“How are we going to do that?” I asked. “We’ve been doing that for ten years, and nothing has changed at all.”

“You’ve got to undream them,” Luke replied.

“Undream them?”

“Yes. You must own them and call them back into your inner world.”

“That sounds easy.”

“It’s not.”

“Can’t we just go out and kill them?” Lara asked plaintively.

“How do you kill a dream?” he replied. “Killing them doesn’t solve anything. They’ll pop back into being eventually. Surely you’ve noticed that the monsters keep coming back, looking just a little different each time.”

Lara scrunched her forehead, thinking about what he’d said. Her features smoothed and she nodded. I began to feel claustrophobic, hemmed in by my own nightmares. I could see no way out of it, if Luke was telling the truth.

“You can show us how to get rid of them for good?” I asked.

He shook his head briefly.

“You can’t get rid of them, I’m afraid. We don’t ever get rid of them. They’re here to stay.”

“But you aren’t sprouting monsters everywhere you go,” I said.

“Sometimes I do. But very rarely. I’ve scouted out the terrain inside my head. Things which break loose don’t surprise me as much. You can’t see everything coming though. Sometimes things blindside you, especially above ground. We don’t have monsters underground. There’s more to it—”

“Oh yes?” I interrupted. “I can’t wait to hear about it.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I was being petulant and taking out my frustration on the only other human being we’d spoken to in a very long time. I resolved to be more accommodating.

“The monsters,” he began, “they are an essential part of you. In fact, they are the source of all your power.”

My mouth dropped open.

“So what the fuck are we supposed to do with that?” I exclaimed, resolve crumbling. He was being very difficult after all—presenting one impossible conundrum after another. They were compounding around me like a cage.

“I’m sorry, I know this is upsetting. You’ll need time to get to grips with all this. For now, think of it like this: there is a small part of you that is fully aware of your surroundings right now, yes?”

“Mm.”

“Well,” he continued, “That’s not the whole part of you. You are also made up of a shifting mirage of other parts which experience varying degrees of consciousness. We call those other parts ‘dreams’. They are secondary processes and they function like deep underwater currents. Collectively, they are more powerful than the conscious part of you could ever hope to be. It’s a bit like a drop of water in the ocean, really.”

“So you were able to heal Lara by tapping into some of your own dreams?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s exactly right,” he said. “So this is where it gets interesting… Have you ever heard of the story of Hercules and the White Lion?”

“No,” answered Lara. “Though Shelby tells me stories every night.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know the story either.

“Hercules gets given a task by the Goddess Hera to atone for some nasty stuff that went down. He has to find and kill a monstrous lion that has been depopulating towns around Greece. The thing is terrible, with a magical skin and razor sharp talons that make it invincible. He finally tracks it down and traps it in its own cave. He then enters the cave and tries to stab it with his sword. The thing just bends on the lion’s head. His hammer shatters when he tries to clobber it to death. Eventually, he manages to kill it by strangling it with his bare hands.”

“What do you mean?”

He chuckled and continued with his story. He seemed very fond of telling his anecdotes. It was endearing, but also slightly annoying as his meaning was often opaque.

“So he’s about to leave the lion’s carcass in the cave when he’s struck by an ingenious plan. He decides to flay the lion using its own talons. He takes the pelt and makes it into a cloak, thereby becoming invincible himself.”

“So it’s the same with our monsters?” Lara asked.

“Yes. It’s the same with our monsters.”

I needed some time to take in what he was telling us. I got up and left the room to go outside. I needed fresh air. I felt like an iron hand was gripping my heart. Just outside of what I was willing to let into the fore of my thoughts, something black and weighty was lurking, threatening to dig its tendrils into the small safe space I’d carved out for myself in my mind. There was stuff I didn’t allow myself to think about. It was stuff I couldn’t face…

Suddenly, it occurred to me that the presence lurking on the periphery of my consciousness had me cornered and there was nowhere I could go. I became instantly enraged. Wild with fury, I ran to the gate and fumbled at the latch in the dark. I rummaged in my pocket for my keys and managed to get the gate open. I stepped out into the street and slammed it shut behind me. I was standing alone, in the dark, in a world populated with my own living nightmares. I locked Lara and Luke inside. No one was coming for me.

I ran out into the empty street and made in the direction of Medusa’s lair. The air was cold and I knew other creatures of my subconscious were also about, but I was hunting now and my adrenaline kept me from feeling any fear.

I ran the three blocks to where she slept and once I was outside, I screamed and I let the presence at the edge of my consciousness overwhelm me and wash over me. As the inky blackness of that presence overwhelmed everything and took over every other sense, I lost control of the darkness around me and it too crawled closer. I could smell my own fear then. I continued to scream, but this scream was the sound of a minute figurine shouting into a chasm. The emptiness of my fear swallowed the sound. I could no longer see buildings around me. I didn’t know where I was anymore. I was inside my nightmare.

***

Tell us: Would you willingly go into your worst nightmare?