Chapter 1

Intro to the Dreamcatcher series

Dreamcatcher chapter 1

Dreyma drifted down the hallway to her room, where the entire area was littered haphazardly with the telltale sparkle of dreamsand. The black and white décor gave the room a bright contrast next to the golden glow. The thick, smoky scent of incise curled around the door, sneaking on silent feet into her room, where it lingered heavily. Her mother was a medium, and constantly burned the scented sticks in her room, to help contact spirits from the other realms, when all it really did was add aura. Her mother had always been one for dramatics.

Tonight Dreyma’s mother was entertaining a young Australian couple, whose daughter had just died in a railroad accident. She had only caught a faint glimpse of the pair, the short, wide woman gibbering as she clung tightly to her husband, who contrasted greatly with his wife, tall and lean. His fair hair was ruffled, a backwards Dodgers cap hanging at a dangerously sharp angle on his long face. It was clear he was in just as much grief as his wife, his lips pursed in such a thin smile that at first Dreyma had thought he had no mouth. In the back of her mind, Dreyma added the Australians to her list of people who needed help with dreamsand. They might even see their daughter again in their soon coming dream.

Dreyma opened her closet carefully, and looked inside. The dark depths, lit up only by the faint glow of dream sand, seemed ominous. It sent chills up her spine to enter, but she had to get her bike. Multiple bronze bird cages hung from the impossibly high ceiling, and the air was filled with the rustle of scales and slime, and forsaken whispers of forgotten enemies as multiple eyes black as night caught the bright light that outlined Dreyma’s slim figure. Empty orbs penetrated into her soul behind bars, knobby skeletal fingers skittering across the floors, the creatures craning their long, fleshy necks to get a better look at her, blinking owlishly from the randomly placed cages. Some put up a fuss, thrashing around in their metal prisons as if the sight of her put them into fits of pure anger. Others hastily unwound their snakelike necks from the bars of the cage and slunk into the shadows, stringy hair swinging over grey skin.

 Dreyma, feeling a little nervous, traced a sign behind her back with her right hand out of habit, then stopped in the middle of the procedure. Shaking her head at her own ridiculous habit, Dreyma drew her hand out and traced what looked like an Egyptian ahnk. The symbol left a barely glowing trail of ice blue. The creatures that had refused to bend down to the threatening will of Dreyma’s appearance scuttled back, hissing in surprise at the sudden appearance of an object from thin air. It had the image of a sword or dagger, but the end was hooked, like a harpoon or flail.  With a flick of her wrist, the shimmering golden blade collapsed into a liquid substance and reformed as a whip. Dreyma, more confident now, marched to the back of her endless closet and extracted a bike from under a pile of loose dreamsand that had been swept into the corners a few battles ago. The vehicle was black and white, triangles creating a modern themed 3-D effect.

A small dispenser jutted out from the seat, like a coin slot you would find on a souvenir penny machine at the aquarium.  Dreyma remained silent as she drew a small pouch of dreamsand out of her hoodie pocket, the ribbons loosely lounging around the neck of the bag tightening under the determined pressure of her fingers she put it in the basket attached to the handles. She hopped on, and cycled straight toward the back wall. Dreyma peddled as fast as she could, puffing for breath as she dashed towards what seemed to be solid brick and plaster. She then seemed to disappear into midair, just before she met certain pain with the solid wall.

Dreyma was outside, somehow, double-tasking as she poured dreamsand into the dispenser. Soon, she was leaving a golden trail behind, as she peddled around the house, before going out to the town borders. That was her nightly chore, outlining the entire town in gold to protect it from the nightmares. Those had been the creatures inside the cages, the ones that she was keeping captive. Right before she left, Dreyma always made sure to outline her house, to be extra sure no nightmares could cross the border. In or out, it didn’t matter. Dreamsand was effective either way, and with all the nightmares imprisoned inside her closet, it was best to make sure, so they wouldn’t spread over the whole town.

She peddled harder, ginger hair whipping behind her as she flew through the silent neighborhood. Dreyma checked her cracked, tarnished steel watch. Twelve o’ clock. Good, this was when the nightmares would start coming out. She screeched to a halt back at home, and hopped off her bike. Her entire town was outlined in a glowing halo of dreamsand, all she had to do now was fight off some of the more serious dream offenders (such as suicidal or family death dreams) that would be able to cross the border despite her best efforts to ‘keep the riffraff out’. These, she kept in her closet, where they would find themselves trapped in the bronze cages hanging from the ceiling.

Dreamcatchers all had their own town to watch over, and used strange  runes to summon their weapons and the like. They were not the most well-known, but definitely were the most important. They kept the world from falling apart. How, do you ask? The world was built on dreams. Look around you. That chair in the corner of the room, it was a dream. The pavement outside, yes, also a dream. The car in which you travel, the fire by which you warm yourself, the clothes you admire, the story you are reading right now. All dreams. All started out ridiculed for such a silly thing, but they are now in a daily part of your life.

Without dreams is without hope, creativity, love, life… sanity. This story is about one slip of the tongue, one mistake. This is about when the world went mad. Once someone loses their dreams, loses sight of their goals… They go mad. All the dreamcatchers leave, all but one. The one who started it all. The one who let her tongue slip… and her name is Dreyma Lisa Brown. It’s up to her to save the world… from itself.

-For my language arts teacher, Mrs. Olmchied. Happy holidays!

Author's Note

whaddya think?

Reviews

[Don't just B, but B ama..]

I'm assuming you are in High school, by the shout out to your Language art's teacher ? I think your story is good, and well written for the likely targeted ages. Just my opinion you may consider changing some repeated words, like "haphazardly" which appears three times on this single page. A cool word for sure yet be careful of overuse. Just my opinion, and trust me I'm nobody, lol. Good work!

[Stormy]

Thank you, its nice to have critiscizim once in a while, tells me where I'm going wrong.