Dream Walkers

Episode 2: The Beginning

Athala screamed as she saw her nearly lifeless body at the foot of the cliff.

"Honey!" Athala heard her mother's voice. "Honey, wake up!"

Athalla woke up from her nightmare, panting. She sat up and stared at her mother, Cecil Claramond.

"Mom!" she exclaimed.

She immediately hugged her mother tight as she vividly recalls her nightmare. Athalla looked over to her phone and she saw the time; 1:18 a.m. She didn't notice herself wheezing so her mom fetch the inhaler from the nightstand. She handed it to Athala. Before she took a sip, she faced her mother and told her everything in her dreams. Cecil just listened intently to her daughter as she also missed her deceased husband.

Just when Athalla telling the part where she saw herself dying, her mother's phone rang. It was probably the hospital staff calling her to come to the E.R. Athalla's mom, Cecil, is a surgeon.

"Honey, we'll just continue this later this morning. I just have to go to the emergency." Cecil said with urgency as she hurried to her room.

"Wha's with the call?" Athalla asked.

"You remember your 3rd grade best friend, Jacey?" Cecil asked as she stopped on Athalla's doorway.

"Jacey Goodman?"

"Yes. Someone broke in their home 3 hours ago." Her mom pulled a deep breath before delivering the news to her daughter. "Her dad, she and her older brother, Jack, was badly injured by the encounter. They have to undergo an emergency surgery, especially, on Jacey.

Athalla's hands were automatically shot up to her gaping mouth as she muttered, "Oh my god! Will she gonna be okay?" she asked her mom.

"I don't know until I get to take a look at her. Let's pray everything is going to be alright with her and her family." Cecil started and bid to go back to sleep to Athalla.

Athalla left to herself thinking about Jacey and she had forgotten about her disturbing nightmare.

~

That morning went by like Athalla's usual day except her best friend, Felly, doesn't felt well and had been skipping classes that day.

Felicity Addison, or Felly for short, was a straight A student and told Athalla that she liked it to keep it that way. It's rare for Felly to skip school. She even stayed at home when her family would go on a vacation whenever it's a school night. Athalla thought, what a responsible student Felly is.

Athalla called Felly to visit her to the Addison estate after school with Felly's favorite snack, butterscotch cookies, to make her best friend feel better. True to her words, she did go to Felly's.

Athalla knocked on the front porch door and Felly was the one answering the door. Felly was the only child of the Addisons. It seemed like Felly's parents were on their bedroom discussing over buying a new lot for their new home. Since their home were they at now where kinda far from the town center and from Felly's and Athalla's school.

Felly ushered Athalla to her room on the second floor of the house. Both girls chatter a little and Athalla let Felly copy her notes. She excused herself for a moment to go to a restroom downstairs since Felly's toilet bowl won't flush and the family had been waiting for the plumber to get it fixed.

Just when Athalla got to the foot of the stairs, she saw a crow on the living room. She looked over to the left where the Addison's wide and beautiful backyard with a porch and a pool was in view. Their wide french door was wide open. That maybe why the crow had gotten inside uninvited.

She shooed the crow out when she looked over outside the pool side, a lot of crows turned their heads into her direction. She felt chills running over hear body from head to toe. The crows then began to fly away from the property without cawing. She hastily closed the doors and locked.

After Athalla peed, just as she was about to flush the toilet with her hand stopped the knob, she heard a male voice that was screaming from upstairs. She then carefully stepped at the closed door of the bathroom and pressed her ear against it. She listened as another scream broke out but this time it was Felly's.

"Mom! Dad! Help me!" Felly's voice screamed for help.

Athalla opened the door and got out hurriedly and climbing up the stairs and to the short hallway from left was Felly's parents' master bedroom. By the doorway, Felly's father Eric Addison, lying on his stomach on the floor with the pool of blood, she assumed it was his. He had seen Athalla and mouthed to call for help.

Athalla's eyes went wide with horror as she saw the man with stains of blood on his hands and clothes. The man wore the company's plumbing uniform which she has seen a few times over her house whenever her mom's bathtub clogged a couple times. The man hasn't seen Athalla yet as his back facing her busy picturing his victims and the crime scene.

Quick on her feet, she carefully climb down the stairs and proceeded to reach for the telephone. Her hands trembled with fear as she dialled 911. Before she heard the other line answering, the line abruptly dropped. She saw an axe cutting the telephone wire just right above her head. She looked over her back and saw the man approaching her. She screamed and quickly grabbed her backpack on the shoe rack beside the door on the foyer and ran to reach the door outside.

She successfully got outside the house and began to run asking for help. It was already dark outside and she has to run 4 miles to get to the nearest house where she can get help.

She already ran 2 and a half mile down the middle of the road. Her adrenaline that kept her going had slowly died down and her asthma attack began to creeped in. Not now. She silently prayed.

Her eyes getting heavy as her breath laboured. Now, her adrenaline rush absent as her asthma attack burdened her from getting away from the family's murderer that was tailing behind her.

With no house still on the plain sight, she looked back to see if her pursuer already gave up chasing for her but she can't see clearly because her eyes were cloud by tears. As reach her inhaler on her backpack to take a few puffs, someone grabbed her from behind. It was the man. And that moment led to her demise.

Athalla didn't notice how wet she got, or how her hands and both feet got all in the wrong places. Her mind is still working but her lungs makes it hard to breath because of the poking broken ribs. Her eyes closed and her consciousness slowly fading away. Her ears seemed to deceive her as she heard a shuffling noise above her head.

"You've seen yourself in that position, right?" a man's voice had said in a very calm and warm voice as if he's lullabye her to an eternal sleep. At that moment, too, Athalla's mind answering "Yes." Maybe that voice may be the last thing she's gonna hear and to remember to her last breath.

"Have you heard of a very tragic story of a man traded his place as a walker in exchange for your soul so you won't cease to exist?" The owner of that voice chuckled softly. "Even in this plane, the unconditional love of your father exceeded life and death. The thing that non-humans can't really understand."

"I'll let you live, then. For the sake of Hariel." Said the owner of the voice. A sensation of warm air travelled all over Athalla's body as if it invigorated her being and restores her strength. Just when the pleasant feeling couldn't last, her broken bones realigning hurt like hell. Her eyes wide open with no iris present but only the opal orbs that was seen on her eyeballs. She was screaming at the top of her lungs.

When the screaming ended, she laid flat on her back again and fell unconscious. The man stood right above Athalla's head and looked up to the moon that was covered by the thin clouds that made it like a purple moon. Without blinking the man recited a silent incantation that only the moon could hear.

Now that the waves calmed down and the crows that Athalla had seen over the Addison's property has now surrounded Athalla's unconscious body as if it forms a pattern that completed the man's incanted spell.

Athalla time finally stopped and her body and soul stopped in between realms where she co-exist by various realms but the her sole existence was to become a Dream Walker.