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though the hair across his eyes hid his expression.
    Mia held her breath. To challenge the creatures was insane or stupid or both.
    The feat of taunting his captors earned him a punch to the shoulder from a tentacle. His brutal crash to the floor landed him where she had appeared from home only moments ago.
    With one harsh pull, the man and his captors disappeared from her sight. In sick relief, Mia shrank against the wall of her dark hallway. The cold stone floor chilled her feet, and the rough-hewn rock gouged tiny spikes of pain into her flesh. Both confirmed her dream a reality.
    The dark felt safer, but pools of light on the floor from the adjoining hallway swam too close. The white puddles shivered from left to right, holding concert with an increased volume of shuffles and grunts from the far end of the corridor. The disorienting motion of the lights and echo of noises reinitiated the bitter churn of her stomach and tight clench of her throat.
    Repetitive gunfire rang out in the corridor, followed by a string of shouts and high-pitched screams. She froze, crouched on the floor, arms gripped about her legs. Her pulse thrummed in her head; its rapid presence gave no comfort.
    She prided herself on calm and logic, but the shivers that racked her arms bordered on hysteria. She scrambled farther back and hoped fight or flight would be an option instead of immobilization from terror.
    The group that passed in the connecting hallway was human. The man in the lead carried an assault rifle, nose aimed at the ground. Two machetes crisscrossed over his back were an advertisement for his deadly career choice.
    A second man in black fatigues dragged a body by the scruff of its shirt collar. Death a certainty, given the corpse was headless. Blood speckled the khaki shirt in a morbid camouflage pattern.
    Those things eat humans . Mia covered her mouth and nose to keep from vomiting.
    Not far behind several more men followed, all weathered with tans, each dressed in the same khaki outfits minus the blood. The men’s necks strained beneath the burden of the wooden crates on their backs. Their heads swiveled while searching in the dark recesses of her tunnel. Wide eyes and dilated pupils identified them as recipients of terror overload.
    She recognized the signs. She braced for an unexpected attack, tension locking her joints. Every noise registered, but the entourage moved farther away. Prolonged silence finally confirmed she was alone.
    Mia sank to the floor and lifted her shaking hands. She turned them back and forth. They looked the right size. The bandage was still there from the packing box cut. Definitely hers.
    Too bad.
    The dream would be less threatening if she’d evolved into someone who could take on a big gross squid with metal teeth.
    She exhaled, leaned her head against the wall, and closed her eyes. Her body remained tense, her attention still focused on sounds from the hallway.
    Priority one: figure out how she had ended her dream the first time? She needed to be done with nightmares.
    One slow, deep breath filtered into her lungs, a hard struggle against the tight ribbon of fear. She counted to ten and tried to relax. The first was easy; the second impossible.
    In an effort to empty her mind, she searched for the blue skies while she flexed her hands on her knees in forced calm. Last night she’d gotten home. She could do it again.
    The cold brace of the rock against the back of her skull and beneath her feet signaled no success. Have to do this.
    Focus . Clear the mind. Breathe. Count.
    Slow in, two, three, four.
    Slow out, two, three, four.
    Seconds passed, and she counted. At some point, her hand fell from her knee to the floor. She acknowledged the cold rock on her knuckles at the same time a pressure pushed against her chest and disorientation rose with nausea from her belly.
    Not giving in to the temptation to open her eyes, she waited and counted. Forty long counts and then Mia opened her eyes.
    The comfort of