Foreverland Is Dead

He kicks through the debris, stomps outside. His face a shade darker.
    Miranda flips on the light. The clear plastic bags ooze on the floor.

43

    The silence wakes her.
    She’s accustomed to the bunkhouse creaking, the wind pushing against the windows, through the cracks. Now there’s not even the whump, whump, whump of the wind harvester.
    Just the silence.
    Cyn opens her eyes, staring at the rafters. Her pillow still wet from fever, but her forehead cool. Legs no longer on fire.
    Such a wondrous moment.
    She falls back to sleep.
    She wakes to the rustle of coats, to boots hitting the floor. The stove is fully stoked, embers popping against the metal belly. Trays sit on chairs, a few on the floor. Food, uneaten.
    The girls are pulling on winter gear.
    Roc is cursing from her bed.
    Cyn’s lips are glued together with slime. She pulls them apart, smacks them to work up saliva.
    “How you feeling?” Jen asks.
    “Water.” Cyn pokes her hand out.
    Jen brings it. It’s a cold rush down a hot pipe. She hands it back. “What’s going on?”
    The front door slams open.
    A Russian bear fills the doorway. His nose is ruby red. Cheeks scuffed by winter. He steps inside. The bear transforms into an old man, scuffling into the bunkhouse. A fur cap forced onto his head, the fuzzy edge resting just above his eyebrows.
    “Do you realize what you’ve done?” He shakes plastic at them. “Do you?”
    Sid comes in. Miranda after him, wearing knee-high boots and a flawless white coat, plus pearls and new earrings. Jealous anger stirs inside Cyn. She’s a thief.
    “Untie the one in back.” He points a hooked finger.
    Sid marches to the back corner. The bedsprings creak.
    “What are you doing?” Cyn sits up. “Wait, you can’t untie her. Do you know what you’re doing?”
    “I ask the questions.” He spikes the bags on the floorboards, droplets spraying in all directions.
    He pulls the hat off, grinding his teeth. He walks toward the stove, thoughtful steps. Head down.
    Hand in pocket.
    Kat and Mad step aside.
    “We had months to survive.” He turns around, shaking his head. “All winter, probably. Now we might only have days!”
    He finishes pacing to the door, swings around.
    “Do you understand? Days! You don’t know anything about this world, none of you. You stumble around in the dark like children. I am your light. I am the one who will lead you out here. And you!”
    He crosses the room with large steps, shaking his finger at Cyn.
    “You had one purpose: you were chosen to keep the dreamer alive. She chose you to bring those bags to her, allowed you inside her sanctuary to feed her, and you destroyed it. This is your fault!”
    He stands over her, balling his fist, restraining himself from striking her. Cyn is unmoved, unblinking. If he decides to cave in her skull, she can’t stop him.
    “Thought you said this was a dream,” Kat says.
    The rage dissipates. His eyes blink heavily. He straightens, looking down at Cyn, nodding.
    And then the pulse, the electric prod ignites a thunderstorm in her neck, lightning flashing behind her eyes. A thunderbolt in her throat.
    Her body is like a steel plank.
    And blackness falls like a marble slab.

    Consciousness lifts like a fuzzy shade.
    Her body buzzing. Teeth numb.
    “Listen to me,” a disembodied voice calls. “And do what I say.”
    Footsteps echo.
    Moans follow.
    Forms creep from the hazy light. The girls are on the floor. Mr. Williams walks across the room, his shoes grind at a turn, step in the other direction.
    “Patricia is the dreamer. We are inside her mind; she creates the rules. And the rules mirror reality. That means her body, back in the woods, needs to be cared for, needs to be fed. That old woman on the path was the caregiver. When she died, Patricia chose Cyn to take her place.”
    He picks up the limp plastic bag.
    “When Patricia dies, so does this world.”
    The girls sit up.
    “Get dressed,” he says. “Meet me in the dinner house. We will eat and plan routes. You will explore this land until nightfall. I would leave you out there half the night if Patricia didn’t put you in the dream.”
    The girls sleep like the dead. They all dream the same. Patricia’s doing that to us.
    “Why?” Cyn croaks.
    He turns toward her.
    “Why does she do that?” Cyn asks.
    “You’re her children. She wants to share the dream.”
    “And you?”
    His head shakes. Perhaps he’s contemplating the button.
    “You,” he says with stiff lips,