LUCID

CHAPTER 12

I carried him out of the room, tried to find my way back through the maze of corridors, but I was lost. Suddenly Kiefer gave a cry. I spun around and saw a huge, shadowy figure drifting menacingly towards us.

If I'd been alone, I would have tackled it, but with Kiefer in my arms, I was more concerned with protecting him from his fear. We fled through the corridors, but the figure was always close behind. Then we came to a dead-end. The doors on either side were locked. The figure appeared again. It grew to fill the space around it from floor to ceiling and crept towards us. I put Kiefer down, hid him behind me, prepared myself to fight.

"Taylor..." A soft voice whispered my name from behind the wall. I looked to my right and saw a vision – the glowing, angelic face of a beautiful, blond-haired woman, bathed in light, smiling and beckoning to follow... "Taylor..."

I knew then what to do. I picked Kiefer up again, told him to close his eyes tight, and strode straight through the wall. We were in another corridor, one door. I pushed through it and we were back in the kitchen. The old lady glanced up briefly and pointed the way out.

Anika was waiting by the roadside. She saw us and ran towards us – I put Kiefer down and watched him run to her. They were hugging and twirling as I joined them and embraced them both. But I was distracted suddenly by a presence in the woods. I let them loose and turned to look, and noticed the two figures from earlier still watching from the woods. A moment later they disappeared just as a shaft of blinding sunlight from behind me poured down into the bushy shadows.

When I turned back around Anika and Kiefer were gone too, and I saw, instead of the ramshackle old house and desolate fields, an ornate pavilion standing in an endless garden, bathed in transcendent, heavenly light...

I woke from my dream with a deep, almost painful yearning to see my family.

-----

During breakfast, I told Ember about my dream. The intense longing for my family hadn't ebbed.

"Can you help me get to the Earth plane?" I asked. "I really need to see them. Kat warned me that the Durge can tune to me there, but maybe you can cloak my frequency as he did."

"I could, but only for a short time, my cloaking power is not as strong as Kats."

"I only need a short time. Just to check on how they are... just to see them again."

The way she looked at me told me she sensed and understood my longing and urgency.

"Okay," she said. "Let's do it now."

-----

We teleported first to Kiefer's apartment but he wasn't home. Maybe with his mother, I thought, but no-one was there either. We found them at last with my father and brother at my own apartment and it was comforting to see them all there together. They were safe and they had each other. Knowing this helped me deal with my own emotions. But I wished I could contact them... maybe in their dreams... though I doubted if they would believe they'd really seen me. Except for my brother. Aiden had also experienced lucid-dreaming and astral projection in the past, he'd believe it... but would they believe him?

I mentioned this to Ember but she reminded me that this could lead the Durge into their dreams.

A strange feeling drew me then to the window. I checked the sky for darkness – nothing. But it wasn't the Durge I sensed – something else. The street below was packed with parked cars. Nothing unusual there, except... one plain, white van with blackened windows caught my attention. It wasn't familiar to me and seemed suspiciously out of place, though I didn't feel it to be a direct danger – it wouldn't really surprise me if my family were under surveillance.

Ember was pushing to leave, but we had one more stop to make – at the hospital.

My body had been moved and was now in a ward with two other coma patients – one, a man in his thirties, the other a child no older than ten. It was a little strange to see my physical body again. I felt the connection immediately though – which was a good thing, because I realized how easy it would be to forget I had one. I wanted to see if I could get back in, but Ember stopped me. If I woke now, she reminded me, my time in the Astral could be over – what then of my promise to rescue Sayan? She was right, I had commitments there now, and I couldn't let her or Kat down.

I glanced over at the other two patients. If I managed to save Sayan, maybe I could bring these patients back too. And others. A sense of massive responsibility suddenly shot through me – imagine how much good I could do if I never woke up.

"We need to leave," Ember said.

I could sense the change in frequency too – threatening, cold – the Durge had gotten wind of me. My body was fine, but just one little thing left to do. I peeked out into the corridor and saw – not entirely unexpectedly – that the room was being guarded. So I really was important – a potential new asset for a Military/Government Agency. I actually didn't mind that, and I couldn't have done anything about it if I did. All part of the adventure, part of the higher plan – if there was one. So let them watch me – I had a feeling they were going to be as useful to me as they thought I was to them.

"We need to leave," Ember said again.

I kissed her. "Thank you for this," I said. "Let's go."

Author note

Chapters 13 and 14 tomorrow. Enjoy.