Dreamscapes

I found myself in an institution filled mostly with women and children. I was not quite myself, but a sixteen years old girl who had grown up in the mountains nearby, in the small town a few hours away. While once in the institute I didn’t get to go outside often, I had hiked for many years and learned how to navigate. What I did not yet realize was that this place was not what it seemed. They were not protecting children. They were collecting them.

I had somehow been pulled into this occult institution, where each of the older children, though there were only a few of us, was assigned to watch over younger ones. I was given three: a twelve-year-old girl, an eight-year-old girl, and a baby boy. Each morning, they insisted we take walks around the grounds, telling us it was for our health. Beneath that lie was a darker purpose. They wanted us strong and alive so that one day we could breed more children for their cult.

On one of these walks, I noticed part of the forest looked familiar. A thought came to me. There was a creek nearby that, if followed, could lead us back to my hometown. Maybe we could escape. I mentioned it, almost casually, to see what the children thought. Both the twelve-year-old and the eight-year-old wanted to try. The twelve-year-old had recently learned the truth, that the cult was raising them for the purpose of bearing more children, and she was desperate to flee.

So we followed the path into the woods. Before long, the twelve-year-old broke away, running ahead. She veered off the route I intended, and panic set in. I could not let her wander alone, not with the danger of being caught, not with the risk of hurting herself. I chased after her, carrying the baby, with the six-year-old stumbling behind me.

When I finally found her, she stood at the edge of a wide river. It was strange. The water was far higher than it should have been, given the year’s dry weather. Perhaps other creeks had merged into it, or something had shifted in the land. But she was not curious. She was convinced.

“We have to jump,” she told me urgently. “It is the only way to save the baby.”

Her words struck me as odd, but I resisted. “No,” I said, clutching the infant. “It is too dangerous. We should walk along the river, not into it.”

She did not listen. Without hesitation, she leapt. And in an instant, the six-year-old and I dove in after her, desperate not to lose her, desperate to keep the baby above water.

The current seized us, dragging us beneath. We were pulled into a hidden gap in the rocks, sucked into a cavernous space, a water-filled chamber that felt endless till we were fully sucked under and emerged in an underwater room. Towering glass walls rose around us, eighty feet high, with massive glass doors. On the other side, the leaders of the cult passed by. They did not look surprised to see us. They looked pleased.

I pounded on the glass with one arm, the baby clutched in the other, the two children struggling in the water beside me. At last, the leaders noticed. Their faces lit with delight, as though this were exactly what they had hoped for. Slowly, they opened the glass doors and drew us in.

It was then I understood. The twelve-year-old had not betrayed us by mistake. She had led us here deliberately. This had been her rite of passage, proof of loyalty. The river was no escape. It was a trap designed to bring us back.

And now, as their prisoners, we would never be allowed to leave again.