Something about the Stompers.

  We had seen them coming through the great Ripping up in New York, but later Inori had described them to me in more detail. They were ghostlike, almost like mist when in their true form and up close, with a pinkish color to them. But from a distance …

  From a distance they would look like clouds.

  My stomach flipped inside, and my heart started dancing.

  I knew what was happening. There could be only one reason for that many Stompers to abandon their nightmare form and head for a specific spot. Those two clouds were converging on one thing and one thing only. And if they met before I got there, it was over.

  The Stompers had found the soul of the world.

  I reminded myself that everything in this place was symbolic, but that didn't make it any less important. Whatever represented the soul, whatever thing it was that if destroyed, meant that my world would die, was out there, I knew it. And if they got to it before I did …

  I threw the thoughts away and jumped into action. I ran straight for the snakes.

  I was dirty and tired, but a new burst of adrenaline brought me to full strength. I pounded across the dirt and rocks, watching my step as best I could but mostly running full force.

  The sea of snakes slithered across the ground, all intent on one target—me. As I got closer, I could see their varied colors and shapes and fangs. I didn't know one type of snake from another any more than I could pick out patterns of fancy wallpaper, but they looked awfully bad to me.

  I threw a stream of the Power ahead of me, clearing a path through the slithering sea like a shovel pushed through snow. With hisses and spits, the snakes were thrown to my left and right, only to come back together behind me as I ran with all of my strength. I kept my eyes on the two storms of Stompers way up ahead, and they were getting closer and closer together. I only had minutes.

  The snakes didn't faze me as I pushed myself forward, step by step. But the reality of how far I was from the Stompers sent a shiver of panic through me. I hadn't gotten much closer, but I could already see a difference in how quickly the two groups were moving toward each other. There was no way I could make it in time.

  I wasn't using the Power to its full potential, but what else …

  At that moment the snakes disappeared.

  They were replaced by millions of swarming bees.

  They were the killer kind—I'd seen a show on PBS about them. I had the horrible thought that it was exactly because I'd seen the TV show that they appeared. The Stompers used my mind to find things that would scare me.

  And small flying things that can kill you with a quick touch definitely scared me.

  I stopped running, and they flew in for the attack.

  For just an instant I started to raise my hand to swat at them but immediately realized what an idiotic thing that would be. Instead I reached inside for the Power and exploded it outward, blowing away thousands of the pests with a wave of silent air.

  But less than a second later the next group came at me.

  They swarmed in, the buzzing almost worse than their sting. It was like pouring soda fizz down my ear canals, and it drove me crazy. I had to fight the urge to clamp my hands on my ears.

  I blew them away. Another group came in, swarming and reaching for any spot of my skin. I threw more effort into the Power, this time vaporizing millions of the bees.

  More came still.

  Again and again and again I threw the force of the Power at the bees, and they came back every time. Hating to waste time, I turned and ran toward the distant clouds of Stompers, blowing bees away every other second with my Gift. It was tiring—I could feel my muscles weakening, even though it was my brain doing all the work. It was the same fatigue I'd experienced under Mount Fuji, and I could only hope that some deeper use of the Power would kick in just like the Ice had done.

  I ran on, constantly ridding myself of the pests.

  The Stompers up ahead had almost halved the gap between them since the first time I looked. To keep running was ridiculous—I needed either to give up or find another way.

  If only I were Superman, I thought.

  My stupidity alarm went off with the thought. There was no ‘if’ about it. In this place, I could be whatever I wanted.

  I stopped running. Throwing a little extra effort into my next wave of bee-repelling Power waves, I blew away millions of the stingers to give myself just a few more seconds. As the next swarm came at me, only moments away, I closed my eyes and pictured in my head what I wanted.

  Then I was ready.

  After one more swat at the bees, I took a running start and jumped with all of my strength into the air, both hands pointing to the sky.

  Like a rocket heading for the moon, I shot into the sky in an explosion of air and power.

  I was flying, just like the Man of Steel.

  The friction of the wind tore at my hair and made it hard to breathe. In seconds I was far above the ground. I organized my thoughts and put them to work controlling the flying power. My body leveled off and I headed straight for the place between the Stomper clouds, still miles away.

  I let my arms fall back to rest by my side as I flew to save their strength—it was hard to hold them in front of me with the air beating against them. I felt a little disappointed that Superman wasn't very practical when he flew, but I quickly got over it.

  Like a cruise missile I bulleted through the air. I could feel the gap between me and the Stompers closing now, and for the first time felt some hope. My mind wandered a bit, wondering what the object we all chased could be. Something that represented the soul of the world—a symbol that only I would truly understand. I increased my speed, more and more confident that I would make it in time.

  But then things changed.

  A black shape appeared in front of me, blocking my path. It had no discernible features at first but then coalesced into a misshapen, deformed version of a Shadow Ka. It was huge—three times the size of a normal Ka. I halted my flight and hovered in midair, staring, transfixed. Then the thing spoke.

  “You didn't think I would give up, did you?”

  It was Raspy. My hope faded as quickly as it had come.

  “How did you get here?” I yelled.

  “Get here? I'm the leader of the Shadow Ka, I can go wherever I want—enter any Layer I want.”

  “I don't have time for this,” I said, realizing I'd already wasted valuable seconds. With a thought I resumed my flight, altering my course to go around Raspy.

  His gaze followed me as I picked up speed. Just as I passed where he floated, his body exploded into thousands of pieces. Millions. They grew and formed into monstrous black birds with savagely sharp beaks, flapping their wings with psychotic urgency. As one they flew at me.

  I ignored them, throwing all my energy into flying toward the merging Stompers. But seconds later they caught up and surrounded me, and then they dove in for the kill.

  Like a cloud of bloodthirsty gnats they attacked my body. They nipped and snapped at my skin, biting and tearing. Pain shot through me, like acupuncture gone bad. I had to take some of my focus off flying and blow them away with the Power. But they came right back.

  “You will die today,” synchronized voices said, coming from the birds and yet not coming from them, a disembodied sound that I knew was Raspy. “I told you it would end this way.”

  The birds swarmed around me, attacking with increased ferocity. Despite my efforts with the Power, it was impossible to keep them away. They seemed to disintegrate and reappear like magic, always right next to my skin. I concentrated harder, worked harder, pushing them away with my every thought.

  I realized too late that I had completely ceased flying, and the land below rushed up at me.

  The birds vanished when my body slammed into the ground.

  It was like liquid sand again, softening the blow of the landing, sucking me in. I pushed downward with the Power, forcing my body back up to the sky. Just as I broke the surface of the quicksand, something big and wet wrapped around my neck.

  It was a tentacle, ten inches thick.

  Another one grabbed and squeezed my leg; then two others got my arms. A fifth wrapped around my torso, pulling me into the ground.

  “NO!” I screamed.

  I used the Power to cut them all clean in half, thrashing my body, pushing and pulling the tentacles off me. More came and then even more. For every one I cut off, two more appeared out of the sand, grabbing me wherever they could. Down I went.

  I paused, gathering my thoughts, holding my breath as once again I was surrounded in goop. I fought down the panic, telling myself that I couldn't let the fear win. I had to beat the terror. I had to stay focused.

  With one precise thought, I obliterated each tentacle, and catapulted myself back to the sky, like I was shot from a cannon. Seconds later I was high above, safe. I looked to the pink clouds.

  The Stompers had once again halved their distance to the soul of the world.

  Raspy appeared again, even more deformed than before. His whole body was a blob of black goo, bubbling and churning, his features almost indiscernible.

  “You are weak, Jimmy, weak!” he yelled. “You let me toy with you while my masters destroy everything you have ever loved. You are nothing!”

  “Get out of my way,” I said, readying myself to fly forward.

  I kicked out a wave of force with the Power, destroying Raspy once and for all. My body shot toward the Stompers.

  Custer Bleak's last statement before he ceased to exist came like a whisper in my ears.

  “I give you to my masters.”

  The Stompers unleashed all the furies of their evil.

  Out of nowhere, from all directions, came hundreds and thousands of demons and beasts and monsters. Every horror book I'd ever read, every scary movie I'd ever seen, every terrifying story I'd ever heard, whether truth or fiction—anything and everything that was dark in my mind came flying at me with a terrible vengeance.

  Flying vampires tried to bite me. Werewolves tried to rip my limbs off. Trolls and goblins threw rocks and clubs at my body. Orcs shot a rain of arrows with poison-laced tips. Each and every time I called on the Power to push them away.

  I flew on, screaming with the effort of defending myself against the evil hordes while still flying as fast as possible.

  Airplanes appeared, equipped with guns and bombs, firing at will. Blades and swords flew at me, although I couldn't see who threw them. Boogeymen and witches and warlocks and vicious dogs and chainsaws and masked men and serial killers and sharks and balls of roaring fire and lightning and flying spikes.

  They all came at me, ripping and roaring and tearing and exploding. There were screams and shrieks and bloodcurdling cries. The world around me had turned into a complete and living nightmare. I flew on, crying from the horror of what surrounded me. Nothing—nothing in my entire life had been so terrible. The evil of it all squeezed my soul, and ripped every last ounce of joy from my heart.

  But I flew on. For Mom. For Dad. For Rusty. For everyone.

  I threw the Power of the Fourth Gift at the nightmares with one last, concentrated push. There was a millisecond where everything grew quiet, and the nightmares around me froze in midair. Then a silent clap of thunder exploded away from me like the detonation of an atomic bomb, sending waves of invisible destruction in all directions.

  The swarm of living fear disintegrated, and there was nothing left but me.

  With no time to think about it, I stared ahead and kept flying. I was almost there, maybe only two or three miles. The shapes of the individual Stompers within the two clouds were discernible now, and they looked like the essence of evil. Their shadowy, wispy shapes flew toward each other, all heading for the same point between them. I could just make out a tiny dark object there, floating in the air.

  My eyes focused in on that spot, and I headed straight for it.

  From the left and right, the Stomper clouds converged like two vicious storms meeting in the middle of the ocean. Closer and closer they got to the object from both sides. I flew on, willing myself to go faster. Like collapsing canyon walls, the gap between the Stompers grew more and more narrow. They were only a few hundred yards apart, and I knew that I wasn't that close.

  At the current rate, I wasn't going to make it.

  My body was weak, every last ounce of strength gone. That last push of the Power to get rid of the swarming nightmares had taken everything out of me. I couldn't feel anything—my whole body was numb. My brain begged to shut down, my spirits and energy spent to their last penny. How? I asked myself, with only a minute left until it was all over. How am I going to do this?

  The Stompers were almost there. I could see it now—the object. It was a dark, crumpled bag—the kind you would take to the gym with a change of clothes. It floated in the air, waiting for the victor. A bag, representing the entire future of millions of people, hovering in the air, so close.

  The two walls of the Stompers stretched out in the middle until two distinct points jetted out from the rest, heading for the floating bag. They were seconds away now.

  I reached down, to somewhere deeper within than ever before, to a place I didn't know existed, to a place that defined what it meant to be human. I grabbed hold of the Power, and unleashed it to the fullest.

  My body exploded forward with a loud boom. The power of it sent shock waves behind me that sucked dirt and rocks from the ground far below and thrust them into the air in a long trailing stream of dust. In those fractions of a second, time seemed to slow to the point where I could see everything around me develop as if I watched a movie in slow motion. As I rocketed toward the floating bag, to the soul of the world, I saw the first ghostly hands of the Stompers extend out from their formless shapes, reaching for the bag. Their misty fingers touched it, tracing along its edges, ready to fold up their hands and grab it once and for all.

  But it was not going to happen.

  In a blur of movement, I whipped past, the shock of my speed blowing the Stompers away with a violent rush of air. As I passed by, defying all known laws of physics, and not caring, I reached out, grabbed the bag by its handle, clutched it to my chest, and flew away to safety.

  In that moment, I finally and truly saved the world.

  I landed with a soft bump miles away on a flat plain of dirt. Every last muscle in my body was drained and my every part ached. I lay on my back, looking at the blue sky, all signs of taints or clouds gone. There was also no sign of Stompers or nightmares. My hand still gripped the duffel bag.

  With a groan I forced myself to sit up and I pulled the bag into my lap. It was very light and loose, like there was nothing in it at all. It was hard to lift my other arm—it felt like I'd been lifting weights for three days straight. But I managed, and I pulled the zipper that ran down the length of the bag.

  I stuck my hand in, rummaging around for anything I could find. But the whole thing was empty—nothing. I pulled the two sides apart from the zipper and looked inside. What the heck is this, I thought. This empty bag symbolizes the soul of an entire world? We had a pretty pathetic planet if that were the case.

  But then I saw a folded piece of paper within one of the creases of the bag. I reached down, grabbed it, pulled it out, and unfolded it.

  It was a picture of my family.

  Even as I caught the first glimpse of Rusty's red hair, Dad's fat belly, and Mom's big smile, the world around me started to spin, and I fell backward into blackness.

  As something took me away from that place of nightmares, at first I felt confused. Why a picture of my family?

  But then, I understood.

  I woke up, flat on my back, looking at the same people I'd just seen in the picture.

  “He's awake!” yelled Rusty.

  Dad tried to pull me up but quit when I let out a big groan.

  “Are you okay, son?” he asked.

  “Yeah, my whole body hurts, though. Where's Raspy?”

  “He disappeared a long time ago. Joseph, come over here and help me get this guy on the couch.”

  Dad grabbed my arms, and Joseph my legs. A few sharp pains later, I was lying comfortably on the sofa. Everyone stood around me, now. Tanaka and Miyoko, Rayna and the Hooded One. My family. Joseph.

  And the Half.

  “We did it, bro,” he said, and shook my hand. “That was some freaky stuff, huh?”

  “You don't know the half of it,” I replied.

  “Boy, you're hilarious,” he said back with a smile.

  “I know. So … what happened? Is everything back to normal?”

  “What happened?” Joseph said in a sarcastic voice. “I think you're the one who needs to tell us.” As he spoke, I realized that we had to be inside the Yumeka still. We were in my uncle's house, in the same place where I'd entered the Black Coma—for the second time, I now knew. I was back in the First Layer, and so we still had waking up in the real world to look forward to. Or dread.

  “My head hurts too much,” I said, rubbing my temples. “I'll tell you more later, but basically I found out we've been living inside the Yumeka for a year. Then I went through a bunch of horror movies and grabbed a duffel bag to save the world.”

  Blank faces looked back at me.

  “Can I have something to eat? Then I'll tell you everything.”

  All of them ran for the kitchen.

  It took me an hour, but I told them the whole story from beginning to end—choking up when I described how my family's picture represented the soul of my world. The hardest part to explain was the stuff about the Layers, and how we were still inside the Yumeka. How we still had one more time to wake up before it would truly be over. Mom cried a few times, and Rusty kept saying how cool it sounded. I was glad he saw it that way, at least.

  Joseph and the other members of the Alliance kept looking away or dropping their eyes like they were ashamed of something. It didn't take me long to realize why.

  “You guys knew about this, didn't you? That we'd been captured by the Stompers all this time?”