Chapter 1

The end of another day was drawing to a close. Ray sat on his porch, staring at the night sky. Sighing, he stretched his thick frame and ran a hand through his thick, curly, dark brown hair. Stepping inside, he went to the cupboard to get something for the headache that was starting to pound in his head. All his adult life, they had plagued him, tonight being no exception. Opening the medicine, he read the label. “HA! Just 2? Yeah, right.”

Taking out 5, he downed them without anything to drink. “Oh shit! That was a mistake.”

Rushing to the sink, he grabbed a quick glass of water. Sighing, he knew that this was going to be a bad one. An hour later, he laid down, thoroughly exhausted from the day. As always, Ray said a small prayer, hoping that everyone was well, even those that didn’t like him, and that his luck would take a turn for the better.

Dreams had been an illusion for many years; he found he very rarely remembered dreaming the next morning. It started when he was a teen, after the car wreck the week before his senior year of high school, the headaches started.

They weren’t that bad then, but it seemed each year they got increasingly worse. Now, they were to the point that he had at least one every day; sleep didn’t always alleviate the pain either.

Now 30+ years later, a lot of weird things had happened along the way. For one, though, he rarely remembered dreaming; it was strange, but when he did, the dream actually happened. This had him at times hoping he didn’t have a horrible dream; remembering it would spell disaster. He had started seeing things he knew couldn’t be there. The worst was thinking at times that his desire for something to happen, if strong enough, actually happened. This night, as usual, in his prayer, he hoped that nothing bad was dreamed. Drifting into REM sleep, he felt he was traveling a great distance, passing planets, galaxies, then he was slowing.

“Damn,” Ray thought, “first time ever had a dream like this.” Stopping above a gray planet, he looked at it and was suddenly standing on the surface. The dry, barren landscape reminded Ray of pictures he’d seen of deserts on Earth. A little confused, he felt a hot breeze blow across his face. “What the hell? Never had that happen; I’ve had a lot of funky dreams but nothing like this!” A soft, misty patch of blue came toward him, Are you the creator of the life form before?

“Huh? The life form before?” Ray said.

The mist floated there, not moving. Then again, Ray heard or thought he heard Are you the creator of the life force before? It was then that he realized that he hadn’t ‘heard’ it but it had been inside his head. “Okay,” he thought, “it’s a dream; might as well go along.”

What do you mean, the creator? This is not my true form; that is corporeal, Ray thought. He hoped it ‘heard’ him. It? Looked? at him a moment, then moved closer.

Your thoughts are anything we have seen before, it thought at him.

Ray was getting confused. As it moved closer, he felt warmth from it. “What the hell?”

You are having trouble with my thoughts, thought Ray, what can I do to make them better or clearer for you?

Your thoughts, nnnnnnn, Ray could feel the frustration from it. Strange dream, to be sure.

This is not, as you call it, a dream. AH! We see now. Is the visage that is before us you or from you?

This is what I am seeing in my dream, so ... it’s from me, Ray thought. “Okay, this is getting weirder and weirder.”

There was a pause, then it started back. You have such power; that was why we drew you here. We beseech your help; we and our planet are dying.

Ray felt his head pounding. Then he was seeing around the whole planet; okay, this was new. Passing over countless areas of gray, he began to see a pattern develop. That was odd; it appeared that something deep underground was poisoning the crust of the planet. Reaching out, he surrounded the blue mist with a soft energy. He heard what he thought was a collective sigh. After 15 minutes he thinks, the mist’s color grew darker, many parts separating and circling him; after 30 minutes, they were all circling him.

Thank you; we are much better. Have you seen what is killing everything? The voice in his head asked.

No, not yet, but I can feel something deep under the crust poisoning everything up here, Ray thought. Just for a moment, it seemed that he could tell the difference between the many different pieces of mist that were floating around. Most of the mists backed up when he reached out to find what was causing all the problems. Drawn to whatever it was, Ray seemed to fly through the soil and rock as if they were merely pictures in front of him. He had been at it for a few minutes when he felt something far more alien to him than the mists he’d met before.