The Forgotten Lands

The Daydreamer

Every once in a while, when he was home alone, Samuel Kade would look out the window of his home and wonder what it would be like to be anywhere but here. Samuel had loving parents but very few friends. Sometimes he felt very alone because of his dwindling social life.
A lot of times he would write stories about far away lands and different creatures and people he would encounter on those make-believe adventures. How great would it be to just be able to disappear into one of those stories and make it his reality? Defending beautiful princesses from fierce dragons, completing impossible tasks for old and wizened wizards, and maybe, just maybe, making a few lifelong friends along the way.
This was one of those days. Samuel gazed out the window of his upstairs bedroom and allowed his mind to drift to these places and times. And once he was there, he seldom wanted to come back. But he knew he would eventually have to come floating back down to the real world eventually.
The daydreamer came back down to earth quicker than he had planned when he heard his parents open the front door and call out to him to come to help put groceries away.
"So what did you do today while we were gone?" his mother asked him while the three of them gathered the perishables and filled their kitchen fridge.
"Nothing really," Sam replied, "Just sat and thought about how I hate this town."
"What's so bad about it?" his mother asked him. Samuel's mother was well aware of his problems with making friends and fitting in, but she rarely brought it up because she felt that doing so might make him feel worse. Though she did try to encourage him to get out more. The only problem was that Sam had seemingly given up hope for a normal social life.
Samuel decided to just not say anything and continue to put the groceries away.

That night, Samuel had a very strange dream. In the dream, he found a grove of trees with something very strange in the middle of it. It looked as though someone had taken a bunch of branches and weaved them together to make a perfect ring. It almost seemed as though it was some kind of doorway to a peculiar, unfinished fort. There were strange sounds all around him that almost sounded like music and small voices calling out to him. But he was unable to make out what was being said.
As he got closer to the strange ring of branches, a feeling of uncertainty slowly but surely enveloped him. The small voices seemed to become more and more excited as he neared the structure, almost as if they were egging him on. Encouraging him to check it out. Almost like their existence counted on what he would do next.
Then, without warning, a dark feeling came over him and Sam felt as though he would never be happy again. For absolutely no reason that he could think of. It felt as if he had lost a great love in his life to see a horrible disaster or something. A great sadness enveloped him. Soon after that, a feeling of great fear came over him. Not like a fear one would experience with something such as spiders, or heights, or any other kind of phobia, but true fear. Fear that only something truly evil could instill in someone. Not simply afraid of death, but almost like he would lose his very soul if he did not overcome whatever had caused the dark feeling.
Just then, he heard a familiar voice that sounded as though it was coming from somewhere far away. It was a woman's voice.
"Wake up!," the voice called out to him, "You need to wake up!"
All of a sudden he felt hands on him, pulling him down into the deep darkness that he had felt before even hearing the voice. The feeling of fear almost choked him to death. Seconds later, Samuel woke to his mother's hands on his shoulders shaking him awake.
"Wake up!" she called out to him. Opening his eyes, he saw that she was very concerned.
"What's going on?" he asked her, still groggy from not getting enough sleep the night before. The dream began to fade from his memory as he regained consciousness and woke up in his bed.
"You must have been having a god-awful nightmare just now," she told him, "You were screaming and crying out so much that I thought you were in serious trouble of some kind. You scared me. What were you dreaming about?"
"I-," he stated, "Well, I can't remember. All I remember is that it was very strange."
"Well," she said as she tries to comfort him, "It's over now. The sun is up, it's a new day, and the first day of the weekend. Your father and I have some things we need to take care of in town and maybe after that, we can all have some actual family time together. Does that sound good?" He nodded his head. "Great!," she said, obviously happy to know that nothing was wrong with her son, "We'll be back in a few hours and maybe we can watch a movie or something like that." And with that, she kissed his forehead and headed downstairs to get ready for the day.
After she was gone, Sam laid back on his bed and stared up at his bedroom ceiling. What had that dream been about? All he could remember was the dark feeling it had given him. He decided that if it was important, it would come to him later. For now, he just wanted to sit there in silence and try to get himself going for the day. Who knows? Maybe something awesome would take place today and change his entire outlook on life? Samuel just scoffed at the thought with a less than sincere grin and laid back down to rest.