“Isis is going to show you around today,” she said, patting the new gorgeous boy on the arm. “He’s a new student,” she explained.
Ms. Albright handed the new guy his schedule and welcomed him to the school. Without hesitating to hear a response from either of us, she called in the married couple that was waiting to speak to her.
He would be the day’s gossip for the school—especially looking like he did. I have to admit, I was nervous to look him in the eye or even talk to him, let alone have a full conversation with him. This was different behavior for me. Boys—let alone
one
boy—never had intimidated me.
Gladys, the clerk, wrote us out passes to class so we wouldn’t be counted tardy.
I felt like such an idiot gawking at him and turning away. I didn’t know how to initiate the conversation. What was wrong with me?
“After you.” He opened the front office door for me.
I decided to commence our excursion through the school at the cafeteria, which was right across from the office.
“That’s the cafeteria.” As if he couldn’t see that by himself? He must’ve thought I was a complete moron. He nodded and kept his eyes on me.
“That’s the gym over there.” I pointed.
The new guy stared at me continually as we walked. I could feel myself start to fidget and get a little flushed.
I started down the hallway passing the library and pointing it out. He kept silent through the grand tour.
“Um… I guess, I should show you where your first period class is and you can probably get someone in there to guide you to your second period.” I readjusted the bag on my shoulder.
“You haven’t even asked me what my name is,” he finally spoke.
“Oh. Sorry.” My face grew bright red. I didn’t have the guts to ask him now that he had put me on the spot.
We continued walking down the hallway. Right before we turned the corner he stopped walking.
“I see you’re the shy type.” He tried to analyze me.
“Not at all.” I threw my hair back over my ear.
He started advancing toward me and pinned me against the white hallway wall. My heart started to race.
“Well, aren’t you going to ask me what my name is?” he pressed.
“Don’t… don’t try anything. I can scream.” I could feel my throat drying up. “The security guards will come right away if you pull anything.”
His laugh echoed against the hallway walls.
“I just want you to know my name.”
I took a side step, but he was quick to follow.
“I’m going to
tell
you
my name, since you’re too shy to ask.”
My heartbeat was at my neck, while my mind sounded off all the things I should do: “I should yell. I should punch him in the gut.”
I was frozen like a deer in front of headlights.
“It’s David…” He slowly leaned in toward my face, “ . . . and I’m real.” I suddenly recognized that voice. I opened my mouth in an effort to scream at the top of my lungs. He pressed his hand over my mouth muffling my poor attempt at crying out for help.
“I win,” he grinned.
My entire body trembled frantically as I felt the blood plummet from my head and down to my feet. I was no longer breathing. I started to feel a cold numbness. Everything turned black. My legs caved in taking my consciousness with them.
Chapter 2
The school nurse was holding a thermometer in my mouth when I came to.
“Don’t you dare sit up, young lady.” Her left arm rested over my chest.
“Oh, thank God, it was only a dream,” I thought to myself.
“I tried to get hold of your mother at the courthouse, but she was busy. I left her a message telling her you weren’t feeling well. She should be calling back soon.” She held the thermometer up to the light. “No temperature. Did you have breakfast this morning?”
I nodded, “Yes”.
“If you’re not eating, I’ll have you in here every single day during lunch to observe you,” the nurse threatened.
“That’s not necessary.” A male voice came from the doorway. “I will keep an eye on her for you.”
I sprung up and sat on the gurney bed immediately. I could feel the blood draining from my face again as I saw him standing there. He was a hallucination. I had gone insane!
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” the nurse responded to David’s comment.
“You see him too?” I sat agape.
“Did she hit her head?” The nurse started to examine my scalp.
“I don’t believe so,” David answered.
I started to mildly hyperventilate. My eyes and mouth were wide open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It hadn’t been a dream, and I wasn’t hallucinating. Insanity, however, I was not yet ruling out.
The nurse leaned in close to my ear. “Close your mouth dear. Try to play hard to get.”
I jumped off the gurney and reached for my bag with my eyes fixed on David. There had to be some explanation for this. Was I still dreaming?
“I have to go home,” I told the nurse.
“You’ll have to sign yourself out at the office,” the nurse advised me, handing me an excuse.
My hands were trembling as I reached for the piece of paper. The nurse took note of that and offered to call my mother again.
“No, I’ll be okay,” I said.
“I will accompany her. She will be fine with me,” David offered.
I would most certainly
not
be okay with him escorting me. I was absolutely, positively freaking out. But what was I supposed to say to the nurse? How was it possible that this boy that had manifested in my dreams was now in the physical world? Who could I tell that would believe me? I couldn’t tell Dr. Jameson, Andy, or my mother. They would have me in a straight jacket before I could have a chance to run.
Maybe I was experiencing a state of mania. Maybe nothing happened in the hallway. It could have all played out in my mind. I had read about schizophrenia in those pamphlets in the waiting room at Dr. Jameson’s office. My brain might be playing this out by itself and making me believe it was real.
David took my bag and let me lead the way into the hall. Once the door closed behind him, I turned and gawked at him again.
He took me by the arm and cornered me between the soda machine and the wall. He towered over me at about six feet tall.
“You are to tell no one. Do you understand?” His face was hard and serious.
He took several steps back and let me through. My ears started to get hot, and I started breaking out in hives all over my chest and arms.
“What’s wrong with you?” He wrinkled his brow examining the red patches on my skin.
Tears started flowing from my eyes.
“Are you going to abduct me or something? Kill me?” I cried silently.
“What, in heaven’s name, are you saying?” David pulled me to the side of the vending machine again. “Why would I commit such an atrocity?”
I dropped to the floor weeping. David dropped my bag on the floor and knelt beside me.
“Isis, forgive me if I’ve frightened you. I did not think you to react this way. You were the one that said…” He lowered his voice. “Isis, you were the one that said you were positive you wanted me to prove I was real. I merely took your word.”
“This can’t be happening. You’re
not
real. You can’t be.” I shook my head.
We heard footsteps approaching in the hallway. David wiped my tears and helped me to my feet. I hung my book bag over my shoulder. The streams of salt water continued to flow freely from my eyes and over my cheeks.
“There’s a female approaching,” David warned. “Stop crying.”
“I can’t,” I whimpered.
The footsteps got louder as the woman approached. I wanted to cry out for help, but the knot in my throat wouldn’t let me. I was sure David was some sort of psycho.
“Isis, stop,” he pressured. “She’ll question you.”
His telling me to stop only made me cry louder. He looked over his shoulder and turned around to view me once again. Then, with an expression of desperation, he took my face in his hands. My tears stopped streaming and I ceased breathing. I thought he was about to snap my neck. Instead, he pressed his lips against mine in a soft swaying motion.
My breathing returned, and I became aware of subtle sandalwood essence. My body was completely relaxed. My head was numb. I felt like I was anesthetized. It was a sensation I could only compare to that of morphine.
“Get to class kids,” Principal Miller’s voice ordered as she passed us by.
David caught me as my legs gave out from under me.
“Careful,” he smiled, “I’m lethal.”
“What did you do to me?” I asked half conscious and unable to sustain my own weight.
“Forgive me.” David drew his arm around me, clutching me at the waist. “I had to do something to tranquilize you. The effect will cease in a few minutes, but I must speak to you privately. You don’t understand what consequences may arise if someone should gain knowledge of my existence.”
“Where are you taking me?” I slurred. “You’re going to th… th… thlaugter me?” My tongue would not cooperate. It felt like it had been dosed with Novocain.
“No… I am not allowed.” His chuckle made the two dimples on either side of his face visible.
David grabbed the bag off my shoulder and hung it on his arm. He lifted me and walked down the hallway with my semi-conscious body. At the corner of the front office, where we were not visible to the office staff, he set me on my feet. He aided me in walking—more so, dragging me—to the window and knocked on the glass to get the clerk’s attention.
“She will be going home per nurse’s orders.” He handed the receptionist the nurse’s excuse.
David signed my name on the student sign-out log. Then, he walked me around the corner where he lifted me again. I wanted to protest and run and kick and scream, but whatever he had done to me was more potent than my body’s reflexes.
With my eyes partially open, I tried to struggle with him. I wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
“Stop it or I’ll put you to sleep,” he threatened in a low voice.
Down the first row of cars, in the student parking lot, he set me down next to a black, shiny vehicle. David opened the car door and seated me. He buckled my safety belt and shut the door. I tried to undo the seatbelt, but it was no use, I was trapped. My neck felt like gelatin, barely managing to hold my head up.
“You must be sober before I can speak to you,” David said, turning the key in the ignition.
“I’m going to call the police.” My speech was less slurred as I pulled my cell phone from my pocket.
“Oh, no, my dear. You will do no such thing.” He snatched the phone from my hand. “You will listen to what I have to say, and then you will tell me how you came to be in Terra Somnium.”
I mumbled a few rude words calling him names, thinking he would not hear.
“That language does not fancy your lips, my lovely. I would have thought you more proper.” His face showed disappointment, which in turn made me feel embarrassed for my foul mouth.
I would have offered an apology, but I was scared and angry that I was taken against my will. I stopped speaking to him while he drove.
The numbness was beginning to subside. I regained stamina in my body little by little. My tongue now felt normal enough to talk.
“Where are you taking me?” I tried to open the door.
“The doors are locked,” David sighed. “You’ve not yet given me an opportunity to explain that I mean you no harm.”
“What?! You’re literally kidnapping me and you want me to listen to the reasoning behind it?”
“Yes,” David smiled completely undisturbed by my reaction.
I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. “You’re psychotic.”
I turned away from him and looked over the luxurious red interior of the car. I reached over to touch the silver word embossed on the dashboard in front of me: “Maserati”.
“Did you steal the car too?” The accusation fled my mouth in a sarcastic tone.
“I am no thief,” he sounded offended. “Gifts and offerings from kings and queens established my financial platform. I have collected and reinvested my capital for centuries. I do not require, much less, condone theft.”
He handed me a bottle of water from under his seat. “And, let this be perfectly clear: I am not kidnapping you, nor will I attempt to hurt you in anyway. I simply wish to converse with you.”
He placed the bottle of water on my lap seeing as I would not take it from his hand.
“Where are we going?” I uncapped the bottle.
“Here.” He pointed to the navigation system.
David was headed to South Padre Island, a beach and tourist hotspot for spring breakers and the like. “The Island”, as we locals called it, was about half an hour away from Los Fresnos. I had about twenty minutes to either conjure up an escape plan or convince myself that I was under no danger.
“I do believe you should call your mother to advise her that you have left school grounds. You have three missed calls from her.” He held up my cell phone so I could see the display screen and handed it to me. “She’s concerned about you. I trust you will not breathe a word of what has just happened?”
“And what makes you think I won’t?”
“I am trusting you,” he said, reaching for my hand. “And I beg you, trust me in return.”
I glanced at his hand on mine as he spoke. I looked at him from head to toe. The black shirt he wore brought out his ocean blue eyes and paired so well with his black hair. His jaw curved perfectly over his neck. In my opinion, he was an architectural and anatomical marvel. It could have been his looks or the fact that I grew so curious about him that made me decide to do what I did next.
I dialed my mother’s cell number but she didn’t answer. I left her a voice mail:
“Mom, I know you’re probably worried, but I’m fine. I don’t know what the nurse told you, but there’s no need to check up on me, okay? The nurse gave me a ride home. I’m swinging by the library to work on a project. See you this afternoon. Love you.”
“I thank you.” David smiled when I ended the call.
Nearing the bridge that connects the mainland to The Island, I sensed David glancing at me. My stomach started to ache from the nervousness I felt. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I knew that I might end up in a shallow, unmarked grave at The Island as my final resting place.
Upon crossing the bridge, and once on South Padre Island, David pulled in to a fast food drive-thru and ordered an orange juice and bottled water.
“Drink this,” he said handing me the juice. “Your blood sugar must be low from the commotion.”
“Thanks,” I said taking the juice.
Upon observing how considerate he was being, I remembered the rude words I had called him earlier. Remorse started to overcome me as he pulled into a parking space near the beach.
“I’m sorry I offended you earlier,” I said analyzing his face for a reaction.
“Under the circumstances, I suppose I should have expected it. I just never thought to hear those words spoken by you.” He paused to shut the car engine off. “Thank you for the apology.”
David was starting to seem more of the gentleman type than the psychotic killer type to me. My nerves eased a little, but my guard was still up. He was, after all, the reason I didn’t sleep for three months.
“Isis, I would like to share with you who I am, where I come from and why I came to be here. But if I do this, you must swear by that which you cherish the most that you will not repeat any of the content we discuss today to anyone.”
He lowered the car windows, which I discovered were ridiculously dark after seeing the sky peak through the crack and waited for my response.
“I swear,” I said lifting my hand, as if under oath.
I turned my body toward him, crossed my legs and arms, and rested my back against the car door. I figured, if I wasn’t going anywhere, I might as well get comfortable.
“I’m listening,” I prompted him to begin his account.
“My history is long lived. I am descent of a divine lineage of immortals long forgotten by mortal man. We are many, yet few compared to mankind. Our history and names have been misconstrued throughout the centuries. I am one of those immortals.
“Your people referred to us as ‘gods’”. He briefly sought a reaction from me, but, instead of questioning him, I let him continue.