The Last Dream I Ever Had: 1

    I'm going to postpone the whining about my hurt shoulder that I had planned (hopefully indefinitely, I start physiotherapy today so fingers crossed I can use my arm normally again soon) because something way cooler happened this week. No, not the weather, wrong kind of 'cooler'. Think in terms of awesome, not temperature...
    There's an American non-profit group called Story Shares. They provide engaging, age appropriate content for low-literacy youth and adult students, aimed at giving people an interest in reading so that improving skills becomes that much easier. I am very happy to announce that one of my short stories was selected to be in their library! Click the cover to check it out on Amazon!

    Per my understanding, sale profits of books and short stories from Story Shares are used to fund the creation of more reading material, and to promote and provide easy access to the library content for educators and students:

           "...the Story Shares Hub bring[s] together authors, readers, and educators. For authors, the Hub
       provides a digital book builder to guide the creation of just-right content, and access to a large
       group of potential readers. For readers and educators, the Hub provides a library of newly created
       just-right content, distributed on a platform with built-in reading assists to make it even more
​       approachable."
​
    Check out the hub! The Story Shares logo below is a link to their website. They also have a bunch of titles which are all available through Amazon. I hope you enjoy your weekend!

​"We help generate and then distribute new stories aimed at older students who read below grade level, specifically ensuring that the content is interesting at their age, and readable at their level."
    - Story Shares

1. 'Falling' Asleep

        People have always talked around campfires. They've told stories of great loves, and great loves lost; of Fairies, and of the Small Folk; of monsters from the grave, and of the evil lurking deeper; most commonly of ghosts, and most recently of aliens. And sometimes, just before dawn, when the night is the coldest and the morning is the furthest away – when even the flames seem to hide from the darkness – the tales of dreams begin to unravel.
        This is one such story, fit for a fireside telling, but told 'round tables with electricity to push back the shadows. So light a candle, turn off the switch and snuggle up to someone you love, and I'll tell you the tale of the last dream I ever had.
         The dream that ends all dreams, if you will…

#~#~#

         I have always been one to have nightmares. Ever since the days of childhood, my nights have been peppered with shadows. Never a happy dream for me, oh no. Sunny days always turned to dreary nights, friends and family turned to foes, and strangers turned to dangers. Never a friendly face, and never a helping hand.
        As a teenager, I learned to wake myself up from my strange and horrible visions by saying, as loudly as I could: "This is only a dream and now I am going to wake up." And in the few times when that didn't work, I would pinch myself as hard as I could until my eyes would open, wide with terror and bleary with sleep, the green numbers of my bedside clock glaring out at me with the blank fact of the early morning hour.
        The last dream I ever had began in the same manner as any other I've had before: from a great distance up and accelerating at an alarming rate down. Down towards a tiny spot of light that I just know is going to explode up around me and bury me in all sorts of nasty things. Then, just at the very last moment before impacting with the tiny spot, it disappeared and I plunged into the sinister blackness of what I've come to call Shadow Land: the darkest corner of the dream world.
        I stumbled around for a few moments, fear beginning to nibble at the edges of my mind and the sense of deja vu overriding all my senses as I began to walk east. Trees that had always been there suddenly grew up all around me in a think tangle. My sense of direction evaporated in the dense forest and, even though I knew that by going east I could get out and into the sunshine, I no longer knew which way east was.
        I ran for what seemed like hours, always going in a different direction and always ending up back in the same place, tripping and sprawling and scraping my hands and knees each time I returned. Every time I walked away, a brightly colored, shiny bird would flit across in front of me, and then pivot on a sharp angle that only it could find to make a B-line for the edge of the forest. Every time I chased the bird, running as fast as I could, the bird flew faster and faster until I couldn't see it anymore. Every time after the bird disappeared, I felt those eyes staring out at me from a hidden place and a cold wind rustled through the dying forest to chill me to the bone. Every time, I forget the way that the little bird had gone and would just bolt blindly through the trees, the hot breath of that thing just behind me.