Shadows of Reality (The Catharsis Awakening Book 1) Read online

  “It was right at 4:20.”

  “Yeah, that’s about the time I came too. I finally looked at the clock at about 4:25 though.”

  “I got up, Matt,” she said, her voice trembling, “and started to turn on all the lights in my apartment. I…I looked out the front window right before I turned on the porch light…”

  Matt heard her breathing between stifled sobs. “It’s okay now, Alie. You’re gonna be okay.”

  “…I saw…I think I saw one of those creatures run past my picture window Matt!” Her voice fluctuating again. “It vanished the minute I turned on the porch light.”

  “All your lights on now?”

  “Yeah, every one of them.”

  “Okay…it’s gonna be okay,” he reassured her. After a long pause, “Can you do me a favor?” Matt asked softly.

  “Wh-at?” she hesitated.

  “Turn on some of your favorite music and drink some chai. That’ll help. It really is going to be okay.” Matt did his best not to let his own doubt mingle into his voice.

  “Okay, but I’m going to leave the lights on.”

  “Absolutely. That’s a great idea!” Matt reassured her again. “Alie, we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Like how?”

  “Well, before I ran up the stairwell, I passed Jake—”

  “I saw him too! He was already there before I walked up into the tower.”

  “Really?” Matt flexed his arm to relieve the stiffness setting in. “Where did you show up there? I mean, where do you remember being when you started to dream?”

  “Matt, this was no damn dream! It was too real.”

  “I get that, I’m not doubting you; I’m just curious as to when you remember coming in to it all,” Matt paused, “and Alie, do you just show up there or is there something you do that helps you dream of this place?”

  “Well…I remember at the beginning of my dreams…I always seem to be in the courtyard, just past the main gate. Then, after I smell the flowers there, I walk through the castle for a while. Sometimes I see Yeor. Sometimes I’ll speak with him, but I hardly remember our conversations. Then I go up to the tower’s chamber and look out over the whole plateau. It has always been so peaceful there,” Alie’s voice cracked and trailed off into a whimper.

  “It’s okay, Alie, you’re safe.”

  Alie sniffled and let out a sigh.

  “Alie, it seems like you go there on purpose. Do you? I mean, how do you go there if you do want to?” Matt’s inquisitiveness was in the tone of interrogating a suspect.

  “Matt, look, you probably think I’m crazy, but tonight was so real!”

  “Yes, I know, I’m sorry. It was for me too, “ Matt intoned while looking at the bloodstain on the sheet. “All I’m asking, is there something you do that causes you to dream of this place?”

  “Well, back when I started writing in my journal I noticed that when I thought about this place afterwards, I would dream of being there. The pattern has been whenever I think about it before going to sleep, I usually wind up there.”

  “Hm. So, you think about this hard enough and then you dream of…being there?” He couldn’t hide his skepticism.

  “Matt, I know, sounds really crazy, but there are times that I just dream of being there without any extra thought before going to sleep; but it seems to me that if I want to go there, I can.”

  “Interesting.”

  “You mentioned of getting to the bottom of this. What did you mean? I mean, how?” her voice no longer quavering.

  “Well…maybe…I should try and go there myself. If this place is some sort of reality, then I’ve got some questions.” Matt chuckled under his breath at the thought. “But really, I plan on pulling Jake aside and see if he remembers anything. And if so, does he go there on purpose too?”

  “Oh gosh, Matt, I keep forgetting to tell you, I’ve seen him there many times. He’s usually walking past me in the courtyard, coming out of the fortress.”

  “Hm.”

  “So, how’s your arm?”

  “You won’t believe it,” he said, still peering at his sheet. “I’ve got a gauze on my right arm, and I have a line of blood on the sheet where I slept on it.” Matt shook his head and laughed, then winced and let out a muffled groan as his laugh shook his shoulders.

  “Matt,” her tone softened, “are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m good. Got a gauze on it, but it’s seeping through so I’ll need to change it soon. Are you okay now?”

  “Yes, much better,” she sighed in relief. “Thank you for talking with me.”

  Matt asked her several more times if she was okay—he held her on the phone until he was satisfied her fear and anxiety had subsided. He steered the conversation to their meeting at the coffee shop; then onto that of her shopping outings with her sister, and finally he asked about her hiking in the woods on her days off.

  “Well, Alie, I’m concerned about you and I am glad you’re okay. I feared the worst in my dream,” he finally admitted.

  “Oh, Matt, thank you. I care about you as well. Thank you for talking with me,” she sighed. “Well, we both better get going…it won’t be long before we have to get back to work.”

  “Ah yes, you’re right.”

  “See you in a few.”

  “Okay, Matt. Bye.”

  “Bye, Alie.”

  Matt touched the icon on his cell phone and ended the call; yet, his gaze was still fixed on the red line on his contour sheet. He wondered if there was such a thing: some sort of other reality in their dreams.

  He placed the phone on his nightstand with his right hand and realized the throbbing had eased both in his head and arm. He stood up and looked at the gauze and back to the sheet. By a process of elimination, Matt decided to tend to his arm first.

  After peeling the gauze off his arm, and cleaning up the dried blood around the cut, he noticed the ends of the slice were already beginning to heal. He touched the wound with his other hand and groaned slightly with the sensation of a dull ache running through his shoulder at the point of his finger.

  The inspection caused the cut to begin oozing blood again in the middle of the injury, but now only a small dark trickle. He searched the cabinet and found the last two butterfly bandages. After fumbling with opening the packages, he cleaned up the oozing blood, taped the wound closed with the strips, and placed another gauze on top.

  Armed with a bottle of peroxide and cotton balls, he got to cleaning the sheet. Going through the motions of getting the stain out, his thoughts were entirely focused on the happenings of the night. He wondered if what Alie saw after she woke up was one of those foul creatures outside on her porch.

  How? Or better yet: why? And how the hell did I get this cut?

  And…if this happened in a dream, how or why is this happening in real life?

  Too tired to change the sheet and put it in the washer, he spread a towel over the damp area he just cleaned and lay back down. While he stared at the ceiling, it occurred to him that the headache had dissipated, but his right side was still tender and sore. Dawn was beginning to break through the shades in his room and he could see the fresh gauze he placed over the cut was still white.

  He began to think about the castle, Yeor, and the happenings of this dream in an attempt to go back there. Matt lay in bed, eyes closed, resting, yet unable to fall asleep—images of dark shadowed beings, Yeor standing next to him, Jake fighting alongside another warrior, and Alie being sucked into the night danced behind his eyelids. Then the commotion of falling and the flicker in the dark as a blade sliced into his arm caused his eyes to pop open.

  His mind repeated the events in a continuous cycle for hours, and plundered any sleep he had hoped for.

  14

  GOLD BUTTON

  Matt arrived at the sheriff’s office 30 minutes early and walked straight into dispatch without stopping by the patrol division first. He wanted to see Alie in person, and find out if Jake was on duty.

>   He spoke with Alie as she manned the console. They kept their voices hushed due to other personnel and staff coming and going: the dispatch center was the heart of the organization and at some point during the day every living cell in the sheriff’s office passed through its arteries to accomplish its mission, and today was no different.

  Satisfied that Alie was okay, calm, and not a scratch on her from the night before, Matt asked her if she would tell Jake, via radio, to meet him in his office when he came on duty.

  “Oh, Jake’s already here,” she said.

  “Really?” Matt looked down at his watch. “Seriously? When did he come on duty?”

  “A little before fourteen-hundred.”

  “Wow, an hour early,” Matt said it to himself more than to Alie.

  “Yeah,” she replied. She shifted in her seat and leaned toward Matt, “What’s really strange? He came in here right after the beginning of his watch and asked how I was doing. He never does that.”

  “Hmm…interesting.” Matt nodded slightly. “Well, I’m going to chat with him after I leave here. I have a ton of questions.”

  Alie nodded.

  “You know what’s weird, Alie? All three of us, at the same time, same place, and…same dream?” Matt rolled up his uniform sleeve on his right arm, pointed to the gauze, and said, “And this is even more weird. Down right disturbing.”

  Alie reached up and gently touched the gauze on his arm. “Matt, I’m so sorry. Does it hurt?”

  “No.” he rolled the long sleeve down and re-buttoned it again at the wrist. “Not anymore. But, after I had woke up, I smacked the dresser on the way to the bathroom, it started hurting like crazy.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said with concerned eyes.

  “I’m glad…” Matt looked down and then up back at her. They gazed at one another for a few moments, “…that you’re okay too.”

  She smiled and tilted her head slightly down, causing her bangs to cover her face. “Thanks.”

  “Okay,” Matt said, straightening his posture, “I better go find Jake and have a talk. You know where he might be?”

  “Oh, yes,” she replied as she tucked her bangs behind her ears. “I’m sure he’s in patrol. He was only in here for a short time. I told him I was okay, but we didn’t talk much…about anything. Too many people around,” she said while nodding her head in the direction of the continual flow of personnel coming and going through the secured access door.

  Jake stopped in the entrance to Matt’s office and both exchanged a greeting when the undersheriff walked by. Tim Eldret stopped in the middle of the hall in a position where he could see Jake leaning against the metallic doorframe and Matt sitting at his desk.

  “Afternoon, Deputy Phelps,” undersheriff Eldret said with a smile.

  “Good afternoon, Undersheriff,” Jake replied with one of his childish grins.

  “Afternoon, Sergeant Jameison,” the undersheriff said with a nod in Matt’s direction.

  “Well,” Matt said leaning back from his desk. “Good afternoon to you too, Undersheriff Eldret. How are things?”

  “Good,” he stated quickly with a typical head bob forward at such greetings. The undersheriff—the second-in-command in the sheriff’s office—was more busied with the day-to-day activities than the actual sheriff, who was usually more concerned with the political goings on in the county and state. Undersheriff Eldret had a good sense of everything that was happening around the office and was especially in tune with the personnel under his command.

  “Everything okay?” he asked as he observed Jake about to enter Matt’s office.

  “Oh yeah, all is good, Undersheriff,” Matt reassured, knowing that if there was any indication that a problem existed, Eldret would start digging without letting his sergeant take care of business. “We just need to chat about some things. Everything’s fine though, thank you.”

  “Okay, just let me know if you two need anything.”

  “Okay, thanks again,” Matt said with a smile.

  Jake gave the undersheriff a quick nod of the head and turned to enter Matt’s office. As the undersheriff continued on his way through the patrol division’s hallway, seeking out the next problem he could fix, Jake turned to Matt and gave him a quick raise of his eyebrows and a half-grin.

  “I know,” Matt stated with a grin of his own. “Hey, Jake, could you please close the door behind you?”

  “Oh great, one of those meetings.” Jake rolled his eyes while closing the door.

  “Ha. Don’t worry, brother. It’s just that there’s too many ears in the hallway, if you know what I mean.”

  Jake sat down at a desk directly across from Matt’s own—vacated by the other night supervisor who was on days off. Jake rearranged a few items to allow a clear view between him and his sergeant.

  “So, Matt,” Jake practically leaned across the desk, his eyebrows dancing up and down, “…how’s your arm?”

  Matt was in the process of turning off his computer screen—leaning over to the power button on the bottom of the monitor—in order to give Jake his full attention. When Jake asked the question, Matt seemingly froze with his finger in midair.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, glaring at him over his outstretched arm.

  “Oh, come on, man!” Jake became instantly animated: he quickly sat back and leaned forward again, his arms gestured airily, and his eyes widened as the smile on his face. “Last night. Your right arm was covered in blood!” Pointing at Matt’s arm, now seemingly frozen in the act of turning off his monitor.

  Matt slowly sat up, retrieved his hand from the monitor, and looked at Jake.

  “Show me!” Jake insisted with a finger pointed at Matt’s arm.

  Without saying a word, Matt unbuttoned his cuff, rolled up his sleeve, and showed his friend the gauze. Matt gave a quick glance down and noticed the back of the gauze was still white.

  “See?”

  “Jake…” Matt began, but didn’t know what else to say at the moment. His dream was horrific. The attack. The falling. Hitting the ground, then waking up in his bedroom only to wake up again in the middle of a nightmare. Yeor fending off creatures and watching Alie fall out of the castle window.

  The glaze over his eyes faded and he found Jake staring at him with another half-grin.

  “Look, that was the most intense dream I’ve had in that place,” Jake finally said.

  “I don’t even know what place it is,” Matt adjusted himself in the chair. “It is vivid, alright. Unlike any other dream I’ve had…that’s for sure,” Matt’s head drifted upward as he spoke. His eyes scanning for unseen pieces to this puzzle while looking at the office ceiling.

  “You remember a while back when I told you I was having some crazy-ass dreams?”

  “Yeah,” Matt lowered his head to look directly at Jake.

  “I was having glimpses of this place and then one night I fell asleep thinking about the castle and those strange creatures and…” Jake breathily chortled, “…and I woke up in the middle of the courtyard.”

  “You mean to tell me that you ‘think’,” Matt said raising both of his hands to make quotation marks with his fingers, “of this ‘castle’ and bam!…you’re there?”

  “Yep,” Jake replied confidently sitting back in the chair. “Every time!”

  Matt nodded while looking down at his desk, examining the ominous undertow rushing through him—like watching a bad storm building over the Rockies before it slams into Denver.

  Is this a real place or just some freaky dream every one is having at the same time? How could this possibly—

  “Matt,” Jake stated assertively, “it might be a dream, but it sure seems real to me…on so many levels.” He pointed again at Matt’s injured arm.

  “Yeah,” Matt said as he slowly looked up. Jake fumbled around in his trouser pocket. “So…you think about this place, and then you’re there? Okay…” Matt folded his hands on the desk while watching his friend dig something that looked l
ike a button out of his pocket.

  “I seem to always show up in the courtyard, or just outside the main gate. Last night, I found myself right in the middle of the shit, where you saw me: in the courtyard. I came to while fighting, swinging a sword and mowing down those lil’ bastards,” Jake said with a mischievous grin. “The warrior next to me, his name is Barth. At least that’s what I’ve heard Yeor call him. But Yeor hasn’t even spoken to me yet.”

  “Okay. How many times have you visited ‘this place’?” Matt asked while making quotation signs with his fingers again.

  “Man, all the way back when I told you I was having some strange dreams.” Jake sat forward while looking at the object he retrieved, and turning the button-like object over in his fingers. “I’ve spent an entire day off there—told Anna I wasn’t feeling good and napped all day. I’ve been everywhere in and around that castle.”

  “Hahaha…” Matt laughed, shaking his head, “you’re cheating on your wife by dreaming away your days off?” Matt continued to chuckle more out of uncertainty of how to handle the conversation than for the sake of it being funny. Jake’s demeanor changed slightly.

  “You…are the only one out of us three that’s come back with wounds, Matt. Alie woke up last night with no injuries. I’ve been stabbed in the gut before, which wakes me up…” Jake sat straight up at the thought, “sure freaky. Hurts like hell, but I don’t have any scars. But you…you’ve got a bandage on your arm.” He flicked the bright gold button at Matt. “Oh, and the whole story about you cutting your forearm on a tree branch a while back? I’m not buying it.”

  Matt gave no response while he attempted to catch the shiny object; he fumbled it with both hands before it finally landed before him on the desk. Matt gaped at the shiny yellow item. It was the diameter of a dime, a little thicker than a nickel; on his desk lay a golden coin with a sheen that sparkled in the fluorescent lights of the office.

  He picked it up and slowly rotated it between his thumb and forefinger, examining both sides. The gold piece, heavier than any coin he’d ever held before, had curious and intricate carvings on both sides.