The Gated Return

Chapter 2 -The Dream

I'm in my grandmothers backyard playing in the dirt with my Hot Wheels toy cars and felt a slight rumble in the earth. My grandmother opened the sliding glass door and yelled, "Daniel, are you okay?" "Yes!", I replied. She went back inside the house and moments later, the rumble happened again but with more strength but only for a moment. I looked around me with my toy car in my hand, frozen with only the turn of my head. Nothing out of the norm here but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. About ten more minutes passed and the rumble came back with such fierce that I couldn't stay sitting up and things started to fall all over the place. I looked up and saw the ground starting to rise in the corner of the backyard and the rumble wouldn't stop! I panicked and ran to the glass door but grandmother had locked it! I was trapped in this back yard with what ever was rising from the dirt. "Grandmother, open the door!", I cried out. But she didn't hear me. I turn my back to the glass door to face what was to come and soon out rose Satan himself from the earth and climbed out as if he were finally free from captivity and saw me standing in fear. The devil lunged at me and just within inches of getting me, I awoke.

I still miss my dad. Even though, daily, I secretly hope he will one day return, realistically, I don't expect it. But I am always told that if I believe something strong enough, it will happen, so why not try right? Maybe that is how I can overcome these horrible dreams. Besides, were moving soon and I will be in a new school with new friends. A new life! I hear second grade is pretty neat but I am not sure it will change the nightly drama. I can hope right?

We moved to Richardson, Texas which was okay I guess. It was a weird change for me really. So quiet of a neighborhood and really, I had no one to play with in the area. My best friends at home, Lethee and Steven are gone forever. I am again, alone. Mom said, "you should try and stay positive". But its hard when your days are spent alone in your bedroom with no one and nights in terror. Was there anything positive to see? Not for me. John and I don't talk anymore. He said I am the reason Dad left. Maybe that was true, I don't know. Either way, this was a dark time and I had no outlet to rely on. I was on my own and I didn't know how to cope. I tried to make friends at school but most never would talk to me because they said I was a weirdo and fat. Yeah, I was a bit heavy. Food was my only go-to in order to feel somewhat happy again.

I decided it was time to go outside and play in the driveway and proceeded to the garage. I saw a tiny, but very bright, speck floating in the air in front of me as I opened the door. I slowly closed the door behind me because there was not any fear. Instead, I felt a calming and comforting feeling inside drawing me closer to the little floating speck and as I walked towards it, the little speck of light began to move as if it wanted me to follow it somewhere, so I did. It led me to the main garage door which I opened to allow the light to continue. It floated outside in the driveway and towards the alley and shot up into the sky. Confused I stood there for a moment and the rumbling I had once in that dream before started to happen again. But this time, nothing was coming from the ground as I thought it would. Instead everything around me that was man-made, began to crumble in to small and large chunks of debris that began to slowly rise up into the air and away from the earth. I freaked out and ran inside. "Mom! John! Where are ya'll?!" The house began to shake and I could hear the roof tearing apart above. I screamed again, "John! Momma!" but no one answered. I ran back outside and found that much of everything was already gone and was nothing but earth. I turned back and found my home gone too. All I could see now was a faint indention in the ground of what looked to be a road leading me somewhere. What was I to do? Stand there sobbing because the entire world has been turned upside down? I walked for hours and hours down this faint little road until what felt like weeks had passed. Absolutely nothing but green grass, trees, and open air surrounding me in all directions. Until in the distance I saw something, a structure of some sort. I approached closer and closer and made out what appeared to be dominoes stacked on end with one on top and in a circle pattern. But as I approached, I realized this was much larger and were not dominoes at all. They were large pieces of stone with some smaller stones in another U shape in the middle! I saw my family there and finally had some relief of despair. As I tried to give them hugs, they didn't saw a word and pointed at one of the stones in the circle. In a way, I somehow knew they wanted me to sit down at the stone. When I did, I looked at the stone in front of me and there was a plate of food as if it were my last meal. I turned and looked back at my family each at their own stone and found them eating but not saying a word. After we finished eating, we all stood up and one by one, I saw my family walk into a no-wall corridor of flying rocks and stone moving at a high rate of speed in a vertical direction. Almost as if it were an ocean current but with rocks and in open air. This flying rock corridor was intended to end your present life and lead you to the after life. Kind of like a gate to the other side type thing. Very weird if you ask me. And when I was the only one left in the Stonehenge circle, I feared my own death. After all, I'm only seven years old. I didn't want to die no matter how bad the world became. This was the first time I ever overcame my fears and walked into the stones knowing that was the end.

When I awoke that next morning, I had no idea what Stonehenge was or even that it really existed in England. I shook it off thinking it was just another dream testing how I will handle it. You see, this was the only way I could accept the crazy dreams I have. "Its all a test to see how well I can handle the situation is all." But something really weird started to happen to me after this dream. I could hear people talking but couldn't see anyone. It wasn't like, all the time, but at random. And most of the time, I couldn't even understand what was being said it was so faint. Eventually it became stronger where I could understand the words from people and even would sometimes blend into every day activities like in school. "Ms. Attaway, may I use the restroom please" I asked my teacher. She faced the chalkboard and said, "Of course you can, Daniel". So I grabbed the hall pass and proceeded to the bathroom. When I came back, I was surprised to see the principal and teacher talking at the classroom door and both looked at me with a glare as I returned. They stopped me and asked, "Just where were you at, Daniel?" Looking shocked I replied, "In the restroom". And I handed her the hall pass. "You did not have my permission to leave class and I will have to put your name on the board for this." Now I didn't quite understand why I got in trouble and when I asked, she alleges that she never said it was okay for me to go. In fact, she says she never even heard me ask. I shrugged and didn't think about it again and carried on my day.

"Daniel, I need you to climb a tree and jump off!" I looked around and didn't see anyone. "I don't think that sounds safe." I didn't hear any response so I just continued playing on my little PT-100 Casio musical keyboard. "I love this thing but I wonder how it works..." Playing the keyboard was one of my favorite pastimes. It all started the first time I visited my father's father, PaPaw who was also the brother of the famous John Wayne. Anyway, PaPaw had a black lacquer upright piano that I loved to tinker on every time I would visit. I loved the way the piano would sound and I could feel the vibration of the strings in my chest. Of course this little Casio didn't come anywhere near PaPaw's piano, but it was fun in the meantime. "Daniel!" I heard a voice yell out. I went out of my bedroom and looked around finding no one. I went to the kitchen where I heard water running and found mom washing the dishes. "Yes mom?" I asked. She turned and looked at me and said, " I didn't call for you." Realizing I heard something else that wasn't there, I decided to keep it to myself and walked away. I decided to go out the front door and play in the yard for a while. I was playing under a large maple tree we had and would pretend the roots and base of the tree were a construction site with my toy cars. And I heard it again in a females soft whispered voice, "Climb the tree". Curious to what this was all about, I climbed the tree as instructed. I even went out on a long branch to sit perched like a bird for fun and waited for further instruction. It was a little hard keeping my balance on a swaying branch on a windy day, but I still managed. Sitting fifteen feet above the ground, I kind of felt free in a way, but scared of falling too. And then I heard it, "jump off!" And that is exactly what I did. I fell to the ground in what felt like slow motion. I could see the ground getting closer and thoughts racing through my mind as I fell. The sudden stop at the end was expected. But living though this event wasn't...