My forward momentum had almost ended and I saw that if I hadn’t braked, I’d have been out of the car’s path now. As those items were registering in my brain, so were a number of other things: A deer was frozen in its place by the sudden onslaught of noise, a pair of doves were scared into flight, and a squirrel down the road stood up on its hind legs to see what all the ruckus was about.
As my mind collected all of this data in those few minute-long seconds, I realized the amount of noise was inappropriate for the tires on my bike to be causing. Almost as an afterthought, the answer came to me: A truck behind me was nearly standing on its nose as the driver slammed his foot and brake pedal to the floor, causing the tires to scream their protest out to the pavement. Added to that noise, was that caused by the Camaro’s tires as they left the ice and were crying out their own misery at traveling in a direction they were never meant to travel
The next moment, the right front fender of the Camaro smashed into the front end of my bike, bringing me to a bone-jarring stop and immediately altering my direction of travel. In that instant, my eyes and mind registered several things moving in the slowest of slow motions. Sort of like a motion picture moving by one frame per second. The eyes of the girl in the car locked with mine, and, in those eyes I read the terror and sadness at what was happening. The front tire on my bike instantly blew apart, while the front end began folding in upon itself. My left leg smacked against the car, while my right leg and hip hung up on the handlebars which threw me back down onto the seat. My left hand cracked against the windshield right in front of the girl, causing her to blink tears out of her eyes. Throughout all of this, I knew that my left leg had broken in two places, my right hipbone cracked loudly as it broke and my left hand broke in several places. Surprisingly, though, I felt no pain from any of these injuries, which made me begin to wonder if all of this was only a terrible dream. But no dream I’d ever had was this vivid or intricate.
I’d like to believe that it was hitting me which slowed down the car enough to keep it from following me over the side of the mountain, but it was probably the railing. The car pushed my bike, with me still on it, backwards to the edge of the road and the protective railing. When my bike hit the railing, it stopped, catapulting me over the side and into the air. As I tumbled, I could see the ground, then my bike hung up on the railing, then the empty sky and then the ground came around again, followed by a tree that was flying toward me at a crazy angle. Just as the bike and railing came into view again, a terrible weight crashed into my right side under my arm and then something clubbed me along the right side of my head. At that moment, everything disappeared… The day turned into the darkness of dreamless sleep.
THREE
Questions were being asked of me and a light flashed in my eyes. I didn’t like the light or the questions, so I shook my head. Big mistake! Immediately, I regretted that movement as pain began to explode through my head, neck and shoulders. Flashes of pain and fire caused my eyes to shut tight. Only that caused more pain and then I was visited by the darkness again.
When I next became aware of things, I heard a soft, insistent, feminine voice in my head. It was a pleasant voice filled with musical tones and harmonics that were hard to place. And there was an odor that I couldn’t place any more than I could place the voice. It was a pleasant, almost sweet odor similar to apple blossoms with a faint taste of cinnamon behind it. But I don’t think I was actually smelling them. The odor was just there… in my head.
“Awaken Chalder. Ye must awaken. Ye be needed very much!”
I questioned the voice dreamily: “Who’s Chalder? And what am I needed for?” The voice immediately came back to me.
“Ye be Chalder! Remember, oh please remember, Chalder! Ye must remember. Ye be th’ way. Two hands will open th’ door. Ye’re hands, Chalder. Daystryker awaits ye.”
Again, dreamily, I responded. “Yes. I remember. My hands will open the door. My hands. Daystryker awaits my hands. I am Chalder!”
“Yes, yes! Ye be Chalder!” The voice was excited now. “Ye’rehandsopenth’door. Daystrykerdoesawaitye.”
A face then became visible from deep in the darkness. A feminine face, coming closer to me until it was right in front of my dream eyes. Her face was angelic, with wide, violet-shaded eyes set in an oval face of alabaster skin. Her hair floated like a nimbus around her head, filaments spun from gold casting an aura of misty colors that circled her, cutting off sight of everything below the neck and beyond. Even the surrounding darkness seemed to disappear. Her face seemed to hover in front of me with nothing to support it. Turning my head to the left and then the right, I hoped to get some kind of idea as to where I was. But her face moved with my eyes, always before me in the center of my vision. My neck muscles told me that my head was turning, while my eyes were saying differently. I glanced down to see just what kind of surface I was standing upon: Ground, floor, stage, space… I don’t know what, but my body position, I knew, was one of standing. Once again, however, her face still moved with my eyes so I could see nothing but her face! I was aware that by now I should be afraid of something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what. Meanwhile, she had continued talking and I found myself paying more attention to her.
“Ye must relearn things, Chalder, ‘tis of great import. For ’twixt ye re skill at this and ye re art with Daystryker, ye’re life and th’ lives of others shalt be preserved.”
An intense, urgent look came into her eyes as they locked on mine. The urgency took up residence in her voice as well.
“Nou, repeat all of which I tell ye. And try, Chalder, try hard.”
As she continued to explain what I was to do, images began to form in my head. I could see the delicate lines that traced a door in the air. Though the lines were invisible, I could still see them. I learned that the door being traced in my mind was a portal through which I would be able to move between dimensions. A doorway between the world I was a part of and the world I desired to be a part of.
“One thing further I must warn ye of, Chalder. There be dire peril ’twixt one world and the other. Ye must continue moving forward once ye enter th’ portal. Madness and pain await any who should falter. Th’ terrors entering a mind that bides too long twixt what was and what ’twill be, shalt drive a hale mind to be consumed by the chaos. Even a closed eye is of nae use. Ye must keep moving!”