The Journal of Dreams (The Tales of Tahana - Book One)

Prologue: The Message

As Lara rose to her full height, she suddenly felt stillness around her. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes to see what happened but was stunned to see absolutely nothing! She was covered in total darkness. Panic rising, she waved her arms back and forth, hoping that she would feel anything – her desk, her chair, anything. But there was nothing around her but thin air.

"Wait... Fire starters, I have some in my..." Lara thought as she fumbled for her pockets only to realise that she was completely naked.

"What is going on?"

Instead of the soft carpet, Lara felt rough pebbles under her feet as she tried to walk backwards in the hopes of hitting the shelves at the back of her study. As she did so, her left foot hit something rough, making her fall to the ground once again. Her left thigh hit rough pebbles on the ground, making her feel a stabbing pain that made her cry out. She could smell the metallic scent of blood from the gash on her thigh. She instinctively covered it with her left hand. With all the strength she could muster out of her lungs, she desperately cried out.

"Attend me, Sherayali! Please attend me! ATTEND ME!"

Lara's voice echoed into the deafening void around her. Nobody could hear her but the emptiness that engulfed her.

Horrified, confused, and utterly exhausted, Lara embraced herself as she slowly slumped down the rough ground. She started sobbing as she said her silent but desperate prayer to the Shalaramai for this, whatever this was, to stop. She thought that she must be dreaming. She had vivid dreams in the past but none was as tormenting as this one. She could not stop herself from shaking as she cried on the floor. What if she couldn't wake up from this dream? She had heard of others who died in their sleep from nightmares. She banished the thought immediately and desperately tried to focus. She could do nothing but wait for this horrid dream to pass. Moments glacially crept by. She huddled herself in the darkness, straining her eyes to see anything as she tried to gather every last bit of wit and courage left in her. The darkness around her seemed to be getting darker by the minute. It was as if all the light in the Suraya was slowly fading away into nothingness. 

After what seemed like hours, Lara suddenly heard a strange buzzing sound. Curious, she looked up and was surprised to see a star, giving off a weak reddish glow, high above the western sky. The buzzing sound, it seemed, was coming from the star. A buzzing star... How odd. She tried to ignore the star and go back to her thoughts, but she could not avert her eyes from the only source of light around her. The only light... A dreadful feeling started to grow in her heart as she noticed that the star was glowing brighter, growing bigger. Suddenly, she realised that what she was seeing wasn't a star after all. It was a meteor falling to the east. Its blazing scarlet tail lengthened as it gathered speed, and the sound it emitted grew louder by the second. As she saw the meteor falling, she felt her heart sinking to her stomach until, finally, the meteor hit the ground, making the earth and her soul tremble with its impact. Darkness enveloped her once more.

As Lara sat on the ground, still confounded by the ominous sight of the falling star, a pale purple light suddenly appeared in the eastern horizon. It seemed to be emanating from where the meteor fell. Despite the pain on her left thigh, she slowly rose to her feet in order to see from where the purple light was coming. Suddenly, she noticed that she was now wearing the ceremonial robes of the Maya Sherayali – long white robes with yellow trimming that ran from the chest down to the hem, long white sleeves that flowed down to her wrists, and a yellow cowl that covered her head. In her full height, which she knew was quite lacking, she was aghast to see that she was standing right beside the Kamahari Mountains, which rose only to her waist. From afar, she could see that the purple light was coming from another land across the Tidara Ocean. She had heard of this other land from some voyagers who survived an expedition a few cycles ago but she knew very little of it. In fact, very few in Serinaya knew of the existence of another land across the vast ocean. She watched the purple light dance around this strange and unknown land. Suddenly, the dancing light became a gigantic purple wave that started to crawl across the breadth of the Tidara Ocean towards Serinaya. She took a step back as the purple wave hit her feet as it continued to move, covering the entire continent.