Excerpt: Let the Ink Run Free AND Lucid Dreaming

LET THE INK RUN FREE

When the light finally withdrew, Todd found himself staggering, fighting to regain his balance. He was not wearing the clothes he had just moments before. These were rough, scratchy, handmade and in very bad repair. The threadbare pants barely reached his knees and were falling apart at the hemline. The gray shirt had several mismatched patches on it. He wasn't wearing any shoes.

He was in a large crowed of people, most of whom were dressed the same way he was, but in much better shape and design. There was a curious, sickly smell rising above the village, like illness and waste and dirt mixed together. Todd retched a little. He was the only one not moving in the huge, slowly circulating crowd. Numb, unfeeling, silent with suppressed panic, he found himself being shoved and jostled by the people.

"Move it, man!" They called to him.

"Get going! You're blocking our way!"

Todd was pushed into an alley. He was trembling in fear, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered absently if he were going into shock. He looked around with wide, pleading eyes, as if searching for a way out. All he saw were wide-bricked, straw-roofed, medieval looking buildings in between alleys and dark, shadowed nooks. Donkeys, mules, horses, and goats pulled carts and wagons on the street he could see. Strange noises, like a mix between a hiss and a growl, echoed from a nearby building which Todd thought might be some kind of stable. He started to move out of the alley, still feeling numb and a little dizzy. One moment he'd been writing, the next he was here. What had happened?

Something cold and sharp pressed against his stomach, and he found himself staring into an equally sharp, sallow, weaselly face. "Your money," spat the other man wickedly, his grip tightening on the knife at Todd's side. "Quickly now, or you'll regret it."

It was the wrong thing to do when the poor man was already so strung out. Without thinking, Todd balled his right hand, well-muscled from hours of writing by hand, into a fist and drove it into the would-be robber's gut. Used to victims that didn't make any fuss, the robber was shocked. He took a step backward in surprise at having the wind knocked out of him and doubled over. Panicked that Todd was, he had the sense of mind to get out of the alley before the other man could catch his breath. He dove into the light and found himself on another street.

This one was much less busy than the one he'd visited before. It looked as if it ran out of the bustling little village. He dove into a quiet, open building—the stable, by the looks of it—and paused. Part of him was trying to make sense of what was happening. The other part was just trying to keep breathing. He heard the sounds of a buggy being halted, then voices as the owners unhitched the horse.

Todd was fighting a losing battle with his lungs. He began to hyperventilate as the voices grew closer. One of the voices paused, then approached him, sounding concerned. Todd felt himself slide down the stable wall, not really in tune with what was going on around him. Someone bent down to his level and peered anxiously into his face.

The shaking writer's jaw dropped. A little on the short side, young, slim, well-built, fair skinned, fair haired, light hazel eyes, strong jaw—his whole face—

"Are you all right?" asked the boy, using the voice Todd had imagined he would have.

He was staring at his main character, Zaki.

Someone—Todd assumed it was Zak's foster father Erias—called Zak away, scolding him for talking to drunks in the livery stable. Todd let out a very small noise, a little like a whimper, and fainted dead away.

LUCID DREAMING

I went to the door, knocked once, and stepped inside. I was greeted with a rather gruesome sight. Courtney London was sitting up in bed, staring at the door when I walked in. The other patients had been pale, but this girl was absolutely pallid. What’s more, she looked like she would have had a skin color other than white had she actually had a chance to catch some sun, which made parts of her an almost gray-white color. She had short, very dark hair that made her look even paler. Her eyes were oddly shaped, like almond-shaped, but more exaggerated. They were also bloodshot. There were huge circles around, and very dark bags under her eyes as well, and her eyes, while focused, were kind of glazed. She wore a long sleeved shirt even though it was rather warm in the room, but one sleeve had kind of fallen upward and I could see that her arm was covered in black and blue bruises. A quick glance at the handy dandy clipboard showed me they were self-inflicted.

“You’re not Dr. Woon,” she said in a musical but very shaky voice. “You’re not Nurse Mayfair, either, or Nurse White.” The more she spoke, the more slurred her words became.

“No, I’m not,” I said, still recovering from being grossed out by her appearance.
“Well, who are you, then?”

“I…” What to say? She had an absolutely piercing gaze, even with her eyes glazed over like that. They would have been a very pretty blue color if it weren’t for the blood spiking through the whites of her eyes. I’d seen lots of people in the ward today, but she was the only on who truly looked sick. “I’m Nurse Mayfair’s son, Jason. I’m here to do some volunteer work.”

“Oh,” she said, not looking away from me. She wasn’t blinking either, which was slightly disturbing. “Well…I’m not crazy.”

“What?” I asked, completely taken aback.

“I’m not crazy,” she said again, her voice shaking. “I don’t know what they told you, but I’m not crazy.”

“I believe you,” I told her, even though she seemed to be by far the craziest person I’d seen. “Now, if there’s anything I can help you with, Miss London—“

“My name isn’t Miss London,” she interrupted. I found myself struggling to look away from her steady, scary gaze. She was getting easier to understand now, although the shaky, slurry voice was not abating.

“Oh?”

“No. I don’t know my last name. Don’t remember…don’t remember…” she looked troubled for a moment.

“Ok. Courtney then. Can I do anything for you, Courtney?”

“My name isn’t Courtney,” she insisted, voice shaking more than ever. The slurring came and went, and her eyes became kind of unfocused sometimes. “It’s Terissa.”

“Terissa?” I asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of my voice.

“Yes, Terissa,” she said. “It’s like…Teresa, only with an “ih” instead of an “ee” sound.”

“Ok…Teresa with an ‘ih’,” I joked. She smiled. “Anything you need?”

“Yes,” she said. “You can sit down in that chair over there and talk to me. No one ever comes in and talks to me.”

She pointed to a chair with trembling fingers. I scooted it closer to the bed—with a lot of difficulty; everything was weighted so it couldn’t be moved—and sat down. “Don’t you have a psychiatrist who comes in?” I don’t know why I said it, since she thought she was sane and very clearly wasn’t.

“Yes,” she said simply. “But all he wants to do is talk about sleep, and I can’t help him there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to sleep,” she said, still staring at me unblinkingly. “I don’t ever want to sleep, not ever. He keeps trying to make me talk about why, but I can’t tell him.”

“Why not?” I asked, confused.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“Don’t know why I don’t ever want to sleep,” she said, sounding a little angry. “Aren’t you listening to what I’m saying?”

“I’m listening,” I told her, scratching my head. “I just don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” she said, letting out a little sigh of frustration.