Part 6: Golden Sunrise

"Yeah, she gets it," Mel agreed, "You can see us. But you know this isn't what we really look like. All we can show you is how we looked the last time we were alive. And every life is different. You certainly don't look anything like Claude, but you probably are him. Born again, with different parents and different experiences carving new lines on your soul."


Alex nodded too, and they all turned to look at Violet. Maybe she was the one who could do things with the dream world, like they all had different kinds of powers. Violet closed her eyes, and then there was a change in the room around them. The light faded up slowly, like a grey dawn. Even behind Amber, where she was sure the wall should have been. She could see the others properly, wearing complex white robes apart from Violet in a yellow summer dress, and Arnie in what looked like a high school sports kit of some kind, a number 8 on her chest. Before it was really light enough to see them properly, Violet's eyes opened and she turned to Amber.


"You need to go," she said, "Sorry. We'll be back tomorrow, please try not to forget."


"Wha–?" Amber asked, first puzzled by the statement and then startled by the near blackness around her. The growing colours had gone, but a single spear of light came into the room, a blindingly bright pattern on one wall. The alarm clock was screaming, at maximum volume now so she guessed it must have been doing its gradual wake-up for at least ten minutes. She groggily turned over and swatted it, untangling herself from the sheets again.


"The trouble with dreams," she told Nyarlathotep as she fielded the cat's morning attempts at playful dismemberment, "is that you never know when you'll have to wake up. Even if they're someone else's dreams."


She was more awake than usual this morning, so was able to answer her mom's shouts of irritation with an energetic "I'm coming!" and rush down the stairs fully dressed only two minutes later. Breakfast was already on the table, and her bag had been packed for her, which must have meant Mom was trying to guard her against lateness when she didn't wake as soon as the alarm started. If Violet hadn't sent her back right then, Mom might have come into her room to check on her, and found her dead. That wouldn't do at all.


"That man Jack was back tonight," she said as she tucked into her toast, "Don't worry, he's just a dream. But it's not my dream, it's Violet's. She dreams all of us, but some of us can have lives when she's not dreaming, because we're not dead yet."


"You're... not dead yet?" Mom latched onto the only part of that sentence she could vaguely understand.


"No. And we probably won't be until Mel dies again."


"That's good then," Mom patted Amber's head distractedly, "Just make sure you stay not dead, okay? And can you try to get to school on time?"


Amber was already finishing off her breakfast, so she had no trouble hurrying in time to get to school. She felt weirdly alive this morning, like there were extra colours in the world and she could see them all for the first time. She felt like she was seeing the same things in a different way, even if she couldn't tell quite what was different. Everything around her made her want to run, and jump, and sing.


"What's got you so excited?" Lauren was the first to notice.


"You wouldn't believe me," Amber grinned widely, "Some people came to talk to me in a dream. Well, maybe people. I think they're ghosts, but some of them are still alive. And me, I'm still alive too. Well, of course I am, but I think I died for a few minutes and then came back, because Violet can pull ghosts into her dreams instead of where they're haunting, so they pulled my soul out like a ghost so she could dream me there, so everybody could talk to me. They said they're like superheroes, but not quite, and kind of like wizards too, but that's a dirty word for them so they've got some powers but they don't like it if you call it magic." She might just have kept on talking, but at around that point she had to stop to take a breath.


"You had a dream about superhero ghost wizards?" Lauren somehow managed to condense the story down to a single sentence, but without most of the drama and excitement that had been in Amber's account. Something in her voice said she wasn't sure what to make of it, but Amber pressed on regardless. She wasn't good at recognising disbelief at the best of times.


"Kind of. Except it's not my dream. And I might even be one! At least, I think that's what they said. A superhero, I mean, or a wizard. I don't know if I have to be a ghost for that, but I think they want me to be alive for a bit before I'm dead again. So I hope I can be a wizard while I'm still alive."


"Well, whatever you are, I'm sure you'll never be boring. Are you sure they're going to let you be a wizard? I mean, it could be just a normal dream, right? Dreams don't always come true. They hardly ever do if you ask me."


"Yeah, but Violet told me this one was a real dream. And it's her dream, so she must know, right?"


Lauren couldn't dissuade Amber from talking about ghost wizards all day, and she didn't really want to. It was better to be confused than bored, and racing to keep up as Amber jumped from one topic to another was a surefire way to avoid boredom. As the day went on, quite a number of other friends and teachers asked Amber why she was so unusually lively, but Lauren was the only one who kept up listening long enough to hear the story, even among those Amber trusted enough to let them know her secret identity.

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