Dream and Reality: Chapter 5

Chapter 5
Reality
Before I even opened my eyes, I was already reaching for Maya. As I do, my arm bursts into pain. I see a knife sticking out of the side of my arm. I pull it out, jump up, and grab Maya. In an instant, she jerks awake and looks to me. “Run!” She says. Gee. Thanks.
We both move out of the small clearing and into the street. A car flys by us, and we both run across. As I run, I see a small dagger fly just past me, missing by only a few inches. When we make it across, we start running down the side, waving for a car.
A knife stabs into my leg, and I collapse onto the road. “Henry!” Maya screams. A car comes speeding toward me but stops just before it flattens my head. The driver gets out and starts walking toward me. “Kid, are you-” He gets cut out when Maya runs and grabs his shoulders. “We need a lift! Please!” He looks down at me, but he's not who I’m looking at. A woman, dressed in all black and wearing a satchel, is holding another knife.
“Look out!” I scream. She throws it, aiming for the man. I grab his leg and pull him to the floor. The knife whizzes over him as he yelps with surprise. Suddenly, the wounds in my arm and leg fade away. Med. I’m asleep in the dream world right now, so he can still heal me.
I scramble up and dodge another knife that goes right for my head. I jump into the man's car and start looking through compartments. He jumps in as well. “Do you have a gun in here?” I yell. He reaches behind his chair and pulls out a full shotgun. I look at him for a second. “You need a good gun for protection he says.”
“So you keep a shotgun in your truck!?” Our conversation is interrupted by a scream from our left. “Maya!” She falls to the ground with a knife in her back.”No!” I grab the gun and run out. The woman in black flings a blade toward me, but I slide to the side dodging. I grab the knife and pull it out of Maya’s back. The wound instantly heals over, and I see she's still alive. Phew.
I aim the shotgun right at the woman and pull down on the trigger. Blood shoots out behind her and she falls to the ground. I hear the terrified screams of the man in the car. She was dead.
I hear footsteps behind me, and I turn just in time to see a knife being swung at my head. I duck under, narrowly avoiding it. Another man stands there. He swings the blade down. I try to duck away, but it stabs into my arm, and I see the end of it poking all the way through. He pulls it out and grabs my head. He jabs up and the knife goes into my stomach. “Got ya now,” he says. He takes the knife and starts to swing it down into my head, but nothing happens. I look to see his body on the road, run over by the man in the car.
“Come on kid!” He yells. “Wait!” I respond. I run to the woman's body and look in her pockets. I find a phone, a wallet, and a radio. I grab it all and run to the car. Maya is already inside. All the wounds on both of our bodies are gone.
He starts driving right away. “What’s happening?” He asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “Someone has been trying to kill me for two days now. I can’t figure out why.” He looks at me and slams on the breaks. I jerk forward. “Your wounds,” he says. “Where did they go?” I sigh. Maya pulls out a copy of the book she had given me. “Just get us anywhere far away and we can explain this all.” He looks at her and the book for a second then nods. He begins driving again.
A lay my head back on the seat and start thinking. Who is doing this? They have to not only be powerful in the dream world, but also in the real world. How else would they have assassins being thrown at me left and right? And I guess they also have plenty of knives. I look back to see Maya messing with one of them. Next to her is a pile of them that she must have grabbed as we were fighting.
“Shit.” I hear from her as she looks out the window. I roll mine down and look out, but jump back when I'm greeted with a gunshot. Shit indeed. A car filled with people dressed in black speeds behind us. They are all armed with guns. Must have run out of knives.
Glass breaks apart in front of me and behind as a hail of bullets plows through. I unbuckle my seatbelt and duck down. “Maya!” I yell. She takes the knife in her hand and flings it back at the car. It sticks out of their windshield. “Faster,” I say to the man driving. “You think I’m not already at top speed?” Oh yeah. The movies are misleading. No one waits to go fast as they can if their being shot at.
I hear a pop and the car starts to slow. The tire. I look up ahead at the street. There is a gas station up ahead. “Move,” I say jumping onto the man into the driver's seat. “I got this. Maya, take the gun and start shooting.” She does as I say and shoots back. As expected, the car is bulletproof.
The enemy is right behind us now, and our car is moving slow enough that they could run after us and still catch up. Speaking of getting out of their car, one of them crawls out a window to hop onto our car. Sadly, he wasn’t thinking well, and his friends knew it. They yell to him, but it's too late. Maya pumps him full of bullets, and his body flies back onto the road.
Our car is about to pass the gas station, and our situation is getting worse. “The guns empty,” May says tossing it to the side. “It’s fine. Get ready to jump out of the car.”
The man finally says something. “Are you going to drive my car into the gas station!?”
“No, of course not. That would kill everyone in there. I just need the car to stop them. We can get help there.”
I look at the gas station speeding toward up. “Three... two… one…”
We all dive out the sides of that car, and I slam my foot on the brakes before I do. The car jerks to a stop, and the enemy slams into its rear. They go flipping into the air. Their car crashes upside down in the middle of the road. Luckily, there are no other cars in sight except the ones parked at the station.
Me, the man, and Maya run into the gas station. There is only one teenage employee inside and he’s on the phone. Shit. “There are two cars outside, and one is fully flipped over.” He looks at us, then back outside. “It looks like everyone’s okay.” My head jerks to the side, and I see 3 people walking out from the wreck just fine. They're all armed.
“Duck!” I yell as they all lift their guns. The glass shatters from the front of the building as bullets rain over us. I can no longer see the employee. I can only hope he’s ducked under the desk unharmed. I gram Maya and the man by their arms and start crawling to the back of the store. I scramble into the bathroom and lock the door.
I hear the crunching of glass in the station as the people enter. I put my ear to the door. “No, please.” The employee. He was found. I brace myself for the gunshots, but nothing happens. “Tell anyone what happened here, and we’ll kill you and your family,” the enemy says. “Thank you. Thank you. I won’t.” I hear the crunching of the glass leaving the station, followed by his car starting up and driving away. They let him go.
Footstep move closer to the bathroom, then stop. I slowly realize what would happen next. I dive to the side as bullets fly through the door. They didn’t hear the shuffling over the sound of the gunshots luckily. Everything is silent. The handle starts to rattle. “They gotta be in here,” a woman’s voice yells to the other two. More footsteps come to the door. Oh god. They have us cornered. The man who was helping us is praying in the corner, and Maya is pressed against to wall away from the door.
A foot kicks through the door, making a large hole. It comes out, and all the people duck down and look at us. They scan the rest of the bathroom, then stand up. “Keep looking,” one of the men say. They didn’t see us? But they were looking right at us. We all sit there in silence.
After a few minutes and curses later, they leave. A car pulls into the lot and picks them up. I hear muffled talking from outside, too faint to understand. Then, as the car drives off, I smell burning. Frantically unlock the door and look to see the station begin to go up into flames. All three of us run out onto the street before anything explodes. We all stand there panting.
Not even a minute later, we see a car coming. Shit. I would run, but what's the point? They have their guns, and we have nowhere left to hide. Its flat open terrain on all sides. The car comes to a stop in front of us. The window rolls down. “Get in.” We look to see Lance in the front seat. “Well?” He says. We run into the back of the car.
“How did you find us?” I ask. “I can explain later. For now,” He hands me and Maya some pills. “Y'all need some sleep. I can join you once I park somewhere safe.” I smile at him, and he does back. I pop the pills in my mouth, excited for what we were gonna do. We had a mission. Before I can verbally thank him. I’m already asleep.