May Hawaii and the Dreamhunters

The portal of the ziggurat was large enough for two chariots to pass side by side, as if it were the great gate of the wall of an ancient city.

Three large walkways had ascended dozens of meters to that portal, but the passage of time or the vagaries of the dream had almost completely buried them. Only the front walkway had steps.

Above the portal, a huge mass of scarlet-red stone towered imposingly over the group of survivors. The door jambs, as well as the steps themselves and the visible walls, were carved with hieroglyphic-like patterns. The stone was porous, and much vegetation and small insects made life in its nooks and crannies.

May watched the group. One of the fishermen was tending to the red-haired man’s wound. Of the other two, the woman was grimacing in pain. She had sprained an ankle. The last one looked fine, but was still huffing and sweating from the fright and the run. They were not rookies. A rookie would have woken up. These were oneironauts with a strong desire to explore Oniria.

All around, the jungle was very calm. All noises had ceased. The silence was not soothing at all, but unnatural. The Naga had stopped their pursuit when they saw the ziggurat. They were in sight, but had not entered the clearing in front of the building.

May dialed a phone number.

-May! -said Minerva.

-Can you see us?

-Yes. What happened?

-Kabu pursuit. The Aegis is failing.

-What do you say!

-I need you to report back to the council. -Of course!

-Of course! Leave it to me! -Shall I send a rescue team?

May looked at the group. They were all listening to her conversation.

-I don’t think that will be necessary. -May hung up and, looking at the group, said, “Well, the situation is as follows. We are cut off from Sotopeña and the Aegis is failing, so there is no guarantee that we are not already in a nightmare. The most logical thing to do would be to wake up now and re-enter via the Palace of Wishes to join a Triple Star expedition or just go about other business until the shield is repaired. But something tells me you’re not one of those, are you?

The guild members smiled and looked at each other. The one who had healed the red-haired man’s shoulder was now with the woman’s ankle, which was already looking better.

-Marcus Blake, whom I imagine you know, entered this ziggurat a few days ago. He hasn’t come out since. I can’t tell you what he was looking for because he didn’t even tell me. However, something tells me that his disappearance and the failure of the Aegis system are related. And the center of the enigma is this ziggurat.

A gleam passed through the Seekers’ eyes. It was the thirst for rewards that characterized the guild. Finding a legend like Blake and contributing to repairing the Aegis was certainly a good deal. May looked at the red-haired man.

-It’s up to you to decide if you want to wait here or go into the pyramid with us.

-I’ll go with you,” said the boatman without hesitation, looking at her with a confidence that made something inside May sparkle.

May had neglected to mention that the red-haired man was half kabu. Very few oneironauts knew how to distinguish between cosmetic effects created with aerena and the natural features of the kabu. The boy’s eyes were undoubtedly those of a native oneironaut. But the flow of aerena from his body was human.

The Rounders must have been aware of it, although it was the first time May had seen one, and so far she didn’t believe much in their existence. She wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been for the extreme situation they had experienced a few minutes ago.

The corridors of the ziggurat were narrow and high. They still had carved drawings and calligraphy in a classical style but indecipherable to the untrained eye. Among the glyphs, figures of mythological and strange creatures could be distinguished. Some of them looked like monsters out of some fairy tale. There were also humanoid figures, with animal heads as in Egyptian hieroglyphs or apparently human.

As May was the only one carrying a proper flashlight, she led the way. They had left behind the great hall to which the portal overlooked and had entered one of the side corridors. They went in single file. The red-haired man closed the march, a little more separated from the others, almost shrouded in shadows.

-I want to get to the main chamber. This ziggurat is nothing like the ones in Vigilia, nor like the known pyramids. Normally, this type of constructions are dedicated to religious or administrative offices, but here it is as if a whole tribe had inhabited it.

After going up and down several flights of stairs, in a relatively well-preserved state, they reached a spacious room.

The air was very stuffy. Some vines had managed to get in here, despite the lack of light. The silence was absolute, interrupted only by the footsteps and breaths of the group.

Everything inside the hall was made of the same red stone. Tables, large urns, benches… It was a room that seemed to have been able to hold about thirty people comfortably. Several closed doors of heavy stones prevented them from going any further, although there was a flight of descending stairs next to the place they had entered. There they rested.

-Do you have any clues? -asked Rómulo, the seeker who had been healing the group.

-This was the room Marcus and I spent the most time in last time. We managed to open two of the three doors, the one on the left and the middle one. But the right side is still locked. I hoped that Marcus had found a way to open it.

May was illuminating the doors as she spoke. As she reached the third door, she could see something curious. Each door had primitive stone gears. By means of a mechanism, it was possible to open or close it. The mechanism was located on both sides of the door, acting as a kind of switch. The one on the right had a gear split in two, and on the floor was a hatchet.

-This is new,” said May. This axe belongs to Marcus.

-Why would he leave it behind? -asked Barreto, the woman in the group of fishermen.

May pointed the flashlight at the ground. In the dust there were footprints going back and forth.

-Could it be Marcus’?” asked John, the slowest of the fishermen.

May passed the light several times from the ground to the gears of the door, and made the gesture of throwing the axe.

-I think something caught Marcus here, wounding him. Perhaps an arrow. He might have managed to open the door, but had to close it again by breaking the gear from a distance.

-The blood leaves a trail in the direction of the down stairs. Maybe if we follow it we’ll find Marcus.

Then a sound was heard on the other side of the closed door. It was something like a snoring or gurgling sound. As if a creature or a person was lurking on the other side of the stone. The darkness seemed to grow thicker. John paled, as if the sound had drawn the blood from his body, and he sat down on the floor.

-What’s the matter?

-I’m sorry… it’s not that I’m afraid. It’s just that I’ve been having trouble staying lucid for a while now. I think I’m going to wake up soon.

They were in a race against time and will. No matter how trained a oneironaut was, no one could sleep forever.

John’s deadline was about to expire. He would wake up somewhere safe and when he went back to sleep using the La Llave Method, he would be sent to Palace of Desires, where he would have to start the journey back to Sotopeña. Surely the fishermen had already been asleep for more than ten hours. Barreto put his hand on his shoulder.

-Don’t worry, we’ll tell you the best part over a beer.

-You bitch…” John replied, shaking his head and smiling.

-See you in P.D.! -said Rómulo.

John sighed and looked up at the ceiling. His body began to blur and turned into free aerena particles, which floated like millions of tiny red fireflies.