Rise Of The Dreamer (12 page)

In all the chaos and commotion Lucy
raises
up the knife and begins to recite some incantations in an unknown language. After completing the recital, rather than cut Dennis’s throat, she thrusts the knife straight into the right side of his chest aiming for the heart. Blood gushes out generously from his chest and Lucy collects some of it into a golden bowl. She then squeezes his throat in an attempt to choke the life out of him and Dennis quickly loses consciousness.

A weakened Lucas could only look on in horror as Dennis is butchered.

One of the guards signals Lucy that the gun shots are getting closer. Lucy immediately carries the bowl of Dennis’s blood and goes through a back door with the guards and the other high witches on the platform with her leaving Dennis for dead.

Just as Lucy and her witches escape through a back door, SSA Gates and several other law enforcement agents from different agencies storm the assembly hall, apprehending the remainder of the lesser witches. Gates was obviously looking for any sign of Dennis. Eventually, he discovered Dennis’s half dead body on the altar and was terrified, disgusted and distressed at what he had scene. The hole in Dennis’s chest and the lifeless bodies that had been sacrificed was something he had never seen before which caused him to wretch uncontrollably. He calls for the paramedics to have Dennis’s life saved. Dennis was eventually taken by air ambulance to the closest specialist hospital

            Heart surgery was performed on Dennis to save his life. The FBI provided special security to the floor on which Dennis was operated on. The doctors told SSA Gates that it was touch and go for Dennis and that they would let him know if they had any positive news. The operation lasted for sixteen hours. Gates tried to wait for as long as he could, but his body was tired and he had had little rest for the past six days, after five hours of surgery, he decided to go home and have as much rest as possible before resuming with the current investigation.

            During the operation, Dennis had another dream. He found himself in the midst of hundreds of people inside a large indoor open area that looked like a quadrangle. He saw several stores on his right and left with teams of people streaming in and out of the stores. It dawned on Dennis that he was most likely in a very large shopping mall.

            He could see the faces of happy children walking with their parents, couples in love walking hand in hand, and young women addicted to shopping sprees carrying bags of their recent purchases. Everybody seemed happy and extremely delighted. Dennis wondered why,
then
he looked up and saw an electronic banner saying ‘Welcome to the Grand Opening of the Milton Plaza Mall, the biggest in the USA’.
It’s a celebration
, he thought. He imagined that there would be a lot of consumer deals on that first day to encourage purchases by customers. It was quite a grand opening.           

            Then he just remembered that he was in a dream and when he had dreams like this, it was for a reason, something bad was going to happen. He then began to look around for tell-tale signs of anything bad about to happen but he couldn’t spot anything.          

           
If only I could fly so I could see everything that is happening
, he thought to himself. Just as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he began to start flying higher and higher, far above everyone in the mall and he had the vantage point now. None seemed to notice him or the fact that he was flying. As he turned around mid-air, he suddenly spotted someone wearing a black
suit ,
black tie and black sunshades. It was Nero.
What’s he
up to this time around
, thought Dennis. He was moving in the crowd with a determined look on his face and it was obvious he was on a mission.

He was carrying a back pack over his shoulder.
I wonder what’s in there
, thought Dennis. As soon as the thought occurred in his mind his vision was immediately magnified and he was able see through the bag. In the bag was a large bottle without any particular label. In his mind he asked,
What’s
in the bottle?
  Immediately he did that, the contents of the bottle were almost revealed to him, but Nero stopped and looked in his direction and swiftly threw a punch in the air at Dennis who was several feet away. Though Dennis was nowhere near Nero, he felt the punch and it was so painful that he momentarily lost his ability to fly and he crashed to the floor of the mall in the midst of the teaming crowd.

He immediately picked himself up.
I need to fly
, he thought again. He instantly flew into the air again above the crowd. His eyes scanned for Nero, but he was gone and out of sight. He had literally vanished from the crowd. As he kept on looking for Nero, he noticed that various people in the crowd started coughing and gasping for air. Some were vomiting while some of them were having seizures. Many of them had collapsed to the floor with some unconscious and a few were already dead.

It then dawned on Dennis that a chemical or biological attack was taking place in the mall and there was nothing he could about it. Since this was a dream, he knew it was yet to happen. He didn’t know when, but he knew where because he had seen the name of the mall. He looked around at the carnage and death and said to
himself
, “I have to stop this from happening.” The dream ended and he woke up.

 On opening his eyes he couldn’t see clearly. His vision was blurred, but after a while it began to clear up. He was lying down on his back, face upwards to the white light in the ceiling. From the little he could see, the walls in the room were white and he could slightly see some medical equipment close by and a drip running into his veins.
What am I doing here
, he asked himself. Then all his memories came flooding back. He remembered seeing Lucy the witch plunging a serrated knife into his chest aimed for his heart with the sound of gun fire exchange in the background and that was the last thing he remembered.

He rightly assumed that the police or whoever had saved him in the nick of time and he
was
convalescing in a hospital somewhere. He was glad. He also wondered what had happened to Lucas and the others who hadn’t been sacrificed by the coven yet. He also mourned for those who had been killed already. If the law enforcement enforcers had just come twenty minutes earlier they would have still been alive by now. That reminded him, the dream he just had, there was going to be a terrorist attack, a whole lot of people were going to get killed if he didn’t try to do something about it. 

He still felt weak and found it difficult to move his body. He wanted to sit up, but he wasn’t able to. Fortunately for him he was being monitored by CCTV and a nurse came in to see him as soon as she noticed his movements. A few specialist doctors came in shortly after her to check on him.

After the doctors had done their routine checks on him, he was asked by one of them, “Is there anyone you would like us to call or whom you would like to see?”

Dennis only wanted to see one person. “Can you get me Supervisory Special Agent Marcus Gates of the FBI?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem Dr
Riley,
he’s already on his way. He specifically told us to notify him as soon as you come around. He was here when we successfully completed your surgery.”

“Glad to hear it,” replied Dennis.

SSA Gates arrived within an hour with a colleague to ask Dennis a few questions. He knocked on Dennis’s hospital door gently and stepped in with his colleague. Dennis was awake and sitting up.
“Hello Dr Riley.”

Dennis was still a bit weak. “Hello agent.”

“Heard you wanted to see me,” said Gates.

“That’s right,” responded Dennis.

“That’s good, because I want to see you too. I have a lot of questions for you.”

“I promise to answer all your questions,” said Dennis. “But you have to do something for me first.”

SSA Gates and his colleague looked at each other with a questioning expression,
then
Gates looked at Dennis with a cautious look. “You want to make a deal?”

“This isn’t about a deal.”

“Then what is it?”

“There’s going to be a terrorist attack.”

Gates became sharp. “What are you talking about? You’re kidding, right.”  Gates couldn’t believe his ears.

“I’m dead serious. It’s going to be a chemical weapon attack.”

“How do you know this?” asked Gates.

“Does it matter?” asked Dennis. “All that matters is that it’s going to happen.”

“When and where?”

“At a new mall on its grand opening.”

“Do you know the name of the mall?” asked Gates.

Dennis’s memory was a bit fuzzy. He put his right hand on his forehead trying to remember, and then it came back to him partially. “I think it’s called the Mil-something mall.”

“The Milton Plaza mall,” said the agent that came with Gates.

“That’s it,” confirmed Dennis.

“You know the mall?” Gates asked his colleague.

“Yeah, my sister just got a job in a store there,” he answered and he looked very disturbed.

Gates noticed that his colleague was worried. “Don’t worry, we’ll stop this. We’ll halt the grand opening.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late. The grand opening is today,” said his colleague.

Gates didn’t say a thing. He stormed out of the hospital room with his colleague closely behind him. As he rushed through the hospital hallway, he started making calls to Homeland Security and other relevant agencies.

From Dennis’s hospital room he was able to watch the breaking news. It was reported that a terrorist plot to kill several thousand people with cyanide gas was foiled by a team of FBI and Homeland Security agents. The only lives that were lost were that of the terrorists. Five were killed while two were in critical condition in an undisclosed hospital. Dennis wondered if the two remaining terrorists were in the same hospital with him. Well it didn’t matter to him. He was just glad that lives were saved today.

Dennis was still feeling tired. He felt extremely drowsy and decided that he could have bit of sleep time. He gradually drifted off into sleep. While asleep, he had another dream and it was extremely Lucid. He was tied to a stake on an open field of land. He looked around, but didn’t see anybody. Then he saw a black coloured SUV coming towards him from a distance. The SUV stopped several feet away from and out came Nero and five other men in black suits.

“Nero,” said Dennis. He was afraid, but he tried to hide his fear.

“Dr Riley, how nice to see you gain,” said Nero as he smiled wickedly.

“I see you’ve brought friends along.”

“I thought I’d bring them along, the more the merrier,” said Nero.

“What do you want, why am I here, why am I tied up like this?”

“I’m sure you know why we’re all here. Today will be the last time you will meddle in our business.” Immediately, rifles appeared in the five other men’s hands while a sword appeared in Nero’s hand. “I lost a great harvest of souls today because of you. Because of you, my masters are angry with me and I’ve fallen out of favour with them.” As he was saying this, the five men lined up in front of Dennis with their rifles trained on him. “This time, you will not escape from me.”

Joshua, Joshua, where are you. I could do with your help like right now.

“I know what you’re thinking Dr Riley. Joshua and his friends can’t save you. They’re busy. My forces have been dispatched to keep them distracted while I deal with you. Nobody can save you now.”

“Then do what you have to do,” said Dennis.

Nero raised his sword up signalling for his men to aim at Dennis.

Rain, rain, thunderstorm.
Were the thoughts that Dennis created in his mind. Immediately it started to rain heavily with loud thundering.