Kaelan woke to the sound of his own screaming.
He bolted upright in bed, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird desperate to escape. The taste of copper filled his mouth, and his sheets were soaked with sweat that felt cold against his skin. For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was—the familiar walls of his bedroom seemed foreign, the shadows cast by his desk lamp twisted into threatening shapes.
Then the memories came flooding back, not his own but fragments of lives he'd never lived. A woman running through a forest that grew from television static. A man drowning in an ocean made of his own tears. Children playing hopscotch on a street paved with broken mirrors, their laughter echoing like screams.
"The dreams," he whispered to his empty room. "They're getting worse."
The digital clock on his nightstand read 3:47 AM, its red numbers glowing like angry eyes. Kaelan rubbed his face with trembling hands and tried to ground himself in reality. His name was Kaelan Thorne. He was seventeen years old. He lived at 1247 Maple Street in Meridian, Oregon. His parents were Robert and Catherine Thorne, and they were probably asleep down the hall, blissfully unaware that their son was slowly losing his grip on sanity.
Except he wasn't losing his grip, was he? According to Sarah, what was happening to him was something else entirely. Something that had a name and a purpose, even if he didn't understand either yet.
He swung his legs out of bed and padded to the window, pulling back the curtain to peer out at the street below. The neighborhood looked normal enough—neat rows of houses with well-maintained lawns, streetlights casting their usual pools of yellow light, the occasional car passing by with a soft whoosh of tires on asphalt.
But as he watched, one of the streetlights began to flicker. Not the random flutter of a bulb about to burn out, but a deliberate pattern—three quick flashes, then two long ones, then three quick again. SOS in Morse code.
"That's not possible," Kaelan muttered, but even as he said it, another streetlight began the same pattern. Then another. Within minutes, every light on the street was blinking in perfect synchronization, crying out for help in a language that had been obsolete for decades.
He blinked hard and shook his head, and suddenly the lights were normal again. Steady. Unremarkable. The kind of boring, predictable illumination that had never once transmitted a distress signal.
Kaelan backed away from the window, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Hallucination, he told himself. Stress-induced visual distortion. But the clinical terminology did nothing to ease the growing certainty that something was very, very wrong with the world around him.
He spent the rest of the night sitting in his desk chair, staring at his psychology textbook without reading it, waiting for dawn to come and bring with it the promise of answers. When his alarm finally went off at seven, he felt like he'd been awake for weeks.
The morning routine of shower, breakfast, and getting dressed for school felt surreal, like he was watching someone else's life from the outside. His parents chatted about work and weekend plans over coffee and toast, their voices seeming to come from a great distance. They didn't notice the dark circles under his eyes or the way his hands shook slightly as he poured orange juice.
"You're quiet this morning," his mother observed as he shouldered his backpack. Catherine Thorne was a kind woman with gentle eyes and prematurely gray hair that she refused to dye. "Everything okay?"
"Just tired," Kaelan replied, which was true enough. "Didn't sleep well."
"Maybe you should see Dr. Peterson," she suggested, referring to their family physician. "You've been having a lot of restless nights lately."
The irony wasn't lost on him. If only Dr. Peterson could prescribe something for psychic abilities and interdimensional consciousness walking. "I'm fine, Mom. Really."
She didn't look convinced, but she let it go. That was Catherine Thorne's way—she worried, but she also trusted her son to come to her if he needed help. Under normal circumstances, Kaelan appreciated that trust. Today, it felt like another weight pressing down on his shoulders.
The drive to school was a blur of familiar streets and unfamiliar shadows. Twice, Kaelan thought he saw people standing on street corners who weren't really there—figures that looked solid until he focused on them, at which point they dissolved like morning mist. By the time he pulled into the student parking lot, he was beginning to understand why Sarah had looked so frightened the day before.
She was waiting for him by the main entrance, her arms crossed and her expression grim. Dark circles under her eyes suggested she'd slept about as well as he had.
"How bad was it?" she asked without preamble as he approached.
"Bad," he admitted. "The dreams were... intense. And I'm starting to see things during the day too."
Sarah nodded grimly. "Reality bleeds. My grandmother's journal mentioned them as one of the warning signs. The barriers between the Mindscape and the physical world are thinning, and your brain is having trouble filtering out the overflow."
"Is that supposed to be reassuring?"
"Not really." She uncrossed her arms and started walking toward the science building. "Come on. Dr. Vasquez is waiting for us."
"She's here? At the school?"
"She has a meeting with the principal about some kind of collaborative research project," Sarah explained as they walked. "It gave us the perfect excuse to talk to her without raising suspicions."
They found Dr. Elena Vasquez in the small conference room next to the principal's office, a stack of papers spread out before her on the polished wooden table. She was younger than Kaelan had expected, probably in her early forties, with short dark hair and intelligent brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. She looked up as they entered, and something flickered across her face—recognition, perhaps, or maybe just curiosity.
"You must be Kaelan," she said, standing to shake his hand. Her grip was firm and warm, but the moment their skin made contact, Kaelan felt a jolt of something he couldn't quite identify. Not electricity, exactly, but some kind of energy that made the air around them seem to hum with potential.
Dr. Vasquez raised an eyebrow, and Kaelan got the distinct impression that she'd felt it too.
"Sarah tells me you've been experiencing some unusual phenomena," she continued, settling back into her chair and gesturing for them to sit across from her. "Why don't you tell me about it in your own words?"
Kaelan glanced at Sarah, who nodded encouragingly. Taking a deep breath, he began to describe everything that had happened—the episode in psychology class, the impossible library in Sarah's mind, the whispers and shadows and flickering streetlights. Dr. Vasquez listened without interruption, her expression growing more serious with each detail.
When he finished, she was quiet for a long moment, her fingers steepled in front of her as she processed what he'd told her.
"How much do you know about the nature of consciousness, Kaelan?" she asked finally.
"Just what we've covered in psychology class. Neurons firing, electrical impulses, chemical reactions in the brain."
"That's the materialist perspective," Dr. Vasquez said with a slight smile. "And it's not wrong, as far as it goes. But it's also incomplete. Tell me, when you're dreaming, where do the dreams come from? When you have a memory, where is it stored? We can point to brain regions and neural pathways, but we can't actually locate consciousness itself."
Kaelan frowned. "Because it's not a physical thing. It's a process, like... like software running on hardware."
"An interesting analogy," Dr. Vasquez agreed. "But what if consciousness is more like a radio signal than software? What if individual minds are receivers, tuning into a broader field of awareness that exists independently of any single brain?"
The idea was intriguing, but Kaelan wasn't sure he followed. "You're talking about some kind of collective consciousness? Like Carl Jung's theory?"
"Jung was on the right track," Dr. Vasquez said, "but he didn't go far enough. What we're dealing with is more than just shared symbols and archetypes. It's a literal landscape—a dimension where thoughts and memories and emotions take on physical form."
"The Mindscape," Sarah interjected.
Dr. Vasquez nodded. "That's one name for it. Others call it the Noosphere, the Akashic Records, the Collective Unconscious given form. The terminology doesn't matter. What matters is that it's real, and some people—people like you, Kaelan—can access it consciously."
Kaelan felt his skepticism warring with the evidence of his own experience. "Even if that's true, why me? Why now?"
"Because the barriers are weakening," Dr. Vasquez replied, echoing what Sarah had told him the night before. "For reasons we don't fully understand, the boundary between the Mindscape and physical reality is becoming more permeable. People with latent psychic abilities are manifesting earlier and stronger than they should. And unfortunately, we're not the only ones who've noticed."
A chill ran down Kaelan's spine. "You mean the Hollow Ones."
Dr. Vasquez's expression darkened. "So Sarah has told you about them. Good. You need to understand what we're dealing with. The Hollow Ones are parasitic entities that exist in the deep levels of the Mindscape. They feed on human consciousness—on fear, despair, and mental anguish. For centuries, they've been trying to find a way to break through into our world, and now it seems they're closer than ever."
"The disappearances," Kaelan said, remembering what Sarah had told him. "The people who are found alive but empty."
"Exactly. The Hollow Ones are using Walkers like you as bridges—forced connections between the Mindscape and reality. They drain their victims of consciousness, leaving behind empty shells while they grow stronger."
The weight of this revelation settled over Kaelan like a suffocating blanket. "So I'm what, bait? A target?"
"You're a weapon," Dr. Vasquez corrected. "The question is whether you'll learn to wield yourself before someone else does."
She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook similar to the one Sarah had shown him, but older and more worn. The cover was inscribed with symbols that seemed to shift and change when he looked at them directly.
"This is a training manual," she explained, sliding it across the table to him. "It was written by one of the first organized groups of Walkers, back in the late 1800s. They called themselves the Oneironauts—dream sailors. They developed techniques for safely navigating the Mindscape and defending against psychic attacks."
Kaelan picked up the notebook, and immediately felt that same humming energy he'd experienced when shaking Dr. Vasquez's hand. The symbols on the cover seemed to pulse with their own inner light, and for just a moment, he could swear he heard whispers coming from within the pages—not threatening, like the voices in his dreams, but welcoming.
"The first lesson," Dr. Vasquez continued, "is learning to recognize the difference between your own thoughts and external influences. The Hollow Ones are masters of psychological manipulation. They'll try to convince you that their voices are your own inner doubts and fears."
"How do I tell the difference?"
"Practice. Meditation. And most importantly, establishing strong mental barriers. The notebook will show you how, but it takes time and discipline. Unfortunately, time is something we may not have much of."
Sarah leaned forward in her chair. "What do you mean?"
Dr. Vasquez's expression was grave. "I've been monitoring psychic disturbances across the region for the past several months. The pattern is accelerating. More disappearances, more reality bleeds, more Walkers manifesting with unstable abilities. Something is building toward a climax, and I think it's going to happen soon."
"How soon?" Kaelan asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
"Days, maybe weeks. There's going to be what the old texts call a Convergence—a moment when the barriers between dimensions become so thin that large-scale crossover becomes possible. If the Hollow Ones manage to establish a permanent foothold in our reality during that window..."
She didn't need to finish the sentence. The implications were clear enough.
Kaelan stared down at the notebook in his hands, feeling the weight of responsibility settling on his shoulders like lead armor. "What am I supposed to do? I can barely control what's happening to me now."
"You learn," Dr. Vasquez said simply. "Fast. And you trust that you're not alone in this fight. There are others—Walkers who've been preparing for this possibility for years. But they'll need someone with your natural abilities to help them navigate the deep Mindscape where the Hollow Ones are strongest."
The bell rang, signaling the start of first period. Dr. Vasquez began gathering her papers, and Sarah stood to leave, but Kaelan remained seated, staring at the notebook.
"What if I can't do it?" he asked quietly. "What if I'm not strong enough?"
Dr. Vasquez paused in her packing and fixed him with a steady gaze. "Then we all pay the price," she said. "But I don't think that's going to happen. You walked through another person's consciousness on your first try, Kaelan. That's not luck or accident—that's raw talent. The question isn't whether you're strong enough. The question is whether you're brave enough to find out just how strong you really are."
She handed him a business card with her contact information. "Call me tonight. We'll set up your first real training session. And Kaelan?" She waited until he met her eyes. "Be careful. The Hollow Ones know you exist now. They'll be watching, looking for opportunities to get inside your head. Trust your instincts, and don't let anyone—not even your own thoughts—convince you that you're helpless."
With that, she left, leaving Kaelan and Sarah alone in the conference room. For a moment, neither of them spoke, the weight of everything they'd learned hanging heavy in the air between them.
"This is really happening, isn't it?" Kaelan said finally.
Sarah nodded. "I'm afraid so. But at least now you know what you're dealing with. And you're not alone."
They made their way to first period, walking through hallways that seemed somehow different than they had the day before. The other students looked the same, sounded the same, but Kaelan found himself noticing things he'd never seen before—the subtle ways people held themselves when they were afraid, the micro-expressions that revealed hidden thoughts, the faint auras of emotion that seemed to surround everyone like colored fog.
During lunch, he sat with Sarah in the library, poring over the Oneironaut notebook. The text was handwritten in an elegant script that was sometimes difficult to read, but the concepts it described were fascinating and terrifying in equal measure.
"Listen to this," he whispered, reading from a chapter titled 'The Architecture of Dreams.' "'The Mindscape is not a single unified realm, but rather a vast archipelago of consciousness, with each individual mind forming its own island. These islands are connected by bridges of shared experience, common memories, and collective archetypes. A skilled Walker can traverse these bridges to move from one consciousness to another, but must be careful not to lose themselves in the journey.'"
Sarah looked up from her own reading. "That explains what happened in psychology class. You somehow found the bridge between your consciousness and mine."
"But I didn't do it intentionally. It just... happened."
"That's what makes you dangerous," Sarah said. "To them and to yourself. Most Walkers need years of training to make that kind of connection. The fact that you did it instinctively suggests you have the potential to access much deeper levels of the Mindscape."
Kaelan turned to another section, this one dealing with psychic defense. The techniques described seemed to focus on visualization and mental discipline—imagining protective barriers, creating safe spaces within one's own consciousness, learning to recognize and resist external influences.
"'The first line of defense,'" he read aloud, "'is knowing thyself. A Walker who is uncertain of their own identity, their own thoughts and desires, becomes vulnerable to possession and manipulation. The Hollow Ones excel at mimicking the voice of conscience, at disguising their whispers as the subject's own inner dialogue.'"
That evening, after a dinner he barely tasted and homework he couldn't concentrate on, Kaelan called Dr. Vasquez. She answered on the second ring, her voice crisp and professional.
"Kaelan. How are you feeling?"
"Confused. Scared. Like I'm in way over my head."
"That's normal. Are you somewhere private where we can talk?"
Kaelan glanced around his bedroom, then walked to the window and drew the curtains closed. "Yeah. My parents think I'm studying."
"Good. I want you to try something. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Focus on your breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth. Don't try to change it, just observe it."
Kaelan settled into his desk chair and followed her instructions. The simple act of focusing on his breath was more difficult than he'd expected. His mind kept wandering to the events of the day, to the notebook's warnings about psychic parasites, to the growing certainty that his life had changed irrevocably.
"I can't concentrate," he admitted after a few minutes.
"That's because you're trying too hard. Don't fight your thoughts—acknowledge them and let them pass. Imagine them as clouds drifting across the sky of your mind."
He tried again, and this time found it easier to let his thoughts come and go without getting caught up in them. Gradually, a sense of calm began to settle over him.
"Now," Dr. Vasquez's voice continued, "I want you to imagine a door in your mind. It can look like anything you want—a simple wooden door, an ornate portal, even a high-tech airlock. The important thing is that it's yours, and you control who and what can pass through it."
Kaelan visualized a heavy oak door, bound with iron and secured with multiple locks. It felt solid, impregnable.
"Good. This is your first line of defense—a barrier between your consciousness and the Mindscape. Whenever you feel external influences trying to penetrate your thoughts, imagine this door slamming shut. Now, let's test it."
Before Kaelan could ask what she meant, he felt something pressing against his mental barriers—not hostile, but definitely foreign. It was Dr. Vasquez, he realized, somehow projecting her consciousness toward his.
Instinctively, he visualized his door closing and locking. The pressure disappeared immediately.
"Excellent," Dr. Vasquez said, and he could hear the approval in her voice. "Your natural defenses are strong. With practice, you'll be able to maintain those barriers even while actively walking in the Mindscape."
They spent the next hour working on basic exercises—strengthening his mental defenses, learning to recognize different types of psychic contact, and practicing what Dr. Vasquez called 'consciousness grounding'—the ability to maintain awareness of his physical body even while his mind was elsewhere.
"That's enough for tonight," she said finally. "Your first real test will come soon enough. The Hollow Ones are going to try to make contact, probably through your dreams. When they do, remember everything we've practiced. And Kaelan?"
"Yeah?"
"Whatever they show you, whatever they promise or threaten, remember that they're parasites. They need you alive and conscious to serve as a bridge. That gives you more power than they want you to realize."
After hanging up, Kaelan sat in his darkened room, staring out at the street below. The neighborhood looked peaceful enough, but he found himself checking the streetlights, half-expecting them to start blinking in Morse code again.
When he finally went to bed, he kept the Oneironaut notebook on his nightstand, within easy reach. The text had mentioned that certain objects could serve as anchors, helping a Walker maintain their connection to physical reality even while traveling in the Mindscape.
As he drifted off to sleep, Kaelan tried to hold onto the image of his mental door—solid, secure, unbreachable. But even as consciousness faded, he could feel something stirring in the depths of his mind, something hungry and patient and utterly alien.
The Hollow Ones were coming.
And this time, they weren't going to settle for a glimpse into his dreams.