She closed her eyes ... just for a blink, but then didn’t open them—it felt so good. It was okay, though, since it couldn’t be possible for her to sleep on her toes. She hoped she was right, anyway. She could feel her body swaying, but now it felt dangerous. Whenever closing her eyes felt this good, sleep was never far behind. As were the night terrors.
She felt a draft behind her, so she opened her eyes, remembering that she’d left her room door open. She turned around and paused at the blue-eyed face seething in the dark hallway on the other side of her door. The contemptuous eyes were now more spaced apart and much higher up, near the top of the doorway. They were again looking down at her. She was deathly scared but knowing that it was only inside her mind gave her the courage to approach it, so she could close her door. She stopped halfway when she heard it talk. Her illusion of safety suddenly violated.
“Pathetic failure!” it bellowed.
Liandra quickly tried to discern what it meant but came up short.
“Foolish traitor!”
It reached a large, pitch black, tri-cloven hand in through her door and grabbed the inside of the frame, while burning a hole right through her with its murderous glare.
“Unworthy reject!”
“Weakling!”
Its voice boomed throughout her room and she took a step back, wanting to explain herself but not finding her voice. It pulled itself past her threshold and fully into her room. Now she could see the full size of the gigantic monster and its terrible appearance. Behind its rage-fueled blue eyes it had the giant head of a bull, with black fur and huge U-shaped horns. Altogether its head reached up to her ceiling. Its body was heavily muscled, outrageously broad, and covered with the same pitch-black fur as its head. It looked like an ebon statue, nearly black all over except for the pure white loincloth covering its pelvis, and the gold on its arms, wrists, and ankles.
It took a step towards her and she felt the house shake under a monumental thunderclap. It stepped again, and a second thunderclap knocked her to her knees. She crawled backwards, but it continued to approach, sending shockwaves reverberating throughout her whole house.
“You will be punished for your betrayal. Not with death. That is too good for you.”
When it took yet another thunderous step towards her, she found herself in the corner. She screamed then, for the help of anyone who would listen. She couldn’t help but cry at the sight of this huge monster that had invaded her world. She didn’t understand its hatred towards her. She had never done anything and yet she had to suffer all this alone—no, not alone. She heard her parents calling out for her, but she had to warn them to stay back. While the beast had her in its sights, she could only manage to yell a few words.
“Mum, Dad, no!”
They rushed into her room, running straight through the giant beast.
“This isn’t over. I will see that you are punished for your transgressions,” it said with chilling self-assurance.
Her parents looked as scared as she was, but to her they felt like the best warmth when they approached...
Chapter 2:
Recovery
Liandra woke in a hospital room. She found her parents standing together to her left, with concerned and teary eyes. To her right was her doctor, some guy she didn’t recognize. He looked at her not as a person, but as something to inspect. His eyes searched her up and down, and seemed to rest on her hands, which were moving without her permission. She was trembling all over. She looked out the window and saw a gloomy, overcast city.
“Hello, everyone, nice weather, eh?” Liandra said weakly.
Even she knew her attempt at humor had failed. Her father smiled at her anyhow, probably out of pity. Her mother just looked gravely concerned. The quiet persisted so she tried again.
“This isn’t my bed.”
The doctor finally looked at her, the person, and spoke up.
“No, this is an uncomfortably hard contraption of plastic, metal, and probably newspaper clippings or cement blocks,” he said. “This is not the contraption you want to wake up on.”
She smiled at the doc. The gray-haired old timer had a pleasant manner about him, but a stern, stubbled face.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
She looked at him and tried to assess herself. She didn’t want to stay here, but she definitely didn’t feel healthy. Her body felt wrong in about ten different ways. She knew she had to stay.
“I feel dreadful and I can’t stop shaking,” she admitted.
He slowly nodded his head.
“Your parents told me that you’re having trouble sleeping.”
“Yes, I have nightly night terrors.”
“And they’re severe enough to wake you up regularly?”
Liandra nodded.
“How much sleep did you get yesterday?”
She opted for honesty.
“An hour and a half when I got home from school. None the previous night.”
The doctor leaned in closely and inspected her eyes, opening them wide one at a time with one of his gloved hands. No doubt what he found were the same dark rings she saw every morning. He then took her hand in his and held it for a while to seemingly take note of her trembling.
“Ninety minutes, eh? And none the previous night. What about the day before?”
“An hour and a half when I got home and none that night.”
“These ninety-minute intervals, are you purposely trying to avoid REM sleep?”
She thought to feign ignorance on the subject, but figured this doctor was too clever for it. She figured he’d already surmised his answer.
“Yes, to avoid the night terrors and the sickness that they bring.”
“You get sick every time?”
“Yes.”
“Well, avoiding sleep isn’t helping, since you’re sick now. Your body needs sleep to heal. Lack of sleep can seriously impair its function, and continuous deficiencies can lead to a complete bodily shutdown. You’re painfully close to that threshold, and these things aren’t helping any.”
He pulled a pill bottle from his coat pocket and shook it in front of her face. It looked like her dexies.
“You keep taking these like you are, and avoiding sleep, and you won’t live long, mark my words.”
Liandra blankly gazed at the thin bed sheet covering her and shivered.
“After I give you a proper examination, I want you to stay here a few hours on bed rest. You’ll eat something and catch up on all the sleep you’ve missed. We won’t keep you beyond that, but I want you to promise your parents that once you’re home you’ll take better care of yourself.”
Liandra looked at her parents.
“I will.”
The doctor’s expression briefly softened, then went right back to stern again when he shook the dexie pill bottle.
“And no more of these.”
He tossed the bottle in the trash.
******
She woke up to her father talking with the doctor. She heard the doctor trying to explain places that could help her deal with her night terrors, but her father repeatedly told him that it was a method they’d already tried. After a while the doctor gave up and her father looked defeated. She finally chimed in to ask her mother what time it was, and her mother replied that it was after 3pm. She’d slept for over eight straight hours, not counting the slumber she’d got when she first arrived. It was one of her few lucky slumbers when she had no dreams whatsoever, and although she was still very tired, she now felt a certain weightiness had been lifted from her.
The doctor checked her one more time and smiled when he noticed her trembling had subsided.
“See, a little sleep works wonderfully. Now you’re good to go. You need to drink plenty more fluids when you get home. Stay hydrated and well rested.”
“Okay, sir—er ... I never caught your name,” she said.
“I’m Dr. Echison.”
“Thank you for everything, Dr. Echison.”
&
nbsp; “Alright, Liandra, it’s been a pleasure. Same to you, Mr. and Mrs. Keyrouz.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” her mother said.
“Thanks,” her dad said with a curt nod.
******
Mr. Keyrouz drove through the busy Bayswater streets with the patience of a surgeon. They were caught in the late afternoon bustle of parents picking up schoolchildren, and professionals commuting from work. Mrs. Keyrouz broke the long stretch of silence.
“You slept so peacefully today, my dove. Did you actually have a pleasant dream?”
“No, Mum, I didn’t dream of anything. It’s rare, but that sometimes happens. It’s good luck.”
She saw her father frown in the rearview mirror.
“I wish Dr. Echison had some better recommendations for us,” he said. “I’ve tapped all my contacts and we’re no closer to fixing this problem.”
There was undeniable frustration in her his voice.
“It’s okay, Dad. I think it’s time I learned to live with this. It’s just a part of me now.”
By his silence she figured he was unconvinced, but eventually he did speak up.
“An old colleague of mine—really a college buddy—recently told me of a man he knew that was treated for extreme hallucinations and the worst case of night terrors he had known. The man’s story sounded so similar to yours that I couldn’t help but pry. He was treated by some unknown dream interpreter, a guy with questionable methodology. I couldn’t find much on him, but from what I found out he’s an odd one for sure. He works out of hotel rooms and his apartment. The skills he’s listed seem more like mysticism than any modern practical science, but he claims his practice is purely of the mind. We psychologists have used dream interpretations for decades, but this guy doesn’t use the same methods.
“The man with the night terrors was reported to have returned to a normal life after a year of this dream reader’s unorthodox therapy. My buddy helped me track down some of the information detailing his progressive improvement. The man’s therapist reported an improvement in the length of his sleep cycles and his alertness during their daytime sessions. My buddy told me that his physical health had greatly improved as well.”
Mrs. Keyrouz’s brows knitted as she chimed in.
“This all sounds like conjecture to me,” she said. “Some big magnificent rumor.”
“I thought so too until I saw the data on this man,” her father said in a tone she’d never heard from him. “I have yet to meet him though. I got the reports through a student at the university who had written a detailed dissertation on this. I read through it all, even all her citations. All the data from this man’s treatment by this unknown dream interpreter points to a full gradual diminishment of his night terrors. It’s all highly fantastical, but very true.”
“I don’t know, honey. It still seems farfetched considering that none of these professionals have had the right solutions. I can’t see how a weird dream interpreter would know better than they would, or even you. You already know dream interpretation.”
“From all accounts, not like this man.”
“Mum’s right, Dad. It makes no sense to waste any more money on some crackpot. He’s not likely to get as far as any of the others. Let’s not waste any more money on this. I’ll just deal with it.”
Her father relented.
“Okay, you both win. We’ll just continue with the sleep therapy for now.”
The rest of the ride was quiet, but she could see the focused look in her father’s eyes.
Chapter 3:
The Dream Reader
Liandra opened the door and walked into the front hallway of her house. She was bone tired after a long day of school, made worse by the fact that she’d barely caught a wink of sleep last night. It had been a week since her hallucination and hospitalization, and just as she feared, her nightmares had come every night since then with no sign of improvement.
She quickly removed her coat and hung it on the coat hanger by the door. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she heard her mother’s voice calling out to her.
“Liandra, we’re in the dining room. Come in here, dove.”
She walked down the hall, past the living room and through the kitchen to get to the dining room. She found her parents sitting at the dining room table with a strange-looking man. Liandra connected eyes with him as soon as she entered. His eyes were dark blue and held a predatory sharpness to them, like the eyes of a hungry salesman. She distrusted him on sight. He was already grinning like he held some sort of secret. That made her distrust him even more. She decided to continue standing.
She broke her overtly suspicious gaze on the man to talk to her parents.
“Hey, Mum, Dad. What’s going on?”
“Well, dove, your father’s taken it upon himself to get some additional help for your night terrors. This man here is Richard Roocean. He’s a dream interpretation specialist.”
The man laughed and ran his index finger along his thin mistletoe mustache, and then lightly twisted and untwisted it at the end with his thumb and index finger.
Hideous gesture, Liandra thought.
“That’s a rather fancy and technical title you’ve given me, Mrs. Keyrouz. I prefer to be styled an expert dream reader, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
The man was right, he did look like a beggar, or at the very least a crazy person with all the cheap trinkets he wore on his fingers, wrists, and neck. His hair was deep black and slicked back into a ponytail, and his beard was cut into a thin anchor near his chin. From his seated position, Liandra could see that he was wearing a black vest under some type of multi-colored shawl or poncho with deep purple, fuchsia, and blue floral looking designs on it. He was wearing a scarf with the same colors, but a different striped pattern over the very top of his forehead to the middle of his head.
“I’ll consider that next time, Mr. Roocean,” her mother said, smiling at the charlatan.
“Oh, that’s too formal. Just call me Richard.”
“Okay, Richard. This is my daughter Liandra, who I’ve told you about.”
“Yes, of course. How goes it, Liandra?”
Liandra couldn’t bring herself to be rude to this man right away—like she wanted to. She opted for pleasantry instead, for now at least.
“It goes well, I suppose. Thanks for asking, and it’s nice to meet you.”
He repeatedly twisted and untwisted his mustache.
“That’s nice of you to say, but we both know that you don’t really feel this way, now do you?”
Her parents stared at him with wide eyes, both blatantly surprised. Liandra contemplated him the same as before.
“Come again?” she asked.
“You don’t really think that it’s nice to meet me,” he said smiling.
Liandra let his question linger in the air for a bit, before deciding on her answer. If the man wanted honesty, he’d get it.
“That’s right. I’ve had plenty of doctors, therapists, and other specialists try to fix my little problem and they’ve solved very little. So, there’s nothing you can do at this point besides taking my parents’ money and getting their hopes up.”
Her parents both looked at her as if she’d let off a bomb. She couldn’t stand that they were even entertaining this lunacy. She couldn’t direct her anger at them since they were just desperate to help her, but this sham in front of her deserved every spiteful word.
“Of course, you care about your parents. Who wouldn’t? But we’re all here right now to help you. They’ve taken extreme measures in hiring a guy like me, with the reputation that I have. I don’t take that lightly. I already know that I am the last option anyone wants to resort to because I specialize in an unknown craft, a craft not yet properly dissected by science. I’m only here because all the sane alternatives have failed. But I can tell you this—there’s a reason why I get any business at all. It’s because I get results. I am the right person to help you. You see, I figure there is somethin
g buried deep within inside of you that’s screaming to get out, to be known. It’s something that all these doctors overlook every time because they lack the training and foresight into these matters. They read the dreams as they want them to be, not as they really are. Your dreams, I imagine, will tell all if we read them right. But that is nearly impossible without some guidance, and that’s where I come in. I will use my skills to help you decipher your dreams and bring peace to your troubled mind.”
Liandra held his gaze.
“That’s a nice sales pitch, but I don’t see much proof.”
He let out an overacted sigh and looked at her as if she were a little child to whom he had to explain a terribly complex idea.
“I don’t carry any proof with me. I don’t usually need to. I’m not selling anything at all. I’m offering a service.”
She was tired of his lying.
“This isn’t charity work you’re doing. Like the others, you want to be paid.”
Liandra’s parents were looking concerned now.
“That’s enough now, Liandra,” her father said.
“No, it’s fine. I want to put all her questions to rest. Children are highly curious, after all.”
“I’m not a child. I just want to know what makes you think we should pay you for your services. I have no guarantee that this will do anything for me.”
“Yes, you’re right. I’m not a charity worker. The gods have deemed fit to curse us men with bellies, so I have to eat. I use what I know to help me pay my bills and keep me poorly fed. From all that your father has told me, you could really use my help, and I would love to assist for free, but it just isn’t in my best interest. Your parents were generous enough to pay for my flight here. It would be a shame to leave them with nothing.”
“I understand all that. I just want to know that if none of this works, will you refund every last bit of my parents’ money?”
Liandra and the Dream Reader Page 2