Dreamwalk

9

Isabel stood alone in the desert. She didn't recognize the location, but that was not odd, since the miles and miles of dirt surrounding Roswell had a tendency to look the same. Immediately, she wondered if this patch of wasteland was a reflection of a real place from Kyle's past or if it was entirely imagined. Then, she naturally questioned what it could possibly mean. Could be loneliness, she thought, or death. Possibly emptiness or loss or a hundred other things. Maybe 111 just wait to consult the dream analysis book when I wake up.

Looking over the flat, barren land, she could see for miles, and it was obvious that she was entirely alone. This was strange because, being Kyle's dream, she had expected to see him as soon as she had popped into it. Usually when she dreamwalked, the dreamer was the first person she would see. At the very least, she expected him to arrive shortly after she did. Being alone in the middle of the desert with nowhere to go, all she could do was wait.

«Kyle!» she called out after some time had passed, but received no answer. What is going on?

A screech from above directed her attention to the sky. Looking up, Isabel saw what appeared to be a vulture circling ahead-or it could have been a buzzard; she was never really sure what the difference was between the two. One single, solitary bird of prey was waiting just like she was. Another screech came from its beak, letting out a sound that was both strange and familiar to Isabel. It did not make the noise of a bird, but, somehow, it sounded slightly like the high-pitched cry of a woman.

Uncomfortable standing beneath the circling predator, Isabel started walking in the direction she was facing, for lack of any better plan. From her past, limited studies of dreams, she tried again to remember if she had ever read anything that related to what she was seeing, but she was certainly no expert in the field. Instead, she took mental pictures of everything around her so she could look it up in her dream book in the morning. If she didn't find anything there, she was sure there were hundreds more books on the subject. Maybe Jesse won't mind part of our day together being spent in the library.

Even though it was only a dream, Isabel could feel the desert heat beginning to rise, but she never felt uncomfortable. No matter how much the heat increased, her skin did not feel like it was burning, and she never even broke a sweat. Out of habit more than anything, she took shelter in the shade of a rock formation. As soon as the sun was blocked and the cool darkness enveloped her, she found herself transported to the Roswell Police Station.

The place was bustling with deputies moving in every direction. It was far busier than she had ever remembered seeing it before, largely with faces of people she didn't

recognize, although one or two seemed vaguely familiar. She doubted there was a time in Roswell history that that many police had been on the force at the same time. It was just too crowded for their little town.

Turning a corner, she nearly ran right into Deputy Blackwood. She immediately recognized the Native American who had unintentionally led her and her friends to the Mesaliko reservation two years ago, where they had ultimately found the first real clues to their past. Since he was the first familiar image she had seen, Isabel followed the deputy, hoping he would lead her to Kyle.

«Deputy Blackwood?» she called after him.

«Wait right here," he replied without looking at her.

Isabel wondered if he had actually been speaking to her, since he hardly noticed that she was there. He was busy talking with another deputy behind the front desk and seemed to be ignoring her entirely. While she watched the two police officers carrying out their conversation, Isabel noticed that Deputy Blackwood looked considerably younger than he did the last time she had seen him. She wondered if that was some kind of clue, or if it was just that Kyle remembered the man differently in his dreams. Remember these are just images, she thought. Don't expect it all to be true to life.

Soon, Isabel grew tired of waiting. «Deputy Blackwood?»

He continued his conversation as if she wasn't there.

«Deputy Blackwood?» she tried again, but still received no answer. She wondered if he even saw her there in the first place. «Great.»

Feeling the need to move on, Isabel continued her search

for Kyle in the lobby of the police station. Unable to find her friend, she decided to broaden her search area. Being where she was, she naturally looked for a dream image of Sheriff Valenti as well, but she could not find him, either.

Making her way through the station, she did her best to stay out of the way of the many, many officers tending to their affairs. It did not seem to Isabel that they were in any rush or in an emergency. They all seemed to be going on about their daily business.

In Kyle's dream, the police station was much larger than it was in real life, with winding and twisting halls that simply did not exist. She knew this for a fact, since she was at the Roswell Police Station far more times than any girl her age should have been. Making her way to where she felt was the most logical place to go, Isabel walked a circuitous route to the sheriffs office.

Once she finally reached the office, she found the door closed. As she placed her hand upon the knob, she could hear from within the sounds of a man sobbing. Carefully turning the knob, Isabel pushed the door open and walked right into the Valenti living room.

The crying had stopped.

The room was empty.

Back in the place she had left a short time ago in reality, she found the house looked pretty much the same as when she had been there. There were some notable differences, however. For one, daylight now shone through the windows, making the place much brighter than it had been. Naturally, Kyle was no longer on the couch, where she had left him, although it was made up to look like a bed. Then, she remembered that for the last several months of the

school year, the couch had been Kyle's bed. His actual room had been taken over by someone else. A feeling of trepidation came over her as she realized this part of the dream was taking place in the not so distant past.

Again, Isabel checked around for Kyle, but he wasn't in the room. This is really odd, she thought. Where is Kyle?

Voices.

Coming from Kyle's bedroom.

The voices were familiar and they sounded very angry. Isabel knew exactly what was going on behind the closed door to Kyle's room, but she did not want to see it. At the same time, however, she was drawn to the room. Whether it was because of the dreamwalk or her own curiosity, Isabel could not be sure. But suddenly, the door was open, and she was standing at the threshold about to witness an event that she had her own nightmares about.

It was Alex. Her Alex. The Alex she had tried to ignore for so long, until it was too late. He was in pain, talking about Las Cruces and mindwarps. He could barely stand. His face was twisted in what Isabel could only imagine to be excruciating pain.

Tess was there too. Alex was leaning on her, holding on to her as if he did not have the power to stand on his own. She looked frightened and trapped. There wasn't a trace of the anger Isabel had expected to see, only fear. It had been so much easier to think that Tess had acted out of anger. It made hating her all the more effortless.

Tess turned, looking directly at Isabel. «Kyle, get out!» she yelled, with anger finally creeping into her voice as if Kyle had done something wrong simply by walking into his own bedroom.

But Kyle wasn't standing there, Isabel was.

It was the first time she had seen Tess since she'd found out the truth behind Alex's death. The evil alien had left Earth before Isabel had had a chance to confront her and make her either explain why or suffer for what she had done. And even though Isabel knew that the image standing before her was only a dream, she still wanted to lash out… to hurt her… to kill her.

Through her own boiling anger, Isabel heard Alex say that he might as well be dead.

«No!» Isabel yelled as if the strength of her voice could stop past events. «Don't say that! Don't wish that!» she screamed, trying to tear him away from Tess, but something held her firmly in her spot. She could not move. She could not stop what was happening.

She could only watch as Tess grabbed Alex's hands and closed her eyes performing the mindwarp… the last mindwarp… the fatal mindwarp.

«No!» Isabel screamed in unison with Alex.

Still locked in place, Isabel watched Alex crying out in pain, trying to pull away, then falling… to the floor… to his death.

Isabel broke loose a torrent of sobs. Not even her most horrific dream had prepared her for witnessing the events as they had played out. She had never even imagined the feeling of helplessness Kyle must have experienced watching the scenario unfold and not knowing what was going on, ultimately realizing there was nothing he could have done. An intense feeling of guilt washed over her worse than she had ever felt before.

A moment later, Isabel was dragging a duffel bag. She

was confused by what was going on. Where is Alex? Did it really happen? Did I really see what I saw? The bag was heavy, and the weight was unevenly distributed. It didn't feel right to her.

Tess followed as Isabel dragged the bag out of the Valenti house. There was a forced smile on Tess's face, and Isabel knew that she should hate the girl, but couldn't figure out why. She carelessly deposited the bag into the car, stuffing it into the front seat.

Suddenly, realization struck Isabel. It hit with the force of a train. There was no duffel bag. Alex was the thing she had loaded into the car. He was the thing slumped in the passenger seat… broken… dead.

«You want me to come along?» she asked Tess without knowing why.

«No," Tess replied in a hollow voice. «Go in the house. I'll take care of everything from here.»

Although she wanted to stay, Isabel was drawn back into the house. She did not even stop to look at Alex for a final few seconds as Tess pulled away. She heard the car engine start as, crying, she made her way back through the Valenti home.

I didn't want to see this. I didn't want to live through this.

The pain was unimaginable.

She was back in Kyle's bedroom. Echoes of Tess and Alex resonated through her head. The fight played over in her thoughts… His final words… his final scream of pain.

Isabel collapsed onto the floor on the spot where Alex had died, weeping uncontrollably.

Why?

The bedroom door slammed behind her, drawing Isabel's attention away from the empty spot on the floor.

With tears in her eyes and streaming down her face, she looked at the closed door, but there was no one there.

Then she felt his presence in the room before she saw him.

Still on the floor, she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at the bed beside her. A small boy was sitting on the edge, with his legs gently swinging back and forth. He was looking down at her, both sad for her and frightened of her at the same time. «It's all my fault," he said in a hollow voice.

Jim Valenti crept silently through his house taking extra care not to wake up his son, who had crashed on the couch. He was used to the hushed puttering around because Kyle used to sleep there regularly while Tess had been staying with them.

Valenti cringed when he thought of his former house-guest. He had taken the seemingly helpless girl into his home and let her live with him and his son as a part of their family and all the while she was using one of their friends and ultimately wound up killing him. Valenti had always prided himself on his detective skills, and still had not managed to get over the fact that he had lived for weeks with a murderer under his own roof.

Pushing the useless regrets out of his head, Valenti took a moment to observe his slumbering son. When Kyle was a child, Valenti used to make a practice out of peering into the boy's room when he would come home late from work, to make sure his son was sleeping soundly. He especially made a habit of it after his wife, Michelle, had left them for parts unknown.

Sitting for a moment on the piano bench, he remembered

back to the time when music had filled the house. He and his former wife would take turns singing their son to sleep on the nights he had come home from work on time. He had forgotten how much he missed the music until recently. The memorial for Alex had been a powerful reminder.

Kyle was tossing on the unmade couch and mumbling slightly. Valenti worried that his son might be having a bad dream, because the way his face was scrunched as if in pain. He remembered back to a time when, as a child, Kyle always looked like a cherub lying under the covers-one of heaven's youngest angels. Valenti chuckled to himself as he thought, Kyle would love me to describe him that way in front of his friends. Ill have to remember to do that someday.

Still in silence, Valenti finished up his morning rituals planning for the long day ahead of him, in which he had much to do. Writing a note to his son, he tried to explain what he was up to, but decided on a simple, «Gone out. Be back later," because the full explanation was more than one sheet of paper off the notepad could manage to fit. Valenti left the note on the coffee table, taking one last look at his sleeping son. Then he threw on a light jacket and made his way out the front door, humming as he carefully closed the door behind him.

The slight click of the lock was enough to rouse Kyle from his somewhat troubled sleep. Morning came for him much more slowly than it had in the past few days. Light was streaming through the window warming his face and brightening the darkness behind his eyes. The dreams had not gone away, but somehow they had seemed more manageable, more tolerable. For the first time in weeks, he felt somewhat rested.

Peering through the slits in his eyes, he turned his head to the clock on the wall and saw that he had actually gotten over five hours of uninterrupted sleep. It wasn't a full night, but it was far more than he had slept in a long time.

With a small sense of relief, Kyle fully opened his eyes.

Rolling off the couch and onto the floor, he did his usual quick set of push-ups to get the blood flowing and rouse the body and mind back into full consciousness. He hadn't done this morning ritual in several days, since he was usually too tired to get out of bed, much less attempt any exercising. Today, however, was different. True, he was still somewhat groggy, but at least he felt rested.

Reaching out to the coffee table, he picked up his father's short note and added yet another meaningless clue to the mystery of his dad's disappearing acts. Oh well, hell tell me when he's ready, Kyle thought.

Stretching, he stood and scratched his belly. Taking a deep breath, he felt more awake than he had in days, but still with some residual sleep filling his head. It was taking a while for him to clear his mind and become fully conscious, but at least he wasn't plagued with horrible images. He hoped that the feeling would last the rest of the day, or at least the morning.

Moving to the bathroom, he splashed some cold water on his face to shock himself into consciousness. It seemed to work as his brain slowly came around. He took a long look up at himself in the mirror and was surprised to see he looked happy and far more awake than he actually felt.

This is going to be a good day, he thought as he prepared to start it off-totally unaware of the fact that Isabel was still in his mind.