Dream Killer: Book One in the Nadia Chronicles

She raised her arms to block the sun’s assaulting rays. Groaning as she stretched her still tired body, she suddenly realized her alarm clock never went off. She was scrambling to consciousness, panicked about being late for work. She jumped up stumbling because her back felt like she had slept on the ground all night. She didn’t wait for her eyes to adjust to the bright morning convinced she was going to get in trouble if she wasted a minute more. She took a few hurried steps toward the door before something caught her foot sending her sprawling painfully onto all fours. Fortunately for Nadia’s body, her left arm took most of the blow. Unfortunately for her left arm, her wrist was now screaming in protest and her hand was warm with blood.

“Holy shit!” she ground her teeth as her eyes instantly filled with tears. She bit her lip to keep from yelling out any more profanity.

She stared blankly at the bleeding wound that was on the palm of her left hand. The cut had black soil smashed into it with leaves and twigs sticking to the blood. The large greenish-orange thorn sticking straight up out of the center of Nadia’s palm caused the most damage. If she had been a bit more awake, she would have found it odd that these outside items were in her room, let alone jammed into the palm of her hand. But she was still too sleepy and automatically assumed it was a dirty clothes pile or a rogue pair of jeans that had made her fall. Nadia turned to find and punish the villainous article of clothing that caused her to sprawl out on the floor. Her mouth fell open automatically when she found a large, reddish brown stone in its place. Her groggy mind finally wrapped itself around the new world she had awoken in. Nadia was not in her comfortable, messy room sleeping next to her high maintenance dog. She was in a wooded area, perhaps a forest or a park. But either way Nadia thought she was in a nightmare.

She could barely see where the sun was in the sky through the thick canopy of the trees. She heard birds chirping nearby and the rustling of the leaves as the wind blew through the area. She could smell the damp dirt all around her and guessed the large rocks were there naturally rather than for looks. Then the sharp pain in her hand took her mind off her surroundings. She focused on the large thorn sticking out of her palm once more.

Nadia looked at her hand and started to feel panic rise in her chest. The blue jeans she had fallen asleep in were sprinkled in blood and she was sweating all over even though it was a brisk morning. She frantically blinked back more tears biting her lip to keep from screaming out. Nadia was gingerly brushing the soil off her hand when something moved in the trees just ahead of her. She glanced up shifting slightly to get a better view, but brushed the thorn in the middle of her hand accidently. Her eyes shot straight back to the palm of her throbbing left hand.

She had all but lost the feeling to her fingers on her left hand. Her head started to reel at the thought of removing the thorn without pain killers or even a sterile environment. She struggled because she knew it was now or never. She gripped around the thorn, with her now bloody right hand, closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth. After a deep breath, she pulled hard. Nadia let out a scream of pain that probably could have been heard for miles around, but she had remove the thorn. She took a good look at the foreign object that had impaled her hand and realized the thorn was almost two inches long. Its tip was broken and Nadia prayed she had successfully pulled out all of the thorn. She brushed the tears from her eyes to get a better look at the deep cut on her left hand. The wound was now bleeding freely and Nadia needed to wrap it with some cloth to stop from bleeding to death. She also wanted to clean the wound since there was still nature all over it.

Thinking about using her own shirt she noticed the mysterious backpack had traveled with her. Nadia knew she had packed quite a few items for moments of clumsiness. Almost giddy she ran toward the bag and stared digging through it unaware of the large cat only yards from her. She glanced up into the misty-blue eyes of a midnight blue panther. His movements were cautious and as non-threatening as a giant killer cat could look. Frozen in place Nadia met his eyes and was surprised to feel comfort not fear. When she looked at him, he swam in and out of focus. She was light headed and she used her blood-stained jeans as a focal point to help steady her wobbly legs. She dropped to her knees looking around confused. She must have imagined the panther because he was gone. She swayed, but just as she thought she was going to hit the ground she felt warmth and fur lower her to the forest floor. “He was really,” she thought. Nadia let out a strangled giggle at the idea that a panther had helped her instead of attacking her, but weirder things had happened to her in her dreams. That is what this must be, she thought before finally succumbing to the pain and loss of blood. A dream.

Nadia woke cold, sweaty, shivering, and all alone. It was dusk. There was an ice-cold breeze chilling her to the bone. She got up slowly trying to remember the events of the night before while she walked, nowhere specifically, just away from where she was. She looked from side to side over and over, but nothing about the scene registered with her. As soon as Nadia looked at her surroundings, she could no longer remember anything about them.

Without warning Nadia had to stop walking. She found herself standing in an unfamiliar room. It was as if the room had suddenly appeared around her rather than she had stumbled upon it. At first the room was dimly lit and Nadia could see no more than shadows and shapes of what may have been in the new place. Suddenly, it was like someone switched on a light. The glow of the room was warm and inviting, but Nadia inexplicably wanted to leave. Nadia looked around trying to understand where she was and why.

There was a large desk was directly across the room and it was the most elaborate desk she had ever seen. It looked like an expensive, well-preserved antique. However, the grandiose desk paled in size and detail when compared to the massive, light baring chair. The chair was made of redwood mahogany. The back of the chair was four feet wide and covered in thick, red velvet. The velvet had scales artistically sew into the cushion that was also pressed into the wood, but stopped before reaching the seven-foot height of the chair. As Nadia’s eyes traveled up the chair they stopped inches from the top, captivated by the fist-sized, cat-like eyes carved with uncanny accuracy and giving off a faint glow.

Nadia was surprised that someone would take the time to wire the chair so the eyes glowed pale orange. With some effort, Nadia pulled her gaze away to examine the rest of the over worked chair. The arms of the chair were as bizarre as the rest. They appeared to be intricately carved arms of a very large lizard with sharpened clawed hands that were much larger than the average man’s. The ominous claws rested on softball-sized, star-light rubies that topped staves completing the front legs. The rest of the chair was carved or painted in careful detail to make it shimmer and pulsate like it was on fire. Just behind the chair were thick velvety, blackened, gray curtains that looked like billowing smoke adding to the effect. The curtains were hanging open two or three inches just enough for Nadia to see a very old and unkempt graveyard. Weeds and grass had covered much of the headstones, so no names or dates could be read from that distance, but she still had to look away from the grave yard. Her heart felt overburdened with grief; the kind of grief one would feel at the loss of a dear friend. She turned her attention to the oversized desk once more.

She was shocked when she noticed the desk did not have legs to support it. Instead it was hovering off the ground at the perfect height to sit behind it. At first glance, the desk was simply an ornate piece of heavy-looking wood that was being held up by some unseen threads or ropes. Nadia noticed a very old and dusty looking chandelier directly above the desk. It was a round four-foot chandelier that looked to be made of iron. To Nadia’s unstudied eyes it looked gothic in design and hundreds of years old. It was also in desperate need of a good cleaning. She moved closer and her mouth dropped open. There were no candles or electric lights, but within each tiny cage there was a single fairy. Most of the fairies were crumpled on the ground of their cage with little to no light illuminating from them. There was one exception. At the bottom of the chandelier there was a beautiful female fairy struggling to free herself from the cage. Every time she struggled, fairy dust fell through the slits in the bottom of her cage hitting the desk and keeping it afloat. The fairy seemed unaware of Nadia as it struggled to free its self.

Once Nadia could react more freely to the scene and get over her initial shock of seeing fairies, her immediate reaction was to let the poor fairies out. No one deserved to be locked up especially something as beautiful and mythical as a fairy, Nadia thought. She noticed there was a tarnished, balanced scale sitting on the edge of the desk. Around the scale were large, black volumes with no writing on the covers or the spines. One of the books was open and propped up on the others facing the chair. There was also a parchment that looked like it was scribbled on in a hurry and left unfinished. To the left of the desk was a book shelf built right into the wall and covering the entire length. The book shelves were covered in ancient, brittle looking books that have been neglected for some time judging by the thick layer of dust. Nadia’s fingers itched with the need to explore the books, but she had to focus on freeing the chandelier’s captors. She sighed turning to the book shelf on the opposite wall. It was free of books, dedicated instead to strange items. Unlike the books, those items were free of dust and looked well cared for or recently used. One item that stood out to Nadia was a mirror that reflected a picture of people enjoying each other’s company on a sunny afternoon. When she turned to look at the picture the mirror must have been reflecting she got quite a shock. The pictures were not of people having a good time. They were of torture and horrible experiments being performed by smiling, curious doctors on screaming, shackled down patients. Nadia shuddered at the minute and pain staking details that was put into the contorted faces of the victims in the painting. As Nadia stared at the picture she heard a low giggle and jumped spinning on the spot. Believing she was hearing things she resumed her search. The mirror shared the shelves with many items Nadia thought she could use to throw at the chandelier. She grabbed a glass orb that was filled with some sort of mist and found that it was surprisingly heavy. She tossed it from hand to hand before gripping it like a softball. Nadia cleared her throat looking up at the still struggling fairy.

“Um, hi,” she said aloud for the first time since she had woken up. Her voice sounded harsh to her own ears. “My name is Nadia and I am going to attempt to get you out of there.” The fairy showed no signs of hearing Nadia. “I need you to be ready to fly, because I am not sure how well this is going to work.” She surveyed the room one more time before she took a step back. She rotated her arm back still gripping the orb like a softball, but stopped mid-throw. She had glanced at the chair and saw with horror that the cat-like eyes blinked. She stammered backward almost dropping the orb when the eyes blinked again. The chair began to speak in a dark, chilling voice. It had no visible mouth so the male sounding voice seemed to come from the entire chair and washed over Nadia like putrid, warm breath.

“Oh child,” it simpered. “Don’t be afraid.” The voice vibrated off Nadia’s chest like too much bass at a rock concert. Nadia tried to ignore the voice and attempted to throw the orb again, but was stopped. “Come here,” it rumbled, dripping with poison. “Sit down and rest. I will protect you and take away your pain.” The chair held the ‘n’ of pain longer than necessary as if to draw out Nadia’s exhaustion.

Nadia was still holding the orb mid-throw and suddenly felt how very uncomfortable she was in her own skin. Her body began to ache again though she had not felt pain the entire time she had been walking. The sudden pain in her left hand and back was so intense she wasn’t sure if she could stay on her feet. No matter how bad she felt or how comfortable the chair looked Nadia had an unexplainable fear telling her not to go to it. She shook her head slowly and it made the room start to spin.

“Why do you fear me child? I only want to make you feel strong again. Forget about freeing the wretched fairy. I can see that you are almost asleep on your feet. You have only a few steps before you could be sleeping comfortably on me. That’s right, come to me.” The chair whispered the final words as if sealing the deal. Nadia slowly and awkwardly walked forward being controlled by some unseen puppet master. She was within two steps of the chair when she realized what was happening.

“No!” she whispered with all the strength she could muster. She was released from the unseen power and crumpled to the ground. The chair flinched as if someone had flicked water into his fiery orange eyes.

“What?” he trailed off as he started to lose his composure. Nadia pushed herself up and turned from him. “Wait child,” he said in a rushed, weak voice. “Come back here and rest.” He was losing his temper and as his voice grew in anger it lost all control over Nadia. She still felt weak and was starting to tremble, but she knew it was from the injury she had received earlier that day and not the controlling voice. Nadia gritted her teeth as she smiled because the pain redoubled in her left hand.

“You can’t control me. This is my dream and I rather die than sit on you!” she said triumphantly as she threw the orb at the chandelier. Nothing happened as time slowed to no more than a crawl. She blinked and everything sped up. First a large bang was heard on the desk. Both the chair and Nadia looked over to see that the scale was no longer balanced. It had fallen hard to one side. Then the chandelier fell from the ceiling crushing the desk and the bookcase, smashing many of the evil looking items. The chair looked disdainfully at Nadia with his fiery design dancing in his fury.

“I offered you a seat, comfort, and safety, yet you denied me? Death will be your

reward.” It grew as it screamed with its lizard arms out stretched to seize Nadia. “You think you can save them? You can’t, Nadia! You will fail like the others. I am your destiny. You cannot win!” He started to scream with manic laughter that she recognized from her ocean dream, “I will win! You will be destroyed.”