Chapter 1: Jess

Darkness is everywhere. I blink, and then open, and the outside seems so much darker than my closed eyes. Little light exists; the awakened upstairs bedroom of a distant ranch house and the full sky of stars is the only light guiding me. The wetness of the ground is dampening the thin, worn fabric of my shoes and the bottoms of my jeans. The cold breeze sends chills down my spine as I’m walking. Everything is still, and quiet. Yet, something almost feels wrong. This feeling begins to deeply worry me. A whistle of wind signals me to ‘keep moving forward, quit getting so distracted.’ Unsure where exactly I’m headed, I just let my mind do the traveling. Time seems to fly, and in what felt like mere moments, I was not too far from what was once the distance ranch house. For a while, all that could be heard was the wind flowing over the lake water and thousands of singing crickets. Suddenly, a faint shatter of glass interrupts the peace. Do I approach the house? Or just run the other way? I remain still, now knowing that someone, or something, is in that giant house, something very much unwelcome. I wait, and wait, and wait. Wait for what, though? Anything, I suppose. The front door swings open, and the dimmed light from the inside reveals a small, short figure in the doorway. More glass shatters, and the figure breaks into full sprint. Within seconds, though, a second person comes out after the first. The first one screams, which tells me she is a girl. She is caught up with by the second, large figure within short seconds. Judging by the size, I assume figure two is an older man. He pushes the young girl to the ground, and I hear sobs, and pleads, from the girl. “Please, please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything!” the girl screamed. “Quiet, girl. It’s too late. Now just take your punishment like a good child...” he yelled as he hit her square in the face. I gasped, and moved closer to the scene. When the man knew for sure she wasn’t going to move, he moved closer, almost standing directly over her. I saw him reach for his belt and heard the movement of medal. The worst is assumed and I walk quicker toward the people. He drops his jeans, and moves closer to the ground. He pulls her hair, forcing her to rise high enough so she could reach him. This was enough. I began to run toward the man, intending to put him to a stop. In less than a second, he had put his hand in his jacket pocket, pulled out a small hand gun, I’m guessing a pistol, and pointed it straight at my face. I stop dead in my tracks. He then had a somewhat evil grin on his face. I looked down at the girl; she looked like she was 15, maybe 16, but I couldn’t see any of her detailed features. She couldn’t be identified. I looked back at the man slowly, my whole body shaking with shear anger and fear, and then, the trigger was pulled. I was stunned. I was in agony; my left side was in so much pain, that it eventually went completely numb, vision went burry, and with one last look at the girl, I fell to the ground, and met the darkness. Fading voices, my body freezing, and then nothing could be seen or heard. I had become nothing. I was gone.

My eyes flashed open, my body covered in sweat and tears were drenching my face. I was cold, yet burning up at the same time, and felt almost as though I was going to be physically sick. It took a few minutes to catch my breath and calm down a bit. When I did, I leaned over to the other side of my bed, grabbed my black and white composition notebook and a pen off the nightstand and began to write. “2:34AM. 12/19/09. Woke up sweaty, cold, hot, nearly sick. Trouble breathing. Dream took place at night at a ranch. 2 people: one young girl, one older man. Man was angry, girl was frightened. Walked toward sight, man was hurting girl, (no specification), man shot me. Darkness. End.” I closed the book and put it back on the table. For a while, I just laid there. My thoughts were racing. I wondered how many times I had actually had that dream. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to go to my counselor, and he’s supposed to read my dream journal again. What is he going to say when he reads the same dream recorded over and over? And what could it mean? Is the dream going to happen, and do I know the people?

"I think too much. My name is Jess Freeman. I have a problem. Says everyone. Including my counselor. Dr. Holloway makes me keep a journal. Then every week, I take it to him, he reads it, and we discuss. For the past 3 or 4 months, though, our discussions have been the same. I've had the same dream every night for that long. This interests Dr. Holloway. He says things like "you're an interesting kid, Jess..." "I've never seen anything like this.." "Who are the characters?" He asks a lot of questions. Sometimes he asks about my friends, or my one best friend, Riley Spencer, or my siblings and family, but usually about my journal. I have two different journals; a personal one, which is what I'm writing to you in now, and my dream journal for my counselor. I love to write. Anyway, I'm 17, and own my dream car. It's a silver jeep. I also have a ranch, well, my family owns a ranch. I go there every weekend. My dad pays me to take care of the animals and care for the house and land and everything. Not much, but enough to where I don't need a real job. I'm falling back asleep." I put my journal back on the night stand and fell asleep without another thought.

It was cold, a really dry cold. No humidity, no nothing. And it was dark. I was walking down the street and for some reason, turned and entered a house. I wasn’t sure why, or who lived there, all I knew was that I was going into the house. All the lights were out, and no one seemed to be home. So why was I here? It seemed like no one was ever home. The house looked as though it wasn’t used often. The doorknob began to move, so I ran up the stairs. The upstairs had a hallway that led to two rooms at the end next to two separate bathrooms. One set to the left, and one to the right. Someone entered the house, and there was movement in the left room. I walked over and entered. The room was dark, but neat. Nothing was out of place, the desk was organized, the bed was made, and it was perfect. The closet door was partially open. I could hear heavy breathing. The door flew open so fast and unexpected it made me jump. “Where are you?!” The man yelled. The voice was familiar. The smell of alcohol hit me like a thousand knives. This man was drunk, and dangerous. He went straight for the closet and nearly tore the doors off. The girl seemed to know what was coming, because she closed her eyes and braced herself. The tall man grabbed her hair and forced her to stand. This also looked familiar. Once she had stood, he threw her the ground, and then kicked her when she was down. He continued to kick her. Her eyes were swelling, nose bleeding, and she had a new cut on her forehead. She was in tears, and couldn’t breathe right. He was laughing, but yelling at her at the same time. “This is all your fault… We’d be happy if it weren’t for you...” Things like that that just made the entire situation worse. Before it was over, the scene faded to black. I heard a faint vibration…

My eyes shot open again. I was confused. Two dreams, two of the same people, same actions, and different locations? This never happened, and I had never seen this before. I still pulled out my book and pen again and began to write. “Woke up again. 4:52AM. 10/19/09. Sick, sweaty, pounding headache. First of this dream. Same people, but at a different house. Man was drunk, can to girl’s room, and began to hurt her. Fade to black.” There goes the vibration again. I looked around, and saw my phone was violently buzzing. Throwing the book down, I took the phone and slid it open.
“Hello?”