Fallon did not like to dream. She liked nightmares even less.
This did not stop them from coming.
* * * * *
The sun was hot, and the desert sand burned beneath her bare feet. A cool breeze whipped by, stirring the hair hanging loosely around her shoulders. It was wet, as if freshly showered, but the burning sun turned her cleanliness into sweat and grime. Her tongue was thick and swollen in her mouth. Her eyes squinted against the bright sun. There were no deserts like this in Destiny City, or in France.
It was desolate.
Up ahead, a shape began to form – several shapes: blobs of coloring standing at varying heights, some just a few feet ahead of her. Fallon held up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. The blob in the center was long and green and topped with pink like a cactus flower, but then it was Andeon. His back was turned to her, and he walked up ahead.
“Andeon!” Fallon ran toward him. The sand burned the soles of her feet. “Andeon, wait!” But he didn’t wait. He didn’t even slow. Something blurred around his waist, and suddenly, it was Mackenzie with her arm draped lazily around him. The redheaded girl did not glance back Fallon’s way. The pair kept walking across the sand in the same languid steps that Fallon seemed incapable of taking. They began to laugh.
Again, Fallon ran, but she could not gain ground. Her steps were sluggish, as if she were wading through waist-deep mud.
Another blob of color sharpened ahead. A swash of seafoam green hair was all Fallon needed to see to know who she was looking at: Serenade. “Serenade!” Fallon said, but with less conviction. Lately, she felt as though the girl was indifferent to her. It hurt; it hurt like a knife slipped between her ribs. Serenade, too, was not alone. Another blur sharpened, and it was Elke, giggling as she skipped. Andeon reached out and grabbed for her hand. Elke giggled louder.
More blurs became defined: Imogen, Pierrette, and Abeline trading hugs, Melinda singing something light and airy with Liliana, Jada linking arms with Vanessa and Calintha. There were others, faces that did not receive definition – all bodies that moved farther and farther from her. But toward what?
Fallon kept walking, but the others moved rapidly from her. The faster she moved, the faster they increased the distance. Her eyes scanned the horizon for something, anything other than the hazy blue that magnified the sun’s rays. She was tired. Her knees were sore, her ankles tense, her back aching. Then – a change. Something green and spindly rose over the horizon. The others saw it too, and began to point. Elke started to run forward, pulling Serenade with her. Andeon lifted up Mackenzie and took off at a run. Liliana took off in a tight twirl, drawing her arms above her head like a ballerina. Abeline watched her go and repeated the move, both pirouetting farther and farther away. Everyone ran, everyone laughed, everyone left Fallon behind.
The green spindles became leaves hanging off of thin stalks. The plants bent outward like hands cupping the bowl of bright blue water that rested at their base. It was an oasis in the desert, and all of Fallon’s friends were running toward it. Andeon got there first and let out a trumpet of success, but he was quickly tackled with a hug by Elke. They both spilled backward into the water. Calintha laughed and scaled one of the stalks, diving off of its highest point. Serenade tested one edge of the pool with her toe before Mackenzie could scoop her up and guide her in. The laughter echoed against the empty desert – empty, save Fallon. The long arms of the plant bent forward to encase the tiny pool of water. The leaves were long and thin and the stalks even thinner, but the plant was larger and grander than the average fern.
Fallon tried to run, but the oasis got no closer. “No,” she said, gritting her teeth. She could run, she could make it there too. They could all be in the oasis together. She just had to try harder. She had to be better. She could do it.
The air was getting colder. The sun sunk lower. The laughter still echoed in her chest – but not her laughter, the laughter of those who had gone ahead. Fallon took one step, and then stopped. Something was under her foot. Fallon lifted it slowly, carefully. In the fading light, it was hard to see, but a stray beam of light caught the stop. It illuminated a single marble. A very familiar marble.
Fallon looked up. The ground was covered in marbles as far as she could see. When had the marbles gotten there? Her arms vibrated, and then she was moving with little thought. She crawled on her hands and knees, picking up the marbles one at a time. But there were too many, and nowhere to put them. Fallon filled her shirt with marbles. She popped one in each ear. And then she began to pile them into her mouth, one at a time, until there were too many – but she couldn’t stop. The task had begun, the task had to be finished. Everywhere she looked there were marbles, and each marble was stuffed down her throat, forced past her strained teeth.
Fallon was choking. She couldn’t breathe, but she couldn’t stop. She scaled the desert, wandering farther and farther from her friends and the oasis, slowly filling her throat with glass marbles.
Someone was beside her. Fallon turned. The wind grew stronger, and it was her and Leonette, clutching each other fiercely as the sand rose up like a maelstrom. Leonette did not say anything. She was still in her Barren Pines uniform, but her hair was loose around her shoulders. She reached out and touched Fallon’s chin. Her hand was cold, the only relief in the hot desert.
Tears stung Fallon’s eyes, and sand too – the marbles slowly choking the life from her. Her head was so full, her chest, her throat. Fallon sank to her knees. Leonette knelt beside her. I saw an oasis, she said to Leonette, words passed through their locked gaze.
Leonette smiled; it never faltered.
The others are in the oasis.
Leonette lifted a marble, balanced it on one finger, and forced it into Fallon’s mouth.
There was no space left to breathe. Fallon sputtered, and marbles fell from her mouth, rained out in a deluge, but others rolled backwards, down her throat and into her stomach. The sun was gone; it was black. All Fallon knew was the touch of Leonette’s arms around her, the cruel laughter of those in the oasis, and the hissing roar of the sand.
* * * * *
She couldn’t breathe.
Fallon woke up choking, tangled in her bedsheets on the floor. Tears stained her cheeks, and her hair clung to the hollows of her cheeks. It was a nightmare unlike any she had had before. It reminded her of everything in her life that made her alone, unreachable. Magenta eyes strayed to the neatly-arranged marbles standing in three glasses cases on her shelves. Fallon stared at them for a long time.
She did not go back to sleep.
