CHAPTER 1 from THE CHOSEN ONE

This is an excerpt from my published ebook; here is the link http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K0SH3EI Read and enjoy.

DAY ONE:

FIRST DREAM

IT WAS PITCH BLACK AND HE WAS AFRAID. But it wasn't the blackness that frightened him or the strange feeling called fear—something he'd only felt a few times in his life—that worried him. It was the sensations he felt within the blackness; it was alive and it was studying him.

He couldn't see where he ended and the blackness began, but he knew he was naked and that he was lying in a vertical position. He moved his arms and legs from side to side, testing to see if there was anything in the darkness that might be holding him in place; he felt nothing but empty space. Was he floating in midair? If he was, then what was holding him up? Why wasn't he falling? And where was he?

He felt wind blowing through his hair; a light rain caressed his naked skin. His entire body was alive with the feel of Mother Nature’s touch. This is what it must be like when you're inside your mother's womb, he thought; a sense of being alive without the cognitive ability to understand what was transpiring.

Pearson knew he had to be dreaming, but this was like no dream he'd ever had before. He knew the difference between fear based on dreams and fear based on reality. But this was fear and terror beyond anything he had ever experienced; whether dreaming or awake. He felt a mixture of feelings, frightened but calm at the same time, which confused him. Was it possible to feel emotions from opposite ends of the spectrum at the same time?

He felt himself move slightly—or did he? It hadn't felt as if he had actually moved from the location he was floating in, but he felt something. Had he moved or had the area he was floating in moved? Something was different. He sensed he wasn't in the same place he had been just a few seconds ago. The wind must have jarred me to one side, he thought. His body was sending him mixed messages, giving him the pseudo-feeling that he had moved, yet he sensed he was still in the same place. Confusion flooded his thoughts.

Suddenly, a streak of lightning flashed across the darkness. For a few brief seconds, he saw that he was floating above Earth. But he sensed that it wasn't the earth that he called home. How had he known this? Where did this sense of knowing come from?

Another bolt of lightning lit up the darkness, confirming he was naked and still floating above the pseudo-earth. He estimated he was floating one thousand feet above the ground. Down below were trees, huge, tall trees. The forest looked too thick for anyone to walk through.

Darkness came again.

When the third flash of lightning struck, he was surprised to see a paved road that hadn't been there earlier, meandering through the thick forest. He was more surprised to find he was now floating six hundred feet above the road. How had he moved to this position, dropped this far and this fast without feeling any movement? He was puzzled.

Darkness engulfed him once more, and time seemed to drag on before his environment was once again illuminated by another flash of lightning. Now he was floating one hundred fifty feet above the road.

Darkness consumed the light once again.

Another flash of lightning dispersed the darkness. This time, he could see that there was a van travelling on the road. He was now suspended at sixty feet.

Without warning, rain erupted from above, pelting down on Pearson, soaking and blinding him. The light faded. Darkness and fear engulfed him. The rain, like his fear, increased in its intensity.

A flash of lightning lit up the darkness once more. Pearson was surprised to find that he was floating fifteen feet in the air, directly above the van, and was now following it, still suspended in the air. His skin was drenched from the rain. He wondered what all of this meant. Why was he having such a weird and vivid dream?

Darkness enshrouded his vision once again.

Suddenly, a flash of bright light lit up the sky, blinding Pearson. It was different than the other flashes of lightning. This one was a bright sheet of white light that had completely enveloped him, wrapping itself around his body and rolling him up like a body being rolled up inside a carpet. When he regained his sight, he discovered he was now inside the van. How had he gotten inside?

Pearson felt rainwater dripping off his hair, running down his face and into his eyes and mouth. But this didn’t make sense. You weren't supposed to feel things in a dream, let alone taste them. He could taste the rainwater as it ran into his mouth, and he could hear the heavy rainfall as it pelted off the van.

The van's wipers oscillated at high speed. Visibility through the windows was close to zero. The rain and wind made it difficult to navigate the road, forcing the driver to maintain a two-handed death grip on the wheel.

Pearson slowly moved his eyes to the left. He was afraid to move any other parts of his body. What if the driver wasn’t aware Pearson was in the van? What if Pearson’s movement startled the driver and caused him to swerve and crash? And what if, in the crash, Pearson died while in this dream? Would he awaken in the real world, or would he just never wake up at all?

The driver of the van wore a leather cowboy hat and an oilskin jacket with its collar pulled up, obscuring his face. There was something familiar about the way the driver was dressed. It reminded him of someone, but whom?

The driver turned his head in Pearson’s direction. Frightened, Pearson instinctively went for his gun that should have been tucked under his left armpit, but it wasn't there. He had forgotten he was naked and still dreaming. He stared straight ahead, trying to calm his nervousness. Pearson wasn't sure if the driver was aware of his presence, but nothing was said and no action was taken to alert Pearson to the fact, if he was.

Pearson slowly glanced to his left again. The driver was squinting while looking through the windshield, straining to keep the van on the road. He was having a difficult time maintaining a steady grip on the wheel. Pearson could feel the van swerving left and right, from the gale force winds, as the driver jerked the van back and forth on its course.

Pearson wasn't sure how long he had been experiencing this bizarre dream. He had no means by which to judge the passage of time. He assumed that a dream usually lasted only seconds; although, it sometimes felt like minutes. And since he couldn't leave the dream, he had no other choice but to go along for the ride: figuratively and literally. After all, it was only a dream. What could possibly happen to him?

The rain and wind suddenly stopped. There was no gradual decrease in the weather—it just stopped. Pearson could see a town off in the distance. A sign up the road read: WELCOME TO—

Pearson jumped when the van's horn beeped, causing him to miss the name of the town. He knew the noise had come from within the van, but the driver gave no indication that he had beeped the van's horn. Just past the sign, the paved road turned into cobblestone. He could feel the vibrations coursing through the van. The sun was beginning to rise.

The driver drove the van up a small hill, turned left into a driveway, and parked the vehicle. The driveway, too, was on a slight incline. As the driver exited the van, Pearson felt he should also get out. He stepped out of the van and felt the coolness of the cobblestone against his bare feet. Something wasn't right. Shouldn't the ground be wet from the rain that had poured down on them only a few minutes earlier? But the ground felt cool and dry against his feet. He moved off to one side of the driveway and walked barefoot onto the grass; it too was dry. That was very odd. But odd things have been known to happen in dreams.

Pearson glanced over and saw the driver walking toward the front entrance to a house. He followed, but stopped when the driver suddenly stopped.

"No!" the driver said as he turned in Pearson’s direction. "This is as far as you are allowed to go for now."

Pearson, finally staring into the face of the driver, was surprised at who was looking back at him. “What the…”