"Aria?" Jake asks in a voice that sounds as confused as I am.
Crap. He recognizes me. Quickly, I look away, hoping I'm fast enough before the video feed stemming from my brain picks up the visual of him saying my name. Everything I see transfers into the Dreamscape and forms a soundless video of the dream back at MaxLife. The thing is, if they realize I know our dreamer, they'll try to wake me up.
We aren't supposed to know our patients personally.
"Hey, Jake." I lick my lips, unsure what to say.
He reaches out, hesitant at first, as if to touch a strand of my hair, but stops himself. Crap, my hair color is going to ruin everything.
My face burns as he studies me.
In the real world, we barely talk to each other. He hangs out with the computer nerds while I hang with the science nerds. But here, in this land of dreams, anything is possible. My heart beats faster. Which is silly. I'm a professional here in the Dreamscape. Not some swooning eighteen-year-old in high school.
"Let me come with you," I say.
"You can't." He backs away, inching too close to the other side of the helicopter. He looks out the other side of the chopper like he's going to jump. Which is bad. I've never dream-jumped before. In the past, I've always faded rather than taken the risk.
He turns around, already forgetting about me. I can't allow that to happen. I need to stay with him. The way he's dreaming is different from our other patients. He could be the difference in finding how a brain makes its connection to the Vault of Memories. For Grams sake, I have to try.
"Jake." And I grab his hand.
His fingers, warm and strong, intertwine with mine, and heat floods up my arm, sending goosebumps over my body. Is this what it would be like to touch him in real life? Or is this just a sensation I'm making up in my mind?
Touching him is totally against the rules and holding hands is definitely against the rules. How many times has Dad told our team we are only observers and guides, leading our dreamers to find their memories?
Ignoring protocol, I go with my gut and squeeze Jake's hand. "Let me come with you."
He nods and then steps to the edge of the doorway. The wind roars around us, whipping against my clothes and face. I look down to find mist curling around jagged mountain peaks and ocean waves raging against sharp, hundred-foot cliffs. I think about Dad's theory that you can't die in a dream unless your mind thinks it's real.
This is just a dream, I tell myself. It's not real.
Jake smiles at me and then his hand slips from mine as he leaps. The moment he's gone, the helicopter begins to disappear, piece by piece.
"Now or never," I say.
Sucking in a shaking breath, I jump.
I fall and scream in absolute terror. And yet somehow, it's as if I'm flying, soaring through an unknown sky over a strange world. I stretch my arms out, mimicking Jake, and mentally urge myself closer to him. Even as terror is streaking through my veins, I can't deny the thrill somersaulting inside me.
"Wait up!" I call out to Jake.
He glances back and frowns. Seeing me has got him confused all over again. The world shifts and the ground rushes up at an alarming speed. With a whoosh, we're suddenly both standing on a dirt road, purple flowers blooming around us. My knees buckle and my stomach churns. I sink to the ground, trying to pull myself together.
Jake leans down and touches my shoulders. "I have to go. There's something I need to do."
Then he takes off toward an ancient temple-like building. Vines curl up along its sides and crumbled pillars are scattered about the ground.
"Wait up." I try to stand, but my knees buckle. These quick dream sequences are too much on my body.
He turns around. "No one is allowed. Not even you."
My pulse kicks up a notch. I should be upset, but I'm not. I can't prove it at this point, but something tells me this temple could be what our team has been searching for all year. The Vault of Memories. One of our theories is the Vault stores a mind's memories. Theoretically, if we knew where the dementia patient's memories were stored, we could reconnect the path to their memories so they could retrieve them.
Jake takes off again and I stumble after him. We pass by a small hut filled with computers. Strange creatures are sitting at tables playing video games and eating hot dogs. One of them has green skin and a large eye in the center of its head.
"Dude," I mutter. "Your dreams are weird."
"They sure are," someone near the hut says.
It's Tony, leaning against the side of the shack. Beside him, Javier is throwing up in the bushes while Sun is sitting on the ground cross-legged, hands massaging her temples.
"You got back in," I exclaim. "Except you three don't look so good."
"Yeah." Javier wipes his mouth. "Reentry is a beast."
"See that temple." I point to where Jake is headed. "I think it's a Vault."
"Good work," Javier says. "Let's check it out."
Except we must have let too much space grow between us and Jake as large chunks of ground start vanishing around us.
"Come on," I urge, and then break into a sprint. "We have seconds at most from fading."
"I can't—" Sun gasps, running alongside me. "I can't—keep up."
A chunk of the hill to our right vanishes. A rooster runs across our path squawking, only to fall into between two land masses.
"A rooster?" Javier asks.
"Not as weird as that flying teacup from last week," Tony points out.
"Be careful of the gaps," Javier warns. "They open up into the Void. If you don't think you can make it, step away from the dreamer's consciousness zone and revert to fade."
My heart skips. Not much scares me in dreams, but the Void is something entirely unpredictable. Basically, it's nothingness. Dad's theory is it's the subconscious of the dreamer's mind so when we fall into it, we could get lost in that subconscious.
When Dream Walkers fall into it, sometimes it takes longer for us to wake up or we've gotten severe headaches that lasted the rest of the day.
My thoughts are yanked to the present when I'm forced to jump over a gap onto another land mass. Meanwhile, Jake has reached the double doors of the temple and is staring at etched symbols moving across the door's surface. What do those symbols mean? I have to get to him.
"This is becoming too risky," Sun says. "The gaps are too wide."
"Sun's right," Javier says. "We need to fade."
"I can't let this opportunity pass," I argue. "We're so close to making a breakthrough."
And it could be the breakthrough we need to heal Grams' dementia. If I can keep my mind focused and remember this is a dream, I'll be fine. After all, didn't I just jump out of a helicopter for the first time?
"You promised you wouldn't do anything stupid," Sun warns.
"Sometimes science is about taking risks," I reason. "I'm going to see if this Vault concept exists. No more theories. No more conjectures."
"Like hell you are," Javier says. "I'm the lead for this mission. You're still an intern. Your father will kill me if anything should happen to you. The order is revert to fade."
"It's not worth it," Sun adds. "We'll have another chance."
"Will we?" I ask. "When? This is the first time we've come so close."
What I'm really thinking about is Grams. How many of her memories are already lost because we are too slow to find answers?
"I'm with you, Aria," Tony says. "Let's do this."
The ground shifts and wobbles. Dirt crumbles off the sides of these tiny islands, spilling into the black nothingness below us. I nod to Tony and take off in a full sprint and leap through the air, pin-wheeling my arms to propel me to the next land mass.
It's all in your mind, I tell myself.
For a moment, I'm running on air, stretching my body to land on the mini island before me. Then my hands sink into dirt. I did it! I scramble onto the mass and nod to Tony. He cracks his knuckles like he does before every exam at school, and with a running start, he jumps.
It's when he's halfway across I realize he won't make it. Thick darkness widens below his feet as if aching to drown him. His eyes widen with the realization he won't make it.
Crap.
I spot a tree root jutting out from the edge of my land mass. I slide down to it and snatch hold of the root, my legs dangling over nothingness. As Tony plummets, I reach for him.
Our hands clasp and I'm overwhelmed with relief. Except the weight of his body is too heavy, and my arm holding the root screams in pain as Tony's body hangs from mine. This is only a dream. My fingers on the root begin to slip.
"I'm going to swing you up," I explain.
He nods, the white of his eyes brighter than stars.
It's all in your mind. I swing him upward.
Dirt splatters my face as he claws at the earth and scrambles onto the land mass. Sun's and Javier's cheers fill my ears. We did it!
But the dirt my root clings to loosens, shedding from the landmass like an unwanted snakeskin. My heart jams into my throat in horror.
"No," Tony cries.
"Jake!" I yell. If he'll just look at me, he could change the dream's landscape.
Then Jake turns, and his eyes land on mine. "Aria!" He runs, reaching for me.
But I'm already falling.
My arms stretch for him, except it's too late. My body dives deep into the abyss of nothingness.