The Realm of Dream

                                     Book 1:

   

                                       Chapter 1

                                Sleepless Nights

        

Finn Dorsey ignored the blaring sound of his alarm clock as it beeped loudly in his ear.  He blinked wearily and attempted to smack the snooze button with little success.  His whole body ached and felt numb.  The alarm echoed again and again as he finally mustered enough strength to knock it onto the floor, shutting it off.  He slowly rose out of bed, and immediately grabbed a composition book from his nightstand and glanced at his watch as he wrote down the date and time:  March 15, 2012.  6:45 a.m.

        He tapped the pen against his temple, attempting to remember anything from his dreams.  But, again, he came up with nothing.  He had kept a dream journal for almost three months and each night he was able to record things he had dreamt of.  He also had been struggling with something else that was beginning to affect his everyday life.  Under the date and time, he scribbled another entry:  

Only 8 minutes of sleep throughout the night.  That makes a total of 8 hours for the entire week.

He put the notebook aside and yawned, exhausted and weak.  He mustered enough energy to get out of bed and peered through his blinds outside.  Although his room was cloaked in darkness, making sure as to allow no light escape inside, it was a beautiful day outside.  The sun was shining as a few slivers of brightness seeped into the room.

He looked away, almost blinded by the welcoming sunshine.  Since his problems with sleeping started, he had adapted his room to be dark at all hours of the day.  He matted his shaggy hair down and walked over to his mirror.  The ever-darkening circles under his eyes clearly showed that sleep deprivation was beginning to take its toll.  He had forgotten what it felt like to wake up, fully rested.  

Usually, he would have been getting ready to go to school as an 11th grader at Creekside High School.  Now, he was forced to take classes online at home because of the long list of incidents that occurred at school, causing him to have to withdraw.

After he was finding it impossible to sleep, his day-to-day routine started to become affected.  He would nod off in class throughout the day, he was irritable and lashed out at friends and teachers, and most of all were the visions he saw.  Although he knew they were hallucinations, it still did not help when he would see the terrible and horrific things.  It caused him to have to see a counselor on a daily basis, but the less he slept the more intense and erratic he became until the principal was forced to ask Finn to leave.  

As soon as he left through the doors of Creekside, Finn knew he had lost all of his friends.  They would no longer see him as the once funny and likable guy, but an outcast and a freak.

Finn stared around at the four walls of his room and kicked over a chair nearby.  He had seen doctor after doctor and they all said the same thing; he suffered from a severe case of insomnia.  But, somehow, Finn wasn’t convinced that insomnia was what was really wrong with him.  He made his way to the bathroom and got a more detailed look at his appearance.  

At first glance, his reflection actually frightened him.  Aside from the dark circles engulfing his eyes, his complexion was pale and sickly.  He also had lost weight, making his frame look frail.  He sighed heavily and turned the water on for the shower.  Perhaps that would keep him alert for a while.

After he had gotten a shower and changed, Finn sat on his bed and stared at his cell phone.   He wanted so badly to call her, but he couldn’t bring himself to dial the number.  It had been four days since he had last spoke to her.  The isolation made him feel as if it had been years since he had talked to anyone.  She had reached out to him time and time again, but he had ignored every one of her calls, even when she made visits to his house.

Finn was alone at his house.  His father had died when he was 11, and his mother had taken a job as the regional director of some company.  It didn’t really matter to him what the company was; only that she was usually traveling for most of the week around the state.  This left him with ample time to himself… to do absolutely nothing.  

He finally got up and ran a hand through his mess of black curls that hung low, just above his eyes.  He went downstairs and collapsed onto the couch as he took the newspaper and opened it, perusing through the different articles.  There had been one story in particular he had been following the past week.  Three children had been kidnapped around the Pittsburgh area in the past few weeks and the police still had no leads.  

To Finn’s dismay, as he spotted the article on the second page, the bold print told him another child had been taken.  He flipped back to the cover page which had a picture of a sunny day at a local park.  He tried to rationalize why the local news would think an abnormally mild day in February was a bigger story than a missing child.  He shook his head and put the paper down.  He was beginning to feel nauseous.  He figured it was because it had been a while since he had eaten anything but like sleep, his appetite had seemed to vanish as well.

He decided to go outside to the porch and get some air.  The moment he stepped outside, a sudden warmness washed over him.  The sun was almost over head, indicating it was around midday.  His eyes adjusted to the brightness and paced back and forth, finding himself in deep thought.  He wondered if he would ever overcome this debilitating issue.  He couldn’t keep living with only getting an average of eight hours a week of sleep.  Already his psychiatrist and doctors said it was a marvel he could function properly.

The constant haze he felt immersed in every day would lift momentarily where he would have moments of clarity, but for the most part, he was forced to live consumed by a fog that kept him sedated and exhausted.

He felt his eyelids grow heavy, as he made his way back inside and collapsed on the couch.  It felt as if all of his energy had been sucked out of his body.  He soon noticed that darkness was slowly encroaching from the corners of his eyes.  He didn’t fight the onset of sleep, but quickly gave in as he closed his eyes and welcomed rest as if it were an old friend.

A flash of bright light erupted around Finn.  He found himself standing on an empty street, but it looked older, like one of the cobblestone streets in the early days.  He noticed the scenery around him was in a pale grayish hue, as if the color had been sucked out of a painting.  Immediately he recognized he was dreaming, but then he quickly remembered what his psychiatrist said:  “When someone was dreaming they can’t rationalize and consciously know they are dreaming; despite what movies and television portray.”

If he was contemplating if he was dreaming, then he already knew he was lucid enough to know he wasn’t.  And if that was the case, he had absolutely no idea where he was.  As if someone began pouring colors onto a canvas, his surroundings began to change with color.  The leaves of the trees became green as the cobble stones beneath his feet became a light shade of brown.  The scene before him was rapidly changing as he stared at the wondrous and colorful landscape before him.  For a mere second, he remembered the same type of situation happened to Dorothy from the Wizards of Oz.  He began traveling down the cobblestone road, trying to gain his bearings.  He remembered having vivid dreams like this before when he was younger, but he seemed too alert to be dreaming.  He seemed too conscious to be asleep.

The road kept going and Finn continued to follow it until it suddenly stopped.  Even though he had seen it go on for miles, it just disappeared.  He knelt down and touched the soft ground just beyond the road.  He could not figure out what was the meaning behind this dream, or whatever was happening to him.  His psychiatrist had spent many sessions in trying to interpret why he was having these seemingly very real dreams and what they could possibly mean.  But to his dismay, Finn still had no answers except for the usual explanations.

“Your dreams could be trying to show you that you need direction in your life or that you need to find yourself and who you are.”

That was only one of many statements Finn remembered his psychiatrist saying to him.  None of it made sense.  He rubbed his eyes, hoping this would somehow cause him to awake, but instead of seeing his room, a large, wooden door appeared in front of him.  He stared at the door, as if trying to remember if it had just appeared or if it was there the whole time.  He slowly gripped the tarnished brass doorknob and turned it, opening the door to reveal a much different landscape on the other side of the threshold.

He stepped through the doorway and the door closed behind him.  Before him was a vast field of tall golden grain.  He imagined himself being somewhere in the Midwest.  He turned to notice the door had disappeared.  The sun was shining brightly on his pale skin, warming him to the core.  He stretched out his hands and allowed the tops of the wheat stalks to graze and tickle his fingertips.  Something about this place made him feel happy and content.  

The soft breeze wove through the fields, causing a soft rustling that almost lulled Finn into a trance.  He felt calm and relaxed as he continued walking through the endless stalks of grain.  He soon wondered how long it would be until he woke up. At that point he had accepted the fact he was indeed dreaming, but didn’t remember falling asleep, but seeing as he rarely slept at all, exhaustion could have crept up on him without him knowing.  

He continued on through the fields, and little by little, his once calm and relaxing feeling soon turned to one of anxiousness.  He suddenly felt as if someone or something was watching him.  He found himself constantly looking over his shoulder, as if to find something there.  All that met his gaze were the limitless stalks of wheat swaying back at him.  At that moment, he remembered a television show where a video showed a lion stalking a gazelle in the African plains.  As he stared at the masses of gold, he suddenly felt like the gazelle; like there was something hunting him.

Whatever the reason, he felt obligated to break off into a dead sprint through the field, the grain stalks now slashing at his arms and hands, instead of the slight tickle from before.  He kept running, not fully knowing even in what direction he was heading.

Then, a guttural screech erupted all around him.  He was now sure that he was not alone in the field.  The screech seemed to be all around him, which caused him to stop running and stand perfectly still.  He had no idea where to go.

The screeches grew nearer and louder, almost causing him to cover his ears.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t happy.

He attempted to will himself to wake up also something his psychiatrist explained does not work like in the movies.  He could not merely tell himself to wake up.  He remembered seeing this exact situation on television when the person would be having a terrible nightmare and the person tells themselves to wake up and they do…safely tucked in their bed.  

Whatever was happening to him, he needed to find a way out.  A door had led him to this place.  Maybe there was another door somewhere to lead him out.  

The high-pitched sound rang in his ear, bringing him back to his dire situation.  He needed to find a way out.  Just as he started sprinting again, something collided with him, sending him crashing to the ground.  Instant pain shot through his shoulder and arm and he struggled to get to his feet.  He could feel hot breath on his neck as he dared to face whatever was standing over him.

He turned onto his back to see a hideous creature staring at him with yellow eyes.  

It floated just above him, as if it were almost a complete shadow of a black mist.  

He could make out the shape of the… creature.  It had large black wings and the head of a giant bird.  “A…a… raven?” was all he could hoarsely say.

The raven hovered above him, its eyes staring with maliciousness.  It opened its beak to reveal jagged rows of jutting teeth.

Finn peered up at the mass, not knowing what would happen next.  The raven loomed closer to Finn, as if it were going to swallow him whole.  He remained sprawled out on the ground, frozen and unable to move.

Then, an unexpected bright light exploded around Finn, causing him to become blinded as he instantly shielded his eyes.  He no longer could see the shadow or the fields anymore.  He couldn’t see anything but darkness.

After a few moments, Finn immediately noticed he was somewhere different. He could feel the coldness of hardwood floors beneath him.  He wearily opened his eyes and saw the light fixture in his living room.  He had somehow woken up and was back in the safety of his house.  His body ached and it felt like his head was going to split in two.  He managed to crawl over to the couch and shifted his body so as to lie on his back.  He felt the cold sweat that beaded on his forehead.  A nightmare had robbed him of precious sleep.

He thought about his nightmare and realized he was able to recount every second of it.  He remembered how he felt, what he saw around him, but most of all… he remembered every detail of the shadow-like creature.

He stared up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what he had seen.  He almost didn’t hear the buzzing of his phone on the coffee table.  He glanced at the number and set it down.  It was her again.  He knew she would keep calling until he answered. Groggily he felt for his phone and answered it.

“Finn?’

Finn recognized the raspy female voice.  It was one of the few people who stuck around him after he closed himself off to the rest of the world.  “Liza?  What time is it?”

“Get dressed,” Liza said.  “I’m taking you to breakfast.”

“Isn’t it Friday?” said Finn, rubbing his eyes, “shouldn’t you be at school?”

“I am sick,” she replied adding a fake cough to the end of her sentence. “Plus, my parents are in Philadelphia on a business trip.  That is one of the perks of your parents owning their own company together. They take a lot of business trips.”

Finn knew Liza wouldn’t accept “no”.  He sighed; full-knowing there was no way out of it, “sure, how about Tom’s Diner?”

“Meet you there in 10 minutes,” she said before hanging up.

Finn dropped the phone onto the ground.  He contemplated calling her back and cancelling.  But it had been weeks since he had ventured out of his house.  He grudgingly got up from the couch and put on his jacket.  He took a deep breath before shutting the door behind him.

                                                             Chapter 2

                        

                                 Hallucinations

Finn hurried along the streets of the Strip District, as he pulled his hood further over his head.  The sun had been masked by a large cluster of clouds, making it an ordinary chilly day in February, as opposed the welcoming warmth of the sun earlier.  He couldn’t shake the latest images of his nightmare.  The shadow still lingered in the back of his mind.  He wondered what his psychiatrist would say about it and what possible explanation could explain it.  “It’s most likely an image that is trying to tell you that you are running away from something,” he said in a mocking voice.

He then noticed a woman walking in his direction that stared at him with an anxious expression.

“Great! She thinks you are talking to yourself. You should ask her if she can see your imaginary friend.”  This made Finn smile to himself.  Although he was spiraling into the depths of becoming a full-blown hermit at 15, he could still manage to make himself smile.  He soon made it around the corner and saw the diner about a block away.  He sped up his pace as a gust of wind seeped down the back of his jacket, causing him to shiver.  

Inside the diner, he immediately spotted Liza sitting in a booth near one of the large windows.  She was sipping a cup of coffee and extinguishing a cigarette as her eyes met his.  Her black hair fell just below her shoulders, which was sticking out from under her favorite winter hat.  She was never one to wear dresses or nice sweaters.  She was comfortable wearing her jeans and flannel shirts.  Today she also sported one of her many rock t-shirts, this one of Van Halen.

He sunk into the seat across from her.  He expected for her to start pleading with him to come back to school or to see her more, but all she did was simply continue to drink her coffee in silence.

“Did you ask me to come here so you didn’t have to drink your coffee alone like a loser?” asked Finn with a hint of sarcasm.

He was somewhat confused when she shot him a glare with her piercing hazel eyes from across the booth.  He then realized that this was her way of showing him anger for his ignorance of their friendship.  

Another moment passed by of awkward silence before Finn finally spoke up.  “I’m sorry I have been distant.”

“Distant?!” exclaimed Liza in a hushed whisper.  “Distant is what you would call if you lived in New York.  You have ignored me for days!”

“I know,” said Finn, trying to stall.  “I haven’t been myself.”

“I know you haven’t,” she continued, “I was there when it all started, remember?”

Finn was reminded of the first day he had experienced one of his dreams.  It was during History class, and Liza was sitting next to him.  He remembered after the dream he awoke on the floor with the teacher and Liz peering down at him.  When they had helped him to his feet, Liz explained that he had been out for over 20 minutes.

Liza knew the most details about what he was going through than anyone else… even his mother.  But when it had gotten more serious, he decided to shut her out too.

“I know…” was all he could say.  He hated himself for doing this to her.  Something was happening to him and no one could tell him what it was.  

Her expression seemed to soften.

He realized he must have looked like he was frustrated.  “I have only slept 8 hours this entire week.”

Liza rolled her eyes as if indicating that he must have been exaggerating.  “I’m sure you had more sleep than that.”

He shook his head in total disagreement.  My… psychiatrist had me keep a journal to keep a record of my sleep patterns.  Do you know how long I slept last night?”

Liza shrugged, as she started to notice the pain and anxiousness in his voice.

“Eight minutes,” he mouthed, his hands starting to shake.

Liza’s eyes began to well up.  She gripped his shaking hands and squeezed them.  “You need to get help.”

“I am!” he yelled, attracting attention from nearby patrons.  

She withdrew her hands, and stared at him as she wiped an escaping tear from her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, ducking his head lower to escape the stares from others around them.  “No doctor or psychiatrist can help me.  They think they can interpret what I’m seeing in my dreams and relate it to my life.”

Liza smiled for the first time since they had been at the diner.  “You mean that your dreams are a rationalization of the loss you feel for your father?”  She did the best she could to impersonate a long-winded psychiatrist.

To anyone else, that statement might have deeply offended someone who had loss their father, but to him, it made him smirk.  This was only because he knew Liza’s humor and it was one of the reasons he was able to get through the grieving process when he was younger.

“A doctor already diagnosed me with a severe case of insomnia.”

        “If you only slept eight minutes throughout the night, I would say that’s an understatement.”

        Finn had to agree with her.  Even for someone who suffered from insomnia, eight hours of sleep in an entire week would render a person incapacitated.   Yet, he was fully functioning, except for minor issues with exhaustion.

        “Your body should’ve begun to shut down,” she added.  “Lack of sleep can eventually cause the body’s organs to over-exert themselves.”

        “Well, I’m still kicking,” said Finn.  “I don’t feel like anything is wrong with me.”

        “But, if you don’t get help… you could cause permanent damage to yourself.”

        Finn scoffed at the idea.  “There is no way that’s going to happen, Liza.  You are being paranoid.”

        She took another sip of her coffee and began fidgeting with her hands.  She didn’t seem at all convinced.  “Just don’t shut me out,” she finally said.  “Let me be there for you.”

        Finn gazed out the window for what seemed like hours to him; as if time had stopped. As he began to respond to Liza, he noticed something different about the scene around him.  Then, he had to blink a few times as he realized something unsettling happening outside.  Every person, car, bus and animal moved as if they were being played in slow motion.  He glanced around the diner, and the same thing was happening inside.  He watched Liza flick her hair as if she was modeling in a shampoo commercial.  A nearby waitress had dropped her tray and he could see every single droplet of orange juice as it splashed onto the tiled floor.

        He couldn’t understand what was happening to him.  He stood up from the booth and weaved his way through the aisle of the diner.  Everything around him continued to move sluggish as he exited the diner and out onto the street.  Cars rolled by as hundreds of people came towards him.  He glanced up and saw a bird flap its wings as if it was suspended in mid-air.  His only explanation was that he was somehow hallucinating.  He couldn’t have been dreaming.  A few minutes ago he was deep in conversation with Liza.

        He shook his head and slapped his face, thinking it would somehow wake him up from his delusion.  But to his utter dismay, everything still lagged on before him.

        He staggered back into the diner, but as his growing paranoia gripped hold of him, a final shock caused him to collapse.  His eyes frantically searched the main area of the diner.  There was no one inside; Liza, the waitress, and all of the customers had disappeared.

        “Hello?!” he yelled.  His voice echoed as if he were inside a deep cave.  The only response he got was the sound of his increasingly rapid breath.  He suddenly felt weak.

        A familiar screech erupted around him.  He expected to see the raven-like creature appear from behind him, but there was nothing.  The shrill cawing grew louder, causing him to cover his ears.  The sound grew higher in pitch as it soon shattered every window in the diner.

        Broken glass flew at Finn as he dropped to the floor, covering his face and head.

        He managed to catch a glance of the same wicked shadow as it materialized before him.  The large, twisted head of a raven loomed over him once again.  He stared into its yellow eyes as it opened its beak full of jutting rows of teeth.  “What are you?!” he screamed.

        “It’s me!” yelled back Liza as she shook Finn’s shoulders.  “Finn!  It’s Liza!”

        Finn shook his head and blinked wildly.  He no longer saw the hideous face of the raven but Liza’s, her face streaked with lines of mascara.  He continued to shake and convulse as he noticed more people crowding over him.  The faint sound of sirens could be heard in the far distance.

        “What… what happened?” asked Finn, attempting to get up.

        Liza ignored his question and forced him to lie back down on the floor.  “Just stay still until the ambulance gets here.”

        “What ambulance?!” exclaimed Finn, fighting to get to his feet.

        After struggling with Liza and a few customers who had been standing near him, he was helped to a nearby booth where he still swayed back and forth as if he was about to collapse.

        Liza knelt beside him.  She took hold of his hands.  “You were in the middle of a sentence and you suddenly went rigid.  You slipped into some type of trance and you began walking around the diner. You came back to the booth and started convulsing and shaking, then fell to the floor.”

        Finn couldn’t believe what Liza had told him.  He remembered the visions he experienced; how he saw the people moving in slow motion.  How everyone and everything mysteriously disappeared. And the most unnerving of all was the shadow of the raven that had appeared to him in another dream from before.  “I… I was dreaming,” he finally said aloud.

        Liza inched away from him as if the very sight of him frightened her at that moment.  “Finn, you can’t fall into a dream when you are in mid-sentence.  What happened?”

        All he could do was stare at everyone around him.  He didn’t know how to explain what he had seen, or how it was even possible.  To him, somehow a dream had engulfed him, but affected no one else.  There was another notion that crept into the back of his mind, one that his psychiatrist warned him about: “If you continue to function without sleep, you will begin to experience symptoms that will grow more dangerous in time.  Not just your body, but your mind.  Hallucinations can become more prevalent during your daily routine; you will possibly see things that aren’t really there.”

        Finn’s first thought was that he had finally cracked.  He thought this would eventually go away, but in reality it had caused him to experience hallucinations.  He felt like he was going crazy.

        He felt Liza’s touch on his hand again as he looked into her eyes.  He could sense the EMT’s rushing into the door as they lowered the gurney for him.  

        Tears streamed from her eyes as she released her hold and the EMT’s lifted him onto the gurney.

        “What’s happening to me?” he mouthed as they strapped him onto the bed.

        He was met with the answer of Liza shaking her head as more and more tears flowed down her cheeks.  

        The last fleeting look he had was of her burying her face into her hands as they wheeled the gurney outside towards the ambulance.