tremorworks

October 7

Dear Samantha,

I saw him again.  This time we actually got to talk.

I fell asleep reading the lucid dreaming book, so taking control was really on my mind at the time.  I almost immediately started dreaming, and saw the shadow monsters again.  Somehow I actually managed to become lucid this time.

I was near the canal, at a park where I went for a walk after school today, walking around this pond.  It was nighttime, and a little chilly, so at first I didn’t realize I was dreaming.  But  when the shadows showed up again, I knew it.

There were so many of them this time; it was like they knew he was there too.  They swarmed out of the shadows, from the sky, from the pond, from the trees… everywhere.  I could hear their whispering voices, feel their cold presence.  I panicked.  I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.

I screamed.  I dropped to my knees.  I wanted to wake up.  It was just a dream. I kept telling myself that, over and over, but it didn’t do any good.  I started begging for him to come back and save me.

He answered my prayers.

I saw a flash of light, like a splash of brilliantly glowing water, tear through a mass of the dark creatures.  When their shadows cleared, I saw him standing there, his hands in his pockets, his sunglasses on the tip of his nose.  He scanned the shadows with his intense eyes, and began to walk forward.  “You know this is a dream,” he said, targeting my eyes with his.  “Use that knowledge.  Wake up, or take control.  It’s your choice.  It’s your world.”

I stared back at him.  I knew what he was saying, but somehow I didn’t understand.  Maybe I was in shock, still too scared.  But the shadows didn’t want to give me the chance to do what he said; they didn’t want him to speak at all.  With a screech, they launched themselves at him.  I gasped in horror as they swarmed around him, enveloping him in their darkness.

And he was suddenly behind me, lifting me to my feet.  “Let’s go,” he whispered into my ear.

“I have a lot of explaining to do.”

The shadows then noticed where he was, and they rushed toward us both.  I could feel him slipping away from me, as if being pulled back by the shadows.  I wanted to cry out, but there was no sound.  “Wake up!” he shouted at me, his voice unnaturally far away.

I whirled around, and I could see him falling away, carried by the darkness.  His face was set in an emotionless stare, but there was intensity in his eyes.  The shadows were creeping up around him, dragging him away.  I had to save him, had to do something.

So I did.

The shadows around him vanished, wiped away like pencil scribbles with an eraser.  As their screeches faded into the night, I staggered back.  I knew I was dreaming.  I knew I had control. But I couldn’t comprehend it; my mind couldn’t grasp the control I had of this reality. I felt a claw touch my shoulder.  There were still shadows all around.

Then his hand clasped my wrist and pulled me away.  “Come on,” he said, and took a step away, pulling me with him, and the shadows were gone.

With a single step, we now stood in a room, a huge room with hardwood floors, daylight streaming in through a window that covered an entire wall.  The city outside was unfamiliar to me, but the light was comforting.

He stepped away from me and approached the window, looking out over the city as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.  “Are you alright?” he asked.

I nodded.  “I think so.”  I didn’t know what else to say.  I had so many questions, but none of them seemed appropriate.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked me.

“I’m still dreaming, right?” I replied with a question.

He nodded.

“What’s going on?” I asked, stepping up beside him.  “Why am I having these dreams?  Who are you?  I don’t understand all of this.”

He pulled his sunglasses off and looked into my eyes with that intense stare.  “My name is Herald Harbinger.  I’ve been doing this for quite a while; fighting the shadows, trying to find you.”

His burning eyes made me uncomfortable, and I took a step back.  “Why me?  What’s going on?”

“I still haven’t figured out what the shadows are, or who is controlling them, but I know what they want.” He looked back out the window.  “You and I have a special ability.  We can enter and control reality through our dreams.  You’re asleep right now, we both are, but we also exist here, in the real world, through our dreams.”

“What?”  I heard what he was saying, but it was too fantastic to believe.

“I don’t understand it either.  I don’t know how or why I can do what I can do, but I’ve learned to control it through lucid dreams.  Somehow the shadows found me, and tried to take me, to use me for something.  For what, I’m not sure.  I fought back, for a long time, and they eventually started leaving me alone.  Now they’ve found you, and they think you’re an easier target.  I want to make sure that’s not the case.  I can’t let them have you.  Whatever it is they want, we can’t give it to them.  What we can do is too powerful. We have to keep it out of their hands.”

I was just dreaming. I knew that.  But was he part of my dream?  Was I inventing all of
this in my own imagination?

“What’s your name?” he asked me.

I stammered back nervously, “Lucy.”

“When did the shadows first appear to you, Lucy?  How long has this been going on?  Since before I came?”

I shook my head.  “Not much longer than that.  It started last month, just after we moved. My father was transferred.”

He stood their, thinking in silence for a moment.  “I see,” he eventually said.  “I need to teach you to control this power,” he went on, “so you can fight yourself.  I might not always be here.”

I stared at him for a moment, trying to understand what he was saying, and the world gradually faded to gray, and I woke up.

What is real?  What are dreams?  I don’t even know the difference now, it seems.

Tired and confused,
Lucy