About the Dark Read Free Page B

how a nightmare could be dangerous. It was just a
hallucination. A waking vision that temporarily blocked out one’s
reality. And if Sin succeeded in making it for me now, he’d be able
to make one for our guards later. We could be free in half an hour!
But I suddenly choked up. The room around me—the cold cement walls
the color of gangrene, the ugly kidney-shaped wooden counter, and
the piles of books, magazines, newspapers, and journals (for this
room used to be a mall bookstore)—all of it began to suffocate me.
I had to get out of here. I had to be free. How I wished I could
make Sinna feel this crushing need!
    He squeezed my shoulder: he understood. Then,
sounding like the Collegiate Thesaurus he’d used for
a pillow for the last several years, he said, “Very well,
Ever-Jezebel. Do you recall what I have imparted to you not three
minutes ago?”
    I nodded and made my voice sound deeper to
show Sinna that I was quoting him, “Ever, you ought to remember
three things. First, if you notice that something, even the tiniest
and most insignificant detail, deviates from the nightmare we have
agreed upon, please stop me. Second, even if everything does go
according to the plan, but you feel that you wish to be released
from the nightmare, please stop me. Third, once in a nightmare, you
will not be able to see through my eyes, and fourth, knowing that
it’s not real is not going to help you in there.” I switched to my
own voice, “Did I get it right?”
    The sounds of steps and whacks came from the
back room, where Sinna’s girlfriend was teaching my boyfriend a new
method of killing people. By breaking their necks with the edge of
a palm. I only hoped Demi wouldn’t kill Fox because that girl was
freakishly strong.
    Sinna chuckled. “Yes, it was all correct,
although I do not believe I sounded even fractionally this excited.
However, let’s proceed. An ocean. Blue and warm. With a school of
fish that looks like the one on the cover of the Marine
Atlas .” The last words he muttered quietly under his nose,
clearly to remind himself of what I’d requested to see in a
nightmare.
    He backed away from me…a few steps…then a few
more…then all the way to the massive steel door that stood between
us and freedom. He stopped there, and again, we watched the dusty
green floor by my feet.
    Suddenly it quaked.
    Yes, right under my feet.
    The snapshots I was getting through Sinna’s
eyes vanished, but somehow, impossibly, improbably, I was still
seeing the floor by my feet. It quaked once again.
    On its third quake, a coffin-sized segment of
the green floor in front of me ballooned up. In perfect silence, it
wriggled and jerked from side to side, as if something large was
pushing our floor from beneath.
    My heart sang with excitement: it was
happening, it was here, the miracle that would set us free.
    The bulge gave one last shuddering twitch and
then, still silently, cracked open. A gush of clear, cold liquid
shot straight up out of the hole, wetting my chin, my nose, and a
lock of hair that had slipped out of my ponytail. As I wiped my
face, wondering why the liquid smelled of rubbing alcohol, the
water spurt hit the ceiling and came back down, this time soaking
me head to toe, and I couldn’t believe it was just a vision. My
skin felt wet. My hair and dress clung to me as if they were truly
soaked, and the only word I could use to describe this fluid was
“real.”
    More water came through the crack in the
floor, and then more still. Only it didn’t spread—it stayed around
me in a large circular puddle. I hopped up and down in it.
    “I’m loving this!” I told Sinna, not sure if
I would get a response—he hadn’t specified if we’d be able to talk
while I was inside a nightmare. But I did hear from him: he
chortled and said, “Just don’t attempt to swim in this reservoir,
Ever. It’s not real.”
    The water kept on rising. Soon it touched my
chin, and I hastened to press my lips together, which