Created by Jaron Barnes

Prologue-Dream Walkers

It is a cool, dark, June night. There was a waning crescent moon that hung high in the sky. Just a slice. A fragment of what was the lunar extravagant sphere. The stars hung high as well in the black and dark blue abyss that was the sky. A house stands below. A white painted house with green shutters on the windows and dark green shingled roof. The house fairly large. To some they would call it a mansion but it was far smaller than a mansion. It had five bedrooms in total. The lawn was well manicured in a crisscross diamond shaped design. One large trimmed bush sat beside the house surrounded by a garden bed. With bright yellow and green leaved, tulips positioned around it. The bush populated which would technically be the middle of the side of the house and the back yard. A lone tree stood across from it on the other front side of the house. Beside the two car garage. It appeared to be a birch tree.

Looking through the upstairs window. A man could be seen sleeping. In his bed with his wife. She looked to be about the same age as her husband. They both looked about in their late twenties. The man he had lean build. Meaning that he was rather skinny in size. He was five-ten. You could not tell but the glasses on his night table showed that he indeed wore glasses. Brown and amber ridged glasses. He had dark brown hair, cut short so that only his short bangs, only slightly brushed the top of his brow. His eyes were light brown, that strangely looked green-brown. His wife had cut her blonde-brown hair short so that her bangs would stand out more. She had green-blue eyes.

The next part of the story takes place in the sleeping mind of the husband. Whose name was, Alan Burbank. His wife Camille. Mother and father of two, Ashley and Steven. Ashley, five years old. Steven, seventeen.

I awake in darkness. Surrounded in the dark abyss. A light comes on. I turn around, it was the porch light. There was my house. Behind me. I was standing in my front yard. I feel at peace but something is still bothering me. Why? Why do I still feel anxious as if something significant or worse, something bad was about to happen? I look up at our house. My sons room light was on and a dimly lit light was on in my daughters. Presumably my daughter's night light. Nothing was happening so I decided that I might as well head back inside.

The instant I start to mount the first few steps. I hear a voice, a warbled voice! A soft but distinguished voice. Whatever spoke these words, I never heard any other voice that could demand as much authority as when it spoke. It demanded attention demanded to be heard. No, don't go! It clearly said. "We have much to tell you, much to show you!" "We?" I asked. "Come out from wherever you are!" I said letting must impatience get the best of me. "You must come to us!" Which sounded like many different voices saying it. The bush….! The voices finished echoing against the silence. Bush! "The bush!" He declared abruptly!

The word appeared before him in his mind as a dark red dot appeared right before his feet. Like it had been from a large laser-pointer. It showed him a path from the side of the house continuing on for what he assumed was the back yard and specifically the large bush that was situated there. He could not see who was talking to him but he was starting to acknowledge that whoever the assailant was, they were possibly hiding behind the large bush. "Come out now or I'll call the cops, on you and make this worse for all of us!" He threatened. He slowly started to walk towards the bush until he burst into a short sprint swinging himself rapidly on the other side of the bush. "Almost closer!" The voice snickered. "Closer!" The voice repeated as he seen. That they hadn't been hiding behind the bush after all. He acknowledged as he swung himself around.

To see that a purple and rainbow film hung around the air. He touched it. His hand swished through the film. He tried to wave it away like it was smoke but it remained. This is a dream it has to be. I thought to myself. "It is!" "You are correct about that." The voice confirmed. "Where are you hiding?" I asked. "We are naught but right in front of you." "It's time we give him a proper greeting." The voices declared as a bright light illuminated everything in its path. Showering it in lime green light. Surrounded by darkness as the light faded. Emerged three shadow spirits. Silhouetted and abnormally tall. They were lanky and about six or seven feet tall. They seemed to be solely made up of darkness. The violet film seemed to come from them. They were surrounded in it.

"Oh, my god!" I exclaimed looking up at these towering creatures. "What are you!" I asked with my hand over my mouth. "That is hardly what is important." Actually it hails quite irrelevant compared to the information we must show and tell you." "What must you show and tell me?" I asked still threatened by their stature. "We will start by telling you why we're here." The one in the middle started. "We came to give you a gift, a gift that some would pay a fortune or sell they souls to gain." I waited for the creature to continue. "A gift of clairvoyance!" "Like a psychic or fortune-teller?" I asked. "Yes but it does not allow you to see into the future. It allows you to see the present." "The lives of others." "Not just their lives but their death as well." "The exact cause. "You and this person alone will share and relive the moment of their death!"

"Is this for real!" I scoffed. "This nothing but a dream or more so a nightmare." I acknowledged looking at these three sinister shadow beings. "Soon I'll wake up and this will be nothing but a strange dream." We shall leave a mark in the real world to show you that this is as real as you, laying in your bed right now!" The one on the left replied.

"We've much more to reveal to you." "We are willingly passing this gift onto you. The world you are in right now is an astral plane." "Can't you tell by the purple film that is wrapped around us and this dream. "This world is very real and once you know how it works it can be absolutely anything you desire." "So this dream is a different world?" I asked only slightly holding back the sarcasm in my voice. "Yes, as you will later learn." "Now that we told you all we can." "For your first vision." "What we must show you, may come to frighten, revolt you or even disgust you but only then you will see why we relinquish our horrible clairvoyance on you." The middle shadow entity held his large slender hand forward. Its fingers were long and was redolent to the little stocks of a tree sapling. Branch like were his fingers. Instantly I feltwoozy and slightly dizzy. I was seeing a vision.

A man. A Straggly man with long grey hair and a full beard. He wore a baseball cap that was pulled over to shield his face. He looked like he belonged under an over pass. He looked like a hobo. No but this man wasn't a hobo. He wore a brown leather jacket. That looked worn. It having shrunk slightly from being conformed to his body. On the back of the jacket read. One percenter. On his cap was a red grey, white and blue logo. The logo of the patriots. He was an aged man but not elderly. He must have been pushing his forties or fifties. He had bright blue eyes. He was sitting at the bar. A pub that was ran by Dean and Patty McNeal. It was a sports pub.

He had slambed down the rest of what was in his cup. Later asking for a refill. Patty the bartender refilled his cup as he patted his cigarette pack on his hand. Opened the pack, putt the single cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He took two long drags as Patty pushed the hard glassed ashtray in front of him. Without looking at her at all he nodded and mumbled thank you.

It was just about twelve in the afternoon and he was day drinking. He held his cigarette in his two fingers as he watched the sports center cover of a game that was not but a day ago. The Laker's destroyed those fools, I kind of feel sorry for them." "Glad I didn't put some money on that game." Patty said trying to make conversation. "Yeah it was quite the game." The man replied with very little enthusiasm. The man stood up ashed his cig out in the ashtray as a line of smoke came from the once smothered cigarette and headed to the back of the pub. In a whole in the wall was the male and female bathrooms. A window between them. Leading out to the alley behind the pub. On his way to the bathroom he saw two women come into the bar.

He kept to himself as he thought. "I have done this over a thousand times in my head." "My escape is imminent." He thought looking at the small window to the alley. "Get in and get out!" He thought to himself. He looked around to see if anyone was going to use the lavatories. No one came and from here he could see that Patty was busy behind the bar washing beer mugs and wine glasses. He took one last paranoid glance and went into the female bathroom instead of the males. Inside his only thought was. "Now I just wait." He whispered to himself.

Outside the bathroom in the bar. Those same females that entered earlier one of them said. "You start our order and I'll hit the bathrooms." "I need to take a leak." She whispered loudly to her friend as she left the corner table they occupied. Leaving her friend and the waitress. Trish people called her. She wore her work shirt and faded white apron. The logo of the bar a cartoon leprechaun holding a pitcher of beer. Across her shirt. "Don't take too long Kimberly our break doesn't last long you know. Kimberly's friend said coyly. "I'll be right back, Jen." Kimberly proclaimed scoffing her friends warning.

She went into the bathroom. Flinging the door open to shut and close behind her. Kimberly looked in the mirror at her reflection. She held her bangs away from her face. Then she made different faces in the mirror each time pulling back the skin on her face. Her cheeks. Her eyes and finally running them over her nose when she heard a small clatter. "Is someone else in here?" She asked aloud. Boom! Hah! She said shocked at the loud noise. One of the stall doors down the way flung open. She slowly walked toward the slambed door. "This isn't funny you know?" "Come out?" "I have pepper spray and I'm not afraid to use it!" She tried threatening.

Jen thought she heard something but thought it was nothing and returned to her meal and phone that kept repeatedly buzzing in rhythm with the light music that was playing in the bar. Taking a quick glance at her friend's food that was finished, cooked and sat unattended. It was a large egg and bacon burger. With a side of potato cut fries.

Suddenly Kimberly hears foots steps behind her. Before she knew it someone had jerked her head by her hair backwards. Jerking her head back as the assailant pulled a large bowie knife out from his boot. Clasping his arm tightly around her neck and still holding her hair. She scrambled to regain her footing scratching violently at her assailant's arm! He took the blade of the sharp knife and had slit her throat! "Gush!" She choked as she held her throat. She turned around to look her killer in the eyes. She tried to push him as she made her way to the door! But he grabbed her putting his hands around her mouth as he stabbed her three times. In her stomach. "Ah!" She cried out in pure anguish and pain! Her breath tried to escape past his hand but did not. He drove the knife deeper into her. Blood left her mouth and covered his hand.

She had bit down on his hand. Ah! The man said irritated, holding, waving and shaking his hand as if that would stop the wound in his hand her teeth had caused. She scrambled once more on the ground to make it to the door! She was bleeding out profusely! He simple pressed his foot down on the woman's back. Holding her in place as he covered her mouth and pulled her head back once more and stabbed her directly in the crown of the head and skull. The snap and heavy crack resonated as he pierced through to her skull! She was dead instantly after that!

"What a mess he left!" He thought to himself. Now he had to move the body. He would put her in the last stall. He hoisted her up from the ground by her armpits. He laid her back against the toilet. He had created a blood drag trail in his wake. He cleaned his hands and the bowie off in the sink as he looked at himself in the mirror. He wore that patriots hat the bill pulled over to hide his face. His brown shrunk leather jacket and dark blue jeans, covered in blood! He locked the stall and jumped over the top of it to the next stall. Turned opened the bathroom door and left out the window into the alley. His escape was imminent. He would not get caught not this time or not ever.

"Do you not like what you see?" The shadow beings snickered. "If you couldn't stomach that you surely can't fathom what we truly look like. The tall creatures came closer leaning and leering down to look at him! Their large black abyss eyes turned deep red as it seemed they were laughing a sinister chuckle in unison. Their skin was grey and looked like it had the texture of tanned hide. Their teeth were large and pointy. They were deathly skinny. Their ribs were revealed and protruded from their skin. It leaned forward and seemed to want to touch him. It held its grotesque finger to his forehead. A lone lime green light illuminating it. They wanted to grab him! They were towering over him, surrounding him! Continuing to laugh a laugh that once you heard it. It would haunt you forever. Raise the hairs on your neck!

: End of Prologue: