Thursday, January 22, 2015

Despite the Darkness #4 - The Dreamer has awakened...

The story continues and we begin to get a glimpse of something...

He found himself alone in the bathroom again, the image of a guilty man staring back at him. Even when he dropped his own gaze, the accusatory eyes bore down on him and the scream started to build in intensity. A wolf howled off in the distance, matching pitch with the terrible scream.

Then he felt something tough his hand. The touch was soft but it sent a jolt through his body. Jolted, he searched the whole room with his eyes, seeing no one, he then stepped out of the bathroom but both Jan and Isaiah were lying in their beds. He was suddenly very uneasy and was about to go back into the bathroom when Isaiah called to him, “Dad?”

“Yeah Izai?”

“Did you hear the wolf?”

“I did, you scared?”

“A little.”

“It’ll be o.k., we’re inside and the sooner we get to sleep the sooner it’ll be morning. You’re safe.”

“You are dad, you’re safe.” The boy said it with enough certainty that it caught his breath.

“Uh… thanks Izai.” He searched for something else to say, but instead settled on giving his son a kiss on the head and patting his shoulder. “Sleep.”

He slid under the covers and brushed his wife’s leg. She moved it away.

“Night,” he said lamely and waited for a response. None came.

He turned the light out and they were now separated by darkness too.


At first there was a doorway. It was roughhewn timber set into mud daubed walls. A sheep waited patiently at his side. He stooped to its level, gave it a gentle pet, and looked at it with admiration.

The blood applied poorly to course surface. The brush had to be applied several times to fully cover. The dark red dripped from the lintel and pooled on the ground.

The walls were only a few foot high in this section, but just up ahead they were raised much higher. He ran his fingers across freshly cut stone, expertly crafted to offer no handhold or seam. The sun cast golden rays across the white stone.

Seven times he walked around it, as darkness fell, his hand on the wall, leaving only at the gates.

The boat rocked in the gentle waves of the sea. The coastline was wilderness except for a small beach where a campfire burned. Before the boat could ground against the sand he fell into the water and stumbled towards land. Fish cooked over the hungry flames.

A white lamb rested beside the fire; it locked eyes with him.


I don't remember of I mentioned that this story is a horror story with a strong supernatural bent to it, but its a horror story with a strong supernatural bent to it. Dreams are a pretty powerful way for the supernatural to connect to the natural, so they factor quite a bit in this story. I was striving to write a dream sequence that can easily be forgettable but have that lingering foreboding a good prophetic dream seems to have. I tried to emulate Biblical dreams like those Joseph and Daniel interpreted; seemingly innocuous with simple iconography but troubling to the dreamer because of its deeper meaning. I wonder who has similar dreams in this story? Hmmm.... Let me know what you think of my dream and of course please share.

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