The Everett Threshold

We had ten minutes—maybe less—to get the boy to Haven’s Edge.

Under normal conditions, the crossing takes at least forty-five. But if he's asleep, I can bend time, curve it around corners like wind sliding around a mountain. My record's seventeen minutes from point of entry to Haven’s Edge. I trained a rookie once—name was Brent or Bret—who couldn’t get over how time behaved here. Third night in, he cracked. Said the dream logic made his skin crawl. It wasn’t just time—he was right about that. In this realm, nothing’s linear. Nothing stands still. Behavior folds, speech drips like melted wax, and emotion is a river without banks. If you know where to dig, you can make that river flow any way you want.

But when the window is less than ten minutes wide, you don’t have the luxury of exploration. You react. You improvise. You hope to hell the kid hasn’t wandered too far into the folds.

I arrived at 1:31 a.m.—four minutes behind my usual, but still better than most of the night team. I’m what you’d call nocturnal by design. I tried the standard shift once, 11:30 p.m. call-ins, but it felt unnatural. Too regimented. Like pushing against the current. My cousin, Luce, works out of Marseille and she reports at 10:45 sharp every night. Says the body knows when the mind is most pliable. That’s probably why she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t have a thousand-yard stare when the holidays roll around.

My mom ran crossings before they made the jump tech stable. Dad managed orientation and trauma debriefs. I have two older sisters—one runs analysis, the other oversees the Drift Protocol in Canada. My brother’s the family anomaly. He’s a real-world trauma surgeon. Still deals with emergencies, just a different kind of bleeding.

I prefer working late into the shift. Emergencies don’t erupt politely at midnight—they ambush you at 2:40, in the dead zone where everything smells like electricity and dread. That’s when the layers peel. That’s when the strange stuff finds its way through.

But my supervisor, Rawlins, doesn’t share that philosophy. A hardliner from the Corporate Re-entry Division, he tries running this operation like it’s an airport. Schedules. Sign-ins. Paper trails. He sips green tea out of a mug that says “Organize or Die” and has never once entered a crossing himself.

"Del," he said, flicking his empty mug with that twitchy lawyer energy, "We’ve discussed punctuality. This late again, and you’ll see it in your record."

"Or just fire me," I muttered, grabbing the last dregs of burnt coffee and pouring it into my thermos. It has a worn sticker of a raccoon wearing aviator goggles. "You see those red markers, right?"

"I see them," he admitted, eyes tracking the pulsing lights above the Drift Board. All three blinking. Urgent. Top-tier threat.

"So what’s the assignment?"

Rawlins fiddled with his datapad like he didn’t know what to say. His hesitation made my spine tingle.

"Fourteen-year-old boy," he finally said. "Dreamscape active at Hamilton South, drift-locked in an institutional simulation. First alert came late. He hid in a janitorial closet before the perimeter sweep caught him."

I sighed. "How much time left?"

Rawlins’ pause was theatrical. People always say characters in stories sigh too much, but let me tell you—bureaucrats in the field? They sigh more than anyone.

"Fifteen minutes."

I did the math in my head. "Which means ten. Gotta suit up and drift in."

They used to put us under with chemical assists. But one operative never woke up, and her family shredded the agency in court. Now we fall asleep naturally—some can’t. They lie in their bunks, eyes squeezed shut, praying to sink into REM like it’s an elevator shaft. Me? I’m asleep before my pulse settles. It’s why Rawlins tolerates my rule-breaking. You don’t bench your fastest striker because he chews gum during warm-ups.

"You sure you can hit ten?" he asked, voice almost hopeful that I’d pass the mission off.

"Rawlins," I said, slipping into my tether vest, "If you had someone better, they’d already be on their way."

Hamilton South is what we call a “Circle Environment.” Think of it as a dream construct mimicking real-world institutions: Circle Grocery, Circle DMV, Circle Detention Center. All set pieces. Backlot illusions with just enough detail to fool the dreamer. You navigate these with care. Never trust a hallway to lead where it says. Doors open to brick walls or black voids. Windows can take you into oceans or onto rooftops. I’ve known agents who veered off-mission to explore, got stuck proposing to dream versions of their childhood crush in front of a pretend wedding crowd of papier-mâché relatives. We don’t retrieve those agents. Not unless the family pays.

The closet the boy had burrowed into was near the counselors’ lounge, right off the main hallway. Oddly quiet dream. Usually, these constructs swarm with NPCs—dream teachers, phantom students, background chatter. This place was still, like a painting.

I moved carefully, playing my usual role—concerned parent, here to pick up a sick child. You only need one or two lines in these dreams to get by. The figments can’t handle complex language. They’re like chatbots from the early 2000s—stilted, repetitive, fragile.

I reached the door. No signage, but the data ping confirmed it. I knocked.

"Hey there," I said, voice soft but steady. "I’m Del with NovaCross Sleep Rescue. I’m here to get you to Haven’s Edge. Somewhere safe, quiet, and warm."

Technically, I was supposed to follow a script. But I never liked the corporate lingo. It’s sterile, and sterile doesn’t save scared kids.

A pause. Then a thin crack opened.

The boy looked out at me with red-rimmed eyes. He was about fifteen. Curly, ash-blond hair. Dressed in a white button-up and tan slacks—uniform of some kind, though I couldn’t read the insignia on his pocket. That was normal. You can’t read in dreams. The letters squirm like eels when you try.

"Hey," he whispered, stepping into view. His voice trembled. He’d been crying.

"What happened?" I asked, dropping the calm-agent persona. "You okay?"

"You shouldn’t be here," he said, voice brittle.

"I’m here to help you leave."

He shook his head. "You don’t understand. I didn’t call you. They did."

I blinked. "They?"

"You weren’t supposed to come alone," he said, stepping out. "They needed to buy me a few more minutes."

I glanced at his shirt again. This time, the logo stood still. I read the words clear as day:

“Rawlins High”

Something in my gut twisted.

"Wait," I said, pointing at his chest, "Where the hell is ‘Rawlins High?’”

He didn’t answer. Just looked at me with this sorrow in his eyes like I was already dead.

"You have to stay," he said. "They’re almost here."

Behind me, the sound began—doors slamming open one after another. Footsteps echoing in that vast, hollow way that only dreams allow. I turned, ready to bolt, but my instincts screamed.

Don’t run. Don’t fight.

Hide.

I almost lunged into the closet—but he stopped me.

"It won’t work," he whispered, gently holding my arm. "They know all the places. It just makes it longer."

My mouth dried. "What is this?"

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped back, and I noticed for the first time that his pupils were wrong. Too wide. No reflection.

"You brought something last time," he said. "A knife. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone—I know that. But they don’t forget."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The footsteps grew louder. More doors slammed open behind me. I felt words rising in my head—on the walls, lockers, even scrawled across the ceiling.

RUN

STAY STILL

SLEEP

REMEMBER

I could read them all. I shouldn’t have been able to. Reading in a dream is impossible.

That’s when I knew.

I wasn’t dreaming.

Or rather, I wasn’t the one dreaming.

"You look tired," the boy said, his voice growing softer. "But you’re not, are you?"

"No," I whispered. "I feel... awake."

"And that’s the strange thing," he replied. "You always feel wide awake right before the nightmare becomes real."

Behind me, the corridor split open like a mouth. And from its throat came the shadows—slow, crawling shapes that remembered who I’d been, what I’d done, and why I’d never escaped it the first time.

And in that instant, I understood the truth.

This wasn’t a transport mission.

This was my own reckoning.

I wasn’t here to save him.

He was here to trap me.

Because some nightmares aren’t just dreams.

They’re debts.

And mine had come due.