1 The Dream Rider (5 page)

I yanked on the weapon, finishing the strike, and took a
few cautious steps backwards. The blade was covered in thick, red liquid. My
eyes moved back to the stranger in the black coat. He was standing with his
back to me, but I could tell he was gripping the wound with both hands. He
staggered forwards a few steps and turned around. A look of disbelief washed
over his now pale face. A gash that spanned from one side of his chest to the
other dripped blood onto the pure white snow.

His eyebrows knit together as he collapsed to his knees.
His head and body began to shake. He looked down at the wound again then back
up at me. “It can’t be. That’s impossible,” he blurted as he toppled over, face
down into the snow.

For a moment, all was silent. I stood there alone in the
darkness and stared for what must have been minutes. I wanted to make sure he
was dead. The small meadow was lit only by the dim glow of the moon behind the
clouds. Giant snowflakes fell on the still body. With confused eyes, I looked
down at the weapon I’d taken from him.
Where had those abilities come from?

Suddenly, a deep rumble came from the ground beneath my
feet and the earth started to tremble. I looked up into the sky and saw a
bright, white light begin to shine through the clouds. The noise got louder,
like thunder rolling through the mountains. The last thing I saw was what
looked like a huge beam of white light coming towards me from above, piercing
through the clouds and consuming me in its radiance.

The rumbling began to subside and the light faded away,
returning me into a pale darkness. I rubbed my eyes, expecting my alarm clock
to go off at any second. I’d killed the bald stranger. Maybe I would finally
get some peaceful sleep for a change.

I felt a slight chill and realized I didn’t have my covers
pulled over me. My bed felt harder than usual and my head wasn’t on a pillow. I
blinked a few times to regain my senses. I sat up in a panic. I wasn’t in my
bed or even in my dorm. I was still in the woods. The sword lay next to me,
though now it was completely clean, the metal glimmered in the faint glow of
the sky.

The snow was gone, and I was sitting in a meadow of soft
grass, surrounded by the forest. I stood up and spun around 360 degrees, trying
to figure out what had happened. I should have woken up, yet there I was, still
in the woods. I looked down at the weapon lying in the grass next to my feet.
Cautiously, I reached down and picked it up, grasping the black handle firmly.
It was an elegant weapon, well designed and crafted with intricate detail. The
knob of the handle was silver with a matching hand guard at the base of the
blade.

I heard a noise beyond the clearing and decided I should
get back to the dorm. I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain the sword to the
resident assistant so I figured I would find a place to hide it outside
somewhere.

I reached the edge of the woods and found a trail I
assumed went back to campus. I started down the path, walking fast since I
thought running with a sword in my hand might not be a good idea. The thought
reminded me of a warning from my childhood about running with scissors. The
path began to slope upwards as I made my way through the thick forest. Up
ahead, I saw another opening in the canopy and patch of sky lit up by
artificial light, which I believed to be the edge of campus. Instead, I found
something deeply troubling.

I stared across a grassy meadow at a massive, futuristic
city like none I had ever seen before. Skyscrapers shot high into the air.
Hundreds of bland looking buildings with similar appearances huddled together
around an occasional taller structure. The largest of them all was in the shape
of a lean pyramid. I’d seen a building like it once before. I think it was in
San Francisco. But this one was taller, more sinister in appearance. Its
surface was black and the red lights at the top of it appeared to serve as more
of a threat than an aerial warning.

A vast smattering of lights emanated from the windows in
the buildings, giving a strange, yellow-white glow to the sky.
The sky.
I
realized as I looked up that the sky wasn’t at all like it should be. High
above the city, two giant moons loomed in the heavens, terrifying and beautiful
all at once. They seemed close enough to touch. As I looked across the dark
parts of space, I couldn’t find any constellations I could recognize. The Big
Dipper, Orion, The Pleiades were all gone, replaced by foreign star groupings
I’d never seen before.

Since I was a child, I had loved to gaze at the starry
skies in the country near my hometown. My high school friends and I would take
weekend camping trips up to the Nantahala wilderness and sleep under the hazy
Milky Way. We stayed at a place near the top of one of the mountains, on a
meadow that had been created long ago by a hermit. It was the only place in the
area where the smoky band of Earth’s mother galaxy could be seen clearly, as
long as there was no moon.

Thoughts of familiar places vanished quickly as my eyes
darted around, trying to figure out why everything was so different. There
wasn’t a place like this anywhere near my school. In fact, I’d never seen a
city like it on Earth. The metropolis looked like something from a bleak,
communistic future. I’d read books and watched movies that featured places like
this.
Brave
New World
came to mind, as did
1984
. But those things happened on Earth.
Clearly, I was somewhere…else.

But where?
My breath involuntarily came in
rushed gasps. Panic started to rise up inside of me.
What was this place?
I could see lights
moving along a street in the distance.
A car.
I had to figure out what was going on. I
noticed a small rock formation off to my left and decided it would be best if I
kept the sword hidden for now. I found a hole in the rocks that was just the
right size and slid the weapon in, all the way to its hilt. I doubted anyone
would ever find it there. Satisfied with the concealment, I headed off towards
the moving lights, just beyond a grassy knoll a few hundred yards away.

I started off at a jog, noticing that my feet felt lighter
than normal. My whole body felt lighter, in fact. I shrugged off the thought as
I approached a fence that surrounded what I now realized was a park. I turned
my head and looked across the expanse. There was a small pond and waterway that
fed into it. Sidewalks encircled the vast grassy area, at one point crossing
the waterway by means of an ornately carved, wooden bridge. It was like an
alien version of New York’s Central Park.

My attention returned to the street as I heard a car
approaching. I found a gate nearby but was disappointed to see it was locked.
The headlights were coming quickly. The whirring sound of the car was like
electric vehicles I’d heard in science fiction films or on a ride at an
amusement park. Desperate, I shook the gate violently. It gave way suddenly as
I pushed forward. The entire metal piece had ripped off its hinges. What
shocked me further was that I was still holding the thing in my hands like it
was made of paper. The metalwork must have weight at least a few hundred
pounds.

I dropped the object and jumped onto the sidewalk, waving
my hands wildly to get the driver’s attention. The car was designed with
sloping angles like a jet fighter on wheels. It reminded me of a four-door bat
mobile, decked in black with one distinct difference: there were police lights
on the top.

The driver stopped the car next to the sidewalk and rolled
down a darkly tinted window. He wore a black uniform and a helmet with a dark
visor pulled down covering most of his face. His black clothing was protected
by armor that looked like plastic.

The vehicle’s interior looked more like a spaceship than a
car. An array of blinking lights and switches filled the dashboard. There were
three clear screens surrounding the cockpit. One had what looked like a map of
the city displayed on it. Another had blinking dots and lists of what I assumed
were people. I noticed something peculiar on one of them, though. My face. It
had to have been taken a few moments ago because it had the stone pillar of the
gate in the background. I’d not noticed a camera but there I was, on the
digital screen of a futuristic police car.

“I’m sorry, Sir. I seem to be lost,” I said to the officer
sheepishly. I hoped he hadn’t noticed how I’d destroyed public property.

He didn’t respond for a few seconds. I couldn’t tell if he
was staring at me through his darkened visor or if he was looking at the screen
nearest the window, the one with my face on it. Red letters suddenly started
blinking next to the image. “Identity unknown.”

“Where did you come from?” he asked in a monotone voice.
It reminded me of a robot in human flesh.

“Just now? I was in the woods. I’m looking for my college.
I think I may have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”
 
For the moment, I needed to figure out exactly where I was.
The reality began to hit me that I was, in all likelihood, still dreaming. It
was the only explanation that made sense.

“The woods?” he asked with a hint of curiosity. He touched
a button on the side of his helmet and appeared to be listening to something.
Then he turned his head back towards me. The screen near the window went clear.
“Get in.”
 
His voice had changed to
a more pleasant tone. “I will take you to our information center. Maybe they
can help you there.”

The back door of the car swung out automatically. I
half-wondered why it wasn’t swinging up like I’d seen cars do in science
fiction movies. There was a moment of apprehension as I looked into the back.
The black seat was clean, perfectly clean, actually. There wasn’t a single
stain or speck of dust in the area. I got in and started to pull the door shut
but it slammed closed by itself. Three seatbelts popped out from the cushions
and latched themselves, snugly pressing me against the seat. Once I was secure,
the vehicle started moving.

I was definitely dreaming. That was it. All the crazy
nightmares I’d had in the previous days had led up to this insane one where I
was on an alien world in the back of a police car. My only question was when I
would wake up.

The city’s buildings whizzed by as the police car sped
along the nearly empty street. It was strange. I only saw a few pedestrians,
each one wearing the same gray clothing. Their outfits almost looked like
scrubs but with buttons on the front of the shirts. It looked like there was a
patch on each one, but it was hard to tell due to the speed of the vehicle. The
only other cars I saw were other police units. I peered through the darkly
tinted window into the distance. Illuminated by the light of the two alien
moons, I saw an enormous dark object that rose up from the ground. It stretched
across the horizon and disappeared behind more buildings and the forest I’d
come from.

“Does that wall surround the entire city?” I asked the
cop, breaking the silence of the drive. He didn’t respond, which I considered
rude but also didn’t surprise me. The man didn’t strike me as the talkative
type.

He steered the car through the maze of streets until I saw
another, smaller wall up ahead with a giant metal gate in the center. As we
approached, the portal began to swing open. Beyond the portal, I could see a
ten-story building designed much like all the other structures. Just beyond it
was the tall building with the pyramid on the
top.
It
seemed to be watching over everything. All of its lights were out save for a
few on the highest floor. To the right, just outside the walls, an arena of
some kind rose up above the top of the barricade. It reminded me of a hockey
arena I’d been to in Nashville, only larger and with an open roof.

The car pulled around to the front of the long, bland
building and crept to a stop. I glanced up and noticed a pair of glass doors.
The officer exited the vehicle and walked around to my side. The seatbelts
didn’t release until he opened the door; then, they quickly withdrew to their
hiding places inside the cushions. A few other cops had shown up and walked
down the concrete steps. They stood waiting with black assault rifles. Their
shapes were different than most weapons I’d seen. The only gun I could recall
that looked anything like them was a P90 I’d seen playing
Call of Duty
.

Suddenly, the two men raised their weapons and aimed them
right at my chest. My eyes grew wide as I realized I was either going to be
shot or arrested. The driver of the vehicle kicked the door closed and spun me
around, shoving me into the side of the car like I’d seen so many times on
those ridiculous cop shows.

“What are you doing?” I yelled, confused and terrified.

He said nothing while clamping a pair of heavy cuffs
around my wrists. The men with the guns kept them aimed on me, wary I might try
to escape. Another four men appeared just outside of the building on the top of
the steps, all with similar weapons.

“What is going on? I haven’t done anything!”
 
A sickening feeling filled my stomach.
I had no idea where I was, some strange city on an alien world. I hoped
desperately I was dreaming. I told myself to wake up, but nothing changed. The
driver pushed me towards the two cops with guns; each one grabbed me by an arm
as I stumbled forward.

My muscles strained against the steely bonds as anger
began to flood my mind. It was a natural reaction. When an animal is caged, it
wants out of the cage. Thoughts of running away flashed through my mind. Where
would I go? I was deep inside a walled city, within a walled fortress on top of
that. I doubted there would be any escape. Despite that knowledge, my wrists
began to push hard, almost with a mind of their own. Surprisingly, I felt the
metal cuffs stretch for a moment, like semi-warm taffy. Then the bonds snapped
suddenly and both arms shot out, hitting the two men and knocking them several
feet away from me.

The officer that had driven me turned around and saw what
I’d done. His mouth gaped open for a brief second. Behind him on the steps, the
other four braced their weapons, bearing them down on me, and probably the officer
between us. That last thought gave me an idea.

Before he could react, I grabbed the driver and spun him
around, grabbing him by the neck. The man looked stronger than me, but I had
the element of surprise. I held him tight as a human shield and backed towards
the car.

“Put your guns down!” I yelled. “Put them down now and
nobody gets hurt!” I tried to recall lines from movies where people had taken
hostages, but it all just sounded ludicrous in my mind.

Unfortunately, my meager offer didn’t seem to appeal to
the men with the guns. Instead, I saw them taking aim with the intent to kill
us both. I guess loyalty to other members of the force wasn’t part of the deal.
They opened fire, sending rounds of ammunition into the body armor of my
prisoner. Some of the bullets caught unprotected flesh sending blood
splattering on the car behind me and on my clothes.