Dawn
of the
Dreamer
The Dreamer Trilogy, Book One
L J Higgins
Dawn of the Dreamer (The Dreamer Trilogy, Book One)
Copyright © 2015 by L J Higgins.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza tions, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact :
6 Hatfree Court
Calliope, Queensland
Australia 4680
http://www.ljhiggins.com
Book and Cover design by Derek Murphy and Ann-Maree Macmillan
Revised Edition: January 2016
For my husband Tim, my family and friends who always believe in me.
CONTENTS
Dawnof the Dreamer
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ONE MONTH LATER
Fallof the Dreamer Chapter One
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
An overwhelming fear seeped beneath my skin, forcing itself deep into my bones. My eyes adjusted slowly and my heart beat wildly in my chest, prompting me to crouch and melt into the branches and thick bush around me. With a sudden flash, lightning stung the black of the night and lit up the area around me, revealing silhouettes of large silver-barked trees and masses of low bushes. To my right, I could sense something creeping almost silently through the trees, and fear sunk heavier in my chest.
Should I run or try to stay hidden among the leaves and twigs?
Crack!
Shock sprinted through my body but I stood dead still, straining to hear my pursuer through the rush of wind in the trees that bent and moaned in protest. A hint of shadow towards my right sent a surge of adrenalin through my veins, willing me to run.
Bounding up from my crouched position, I ran through the trees and shrubs that pulled at my clothes and tore at my skin as though they’d grown claws just to hold me back. The stinging cold of the rain burned my face and chilled me to the bone, but still I kept running. I could hear it behind me, so close I could feel its hot, heavy breath. Fear slowed my stride, and my legs betrayed me by buckling as my bare feet hit the soft muddy ground beneath me. My mind willed them to keep moving, but they couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Landing on the ground, I rolled onto my back in the mud.
A giant brown bear stood over me, the heat of its breath burning my frozen face, wet from a mixture of rain and tears. Its gleaming fur shone slick with rain. Lightning struck again, and it looked even larger than it had first appeared. The bear reared up onto its hind legs with ease and let out an almighty roar, filling my nose with the hot smell of rotting meat as its breath passed its yellowed teeth before lunging at me, jaws open wide and claws bared ...
***
My eyes sprung open, darting around the room trying to remember where I was. To my left lay three people: a girl in her mid-twenties, an older man, and a young boy. They were still fast asleep, tucked into their crisp white beds. To my right was another girl who had awoken from a terrible nightmare herself. We both looked around the room, dazed, while our heart rates returned to a normal beat. Our eyes met with a silent understanding, realising where we were. I recognised the clean white walls, shiny grey vinyl floor, monitors, computers, and the sterile scent of a hospital. I was in a Sleep Room.
The name said it all. That was my first thought when I’d decided to attend these sessions. The people who ran the Sleep Rooms didn’t appear to be imaginative, which explained the bland name and room. They were too clever and serious in their smart white coats, nursing their computer tablets, glancing up now and then when necessary. After six months of visits, it didn’t take long for me to again become familiar with my surroundings.
‘Must have been a rough night, Amelia.’ I hadn’t noticed he was in the room. His friendly voice was welcome after my terrifying dream.
‘How did you guess?’ I asked Nurse Cameron with a sarcastic tone.
He looked up at the computer screen mounted above my head. He was dressed the same as the rest of the nurses I’d observed since being involved in the program. Where they were stern and uncaring, his smile was compassionate and real, and there was a kindness and warmth in his charming blue eyes, framed by a perfect curtain of thick black eyelashes. Cameron explained my results displayed on the screen, which I never completely understood. I did know, however, that the red lines spiking up and down indicated another terrible night’s sleep.
My blank expression caught his attention, and he stopped talking, his mouth amusedly twisted to one side. ‘Fingers crossed, it won’t be much longer, and you’ll be getting a good night’s sleep like everybody else.’
‘Fingers crossed.’ I rose from the bed and slid on my shoes.
He handed me my locker key. ‘See you again in three days?’
‘Of course, Nurse Cameron, wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
‘Just call me Cameron. Cam would be even better,’ he pleaded.
I proceeded to collect my clothing from my locker with a playful smile. After changing into a pair of smart black pants and a green polo shirt, I scanned the reception area and handed my locker key to the lady behind the desk. After riding the elevator down to the ground floor, it was a short stroll to the bus stop where I caught a bus that took me twenty minutes out of the city back to Sandhaven and my mind-numbing job at the Sandhaven Grocery Store.
***
My working day played out as uneventfully as usual. When I thought I couldn’t swipe another barcode or tell another stranger to ‘have a nice day’, the time to head home arrived.
Walking home had become one of the few enjoyable parts of my day. I took my time, casually strolling along the concrete pathway past a small hairdresser. It smelt of clipped hair and shampoo. The smells began to meld in a strange but nice way with the fragrance of strong coffee and pastries as I arrived at the coffee shop and bakery. Stopping in at the cafe, I bought myself a salad roll and sat outside on the small metal table next to the window. Sometimes I ordered a coffee so I could sit and observe the people passing by. I’d always enjoyed seeing different people go about their lives, guessing where they worked and where they were going.
Once finished, I continued along the footpath that led through the local park, full of people with their dogs and children at that time in the afternoon. If I continued along the path, it would lead to Sandhaven Beach, but I proceeded along the road and up the hill to my unit. It wasn’t the most gla
morous of units. It had a brown brick exterior and a small garden of yuccas, that hadn’t been watered in months along the front window next to the door. Cheap rent and somewhere to sleep made it home.
Exhausted, I looked forward to lying on the couch and relaxing after another sleepless night. I pushed hard on the heavy wooden door that swelled sometimes, making it difficult to open. Music flooded my ears. Sarah and her friend Tracey danced around the lounge room, giggling and waving their arms around to a tune that was a mashup of pop and techno.
My ‘not so impressed’ expression prompted Sarah to turn down the music and smile at me apologetically.
‘Another bad night?’
I nodded, not wanting to give Tracey any ammunition. Considering she was far from a rocket scientist, I was sure she would never work out what the question referred to. I smiled at them both uncomfortably and made a beeline towards my bedroom upstairs. Once inside, I closed the door and fell onto my bed, staring at the ceiling.
My room was small, which was okay because I didn’t need much space. Most of my time was spent lying on my bed reading or sleeping. I spent the rest of my time relaxing in our saggy second-hand couch in the lounge room, which was slightly bigger than my bedroom. I didn’t care that Sarah knew I was having testing done. But I knew that if someone such as Tracey found out I was a Dreamer, the gossip would spread like wildfire. I’d no longer be a hermit by choice, but because I was unable to show my face without being ridiculed. Tracey loved to gossip. It gave her a sense of importance to know everyone’s business, so I prayed she hadn’t cottoned on to what the question Sarah had asked implied.
How could being a Dreamer be so awful and embarrassing? In July 2021, a company called the MultiMind Corporation, or the MMC for short, invented a microchip the size of a grain of rice to implant into a person’s wrist. They called this microchip a Wristochip, the ‘Next step in human Evolution.’ Resembling a bank card, it was used as identification and held all your medical records. Not long after its invention, the MMC released the Wristcuff, a gel-filled bracelet that clipped and tightened around the point on your wrist where they’d inserted your Wristochip. Wearing it at night ensured a good night’s sleep, and that you would experience happy, pleasant dreams. People who wore the Wristcuff while they slept were rewarded with better memory, less stress, and better learning abilities; their bodies repaired faster from injury or illness, and it helped with weight loss too. I didn’t know if any of it rang true. I belonged to the small percentage of people for whom the Wristcuff didn’t work.
That was why I spent a few nights each week in Sleep Room Number Four, Level Eight of the MMC’s building. The MMC doctors wanted to find out why it didn’t work and ‘fix’ me so I, too, might be able to reap the benefits. The stigma attached to being a ‘Dreamer,’ someone the Wristcuff didn’t work on, was very negative. I never admitted it to anyone. If you were a person who had dreams of your own, prospective employers wouldn’t hire you. They assumed a Dreamer was unable to concentrate and learn as much as a ‘Non-Dreamer’ or ‘normal’ person. 'Non-Dreamers suggested that something was wrong with Dreamers, and that was why the Wristcuff refused to work. This included the staff at the MMC building. The frustration on the doctors’ faces as I failed test after test revealed this, and was a constant reminder that I was different.
My Wristochip still worked when paying for my shopping or as identification when I went to the Sandhaven Tavern, but that wasn’t good enough. Did they not realise how much I wished it’d worked for me, to be able to be normal and function as everyone else did? The Wristcuff didn’t remove the nightmares I’d been having since I’d been a teenager. I’d always assumed that I would grow out of them. But at twenty-two, they had given me no hint of fading away. Most nights, I still got them, so real that I experienced the intense emotions and pain within the dream as though I was living the scenario that played out. Upon waking, I would become disorientated, trying to convince my body it had been a terrifying nightmare. In the Sleep Rooms, they monitored my sleep, heart rate, asked me many questions, took blood samples, and tried a new Wristcuff on me once a fortnight to see if they had rectified my problem. Other Dreamers had left after a few weeks as they had been fixed. After six months, I was yet to find a cure for my nightmares and be normal like my friends and family.
Consumed by my own thoughts, I heard a knock at my door, and Sarah poked her head around the corner. As she opened the door, her long blonde hair fell around her face, messy from her performance in the lounge room.
‘We are heading to the Tav tonight. You should join us. Looks like you could use a drink, or two, or too many.’ She burst into laughter.
‘Seems as though you may have already had too many.’ I sat up in bed, shaking my head, faking disappointment.
Although at times our personalities appeared to be polar opposite, Sarah’s silliness and crazy lifestyle always made me smile and kept me entertained. If it hadn’t been for her, I would never have left the unit except for my sleep study, and work.
‘I’ll just change.’
Still laughing at my apparently hilarious answer, she closed the door as she left. The music thumped again, and the vibration of the bass shook the walls.
Brushing my long brown hair into a ponytail, I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror framed in dark wood. My mum and dad had bought it for me for my eighteenth birthday. I looked like a normal person: average, with chocolate brown hair, and blue eyes. When I put the effort in wearing make-up and a cute dress, I could be confident I wasn’t the ugliest girl in the room. Standing next to Sarah, I knew I wasn’t the prettiest either.
She was stunning, with her long silky blonde hair. It always framed her soft face perfectly, and her emerald eyes drew a guy’s attention with a simple flutter of her long thick eyelashes. Her bubbly, outgoing personality helped too. She exuded confidence. Apart from having to compete with all of that, I had the issue of being a Dreamer. If anyone found out, I’d never live it down. Hence, I never dated, so as to avoid the awkward conversation that it would eventually lead to. Lucky for me, Sarah was a great friend whom I trusted to never reveal my secret.
Pulling on a pair of jeans and a black top, I slipped on a pair of shoes and headed out to find the girls. They were still dancing in the lounge room. Sarah never feared looking a fool and encouraged me to be spontaneous with her. Most of the time I would sit and watch. I guessed that being a fool came easier if you were a Non-Dreamer and, on top of that, absolutely gorgeous. After a glass of wine, Sarah linked arms with Tracey and myself, giggling and battling our way out of the doorway that we were never going to fit through linked together. We then walked over the hill to the Sandhaven Tavern.
***
On Friday nights the Tavern was regularly packed full of people. That night, the live band played a mashup of rock and folk music which set the evening’s fun atmosphere. At the automatic glass doors that formed the entrance of the Tavern, a bouncer held out a small scanning pad. Following Sarah and Tracey, I waved my right wrist over the top of it.
My photo and information appeared on his hand-held screen, and he nodded. ‘Have a good night, girls.’ His well-wishes were directed towards Sarah. We proceeded to the bar where Sarah bought the first round of drinks.
Vodka, lime, and soda in hand, I followed a bouncing Sarah and Tracey to a nearby table and sat up on one of the stools that surrounded it. Guys became moths to a flame when it came to Sarah. Her great figure and the fact she wore clothes that showed every inch of it meant we met new people, guys, all night.
‘There he is.’ She pointed out a group of three guys who had walked through the entrance.
CHAPTER TWO
‘Who?’ None of them resembled the types Sarah usually dated.
She liked guys who were athletic and well-groomed, with big white shiny smiles and confidence that matched her own.
‘The one with the gorgeous shaggy hair,’ she whispered, as though he had super hearing and could hear from
that far away over the loud music.
As they made their way into the crowd, Sarah caught his gaze. It was bound to happen considering both Sarah and Tracey stared at him. With a calm smile, he acknowledged that he’d seen her, said something to his two friends, and made his way over to our table.
‘Good in here, isn’t it?’ His voice sounded cool and collected as he directed his observation towards the three of us. ‘Glad you suggested it, Sarah.’
She beamed her gorgeous smile, her emerald eyes glimmering. ‘Told you.’
‘This is my friend Tracey, and my best friend and flatmate Amelia.’ She fluttered her eyelashes as she introduced us. ‘Amelia had a crap day, so we dragged her along.’ She smiled at me with fake sympathy.
‘Joe,’ he said smiling still with a sense of confidence, not cockiness, holding out his hand. I shook it, smiling back.
‘These are my mates Riley and Ben.’ We nodded, smiled once again, and the three boys pulled over stools to share our table.
Ben didn’t stick around for long. He’d seen a girl not long after our introduction and disappeared into the sea of people. He only emerged to make sure his friends hadn’t left without him now and then. Joe’s friend Riley was clearly interested in Tracey. He spent the night buying each of us drinks to win her affections. It had become a bonus I’d learnt to appreciate being a friend of theirs. Despite the fact that I’d become the third wheel, Sarah and Joe made an effort to make me comfortable sitting with them.
He was interesting when Sarah let him get in a word. They’d met when Ben’s dog had been sick, and he’d taken it to the vet where Sarah worked as an assistant. He’d told Sarah that he didn’t get out much, so she suggested he meet her here tonight. He himself worked as a cleaner in the city but didn’t get to elaborate any more than that as Sarah began explaining her role at the veterinary clinic.
After a few hours, I began to tire and could tell that Sarah was hoping for some alone time with Joe.
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