1000 YEARS - Book 1 - Awakening

Prologue*

"Sarah. — She's screaming! Sarah is SCREAMING again!..." the manic woman with the glacier blue eyes wailed into the video call. Her face once again drenched in tears. Rocking herself back and forth the distraught woman held her fists firmly wrenched against her temples as if to keep her head from bursting.

He had been at this with her so many times before.
"I'll be there in two hours," he tried to soothe.
"NO!" she shook her head violently, "NO! ...it has to END! It has to end — I can't TAKE it anymore!" she howled, rocking more forcefully. Her gentle face once again distorted into the familiar grimace of abject misery.

She was sitting in his office, alone. Well, really, in the room he used for his research sessions in the small apartment he occupied near the University of Virginia's Department of Perceptual Studies. She had been such a unique case when he had first gone to meet her in Belgium, seven years ago. Slightly older than himself, she had moved across the Atlantic to seek his guidance — for herself, and for her odd daughter. In time he had given her access to his office, which by now had also become his private quarters. — That had happened after his wife's incessant insinuations and allegations had finally pushed his wife's fabrications into becoming his reality.

Two years ago he had moved out of the family home into his research practice. — In this manner whenever the fragile woman had an episode, which could happen at any hour of the day or night, she could walk the short distance from her place to his and let herself in.
Tonight he had left, because his estranged wife had called him, demanding that he attend the elementary school play in which their daughter was cast as a silent flower. He had relented, with a mild sense of unease; his quasi patient and object of study had been particularly restless and agitated lately.

"It's been seventeen years today! I can't take it anymore — we both can't take it anymore! It HAS to stop! It HAS to end! ...it's been TOO LONG!" she wailed, dropping her head and letting her hands fall limp onto his desk.

— May 2nd, seventeen years ago! Another anniversary!
Damn, how could he have forgotten!? How had he not remembered this was today!

"Darling, I need you to take a deep breath and look at me," he said, indifferent to who might overhear his term of endearment. Over the years, his scientific research with this mother and daughter had grown into friendship and personal fondness. And eventually his heart had become deeply attached to the afflicted woman.

She shook her head without looking up. "I'm sorry," she said barely above a whisper.
He heard something heavy scrape across his desk.
"I just wanted to see you one more time," her hollow eyes met his across the web interface, tears dripping off her despondent face. His breath hitched at her odd statement — and then her hand came into view.

She had his gun!
How the bloody hell did she even know he had a gun?

His second-floor office apartment was located in a seedier part of town and shared a side entrance with an old pharmacy below. Many of the drugs and medications the ancient owner stored catered particularly to the local clientele and were of some street value. The pharmacy had been broken into at night, several times; and the old pharmacist had been all too pleased when he had informed him of his decision to make the office apartment his full-time home — 'good to have someone around to keep an ear on the shop at night' the old man had said. He had acquired a gun then but had kept it locked away under his bed. He had never even told her he owned one!?

"Sweetheart, look at me! — LOOK at me!" He felt his pulse race.
Her eyes kept roaming, before finally making dazed contact.
"That's it, Darling. — I need you to breathe with me! ...Look at me and breathe with me: Iiiin. That's it. Now ... Ooout. — theeere you go. Iiiin ... and Ooout." He kept his eyes locked on her, while he made her repeat the process for several cycles. Finally, as smoothly as his training had taught him, he said, "Now Sweetheart, ...put the gun down."