The Dreaming: Old Shalon (Book 4)

Prologue to The Dreaming: Dark Star

The final book in The Dreaming series is now available on my profile and here is a snippet. 

THE DREAMING: DARK STAR

The year is 2260 and the location is the Great Bear Mountain Range, in the desert-swept remains of post-WW3, North America



Adell was of two minds.

Literally.

He was aware of the war waging on outside his staging ground, hidden deep in the mountains of the Great Bear Range. The Praetoria had finally arrived. They'd found him after forty-four years of searching.

They would defeat his automated defence system soon enough. And they would be angry, knowing he had killed some of their officers. What they didn't know was that Adell had led them here — he had orchestrated the siege of his own staging ground.

It was time. Time to get closer.

Adell pushed the outside mind away, and brought his attention to the mind inside.

He ignored the sound of bullets hitting the force field surrounding his compound, and the sounds of men yelling outside, and focused instead on his other mind. On his dream.

Adell was lying back in a reclining chair in a darkened room. His face was covered by a mask, and there was a lone candle lighting the space. There were no windows, no decorations, and the room was completely technology free except for the chair, which was hooked up to some cables hanging above it, coming from the ceiling.

Inside his other mind — the world inside his head — Adell was waging his own war, a war against the mind of another. He was searching for her in a space of infinite hiding places, uncontained consciousness.

He split his consciousness into a thousand pieces, and sent each out like a bird into dark matter, out into the dream realm. He used every ounce of his mental strength to follow a thousand birds as they entered the darkness, the space between. 

His world went black, and then instantly, each of a thousand points of light came up out of the darkness into a dream.

Images flashed past Adell's consciousness at a rate of over 300 per second.

His body jerked on the reclining chair as images, emotions and memories that weren't his raced through him. He could sense her, but she was out of reach. 

A thousand points of light explored the universe. 

And then after what seemed like eternity, he found her. 

Adell descended into the dream she was hiding in — the memories of someone else — and his eyes fluttered in REMlight, a deep, artificially invoked sleep.

He descended into a forest on top of a mountain, and gasped at how cold it was. He wrapped his arms across his chest, and shivered. 

He looked around him, turning in circles and heard the crunch of frozen ground beneath his feet. It was almost dark and the ground was covered in snow. Every breath he exhaled let out a white plume of frost. He could hear wolves howling in the distance. 

She'd been right here! He wondered what the date was — where am I?

"Liorah!" he cried, "Where are you?" His screams echoed into an empty space. 

The wolves answered his call, and Adell was terrified despite himself when he realised they were circling him. He could hear them yapping and barking in a wide circle around him.

This was a nightmare — she had led him into someone's nightmare! He couldn't help but notice the irony. She had trapped him just like he was trapping those outside his compound right now.

"Liorah!" he screamed again.

A white wolf walked out of the forest and snarled viciously. Other wolves in the background yipped and barked in delight. He was entirely surrounded now.

The huge white wolf circled him, snarling.

"Liorah," he pleaded, "stop this!"

She barked and growled, baring a mouth full of teeth.

Adell wasn't afraid. Couldn't be afraid or the dream could take over. He knew he might need to jump out of the dream quickly if Liorah's dream representation, the wolf, attacked him.

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To read more, find Dark Star on my profile.