Foreverland Is Dead

wire.
    Her eyes go wide. Her arm stiffens.
    She’s not convulsing, just staring into nothingness.
    “Do something!” Jen shouts.
    Kat runs up—
    “Stop!” Cyn shouts. “Give it a second.”
    Kat’s only a step away, hands out. Mad is a statue. Catatonic. Transported to another world.
    “Maybe she’s gone,” Kats says. “Maybe the dream body stays here.”
    “I’m sick of this.” Roc pulls off her glove. “I want out before that grisly bastard shows up.”
    Roc lumbers forward—
    Mad collapses.
    She draws a deep breath like she’s been held under water, starving for air. Kat and Jen pull her away. Mad’s eyes are crazy. She’s gulping like a fish.
    “It’s all right,” Jen says, stroking her head. “It’s okay.”
    They wait, give her time. Soon she calms. Sanity returns. She looks around, wondering where everyone came from, like she’s been all alone.
    “The dream.” She clutches Kat’s coat, pulling her close. “As soon as I touched it, I was in the dream, standing on the ledge…there were things out there, in the fog.”
    She inhales, squeaking. Eyes wide.
    Mad points at Cyn, like she knows. “The memories are out there.”
    Jen scurries away, like she’s infected. She turns over, crawls past Cyn. She gets to her feet, stumbles down the slope, spooking the horses. The horses gallop away from her mad scramble into the trees, collapsing on the ground in a heap of sobs.
    “I’ll get her.” Kat is on her feet, sprinting down the hill.
    Cries echo through the valley.
    Mad crawls away from the stone. Roc clutches her weapon, staring down the slope. She swings her hand at Cyn, shaking. “This ain’t, this is just some…”
    “This is what?” Cyn says. “It took her back to the dream, what do you think it is?”
    “You go.” She gestures at the monument. “Grab it, see what happens.”
    Cyn dips her head. She finally found a level of relief, the cold embracing her legs with numbing comfort. She doesn’t want to move, doesn’t believe this will be anything. She welcomes death.
    Just lie down and go to sleep, let winter have me.
    “Get up.” Roc gets a handful of her coat, dragging her through the snow. “Get over there and grab it.”
    Cyn winces at the sudden feeling. She knocks Roc’s hand away, gets to her hands and knees. She’s drooling. Snow is packed inside her gloves.
    She begins crawling.
    Hand in front of hand.
    Knee after knee.
    Until she bumps into the boulder. She stares up at the dead branches, the undulating trunk ripples like muscle. Smooth like polished wood.
    Kat is holding Jen.
    Mad watches blankly.
    Roc’s knuckles are white around the weapon.
    You can have me. All of me.
    And Cyn reaches, her fingers crawl over the boulder, contact the trunk—

    Gray.
    The edge is there. Her toes hang over.
    And the haze swirls in the Nowhere mist.
    Beckoning.
    Body ringing like a struck bell.
    The girls behind her.
    Watching through a tunnel.
    And below her,
    The abyss.
    She stretches out her arms,
    Inhales the senseless mist,
    Teeters on the brink.
    And falls like a statue.
    Falls into the known.
    Her belly swirls,
    Toes curl.
    Head over heel, she tumbles.
    Disintegrates,
    Into the Nowhere.

    The wind harvesters thump.
    Cyn feels the coarse pillowcase on her neck. The embrace of the mattress. Smells the wood stove.
    She feels pressure in her forehead.
    Her eyelids crackle, tearing apart the crusted seal. The rafters are blurred. She blinks but can’t focus. Her eyes aren’t responding.
    Something is between them.
    There’s waxy balm on her lips. And pressure in her arms. Arms she can’t move. She licks her lips in slow motion, blinking heavily. Trying to will her hand to lift, to remove whatever is stuck between her eyes— A face.
    Her brown hair hangs down. She’s leaning over Cyn, obstructing her view of the ceiling. Her lips move.
    A sound comes out, slurred and long.
    She looks to the side, says something. Looks back. Tries again.
    Her lips move. A single word.
    “Cynthia?”
    She reaches for Cyn’s forehead, takes hold of the object between her eyes. It slides out like a sliver, a cold metal sliver, sending a queer sensation between her ears, down her throat— There’s sound.
    Objects.
    She turns her head. There are people in the bunkhouse. Adults. They’re all watching.
    They’ve come.
    We’re saved.
    The woman’s hand touches Cyn’s arm. There are needles in her arms, tubes running to IV bags on a stand over her head. Across the room, Kat is