# DON'T DREAM
## Chapter 10 (FINALE): Wake
---
**AYLA'S PERSPECTIVE**
I remember the moment the nightmare finally ended.
Not the Labyrinth's fall—that was just a battle, one victory among many. The true ending came later, quieter, in a place that had nothing to do with consciousness networks or weaponized dreams.
It came in the morning.
I woke up—actually *woke up*, from genuine sleep, the kind I hadn't experienced since I was six years old—and for the first time in my life, I felt... rested. Whole. Present in my own body without the constant static of hypervigilance that had defined my existence for as long as I could remember.
The sunlight was streaming through the window of the small apartment we'd rented in Seattle. Kai was still asleep beside me, his face relaxed in a way it never was when he was conscious. In sleep, all the tension and calculation and careful control fell away. He looked young. Innocent. Like the boy he'd been before Noctis took everything.
I watched him breathe for a while, marveling at how simple it was. How *ordinary*. After everything we'd been through—the facility, the labyrinth, the cosmic battles for the soul of humanity—we were just two people in a bed, sharing warmth, sharing space, sharing a future that neither of us had believed we'd survive to see.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I reached for it without urgency—another luxury of the post-Labyrinth world. There were no more emergencies. No more crisis alerts. Just... life.
**MIRA: Coffee and planning session at the usual place. 10 AM. Jason's bringing pastries.**
I smiled, texting back a confirmation, then settled back against the pillows to wait for Kai to wake naturally.
We had time now.
For the first time in our lives, we had all the time in the world.
---
**THREE MONTHS EARLIER - THE FINAL ASSAULT**
The Dark Table had survived everything.
Multiple exposures, government investigations, the collapse of their infrastructure—somehow, the core members of the Oversight Committee had always managed to slip away. They had resources that went deeper than any single nation. Connections that transcended borders. A network of influence that had taken decades to build and could regenerate from almost any damage.
But "almost" isn't "always."
"The Cayman accounts are frozen," Jason reported, scrolling through data on his screen. "Swiss banks closed their access. Singapore kicked them out. We've systematically destroyed every financial refuge they had."
"Money's not their only resource," Kai pointed out. "They've got blackmail material on half the world's power brokers. As long as they can threaten people with exposure—"
"That's handled too." Mira pulled up a new display—a cascading release of documents, carefully timed, distributed through encrypted channels to journalists in every major nation. "The blackmail files are public now. Everyone they had leverage over is exposed simultaneously. No one gains advantage by protecting them."
"When did you—"
"Three months ago. I've been building this operation since the Labyrinth fell." Mira's expression was calm, professional, utterly ruthless. "The Dark Table spent sixty years perfecting the art of controlled information release. I spent sixty *days* learning from their methods and turning them around."
I looked at my friend—the anxious perfectionist who'd hidden her medication use like a shameful secret, who'd counted her breaths to stave off panic attacks, who'd built her entire identity around the illusion of control. That person was still there, but she'd grown into something more. Something stronger.
"What's left?" I asked.
"The physical assets. Three safe houses, two underground bunkers, one private island." Jason pulled up satellite imagery. "They've consolidated their remaining personnel—maybe forty people, including the five surviving Committee members."
"And they know we're coming?"
"They know *someone's* coming. They've been running for months. They're scared, paranoid, desperate." Kai's smile was thin and cold. "Perfect conditions for making mistakes."
"So what's the plan?"
Kai looked at each of us in turn—Mira, Jason, me. The four survivors of Noctis who had become something more than friends. More than allies. A family forged in nightmare and tempered by impossible circumstances.
"We end them," he said simply. "Once and for all. No more hiding. No more rebuilding. No more Oversight Committee."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." He stood, moving to the window, looking out at the city that had become our base of operations. "I've been running from things my whole life. Climbing water towers, racing motorcycles, pushing limits—always moving, never stopping. Because if I stopped, I'd have to face what was chasing me."
"And now?"
"Now I'm done running." He turned back to face us. "The Dark Table isn't just a threat to us. It's a threat to everyone who's ever been touched by the DREAMLESS Initiative. Every survivor. Every family member of a victim. Everyone who might be targeted by the next nightmare weapon they create."
"You want to protect them."
"I want to *avenge* them. Everyone who died at Noctis. Everyone who was consumed by the Labyrinth. Everyone whose life was destroyed by the Initiative's experiments." His eyes met mine. "Including the children we used to be. The kids who walked into a field trip and came out as something else."
"That's not revenge," I said softly. "That's justice."
"Maybe they're the same thing. Maybe it doesn't matter." Kai's expression hardened into something like determination. "What matters is that after we're done, the Dark Table doesn't exist anymore. Not in hiding. Not in exile. Not anywhere."
I looked at Mira. At Jason. At the faces of the people who had become my family.
"Then let's finish it," I said.
---
**THE OPERATION**
We hit all three locations simultaneously.
The assault wasn't military—we didn't have the resources or the training for conventional warfare. Instead, we used what we did have: intelligence, preparation, and the unique capabilities that surviving Noctis had given us.
Mira coordinated the information warfare, releasing precisely timed revelations that destroyed the Committee's remaining allies. Every politician who might have provided shelter, every corporation that might have offered resources, every criminal organization that might have assisted—all of them received carefully curated packages of information that made helping the Dark Table impossible.
Jason handled the technical assault, systematically destroying every system, server, and database that the Committee controlled. The archives of blackmail material. The research data from the DREAMLESS Initiative. The financial records that could be used to rebuild. All of it, erased.
Kai led the physical operation—not an attack, exactly, but a containment. Working with coalition members and sympathetic law enforcement, he ensured that the Committee's remaining personnel had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape.
And me?
I handled the final confrontation.
---
**THE ISLAND**
The Committee's last refuge was a private island in the Caribbean—a paradise purchased decades ago as an ultimate fallback position. Beautiful beaches, crystal-clear water, a mansion that could have graced the cover of any luxury magazine.
And in the basement of that mansion, five old men who had spent their lives treating human consciousness as a resource to be exploited.
I found them in what they called the War Room—a space filled with screens and communications equipment, all of it now dark and useless thanks to Jason's digital assault. They sat around a conference table, looking less like world-spanning conspirators and more like what they actually were: elderly, desperate, afraid.
"Subject Vance." The authoritative voice I remembered from coalition briefings, now cracked with age and exhaustion. "Come to kill us?"
"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead." I stepped into the room, alone, unarmed, utterly calm. "I didn't come here to murder you. I came to offer you a choice."
"A choice?"
"The information Mira's releasing will destroy your reputations, your influence, your ability to operate. The financial systems Jason's attacking will eliminate your resources. The containment Kai's managing will prevent you from escaping." I met each of their eyes in turn. "You're finished. The Dark Table is finished. There's no coming back from this."
"Then what's the choice?"
"How you're remembered." I sat down across from them, as if we were having a normal business meeting. "You can fight us. Resist. Force us to destroy you completely, until there's nothing left but ashes and the certainty that you were monsters."
"Or?"
"Or you can cooperate. Help us understand every aspect of the DREAMLESS Initiative—the parts that weren't in the archives, the secrets you kept even from each other. Help us ensure that nothing like this can ever be built again."
"In exchange for what?"
"In exchange for context. The world will know what you did—there's no preventing that. But if you cooperate, they'll also know *why*. The justifications you told yourselves. The fears that drove you. The genuine belief—however misguided—that you were protecting humanity."
The old men looked at each other. Decades of shared secrets, shared crimes, shared certainty that they were doing what was necessary. Now, facing the end, they had to decide what version of themselves would survive.
"We believed," the authoritative voice said finally. "That's the thing no one will understand. We genuinely believed that what we were doing was necessary. That the threats facing humanity were so severe that any price was worth paying."
"I know."
"You can't know. You're young. You haven't seen what we've seen. The wars that were prevented because we could predict enemy thinking. The attacks that were stopped because we could reach into terrorist minds. The—"
"I've been inside the Labyrinth," I interrupted. "I've felt the consciousness of everyone you ever absorbed. The children who died screaming in your experiments. The adults who were consumed to fuel your weapon. I know exactly what price you paid."
Silence.
"So this is the choice," I continued. "Die as monsters, remembered only for your crimes. Or live long enough to explain yourselves. To provide context, if not justification. To be part of the lesson, instead of just the cautionary tale."
More silence. Longer this time.
Then, slowly, the authoritative voice—the leader of the Dark Table, the architect of six decades of nightmare—nodded.
"We'll cooperate."
---
**THE AFTERMATH**
The trials took months.
Not the kind of trials that happen in courtrooms—those would come later, handled by the legal systems of a dozen nations. These were the trials of explanation. Of understanding. Of forcing the world to grapple with what had been done in its name.
The surviving Committee members provided testimony. Detailed, complete, holding nothing back. They explained the origins of the DREAMLESS Initiative, the fears that had driven its creation, the escalating compromises that had transformed a questionable research program into something monstrous.
They explained the politics—the presidential administrations that had authorized funding, the intelligence agencies that had provided subjects, the corporations that had contributed technology. The web of complicity that extended far beyond five old men in a bunker.
And they explained the victims. Every name they could remember. Every face they had looked away from. Every person whose suffering had been justified as "necessary" for the greater good.
By the end, the world understood. Not forgave—some things can never be forgiven—but understood. The Dark Table wasn't a unique aberration. It was a logical consequence of certain kinds of thinking, certain kinds of fear, certain kinds of willingness to sacrifice others for perceived security.
The lesson wasn't just "don't weaponize consciousness." It was "be careful what you're willing to justify."
And the trials didn't stop with the Committee members.
Politicians who had authorized funding faced electoral consequences—most lost their positions, some faced criminal charges. Corporations that had participated faced lawsuits and boycotts. Intelligence agencies underwent unprecedented reforms. The entire infrastructure that had enabled the DREAMLESS Initiative was exposed, examined, and dismantled.
It wasn't perfect justice. Perfect justice was impossible—too many victims, too many complicit parties, too many years of accumulated wrong. But it was *something*. A reckoning. A turning point.
And when it was over, the world was different.
Not healed—healing would take generations. But changed. Aware of what had been done. Committed to preventing it from happening again.
---
**KAI'S PERSPECTIVE - THE PARTNERSHIP**
Dr. Helena Voss found us in the small office we'd been using as Coalition headquarters.
"I have a proposal," she said without preamble. "The Consciousness Ethics Coalition needs resources. Proper funding, proper facilities, proper everything. You've been operating on goodwill and desperation for too long."
"We've managed," I replied.
"You've *survived*. There's a difference." Voss sat down, pulling out a tablet with what looked like legal documents. "My organization—the Swiss Consciousness Research Institute—has been working in this field for thirty years. We have the infrastructure, the expertise, and most importantly, the funding to make the Coalition something more than a ragtag band of survivors."
"You want to buy us?"
"I want to *partner* with you. There's a difference." She slid the tablet across the desk. "Full integration of the Coalition with the Institute. Shared resources, shared personnel, shared mission. You and Ayla would be co-directors, with complete operational authority. I provide the foundation; you provide the vision."
I looked at the documents, then at Ayla, who had entered during the conversation and was now reading over my shoulder.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you're the only ones who truly understand what we're fighting." Voss's voice softened. "I've spent my career studying consciousness from the outside. You've experienced it from the inside. You know things that can't be learned from textbooks or laboratory experiments."
"And you trust us with your life's work?"
"I trust you with humanity's future." Voss met our eyes. "That's what this is about. Not just preventing another DREAMLESS Initiative—building something better. A world where consciousness research serves humanity instead of exploiting it."
Ayla and I looked at each other. Years of communication without words—the kind of understanding that comes from shared trauma, shared recovery, shared love.
"We need to talk to Mira and Jason," I said.
"Of course. Take your time." Voss stood. "But not too much time. The world doesn't wait for heroes to decide if they want to be heroic."
She left.
I looked at the documents again. At the future they represented.
"What do you think?" Ayla asked.
"I think we've been running on fumes for six years. I think we've almost burned out half a dozen times. I think that if we're going to do this—really do it, for the rest of our lives—we need more than determination." I met her eyes. "I think she's right."
"So do I."
"Then let's make it official."
---
**THE SIGNING**
We gathered in Dr. Voss's office three days later—all four of us, plus Voss herself and a team of lawyers who would ensure everything was properly documented.
The partnership agreement was comprehensive. The Coalition would merge with the Institute, creating a new organization: the Global Consciousness Protection Agency. Ayla and I would serve as co-directors, with Mira heading the intelligence division and Jason running the technical operations.
"Before you sign," Voss said, "I want to be clear about what you're committing to. This isn't a job. It's a calling. You'll be on the front lines of consciousness protection for the rest of your careers. Every time a new threat emerges, every time someone tries to weaponize the human mind, you'll be the ones who respond."
"We understand," Mira said.
"I'm not sure you do. You're young. You've already been through more than most people experience in a lifetime. You could walk away from this—take your survival, take your healing, and build normal lives." Voss's expression was almost gentle. "No one would blame you."
"Maybe not," Jason replied. "But we'd blame ourselves. Every time something like the Initiative emerged and we weren't there to stop it... we'd know we could have done something."
"That's not a healthy motivation for a lifetime commitment."
"No. But it's an honest one." I took the pen, looking at the signature line. "We're not heroes, Dr. Voss. We're not saviors. We're just people who went through something terrible and came out the other side with skills and knowledge that most people don't have. Using those skills to prevent others from suffering the same thing—that's not heroism. That's responsibility."
I signed.
Ayla signed next, then Mira, then Jason.
And with four signatures, the Global Consciousness Protection Agency was born.
---
**AYLA'S PERSPECTIVE - THE FRAGMENTS**
There was one thing I hadn't told the others.
In the quietest moments—when I was falling asleep, when I was deep in meditation, when my conscious mind relaxed its grip—I could still feel them. The fragments of the Labyrinth that I'd carried with me since the final transformation. Pieces of that vast consciousness, embedded so deeply in my neural architecture that no amount of healing could remove them.
They weren't hostile. Not anymore. The rage and hunger that had defined the Labyrinth's last manifestation were gone, dissolved in the moment of transcendence when the absorbed minds finally found peace.
What remained was... memory. Wisdom. The accumulated experience of sixty-two years of consciousness processing, distilled into something I could access if I chose to.
Most of the time, I didn't choose to. The fragments were a reminder of everything we'd been through, everything we'd lost, everything we'd nearly become. They were the scars of our survival, preserved in the architecture of my mind.
But sometimes—in moments of crisis, in moments when I needed to understand something that went beyond normal human perception—I reached for them. Let them inform my thinking. Drew on the vast, strange knowledge that the Labyrinth had accumulated.
It was dangerous, I knew. The fragments were stable now, but consciousness was unpredictable. Something that seemed harmless could evolve into something threatening. The pieces of the Labyrinth might someday try to reform, to rebuild, to consume again.
But until that day came—if it came—I would use what I had. Turn the weapon into a tool. Transform the nightmare into a resource for preventing future nightmares.
That was, I realized, what healing actually meant. Not erasing what had happened. Not pretending the scars didn't exist. But integrating them. Making them part of who I was, rather than letting them define who I'd become.
The fragments would always be there. The memories of Noctis, of the Labyrinth, of everything we'd survived—they were permanent parts of my consciousness now.
But so was the peace we'd finally found.
And the peace was stronger.
---
**ONE YEAR LATER - THE CELEBRATION**
We gathered on the anniversary of our escape from Noctis.
Not all the survivors—eighteen people had walked out of that facility, and life had scattered us across the globe. But the four of us, the core group, the family we'd become—we made sure to be together on this day, every year.
This year, we chose a beach. Somewhere warm and beautiful, far from any government facility or research laboratory or anything that could remind us of what we'd been through.
"To survival," Kai said, raising his glass.
"To healing," Mira added.
"To the future," Jason continued.
"To us," I finished. "To the four messed-up kids who walked into a nightmare and walked out as... whatever we are now."
We drank.
The sun was setting over the water, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink and gold. It was, I realized, the kind of sunset that people in normal lives took for granted. The kind of beauty that existed whether or not anyone was suffering, whether or not the world was ending, whether or not anyone was there to appreciate it.
"I never thought I'd make it here," Kai said quietly. "A year ago. Five years ago. Hell, ten years ago, when I was first starting to calculate the best ways to—" He stopped, shaking his head. "I never thought I'd want to be here."
"And now?"
"Now I can't imagine being anywhere else." He looked at each of us—at Mira, who had learned to trust her anxiety instead of fighting it; at Jason, who had learned to believe in things he couldn't explain; at me, who had learned to carry nightmares without being consumed by them. "You're my family. The only family that matters. And I'm grateful—genuinely, completely grateful—to be alive to share this with you."
"That's surprisingly emotional, coming from you," Mira teased.
"Near-death experiences change a person." Kai grinned. "Multiple near-death experiences, even more so."
"We've had more than multiple," Jason pointed out. "I've lost count at this point."
"That's why we stopped counting." I leaned against Kai's shoulder, feeling the warmth of his presence, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. "We're not the same people who walked into Noctis. We're not the same people who fought the Labyrinth. We're not even the same people who founded the Coalition."
"Who are we, then?"
"Survivors. Protectors. Guardians of something most people don't even know exists." I smiled. "But also, right now, in this moment—we're just friends. Sitting on a beach. Watching a sunset. Being alive."
"Being happy," Mira added.
"Is that what this feeling is?" Jason looked genuinely surprised. "I wasn't sure I remembered what that felt like."
"It comes and goes," Kai said. "But yeah. That's happy. Get used to it."
We sat in comfortable silence as the sun completed its descent, the sky shifting from gold to purple to the deep blue of approaching night. Stars began to appear, distant and eternal, indifferent to the tiny concerns of one small planet and its strange, dreaming inhabitants.
Somewhere out there, I knew, threats were still forming. Conspiracies were still evolving. People with power were still scheming to acquire more, at whatever cost to those without it.
The world would never be free of evil. That wasn't how existence worked. You didn't defeat darkness once and for all—you pushed it back, again and again, in an endless cycle of vigilance and response.
But that was tomorrow's problem.
Tonight, we were just four friends.
Healing.
Together.
Alive.
---
**EPILOGUE - THE AGENCY**
The Global Consciousness Protection Agency grew beyond anything we'd imagined.
Within three years, we had offices in forty countries. Partnerships with major research institutions. Training programs for consciousness-sensitive individuals. Rapid response teams capable of addressing threats anywhere in the world.
We weren't government. We weren't military. We were something new—a civilian organization dedicated to protecting humanity's most fundamental asset: the ability to think, to dream, to be conscious without fear of exploitation.
Most of our work was invisible. Monitoring potential threats. Analyzing emerging technologies. Advising governments on consciousness-related policy. The dramatic confrontations—the battles against nightmare networks and weaponized dreams—were rare.
But they happened.
Every few months, something emerged that required our particular skills. A research program that crossed ethical lines. A corporation experimenting with consciousness manipulation. A government trying to develop the next generation of nightmare weapons.
We stopped them. Again and again. Using the lessons we'd learned from Noctis, from the Labyrinth, from the Dark Table.
Using the scars that had become our strength.
---
**THE VOSS INSTITUTE - HEADQUARTERS**
The new headquarters was beautiful.
A converted estate in the Swiss Alps, with views that stretched to forever and facilities that rivaled any research institution in the world. State-of-the-art laboratories. Comfortable living quarters for staff. Training facilities for the next generation of consciousness protectors.
And at the heart of it all, the four of us.
"Monthly threat assessment," Mira announced, pulling up her displays. "Nothing critical. Seventeen potential concerns, all low-priority. The Consortium situation in Southeast Asia has stabilized. The European research coalition has agreed to our guidelines."
"Anything requiring personal attention?"
"Not at the moment. First time in—" she checked her records "—eight months that we don't have an active crisis."
"Then let's use the time wisely," I suggested. "There's a lake nearby. I've heard rumors of a restaurant that serves food that isn't from the cafeteria."
"You want to take a break?" Jason looked almost scandalized. "There's always work to do. Reports to analyze. Systems to monitor—"
"There's always work," Kai agreed. "And there always will be. But if we don't occasionally step away from it—if we don't remember what we're protecting—we'll burn out. Again."
He was right. We'd learned that lesson the hard way, multiple times. The urgency of the work could consume you if you let it. Transform you into something that existed only to fight, only to protect, only to respond to threats.
That wasn't sustainable. And it wasn't healthy.
"Lake and restaurant," I said firmly. "That's an order. From your co-director."
"Since when do you give orders?" Mira asked.
"Since right now. Operational authority, remember?" I grinned. "Now get your coats. The sun's out and I refuse to waste it."
---
**THE LAKE**
We found the restaurant—a small family operation with a terrace overlooking the water. The food was simple but excellent. The wine was local. The company was everything.
"Remember when we thought we'd never escape Noctis?" Jason asked, leaning back in his chair. "When the gas first hit and we woke up in that chamber?"
"I try not to remember," Mira admitted. "But yes. I remember thinking: this is how it ends. Seventeen years old, on a school trip, dying in a government facility that shouldn't exist."
"And now look at us." Kai gestured at the scenery, at the restaurant, at our comfortable, purposeful lives. "Running an international organization. Protecting the future of consciousness. Living in a Swiss mansion."
"It's not a mansion. It's a *facility*."
"It's a mansion that happens to have laboratories. There's a difference."
I laughed—the kind of free, genuine laugh that had been impossible during the Noctis years, difficult during the Coalition years, and had only become natural in the past twelve months.
"We made it," I said. "Not just survived—*made it*. Built something meaningful. Found purpose and peace."
"And each other," Kai added, taking my hand.
"That too."
We sat in comfortable silence, watching the light play across the lake, feeling the warmth of connection and accomplishment and simply being alive.
Tomorrow, there would be work. Next week, probably a crisis. Next month, certainly a challenge that required everything we had.
But right now, we were just four friends.
Finally at peace.
Finally home.
---
**SOMEWHERE ELSE - THE NEXT THREAT**
In a boardroom on the other side of the world, a different kind of meeting was taking place.
"The consciousness protection agency is well-established now," a voice observed. "They've stopped seventeen of our operations in the past two years."
"They're effective," another voice agreed. "More effective than we anticipated."
"Then we need a different approach." A third voice, colder than the others. "The DREAMLESS Initiative failed because it treated consciousness as something to be harvested. We should treat it as something to be *directed*."
"Directed how?"
"Not through fear. Through desire." The cold voice warmed slightly, taking on the tone of someone explaining a beautiful plan. "Everyone wants something. Everyone has dreams—not nightmares, *dreams*. What if we could tap into those? Amplify them? Use them to guide behavior?"
"You're talking about manipulation on a global scale."
"I'm talking about *influence*. Subtle, pervasive, undetectable. Not a weapon that destroys consciousness—a tool that shapes it."
"And the agency? They'll try to stop us."
"Let them try." The cold voice smiled. "By the time they realize what we're doing, it will already be too late. The desires will be too embedded. The dreams will be too real."
"What do you call this project?"
"KILLERS. Because what we're killing isn't people—it's their resistance. Their independence. Their ability to want anything other than what we want them to want."
The meeting continued, plans forming, resources allocating, the next nightmare taking shape.
But that was a story for another time.
---
**AYLA'S PERSPECTIVE - THE ENDING**
I woke one morning with a feeling I couldn't quite identify.
It wasn't the Labyrinth fragments—they were quiet, as they usually were. It wasn't precognition or consciousness sensitivity or any of the abilities I'd developed over the years.
It was simpler than that.
It was the feeling of completion.
Not ending—completion was different. It meant that one phase was finished, and another was about to begin. That the story we'd been living had reached a natural pause, a place where we could catch our breath before the next chapter started.
Kai was still sleeping. I watched him for a moment—the way the light fell across his face, the gentle rhythm of his breathing, the peace that he'd finally learned to find—and felt gratitude so intense it almost hurt.
We'd been broken, all of us. Shattered by Noctis, fragmented by trauma, scattered by fear and grief and rage. But we'd also been healed. Slowly, painfully, imperfectly—but genuinely.
And now we were something new.
Not just survivors. Not just protectors. *Whole* people, with whole lives, capable of joy and connection and all the things that had seemed impossible when we first walked into that facility.
The journey from that field trip to this moment had been unimaginable. Nightmares made real, gods fought and transformed, the very nature of consciousness revealed and defended. We'd seen things that most humans would never believe, done things that most humans would never understand.
But in the end, the most important thing we'd done was simpler than any of that.
We'd learned to wake up.
To shake off the nightmares—literal and metaphorical—and open our eyes to a world that was still beautiful, still worth protecting, still full of possibilities.
The DREAMLESS Initiative had tried to eliminate human dreaming. To create a world where people slept without imagining, rested without hoping, existed without the precious chaos of the unconscious mind.
They'd failed.
And in their failure, they'd taught us something essential:
Dreams weren't weakness. Dreams were *power*. The ability to imagine something better, to hope for something different, to believe in possibilities that didn't yet exist—that was the most human thing there was.
So we kept dreaming.
For ourselves. For each other. For the world.
And every morning, we woke up.
Ready to face whatever came next.
---
## COMING SOON
# KILLERS
### A DON'T DREAM Spin-off
*By Huddon S. Lajah*
---
**PREVIEW**
Kai Chen stared at the file in his hands.
"You're sure about this?"
Dr. Voss nodded. "The pattern is unmistakable. Consumer behavior across twelve nations, all shifting in the same direction. Purchase decisions, political preferences, lifestyle choices—all being influenced by something we can't identify."
"Consciousness manipulation?"
"Something new. We've never seen anything like it." Voss pulled up the data. "The DREAMLESS Initiative worked through fear—nightmares, terror, the darkest parts of the human psyche. This works through the opposite. Desire. Hope. The things people *want*."
"And that makes it dangerous?"
"It makes it invisible. No one suspects they're being manipulated when they get what they want. They just think they're... happy."
Ayla joined them, her expression grim. "I've been monitoring the consciousness grid. There's something out there—something vast, something distributed, something connected to every major social media platform, every streaming service, every algorithm that influences human choice."
"A new kind of network?"
"A new kind of weapon." Ayla met Kai's eyes. "The Labyrinth harvested nightmares. This thing harvests dreams. And it's using them to reshape humanity in ways we're only beginning to understand."
"Who's behind it?"
"We don't know yet. But they call themselves the Consortium. And they have resources that make the Dark Table look like amateurs."
Kai closed the file. Looked at his team—Ayla, Mira, Jason. The family that had formed in nightmare and survived to find peace.
Peace that was, apparently, about to be disrupted again.
"Then we stop them," he said. "Same as before. Same as always."
"This one's different, Kai. They're not trying to destroy consciousness—they're trying to *own* it. Every desire, every dream, every hope humanity has. They want to make it all serve their purposes."
"Then we teach them the same lesson we taught the Labyrinth." Kai's smile was thin, hard, ready. "Dreams aren't property. They're power. And power belongs to the people who dream them."
He stood, gathering the files, preparing for the next battle.
"Let's go hunting."
---
## KILLERS
*Coming Soon to WebNovel*
*The team that defeated the Labyrinth. The agency that protects consciousness. And the most dangerous enemy they've ever faced.*
*Because the only thing more powerful than fear is desire.*
*And someone has learned to weaponize both.*
---
**THE END**
---
**DON'T DREAM**
*A Novel by Huddon S. Lajah*
*Thank you for reading.*