Never to Sleep Read Online Free Page A

nightmares.
    “Yes, you have. Look.” He pointed at the floor. “The same tile.” I looked down to find dingy whitish floor tiles, identical to the ones we’d been standing on before the world of bizarre opened its mouth and swallowed me whole. Only this tile was crawling with creepy green eat-you-alive vines. “We never left the school. We just kind of…fell through the layer we live in and landed in the one beneath that. Like the layers of a cake—if you stick your fork through one and into the next, you’re still touching cake. And we’re still in your school. Down there’s the water fountain. See?”
    I had to look extrahard to see the fountain, because the stainless steel box was almost entirely covered by yet more vines. But it was there. He was right. Somehow, this was my school, and that was the fountain outside Mrs. Foley’s biology class, in the science hall. Which meant that the nearest exit was…
    “Teacher’s lounge. Around the corner on the right. It opens into the quad.”
    “Let’s go.” He took my hand again, and we picked our way carefully through the vines slowly twisting on the floor, grasping toward our feet with every step.
    “How is this possible—these layers? This is my school, but…it isn’t. It’s like a Halloween maze with the same blueprint as my school. But that doesn’t make any sense. How can a school have layers?”
    I never thought I’d miss the ugly floors and painted-white cinder-block walls. And the lockers! I could hardly tell they were there, beneath the mass of vines tangled in and all around them now. Tiny vines even grew from the locker vents to trail to the floor.
    “This is…well, the easiest way to explain it is…this is an alternate dimension.”
    “An alternate dimension? Like that fantasy role-playing gamer crap, with swords and magic elves?” Great. I’d been sucked into nerd hell. Shouldn’t there be a different one for people who’d never banished an evil magician or LOL’d in an RPG chatroom?
    “Um… Less Lord of the Rings and more Alice in Wonderland. Only scary,” Luca said. “This world is a reflection of our world, only everything’s…different. Warped. Discolored. Disproportionate.”
    “I’d say that sounds crazy, except that it actually looks even crazier than it sounds.” I pulled Luca to a stop to ask the question twisting my stomach into knots. There was only one real explanation for all this, and it had nothing to do with cake layers and fantasy role playing. “Am I insane?”
    He must have heard the very real fear in my voice because he turned to look at me, in spite of the vines still snaking toward us like they were drawn to our scent or our sound, or maybe just the air we disturbed with every step.
    “This is real, Sophie. And based on the fact that you haven’t freaked out yet, I’d say you’re astonishingly stable.”
    “Or maybe I’m in shock.”
    He shrugged. “Always a possibility.”
    “So, how did we get to this dimension?” I asked, stepping over and around vines again.
    “It’s called the Netherworld. Around here, anyway. They may call it something else in other regions of the world. Nether means—”
    “Under. Beneath. I know. Like nether regions. If you’re telling me this place is the crotch of the world, I’m not gonna argue,” I said, and Luca laughed softly. “But how did we get here? Does this have something to do with that guy with no eyes? Is he from here? Did we get traded for him, like some kind of exchange program? One freaky eyeless Netherworld guy in exchange for two normal, tragically beautiful people from our world?”
    Luca glanced back at me in surprise, and I rolled my eyes. “We’re about to be devoured by man-eating plants. Shouldn’t we at least acknowledge how attractive our respective bodies are before they’re digested from the inside out?”
    “Is that your way of fishing for a compliment?”
    “No.” I already knew I was pretty. Not that I would have hated