The One with the Dreams and Nightmares

Sarika woke back up feeling completely at peace. She looked around and realized that everybody around her had fallen asleep. Many of them had fitful looks on their face, no doubt trying to fight off the illusion Holloway forced them into. She then glanced upward; neither Holloway nor Ruta had entered their dreamscapes. Both were very much awake and still within the duality of life and death.

“I need you alive,” Holloway informed her. “That way, I can ensure the dreamscape remains functioning until I find a way to automate your power with electronics. Don’t worry, I’ll let you join the dream afterwards."

Ruta frowned. “What about you? Don’t you want to enter?”

“He’s afraid,” Sarika called out. Ruta gasped and even Holloway’s eyes widened as he turned to face her. He looked so surprised that he completely focused his attention on Sarika, who slowly rose from the floor, her face filled with calm defiance.

“How…how did you escape?” Holloway asked in shock.

“I wanted to live,” Sarika answered. “I’ll put up with dying if it means living.” She jabbed a finger at him. “And the same goes for you. You’ve focused so much of your life on overcoming death, yet at the end of the day, you’ve wanted to live all along. But when’s the last time you were actually alive?”

After a moment, Holloway averted his eyes. “It would’ve been the day before my wife died in an accident.”

“Then I guess we’re alike then, just a little,” Sarika admitted. “But I’ve moved on. You can, too. Until we hang you for war crimes, enjoy the life you have left.”

Holloway’s eyes darted around the room. But then he sighed and gave her a smug look. “You really think that after working on this project for two decades, I’ll suddenly turn back after hearing a preachy little speech?”

Sarika shrugged. “Just wanted to give you a chance.”

They both heard a rope snap. Holloway looked up and gasped; while Sarika distracted him, Ruta had ripped her palm straight through the knife that kept it trapped against the ceiling, then used that same knife to cut the bindings on her hands and now her legs. Having freed herself, Ruta fell right on top of him.

“How's this for a teaching moment!” Ruta yelled as she stabbed Holloway through the chest. Holloway yelled out as the two collapsed in a heap, Ruta bringing her other hand directly onto his forehead, unleashing her Nightmare.

...

Rather in the laboratory, Holloway was now back at his house on the coast. Ice cubes clinked in his drink as he looked out into the ocean. Storm clouds approached; he hoped his wife would return from work soon to beat the storm.

Then he gasped. She would never return. This was the day she died.

A doorbell rang! The doorbell! Surrealness thundered around in his room, a feeling of unreality that was now suddenly reality. Taking shambling steps through this hazy dream, Holloway reluctantly arrived at his front door. He swallowed, ready to hear a police officer's news of his wife’s untimely demise.

He gripped the door knob, fear coursing through him as he relieved his greatest nightmare. He then opened the door-

His wife stood there. His honest-to-god wife. Exactly the way she remembered her. But then his eyes darted to the giant scythe that she carried with her. He certainly did not remember that.

“Ian,” she greeted, her voice soft like a lazy day in June.

Holloway started hyperventilating at the sight in front of him. “You…you can’t be my wife, you just can’t-”

His wife slid the scythe uncomfortably up his face, resting it on a cheek. “Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh,” she whispered. She stepped forward, entering the house, forcing Holloway backwards. “Don’t yell. Don’t lie. Your greatest fear isn’t reliving the day I died.”

She casually kicked the door closed behind her. Thunder rumbled outside as rain pelted the windows. She stepped closer to him, whispering into his ear. “You’re afraid I wouldn’t approve of the things you’ve done for my sake.”

She stepped away, a malicious, truthful grin on her face. Holloway sputtered as the world spun around him, his eyes darted this way and that, he began hyperventilating again. His wife hooked his neck from behind with the scythe and pulled him closer.

“Delicious,” she whispered as she went for his throat.

...

Sarika and Ruta watched as Holloway, his eyes jammed shut, writhed around on the floor of his laboratory.

“Considering he hooked me up to all of humanity’s minds, his nightmare is the equivalent of eight billion nightmares combined,” Ruta supposed.

Everyone else in the room started waking up. Connolly and Garcia rubbed their heads; the peanut table helped each other up; the Bass family cradled each other. Wharton used his plastic arms to help his sister to his feet; she robotically walked over to Ruta.

“Hey, um,” Edith said, clearly struggling to find the words. “I’m sorry. And I know me just saying sorry isn’t enough. I know how powerless I made you feel. I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

Sarika and Ruta looked at each other, then Ruta’s eyes shone as she looked at Edith. “For once,” she said. “I feel like we’re the same size.”

Edith rubbed the back of her neck at that, then looked at Holloway. “What’s going to happen to him?”

A few ninjas crowded around their former boss. They tossed away their sai and kunai and rifles in disgust. The lead ninja looked back at the weary allies, his hands raised to indicate that he meant them no harm.

“A lot of us were only doing this until our solo careers took off,” he said. He looked at Holloway then spat on the ground. “Don’t worry, the fighting’s done. We’re gonna sue the pants off this guy for all the backpay he owes us. Considering he planned on trapping us within a dreamscape, I’m not surprised he didn’t pay us. Or insure us.”

The ninjas collectively laid down their arms. Up above, the allies heard no more signs of fighting.

“Huh, that was easy,” Ruta supposed as Water started bandaging up her torn palm. “I mean, Sarika and Edith, you’ve must killed at least twelve of them each.”

Edith materialized a scissor and swung it around her finger. She looked with tired eyes at the scenery around them; fallen corpses, rubble and utter destruction. And up on the surface, they would see more of the very same. “You think we’re going to need therapy after all of this?”

“The whole world probably will,” Sarika surmised. “But it turns out we really do need each other. I needed all of you. And if everybody needs somebody…”

“Then everybody needs everybody!” Ruta realized. She then chuckled. “Wow, we really went beyond the boundary these past few weeks, am I right?”

Sarika shook her head with a smile, then glanced upwards. The school bus crash and the former fighting above them created a huge hole in the room. Early sunlight from the morning dawn gently arrived, shifting patchworks of lights shining over ruins that carried the promise of rebuilding, this time with the whole world working together.