Faelorehn - Book One of the Otherworld Trilogy

Chapters 1-3

Copyright (C) 2012 Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

All Rights Reserved

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-One-

Memories

The only reason I knew that I was awake was because of the pale green glow of neon stars staring back at me from my ceiling.  I lay in my bed for a few moments, taking deep, steadying breaths and letting my eyes adjust to the darkness of my room.  The remnants of a dream still danced in my mind, but as the approaching dawn light chased away the dark, it tried to slip away.  Unfortunately, this particular dream was familiar to me, and it would take a lot more than my return to the conscious world to eject it from my mind.

I turned my head on my pillow and blinked my eyes several times at my alarm clock.  Groaning at the early hour, I rolled over onto my stomach and buried my head into the pillow.  I guess the darkness had some claim on the subconscious world, because instead of dispelling the dream, my actions only made it come racing back.

Huffing in frustration, I kicked off the covers and leaned over the side of my bed, scrabbling around stray pairs of shoes and forgotten socks as I searched out my current journal.  Years ago the therapist I had been seeing thought it would be a good idea to keep track of these strange recurring dreams.  Anytime I dreamt of anything that reminded me of my past before entering the foster system, I was supposed to write it down.  That and anything strange that I saw or heard while I was awake.  I hate to say it, but the visions happened more often than I would like to admit.

Although my collection of diaries held other frivolous information alongside the crazy stuff, at least once a year, on the same date, the exact same dream was described in near perfect detail.

I dusted off the cover of my latest journal, grabbed a pen from my bedside table, clicked on the lamp and opened up a brand new page.  The dream was starting to slip away once again, but it wasn't as if I wouldn't be able to remember the details.  I had written about this exact dream so many times before I could probably recite it in front of a crowded gymnasium without glancing at the page it was written on.  Not that I would ever have the gumption to speak in front of a crowd.  Nevertheless, I began writing:

I had the dream again; the one that always comes to me this time of year.  The fog wasn’t as thick as usual in my dreamscape, but I could feel the grit and cold of the blacktop beneath my bare feet.  I looked down.  Of course I was naked, but at least I was a toddler in the dream.

I paused and thought about that.  I had decided a long time ago that the dream was merely a subconscious illustration of the saga that was my beginning.  According to my adoptive parents, I was found when I was two years old, wandering the dark streets of Los Angeles (on Halloween night of all times), completely nude and babbling some nonsense that no one could decipher.  I know most toddlers babble nonsense, but according to the woman at the adoption agency, what I babbled was nothing like what normal human babies produced when trying to communicate with others.  Oh well.  Like the bizarre dream, I can’t explain that either.  I was lucky, they told my parents, because the part of L.A. they found me in was notorious for gang wars.

Somehow, I survived that nocturnal stroll only to be reminded of that night exactly fifteen times, once a year for every year since I was found.  And after fifteen years, I still don't understand why this dream won't leave me alone.  I sighed and got back to my writing.