Maggie's eyes opened to grey skies and cold pavement.

  She was lying on her back in the middle of an intersection. The same intersection—she recognized it immediately. Where the accident had been. Where she'd found the keychain.

  Except the cars were gone.

  She sat up slowly, head pounding. The street stretched out in all directions, empty and silent. No wreckage. No glass. No blood. Just asphalt and fog and that oppressive quiet that made her ears ring.

  And the colors were wrong.

  Everything looked... muted. Drained. The grey of the sky was deeper, heavier. The buildings around her—she could see them now, whereas before they'd been obscured by fog—stood in shades of washed-out brick and faded concrete. Even the fog itself seemed darker, more substantial, like smoke that refused to dissipate.

  "Finally."

  Maggie scrambled to her feet, spinning around.

  Mark stood a few yards away, hands in the pockets of his lab coat. The husky sat at his feet. Above them, an eagle circled against the grey sky.

  "You," Maggie said. Her voice came out hoarse. "You were in my—"

  She stopped. Memories were flooding back now, sharp and vivid in a way they hadn't been before. The warehouse. The faceless figures. The fight. Mark snapping his fingers and telling her to wake up.

  The empty classroom. The dog. The town with no people. The accident. The keychain. That crushing, inexplicable grief.

  Mark snapping his fingers again.

  And then... nothing. A blank space where another memory should be.

  "What do you remember?" Mark asked, studying her with those sharp dark eyes.

  Maggie pressed her fingers to her temples. "The warehouse. Those things chasing me. Then the classroom—empty, everything empty. The dog helped me get out. We walked through town. Found the accident." She paused. "You were there. Both times."

  "And after that?"

  "After the accident?" Maggie frowned. "You snapped your fingers. Told me to wake up. And then..." She gestured around them. "This. I woke up here."

  Mark raised an eyebrow. "Nothing in between?"

  "In between what?"

  "Interesting." He didn't elaborate. Just watched her with that same assessing look.

  "What's interesting? And where the hell are we? This is the same place, but it's... different. The cars are gone. Everything looks wrong."

  "You forgot the third one," Mark said.

  "The third what?"

  "Dream. You had another one. After the accident, before waking up here." He shrugged. "You don't remember it."

  Something cold touched her chest. The third dream. What had happened there?

  She could ask. Push for details. Try to remember.

  But something in her recoiled at the thought. Whatever was in that memory—she didn't want it. Didn't want to know.

  Better to let it stay forgotten.

  "Huh," she said.

  Mark's eyebrows rose slightly. "That's it? Just 'huh'?"

  "I mean..." She shrugged. "If I forgot it, I probably forgot it for a reason, right? Maybe I'll remember on my own."

  "Maybe." Mark studied her for a long moment. "You really don't want to know what happened?"

  "Not particularly." Maggie looked around at the empty street, the muted colors, the unnatural stillness. "I've got bigger questions right now. Like why this place looks like someone sucked all the life out of it. And why you keep showing up in my dreams."

  "Fair enough." Mark seemed to accept this easily. "But before I explain anything else, there's a rule you need to know. Most important rule, actually."

  "A rule."

  "Don't say their names."

  Maggie blinked. "Whose names?"

  "Gods. Demons. Anything with enough power that speaking their name might get their attention." He said it completely seriously, no trace of his usual sarcasm. "I mean their actual names. Their true names. You can talk about them—just don't invoke them directly."

  "You're joking."

  "I'm really not."

  Maggie looked at him. Looked at the grey, wrong-colored world around them. Looked back at Mark.

  "Okay," she said slowly. "Don't say god names. Got it. Anything else I should know before you explain what the fuck is going on?"

  "Plenty. But we'll start with the basics." Mark gestured around them. "This is the Dreamscape. The dream world. A reflection of reality, but not quite the same. Everything that exists in the real world exists here too—eventually. There's a delay, but changes filter through."

  "The dream world," Maggie repeated.

  "Yep."

  "As in, we're in a dream right now."

  "Technically, yes. But not your dream. Not exactly." He started walking, and the dog fell into step beside him. The eagle wheeled overhead. "Think of it as a shared space.. Built from everyone's dreams and imagination. People sleeping can end up here sometimes—dreamwalkers, I call them. They wander around in what feels like a lucid dream, then wake up and forget most of it."

  Maggie followed, her footsteps echoing strangely on the empty street. "And me?"

  "You're different. You're not sleeping—you're in a coma." He said it matter-of-factly. "In the real world, your body is somewhere unconscious. Probably in a hospital. And your mind ended up here instead of nowhere."

  A coma. The word should have hit harder. Should have scared her.

  She could think about it. About her body somewhere, maybe dying. About what put her in a coma. About—

  No. Not thinking about that.

  "How do you know?" she asked.

  "Because dreamwalkers know they're in a dream. You don't. And because you're still here—stable, present. That doesn't happen unless your connection to your body is... tenuous."

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  "So I need to wake up."

  "Eventually, yeah. That's the goal."

  "And you?" Maggie glanced at him. "You're in a coma too?"

  "Was. Twenty years ago. I was twenty when I ended up here. Been here ever since."

  Maggie stopped walking. "Twenty years? You've been stuck here for twenty years?"

  "Give or take." He didn't seem particularly bothered by this. "Time works differently here anyway. Not quite one-to-one with reality."

  "Shit," Maggie breathed. "And your body?"

  "Probably dead somewhere." He said it almost casually, with a shrug. "Don't know why I'm still here, though. Maybe I'm special." The corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "But normally? When someone's body dies in the real world, they disappear from here too. Just... gone. So you—you've probably still got time. If we can figure out what's keeping you here and get you back."

  They walked in silence for a moment. Maggie tried to process it all—the dream world, the coma, Mark trapped here for two decades.

  "I'm Mark Bourne, by the way," he said. "Don't think I ever actually introduced myself properly. Just 'Mark.'"

  "Bourne?" Maggie looked at him. "Seriously?"

  "Yeah, why?"

  "My last name's Bourne too. Margaret Bourne."

  Mark's expression didn't change. "Huh. Small world."

  "Maybe we're related," Maggie said, half-joking.

  "Could be." He glanced at her sidelong, his expression shifted—almost playful. "Though if we are... Maggie. I am your father."

  Maggie snorted. "That's not true. That's impossible."

  "Search your feelings. You know it to be true."

  "Okay, fine. No." She pointed at him. "If you're my father, then I'm joining the dark side out of spite."

  "Fair."

  They walked a few more steps. Mark glanced at her again, something almost expectant in his expression. Like he was waiting for some kind of reaction that didn't come.

  The husky trotted up to Maggie, something dangling from its mouth.

  "Oh, hey." Maggie crouched down. The dog dropped a keychain into her hand—the same one from before. The two fighters frozen mid-strike, the faded emblem beneath them.

  Something stirred in her chest. A hollow ache. Like this object mattered. Like it was connected to something important.

  She could think about it. Try to remember why it felt significant.

  Or she could just... not.

  "Thanks, buddy." She pocketed the keychain quickly, not looking at it. Scratching the dog behind its ears felt safer than examining that feeling.

  The dog's tail swayed, happy with the attention.

  When she stood back up, Mark was watching her with that same strange expression. Waiting for something.

  "What?" Maggie asked.

  "Nothing." He looked away. "Come on. We should keep moving."

  "Wait." Maggie fell into step beside him. "The dog. And the eagle. How do you...?" She gestured vaguely. "You can talk to them, right? That's how you knew about me not remembering things."

  "Something like that." He didn't elaborate.

  "Did you teach the eagle to fight too?" Maggie asked, grinning. "Can it do a roundhouse kick or something?"

  "Roundhouse kick? No." Mark said it completely deadpan. "She's more of a taekwondo specialist. Excellent at aerial spinning kicks."

  Maggie laughed. The sound felt strange in the empty street—too loud, too alive for this muted world.

  "Jesus," she said, still grinning. "That's—"

  "NO!" Mark grabbed her arm, his voice sharp. "Don't say that name!"

  Maggie froze. "What? I was just—"

  "The rule. Remember?" He let go of her arm, but his expression was serious. "Gods, demons. That includes... well. Him. Religious figures in general, actually."

  "Oh." Maggie's smile faded. "Shit. Sorry. I wasn't thinking."

  "It's fine. You didn't finish saying it." He ran a hand through his hair. "Inside dreams—your personal dreams—it's safer. But here? In the actual Dreamscape? Better not to risk it."

  "Is He..." Maggie chose her words carefully. "Is He actually dangerous? Like, genuinely?"

  "Honestly? I don't know. He might be perfectly fine. By most accounts, He's actually a pretty decent guy." Mark started walking again. "But there are a lot of interpretations. A lot of different versions of religious figures floating around in the collective unconscious. And some of them are... less friendly than others."

  "So it's like..." Maggie thought about it. "Like there might be multiple versions of Him here? Based on what different people believe?"

  "Something like that. The Dreamscape is built from human imagination and belief. Stories. Myths. Culture. Religion. All of it bleeds through and becomes real here in one form or another." He shrugged. "So yeah. Better to not risk calling the attention of something that might be the wrathful Old Testament version versus the gentle New Testament version. You know?"

  "That's... actually kind of terrifying."

  "Welcome to the Dreamscape."

  They walked in silence for a bit. Maggie looked around at the buildings, the empty street, the muted colors that made everything feel slightly off.

  "So people in comas," she said. "Like me. You said I'm different from dreamwalkers. What do you call us?"

  "Strays." Mark's voice was matter-of-fact. "People who got lost. Gave up on reality, consciously or not, and ended up here instead."

  "There must be a lot of us, then. Hospitals are full of people in comas."

  "Not everyone in a coma ends up here. Just the ones who gave up. Who chose—consciously or not—to stop fighting their way back to reality." He glanced at her. "Strays are people who lost their will to wake up."

  "Is that why I lost my memories?"

  Mark didn't answer right away. They walked in silence for several steps, their footsteps the only sound in the empty street.

  "Maybe," he said finally. "Or maybe you're just not ready to remember yet."

  "There's a hospital not far from here, actually." He kept his tone casual. "But most strays don't wake up at hospitals. They wake up where they lost consciousness in the real world. So you—" he gestured at the intersection around them, "—probably had your accident right around here."

  Maggie looked at the empty pavement. Where the wreckage had been in her dream. Where she'd found the keychain.

  Something cold settled in her stomach, but she pushed it aside.

  "You're taking this surprisingly well," Mark said, studying her.

  "Taking what well?"

  "All of this. The dream world. Being in a coma. Twenty-year-old guy with magical animals telling you that gods are real and dangerous. Most people panic. Or refuse to believe it. You're just... rolling with it."

  Maggie shrugged. "What's the alternative? Freak out and accomplish nothing? Besides—" she gestured around them, "—I've been having weird dreams where you show up and snap your fingers to wake me up. This feels like the logical next step."

  "Fair enough."

  "And you can enter dreams," she said. "My dreams. How does that work?"

  "People who are sleeping leave traces. Echoes. I can follow them in, see what's happening, interact with the dream. Usually I use it to help dreamwalkers who are having nightmares. Or to guide strays toward waking up."

  "Is that what you were trying to do with me? Wake me up?"

  "Among other things." He didn't elaborate.

  Maggie thought about that. About watching her own subconscious play out like a movie. About seeing what her mind created when she wasn't in control.

  "I'd like to do that sometime," she said. "Enter someone's dream. See what it's like."

  "Maybe someday." Mark's tone suggested that day was a long way off.

  Maggie studied him—the lab coat, the glasses, the way he carried himself like someone who'd been doing this for a very long time.

  "So what now?" she asked.

  "Now we walk. I want to take you somewhere."

  "Where?"

  "You'll see."

  They kept walking. The street gave way to another intersection, then another. All of them empty. All of them wrong in that same muted, drained way.

  But as they walked, Maggie found herself... not hating it. The Dreamscape was unsettling, yes. Wrong, definitely. But there was something almost peaceful about it too. Like the world was holding its breath.

  "It's beautiful," she said quietly. "In a weird way. Like everything's been turned down a notch, but that makes it easier to see."

  Mark glanced at her. "Most people say it looks dead."

  "Well, yeah. It does. But dead can be beautiful too, sometimes." She paused. "Do those things show up here? The faceless ones from my dream?"

  "No. Those were manifestations of your subconscious. Your fears, anxieties, whatever. They only exist in your personal dreams."

  "So nothing's going to attack us here."

  "I didn't say that." Mark's tone was dry. "There are plenty of things that can hurt you in the Dreamscape. Just not your personal nightmare creatures."

  "Comforting."

  "I try."

  They turned another corner. The buildings here were different—older, more ornate. Maggie could see details now that hadn't been there before. Gargoyles perched on rooftops. Intricate stonework. Windows that reflected the grey sky in strange, distorted ways.

  "This place," she said. "The Dreamscape. Is it all based on the real world? Or are there... I don't know. Made-up places too?"

  "Both. Anything that exists in reality exists here as a reflection. But there are also places that only exist in imagination. In stories. In collective belief." He gestured vaguely. "Fictional cities. Mythical locations. Sometimes they're more real here than actual places."

  "Like what?"

  "Ever heard of Arkham?"

  Maggie frowned. "Arkham... no. I don't think so."

  Mark's shoulders relaxed slightly. "Good. That's good."

  "Should I know it?"

  "Better if you don't, actually." He seemed genuinely relieved. "It's from some old horror stories. Not something you want floating around in your head here."

  "Huh." Maggie thought about it. The name did sound familiar, in a distant sort of way. "Wait. Actually—"

  Mark tensed. "Wait, what?"

  "Arkham Asylum. That's a thing, right?" She snapped her fingers. "It's from that one superhero thing. You know, the dark one with the cape and the pointy ears." She grinned. "The vigilante guy who beats up clowns."

  Mark's shoulders dropped back down. "Oh. Right. The superhero one." He started walking again, seeming relieved. "I'm actually surprised you remember that. Makes me wonder what you were into before all this."

  "Is that where we're going? Superhero Arkham?"

  "No. Somewhere better."

  They walked.

  The streets began to change—less residential, more commercial. Storefronts lined the sidewalks, their windows dark but their signs still visible. A bookstore. A small restaurant with empty tables visible through the glass.

  And there, on the corner ahead—a coffee shop.

  Mark headed straight for it.

  "We're getting coffee?" Maggie asked.

  "Something like that."