Chapter 45: When the Dream Starts to Fade
If Ceres was the student equivalent to the realistic Natalie, then Korrigan was her Titania: optimistic, unintentionally sexual, and prone to endless babbling.
“Oh, that crazy chick can totally handle it,” said Titania, “She’s, like, the Goddess of Love! Don’t think that’ll stop those Veritas kids though – they’re totally determined to fight this!”
A fight they couldn’t survive. “Surely even you’re not so optimistic to rate their chances against a real demon?” asked Natalie.
“Relax, Nat, we’ll sort that out before they even get a chance to meet one! And if we take that Alastor out that’ll ease up the leyline corruption a ton. Less corruption, less chance Cethin Sarff’ll be able to trace what they’re after, and more time for us to work out where it’s coming from!”
“At the rate things are going, the whole Academy will be shrugging off your illusions by the end of the week. And then what are we going to do? Hope one of them owns up to having the strange dreams you said are supposed to come with these things?”
“Hey, Freyr said that, not me! And if Freyr and Dionysus believed it, it’s gotta be true. I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t carrying on their legacy!”
“And neither would Cethin Sarff…”
Titania burst into embarrassed laughter, like the sound of birds chirping. “So I told Skirnir? Sheesh, Nat, you gotta make everything sound so serious! We’ll be fine!”
***
Phoenie tapped through the files on her clipboard, sending icons spinning off into the illusionary void presented by the touchscreen. Sometimes she found herself staring off into the nebulous expanse of documents and images, her eyes sweeping across the twisting DNA strands filled with songs and programs, marvelling at how a flat image could look so vast. It felt as if she could reach in and pluck out the files – if she could only remove the transparent wall between herself and the electronic ether. And if only she could escape into it – for in the real world she was trapped in her most despised Academy subject: Engineering.
The Topaz-Emerald class sat in darkness as the window-sized video screen played out another documentary filled with mathematical and scientific facts that struck Phoenie’s imagination like rubber balls hitting a wall. The Construction of Babel, it droned on, the greatest feat of human engineering in history. She knew this. All they’d done this year was learn over and over again about how ‘miraculous’ the technology of the Old World was, but all Phoenie had gathered from the archaic footage was that the world then was much more crowded and uninviting than it was now. Back then humans populated every square inch of the planet – everything was mapped and chartered down to the smallest pebble – and where was the adventure and mystery in a world where everything was known?
Phoenie flipped through more files, ignoring the monotonous narration. More important than piecing together the puzzle of the distant past was completing the puzzle of the present. Phoenie knew something was amiss – her clipboard had a note attached to remind her – but the more she tried to recollect the memories buried inside her head, the more the misty dreamlike visions clouded them. She just needed something to latch on to, something she could use to pull her true memories up from the swamp of illusions. Much to her annoyance, Mr Smith chose that moment to begin one of his lectures, even as the video still played.
