Chpt I - A Dream

Thomas ran like hell. He could feel them coming, bearing down on him, getting closer and closer. They stretched out and reached him, their shadowy figures wrapping around his arms and legs, until he could run no more. He thrashed wildly, desperately, but it was to no avail.

Suddenly, Tom relaxed. Was he already too exhausted from the chase to defend himself? The shadow creatures could sense the coming kill, they could practically taste the boy’s flesh as they tore it from his bones. The foremost lunged, just as Tom’s relaxed state left him curled him into the fetal position.

All at once, Tom tensed up, and his eyelids flew open. His normally piercing, dark brown eyes were replaced by two glowing, icy-blue points of light. His pupils were gone; it was if his eyes were radiating pure electricity. The light shone on the lunging shadow creature, and it hesitated for just an instant. In that instant, however, Thomas’s whole body began to glow. A sphere of blinding light surrounded him, and began pushing out. Faster and faster it expanded, engulfing the monsters and tearing them apart with its brilliance as they screeched in agony. Now Tom was screaming, yelling at the top of his lungs. Light and sound all came together, overwhelming Tom’s brain, until all he could hear was the rhythmic screaming of the shadow creatures… except…they didn’t sound like screams…more like a buzz. And why were they so precise? Tom concentrated, tried to focus on the sound…

In Boston, Massachusetts, Thomas Russell sat up, scratched his head, and switched off the alarm by his bed. “Stupid dream,” he muttered, and got up to pee.