Chapter 32

                                    

                                          


                          
Dirk
                          
I found myself standing at the entrance to an alley with only a quick second to get myself oriented. My shades were gone and I had no weapons or memory of how I got here. I was completely vulnerable. Oh crap. The street was completely full of zombies. But they weren't just unnamed figures in a crowd this time. Just like some of my previous dreams, every single one of them was someone I knew. It had to be a dream.
                          
But if it was a dream, it wasn't a normal dream. None of us have been having normal dreams. It must have been some weird post-Derse-or-Prospit brain thing. All our dreams were completely lucid, and we could feel everything. We could even close our eyes in the dream without it ending. Sometimes we could control what we do, other times we felt stuck in some kind of predestined movement. But we couldn't change what was happening around us. And even when we knew it was a dream, we couldn't just wake up on command.
                          
So even though this was obviously a dream, I was scared. I knew I would feel all the pain of being attacked, and everything seemed exactly like real life, which explained why I was having so much trouble processing reality when I was awake. 
                          
I knew that even if I didn't have the problem of all the dead faces staring through me seeming real, I would still be panicking over the fact that they one day could be. If I had to be honest with myself I would have said I was surprised they weren't already. Getting people killed seemed to be the only thing I was good at. Luckily I didn't see Jake in the crowd for once, but this was still just as bad.
                          
"Dirk."
                          
Not again. The voice was in my mind, quickly being joined by voices of every other face in that crowd.
                          
"What did you do?"
                          
Now they were all blaming me. This was even worse. I started backing up slowly into the alleyway.
                          
"This is your fault."
                          
"You did this!"
                          
"Why couldn't you save us?"
                          
It was horrible. I was being surrounded by the voices of people I loved, repeating over and over the same thoughts I had been trying to push away for days.
                          
"You didn't do enough."
                          
"Why did you even try?"
                          
"Shut up," I muttered through gritted teeth. I couldn't tell if I was sad anymore or just angry. I was mad at them for reminding me of what I had done, but I knew that it was my fault that they were. If I hadn't failed them so badly, I wouldn't even be in this situation. I didn't even know what I did wrong, but a nagging feeling in the back of my mind told me it was definitely something. I was just angry, but not at them. I was angry at myself.
                          
They were coming after me down the alley now. I backed up as far as I could before hitting a brick wall. I pulled my eyes away from them for a moment to see that there was nowhere I could go. The walls on either side were solid, and I had no weapons to fight my way through the crowd, not that I thought I would be able to snap out of my fear long enough to try.
                          
They were only a couple feet away from me. I was going to die. Failing to keep my breathing down to a reasonable level, I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself against the wall. But I could still hear them taunting me.
                          
"You failed."
                          
"This is all your fault."
                          
I knew they were right.
                          
I was ready for them to kill me. I was ready for them to give me what I knew I deserved.
                          
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. This is it, I thought for a moment before I realized that it couldn't have been one of the zombies. It wasn't a strong, undead grip that was about to rip me to pieces. This was a gentle touch that somehow managed to send a wave of calmness to my brain.