Chapter 7: The Fadeblade

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The dream man stood in front of Ethan's still-closed bedroom door, ragged and broken. He looked like he was pawing at himself, touching countless bruises and cuts as though trying to hold his body together.

I... I'm dreaming? Ethan thought in his stunned stupor. But I--

"Please," said the dream man, hobbling forward on a fractured knee. His dark lips peeled back to show a grimace of yellow teeth, and sweat shone on his fishbelly white skin. Both of his beady, bloodshot eyes were fixed on Ethan.

Horrorstruck, Ethan jolted back as though forcefully pushing the world away from him. How did he get in? I would have heard him come in....

He bumped blindly into his desk chair and screamed in surprise. The dream man ignored the cry and kept moving toward him, limping and wheezing. 

As Ethan frantically steadied himself, his hand wrapped around the table lamp on his desk and he instinctively hurled it at the dream man. 

It stopped dead mid-air as its cord snapped taut and the lamp dropped harmlessly to the ground. Ethan swore.

"How are you here?" he shouted. "Who are you?" Then, at the top of his lungs, "Uncle Vic! Uncle Vic!"

The dream man laughed hoarsely, or maybe it was a sob. "No one else can help," he said, choking out the words. 

A cut on his forehead was oozing blood, soaking into his thick black eyebrow. He thrust his palm out to Ethan, fingers curled. Ethan put up his arms, hoping to protect his throat, shouting, cursing, wondering what the hell he should do, what was going on, what was--

"You're the only one," the dream man said through his laughing sobs, "you're the only one who can--"

"Get down!"

Ethan didn't hear the command so much as felt it, and he threw himself to the ground as though the order came from his own mind. 

"Who are you?" asked the voice that danced directionless around Ethan's brain.

The dream man turned, limping, away from Ethan. Ethan could see through the man's legs that someone new was standing in front of his bedroom door. And the door was still closed.

No--it was open? 

He couldn't be sure. Most of the time it looked closed, but sometimes, somehow, he could see through the door. The view of the hallway faded in and out inconsistently as though the door couldn't decide if it were open or not. But the door never swung open or shut--it was either completely closed or completely open.

I'm dreaming. I fell asleep at my desk, and now I'm dreaming.

"Help me!" the dream man pleaded, now shambling away from Ethan. The man's voice was higher, more frantic than before.

Ethan sprang to his feet and made for the other corner of his room in order to put some distance between him and the dream man. He tripped over the computer chair again as he passed it, even though he thought he moved it when he hit it the first time. After stumbling and crashing shoulder-first into the wall under the bright light of the window, he finally saw the third person in the room.

"Back off," snarled Neil Edwards to the dream man. 

And then he lifted a... sword?

No, not a sword. The blade didn't appear to be made of metal. In fact, it didn't look to be made of anything. It was like a black hole, an empty slit erased from reality.

Just staring into it made Ethan's head hurt. When he looked away, a dark streak stayed in his vision as though he'd been looking at the sun. 

The dream man sobbed and pouted, holding out a trembling hand before him, not daring to move any closer to Neil or the blade he wielded.

"Please," said the man.

And then he disappeared, along with Neil and the dark sword. 

Ethan blinked, mouth agape. He felt a wave of nausea, like motion sickness, or the kind of disorientation you feel when standing on a bus that suddenly comes to a stop. 

He realized he was no longer cowering in the corner. He was standing in the middle of his bedroom, exactly where he was when the clock struck midnight, still looking at his alarm clock. 

And right now, the clock read 12:01.

Feeling dizzy, he sat down on his bed. The bedroom door was closed, now, clearly closed, and never appeared to be open. The table lamp Ethan threw at the dream man sat upright on his computer desk. And the blind spot in his vision was gone, whether his eyes were open or closed....




BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEE--

Ethan thumped his fist down on the snooze button without looking. Opening his dry eyes, he frowned and looked around his room. The light was still on, but his computer had gone to sleep. It was dark out the window. Hadn't it been bright outside? No, he must have been mistaken....

What happened? Did I... fall asleep?

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he squinted his alarm clock. It was seven in the morning. 

Looks like it. But when did I...?

He thought back to the night before. The last thing he remembered was the surprise and confusion he felt when Neil and the dream man disappeared. After that... he couldn't recall.

Slowly he rose from the bed. He was still wearing his clothes from yesterday, and his leg had pins and needles after hanging awkwardly over the side of the mattress.

I must have fallen asleep while waiting for midnight, he thought. Yeah. Yeah, obviously that's what happened. I was crazy tired and I fell asleep and dreamed about that creepy guy again. And Neil, too, because I was texting him right before I went to bed.

Ethan chuckled and ran his fingers through his matted hair. Then he sighed.

Haven't had nightmares in years. Gotta stop thinking about it.

And yet, a small voice inside him kept asking, Are you sure it was just a nightmare?




After a hearty breakfast of Chocsplosion cereal, Ethan was starting to feel like himself again. He eventually worked up the courage to ask Uncle Vic if he heard Ethan making any noise last night.

"None that I heard," said Vic from behind the morning paper. "So be sure and keep it that way."

Ethan grinned. "I will."

There, he thought. If it wasn't a dream, Vic would have heard me screaming like a banshee last night when the dream guy supposedly showed up.

Just a dream. It made sense. But the little voice remained. 

Are you sure? Are you really sure?




The walk to school felt much longer than it actually was. And it was somehow just as familiar as the walk he began the previous day when he left school. Vic had given him directions, which Ethan ignored and just looked up Shirewood High on Google Maps, but truthfully he didn't need to use any directions at all. 

Despite double checking the GPS on his phone after each turn and street crossing, he found he never made a mistake. He could have just gone with the flow and would have ended up at the school without a second thought. Every tree and car and building he passed seemed familiar, but he couldn't recall specifically from where. They must have made some impression on him after first passing by them in Vic's car, he guessed.

Since he left Vic's early enough to allow room for directional mistakes, which he never made, he arrived at Shirewood High with time to spare. He took a seat in the main students' lounge, pulled out his homework, and added the last few touches he needed to get it finished. The distraction from his troubling thoughts was welcome. He managed to finish and get to class just as the bell rang.

Walking into the classroom, he nearly tripped over his own feet when he saw Neil Edwards sitting at the front of the room. In the seat next to Ethan's. 

Their spots hadn't changed since yesterday, but somehow it slipped Ethan's mind that he'd be sitting next to Neil again first thing this morning. 

He took measured steps as he made his way to his desk and sat down, trying to keep his breathing steady, trying not to show unusual levels of anxiety to anyone.

Just a dream, he told himself. But Neil did figure out that Ethan was texting him the night before, so it wasn't as though there wasn't anything to feel awkward about.

"Caller ID," said Neil. Ethan turned to look at him. Neil stared at the blackboard straight ahead.

Ethan frowned, puzzled. Is he talking to me?

"I knew you texted me because I have caller ID." Neil continued to ignore Ethan and opened his books and picked up his pen calmly.

"What?" said Ethan, unsure what else to say.

"You must be pretty embarrassed. Don't be." Neil began writing in his notebook. "Just stop talking to yourself."

"What are you...?"

Then Ethan stopped talking.

"Much better," said Neil's voice, but Neil himself continued to scrawl away at his book as though oblivious to their conversation. "You finally noticed."

Yeah. Ethan noticed.

Neil was talking without moving his lips.

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