Chapter Text
Sloan gripped the piping hot mug of green tea in her cold hands, pulling all the warmth from it that she could as her therapist sat down across from her.
“So, tell me what happened in this most recent dream of yours?”
Sloan nodded, carefully removing a hand from the side of the mug to rub her tired eyes.
“Well-”
When I opened my eyes, I was in the middle of chaos. There was a war unfolding before me. Explosives were going off, swords were clinking and people were screaming.
I was dressed in nothing but a tunic and pants and my leather shoes were two sizes too tight. A man ran towards me, wearing a suit of silver armor that shone in the bright sun.
His skin was pale, but rosy in the cheeks, his eyes were blue like the sky and his blond hair was long, combed pack. He was taller than me, with a well-defined, built frame and sharp cheekbones that could cut glass.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He had said, the knight had a bit of an accent, almost like an English accent with a hint of a Boston accent. I remember that there had been a scratch across his cheek, right beneath his right eye. Blood dripped down his face.
I just remember seeing all the bodies. All the men and women and children were wearing similar clothes as me, and they were on the ground, choking on their own blood, gasping for their last dying breaths.
We were in the middle of this town, as the smoke began to settle, blanketing me and this knightly man.
“Sloan, we must get you out of here.” He had said, attempting to pull me away from the chaos, but for some reason, I couldn’t move. My feet felt as though they had been super-glued to the ground. I couldn’t go anywhere, even with him trying to pull me along.
But the weirdest part was that he knew my name. When others dream, they just see hodge podge glimpses into moments. Words are spoken in a language no one understands and faces are morphed into distorted messes. But I saw his face so clearly. I felt his hands on my arms, trying to pull me away. I could hear every word he said so clearly.
Then, a nearby tower exploded from the inside. Everything had gone into stereo and he threw the two of our bodies to the ground, shielding me from the debris.
Something hard hit me in the head, and I woke up.
Dr Peterson stared at Sloan, attempting to analyze the dream as Sloan sat in a tired silence. Her leg began to bounce nervously as a tremor overcame her body.
“So you woke up in a fantasy world?”
Sloan nodded quickly, “Like something straight out of Game of Thrones.”
“And you were in the middle of a battle or war of some sort?” Sloan began to grow frustrated with her therapist, another common occurrence of being in therapy. Dr. Peterson begins to write quickly on a yellow legal pad.
“To change topics, how is school?”
Sloan shrugs, “Not great, due to the lack of sleep, I assume. I’m barely passing my classes and with my scholarship on the line, it’s kind of killing me slowly. I feel like I’m drowning.”
Sloan takes a careful sip of the green tea, attempting to calm her nerves, “What do you think the dream means?”
Dr Peterson sets down the pen, crossing one leg over the other. She leans forward, closing the distance between her and Sloan in the private study.
“You said it yourself, hun. You feel like your world is falling apart. You feel like you’re drowning. This chaos you were seeing, I believe it represents the way that you’re feeling about school and life in general. Everything is falling apart around you, and you can’t stop it-”
“But what about the knight? What is he supposed to represent?”
“Safety, security. He represents the actions you’re taking to protect yourself from the chaos and the spiral of life. He could represent this, for example, coming to see me in the middle of it all in an attempt to regain control. He could also represent family; like your brother, Silas, or your roommate. You lean on these people when you need them the most.” Dr. Peterson explains and Sloan nods slowly, not entirely believing every word that her therapist was saying.
It had to mean more. Right?
Sloan spent an additional thirty minutes listening, but not actually listening to every word that was spoken. She was trapped in a haze, one that she could not break free from.
She knew very well that it would be a few days before she returned to living somewhat normally. Though, she hadn’t had a normal life since she was a child. It was a never-ending cycle of dreaming, living in a daze, having a handful of somewhat normal days, then rinse and repeat.
That’s how it had always been.
The worst of it was the mob-boss dream, though.
Sloan had found herself standing in a dimly lit office. The world around her had been black and white, smoke expelled from cheap cigars…
I had been wearing a suit, one that was baggy and didn’t fit my slender frame very well. A leather duffle bag in her sweaty palms.
However, in this dream, I wasn’t in control of my body. I was a watcher; seeing the moment, though having no control of the words spoken or the actions committed.
I entered the office and a kingpin boss had sat behind a dark, mahogany desk, he angrily tapped a fountain pen up and down, as though he had been expecting me.
“You’re late.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I got here as quickly as possible.”
Despite having no control over what was said, I had heard my voice say the words. I had thrown the bag onto the desk and he unzipped it, looking at the contents.
“This isn’t as much as Larry owes me. You takin’ me for a fool?”
I quickly shook my head, “No. This is what was given to me, I did not check the contents.”
“Larry always follows through on what is owed. Your lying, cheatin’ whore ass took some of it for yourself, didn’t you?” He grumbled, standing slowly and rounding the desk.
“Sir, I wouldn’t-”
Before I could finish the sentence, he reached behind the desk and withdrew a large shot gun, part of the barrel shaved off, “You know what I do to liars?”
He pressed it to my chest.
And pulled the trigger.
It had taken Sloan a month to fully recover from that dream. Every time she would close her eyes, she would feel the impact of the bullet puncturing her skin, pushing deep within her chest. If she thought too much about it, like she was now, a burning feeling would form between her lungs.
She felt it now. On top of the nerves and the lingering feelings of last night's dreams, Sloan’s senses were overwhelmed.
Her session with Dr. Peterson had ended and as she stepped out of the townhouse and back into the bustling city.
The building across from her stood out again like a sore thumb. While it wasn’t an exact, one for one match, something about the way it appeared to her made her realize that it oddly similar to the one she had seen in the previous night’s dream. She walked carefully down the steps and across the sidewalk, stepping right into the street.
Standing in the dead center of the road, between the double yellow lines, déjà vu overtook Sloan’s senses. She could smell the burning flesh once more. She felt nauseous. The sounds of destruction and death came in echoes.
Tears formed in the corners of her eyes as a sickness boiled and bubbled in her stomach like a witch’s brew.
“Sloan!”
She turned quickly and Dr. Peterson stood on the stoop of her townhome, an urgency in her eyes, “Get out of the road.”
Sloan snaps back to reality and strides back to the sidewalk, heart beating wildly in her chest.
“What are you doing?”
“That building-“
Sloan points to the small, towering building with a shaking hand, “The building that blew up in my dream looked just like it.”
Of course, now, Sloan sounded insane. She knew how crazy she sounded. This old, stone building in her fantasy realm dream? Insanity.
Anymore mumbling and walking into the street and Dr. Peterson would have enough reason to involuntarily admit Sloan to the psych ward.
With her feet back on the sidewalk, Sloan apologized quietly and walked quickly away from Dr. Peterson’s home, never looking back.
Sloan had walked three blocks before she called Silas back, though she regretted it immediately.
“Do you want to tell me why I just got a call from Dr. Peterson saying that you immediately left her office and stood in the middle of the road?” His voice was stern, but Sloan expected it. He was her older brother after all. With their parents out of the picture now, he was all she had, and vice versa.
“I- the building across from her office. I saw it explode in my dream last night, Sye.” Sloan stammered. Silas let out a quiet sigh, feeling sympathetic to his sister’s plight, but also feeling incredibly worried for her safety and well-being.
“Sloan. Come stay with me. Take an emergency leave from school and come stay at my place. I’m worried about you.” Silas said quickly. Sloan gulped back the lump in her throat.
“Silas, I-”
“No, Sloan. You need a break. Being there is killing you. Ev told me that you’re not sleeping or eating much again. Can you please, for once, just listen to what I’m saying and come stay with me?” Her brother urged.
Sloan thought about this. Living with Silas again? They haven’t lived together since she was fourteen. Back when they lived in a three bedroom apartment in Queens.
Back when their father was still alive.
He had taken his own life three years earlier. He left no note. No message. He sold all his belongings and jumped off a bridge. Sloan and Silas hadn’t even known until his body was found two weeks later. It had wrecked both of them, in ways that no one could truly comprehend. Their father had left nothing except boxes of personal mementoes; photos, awards, family records. Everything else had been sold off prior to his death, leaving the grieving pair with nothing but broken hearts and scattered memories.
“If I say maybe will you stop jumping down my throat?”
“I’m not trying to jump down your throat, Sloan. I just don’t want you to fucking die. I already lost mom and dad, I’m not losing you, too.” There's a twinge of annoyance in his voice. She listens intently and it strikes something within her. Silas has lost everything. Besides his career and his on and off again relationship, all that he really had left in this world was her.
"I-"
The line went dead.
Sloan pulled the phone away from her ear, staring at the black screen. The call had dropped. Or maybe Silas had hung up, frustrated with her inability to commit to anything, even her own safety.
She stood on the corner of 72nd and Broadway, the city moving around her like a river around a stone. People brushed past her shoulders, their conversations bleeding together into white noise. A taxi honked. Someone laughed. The smell of roasting nuts from a street cart mixed with exhaust and the underlying scent of garbage that never quite left the city, no matter the season.
Sloan pocketed her phone and started walking.
She didn't know where she was going. Her feet carried her forward on autopilot, past the bodega with the faded awning, past the woman with the stroller arguing into her Bluetooth, past the construction site where men in hard hats shouted over the sound of jackhammers.
I'm not losing you, too.
Silas's words echoed in her skull, bouncing around like a pinball. She could hear the desperation in his voice, the barely-contained fear that she was slipping away from him the same way their father had slipped away from both of them.
No note. No warning. Just gone.
Sloan's chest tightened. The burning sensation between her lungs flared up again- phantom pain from a dream where she'd been shot by a mobster in a black-and-white world that smelled like cheap cigars and violence.
She needed to get home. Or maybe she needed to go to Silas's place. Or maybe she just needed to keep moving until her body gave out and forced her to sleep, consequences be damned.
The subway entrance appeared before her like a mouth opening in the sidewalk. The green globe lights flanking the stairway seemed dimmer than usual, or maybe that was just her exhaustion playing tricks on her perception. Everything felt muted, like she was watching her life through a fog.
Sloan descended.
The temperature dropped as she moved underground, the autumn chill of the surface giving way to the stale, recycled air of the tunnels. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow-green glow that made everyone look vaguely corpse-like.
She swiped her MetroCard without thinking, the familiar beep barely registering. The turnstile clicked as she pushed through.
The platform was crowded. Rush hour was approaching, and the downtown trains were always packed this time of day. Sloan wedged herself between a man in a business suit who smelled like coffee and aftershave and a teenage girl with headphones blasting music so loud Sloan could hear every word.
You shouldn't be here.
The knight's voice from her dream cut through her thoughts, clear as if he'd spoken directly into her ear. Sloan's head snapped up, searching the crowd, but there was no one. Just tired commuters staring at their phones, avoiding eye contact, existing in their own private bubbles of isolation.
Her hands were shaking. She shoved them into her jacket pockets.
The rumble of an approaching train vibrated through the concrete beneath her feet. The crowd shifted, pressing forward in anticipation. Sloan let herself be carried along with the tide of bodies, too exhausted to resist.
The train burst from the tunnel with a screech of metal on metal, brakes squealing as it slowed. The doors opened with a pneumatic hiss, and people poured out while others pushed in, the eternal dance of public transportation.
Sloan found herself swept into the car, pressed between too many bodies in too small a space. She grabbed a pole for balance as the doors closed and the train lurched forward into the darkness.
The fluorescent lights inside the car flickered. Once. Twice.
Sloan's reflection stared back at her from the dark window and staring back was a hollow-eyed version, a ghost of herself. Behind her reflection, she could see the other passengers: a woman with a sleeping baby in a carrier, an old man with a cane, a group of college students laughing about something on someone's phone.
Normal people living normal lives.
The train picked up speed, the rhythmic clacking of wheels on tracks creating a hypnotic pattern. Sloan's eyes grew heavy. She blinked hard, fighting against the pull of sleep, but her body was so tired, so desperately tired.
Sloan, we must get you out of here.
She could feel his hands on her arms, trying to pull her away from the chaos. The knight with the scratch beneath his right eye, blood dripping down his pale face. His blue eyes had been so clear, so vivid, more real than anything in her waking life.
The train swayed. Sloan's grip on the pole tightened.
Something felt wrong.
The lights flickered again, longer this time. In the moment of darkness, Sloan could have sworn she smelled smoke. Not the acrid smell of electrical fire, but the thick, choking smoke of burning wood and flesh. The smoke from her dream.
The lights came back on.
Everything was normal. The baby was still sleeping. The old man was still reading his newspaper. The college students were still laughing.
But Sloan's heart was racing, her palms slick with sweat against the metal pole.
The train began to slow as it approached the next station. The automated voice announced the stop, the words garbled and distorted through the ancient speaker system.
And then everything went wrong.
The train lurched violently to the left, throwing passengers into each other like ragdolls. Sloan's grip on the pole was ripped away as her body was flung sideways. Someone screamed. The baby woke up crying. The lights went out completely, plunging the car into absolute darkness.
Metal shrieked against metal, a sound so loud and terrible it seemed to come from inside Sloan's skull. The train was tilting, the floor becoming a slope, and Sloan was sliding, her hands scrabbling for purchase on smooth metal and other people's clothes.
The emergency lights kicked on, bathing everything in hellish red.
In the dim glow, Sloan saw the doors, they had somehow opened, or been torn open, she couldn't tell which. Through the gap, she could see the tunnel wall rushing past, too close, way too close.
The train was derailing.
Another violent lurch, and Sloan was airborne. Time stretched like taffy, each millisecond expanding into an eternity. She could see everything with perfect clarity: the woman clutching her screaming baby, the old man's cane clattering across the tilted floor, the college students' faces frozen in expressions of terror.
She was flying toward the open doors.
Toward the tunnel wall.
Toward death.
This is how I die, she thought with strange clarity. This is how Silas loses me too.
But in that moment between heartbeats, between life and death, something shifted.
The air around her seemed to thicken, to shimmer like heat waves rising from summer asphalt. The red emergency lights began to flicker, but in the spaces between the flickers, Sloan saw something else.
Sunlight. Bright and golden.
Smoke. Thick and choking.
Bodies on the ground.
The tunnel wall was rushing toward her face, but superimposed over it was the stone wall of a building, the same building from her dream, the one that had exploded and rained debris down on her and the knight.
No.
The word came from everywhere and nowhere. A voice she knew, a voice that had spoken her name in a world that shouldn't exist.
And then he was there.
The man from her dream.
He was reaching for her through the impossible space between the derailing subway car and the war-torn fantasy battlefield. His armor caught the light, both the red emergency lights and the golden sunlight that couldn't possibly be there. The scratch beneath his right eye was bleeding, just like in her dream, but his hand was solid and real as it closed around her wrist.
"Sloan!"
His voice cut through the screaming, through the shriek of tearing metal, through the barrier between worlds that was crumbling like wet paper.
She could feel both realities at once: the subway car tilting at an impossible angle, passengers tumbling past her toward the open doors and the tunnel beyond, and simultaneously the battlefield, the smoke, the bodies of people in tunics and too-tight leather shoes choking on their own blood.
The man pulled, his grip iron-strong on her wrist, and Sloan felt herself being yanked backward, away from the doors, away from the tunnel wall that was now only inches from her face.
But which world was he pulling her into?
The train hit something…a support beam, a piece of track, something solid and immovable. The impact was catastrophic. Sloan heard the sound of her own scream mixing with the screams of the other passengers, and heard the groan of metal being torn apart like paper.
She saw the knight's face, saw his blue eyes wide with desperation and something else. Recognition, as if he'd been searching for her, as if this moment had been inevitable.
"Hold on!" he shouted, and she didn't know if he meant hold on to him or hold on to life or hold on to sanity.
The world exploded into chaos.
Metal. Smoke. Screaming. Sunlight. Darkness.
The smell of the subway, oil and electricity and human bodies pressed too close together, mixed with the smell of burning wood and spilled blood.
Sloan's back hit something hard. The floor. A wall. The ground. She couldn't tell anymore. The two realities were bleeding together, overlapping, occupying the same impossible space.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, everything stopped.
Sloan sat up slowly, her body checking itself for injuries. Nothing broken. Nothing bleeding. She was alive.
But gone was the New York City subway.
Her eyes traveled to the sprawling buildings made of wood and stone in the distance, across the river, and her stomach lurched.
She wasn’t in New York anymore.