1 The Dream Rider (4 page)

The rest of the day was fairly typical: a few afternoon
classes then head back to my room to study. One of my college professors told
us that he expected us to study two hours for every hour we spent in his class.
If we were supposed to do that with every class, we’d never see the light of
day. And while I didn’t quite achieve his lofty goal, I did spend a lot of time
going over notes and scanning through textbooks. After a few hours of pounding
out coursework, I turned on the little television in the corner of my room. My
brain needed a break from studying.

I glanced over at the clock on my nightstand. 9:30
.
It
was still pretty early, but the last few hours had gone
by quickly. People say time flies when you’re having fun. Studying wasn’t what
I would call fun, but it definitely helped the minutes and hours pass quickly.

I decided to limit my television time to thirty minutes
before diving into my U.S. History book. My professor had promised a quiz the
next day, so I would need to at least skim though the chapters he’d covered.

After thirty minutes of watching my favorite Thursday
night comedy, I turned off the small flat-screen and went back to my
workstation by the window. It was only ten 0’clock, but I was already getting
tired. My eyes scanned through paragraphs about Andrew Jackson and his
policies. I turned through the pages slowly, becoming groggier as the content
became more and more about legislative actions. Those parts of history were
always so boring to me. I didn’t mind studying about the wars or the people who
waged them. But when it came to government policy, I just wasn’t into it.

Fortunately, the next chapter changed the subject to
Andrew Jackson’s affinity for dueling and his strange ability to survive
unlikely life threatening scenarios. The man seemed to constantly be involved
in some kind of violence, either as the instigator or the target. He’d been shot,
stabbed, and faced death more times than should have been humanly possible. The
most intriguing instance was when he found himself face to face with a gunman.
The would-be assassin pulled the trigger of the gun but nothing happened. Then,
the man whipped out another weapon and tried to fire it. Again nothing. In a
rage of indignation, Jackson proceeded to beat the man senseless.

I rubbed my face to get the blood circulating again. I
blinked a few times, looking at my computer screen in frustration. The screen
had gone black, like it had done the other day when someone had hacked it. This
time, a different sentence was spelled out in the top corner.

“Go outside, Finn.”

I looked around my dorm room, not entirely sure what I was
expecting to find. My mind raced. The wildest possibility was that someone had
installed a webcam in my room without my knowing. A quick check in all the
obvious hiding spaces revealed nothing of the sort. I stood by the window and
peered out into the courtyard in front of the dorm. It was empty, lit only by a
few pale streetlights that glowed in the darkness. A flurry of snowflakes
drifted through the night air.

I leaned over my computer screen and pressed the esc
button. Nothing happened for a second. Then another word appeared on the
screen.

“Go.”

It had to be another dream. I must have fallen asleep
watching television. If I knew it was in a dream, I could wake myself up.

“Wake up, Finn,” I told myself out loud. “Wake up.”
 
But I was still there, in my room, with
a possessed computer.

I glanced back at the computer screen again. The words
were still there. If it were just a dream, what would I have to be afraid of?
Processing it that way steeled my resolve.
Okay,
I thought,
it’s just a dream.
Reassured, I walked
over to the door and out into the hall.

A few minutes later, I stood outside in front of the dorm.
The air was freezing, way colder than I ever remembered it being that early in
the year. The snowflakes had become larger and were falling all around me. They
settled on my head and shoulders for a minute before my body heat caused them
to melt away, only to be replaced by new flakes almost immediately.

I spun around, inspecting the courtyard of skeletal oak
trees and holly bushes, but saw nothing.

“I’m here!” I yelled out. My voice echoed through the
quad, across to the girl’s dormitory and back. “What do you want with me?”
 

Then I heard a deep, wicked laugh resonating from behind
one of the large trees nearby. I turned quickly and saw the bald man with the
black coat stepping around from behind the trunk.

My eyes narrowed. I was getting tired of this guy. “What
do you want?” I demanded.

He took a slow step towards me, then another. He spoke
quietly as he moved, his voice raspy and sinister. “I told you before, Finn. I want
you to die.”

“Why?” I asked. I stood my ground, trying my best not to
show any fear. “I don’t know you. What did I do to you?”

He paused for a moment, as if considering the question.
Then he started walking again. “You haven’t done anything, Finn. And that’s why
I’m here. To make sure it stays that way.”

I shook my head. The man was only ten feet away from me
now. “What’s that supposed to mean? This is just a dream, you freak!” I
screamed the second part at him. “You can kill me here all you want. I’m still
going to wake up tomorrow, go to class, and do live my life.”

The sinister laugh returned. The man stopped and leaned
back as the laughter boomed from his mouth. After a few moments, he said, “Is
that what you think this is about? You think we care what happens on this
world?”
 
He shook his head
derisively. “To think they put their faith in you. Pathetic.”

I looked at him curiously. “What did you mean when you
said
we
?”
 
I wanted to know who
they
were
too, but I got the feeling the guy wasn’t too fond of whoever
they
might
be.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” he answered.
“Tonight, you’re going to die. And this time, you’re going to stay dead.”

He pulled back his coat, revealing a sword dangling at his
side. It looked like something I’d seen in movies with Samurai warriors. When
he pulled the shiny blade from its sheath it made a high-pitched ting. If it
hadn’t been in the hands of a psychopath, I would have admired the
craftsmanship of the katana sword.

“Look,” I said. “We both know I’m dreaming. You’re going
to kill me. I’ll wake up. And all of this will be a big waste of time. Why
don’t you just leave me alone and skip all the trouble?”

In my mind, the logic made sense. It apparently did not to
the man with the sword. He lunged at me with the tip of the weapon. I turned
quickly sideways, narrowly missing the sharp point. No sooner had he missed, he
recovered and swiped the blade towards my chest. I dropped to my knees and
leaned backwards, watching the sword slice through the air just inches above my
nose, making a slight whoosh as it passed.

I pushed myself up and dove forward, rolling up into a
standing position. I whirled around to face the man again. He turned his head
in my direction, a confused expression on his face. He probably expected to hit
me with one swing. “Stand still you little maggot. It will all be over soon.”

He charged at me again, chopping his weapon as he came. I
moved out of the way, but not quickly enough. This time, he altered his attack
and flicked the sword with his wrist as I dodged the initial blow. The tip of
the blade tore through my shoulder. Then, the blood started oozing from the
wound, down my shirt. That was followed closely by stinging pain that seared
through the nerves in my neck. I stepped backwards and examined the cut,
pressing my hand into the thin opening. It wasn’t too deep. But the pain was
excruciating.

The bald stranger wasted no time, lunging at me again with
the blade over his head. I jumped out of the way, and decided it might be a
good idea to run now.

I took off towards the main street that ran through
campus, away from the dorms and administration building. Fluffy snowflakes were
falling all around, being blown by a cold wind. My eyes welled up with tears
from the biting air, but I kept running. They hadn’t begun to settle on the
ground yet, so I still had my footing so, I cut sharply at the street and
headed towards a wooded area on the other side of campus. I looked back and saw
the man jogging in my direction, but I was moving fast, faster than I ever
remembered being able to run before. He was losing ground so I pumped my legs
even harder.

The icy air burned my throat and lungs as I reached the
edge of the forest and I stopped to risk another glance back, this time seeing
no trace of my attacker. I’d lost him, but I kept running. I didn’t want to
chance him catching up. I wove my way through the naked trees of the forest and
tripped over a root, nearly planting my shoulder into the trunk of a pine tree.
I caught myself with my hands, though, and pushed forward. The muscles in my
legs were beginning to burn, causing my pace to slow a little.

I stopped for a moment and leaned up against a tree to
catch my breath. My chest was heaving as I sucked in huge gasps of frigid
oxygen. It had gotten colder, as was evidenced by the thin layer of snow
beginning to accumulate on the forest floor. I tried to breathe quietly, but my
lungs were doing their own thing, demanding more and more air.

Something rustled on the ground nearby. I turned expecting
to see the giant man moving in my direction, but instead I saw a squirrel
bounding around in the snow and dried leaves. I sighed, grateful for the respite.
My temporary relief was interrupted by a familiar sound of a sword cutting
through the air. I instinctively dropped and rolled as the shiny edge sliced
into the tree where I’d been standing only a second before.

I pushed myself up and staggered a few hundred feet until
I reached a small clearing. The eerie glow of the moon momentarily burst
through the clouds, illuminating the snow as it fell peacefully around me, a
stark contrast to the struggle that raged between the relentless stranger and
myself. I looked up from the snow only to find the man standing over me.
How did he move
so fast?
I hadn’t seen nor heard him, yet there he was in front of me,
holding the sword above my head.

“You won’t wake up when I take your head, boy,” he smirked
and raised the weapon high for the killing blow. “You’re nothing special after
all.”

His comment struck my ego hard and sent a surge of rage
through my chest. Something I had never really felt before swelled inside me. I
was tired of running. Tired of being bullied by this man. And I was tired of
being ordinary in everything I did. I looked up at the man as he chopped the
blade down at my neck. In a split second, I pushed hard off the earth and
launched at him with my shoulder, catching him right in the gut.

The two of us flew through the air, crashing to the ground
thirty feet away. The jolt of the landing jostled the weapon from the man’s
hands; I quickly scooped it up and stepped back. I glanced back at the distance
we’d flown. We were on the other side of the clearing. My eyebrows lowered as I
wondered how that was possible.

The man was equally as confused, but he picked himself up
quickly and assumed a threatening stance as I held out the tip of the sword in
his direction. I had no idea what I was doing with it, but I didn’t want him to
know that. I flashed it menacingly, amazed at how light and balanced it felt.

“Leave me alone,” I said steadily, flicking the blade at
him. The move did little to startle him. Instead, he offered me a cynical grin,
almost as if he welcomed the challenge.

“You don’t know how to use that, boy. Why don’t you just
give it back to me and let me end this for you?”

I took another step backwards. Snowflakes came to rest on
the flat of the weapon as I moved away. I shook my head slowly. “Why don’t you
come take it from me?”
 
What was I doing?
Where did that come from?
A little voice in my head told me I should run.
But the strange feeling continued to grow inside of me like a rush of powerful
energy. My fears were being replaced by something else. It wasn’t anger,
necessarily. It was a combination of things:
 
fear, adrenaline, being fed up. All I knew was that I wasn’t
going to run anymore.

He lurched at me with a huge hand, trying to grab the
blade, but I jumped into the air and swung a foot sideways, landing the laces
of my shoe squarely on his jaw. The shot to his face sent him stumbling
backwards as I landed, crouching sideways.
How did I do that?
I’d never taken any martial
arts before. Yet I had just jumped at least four feet off the ground and landed
a roundhouse kick to the face of the villain.

The man wiped away a thin trickle of blood that oozed from
his lip and held up his fists in a defensive position. “You’re going to pay for
that one, boy.”
 

He came at me again, more aggressively this time. His
powerful legs pushed off and he jumped through the air, covering the entire
distance between us. The black coat he wore flapped dramatically behind him,
like a cape, as he zoomed towards me. I stood my ground, still crouching as he
approached. One of his legs extended out, intending to return the blow I’d just
delivered. At the last second, I stepped to the side and swung the edge of the
sword through the air at the man’s chest. His eyes filled with terror as he
realized he’d overcommitted with his attack. I felt the blade sink deep into
his flesh then I lunged forward and pulled on the handle, sending the steel
deeper.