‘You mean Selma? What did she tell you?”

“Goodbye Rick. It’s been fun.’

“What are you�"Watch out’ Rick’s starts screaming, and he picks up his gun but it’s too late.”

 

“Why, what happens?” Kendra asks frowning.

 

“The reaper monster appears in front of the pick-up. The car swerves to avoid it and ends up half a block away. The thing moves really fast and grabs the little boy and pulls him into this black hole, it’s how he suddenly appeared in front of the truck he came out of. Chya jumps off the truck and sprints after them faster then anyone I’ve ever seen and then she dives in after them. I mean she starts running normally but then she literally turns into a blur. Rick goes after then but the hole disappears before he can reach it. Then it’s just Rick standing alone on the road until the driver gets out of the car. That’s all I saw.”

 

 “People disappearing into thin air.” Kendra said nodding her head, she didn’t doubt Selma not even for a second. “Who’s the little boy, or Rick, or Jay for that matter? Can we warn them?”

“I don’t know but this doesn’t happen for another dozen years or so. None of them are born yet.”

“Selma the thing you saw what is it, what does it look like?”

“There are more then one, they’re people, except they don’t have any hair or ears. Oh, and this is weird but they kind of look like Sam in French class, the one with the weird glasses.  I don’t think I supposed to be able to see them. I think they’ve been helping people fall asleep for a very long time, but when people started getting these powers they started to take them.”

“Are you telling me that every time I fall asleep a bald guy without any ears kisses me. Damn girl, that’s creepy.”

“Try not to think about it, after I saw one of them I couldn’t sleep without Centre sedatives for months.”

“I remember.” Kendra’s eyes were far away again. “It was when they transferred you to the Centre that Cathy died.”

“You never told me how you knew Blackfly was responsible. How do you even know the name?” Selma unwrapped her arms from her knees and leaned forward.

“When you got transferred to the Centre you told Will that he should get checked out there too, you know for when he zoned out.”

“He didn’t want to, he said something about a dark feeling.” Selma stiffened a yawn and then her eyes moved to something behind Kendra. Kendra glanced behind her but saw nothing, and frowned remembering what Selma had told her about the bald men with no ears.”

“I was really upset, really angry about Cathy. I thought the doctors killed her and I was worried about you. So I kept sneaking into the Centre to make sure you were alright.”

“If it weren’t for Jenny we’d have both been arrested for doing that, you know.”

“Hmp, Jenny Benny. The women’s too crazy, she should not be a nurse. I still don’t know why the Centre hired her and hasn’t fired her.”

“That’s the only reason you like her.” Selma smiled; Kendra hated hospitals and everyone who ran them and Jenny was the only exception.

“Okay,” Kendra said clapping, “If I don’t tell you now, I’ll never get around to it and you’ll be mad.”

Selma rose an eyebrow as one of the dream catchers above Kendra fell. Selma watched it fall. Kendra rolled her eyes and picked up the dream catcher. Kendra didn’t know it but behind her a

A bald, earless Sam look-a-like wearing a grey slacks was eyeing her.

“When you went into another coma I asked Will to tell me what you were feeling. He made a face and then went quite for a long time, he’d zoned out. Anyway, when he finally came through he had this really serious look on his face. He sat down on the floor, we were here in the Clubhouse and he crossed her arms. Then he said ‘It doesn’t look very good, she’s bored.”

“What? He said that” Selma laughed nervously, the reaper-monster was looking at her.

“Yup, you know how can be.” Kendra’s smile was hollow, “Then I asked him if he would find out about Cathy. He told me he already tried. He’d already did his thing with the hospital staff, and every time he tried to find out about Cathy he felt fear. A kind of fear that made him sick so then I snuck into the hospital, it’s easier then the Centre and I found my sister’s file stamped with and signed off to a group called Blackfly.”

“Wow.” Selma whispered, she was still looking at the reaper.

“So I went to Will and asked him to try again with a group called Blackfly.” Kendra cleared her throat, “He agreed and then zoned out, and this time when he came to he was screaming about evil people. He could see in the mind of a bunch of people who were very wrong, and then he said that Cathy was killed and started crying.”

 

“Will was crying.” Selma was shocked, she hadn’t seen Will cry, ever, not even when he was a kid.”

 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t say anything. He asked me not to, he said that there someone at the Centre who knew what was going on.”

 

“Who?”

“He still won’t tell me, I think he let the Centre take him on purpose. Selma, I have find out about Blackfly and about the Centre, you know I have to.”

“I know, but can’t you stay at home or at least here in the clubhouse?”

 

“No, it’s not safe.” Kendra leaned forward to give Selma a hug, “Promise me you’ll be careful not just with that bald guy thing flying around but with the Centre. There’s something evil there.”

 

The Center couldn’t be evil. Not when she was the one who convinced Will to go to the Center all those years ago. When he said nothing could ever convince him to stay there. Selma closed her eyes remembering, her begging. It had taken her three years of begging, but he’d never budge.

 

“Will! It’s dangerous for you. You zoned-out yesterday in the middle of the road.”

“I’m fine. I don’t want to go to the Centre, the place creeps me out. I can feel everyone being sick at the same time and worse I feel people dying.”

“I know, it sucks.” Selma had looked at the ground she was beyond worried, she needed Will to safe, ‘Not just safe but close.’ The thought caught her by surprise and made her blush.

“Look, Will,” She began but Will was gone, zoned-out. Selma sighed and led Will gently to a bench and sat beside him. She watched him carefully and frowned. There was a leaf stuck in his hair, Selma bushed it away. Then looked around she touched his soft blond hair. Suddenly, Will grabbed her hand and Selma stood up quickly.

“Are you okay? What did you see? Who were you this time?” Selma asked nervously, she was still blushing.

“I was you.” Will was smiling and Selma crossed her arms.

“Oh. That’s awkward.”

“But you already know we end up together don’t you.” His smile was growing bigger by the second.

“I-uhm.” Will didn’t tell her finish the sentence, he interrupted her with a kiss.

“I’ll go.” He said at last, “I’ll go to the Centre.”

 

Selma opened her eye and breathed deeply. She couldn’t have put Will in danger. She couldn’t have let them give Will that God-awful scar.

 

 

“Well then, I’ll see you when I see you.” Kendra said. She was standing, her bag hung off one of her shoulders.

“You’re disappearing again?” Selma complained, watching Kendra overstuff what Selma recognized as her runaway bag. It was something they had in common, the urge to leave and never look back, that and the identical looking bag they used to do it with.

“You bet, I can’t do squat at home and this whole Center puzzle needs my whole attention. You know what my house is like.” Kendra’s voice sounded cheerful but the look on her face made Selma’s heart constrict.

“How long?” Selma said trying to sound casual.

“I have no idea but I wont be around, if I can help it.” She said scowling at Selma’s real question. Kendra knew Selma was really asking how long before she should call the cops.

“Be careful then.” Selma said awkwardly. She briefly wondered if two weeks was long enough for Kendra.

“Don’t worry about me, I always am. You’d just better not tell them about your visions.” She warned before walking to the door.

Selma stands up on the couch and ducks to avoid the dream-catchers she and her cousin had hung up years ago and finally closed the window.

She stayed standing leaning to her right trying to get a glimpse of what used to be Kendra’s house before she had run away, over a year ago.

 

Selma steps off the couch, clutching on to a stack of boxes to help her now unsteady legs to the floor. She’s getting worse by the minute; she was barely holding on to consciousness. Suddenly Selma didn’t care, all she could think about was Kendra’s legacy. Selma crouched down to touch the sticky residue on the side of the couch.

 

 

Kendra had suspected the Center’s good intentions from the very beginning; she always said there was something wrong about the Center but then again, Kendra didn’t trust doctors, not since she’d first heard the name Blackfly.

 

It had been two months when Selma’s promise was finally put to the test and she fell into a psychic coma. She awoke three weeks later screaming, ending her coma before its time.

Selma refused to say what she saw; only that Kendra was gone.

Whatever Selma saw haunted her every dream and every thought until she began to feel that her visions were threatening to pull her under again, threatening to give her the whole story.

Frightened, Selma had left the Center and went to where she could be alone to fight off the visions. Where she didn’t have to see her friends die.

 

When Selma walked into the clubhouse that night, her nurse had been waiting. Selma forced the old woman to stay the night, taking her car keys and cell phone from her. 

 

When Jenny finally fell asleep on the couch, Selma got up to get a blanket from the bin. It was only then she noticed the writing scrawled on a nearby box in red permanent marker.

 

It wasn’t written on just any box but the box full of things that the Center was looking for, things that were like Selma, special.

 

ICFD in the old whale

 

Selma pounded the dust out of the blanket, frowning. It was written in Kendra’s handwriting.

‘How long was that written there?’ Selma thought as she walked to the couch.

She squatted beside the couch, pausing to touch the sticky residue of where Kendra had once put a large whale sticker there before she began to look for the rip in the bottom of the couch.

 

The sticker had come off years ago but they still called the couch ‘the old whale’ because no one wanted to carry the heavy thing out of the clubhouse so it stayed but not before it earned its name and some battle scars from every attempt at moving it.

Selma found the tear and a letter tucked inside. She opened it and read it slowly and carefully. Halfway through the letter, her hand had begun to shake.

 

When she finished reading the letter, she calmly folded it up again, placing it back into the couch. She stayed crouched near the floor for a moment, wiping the tear running down her cheek.

 

Selma stood up and rushed out of the clubhouse, holding her stomach and clutching her mouth.

 

The fear was so strong then that it made her jump off the rotted porch. It pushed her through the minefield of junk she called a backyard. It compelled her to run down a path and urged her to climb a tree.

She spent the rest of the night sitting there, waiting for the lights to leave her eyes, waiting for the voices to be silent. She vowed not to have another vision as long she lived.

Selma shivered with fear, realizing that Kendra, who was the strongest and bravest person she knew, was likely already dead.

Each time her eyes had fluttered closed with sleep, she slipped further off the branch.

She slipped once, twice and then fell.

She climbed the tree again and sat there until she fell again; all night she kept herself awake that way and by morning, the light in her eyes and the voices in her mind were gone. She’d won against the alluring pull of sleep.

She made her way back when the sky was bright and her nurse was awake, sipping a can of iced tea on her aunt’s porch.

 

“Its over. It’ll be a long time before the lights comes back, I’m sure.” Selma had said tossing the car keys at the elderly woman. The old nurse caught the keys with one hand and raised a single white eyebrow.

“Does this mean I’m free to go now?” Nurse Jenny said sipping slowly. Jenny watched her carefully as she circled around the porch and staggered toward the Volkswagen.

 

 “Yes.” Selma said too tired to roll her eyes. “Okay look I’m sorry for stealing them, but if I let you go, you would’ve told them where I was.” Selma said opening the back door to Jenny’s car.

“And why would that be a bad thing?” Her nurse asked with a frown.

“Because they would drug me. When I fall asleep before the voices go away�"things�"happen. Like to Kendra and Doctor Ben.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Selma. You aren’t making these things happen; you’re just seeing them before they do.”

“How do you know that?” Selma snarled, slamming the car door shut, “You don’t know anything. I have a vision with Kendra in it, and now she’s gone�"and what about when I dreamed about Doctor Ben, he went missing too. I’m making them disappear; it’s all my fault. They’re probably dead.” Selma said with a cracked voice.

 

“Selma, I think you’re running away for a different reason. You know you’re not making them disappear. You’re afraid of what you’ll see when you fall asleep.”

‘Or of how my visions will be used when I fall asleep,’ Selma thought but she only shrugged her shoulders at Jenny before dropping into the back seat of the classic Volkswagen.

Jenny stepped into the driver’s seat, balancing her drink, her sunglasses and car keys in her hands. She sighed before she started her car, which began bellowing a calming Jazz tune.

 

“Jenny, do they hurt them? Does the Center hurt the people I dream about?” Selma asks quietly after watching her nurse back out of the driveway.

“If you really want to know, all you have to do is let the visions in. You haven’t let them in since Kendra disappeared. Is there something going on?” Jenny said watching Selma in the rear view mirror.

Selma looked out the window at the house she used to call home, she didn’t answer Jenny’s question. Onto the car window, she traced the letters ICFD and quietly, she whispered the meaning of the old code: In Case of a Friend’s Death.

“Don’t worry, I’m certain Kendra is alright.”  Jenny sighed, patting Selma’s leg.

As Jenny drove Selma back to the Center that morning, Selma fell asleep without strange visions getting in the way.

 

 

The sound of a dog barking makes Selma jump. She has trouble feeling the fear she had that summer night. Now as she smells the damp air full of pine trees and fallen leaves, Selma only feels sleepiness.

She knew the moment she closed her eyes, none of it would seem real. The room, the blankets, the strange tasting drink and the cold wind would be far away.

‘Maybe the dark was the only thing real and this was all a dream my mind made up to make me feel better,’ she thinks darkly.

Selma tries to stand up, fighting the apathy but the effort throws her body into a violent spasm. She turns to steady herself against the couch, gripping the leather as tight as she could.

 

Selma feels a frightening numbness hold her; it wasn’t the sleep aids she was used to. It was something much stronger finally taking effect. Selma crashes into the couch face first.

"Jenny, are you there? Help me! I know you’re here. You’re always here." Selma says rolling over, trying to pull her self up but no one answers her call. 

For the first time Selma could remember, her nurse was late.

 

Selma rolls up her sleeve and pinches her arm. The pain helps and Selma break the sleeping spell but she can hardly sit up.

She sits forward as her nails dig into the couch, trying to force her body to stay up.

“I’m awake. It shouldn’t be possible but I’m awake.” She whispers to herself.

Selma brushes back her hair with a shaking hand. She looks up when she hears the sound of gravel scattering outside and the familiar click of the latch on the clubhouse door.

 

“Jenny, where were you? I just had a close call.” Selma says, turning her head in time to see a flash of something shiny at the door and feels a pin prick in her thigh.

Glancing down, Selma finds a dart protruding from her leg.

“How?” Selma yells out in shock.

As Selma fights the sedative, her leg drops out from under her, knocking her off the couch. She topples over her soda and stumbles into the crate. Selma looks around for her assailant but she couldn’t make anything out as the visions become blindingly strong.

 

“P-puh please, don’t let me fall asleep. I don’t want to go back. I promise I’ll do anything just please.” Selma begs as she sinks to the ground, gripping the crate.

 

Jenny steps into the room, tossing the dart gun to the side.

Reaching over, she silently lifts Selma back onto the couch and smiles at the young woman as she yanks out the dart out of her leg.

Her long grey hair was beginning to fall out of the tight bun she had tied earlier in the day. There were dark circles around her deep brown eyes, ones Selma never noticed before.

Selma tries to reach out and touch Jenny’s suddenly unfamiliar face, trying to understand her actions.

 

The nurse gently pats Selma’s pale cold hand with her warm wrinkled ones, pressing it down to Selma’s side.

"It’s okay, Selma. I know what I’m doing. Just relax and focus on the ticking of the watch. That’ll help you find him when you get there. It’s going to be okay. I’ve taken care of everything. All you have to do is watch out for Mr. Smith. His people will come after you.” The rest of her words were unintelligible as Selma finally falls asleep.

 

Her body feels as though it was dissolving. It took all her strength to keep her eyes open long enough see a blurry figure step into the room.

“No, stop.” Selma whispers, jerking awake.

 

Selma blinks and finds that time itself has folded. She’s lying outside in the grass as a hooded figure crouches over her.

He grips the back of her shirt and loops his arms under her knees.

 

In a last ditch effort, Selma screams and hits at the figure as he lifts her up and places her into the back of a car. Nurse Jenny’s car, Selma realizes. There was something familiar about the figure but Selma was in no state to figure out what.

 

“Where did they take them, Jenny? What do they do to the people in my dreams? Why do they all disappear? You know, don’t you?” Selma babbles in her half-sleep as she fights the sedatives with a supernatural strength.

 

She could open her eyes again, but she could only see two blurry figures in the car seat in front of her. Selma’s eyes close and this time they weren’t going to open for a very long time. Nurse Jenny glances back from the driver’s seat to the slouching teenage passenger.

“Even if I told you, sweetheart, you wouldn’t want to believe me.” Jenny said as she watched her head lull back into the seat.

“Will she be alright? Should I do something more?” Asks the hooded figure as he shuts the passenger side door. His voice is strained with worry.

 

“I don’t know but she does have an incredibly strong constitution for sleep aids. I think she’ll be fine. Will, don’t stress yourself out. She’s fine.” Jenny says when she notices Will looking back at Selma. Will grunts, turns and continues to frown.

 

Jenny's smile fades away as she remembers that all this was Will idea.

Jenny didn’t blame him; he’d been in a place where the darkest of night terrors were born and bred for what must of seemed like an eternity. 

“We’ve done all we can from our end. It’s all for nothing if the Center figures it out before she uses her real powers.” Jenny says, driving onto the main road.

 

“I see. This is far enough. I’ll find my way from here, Jenny. When you take her back there, watch your back, they’ll want to know why you took so long bringing her in.” The young man said as the car came to a stop. He opened the door but didn’t exit.

Instead, he turned to face her.

“You have something to say.” He says suddenly tilting his head. “We both know what it is but you don’t want to offend me because of what they did to me. Don’t worry Jenny Benny, you can say anything to me.”

 

“Was it necessary to send her back? She isn’t ready. You can see it. I know you see she isn’t ready. This is your plan, Will, and you know what kind of betrayal this will be to her when she finds out.”

“There’s no more time. She needs to fall asleep for it to all work. You think I’m selfish, demanding and manipulative. That I’m using my doppelganger to do my dirty work so when the time comes and Selma finds out what happened, she couldn’t be angry with me. That she couldn’t stop loving me. Jenny, I’ve given up everything. In comparison, this is only a small request.”

 

“The sacrifices that have to be made, I understand them…”

“No you don’t…but you still think she should have the choice. The choice is out of our hands; the Center made sure of that. This is the only way for all of us to be free.” Will says, touching Jenny’s arm. His sleeve fell away, revealing an array of scars on the back of his hand. Jenny knew that they reached well past his shoulder. Will pulled down his hood, further covering his face.

“Jenny, you will have to fight your way out so remember the plan. You have to be prepared to risk everything. That’s the only way this is going to work.”

 

“I’m prepared.” Jenny said, trying not to stare at the scar. There was a long silence as the car was filled with cool night air.

 

“It’s about time I get back. Liam doesn’t like switching back no matter how long. He thinks I’ll go back on the deal, like I could make that choice.” He laughs bitterly. 

 

“Goodbye Jenny, and thank you.” Will steps out of the car. He waves and in a flash of light, Liam appears where Will had been standing.