Preserving Freedom: A Novel

Prologue

dreams

          I'm falling. 

          It's dark, like always. 

          Again, it's the same dream. It's always the same dream. I know it's not real, yet I can't wake up. I don't want to wake up. I want to continue on until the finish. But I never do. Never can. I hold on for as long as I can muster, but I never reach the end. It's like listening to a storyteller, hanging on his every word. And just as he is coming to the end of his story, he stops. 

          You don't know what happens next, and he refuses to continue. Refuses to keep going, he just packs his bags and leaves. Leaves you, the audience, wondering what could have been. What could have happened. Suddenly, without warning, that's it. It's the end. That's what it's like. My dream, where I'm falling. I see the beginning and the middle, but never the end.

          I see my mother. My father. Brother and sister.

          That's where it starts. There we all are. Falling. My family spread in a small semi circle around me. I see them, their arms and legs outstretched, their clothes flapping and rippling in the wind. They're not scared, not even frightened. I look at their faces and they're not screaming. They look at me as I look at them, all five of us falling into darkness.

          I look at my hands. They're covered in blood. So much blood. It's coming from somewhere. I follow the trail of red from my hands as it blossoms and blooms over my shoulder. The stream splits into four strands, each strand flowing away from each other. Each strand following us during our rapid descent like a pack of wolves. 

          Each crimson tendril flickering and crackling silently as they hone in on their targets. The first strand sniffs out my mother. I hold out a hand to her, but my arm moves slowly as if I were neck deep in some kind of jelly. I open my mouth, but no words come out. I think I'm shouting, but I can't tell.

          I glance at her. Mother looks at me and smiles. Then the crimson tendril darts viciously toward her. I open my mouth to scream at her, but nothing comes out of my mouth. I watch, helpless, as the red trail of blood pierces my mother's side. Her frail body snaps and recoils as she is thrown back, away from me. She disappears into the clouds in the distance. I follow the rest of the fluttering tendrils as they race in convoluted patterns through the sky. The wolf pack begins to close in. 

          All of their movements seem to be random, but each one of them seek with a savage intent. All of them twirling and wriggling like snakes towards mice. The second maroon thread finds my sister. Her eyes are wide open, her expression wild. Her mouth agape in a silent scream. We lock eyes. Then she is stabbed by the stream of blood, which casts her lifeless body into the clouds.

          My brother is next. I see the fear in his eyes. He mouths something I can't hear and then he too is gone, taken by the crimson snakes.

          Me and my father remain. He tries dodging his tendril, but it nicks him in the shoulder. He recoils, pain and desperation flooding his eyes, then he becomes sluggish. The blood tentacle strikes again, this time gouging father in his knee. His lower leg and foot disappear, flying away like paper debris being flung out of a moving vehicle. But I see that my father doesn't mind. He knows what happens next.

          So do I.

          I watch him wave at me and smile. Then he is pierced a third time in the chest and thrown into the distance.

          And then it's my turn. But I know what happens. I am ready for it. Expecting it. I breathe slowly and I put my hands at my sides. I shut my eyes, ignoring the crimson tendrils snaking their way towards me. Girthy appendages of an unseen creature, they poise in the mid-air, their glimmering limbs fluttering in the daylight. They don't attack me. Instead, they let the darkness swallow me whole.

          And I open my eyes.

          It's over.

          It's dawn.