Well hello everybody!
I'm sure all of you have been more than ready to start reading all about Devon and his friends' exciting adventures. Well, the wait is almost over!
Lucid hits the e-shelves TOMORROW! I'm sure you all knew that, right?
Right?
Anyway, for those of you who simply can't wait another day to start reading, I've got a wonderful treat for you. Below, I'll post the entire first chapter of
Lucid. Not a little snippet, and teeny excerpts are for wimps. No, dear readers, I'm giving you the entire first chapter! Lucky you! All I ask in return is that you give it a read and SPREAD THE WORD! Devon would love to get his story out to as many people as possible, and it couldn't happen without the support of his friends and fans.
So, enjoy the first chapter tonight, go buy the book tomorrow, and tell all of your friends about
Lucid!
Until then, keep readin' and dreamin',
Fred
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I know that
most adventure/fantasy/whatever you would like to call these stories start with
something magical, but my story starts with something ordinary: dreams. I’m
talking about the “I’m taking a test and don’t realize I’m in my underwear”
kind of dreams. We have them every night, whether we remember them or not.
Sometimes they leave us waking up with excitement or inspiration. Sometimes
they cause us to wake with a shriek and to look around our rooms expecting a
murderer to be standing at our bedsides; sometimes they leave us waking up
confused or ashamed. These experiences are probably commonplace for most
people, but I doubt any of you could ever say your dreams caused you to stay
asleep for a long period of time.
What if your
dreams made you disappear?
Day 1:
Morning.
Sometimes I
feel like denying the morning exists and staying asleep forever. Waking up in my dark, frigid room isn’t
exactly my idea of a great way to start the day. I rolled over on my side to check my clock.
9:30; time to get up for summer camp.
As I tumbled out of bed and pulled on
my socks, I recounted the dream I had last night. Normally, I’m not one for
remembering my dreams, but this time I don’t think I could’ve forgotten it even
if I wanted to. It was so real. I remembered it started with me sitting
in a spaceship. I could tell I was in space, not because of the stars outside
my window but because of the darkness around the stars. I couldn’t recall any
other time I had seen such a deep emptiness except for the time we watched a
video on space in physical science.
There were
other people on the spaceship with me; it was sort of like a galactic school
bus. I remember having a conversation with an elderly man sitting next to
me. He repeated at least seven times
that he must’ve been dreaming. Finally, I realized that I, too, was dreaming. I
voiced my thoughts to the man, and he said that even though it felt like a
dream, he doubted we were both dreaming.
How could
you be conscious in a dream, anyway?
And since
when did more than one person dream the exact same thing?
This seemed
to be the topic of conversation on the ship; everyone sounded confused and most
felt like they were transported from their bed to this alien place. The idea of
abductions was slowly becoming a possibility, and the atmosphere in the
spaceship became extremely tense.
Although the
other people on the ship were partaking in nervous chatter, I remained silent.
I knew that I was merely dreaming, and that this was not an alien abduction.
There was no other explanation for why I remained calm. Also, I had always
pictured an alien invasion being a lot cooler than something eerily similar to
my morning bus ride. After 20 minutes of dream time, the ship landed on a dock.
We had reached our destination.
The doors of the ship slid open, and
almost automatically, the people started filing out. I thought this was a
rather stupid move on their part; if this was an alien invasion, why
would they willingly walk out to meet their captors? I do remember
feeling a sort of sensation pulling me outside along with the other people, but
I was able to fight it off. I figured it was the change in atmospheric pressure
or something.
I know better, now.
As I was
walking out of the ship, I saw something glittering underneath one of the
seats. Maybe one of the passengers dropped a watch, I thought. I bent down to
figure out what the source of the light was, and I found…nothing.
The light continued to shine from
underneath the chrome seat, but there was nothing causing the
incandescent light. It was strong, and for the first time on my voyage, I felt
heat. I think that was when I was sure I was dreaming; everything other than
this light was simply not real. I knew the light represented the only fragment
of reality in the bus (other than me,) so I did the only thing I could; I
reached out and grabbed the burning ball of light.
As soon as I
touched the light, I woke up. I untangled myself from my sheets and stumbled to
my mirror. Staring back at me was my reflection of a 15 year-old, brown haired
and hazel eyed boy. I’ll admit I was a bit paler than usual. The dream of the
space ship was causing goose bumps to emerge all over my arms and on the back
of my neck. Even though I knew it was an illusion the entire time, I didn’t
like how the other people in the dream thought that it was real. As I
was sorting through the confusion in my brain, my mom came into the room.
“It’s time
for work, Devon.” She said with a no-nonsense look on her face. She dropped me
of to camp on her way to work, and she was never
late. “You’ve got five minutes to get ready. Just grab a granola bar on
your way out.” She closed the door with a snap.
I shook myself from the silly dream.
It was just a dream after all. There were more pressing matters at hand, like
getting to camp before the Senior Counselor did. The jerk would fire a C.I.T.
like me for showing up two minutes late. I dressed with haste and ran down the
stairs. As I climbed into the back seat of my mom’s van, I still couldn’t stop
dwelling on my spaceship bus ride. It spooked me so much, it even made me
forget my granola bar.
Day 1:
Afternoon.
Summer camp
was terrible. I hated being stuck in the musty, old community center as a
camper, and I hated it even more as a C.I.T. At least when my mom was paying
for me to go there I could play games and talk to the other kids. As a C.I.T.,
I was forced to do all of the nasty jobs the real counselors didn’t feel like
doing. I didn’t even get paid for it! Thinking about how I might have a license
and a car next summer usually got me through the day. If I stuck with summer
camp, I could also get paid next summer. I doubted even a paycheck would tempt
me into working there again.
Anyway, I
was sort of glad I had something on my mind while I completed the lovely jobs
of cleaning up the 7 year olds’ accidents, sweeping after lunch, and unclogging
a boys’ toilet after Bobby (more commonly known as Big Bob) had gotten sick
from his roast sandwich. The spaceship from my dream kept intruding my
thoughts, but try as I might, I just couldn’t make any sense of it. Why
would I dream something like that, and why were other people in my dream? For
some reason, I had a hunch the people on the spaceship with me were actual
people. Well, they weren’t really people; they were parts of real
people. I guess they were sort of like souls, if I had to think up a word for
it. For some reason, I felt myself feeling sorry for these souls. They had no
idea what was going on, and yet they got out of the bus.
If they only stopped to check under
the seats…
“Devon, stop blanking out, and get into the car!” The
dulcet tones of my mom yanked me out of the spaceship and back down to Earth. A
few of the younger campers snickered at me as I walked to my mom’s van. Well,
that was no surprise.
Ever since I was a camper myself,
other kids made fun of me. I didn’t mind; I didn’t want to listen to anything
they had to say, anyway. My spaceship dream was more interesting.
*
The ride
home was, as usual, quiet. Mom was yakking away on the phone to one of her
friends about how terrible her day at work was, and I would normally be playing
one of my newest handheld games, but not today. Instead, I couldn’t help but
continue to question why the souls got off of the bus. I didn’t remember the
land outside of the bus as vividly as the inside, but I remembered thinking it
didn’t look too nice. Plus, how did they know there was oxygen for them to
breathe? I mean, I knew it was a dream, but the other souls like the old
man thought that it was actually happening. I was sort of curious about where
they went, though. I wish someone I knew was on the bus. I could’ve asked them
if they had the dream, as well.
“I have to
run back to the office for some more paperwork,” Mom informed me as she pulled
into the driveway. “Kyle knows you’re coming home, and I left him money to
order a pizza. I shouldn’t be any later than 8:30.”
I merely nodded as I got out of the van. I
waved back at my mom as she pulled out of the driveway. It didn’t really upset
me that she never talked to me on the way home from work, but it would be nice
for her to at least ask me how my day went.
The door was
already unlocked, which meant Kyle was home. Really, I wasn’t surprised. I was
convinced Kyle was nocturnal; he slept all day in his room and would only
emerge after 6 PM for food and to go out with his friends. Mom was convinced he
was busy applying to colleges all day, but I wasn’t fooled.
Kyle was pushing 20; he should’ve
found a school or at least a job by now. If you haven’t guessed from his
description, my big brother was a lousy babysitter. I really didn’t need a
babysitter anymore, but Mom didn’t trust me enough to order or make food for
myself when she had to work late. It didn’t really matter to me. Kyle would
amble down sometime this evening and find the pizza money. He’d order the food
for us, take half of the pizza for himself, and go back up to his room. Three
hours later, he’d come down in a grungy pair of jeans and an unwashed shirt to
go meet his equally grungy friends. Kyle never got a job to pay for a car, so
he relied on his friends picking him up. I was greeted each evening by loud
metal music blaring from a beat up SUV that looked like it was highly flammable.
Anyway, 6:00 was a good 2 hours away, which
gave me some personal time. I felt pretty exhausted from the admirable task of
being a C.I.T., so I grabbed my private bag of chips (which I hid from Kyle
inside of the aquarium we never use,) turned on the TV, and sat my butt down on
our super comfortable couch.
Now, this was what a good afternoon
meant to me. I could sink into that couch and feel my mind melt away as I
watched cartoons. All of the frustration of work would dissolve as I sat there
until nothing remained. My brain would enter a state of nirvana, and I would
feel so perfectly numb and at peace.
Not today.
My dream still haunted me, even as I hummed
the intro to my favorite show. I started getting a little concerned. What if
that wasn’t a dream at all? What if I somehow saw into the future? Would the
light be there to save me again, or would I be probed by aliens with the rest
of the people on the bus?
I calmed myself down by realizing how stupid
that would be. I did not see into the future, and there would be no alien
invasions any time soon. With a little more effort than needed, I convinced
myself enough to enjoy the rest of my cartoon ritual.
At around
5:30, Kyle surprised me with his presence. I was pretty shocked when I heard
his pounding footsteps descending the staircase.
“To what do
I owe this honor?” I asked him as his untidy figure appeared in the living
room.
“Give me the
remote,” Kyle ordered with his hand outstretched.
“What’s up?”
I could tell Kyle looked pretty concerned.
“I just read
this wicked article on the Internet, and there’s a show about it right now!”
Kyle snatched the remote off of my lap and began scrolling down the guide. I
really wasn’t ticked off. If I wanted to finish my show, I could just go up to
my room. I was somewhat curious about what Kyle wanted to watch. Plus, I was
watching a rerun.
“What’s it
about?” I asked as Kyle shuffled through the channels. His eyes glinted, which
usually meant something stupid, gruesome, or gruesomely stupid.
“It’s about
zombies and how they really exist.” Of course it was about something like that.
Kyle had a pretty irrational obsession with vampires, zombies, and grotesque
things that didn’t really exist. Oh, but I was the weird one for being afraid
of dinosaurs trampling over our house. At least dinosaurs existed…at one point in
time.
Anyway,
apparently Kyle had reached his televised destination, because he had stopped
searching and sat down next to me.
“This is
about the living dead,” Kyle gave me the definition of zombies as he grabbed
for some of my prized chips. I didn’t care; he could have them. The image on
the TV made me forget everything else. Sure enough, the reporter on the screen
was talking about a man who had been in a deep sleep for an entire day, and it
was proven to not technically be a coma. The man had fallen asleep last night
and never woke up. His wife was convinced he was dead until she felt a very
faint pulse. A doctor appeared on the screen saying that the body seemed to be
functioning at the lowest possible level, but most of the brain was working
properly. They said the man was almost like a living shell, except for his
eyes. The camera zoomed in on the old man so viewers could see his eyes moving
rapidly. But these things didn’t matter; the actual man on the screen is what
made me stop thinking about everything. The man, whom Kyle thought was a zombie
and whom the doctor said was a living shell, was the same old man who sat next
to me on the bus.
Day 1:
Night
You have no
idea how hard I tried to forget the picture of the old man’s face on my TV.
Also, forgetting how I reacted would help, too. As soon as I recognized the old
man as my seatmate in my dream, I screamed loudly. Kyle bellowed with laughter,
told me that he knew I’d freak out, and kept teasing me about it until his
friends came to get him.
Apparently he wasn’t the only one who
noticed. When my mom finally came home, she asked me what was wrong. I told her
Kyle showed me a horror film on TV, and she took me out for a fast food sundae.
Even the chocolate syrup and whipped cream couldn’t help me to calm down. I
never touched the pizza that was delivered, either.
At first, I
thought that maybe my dream was a symbolic premonition. You know, like the kind
the psychics on late-night TV talk about? Resorting to psychic premonitions was
pretty desperate for me. If you hadn’t figured it out by now, I’m a pretty
scientific person. I’m one of those smart kids who dominate science fairs,
graduate with top honors, and go to private high school on a scholarship.
You can call me a nerd, it’s all
right. It won’t be the first time I’ve heard that, but I’m not that weird. My
brain just works differently. My mind works in numbers, and usually everything
can fit into some sort of formula. The dream and the old man threw me
completely off balance. Perhaps there was a weird virus going around, and the
old man had been infected. What if the other people were infected, too? Maybe
the light was the antidote. How would I explain that to the doctors
looking for a miracle cure? No, that theory didn’t seem to work. If the light was
a medicine, it would actually have substance. Heat only worked for tense
muscles.
Naturally,
all this hype made it pretty scary to go to sleep. I tried staying up by
talking to my best friends online. Only one of them, Tiffany, was awake. Tiff was
always online; her passion in life was surfing the Web. You could tell by her
appearance, if you were lucky enough to actually see her in public.
Short, mousy, and pale with big, blue eyes, Tiff argued that sitting at her
desk with her face glued to the computer was the habitat for which her body was
best-adapted.
Tiff, like me, was a brainiac. Her
extensive knowledge on the most random subjects could impress anyone.
Seriously, our cheese-loving 7th grade English teacher gave her 50
extra points for her knowledge of designer Swiss fondues. I think it’s safe to
say that I could rely on Tiff to know all about the human shell episode.
“Apparently
it’s not some sensational hoax, either,” Tiff typed to me. Instant messaging
was her favorite form of communication. She was pretty soft-spoken and timid in
person. Her bold, matter-of-fact personality really did shine when she let her
fingers do the talking.
“So this old
guy really does exist?” I typed a little harder than intended.
“Of course!
What, did you think they had some dummy on the show?” Tiff paused in her
typing. I could tell, because there was no star blinking next to her screen
name. (P.S. her’s is Star_Hax42. Mine’s DevonXander which is just my name,
Devon Alexander. I’m not that creative.) “I did some more research after the
show. Apparently the old man was a retired school teacher named Henry Allen who
lives in West Palm Beach, Florida. The plot thickens, though. About a dozen
other instances have been reported all over the country. Henry‘s wife was the
first one to report anything, which explains why he‘s getting all the
publicity. I bet there‘ll be more tomorrow.”
So, the old
man I saw existed. He also lived on the other side of the country. The other
reports were probably the others on the bus, too. It seemed my dream actually
had some basis in reality, and it started spooking me big time.
“You there?”
Tiff typed after a 5 minute pause. Usually I answered her IM quickly. I didn’t
do much else on the computer for fun.
“Are there
pictures of any of the other victims?” I typed the last word with a little
dread. I had a feeling these people were not suffering from some weird illness
but they were staying asleep because someone wanted it that way.
“Um…a few.
Hang on,” Tiff paused as she searched for some links.
I clicked on
them as she posted. To my horror, I remembered a few from my dream. I
recognized a little woman who appeared to be in her 30s, a middle-aged man with
spiky blonde hair, and a dark, bald body-building dude. My heart began beating
much too quickly.
“OK, what’s
up?” Tiff was always on the ball. She was hyper-sensitive to people’s emotions,
even through a computer. “Do you know anything about this weird stuff?”
I hesitated
for about 10 minutes (a new IM record for me) before responding.
“Promise not
to be too skeptical when I finish?”
*
Surprisingly,
Tiff didn’t respond by typing “LOLOLOLOL OK” after I finished telling her about
my dream. She didn’t even interrupt, which she normally did to make it seem
like a real conversation. I could almost picture her on the other end, inching
closer to her monitor while she analyzed my story.
“Well?” I
typed after giving her about 20 minutes to read my dream. It probably only took
her 3 minutes to read the entire thing, but I knew she would want time to do
some researching and to collect her thoughts.
“It does
seem like a weird coincidence,” Tiff typed a little slower than usual. “But I
don’t think you should jump to conclusions too soon. Maybe you had some weird
connection with the universe and you’re just experiencing déjà vu. My great
grandma apparently used to dream about things that happened the next day all
the time. And I mean, obviously, these people haven’t been abducted. They’re
all asleep in hospitals. Still, just let me know if you have any more of these
spaceship dreams.”
“I will,” I
replied. Tiff’s IMs of wisdom made me feel a little more relaxed. “You’ll be
the first one to know, for sure. Thanks, Tiff.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Tiff added that last line with a wink before signing off.
I didn’t
think it was funny.
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