A Single World to Change - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I rushed up the flight of stairs to the roof, a journey that had become all too familiar to me recently. I could still feel the confusion of last night. The anger inside me burned and writhed, causing my stomach to twist. I needed to see Hazel, although I had no idea what I could say to her.
I could hear the conversation in my mind: Hey Hazel, do you know anything about a guy who goes around stabbing people that then disappear when the sun rises?
She would think me insane. Maybe I was.
Not so long ago if I had thought of myself seeing these strange things, meeting such strange people and... animals, I would have laughed out loud and excused it as a fantasy created from boredom.
I paused as I reached the door to the roof. Should I really bother her with this? Was that even my reason for being here? I knew I wanted answers, but I knew that Hazel was unlikely to provide them. So why was I trying to find her?
I sighed and was about to go to class, which should have started already, when the door opened and I was suddenly face to face with Hazel.
Speak of the devil.
She looked shocked to see me and I didn't blame her. Who in their right mind loiters at the top of some stairs? No one I knew at least.
“Hello Hazel.” I smiled, almost convincingly.
She frowned, her dark hair ruffled and falling over her face. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was hostile.
“Uh, I was just... kind of coming up to see if you were here.”
“'Kind of'? Either you were or you weren't. Which is it?”
“Well, you see I was undecided.” What could it hurt to be honest?
“Oh, I see.” She smirked. What had happened to the gentle girl I had left here yesterday? “So you didn't really want to see me. You were after something.”
I blinked, stunned, then frowned with exasperation. What was going on with her? She was acting strangely. Not that much in my life could be called 'normal' at the moment.
“No. Look, something weird happened last night and I wanted to see if you were okay.”
It was her turn to frown now. “What do you mean?”
Now where to go from here?
“Well, the light and stuff cut out...”
Her frown deepened. “There was a power cut?”
“Uh, no.” I rubbed my temples. This could take a while. I wasn't even sure what happened myself. How could I explain everything to her?
“Listen, Hazel, you might not believe this but last night-”
A sharp pain ripped through my back, as if the skin had been torn open. With a cry, I fell forward and only narrowly avoided hitting my head on the wall as she caught me.
“Hey, what's wrong? Victor?”
I could hardly hear her voice. It was like there was a fire burning me, or ice. I couldn't tell if I was burning or freezing. I was overwhelmed with nausea.
“Come on, talk to me! Oh- You're bleeding!”
Bleeding? How?
“H...Hazel?” I tried to raise myself, but my arms weren't working. I was shaking like a leaf. Probably shock.
“What... what is it? No, I need to call an ambulance. Stay here, okay?”
I wanted to laugh, despite the tremendous pain in my back. Like I was going anywhere. I heard her footsteps fading into the distance and, left in silence, I found my thoughts drifting. How had I ended up with a hole in my back? I knew I had been stabbed last night, but shouldn't I have bled then rather than now? I was getting a light head from blood loss and beginning to hallucinate, because I swore I could see that white cat again.
I wasn't scared any more and the pain seemed to lift. I was about to pass out. As the cat approached me, I realised I wasn't hallucinating.
“What in the world do you think you're trying to do?”
Definitely the same cat. Its voice was still depressed and it frowned at me.
“Well... I think I might be dying.”
The cat let out a bark of laughter, but it was coated with sarcasm.
“I wasn't talking about that. I mean, what are you thinking, trying to tell Hazel about what you've seen? Don't you know the consequences of your actions?”
Anger rose inside me and, considering my situation, was surprised to find myself shouting back. “Listen, I don't have a clue what's going on! I'm confused, I'm scared and now, I'm probably going to die. So just spit it out!”
Not like me to lose my temper. It worked though. The cat leaned back on its haunches and its ears retreated behind its head. It was quiet for a while, before it sniffed in a hurt way.
“No need to yell. I can hear you perfectly well.” It twitched its whiskers. “I suppose I have time to tell you, before she returns. First, I think it would be best if we moved to a new location. These stairways are terribly cramped.”
I glared at it. “How am I supposed to move? In case you didn't hear me before, I've got a hole in my back!”
The cat winked and seemed to smile. “Oh, don't worry. You aren't required to move at all. Excuse me.”
Light blinded me and forced my eyes to close for a moment, a strange, full feeling in my head. When I opened my eyes I found that I no longer lay in the stairway, but sat on soft grass. I was in a field that seemed to go on forever and clashed with the luminescent sky. The cat sat next to me, its eyes half closed.
“Um... where are we?” My voice was as small as I felt in this vast, empty place.
“I've just moved us into a corner of your mind. Don't worry, your body is right where we left it. I've only moved your consciousness.”
“W-what?!”
“Look, I don't have much time.” The cat looked at me with barely restrained annoyance. “Do you want me to tell you about the recent events, or not?”
“Uh, please do.”
It gave a little cough, clearing its throat. “Well, you have obviously learnt so far that all of these 'strange' occurrences are related to that girl you know.”
“Hazel?”
“Yes.” It appraised me with its round, sorrowful eyes. “She is the one causing it all.”
I frowned. “Wait, what? Are you telling me she's messing up the world or something?”
That guy with the sword had said something about being a 'creation of a subconscious'. Was it-
“A dream? Yes.” I jumped as the cat interrupted my thoughts. It acted as if it had been listening in on them. “She's just like you other humans, who create fantasy worlds to escape from reality when it gets too much. Except... Well, you've seen the results.”
My frown deepened. “Are you saying that her fantasies are affecting reality?”
“Not only that,” It stretched its paw, then licked it. “She's managed to bring her world out into this one. They aren't just 'affecting' reality, they're altering it completely.”
It saw my look of horror and stood. “Thankfully, they haven't quite yet come out so that everyone can see them. They currently lie just below the surface, but soon they will burst through and who knows if the effects will be reversible?”
“Are you telling me that I'm the only one who can see them?”
“Oh, of course not! You're one of a few who have become so dissatisfied with reality yourselves that you're actually searching for something like this. An adventure. Well, guess what? You've got one.”
I felt a strange mix of happiness and relief that I was not alone, but also overwhelming sadness and fear. There seemed to be nothing I could do. How might the world change if one of these fantasies broke into reality for everyone? Would that killer be on the lose every night? Would holes of nothing appear at random? Would people really get hurt, or die?
“How did that stab wound come back? I mean, last night it was just a bruise.”
The cat glowered at me. “That was why I was so irritated before. You telling Hazel about these 'dreams' makes them real to her, validates them, and so their effects become real. You didn't get killed last night only because Hazel thought it was all a dream and that she would see you again today.”
“But I didn't tell her!”
“You were going to. You were so close to doing so and dooming us all that the effects began to become real. Of course, because of that wound, you didn't. But that's the only reason why you're alive now. When you triggered Hazel's subconscious to think back to last night's nightmare, for that is what you were in, she remembered you were stabbed. However, as soon as she saw you were wounded in real life, separate from her dream, she no longer thoughts about the nightmare and so your wound became less.”
Shock ripped through me as I realised how close I had come to killing myself by accident. I would have to be much more careful from now on.
“Um... Where... Where are these others?” I tried to change the subject. I didn't want to be alone if another dream materialised.
The cat watched me. Unnerved, I looked away.
“I suppose I can tell you.” I heard its melancholic voice move around me. “But not just yet. When we next meet. For now, I think it would be best for us to return to the conscious world.”
I nodded in agreement, then paused.
“What's wrong?” The cat asked.
“Hey, how come you're able to go into those dream worlds too? And into my mind? What are you?”
A smile slid across it's furry face. “Just an ordinary cat trying to help.”
With that, there was another blinding flash of white light and I was back in the darkness of the stairway, footsteps coming toward me. I looked around, but the cat was gone. My back didn't hurt any more.