The Gereziac Chronicles

Chantelle opened her eyes and found herself not looking up at the ceiling of the room in the police station, but instead was greeted by the sight of wide open sky filled with a dark grey haze which as you breathed in the air identified itself immediately as smoke from a fire burning somewhere in the distance.

As she took a further look around her surroundings, Chantelle soon discovered that she was all alone lying on a riverbank. She instinctively checked herself for any evidence of being in the water at any time, but not one part of her clothing was wet.

Then she realized that she shouldn’t be where she was right now, but in the police station with the two officers being questioned.

Where was she? And was she in the midst of another strange dream just like the one she had in the alleyway last night?

Her own questions halted when she heard a rustling noise coming from behind a bush directly to her left and she quickly scurried away to find a place to hide.

Her attempts were futile and soon a male figure appeared in front of her, staggering slowly and showing signs of obvious distress.

He dropped to the ground directly in front of her in exhaustion and lay there motionless for a couple of seconds before stretching his arm out in a hopeless attempt to reach the water, only to fail, after which he rolled over onto his back and looked up blankly at the sky.

It was then that Chantelle instantly recognized the man as the one she had encountered in her last dream, but this time he looked in a lot worse condition than before.

He had cuts all over his body and his skin was completely covered in dried blood. His eyes were beginning to close and his chest began to rise and fall quickly as his body struggled to take in the air.

Chantelle felt useless as she tried in vain to give him first aid, but every time she tried to touch him, just like in her last dream, her hands passed straight through him as if he wasn’t there.

But everything else around her seemed so real – she could hear the water, feel the ground, smell the smoky air, but no person she saw was able to be touched.

She prepared herself for the worst scenario and thought she may be about to witness another death before her very eyes as she watched the poor man struggle to breath valuable air that would keep himself alive.

During the time that she watched on helplessly, she did not realize that someone else had wandered beside the riverbank and joined them.

Chantelle was startled when she saw another man pass her and watched him head straight towards the dying man. He was wearing a long dark cloak with a hood over his head.

For a second, she feared that he may kill him, but when she saw him gently lift the motionless man off the ground and onto his shoulder, all of her fears subsided.

She followed closely as the wounded man was carried for quite a distance through thick woodland along the river until they reached a clearing where a lone wooden house stood and they continued their journey towards it.

The door was unlocked and the man pushed it open with his arm, still carrying the wounded man over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing and continued to walk inside.

Chantelle moved quickly before the door closed in her face.

She watched on as the wounded man was carefully placed on a rug on the floor directly in front of a heavenly welcoming log fire which gave out an incredible heat as its flames burnt which warmed the whole room.

She watched the flames dance above the logs and was almost hypnotized by the sight. The last time she had seen a proper fire burning in a house was when she had been a little girl visiting her grandmother and just remembering that for a second momentarily brought back so many happy memories.

Then, her gaze was broken as the able-bodied man walked between her and the fire to head towards a jug that he had on a heavy oak table which sat majestically next to a large wooden chair.

He poured some water from it into a metal tankard that was also on the table before kneeling down beside the wounded man to lift his head to help him accept the drink he was being offered.

Only a small amount passed his lips, and as more was being forced into his mouth, it began to run down his chin and neck.

The small amount that did get into his mouth got caught inside his throat which made him begin to cough and splutter as he tried to breathe at the same time.

When the coughing ended, Chantelle watched the wounded man’s head being gently placed back onto the soft rug and watched the other man rise to his feet and head out of the room.

As he did so, the wounded man’s body began to show slight signs of life and he began to curl up into a ball in front of the warmth of the log fire.

Chantelle moved towards him and took a closer look at how he was doing. There he lay, just like a helpless child unable to do anything for himself, completely dependent on the kind-heartedness of the man who had the decency to bring him back to his home and nurse him back to good health again.

She looked around the room and immediately picked up on the bareness of it apart from the wooden chair and table, in front of which was the rug that the wounded man was now laying on, and of course the welcoming fireplace.

This made Chantelle wonder what the rest of the house must look like and curiosity started to get the better of her and she quietly began to take steps towards the door the man had just left through, but as she reached it, he was heading back in, carrying a bundle of blankets in his arms.

She stopped in her tracks and watched as the man wrapped one of the blankets around his patient, before folding the others to produce a makeshift pillow to rest his head upon.

As the man lifted the wounded man’s head upon it, his patient began to show signs of distress and had to be held down firmly as his body began to convulse, accompanied by flailing arms and legs in all directions as he tried to fight against the pain.

The man was doing a very good job of holding him down on the rug as the shock and distress began to subside slowly and soon the wounded man began to calm down.

Chantelle ran over immediately to see if all was well and watched the young man’s head turn from side to side as he fought off the final feelings of pain from his body.

She watched as his head gently fell back onto the pillow and the man loosened his grip on him and as he did so, pulled down the hood from his cloak.

Chantelle tried to get a good look at his face, but all she could see was the back of his head – so she moved around the two men to get a closer look and as she did so, looked down at the wounded man who was now looking up blankly at the ceiling above him.

And it was at that very moment that Chantelle discovered that she had seen the wounded man’s eyes before, but not in a dream, not in one of her blackouts, but right in front of her very eyes – and that was less than 24 hours ago.

The wounded man lying before her was none other than the man who had come to her aid and saved her life in the alleyway last night.

How could she ever forget those strangely hypnotic dark blue eyes that had met hers in the alleyway – they were the only features that she could recall about him, but now she could fully see his face before her.

But how could she give a description of him to the police now when she said that she couldn’t remember what he looked like before?

They would most certainly ask her why she had taken so long to describe him to them and Chantelle could picture their faces when she told them that she had seen him again in a vision - they would definitely grow suspicious of her.

But why was she having these visions? What do they all mean?

Chantelle eyes were once again fixed on the wounded man’s, but this time his breathtaking deep blue eyes just stared past her, hardly showing any signs of life.

But who was the man next to him helping him to return to good health?

She moved around the rug once again to get a closer look and as she did so, began to see bright flashes inside her head that made her stop momentarily until they died down a little before moving off again, but as she did, she would feel another one followed by another until her sight became blurry before it slowly faded.

As she tried to cope with what was suddenly happening to her, a feeling ran through her body of being swayed from side to side accompanied by another of someone pulling her arms forward, then dropping them to her side.

Within a few seconds, the two men and the house were no longer in her sights.