Unlike last time, where Lucy had been laser-focused and could see the after-image of the silver arc her blade had carved through the centre of the hands, this time Lucy swung with blind fury, wanting to cut through the hands, the ceaseless rain, through the very storm clouds themselves, through the torrent of Cole’s distrust and disappointment in her. She yelled all throughout the swing and follow-through, and though the rain, Cole’s shouting, and the omnipresent thunder likely drowned her out, Lucy could feel her ears ringing. She had put so much force that at the end of the motion she nearly stumbled forward and fell face-first into the water, but she focused on the weight of her back foot and righted herself into a stable standing position as she observed the effects of her actions.

  Just as before, the arms all went silent and still. There came the horrific three-toned cacophony that Lucy knew all too well, flooding the airwaves as the arms retreated en masse. Lucy panted, lowering her sword but keeping it in hand just in case.

  Her breathing gradually steadied as she watched the horde of arms shrink further and further into the distance, until they were swallowed up by an ink-black wave and disappeared entirely. Lucy plopped down into a seating position, regaining her composure, though this was made difficult by the storm that continued raging on, drenching her from head to toe and replacing the arms’ horrendous screeches with the incessant rush of falling water.

  “You did it,” Cole called out behind her. When she turned to face him, she saw that he was breathing heavily as well, spitting out rainwater that was getting into his mouth, but despite his condition he remained standing apprehensively. “Wish we could celebrate, but we gotta do something about all this water.”

  Only then did it register that Lucy was partially submerged in water that had pooled into the boat. It wasn’t an alarming amount, but if this kept up, they ran the risk of sinking from the added weight. “Right. Um, we need a bucket or pail or a cup…”

  Cole shook his head. “Don’t got any of those.”

  Lucy sighed, looking up at the sky. There had to be some way to get this water out. But it was plain to see that Cole was right and the boat was completely sparse. So then was this impossible? Of all the things they’d encountered so far, were they really going to be done in by an abundance of rainwater?

  That was a deep and honest understanding of their current situation, from all Lucy saw and knew. So then if her Understanding wasn’t going to provide a solution, perhaps she should turn to her other axes. The raging storm that seemed to antagonize the both of them relentlessly was pushing her toward Rebellion, of rowing as hard as they could despite the rising water level so as to deny the storm’s insistence on slowing them down. But this would only get them so far, and if they didn’t happen to find dry land in time, they would have to face the water level sooner or later.

  Ideation…Another way of looking at things, at finding avenues of thought she hadn’t considered. Earlier, it had revealed to her the signs of needing both sets of oars in motion in order to budge the boat at all. So perhaps, now it could help her find a way to get them over yet another impasse to getting the boat moving safely. But what?

  Lucy looked all around, trying her best to ignore Cole’s quizzical look. The boat was empty. The seas certainly looked empty on the surface, but if they were to try finding something useful beneath that, it would require a fishing rod or net that evidently they didn’t have. She looked at Cole, hoping this didn’t seem too awkward, as she took stock of what he was wearing. Just a plain t-shirt and some khaki shorts, as if he had been going on a seafaring vacation rather than surviving a storm. The shirt could perhaps act like a towel or rag for them to absorb the water, and then they could wring the accumulation out over the edge of the boat, but that would take too long, and he might understandably be against losing one of his only articles of protection against the elements.

  Lucy looked down at herself. There was certainly more to work with, and she had the sense that she was on the right track. But what specifically could they use? Her chest plate looked like it could hold a large volume, but there were openings on the top and bottom, so it wouldn’t be able to hold any water. Her cape could also be used as a rag to absorb the water, but again it wouldn’t be able to do this quickly enough. When she looked down at the bottom of her cape, however, she noted what she was wearing on her feet.

  Boots.

  They were large, made of some type of sturdy reinforced metal, and had only one opening at the top while the bottom was large and spacious. If one looked at the them a certain way, they could be taken as cups with an unusual shape, but cups nonetheless with the capability of holding liquid.

  “Here!” Lucy wasted no time and bent down, shoving her boots off her feet. She shivered at the ice-cold seawater lapping at her bare feet, but there was enough adrenaline pumping through her to make that abate rather quickly. She thrust one boot toward Cole, who stared at her as if she had grown a third arm.

  “What?” He was beyond perplexed, and Lucy couldn’t blame him.

  Fighting against the feeling of shrinking away at the ridiculousness of her own idea, Lucy spat out: “Scoop the water up with this boot.”

  “The hell?” Cole’s expression was still hard, but it had changed from one of confusion to one of disgruntlement. “These are yours! You’re gonna freeze, get pneumonia, keeping your feet in the water!”

  “I know!” Lucy yelled, more forcefully then she had intended. “I know. But this is the only way. We don’t have anything else to use.”

  She paused, weighing how convincing her next words would sound, and ultimately decided to recklessly say them: “I’ll be fine. Us Knights, we’re…stronger, than normal.”

  Cole continued staring at her, but now he looked pensive. After an eternity of Lucy waiting agonizingly, still holding the boot out to him, he took the boot and nodded curtly as if acknowledging he’d been bested in a debate. “You did manage to take a swing at those arms and drive ‘em off, even with the storm going crazy. If there’s two of us, we should be able to get rid of this water in no time, eh?”

  Lucy smiled and nodded, happy to hear a spark of trust returning to Cole’s voice. “Yeah!”

  The two set off clearing the water out of the boat using Lucy’s boots. They had worked even better than Lucy had expected, as the wide and expansive toe portion allowed water to pool easily and keep it from spilling out when carrying it over to the boat’s edge. The storm began to abate as they did this, making it easy for them to clear the water out before it re-accumulated.

  Soon enough, once the rain had calmed to a drizzle, the water level in the boat was limited to a few tiny patches in the uneven layout and pockmarks along the surface. Cole let out a loud breath, went toward the centre of the boat, and plopped down into a seating position to catch his breath. Lucy followed suit, sitting beside him.

  He handed the boot he used back to her and said: “Your idea worked. By god, it worked.”

  Lucy took it back from him, and after she put both boots back on, she saw him grinning.

  “We can do this, huh?” He raised his shoulders up and down, then stretched his arms and punched the air in front of him a few times, reminding Lucy of how one of her gym teachers would often warm up. “Whirlpool, water, those damn arms… Nothing’s stopped us.”

  Lucy stared at him, still catching her breath as she sat back. It had been hard to process in the middle of all their struggles, but Cole was right: they’d overcome everything this Dream had thrown at them. And, though it was wishful thinking, it didn’t seem as though there was anything else out here that could surprise them. It had been tiring, and at times she and Cole had both felt hopeless, but now the hope was shining brightly in front of them, an unseen sun burning in the sky of this sun-less world.

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  With that, Lucy returned his grin and said: “If anything comes after us again, we’ll stop it again. And keep moving forward.”

  “Now you’re talking!”

  As if he were an engine revitalized, Cole rose quickly to his feet and went over to his oars. He nodded at Lucy and beckoned for her to do the same. She smiled and obliged, sitting down at the front and taking her oars in hand again. The ocean around them was still devoid of any feature or any sign that there was anything across the horizon, but now that the ocean itself was no longer a mass of the unknown and appeared as a definite obstacle to overcome, Lucy was driven by the same motivation Cole was likely feeling, that if they continued rowing in some direction, they had a good chance of finding something.

  And sail on they did, through the ink-black waters and light-starved waves. Every few hundred yards, they would take a break to replenish the energy expended from all of the rowing. Lucy found that her fatigue levels were still heightened beyond what she had expected, though she made a play of readily agreeing with Cole whenever he suggested they take a few minutes to breathe. The wind and the rain were persistent, but had not risen to the same intensity as the last storm. With enough time and distance and imagination, Lucy could believe that she was out kayaking with her mother on a summer evening.

  But, perhaps as one would expect from a Dream, her own imagination was repeatedly disrupted by the things emerging from the deeper bowels of Cole’s imagination. Several times, the sloshing and rushing of countless forms sounded out over the waves, and sure enough the horde of arms would be there closing the distance. Lucy and Cole would stop rowing as soon as they noticed the arms, choosing not to waste any energy by attempting to flee in vain. Instead, Lucy would assume the posture she had grown used to and take a swing with her sword once their assailants were in blade’s reach. And, just as always, the arms would screech their awful sounds before retreating into a crashing wave.

  Lucy didn’t tire from this, either, and the more she went up and took a swing with her sword, the more she felt herself growing accustomed to using a sword, to controlling its weight and heft, which admittedly made her giddy inside given that she was essentially growing into the role of a fantasy hero. Cole thanked her and complimented her after every scuffle with the arms, but after the first handful of times, he sounded less and less and enthused as well as somewhat exasperated.

  Lucy sensed his growing discontent, and the next time she finished watching the arms be enveloped by a distant wave while sheathing her sword, she turned around to find Cole sighing with a frown. Lucy had a feeling she knew what was ailing him, but still she asked: “Is something wrong?”

  “Ain’t it obvious?” Cole grunted. “I’m sick of this. And you are, too.”

  Lucy froze. It was disconcerting to hear him assert how she was feeling so nonchalantly, but at the same time, she couldn’t disagree. The clouds have seemed to have grown thicker during their ceaseless travel, the world dimmer, and along with it the fading of the spark of hope that had ignited within them some hundreds or thousands of yards ago. Where were they going? Was there even anywhere to go to? The horizon was still as featureless as it had been when Lucy first emerged into this Dream.

  But she couldn’t let these negative thoughts amplify Cole’s. If she were to agree with him completely and give him further cause to spiral downward mentally, there was no doubt another, more physical and terrible spiral would emerge from beneath the waves once again. And that, more than anything, would likely take the last remaining gusts of wind out of their sails, extinguishing any motivation Cole had left.

  With all of this in consideration, Lucy wiped the condensed mist off her face, stood up straight, and said: “Yeah, it’s tiring and frustrating, seeing nothing but water. But we’d be worse off if we just stayed in one place. If we keep going, we’re going to get somewhere eventually. We just need to be patient, take it slow as we need—”

  “I’ve been plenty patient already!” Cole shouted, rising to his feet. “Fact of the matter is, there’s nothing out there. Do you see how far we’ve gone? This ain’t real life; if we were meant to find something, it sure as hell would’ve turned up by now.”

  “But we don’t know that for—”

  “Enough!” Cole shoved his open palm in her direction, shaking his head. “Your ’wishful thinking’ is too much. Way too much. Suspicious, even. All you’ve done is get my hopes and tire me out—and for nothing.”

  “But…” Lucy paused, took a deep breath, and tried to appeal to the brighter, smiling Cole she had seen several times. “Cole, I said I’d be here for you. And I’ve been here, helping you through it all. You can trust me. I…can’t say I know everything, but I really am trying my best for you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Cole turned off to the side where he glared across the shadowy forms of the waves. “You sure did your best convincing me a couple times. Maybe that’s your real forte, getting me to believe you in your flashy get-up and pretty words. All so I can keep rowing to goddamn nowhere. Heh.”

  He sat down, turning her back to him in a brusque movement. “This stupid Dream was tired of me sitting on my ass in this boat all the time, so it sends me a pretty little girl who tells me I just gotta keep rowing. God, that’s twisted.”

  Lucy found herself reaching her hand out toward him. She didn’t know what had compelled her to do that instead of trying to say something back, but it had happened instinctually after feeling his words carve a thousand pinpricks through her chest and throat. She had felt this overbearing, self-deflating feeling before, the last time she had been with Kathy, when that former close friend of hers had said words, very different words from what Cole had just spoken, but that nonetheless carried the same melting, nullifying effect that rendered everything Lucy had done and intended to do meaningless. And, now that she had experienced it a second time, Lucy remarked to herself, through fresh tears, that there might not be anything more painful than wanting the best for someone only to have them turn further and further away, the desperate attempts to hold them and pull them to safety inadvertently pushing them closer to the abyss.

  Cole hadn’t seen anything, as his back was still turned, but he spoke as if knowing Lucy was trying to do something. “Get out of my Dream. Go terrorize someone else’s.”

  The words added to the lump in Lucy’s throat, but in listening to Cole’s voice, she heard something deeper and oddly familiar. Beneath his calm and controlled contempt was a layer of abrasiveness, seeking to lash out at anything within earshot. The very tone of it rejected any concept of kindness, grabbing any pretense of positivity and dragging it back down into the depths of Cole’s perpetual distrust.

  It was strange, but as Lucy brought her arm back down to her side, she began forming a crystal clear vision of Cole’s character beneath the surface, just from this observation alone. Most likely, this was an effect of her alignment along her main axis, and she came to accept this assumption for the time being as she ruminated on her new understanding of Cole.

  Cole…He was quick to turn things away and label them as adversaries. But from all of the times he had derided Lucy, it seemed that this behaviour stemmed not from an inexplicable hatred at the world, but from frustration at getting his hopes up only for them to be dashed. And Lucy had seen how his smiling face, the one instilled with hope, focused on a single point, something far in the distance, that seemed now to him to be within reach. And how, whenever there was a downturn, he gazed off across the waves as if watching helplessly as that thing that had been within his grasp receded, far away, beyond where his hands or hopes could ever hope to reach.

  Looking at his hunched back at the other end of the boat, Lucy thought back to the memory Cole had described. Although he had been vague, Lucy could see it clearly now, feel it in all her senses as if she had been there herself: the choking screams, the relentless rush of river water, the arm piercing through the surface to reach out, fingers waving and curling to grasp something, anything, and the unignorable, overbearing sense that that arm could be reached, if only her own—his own—arm would move instead of staying frozen. And there it was: that brief, fleeting moment where the sinking arm was still in arm’s reach, where there was still hope of rescuing them, and yet that hope was already being dashed by the shock that had overridden and immobilized the call to action.

  There was a strong feeling of repulsion as Lucy let this recollection sweep over her. It was so much easier to deny that that moment of hope had existed, to call it traitorous and hostile so as to give reason to drive it out of any sort of consideration. It was the same repulsion, Lucy could tell, that Cole experienced whenever he turned her away and her promise of rescuing him. And as unfortunate as that was, who could blame him, after seeing hope slip from his grasp and sink down into demise right in front of his eyes?

  But that doesn’t need to happen anymore, Lucy thought.

  She had an inkling of what might lead them to an actual solution. It was a radical idea, but it was influenced by her deep understanding of Cole and his situation, and, after all, it had been a combination of Understanding and Ideation that had gotten her this far. Perhaps now, it was time to take both axes as far as she could, beyond the preconceived notions set by this stormy, drowned world.

  “Cole,” Lucy called out.

  Cole didn’t move at all, and there came only the irritated rush of the waves. Then he said: “Seriously. Leave me the hell alone.”

  Lucy choked back her reaction, opting to stand firm. “I know what we need to do.”

  She decided not to word it as only a hunch or possibility. It was a bluff, but she needed him to listen to her seriously.

  Cole sighed. “You don’t listen to a word of reason, do ya? Rowing ain’t getting anyone anywhere. Period.”

  “We don’t need to do any rowing,” said Lucy.

  At that, Cole jolted, then turned around to look at her with wide, skeptical eyes as she said:

  “What we need to do…is in your hands right now.”