Dreams of Otherworld: Book 1 of the Otherworld Trilogy (Free Sample)

1

Blue

A noise crashed through my murky dream, something like the sound of a far-off thunderstorm or a thick branch snapping in half, and my eyes flew open. My entire body jerked, reacting to that instinctive, sudden feeling of falling, and I sat up. The dream melted away instantly and I felt a quick flash of regret, though I couldn't even remember what I had been dreaming about. My mind was swirling and it felt like my brain had been put through a blender. I rubbed a hand against my forehead, squeezing my eyes shut as if I could ward off the headache. No such luck. My temples throbbed in time to my frantic heartbeat, and the lingering feeling of dread made it difficult to open my eyes and look around. I kept still for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the scant light and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I had to wipe my palms, slick with cold sweat, on the legs of my pants.

I stopped where I stood, staring. I didn't recognize anything around me, and that realization made my blood run cold. My insides clenched in an icy knot. I was in a small, square room, old and worn, with a scratched hardwood floor and dirty off-white walls. It was simply and generically furnished, with only a queen-sized bed dressed in moth-eaten covers, a night table topped with a hearty layer of dust, and a broken and empty TV stand. Dust floated through the air. Across from the bed was a blank door, and on the adjacent wall was a second one.

I stayed frozen for a long moment, my body refusing to move even though I desperately wanted to, and my thoughts scrambled themselves further. Finally, I stepped forward, ever so slowly, and with a trembling hand pulled open the door directly across from the bed.

It led to a bathroom: a tiled floor, a sink, a bathtub, and a toilet, all white turned gray with dirt. A pale blue shower curtain had been halfway pulled down, the bottom crusted with something brownish that I didn't want to identify. Nothing happened when I flipped the light switch. I turned the spotted silver faucet experimentally with the same results.

I left the door open, swaying faintly back and forth as if a ghost was hanging on it, and returned to the small bedroom. The closet, nothing more than a small, open alcove with a wooden bar across it, was empty. No personal belongings were left on the nightstand or the bathroom counter. Even the bedding was impersonal, off-white and plain with only a single flat pillow. This wasn't any place that belonged to me.

Which made it all the more terrifying that I didn't know where I was or how I'd gotten here. I shuddered and dropped down onto the bed again, racking my brain. As I sat something crunched and I bolted up, staring down at the crumpled covers for a moment before flinging them aside. A rolled piece of paper, now flattened and bent along the edges, was buried there. It had probably been left beside me and displaced sometime during the night. I lifted it cautiously, turning it over in my hands. It was about a foot long, a rolled-up tube held together with a rubber band, and had a second, smaller piece of paper folded and tucked in with it. I pulled this one out first and read it, eyebrows knitting together at the words scrawled across it in thick black ink.

Blue,

This should help. Best of luck.

Nothing more. Just seven words, and not even a signature to tell who it was from. It was regular, insignificant lined notebook paper, ragged along two ends where it had been ripped from a notebook and torn in half, and the message made little sense. It could have been from me or for me for all I knew, but Blue?

I supposed it could have been a name, albeit an odd one. I'd heard odder. Though, come to think of it, I couldn't remember any. I imagined that I had. I could think of odder names, but when my thoughts travelled backwards into memories a black wall slammed down on them to cut them off. There was nothing beyond that, at least not that I could get to, and that set my heart racing again, my breath coming in short, panicked gasps. If I didn't know where I was, and I couldn't remember anything, what had happened to me? That only added up to something horrible.

I worked to uncurl my fingers from the covers and steady my breathing, trying to come up with a logical plan. I reread the note yet again, whispering the words to myself. The more I looked at it the more that name—Blue—pulled at something in my mind, bringing on some semblance of déjà vu.

"Okay, Blue," I murmured, and jumped at the sound of my own voice. It was startlingly loud, even speaking quietly, and foreign, which was endlessly unsettling.

I had to figure out what was going on. I dropped the note beside me on the bed and studied the other paper for a moment before unrolling it, holding it out in front of me. I had hoped that it would clarify something, judging by the note it'd come with, but it made even less sense. It looked like some abstract drawing, crisp black shapes on solid white, all lines and squares and triangles in no discernible pattern. It seemed random. The only part that was even partially helpful was a little scribble in the corner, three letters that made up what I thought was a signature. S-A-M—initials, probably, or perhaps just a first name. Short for Samuel? Samantha?

Either way, it was getting me nowhere. I dropped the paper and headed for the door I had yet to try, heart in my throat. I expected it to be locked, though I couldn't say why, and braced myself for an unrelenting door, but it opened easily. On the other side was open air, a sidewalk, a parking lot. My sneakers smacked against the pavement, echoing almost painfully in the pale dawn air, and I whirled around to face the yawning doorway again.

It was one of a long row of perhaps a dozen identical doors, the only open one. At the end of the long, low building was a door with Office printed on its glass panel in faded red, partially scraped off and worn away by time. Between the dim light and the dirty glass I couldn't make out anything inside.

A motel. I had woken up in a motel with no memories. My fear tripled and I whirled frantically, searching for a person or a passing car or anything. I had to find somebody. I had to get help. I had to. But there were no cars parked, and when I pushed open the office door the only thing that greeted me was a dull jingle from above. The desk was cluttered with yellowed papers and dried pens. A clock above the wall read 9:07, but I watched it for several moments and none of the hands so much as twitched.

"Hello?" I called, terrified that the only person here to reply would be whoever was responsible for my situation—because surely I hadn't done this to myself. But I heard and saw nothing but the faint whisper of the wind and I shivered again, an almost violent tremor down my spine paired with goosebumps rushing across my arms. "Hello? Is there anybody here?" Nothing. "I—I need help!"

A phone sat on the desk and I reached across to grab it. I punched in 9-1-1 before I even had it to my ear, and only then realized that it was dead. A sound almost like a sob escaped me and I let the phone fall. It dangled by a tangled cord and swung, tapping against the edge of the desk in a lonely, ghostly rhythm. I returned to the parking lot and stood at the edge, watching for cars, but none came. I watched until I was shivering too badly to stay out in the wind, and saw not a single headlight in the distance or heard even the distant rumble of life. It was clear that this place was abandoned. I was alone.

A thousand questions and fears ran circles in my head, but this realization chilled me more than any of them. How could I have possibly wound up in an abandoned motel, far from any sign of life, with no belongings and no memory of myself?

I had no answer for that, and all I could do was stand and wait for one, shaking by the side of the road in the cold early-morning air.