Dream Walker

by Shannan Sinclair

  “I never want to leave this,” she thought to herself, but as soon as the wish crossed her mind, her flight sputtered and stalled, the tunnel fell out from under her and she thumped down hard onto a solid surface.

  When she regained her equilibrium, she got up and looked around. She was standing in an enormous room, on a polished chrome floor that gleamed like a mirror, domed one hundred and eighty degrees around and above her by clear glass. On the other side of the glass lie a dense blackness stippled with a billion iridescent stars. Towering clouds of vibrant gases and several spiraled galaxies hovered both near and far. The whole spacescape reflected on the mirrored surface she stood upon, and Aislen felt like she was standing in a bubble in the center of the universe looking out at all of creation. It was immense, elegant and breathtaking.

  “You did not use the signal line I gave you,” Aislen heard him say from behind her and she turned to face her father.

  No longer the middle-aged man from her visions, Preston looked as he did when she first met him as a child, young and handsome, like all age fell away from him. Overcome with relief at the sight of him, she ran to him and threw herself into his arms, holding on to him as if her life depended on it. He wrapped his arms around her and returned her embrace. They remained like that for a long time, neither of them wanting to release the moment. It was Preston who finally pulled away.

  Though he looked at her with gentle, loving eyes, his voice was stern. “This was not the space we were to meet. How did you get here?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “One of the men from my dream came to my house. I couldn’t see him, but I felt him and I could hear him. At first I thought he was you, but then he said he knew who I was and that he wanted to find you.

  “He created an orb. It wasn’t like the one you gave me, it was golden. And he threw it at me. All of a sudden, I fainted. Well, my body did, because I was still standing there looking at myself on the floor. When I looked up, he was standing there.”

  Aislen shuddered at the memory, but the tremor wasn’t without pleasure. She had recognized him instantly—the black hair, the exquisitely chiseled structure of his face, his stunning, blue eyes—the soldier who had killed her in her dream. Although he had terrified her completely before, standing before him in her bedroom for that brief moment, even though she was bare and unprotected, she felt strangely safe.

  “Everything happened so fast after that. Suddenly, we were standing next to each and he grabbed my hand.” Aislen felt another quiver remembering the ecstatic connection of their hands meeting. “But then I was sucked out of the room and flew through this golden light until I landed here.” She stopped and looked around at the universe that surrounded her. “Am I dreaming again? Where are we? What is this place?”

  A shadow of sadness slipped into her father’s eyes. “Where this is does not matter for you yet, Aislen. Neither of us should be here. It is an old frequency coordinate, used when I made my final escape. It is well-known to my trackers. You have strayed too far, and if you stay too long, you may not be able to return. You will need to leave before it’s too late.”

  “But I need your help,” Aislen said, grabbing his hand. “Too many people are trying to find me—and you! I haven’t figured out what is going on or what I am doing. And I can’t protect mom on my own. I need you to come back with me.”

  “I can’t go back with you. You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right! I don’t understand! At least tell me where I can find you. Tell me where you live and I will bring Mom with me. You can teach me what I need to know and we can be together.”

  “I am very sorry, Aislen, but that is impossible. And, unfortunately,” his voice caught in his throat and his expression grew even more pained. “Unfortunately, this may be the last time we will be able to meet each other.”

  “What! What do you mean? Why?”

  “There is too much danger around you now. They are onto you and if I get near you that would only seal your fate. If they find me, they will think that you are no longer necessary and they will kill you on sight. They do not know the treasure you are. And they cannot find that out yet.

  “Listen to me,” he said, lifting her chin and forcing her to look into his eyes. “You still have so much to learn. You are only at the beginning. But it is imperative that you learn about your abilities and how to use them. And you need to learn about your history—our history—so you will understand why you are so important. You have no idea how much is at stake here.

  “Once you understand...once you realize your potential, you will be beyond their reach—as I am now—only better, because you will be able to use your gifts in the world in a way that I cannot.”

  “But...I can’t do this without you,” she said.

  “You can and you will, Aislen. This is your destiny. And there will be other people to help you. I will make sure of that.

  “Now, pay attention. We do not have much time before you have to go and I need you to try to remember this when you get back.”

  Preston stepped away from her. Using his hands, he began drawing a diagram in the air between them, liquid silver light spilling like ink from his fingertips.

  “You view reality like this. There is length,” He explained as he drew a vertical line. “There is width,” he said intersecting the vertical line with a horizontal one. “And there is depth,” he said drawing another line through the cross and pointing at her.

  He waved his hand around the intersecting lines and gave them a spin. The lines developed into a cube.

  “These three dimensions create a box for you to live in.” He gave the cube another spin and it transformed into a sphere, then into a miniature replica of Earth.

  “It is like the world believing the Earth was flat, until Columbus sailed it and proved it was round. While you are in it you believe it is all there is. But that is a limited viewpoint.”

  He reached through the holograph and pulled her into it. Like Alice in Wonderland she began to shrink until she was extremely small and standing on the porch of her house looking out across her front yard.

  “You see the garden hose that is lying over there on the lawn?”

  “Yes,” she answered, amazed at the accuracy and detail of the landscape she was in.

  “From where you stand it looks like a flat, curvy, green line, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “But let’s say you are an ant.” The scene she was standing in evaporated and was instantly redrawn around her. Now, she was even smaller and was standing on top of the shiny green, rubber tube.

  “From here you can see the hose is thicker. It is arched and has a bumpy texture. You can walk along it, and around it and even inside of it if you wanted to. It is a completely different world from this perspective, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” she said, even more amazed.

  The vision disintegrated in a billion particles of colored sand and Aislen was once again in front of her father inside the bubble of glass.

  “So what if you were not within the confines of your length and height and width anymore?” he asked her, his eyes bright and intense. “Like you are right now? What then?”

  Preston began to draw again as he spoke. “Maybe reality only appears three dimensional, while you are three dimensional.”

  One after another, he drew sweeping spirals of sterling light. He layered each one on top of the other, and then intertwined them together.

  “The ultimate reality is composed of many zones,” he said as he wove each spiral down and around, then back up again. “The lower planes express denser elements and are more material. The higher planes express more energy. The higher the plane, the higher the vibrational frequency, so with each step up the scale the energies become more subtle—less visible to the human eye. But that doesn’t mean they are less real.

  “And it doesn’t mean they are far away, in distant and separate locations, either.” Her father moved around the holographic creation
and stood beside her, admiring its perfection with her.

  “See how they interpenetrate each other and how they all occupy the same space.”

  The separate layers of light moved in consort with each other. The outer cyclone rotated down and around like a carousel and than back up into itself in the opposite direction. It created an optical illusion of twisting inside out, then outside in.

  In the constant movement, Aislen caught glimpses of the familiar, from simple geometric shapes, to more complex structures. In it, she could see the seductive unfurling of a rose blossom. As the shape shifted, the mass reminded her of the human heart, with its ventricles and atriums pumping, veins and arteries of energy flowing. Then she saw the structure of an eye, then the brain, and then the threaded, double helix of DNA waltzing together. It was like a master pattern of existence right before her eyes.

  “The only thing that makes these planes appear separate,” Preston continued, “that keeps them hidden from you, is your perception. Only a shift in your perception is needed to step from one dimension into another.”

  “It sounds so easy,” Aislen said.

  Preston laughed. “Ah, if only that were true. But in order to enter into a higher frequency plane, one has to resonate harmonically with that plane. And too many things work against you in The Third for that to be easy. First and foremost being fear. Fear locks humanity up in its 3D prison and hides the key.

  “You are a fearful creature, child. The fact that you have been able to travel at all is a testament to the power of your abilities. I can only imagine the places you can go when you conquer your fear.”

  “Other places like this?” she asked.

  “Yes, and grander and stranger and higher than this,” he replied. “But another obstacle to dimension walking, is the cellular make-up of the body. Your physical body has to be trained to process higher levels of frequency or, like a light bulb, if it gets too hot, too fast, it can blow out its filaments.

  “That is why you have to leave, Aislen, and soon. This plane vibrates too high for you and the longer you stay, the more you run the risk of your body not being able to process this frequency when you go back.”

  “Then I don’t need to go back! I’ll just stay here with you!”

  “No, Aislen. You are not ready for this. It is not your time for this place. There are still many things you have to do, things you must complete. You have a very important purpose on Earth.

  “But if you really want to, and if you really work at it, you can find your way back to me. It will not be easy, but you of all people can do it.”

  “How?” she asked.

  Her father turned back to the circling complex manifold. He rolled his fingertips together, creating a tiny orb of crystalline white light between them, a miniature version of the one he had given her before.

  “In order to get here,” he said, as he placed the sparkling orb onto one of the spinning spirals, “you must master every other plane first.”

  Preston continued to create tiny balls of colored light: red, green, blue, and purple, until there were nine of them, spinning in different orbits. He placed each one within the silvery hologram.

  “You must be able to travel to each dimension at will, and then, find your way back. It will be like climbing a ladder; with each rung you climb, you access a higher frequency. It is important that you carry that back with you, integrating that frequency and what you learn. If you travel to a highly enlightened space, but fall back into the amnesia of 3D, the journey will be worthless. You must remember.”

  He reached into his luminous creation, grabbed it with both hands, and collapsed the whole thing between his palms. He turned back to Aislen and opened his hands like a book. A platinum amulet lay within them, an elaborate, spiraling path. The eight colored orbs were now brilliant jewels, embedded in orbit around a diamond center.

  “A labyrinth,” Aislen said, breathlessly, in awe of its dazzling beauty.

  “Yes,” her father said. “The ancients knew more than modern civilization gives them credit for.”

  He picked it up from his hand, pulled a silver chain from it and carefully placed it around her neck. “Listen to it carefully for it will guide your way. And someday—I pray—it will guide you back to me.”

  He looked her in the eyes again. This time his own were moist with tears.

  “It’s time for you to go, Buttercup. You must get back before it’s too late.”

  Aislen knew better then to protest, but could not stop her own tears from spilling down her face.

  He pulled her into his arms and gave her one last, long embrace. “I love you Aislen. I always have.” He kissed her on the forehead and pressed his finger on her chin. “Remember, I am always with you. Always just a breath away.”

  The bubble of glass dissolved around them and Aislen began floating off the chrome surface, away from her father, drifting into space.

  “I don’t want to leave. Please let me stay here,” she cried out to him, though he was getting infinitely smaller and further away.

  “You can come back at any time,” she heard him say in her head. “You just have to remember.”

  She closed her eyes and continued to weep in the darkness. She stayed like that for a long time, floating in an abyss of grief and loss, until she felt numb.

  “Wake up, Aislen,” she heard. Thinking it might be her father, hoping that he changed his mind, she opened her eyes. Instead, she was sprawled on her bedroom floor, her face soaked with tears and he was nowhere to be found. Her heart ached afresh.

  She laid there in a daze. Aislen shook her head, trying to figure out how she had ended up on the floor. And why was her face drenched with tears?

  She realized she had been dreaming, but the details of it were fading fast. All she could remember were stars—billions and billions of stars. And color, the most dazzling colors and shapes. And her father’s face. She could see him still, too, just barely. He had told her something really important, but what was it? The vision was quickly beyond her recollection’s reach.

  There was a tapping sound at the door. “Wake up, Aislen!” It was her mother. “Aislen, honey, wake up and open the door.”

  Aislen stood up, ungainly and off balance, and staggered toward the door. She opened it to her mother’s worried face. “Aislen, something bad has happened to Sergeant Mathis. We need to get to the hospital.”

  “Sergeant Mathis? What?” she asked, shaking her head, still foggy and not understanding. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” her mother said. “He called me from his cell phone asking for help, and then collapsed or something because he didn’t say anything else. So, I called 911.

  “They just called me back and told me that they found him unconscious in his house and are taking him to the hospital. I really need to get over there and make sure he’s all right.”

  Her mother’s face was creased with anxiety and Aislen realized that Sergeant Mathis was important to her—really important.

  Protection. She remembered the word out of the blue. It was something her father had said in her dream, that there would be people around to protect them. Suddenly, Aislen felt a pressing urge to get to Sergeant Mathis as quickly as possible, too.

  She reached up to grab her jacket off the hook on the wall and felt her head spin.

  “Mom, can you help me with this?” she asked, handing the coat to her mother for fear she would lose her balance and fall over.

  “Sure, thing.” Her mother slipped the coat around Aislen’s shoulders and out of habit buttoned it up like she did when Aislen was a little girl. When she reached the top button, she stopped.

  “Dear God, Aislen!” her mom said, reaching up and gently touching Aislen’s throat. “What is this?”

  Aislen looked down at the stunning pendant hanging around her neck; a labyrinth of polished platinum with nine bright jewels shining in it.

  Aislen looked back up at her mom, remembering.

  “It’s a map.
”

  CHAPTER 41

  “What the fuck did you just do?” Dookie yelled, flipping the visor lenses up and glaring at Raze with his big bug-eyes. “If you had just stayed out of it, Mathis would be having a massive coronary right now and out of the picture by morning!”

  Raze was squatting in the dirt, looking at the empty plot where Mathis had just been, wondering if he had done enough. And, like the troll, he also wondered what the fuck he had just done. Saving people was not a part of his instincts. Especially those who got in his way or threatened his way of life. If Mathis lived, he was going to be a problem and it would be all Raze’s fault.

  But who was this shit bag to point that out? Raze stood up and slowly turned to face the troll.

  The tirade continued. “I don’t get it. What were you thinking—saving his fat ass? You didn’t do us any favors, that’s for sure. Now he knows that Blake isn’t really a killer, and worse, he’s confirmed that your game isn’t just a game.” Dookie shook his head and expelled an angry gasp of air. “You royally fucked this up.”

  Raze was on the troll faster than the booger’s eyes could spin. He snatched him up by the collar with a rough jerk and lifted him so they could see eye to bulging eye.

  “Look, midget! I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you are in my territory! You don’t tell me shit about what I do or how I do things.

  “There are a lot of unknown players in this racket doing their fair share of fucking things up. Take you, for instance,” Raze punched a finger in Dookie’s face. “Who gave you any authority to come in here and who gave you permission to eliminate the sergeant? I sure didn’t—and I’m the only one who counts.

  “You’re going to tell me how you got possession of my visors, how you know that police officer and why the fuck you are even here or I am going to kick your gnarly ass from here to eternity.”