# DON'T DREAM
## Chapter 5: The Monitor
---
I have a system for everything.
Color-coded notes for each subject. A medication schedule timed to the minute. A mental catalog of every possible thing that could go wrong in any given situation, with corresponding contingency plans for at least the top five scenarios.
Control is how I survive. When the world feels like it's spinning off its axis, when the anxiety claws at my chest and whispers that everything is falling apart, I count. I organize. I make lists.
Lists can't save you from nightmares that kill.
But God help me, I'm still making them.
My name is Mira Santos. I am seventeen years old, I have a 4.2 GPA, and I am currently experiencing what I can only describe as a sustained panic attack that has lasted approximately sixty-three hours.
The pills that usually keep me functional ran out yesterday.
The coping mechanisms I've built over years of therapy are crumbling under conditions they were never designed to handle.
And in approximately—I check my phone—forty-seven minutes, Ayla Vance is going to face something called the "Champion Trial," which the Noctis system has promised will be "specifically calibrated to the Champion's psychological profile."
Specifically calibrated.
They know her fears. They know all of our fears.
And they're going to use them.
---
**0713 HOURS - THE PREPARATION**
The cafeteria had become our command center by default—the one space large enough to hold everyone, with enough exits to feel marginally less like a trap. I'd set up a small station in the corner, surrounded by the documents we'd recovered, trying to find patterns in the data that might help us survive.
Patterns are my thing. When everything else fails, patterns remain.
"You need to eat something."
Jason's voice pulled me from my analysis. He stood over me with a protein bar—one of the dwindling supplies we'd managed to secure—his expression caught somewhere between concern and exhaustion.
"I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten in eighteen hours. Your blood sugar is crashing. That's why your hands are shaking."
I looked down at my hands. He was right—they were trembling, a fine vibration that I'd been too focused to notice.
"It's just anxiety," I said automatically.
"It's biochemistry. Anxiety is *making* it worse, but the root cause is that you're running your brain on empty." He pressed the protein bar into my hands. "Eat. Then analyze. In that order."
I wanted to argue—wanted to insist that I was fine, that I had everything under control, that the world wasn't actually collapsing around me despite all evidence to the contrary.
Instead, I ate the protein bar.
It tasted like cardboard and desperation, which was apparently the flavor profile of survival.
"Thank you," I said when I finished. "I didn't realize—"
"You never do. That's why you need people around you." Jason sat down across from me, his own exhaustion evident in the dark circles under his eyes. "We all need people around us right now."
"Is that your scientific assessment?"
"It's my human assessment." He attempted a smile. "I'm trying something new. Acknowledging that not everything can be explained by data and logic."
"That must be difficult for you."
"You have no idea." He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "How bad is it? The anxiety, I mean. Scale of one to ten."
I considered lying. Considered putting on the mask I'd worn for years—the competent, capable overachiever who had everything together.
But what was the point? We were trapped in a murder facility, surrounded by cameras that recorded our every word. If I was going to be honest, now seemed like the time.
"Eleven," I said. "Maybe twelve. I ran out of medication yesterday, and without it..." I spread my trembling hands. "This is what happens."
"What kind of medication?"
"The kind that keeps me from having complete breakdowns in public." I looked away. "I've been managing clinical anxiety since I was thirteen. Nobody knows—not my parents, not my teachers, not even my therapist has the full picture. I handle it. I've always handled it. But this..."
"This is beyond what you were designed to handle."
"This is beyond what anyone was designed to handle."
Jason was quiet for a moment, processing. Then: "I have a confession to make."
"A confession?"
"I've been lying. To everyone. To myself." He took a breath. "I started the podcast—*Debunked*—because I was terrified. Not curious, not skeptical. Terrified. My sister died when I was twelve. She was eight. And she believed—genuinely believed—in monsters. In supernatural things. In all the stuff I've spent years tearing apart."
"What happened to her?"
"Brain aneurysm. Completely random, completely natural, completely impossible to predict or prevent." His voice cracked slightly. "But the night she died, she called for me. She was scared. She thought the monsters were coming. And I told her—I told her to go back to sleep. That there was nothing to be afraid of."
"Jason..."
"She died alone, terrified, calling for someone who didn't come." He met my eyes. "So I built a worldview where monsters don't exist. Where everything has a rational explanation. Where the thing I told Lily was *true*, even if I didn't believe it when I said it."
"And now we're in a place where dreams kill," I said softly. "Where the impossible happens every day."
"Where everything I've believed is wrong." He laughed—a broken, bitter sound. "Turns out, there really are monsters in the dark. I just refused to see them."
We sat in silence for a moment, two broken people sharing their brokenness.
Then Kai's voice cut through the cafeteria:
"It's time."
---
**0800 HOURS - THE CHAMPION TRIAL**
The screens activated with their usual clinical precision.
"*Attention, subjects. The first Champion Trial will commence in five minutes. Champions are required to report to the circular chamber.*"
Ayla was already standing, her face composed, her posture steady. If she was afraid—and she had to be afraid, everyone was afraid—she didn't show it.
"I'll be fine," she said to Kai, who looked like he wanted to chain her to a chair rather than let her walk into whatever trap Vanessa had prepared.
"You don't know that."
"I've survived this place before. I'll survive it again."
"You don't *remember* surviving it. You remember fragments. What if the fragments are wrong?"
"Then I improvise." She touched his face briefly—an unexpectedly tender gesture. "Keep everyone safe while I'm gone. That's your job."
"My job is making sure you come back."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive." She smiled—a small, sad expression. "I'll see you soon."
She walked toward the corridor that led to the circular chamber, and something in my chest clenched watching her go.
"*Champion from Team Alpha: Tyler Morrison. Please report to the circular chamber.*"
Wait. Tyler was their Champion?
I exchanged glances with Jason. Tyler had been broken by the gas attack—we'd all seen him afterward, shaking and incoherent, barely holding himself together. Why would his team send him into the trial?
"They didn't have a choice," Connor said, reading our confusion. "After the elimination, Tyler's faction only had nine people left. He's the only one with any leadership experience, any psychological resilience. The others are—"
"Sheep," Kai finished. "They followed him because he was confident, not because they believed in him. Now that his confidence is shattered, they're pushing him forward as a sacrifice."
"That's brutal."
"That's survival." Kai's expression was grim. "And it's exactly what Vanessa wanted. The trials aren't just about testing Champions—they're about destroying leadership, creating chaos, making us tear each other apart."
The screens displayed a countdown: four minutes until the trial began.
I found myself doing what I always do in crisis: making lists.
*Things we know about the Champion Trial:*
*1. It's specifically calibrated to the Champion's psychological profile*
*2. It takes place in the circular chamber*
*3. Both Champions participate simultaneously*
*4. Results determine resource allocation for teams*
*Things we don't know:*
*1. What form the trial takes*
*2. How victory is determined*
*3. What happens to the loser*
*4. Whether either Champion can actually die*
The last item was the one that kept circling in my mind. The system had said that Champions who "failed" would be "immediately eliminated." But what did failure look like? What did elimination mean?
"I need to see," I said suddenly.
Kai looked at me. "See what?"
"The trial. Whatever happens in that chamber—we need to witness it. Understand it. Document it for future Champions."
"The surveillance system will be watching. Vanessa will be watching."
"Let them." I was already gathering my notes. "We're allowed to observe, aren't we? The announcement didn't say we couldn't."
"It didn't say we could, either."
"Then we find out." I started toward the corridor. "Are you coming?"
---
**0805 HOURS - THE CIRCULAR CHAMBER**
The doors to the chamber were open—the first time they'd been open since the initial gas attack. Beyond them, the room looked exactly as we'd left it: chairs in concentric circles, console blinking at the far end, the faint smell of ozone and antiseptic.
Derek Holston's body had been removed at some point. I tried not to think about where they'd taken it.
Ayla stood on one side of the room. Tyler stood on the other.
They couldn't have looked more different. Ayla was calm, centered, her eyes tracking the space with the methodical attention of someone cataloging potential threats. Tyler was a wreck—pale, sweating, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides like he was fighting off invisible attackers.
"*Champions, take your positions.*"
Two of the reclining chairs lit up—not the ones with the nightmare helmets, but simpler seats positioned facing each other across the room's center.
"*The First Champion Trial is designed to test mental resilience under psychological pressure. Champions will be subjected to controlled dream-state induction. The Champion who maintains consciousness longest will be declared the victor.*"
Dream-state induction. They were going to force them to sleep.
"*Additional parameters: Champions will experience simulated environments based on their deepest fears. The simulation will intensify until one Champion succumbs to sleep paralysis and enters REM. That Champion will be considered the loser.*"
"*Failure to survive REM sleep will result in elimination.*"
"That's not a trial," Jason said beside me. "That's an execution."
"It's a test." Vanessa's voice came from speakers we couldn't see. "A test of which Champion has the stronger will to survive. Ayla has demonstrated remarkable resistance to sleep induction. Let's see how she handles targeted psychological assault."
"You're going to kill them."
"I'm going to collect data." Vanessa's voice was coldly professional. "What happens to the subjects is a function of their own psychological limitations. If they die, it's because they weren't strong enough to survive."
The chairs hummed to life. Straps emerged from the armrests, securing the Champions in place.
"*Trial commencing in thirty seconds.*"
Ayla caught my eye across the room. Her expression was steady, focused—but I saw something beneath the calm. Fear. Real fear.
She was about to face her worst nightmare.
And there was nothing any of us could do to help.
---
**0807 HOURS - THE SIMULATION**
The chamber transformed.
Not physically—the walls didn't move, the chairs didn't change—but the *atmosphere* shifted. The lights dimmed. A low hum built in the air, vibrating through my bones. The smell of ozone intensified until it burned my nostrils.
On their chairs, Ayla and Tyler had gone rigid.
Their eyes were open, but they weren't seeing the room anymore. They were seeing... something else. Something that only existed in their minds, broadcast by whatever technology powered the Noctis nightmare engine.
"*Simulation active. Fear response calibration: Phase One.*"
Tyler screamed first.
It was a horrible sound—raw, animal, completely divorced from the confident bully I'd known at school. His body thrashed against the restraints, his face contorted in an expression of absolute terror.
"*Tyler Morrison: Fear profile—failure, inadequacy, public humiliation. Simulation calibrating...*"
I couldn't see what Tyler was experiencing, but I could imagine it. Everything he'd built his identity on—the confidence, the control, the certainty of his own superiority—stripped away layer by layer. Every secret fear of being exposed as a fraud, of being laughed at, of being *nothing*—made real.
"*Tyler Morrison: Vital signs elevated. Sleep pressure increasing. Phase Two initiated.*"
Ayla was silent.
Her body was tense, her hands gripping the armrests with white-knuckled intensity, but she wasn't screaming. Wasn't thrashing. Whatever she was seeing, she was facing it with the same terrible stillness that had defined her since we arrived.
"*Ayla Vance: Fear profile—fragmented. Accessing archived memory patterns...*"
Archived memory patterns. They were using her own forgotten past against her.
"*Ayla Vance: Memory integration accelerating. Fear response calibrating to early-childhood trauma markers.*"
She gasped—a sharp intake of breath that spoke of sudden, overwhelming recognition.
"They're making her remember," I said. "Everything she forgot. All at once."
"That could kill her." Jason's voice was strained. "The human mind isn't designed to process that much repressed trauma simultaneously. It's like ripping open a wound that never healed."
"*Tyler Morrison: REM threshold approaching. Countdown initiated—sixty seconds.*"
Tyler's screaming had shifted to whimpering—a broken, desperate sound that made me want to look away. His eyes rolled, his body shuddered, and I could see him losing the fight against unconsciousness.
"*Ayla Vance: Memory integration at seventy percent. Fear response—anomalous. Subject is not resisting. Subject is... integrating.*"
Integrating. What did that mean?
Ayla's expression was changing. The tension was still there, but beneath it, something else was emerging. Understanding. Recognition.
She was remembering.
"*Tyler Morrison: REM threshold reached. Sleep paralysis initiating.*"
Tyler's body went limp. His eyes closed. His breathing deepened.
He was asleep.
"*Tyler Morrison has entered REM sleep. Ayla Vance is declared the victor of Champion Trial One.*"
But the simulation wasn't stopping. Tyler's body was still strapped to the chair, still locked in whatever nightmare his mind had conjured.
And I could see the nightmare beginning to manifest.
---
**0815 HOURS - THE MANIFESTATION**
It started with his skin.
Blisters appeared across Tyler's face—small at first, then larger, spreading like wildfire across his exposed flesh. His body convulsed, his mouth opening in a silent scream as the burns intensified.
"What's happening to him?" someone behind me asked.
"His nightmare," I said, horror making my voice thin. "He's dreaming about burning. About being exposed. About—"
"Public humiliation," Jason finished. "The burns aren't literal fire—they're shame. The physical manifestation of feeling like everyone's eyes are burning into you."
Tyler's clothes began to smolder. Not from any external heat source—the temperature in the room hadn't changed—but from the inside out. His deepest fear of being seen, being judged, being *exposed*, was literally cooking him alive.
"*Tyler Morrison: Nightmare manifestation in progress. Estimated time to termination—four minutes.*"
"We have to stop this." I moved toward the console, but Kai's hand on my arm held me back.
"We can't. The same thing happened to Jason when he tried to disable the system. Interference will trigger a lockdown, and everyone suffers."
"So we just watch him die?"
"We watch him die, and we learn." Kai's voice was hard. "We learn what the system does, how it works, what its limitations are. We learn so that next time—"
"Next time what? Next time we let someone else burn?"
A sound from across the room cut off my argument.
Ayla had opened her eyes.
Not the glazed, unseeing eyes of someone still trapped in simulation—*real* eyes, focused and aware. She was looking at Tyler's burning body with an expression of absolute concentration.
"*Ayla Vance: Simulation parameters exceeded. Subject has achieved full memory integration. Subject is—*"
The system's voice cut off.
Ayla raised her hand toward Tyler.
And the burning stopped.
---
**0820 HOURS - THE IMPOSSIBILITY**
I don't know how to describe what happened next.
Tyler's blisters receded. The smoldering in his clothes died. The convulsions ceased, replaced by the steady breathing of normal sleep.
He was still unconscious—still trapped in REM—but the nightmare wasn't killing him anymore.
"*System error. Dream manifestation protocols interrupted. Analyzing—*"
"She's controlling it," Jason breathed. "She's controlling his nightmare."
It shouldn't have been possible. The documents we'd found said nothing about subjects being able to influence each other's dreams, let alone halt manifestation mid-process.
But Ayla was doing it anyway.
"*Analysis complete. Subject Ayla Vance has accessed direct dream manipulation capabilities. This is consistent with Cohort 8 integration protocols. Flagging for Committee review.*"
Ayla's hand dropped. The effort had cost her—I could see it in the tremor that ran through her body, the pallor of her skin, the way she slumped in her restraints.
"*Champion Trial One concluded. Victor: Ayla Vance. Resources allocated to Team Beta. Tyler Morrison—status: unconscious, REM active, manifestation suspended.*"
"Suspended," Kai repeated. "Not stopped. Just... suspended."
"Because I can't hold it forever." Ayla's voice was weak, exhausted. "I remember how to do it—it was part of my training, years ago—but it takes everything I have. As soon as I let go—"
"The nightmare comes back."
"The nightmare kills him." She looked at Tyler's unconscious form. "I bought him time. That's all I can do."
The restraints released. Ayla tried to stand and immediately collapsed—caught at the last moment by Kai, who'd crossed the room faster than I would have thought possible.
"I've got you," he said. "I've got you."
"I remember," she whispered. "I remember everything now. The machine. The other subjects. What they want to make us into." Her eyes found mine. "Mira—you were right. There are patterns. Everything connects. We just have to—"
Her eyes rolled back.
For the first time in days—for the first time since this nightmare began—Ayla Vance was unconscious.
And somewhere in the depths of Noctis, alarms began to scream.
---
**0900 HOURS - THE AFTERMATH**
We carried Ayla back to the cafeteria in a procession that felt like a funeral march.
She was breathing. Her pulse was steady. But she wouldn't wake up—wouldn't respond to voices or touches or the increasingly desperate shaking that Kai subjected her to.
"She's not dead," Connor said, checking her vitals for the fifth time. "She's just... deep. Really deep. Like the deepest sleep possible."
"REM?" I asked.
"No. If she were in REM, her eyes would be moving. This is something else. Stage Four, maybe, or even deeper. Like a coma, but not quite."
"The memory integration," Jason said. "She processed decades of repressed trauma in less than ten minutes. Her brain is probably doing emergency maintenance—consolidating everything, trying to make sense of what it now knows."
"Will she wake up?"
"I don't know." Jason's honesty was brutal but necessary. "Nobody's ever done what she just did. There's no precedent, no data, no way to predict what happens next."
Kai hadn't spoken since we left the circular chamber. He sat beside Ayla's unconscious form, holding her hand, his expression a mask that concealed depths of emotion I could only imagine.
"She said she remembered everything," I said. "Right before she collapsed. The machine, the other subjects, what they want to make us into."
"Then we need her to wake up." Kai's voice was flat. "She's the only one who knows how to stop this."
"We can't force her awake. Her brain needs time to—"
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME!" The explosion was so sudden, so violent, that I stumbled backward. Kai was on his feet, his hands shaking, his composure shattered. "The next trial is in twelve hours! The next elimination is in twenty-four! And our only hope of understanding what we're fighting is lying there, unconscious, while the clock runs out!"
"Kai—"
"Don't tell me to calm down. Don't tell me everything's going to be fine. *Nothing* is fine. *Nothing* has been fine since we set foot in this cursed place." He was pacing now, running his hands through his hair, his words tumbling out in a flood of suppressed terror. "I'm supposed to be the leader. I'm supposed to have answers. But I don't have *anything* except a bunch of scared teenagers looking to me for hope I can't give!"
"Then maybe you're not the right leader."
The voice came from the cafeteria entrance. Tyler Morrison stood there, supported by two of his remaining followers, his body covered in half-healed burns that shouldn't have been possible to survive.
He should have been dead. He should have been catatonic at minimum.
Instead, he was conscious, coherent, and looking at Kai with an expression of pure, concentrated hatred.
"Tyler." Kai's voice dropped to dangerous calm. "You should be in medical isolation."
"I was. Then I woke up. And I heard your little breakdown." Tyler stepped forward, shrugging off his supporters. "The great Kai Chen, admitting he doesn't know what he's doing. Admitting he's been lying to everyone. Isn't that what you accused me of? Being a fraud?"
"I never said I had all the answers."
"No, you just acted like it. Took control. Gave orders. Made everyone believe you were different from me." Tyler's smile was terrible—the expression of someone who'd stared into the abyss and come back changed. "But you're not different. You're exactly the same. The only difference is, when *I* fail, at least I own it."
"You didn't fail. Ayla—"
"Saved my life. Yes, I know. I was conscious for that part. Felt her reaching into my nightmare, pulling me back from the edge." Tyler's voice twisted. "Do you have any idea what that's like? Having someone else inside your head, seeing your worst fears, *controlling* them? It's violation on a level you can't imagine."
"She was trying to help you!"
"She was demonstrating power." Tyler took another step. "And power is what matters in this place. Not morality. Not leadership. *Power*. Whoever controls the nightmares controls everything."
"That's insane."
"Is it? Look around, Kai. Look at this place. The people who built it understood one thing: fear is the only currency that matters. They've spent sixty years perfecting the art of weaponizing terror. And your girlfriend—" he gestured toward Ayla's unconscious form "—is apparently their greatest success story."
"She's not a weapon."
"She's exactly a weapon. That's what they made her. That's what she'll always be." Tyler's burns seemed to pulse with his words. "The only question is: whose weapon is she? Ours? Theirs? Or her own?"
I saw Kai's hands curl into fists. Saw the rage building in his posture, the violence barely contained. This was about to become physical—about to explode into exactly the kind of chaos that Vanessa wanted.
"Stop." My voice surprised me with its steadiness. "Both of you. Stop."
They turned toward me—Tyler with contempt, Kai with frustration.
"While you two measure whose trauma is bigger," I continued, "the rest of us are trying to survive. Ayla gave us time. She showed us that the system can be fought, can be interrupted, can be *beaten*. Instead of fighting each other, maybe we should be figuring out how to use what she taught us."
"And what did she teach us, exactly?" Tyler asked.
"That the dreams can be controlled. That someone with the right training, the right mental architecture, can reach into the nightmare and change it." I stepped forward, placing myself between them. "We don't need to be enemies. We need to be students. We need to learn what Ayla learned—how to fight back from the inside."
"You think any of us can do what she did?"
"I think we won't know until we try." I looked at Kai. "She said she remembered everything. When she wakes up—and she *will* wake up—she can teach us. Show us. Give us the tools to fight."
"If she wakes up," Tyler said.
"She will." Kai's voice had regained some of its steadiness. "She's stronger than any of us. She's survived this place twice already. She'll survive it again."
The tension in the room didn't dissolve, exactly—it shifted, transformed into something more manageable. Two leaders who hated each other, held in check by the greater enemy surrounding them.
It wasn't peace. But it was enough.
For now.
---
**1200 HOURS - THE ESPIONAGE**
Kai's past caught up with him three hours later.
I wasn't present for the discovery—I was in the corner of the cafeteria, organizing documents and monitoring Ayla's unconscious form—but I heard the confrontation clearly enough.
"Where did you get this?"
Kai's voice, sharp with alarm.
"Found it in your bag. The one you left by the supply cache." Connor's voice, flat and cold. "We were looking for extra rations. Found this instead."
I moved closer, curiosity overriding caution. A small crowd had gathered around Kai and Connor, their expressions ranging from confused to accusatory.
In Connor's hand was a notebook.
I recognized it immediately—the same notebook that Ayla had mentioned in passing, the one Kai carried everywhere but never opened in front of anyone. His private journal. His secrets.
"That's personal property," Kai said. "You had no right—"
"Personal property stopped mattering when people started dying." Connor opened the notebook, reading aloud. "'*How long would it take for the body to forget how to fight? At what height does the fall become unsurvivable? If the water is cold enough, would hypothermia set in before drowning?*'"
The words hung in the air like poison.
"You've been planning how to kill yourself," Connor continued. "For years, apparently. Pages and pages of it. Methods, calculations, timing." He looked up at Kai. "Is this who we've been following? Someone who's been looking for a way out since before any of this started?"
"That's not—it's complicated—"
"It looks pretty simple to me." Tyler had drifted closer, his burns still visible, his expression triumphant. "Our fearless leader has a death wish. No wonder he's so good at putting himself in danger. No wonder he volunteers for every risky mission. He's not brave—he's suicidal."
"Shut up, Tyler."
"Make me." Tyler stepped forward. "You think these people deserve to be led by someone who's been fantasizing about jumping off buildings? Someone whose first instinct in crisis is probably to let the nightmare take him?"
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know what I read. And I know that if *I* had a notebook full of suicide calculations, you'd be using it against me right now." Tyler turned to the crowd. "Is this the person you want making decisions? Someone who doesn't even want to live?"
I watched Kai's face—saw the masks crumbling, the defenses failing. Everything he'd hidden, everything he'd carried in private, was suddenly public.
And I understood, with terrible clarity, that this was exactly what Vanessa wanted.
Not just fear of death—fear of *exposure*. The surveillance systems weren't just watching for escape attempts or conspiracy. They were harvesting weaknesses, vulnerabilities, ammunition for exactly this kind of psychological warfare.
Someone had told Tyler about the notebook. Someone had made sure it was "discovered" at exactly the right moment.
We were being played.
"Kai's past doesn't matter," I said, stepping into the circle. "What matters is what he does now. And what he's done since we arrived is keep people alive. He's led challenges. He's developed strategies. He's made hard decisions when the rest of us were too scared to think."
"And he's been lying the whole time," Tyler shot back. "Pretending to be something he's not."
"Everyone pretends. You certainly did." I met his eyes. "You pretended to be confident when you were terrified. Pretended to be in control when you were falling apart. Pretended to be a leader when all you really wanted was power."
Tyler's expression darkened. "Careful, Santos."
"Or what? You'll expose my secrets too? Go ahead. I have clinical anxiety. I've been medicating in secret for years. My perfect GPA is built on a foundation of pharmaceutical intervention and crippling fear of failure." I spread my hands. "There. Now everyone knows. Does that make me less capable of analysis? Less able to contribute? Or does it just make me human?"
The crowd was shifting, uncertain. They'd expected drama, accusation, the satisfaction of watching leaders tear each other down. Instead, they were getting uncomfortable honesty.
"We all have damage," I continued. "Every single person in this room is carrying something they don't want anyone to see. That's the point of this place—to find those vulnerabilities and weaponize them. The question is: are we going to let them divide us? Or are we going to accept that we're all broken, and focus on getting out alive?"
Silence stretched.
Then Kai spoke, his voice quiet but steady:
"Mira's right. I've thought about dying. More than I want to admit. But I've also thought about living—about making sure other people get to live. And right now, that's what matters." He looked at Tyler. "You can use my past against me. You can tell everyone I'm damaged, dangerous, unfit to lead. But then ask yourself: who's going to take my place? You? After what happened in the trial? After we all watched you almost burn to death from the inside out?"
Tyler's jaw tightened.
"We're all damaged," Kai repeated. "All of us. The only difference is who's willing to use that damage for something more than self-destruction."
He walked away.
After a moment, so did I.
---
**1500 HOURS - THE DEATHS**
The screaming started at three in the afternoon.
Not the screaming of nightmares—we'd learned to recognize that particular sound, raw and involuntary and usually cut short by the dreamer's awakening or death. This was different.
This was the screaming of someone who was awake, aware, and terrified beyond reason.
We found her in the western corridor.
Her name was Jennifer Walsh—a quiet girl who'd been one of Tyler's followers before the schism, and who'd drifted into our faction during the chaos. She was seventeen, she played viola in the school orchestra, and she was currently pressed against the wall, screaming at something none of us could see.
"Jenny!" Connor was the first to reach her. "Jenny, what's wrong? What happened?"
Her screams dissolved into words—fragmented, hysterical, barely coherent:
"They're in the walls—they're everywhere—I can see them now—they never stopped watching—they're going to take us apart piece by piece—"
"Who? Who's in the walls?"
She pointed at the junction between wall and ceiling.
At first, I saw nothing. Then I adjusted my vision, looking for what Jennifer was seeing, and—
Oh, God.
Cameras. Dozens of them. Not just in the corner where Jason had identified them earlier, but *everywhere*. The walls were riddled with tiny lenses, so small they were almost invisible, so numerous that there wasn't a single angle of the corridor that wasn't covered.
We'd known about the surveillance. We'd accepted it as background reality.
But we hadn't understood the *extent* of it.
"They see everything," Jennifer sobbed. "Every time we move, every time we breathe. They've been watching since we arrived, recording everything, analyzing everything—we're not students, we're not even subjects, we're *content*—"
"Jenny, you need to calm down—"
"I CAN'T CALM DOWN!" She shoved Connor away. "Don't you understand? There's no privacy! There's no safety! Even our thoughts aren't ours—they're monitoring our sleep patterns, our stress hormones, our fear responses—we're not people to them, we're DATA—"
She was having a breakdown. A complete, catastrophic psychological breakdown, triggered by the sudden comprehension of exactly how trapped we were.
I understood. God help me, I understood completely.
"Jenny," I said, keeping my voice gentle. "I know it's terrifying. I know it feels like there's no way out. But panicking doesn't help. We need to stay calm, stay focused, stay—"
She wasn't listening.
She was moving.
Toward the window.
The window that was reinforced, mesh-covered, supposedly impossible to break.
Jennifer hit it at full speed—not trying to break through, just trying to escape, to get away from the cameras, to find somewhere, *anywhere*, that they couldn't see.
The mesh held.
But the force of her impact didn't.
I heard the crack—a horrible, wet sound that didn't belong in any world where things made sense. Saw her body crumple against the reinforced glass, her neck at an angle that shouldn't have been possible.
She hadn't been dreaming.
She hadn't been in REM.
She'd simply... broken.
And she wasn't the only one.
---
**1530 HOURS - THE SECOND DEATH**
"We have another one!"
The shout came from the east wing—Tyler's territory, where his remaining followers had retreated after the confrontation.
I ran toward the sound, following the panic, dreading what I'd find.
The body was in a storage room.
His name was Marcus Chen—no relation to Kai—a sophomore who'd somehow ended up on the senior trip through an administrative error. He was fifteen. He'd been scared since the first gas attack, clinging to Tyler's faction because fear made strength seem like the only option.
Now he was dead.
The method was... creative.
He'd fashioned a noose from electrical cables, hung it from a pipe near the ceiling, and stepped off a supply crate. The execution was competent—he'd clearly done research, known exactly how much drop he needed.
But the creative part was the message.
Written on the wall beside him, in something that looked disturbingly like blood:
**I'D RATHER DIE AWAKE THAN DREAM AGAIN**
"Suicide," Jason said, arriving beside me. "Self-inflicted. No manifestation, no nightmare death—just a kid who decided he'd rather end it on his own terms."
"That's still a victory for them," I said. "Whether we die by nightmare or by choice, we're still dying. They're still collecting data on human breaking points."
"But this is different data." Jason was staring at the message. "Jennifer panicked and accidentally killed herself. Marcus planned this. Prepared. Executed. That's not panic—that's *choice*."
"A choice to die."
"A choice to control his death. To take away their power over him." Jason's voice was thoughtful, analytical—he couldn't help it, even in the face of horror. "The system kills us through our dreams. But Marcus died awake. He robbed them of whatever data they wanted from his nightmares."
"You're making him sound like a hero."
"I'm making him sound like a variable they didn't anticipate." Jason looked at me. "How many people here are thinking the same thing? How many are considering that death-by-choice might be preferable to death-by-nightmare?"
"We need to watch for signs. Depression, withdrawal, talk of 'escaping'—"
"We need to give them something to live for." Jason's eyes were hard. "Hope. A real plan. Something that makes fighting seem like a viable option."
"And if we can't?"
"Then we're going to see a lot more of this."
We left Marcus's body where it hung and went to find Kai.
---
**1800 HOURS - THE DEMON**
Tyler was gone.
Not dead—surveillance confirmed he was still alive, moving through the facility with a small group of his most loyal followers. But he'd abandoned his faction's territory, slipping away sometime during the chaos of the two deaths.
"Where's he going?" Kai asked, studying the footage we'd managed to access through one of Jason's jury-rigged terminals.
"Looks like the perimeter." Jason pointed at the path Tyler's group was taking. "The electrified fence. The exterior doors."
"He's trying to escape."
"Or he's scouting." I watched Tyler's figure moving through the corridors, his posture different from before—more furtive, more desperate. "After the trial, after the exposure... he knows his leadership is finished. The only way to reclaim power is to do something dramatic."
"Like finding a way out that none of us thought of?"
"Like proving he's still useful. Still capable of things the rest of us can't do."
On screen, Tyler's group reached the perimeter. We watched him approach the fence, study it, retreat. Approach again. Test different sections with increasingly reckless touches—jerking back from electric shocks but always returning, always searching.
"He's going to kill himself," Kai said.
"Maybe. Or maybe he'll find a weak spot." I leaned closer to the screen. "Look at his face."
Tyler's expression had changed. Gone was the calculating politician, the image-conscious leader, the boy who'd built his identity on projecting confidence. In its place was something rawer—something that looked almost inhuman in its intensity.
Desperation had burned away his masks.
What remained was pure survival instinct, stripped of morality or restraint.
"The trial broke something in him," I said. "Not just his confidence—his inhibitions. The fear of what other people think. The social calculations that kept him civilized."
"He's not calculating anymore. He's just... acting."
"He's dangerous."
"He was always dangerous. Now he's dangerous *and* unpredictable."
On screen, Tyler turned toward a section of wall we hadn't explored—a maintenance access point that led to the facility's external systems. He gestured to his followers, and they began prying open the access panel.
"Should we stop him?" Kai asked.
"Let him explore. Let him take the risks." I felt cold saying it, but the logic was sound. "If he finds a way out, we can use it too. If he gets killed trying, that's information about what *doesn't* work."
"That's ruthless."
"That's survival." I met his eyes. "You're not the only one learning to make hard decisions."
We watched Tyler disappear into the maintenance access, his followers trailing behind.
Whatever he found in there—salvation or death—we'd deal with it when we had to.
For now, we had other problems.
---
**2100 HOURS - THE AWAKENING**
Ayla woke up screaming.
Not a nightmare-scream—a scream of recognition, of memory, of finally *understanding* something that had been hidden for years.
"They're all connected!" she gasped, grabbing Kai's arm. "The dreams, the deaths, the machine—it's all one system. One network. Every nightmare that kills someone here feeds the machine, makes it stronger, expands its reach."
"Slow down. Take a breath. Tell us what you remember."
"Everything. I remember *everything*." Ayla's eyes were wild, but focused—the opposite of Jennifer's breakdown earlier. This was clarity, not chaos. "The Noctis machine doesn't just process dreams—it harvests them. Every fear, every death, every moment of terror we experience—it absorbs the emotional energy and uses it to power itself."
"Emotional energy?" Jason sounded skeptical. "That's not—"
"That's not how physics works, I know. But it's how the machine works." Ayla struggled to sit up. "The original researchers discovered something in the fifties—a connection between consciousness and quantum states, between emotional intensity and reality manipulation. They couldn't explain it, but they could exploit it."
"And the exploitation is this place."
"This place is just a collection node. There are others—eleven more, scattered around the world. Each one feeds into a central hub, somewhere in the D.C. area. The combined dream-energy powers—" she paused, struggling with memories that didn't quite fit together. "Powers something. A weapon, I think. Something that can project nightmares directly into targeted populations. Mass terror. Mass control."
"A dream weapon," I breathed. "They're building a weapon that uses fear itself."
"Not building. Built. It's been operational for at least a decade. Small-scale tests, mostly—riots that seem to come from nowhere, mass panics with no apparent cause." Ayla's voice was shaking. "But they need more power for the full deployment. More fear. More death. That's why the cohorts exist. That's why they keep running the experiments—to generate enough dream-energy to power a global attack."
"Global attack on who?"
"Everyone." Ayla's eyes were haunted. "Imagine the entire population of a country experiencing their worst nightmares simultaneously. Not just terror—*death*. Millions of people dying in their sleep, killed by fears they didn't even know they had. The perfect weapon. No troops, no bombs, no evidence. Just mass extinction by nightmare."
The cafeteria was silent.
"That can't be true," someone said from the crowd. "The government wouldn't—"
"The government doesn't know." Ayla shook her head. "Not the elected government, anyway. The Initiative operates under deep black protocols—funding hidden in classified budgets, oversight non-existent. Even the people running it don't fully understand what they've created."
"Vanessa understands."
"Vanessa is a true believer. She thinks she's saving civilization. Protecting the nation from threats that can't be fought with conventional weapons." Ayla's laugh was bitter. "She's been running this place for fifteen years, watching children die, telling herself it's for the greater good."
"Then we have to stop her. Stop the machine. Stop all of it."
"That's what I've been trying to remember." Ayla pressed her fingers against her temples. "There's a way. I did it before, when I was six. I got into the heart of the machine and I... did something. Damaged it somehow. That's why they erased my memories—not just to protect the project, but because I proved it could be hurt."
"How did you hurt it?"
"I don't..." She trailed off, frustration evident. "The memories of the actual mechanism are still fragmented. I remember getting there. I remember being inside the machine's core. But the moment itself—what I actually *did*—it's blocked. Deeper than everything else."
"Then we find another way," Kai said. "You got there once. You can get there again. And this time, we'll be with you."
"The path is dangerous. The other survivors—the ones in stasis—they guard the approach. Their dreams form a labyrinth that kills anyone who tries to pass."
"Then we navigate the labyrinth."
"With what? We don't have Compound-7 for everyone. We don't have weapons. We don't have—"
"We have each other." Kai's voice was steady. "We have numbers, intelligence, and the one thing they never expected: subjects who fight back. That's got to count for something."
Ayla stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"We need to move soon. Before the next trial. Before Tyler—" She stopped. "Where's Tyler?"
"Gone. Exploring the perimeter." I pulled up the surveillance feed. "He's been in the maintenance access for hours. Looking for escape routes."
"He won't find any. Not there." Ayla's expression shifted. "But the maintenance access connects to the lower levels. If he goes deep enough—"
"He'll find the machine?"
"He'll find the guardians. The other survivors. The ones whose dreams form the labyrinth." She was already on her feet, swaying slightly. "We have to stop him."
"Why? If he wants to get himself killed—"
"Because if he disturbs the guardians, he won't just die. He'll wake them. *All* of them. And their combined dream-energy will surge through the network, triggering emergency protocols that—" She stopped, horror dawning. "They'll eliminate everyone. The whole cohort. All at once. To protect the machine."
"Then we move. Now."
We didn't argue. We didn't plan. We just ran.
---
**2200 HOURS - THE ANNOUNCEMENT**
We were halfway to the maintenance access when the screens activated.
"*Attention, team leaders. Emergency protocols have been triggered by unauthorized access to restricted zones.*"
Tyler. The idiot had triggered exactly what Ayla feared.
"*As a result of this breach, Phase Four will commence immediately. Team leaders: report to the circular chamber for special instructions.*"
"Special instructions," Kai repeated. "That sounds ominous."
"*Non-compliance will result in immediate elimination of all team members.*"
Mira's blood ran cold.
"We have to go," she said. "Both of you. Tyler and Kai. Whatever this is, refusing isn't an option."
"But Ayla—"
"Will have to wait." Ayla's voice was resigned. "If they eliminate everyone while we're trying to save them, there's no point. Go. Get the instructions. I'll be here when you get back."
Kai hesitated. Then he nodded.
"Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."
"That's rich, coming from you."
They shared a look that said everything words couldn't, and then Kai was moving toward the circular chamber, his pace urgent.
I followed.
---
**2215 HOURS - THE SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS**
Vanessa was waiting for them.
She stood at the center of the circular chamber, flanked by security personnel we hadn't seen before—men and women in tactical gear, weapons holstered but visible. The message was clear: this wasn't a negotiation.
Tyler arrived a moment after Kai, escorted by two of the tactical team. His exploration had apparently been interrupted by the emergency protocols.
"Gentlemen," Vanessa said. "Thank you for joining me."
"We didn't have a choice," Kai pointed out.
"No. You didn't." She gestured to the screens that lined the walls, now displaying images of both teams. "Your people are currently experiencing a preview of what happens if you fail to cooperate. Nothing lethal—just a mild sedative that simulates the early stages of dream-state induction. If you comply with the following instructions, the sedative will be neutralized. If you refuse..."
She let the implication hang.
"What do you want?" Tyler asked.
"What I've always wanted. Data. Results. Progress." Vanessa smiled. "Phase Four is the final phase. The culmination of everything we've been building toward."
"And what does Phase Four involve?"
"Simple. Each team leader will receive a task. The tasks are mutually exclusive—completing one makes the other impossible. The leader who completes their task first will be declared the winner of the DREAMLESS Protocol."
"And the winner's team survives?"
"No."
The word dropped like a stone.
"The winner's team is eliminated," Vanessa continued. "Along with the winner themselves."
I felt my heart stop.
"You're saying—"
"Winning is dying. Yes." Vanessa's smile didn't waver. "The task is designed to test ultimate commitment. We need to know which subjects are willing to sacrifice everything—including their own survival—for victory. Those are the psychological profiles we can use for the next phase of the Initiative."
"That's insane," Tyler breathed. "You want us to compete to die?"
"I want you to compete to prove your worth. The winners die knowing they've contributed to something greater than themselves. The losers—" she paused "—live. But they live having failed. Having proven themselves unwilling to make the ultimate sacrifice."
"So the losers survive? Both teams?"
"Both teams minus any incidental casualties during the competition itself." Vanessa shrugged. "The Protocol was never about mass elimination. It was about identification. Finding the rare individuals who can transcend fear, transcend self-preservation, transcend humanity itself."
"You're looking for people willing to die on command," Kai said. "Perfect soldiers. Perfect weapons."
"Perfect *assets*." Vanessa's voice was almost gentle. "The winners won't really die, of course. Not permanently. We have techniques for preserving consciousness, for transferring the essential elements of personality into new forms. The winning leaders will become the core processors of the next generation of dream weapons. Their sacrifice will be... eternal."
I felt sick.
"And if we refuse?" Tyler asked. "If both of us say no?"
"Then everyone dies. Right now. The sedative your people are currently experiencing becomes permanent, and they all enter REM simultaneously." Vanessa checked her watch. "You have sixty seconds to decide. Compete, or condemn."
I watched Kai and Tyler look at each other—two young men who hated each other, who'd spent days fighting for dominance, now united by the impossible choice in front of them.
Compete to die.
Refuse and kill everyone.
"What's the task?" Kai asked finally.
"Each of you will receive coordinates to a location within the facility. At that location, you'll find an artifact—a component of the original Noctis machine. Whoever retrieves their artifact first and delivers it to this chamber wins."
"That's it? A scavenger hunt?"
"A scavenger hunt through the labyrinth. Through the dreams of every previous survivor. Through the heart of the nightmare itself." Vanessa's smile was cold. "The artifacts are real. The danger is real. The death is real. The only question is: which of you wants it more?"
Thirty seconds left.
Kai and Tyler looked at each other one more time.
Then, together, they said:
"We'll compete."
Vanessa nodded.
"Then let the final phase begin."