The Dreaming: Dark Star (Book 5)

2.3. Lucid (Old Shalon)

LUCID Dream of 7 April 2063

I’m walking through a forest of very small trees, young pines, alders and cedar trees. It’s raining on me, and I’m looking for shelter, but I can’t find any. I’m getting very wet and I feel desperate. I keep falling in the mud. I see a tree in the distance. A big tree. It’s a fir tree.

I close my eyes. Something isn’t right here. I take a deep breath. I remember this place. There’s something wrong about all of this. I’m having the strongest sense of deja-vu.

And then slowly it dawns on me that I’m dreaming.

The rain stops.

I open my eyes and look down at my old, wrinkled hand in the blue moonlight. I can see clearly now. I look down at my pitiful outfit, soaked and dirty, and close my eyes. When I opened them, I’m wearing a white cotton dress, and a soft, summer breeze moves through my hair. My body is young and strong.

The sun rises—the sky is a bright, serene pink.

I arrive at the enormous fir tree and get down on my hands and knees beside its vast trunk. I look inside a blackened gash at the trunk—it’s a tunnel that leads somewhere, and I know exactly where.

I crawl inside, and relish the memory of crawling, which my knees have not permitted in over thirty years.

At the end of the tunnel is a door. Behind the door is a faint, golden light beckoning me.

I stand up easily, my body doing exactly what I want it to. I stretch, enjoying the feeling of the strong muscles in my back and shoulder.

Then I open the door and walk for a short while down a twisting, turning hallway, and finally turn the last corner and there in front of me is my beach. One of my special places.

I take a deep breath of fresh air and relax.

I walk down a green, grassy hill towards the water, crystal blue sea, and sit down on the beach in the sun and push my feet through the warm sand.

I’m enjoying the sun when a cloud passes over and I’m overcome with a feeling that I’m missing something. I’m supposed to be doing something else, but I can’t remember what. I’ve come here to learn something about someone… about who? My memory is a blank.

 “Come to me,” I say out loud. I feel my thoughts ripple out into the universe.

And then suddenly Michael is in front of me, picking up a pebble on the beach, his back turned to me.

“Michael,” I say, “why are you here?”

“Because you called for me,” he replies, and throws the pebble in the water. He’s sitting below me, near the water.

It’s Michael as a young boy, a few years after I had met him. Am I here to meet Michael? That doesn’t make any sense.

I feel a sudden tension, and almost wish Michael away, out of my dream.

But just then he looks up at me and says, “Wait.” His eyes are huge staring up at me like that.

“Michael,” I breathe. He becomes a man in front of me.

“Shalon, you look different here,” he says. “Beautiful?”

I look down at my outfit, and my naked legs digging in the warm sand. “Yes, and so do you.”

“What is this place?” he asks, looking around.

“This is my special place. It’s where I go when I… dream.” I point in the far distance, “do you see that way over there?” I look at him.