Chapter 1

Staring at his screen waiting to write the words that pop in to his head, Mike had a bad problem as of late. He seemed to fall into a melancholy that he could not shake. He knew some thing was on the horizon just out of his reach, though what it was he could not say. Nevertheless, he knew it was coming with every repetition of his heart.

He had decided to sit down and work on a story that he's spent years trying to write, and had only got five pages done so far, that didn't even satisfy his own wants in the story. He was hoping it would center him enough to find out what was going on inside him. It wasn't working. As the days grew into weeks he was a flood of emotions. He was finding himself easily agitated, aggressive, restless and most of all nervous.

He was still plagued by not knowing what was causing these feelings and why. So he decided that diving into a lot of extra work might tire him out enough to at least sleep. Mike was a computer setup and repair expert going to people's houses to service their computers. It was his own business as he didn't like having a boss.

It was on his way to one such call that some of the peaces started to fall into place. While crossing the bridge in his city, he got into an accident with a truck that was speeding. When he woke up it was to the steady beat of the heart monitor beeps. The oddest thing he noticed was the fact he was not in a hospital; in fact he couldn't even see the bed the wires or anything. It was just him in his work clothes in a tunnel. Suddenly all he heard was "beeeeeeep." Then he thought oh my god flat line.

Without warning the idea that he was now dead flowed into his thoughts. He wondered what to do. He felt so helpless. Then he remembered that a lot of people with near death experiences say that there's normally a beckoning to them to travel through the tunnel to meet what ever fate awaited them. But instead, in his tunnel, there was just him and resounding nothingness. After what felt like hours sorting out what had happened, and why to him, and about a few thousand other questions he decided to start walking down the tunnel.

He figured if in fact he were dead what did he have to lose. In a weird way, he almost felt liberated, not so sullen anymore.

So with that thought, he walked through the tunnel. Another thing that stuck out as different about the tunnel was that there was no bright light at the end. Just a luminescence that he would not really call light, just a light source to see by, is how he put it in his mind when he finally reached the end, there was a room.

The room seemed to be an imperfect circle, made of a soft red brick. In the center was a pedestal that seemed to be the source of the dim light. On the pedestal was a book that he thought of as an old tome, like the ones he used to see while playing some computer games. Looking around he approached the pedestal. When he was a few inches away, it got a little brighter.

The book could be seen clearly now, it was bound in gold, silver, platinum, ivory and copper.

On the front cover their where no words giving a title, just a bunch of gems huddled together to form a circle. Mike opened the book and saw that the book was written in a language he had never seen before. None of the symbols made any sense at all. However when he tried to read them it was as if the words floated off the page and directly into his thoughts. The title that he could see in his head was Journal of Mortanium. Looking on he could see the face of some one forming in his head.

The face was an older man probably mid fifties, long beard. He introduced himself as Mortanium. Mike tried to think what he wanted to say instead of speaking it. Mike thought,

"Hello I'm Mike, please tell me what's going on and what happened to me."

Mortanium responded. " You are not the first this has happened to and you will not be the last. Through a combination of your mental gifts and a terrible imbalance that occured during your death, you are neither living nor dead."

Mike said. " Ok this is just a dream right. When I wake up I''ll be in my bed right?"

Mortanium responded. "Sadly no that is not the case. It will take some time to explain the past, and what happened to you and to present what we are doing now and the future and what you must do."

Mike said." Well it doesn't look like I have much choice in the matter so please continue."

Mortanium said. "When the first person reached into where your are now he was a druid of frightening power, but was on the road to harmony with everyone and everything. He sealed his entire knowledge into a book so those future travelers may have a way out and learn of what's happened to them and what to do next.

That was I, the face you see before you now. I take it upon myself to deliver this knowledge to you. So here it is. As I said before your are not dead nor are you living. You are something else the ones who came before you gave a name to those who where like them, Druids. In honor of their teacher who led them from where you are now."

Mortanium paused briefly the said "I shall now tell you of the present. To the world as you knew it your are dead. Everyone you knew believes you to be dead. Technically speaking you where slain while you were driving. Because you posses a small portion of druidic powers you did not travel to the spiritual realm as others do. You came here.

Generally, even those that possess druidic powers don't travel to this realm either. It is a cosmic misfire so to speak that brings almost no one here."

Mike asked. "How many people have been brought here?"

Mortanuim said. "There have been less than ten thousand travelers since the beginning of my knowledge."