Black by Ted Dekker

your dreams that gives you this information?” she demanded. “What else did you learn about the future?”
    He considered that. “Only that the Raison Vaccine has some problems and ends up as a virus called the Raison Strain, which infects most of the world population in a . . .”
    â€œIn a what?”
    Tom scratched his head. “In a very short time.”
    â€œHow short?” She exhaled sharply. “Listen to me, I can’t believe I’m even asking these questions.”
    â€œIn a few weeks, I think.”
    Kara paced the kitchen, still biting her fingernail. “This is just crazy. Yesterday the extent of my life’s challenges consisted of whether I should cut my hair short, but that was before I came home to my crazy brother. Now the mob is breathing down our necks, and it just so happens that the whole world is about to be infected by a virus no one but my dreaming brother knows about. And how, pray tell, does he know about this virus? Simple: Some black bat with red eyes in the real world told him. Excuse me if I don’t don my gas mask posthaste.”
    She was venting, but she was also troubled or she wouldn’t be venting.
    â€œNot a black bat,” Tom said. “A white one. A Roush. And the Roush have green eyes.”
    â€œYes, of course; how silly of me. Green eyes. The bat with green eyes told him. And did I mention the tidbit about this world all being a dream? Well, if it’s a dream, we really don’t have to worry, do we?”
    She had a point there.
    Tom walked into the living room and turned around to see she’d followed him. Her face was pale. She really was worried, wasn’t she?
    â€œBut you don’t believe for a second that you and I are in a dream right now,” he said. “Which can only mean that the other stuff is a dream. Fine. That’s worse. It means this is real. That a virus is about to threaten the world.”
    Kara walked to the window and eased back the drape. She still wasn’t buying it, but her confidence had been shaken.
    â€œAnyone?” he asked.
    â€œNo.” She released the curtain. “But if I’m to believe you, a few killers from New York are the least of our problems, right?”
    â€œLook, could you please lose the condescending tone here? I didn’t ask for this. Okay, maybe I did set us up for the mob, but I’ve already begged your forgiveness for that. In the rest of this, I’m as innocent as you. Can I help what my dreams are?”
    â€œIt just sounds so stupid, Thomas. You at least see that, don’t you? It sounds like something a kid would dream up. And frankly, the fact that you’re so . . . youthful isn’t playing in your favor here.”
    Tom said nothing.
    Kara sighed and sat on the arm of the couch. “Okay. Okay, just say that there’s something to your dreams. Exactly what are these dreams about?”
    â€œFor the record, I’m not agreeing that they are dreams,” he said. “At the very least, I have to treat each scenario like it is real. I mean, you want me to treat this room like it’s really here, right? You don’t want me to jump off the balcony. Fine, but believe me, it’s just as real there. I’m sleeping under a tree there right now. But the moment I wake up from my little nap under the tree, I’ll have a whole set of new problems.”
    â€œFine,” she said, exasperated. “Fine, let’s pretend both are real. Tell me about this . . . other place.”
    â€œAll of it?”
    â€œWhatever you think makes sense.”
    â€œIt all makes sense.”
    Tom took a deep breath and told her about waking up in the black forest and about the bats that chased him and the woman he’d met and about the Roush leading him to the village. He didn’t think there was any evil in the colored forest. It seemed confined to the black forest. He told it all to her, and as he spoke,