Awake (26 page)

Andrew continued, “I know you’re probably
sick and tired of me talking about it. But after the past week,
everything went back to normal. No one really remembers much. All
they know is that everyone was asleep for a few days. They don’t
remember their dreams. No one knows what we did. That’s for the
best I think. Besides, it’s not like we did anything special.”

Scratching his cheek, Andrew thought for a
moment. “Speaking of which, this morning on the news they were
talking about it. They were interviewing people. I’m not sure who
they were. Probably some scientists and some conspiracy theorists.
All of them were confused of course. One guy was saying it was an
elaborate plot from the government to cut back on food consumption,
like some forced diet so that our population would lose some
weight. Another was saying it was a terrorist attack by radicals
who thought society placed too much emphasis on working and not
enough time on rest. People can sure come up with some crazy ideas,
huh?” Andrew chuckled to break the silence of the room. “But then
again, those crazy ideas aren’t crazy enough to be the truth.”
Andrew waited for a response. Kevin was still motionless.

Then Andrew said, “I heard from Tom
yesterday. I wasn’t able to contact him before. I tried calling him
over the past few days and he only ended up calling back last
night. He’s doing well. He told me these stories of how he fought
this massive battle against Kain while we were all asleep. I’m
amazed he isn’t traumatized by the experience. I still get
nightmares every night of that dragon. Just remembering that moment
when I was almost…” He paused. “It’s scary to think that the dragon
is still out there. That’s probably what haunts me the most.”
Andrew shivered. “I hope Kain isn’t looking for some personal
revenge. I’d hate to open the front door one day and see that
cranky old dragon at my door step.”

Kevin said nothing.

Andrew felt a lump in his throat. “Say
something. Tell me something. I want to know what went through your
head at that last moment. You knew this would happen, didn’t you?”
Exasperated, Andrew slammed his fist against the mattress. “Why
didn’t you tell us this would happen?” Andrew broke down, unable to
look upon Kevin’s emotionless face. “I don’t want to see you like
this. I don’t want to see you…die like this. If only I had known…I
don’t know what I would’ve done, but I would’ve done anything I
could to prevent this!” Andrew dried his teary eyes with the sleeve
of his shirt. “But I guess…it wouldn’t matter.” Andrew grinned
bitterly. “If I were in your shoes, I would’ve done the same thing.
Because it’s all about how much the world means to you. It was the
chance of a lifetime. We saved the world. It’s silly, isn’t it? We
always watch movies or read books about people saving the world.
It’s totally overdone. I’d gotten sick of it. But given the chance
to do it in real life? I’d do it as much as I could.” He bit his
lip. “Well, better not jinx myself. I’d hate to end up in that
situation again.”

Andrew sighed thoughtfully. “That’s all I
have to say for now. It’s about time for me to go. I’ll try to come
again tomorrow. Maybe Katie will come too.” Andrew picked up his
bag and walked toward the door. He glanced over his shoulder and
looked at Kevin one more time. He turned away and then did a double
take. To his surprise, Kevin was sitting upright and smiling back
at him. Andrew rubbed his eyes, thinking it was just his
imagination or an illusion. But it wasn’t. Kevin was really sitting
up.

Speechless, Andrew froze.

“I know what you’re going to say,” said
Kevin. “And yes, I was awake the whole time.”

Andrew stuttered, “Bu-bu-but how? Bu-bu-but
why?”

Kevin shrugged. “I woke up in this
morning.”

“But the nurse said—”

Kevin laughed. “When she told me you’d been
coming to see me everyday, I told her to act the same as she always
does. I wanted to surprise you myself.”

Andrew stared at him for a long time.
Suddenly, he ran to bed and gave him a strong bear hug.

Feeling the pain of being squeezed, Kevin
managed to breath out, “Hey! You’re going to snap me in half! I
don’t want to be stuck in the hospital for another week!”

“Oh, sorry,” Andrew released him and backed
away, his cheeks flushed. “I got a little carried away there.”

“It’s okay,” said Kevin, coughing. “I’m
happy I’m alive too. Really. Now go on. Get out of here.”

“So soon?” Andrew cocked his head. “But now
I can actually talk to you for real!”

“Sorry, but I’m still not feeling all that
well. I want to rest. I’ll be getting out tomorrow. I’ll see you at
the bus stop on Friday.”

“Thank you for coming!” Kevin bowed jokingly
before Andrew, Katie and Tom. “This is our
official…um…everything’s-back-to-normal celebration!” He popped
open a can of soda for an audible effect. No one cheered. They all
stared at Kevin, their brows raised.

Tom shifted in his seat, glancing around the
food court. “I can’t believe we’re doing this openly in a mall.
What if people listen in?”

Kevin shrugged. “Are you listening to the
people next to us?”

Tom said, “Not really.”

“See? Who cares?” Kevin sat down at the
table. “Now, let’s begin our meeting.” He turned to Tom. “What I
really wanted to know was what happened to Genesis? You guys
haven’t said a word about any of the agents from the HPC.”

“I don’t know,” Tom replied.

“You don’t know? But didn’t you see
Kain?”

“I did,” said Tom. “But Genesis wasn’t
around. Genesis, Luna, Terminus…I didn’t see them during or after
the battle. They just disappeared.”

Eyes wide open, Kevin stared solemnly at
Tom. Then he turned to Andrew and Katie. “No one has seen them?”
They shook their heads in reply.

Andrew said, “They haven’t tried to contact
us. For the past week I’ve been searching around town. Tom’s been
searching in Korgen. There’s no trace of them. And the animals
won’t speak to us anymore. Everything is back to normal.”

“That’s…” His face downcast, Kevin wasn’t
sure what to say. “That’s disappointing. I can’t believe it.” He
looked at Tom. “Not even Helios will say anything?”

Tom said, “Well, I haven’t seen him. I tried
going into the sewers—which was a lot of trouble I might add—but
the rats aren’t talking. I guess all the animals are pretty serious
about the no-talking rule.”

Kevin became silent. There was a long pause
as the four of them just listened to the chatter all around
them.

Andrew cleared his throat. “Kevin, isn’t it
about time you explained what happened at the end of the dream
thing? It all happened rather suddenly…and I was totally clueless
at the time.”

Kevin said, “I guess I might as well tell
you guys all about it, though it’s probably not as impressive of a
story as you would hope. I’ll do a quick recap. After I got plugged
into the device, I used it to gain control of the dream. With it, I
knocked some sense into Andrew and searched for someone else to
help. Someone came to me, but not what I expected. He was a strange
guy. Told me I was interfering with his plans. He called himself
the boogeyman. At that moment, I was pretty scared. I didn’t know
what to do. I mean, I wasn’t sure if he was really
the
boogeyman. And if he was, what could I really do against him? I
wanted to stop him, but really, there was nothing I could do. So I
ran to you guys for help. Alone, I couldn’t do anything. But with
the three of us…I knew we could overpower him. But I needed to use
the most powerful thing I could think of.”

“An atomic bomb?” said Andrew.

“Yeah!” said Kevin. “As I said in the dream,
the only way for something to become effective is if your
subconscious accepts it as truth. I may not have seen one in real
life, but I know for a fact that it exists.”

“To be honest,” said Andrew, “a hydrogen
bomb is more powerful than an atomic bomb…”

Kevin stared at Andrew. “Oh…well, uh…too
late for that. It still worked.”

Tom looked confused. “Wait. Does that mean
the
boogeyman
was the cause of that huge mess?”

“I don’t know for sure,” said Kevin. “But
that’s what I’m thinking. My perspective is this: the boogeyman was
like a small time criminal—like a pickpocket. Then, by chance, he
had the opportunity to hit it big, like as if he suddenly got the
power to rob a huge bank.”

“That’s an interesting perspective,” said
Andrew.

Kevin smiled. “Isn’t it?”

“Sounds like a bunch of guess work,” said
Katie. “You don’t know even know where that thing came from, do
you? What if it was your own dream? Maybe it was totally a figment
of your imagination. Maybe the boogeyman never existed…Maybe it was
just another part of you—a part of you that didn’t want the dream
world to end. That would explain why only you were able to hurt
it.”

Kevin’s smiled widened. “Maybe.”

Katie growled, “What’s with that smug look?
If you don’t really know what happened, we don’t really know for
sure if we solved the problem! What if this whole mess starts up
again?”

“Someone will deal with it when the time
comes, I guess.” Standing up, Kevin said, “And speaking of time,
it’s getting kind of late. I’d better get going.”

Andrew said, “What’s the rush? We haven’t
had the chance to just sit down and relax.”

“All this stuff has got me thinking,” Kevin
said. “You have to live every day like it’s your last because you
never know what might happen. I got some homework to do and this
time I plan on finishing it tonight. Tomorrow is Saturday. We can
hang out then.”

Katie stood up and pushed her chair in. “If
we’re done here, I might as well go home now.”

“You too?” asked Tom.

“Yeah,” said Katie. “My mom’s worried about
me. I shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

Kevin shot a confused look at her. “Your
mom? What the—Since when did you care about going home early? I
thought you hated your parents.” Katie shrugged silently and
left.

Kevin pointed at her and raised a brow at
Andrew. “What’s going on?”

“Some things have changed over the week,”
said Andrew.

Tom grabbed his backpack. “I guess this is
goodbye. I have to help my parent’s with their business.”

Andrew asked, “The movie theatre?”

“Nope,” said Tom. “It’s the little grocery
store on Felix Avenue.”

“You don’t mean—”

Tom said, “I’ll explain later. Let’s just
say I have a bad habit when it comes to…uh…being honest. And it’s
caused more trouble than it was worth.” He waved goodbye and
disappeared into the crowd.

Kevin straightened, looking at Andrew.
“Shall we go?”

Andrew nodded. He cleaned the trash off the
table, got his stuff and followed after Kevin. While walking, he
bumped into someone. It was Freddie.

Freddie said, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t
Andr—”

Andrew said quickly and confidently, “You
should find better things to do with your time than waste mine and
yours.” As he left, he said, “Every day is important. Every single
day.”

Freddie stared at Andrew as he headed for
the exit. “What was that all about?”

When Kevin went back to his house, his
parents were already home from work.

His dad was reclining on the sofa. When he
heard Kevin entering through the front door, he turned off the TV
and sat up.

His dad said dryly, “Where have you
been?”

“I was out with some friends,” Kevin
replied.

“You should have called me.”

“Sorry,” said Kevin. “I didn’t want to
disturb you at work.”

“At work? Kevin, it’s almost
eight
.”
His dad started to sound serious.

“Really?” Kevin checked his wrist. He didn’t
have his wristwatch. “Wow, I had no idea. Time sure goes fast when
you don’t have a watch. I wonder where it went.”

“Did you have dinner?”

“No. Only a small snack. I’m starving.”

“It’s in the fridge.”

Kevin nodded. “Okay. Where’s mom?”

“She’s sleeping. She’s had a rough day.”

Kevin smiled. “I wouldn’t want to wake
her.”

Kevin went to his room and dropped his book
bag on the floor. “Speaking of rest...” He jumped onto his bed and
dug his face into the pillow. “Ahh…never thought I’d miss sleeping
so much…even after a week-long coma.”

A voice suddenly said, “Are you sure you
want to take a nap? You’ll miss dinner.”

“Yeah,” said Kevin. “But unless the whole
world goes into a famine, I think I should be fine.” Wondering who
had said that, Kevin looked around. A yellow Lab was sitting by his
bed. Kevin bolted upright.

“Genesis!” Kevin shouted in excitement.
“What are you doing here?”

Genesis replied, “I was in the neighborhood
and thought I’d see how you were doing.”

A black cat crawled out from under the bed
and stretched its legs. “Oh, so the boy is finally back. I was
tired of waiting.”

Kevin smiled. “Luna! You’re here too!”

A parakeet flew down from the curtain and
landed on Kevin’s pillow. “Good to see you, Kevin.”

“Terminus!”

The drawer of Kevin’s dresser suddenly
cracked open. A white rat stuck his head out.

“Oh…” said Kevin, his enthusiasm fading.
“And Helios…”

“Hey,” snapped Helios. “Am I the only one
you’re not happy to see?”

Kevin said, “I might be able to get away
with letting a dog, cat and bird in the house…but a rat? No way. If
my mom—”

“KEVIN!” The door flung open. His mom popped her
head in. “Can you please keep it down? A lot happened at work today
and I really, really need to…” Her voice trailed off as she goggled
at the sight before her. “WHA-WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? WHERE DID ALL
THESE ANIMALS COME FROM? WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN MY HOUSE? AND A
RAT?! A RAT?! WHY IS THERE A RAT IN THE DRAWER?” She turned around,
ran into the hall and screamed to her husband, “HONEY! CALL ANIMAL
CONTROL! GET THE EXTERMINATOR! WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM!”