In The Dreaming: Chapter Two "A Friend With No Name" (Fantasy Y/A Novel)

-I wrote the following novel nearly two decades ago. In the years between then and now I've honed my craft, and my perception of this world; my thoughts and ideas; have changed dramatically. However, I still enjoy the premise and have decided to do an overhaul of revisions and rewrites, though likely not until sometime next year. (Though I'm sure I'll do a little as I post chapters)

For now I hope you will enjoy a glimpse into my book writing beginnings...

They are the closest of friends though they have never met in waking life.

Prologue-PT1 Prologue-PT2 Chapter 1

Chapter Two

“Aliyah, it’s time to get up.”

“Okay mom,” she mumbled, struggling to sit up. Her dream still had a hold on her, the words “What’s your name?” still hanging on her lips though once again she had not asked.

Over the past three, going on four years she had gotten to know him very well, but still no name. How odd, to not have a name for someone she felt was a dear friend. She knew that he lived in a city, that his father had left when he was young, that his mother shared his house but not his life. She knew that he was the smartest person she’d ever known and that she had a huge crush on him. Of course that was ridiculous, having a crush on a figment of imagination. Yet to her he was real, as real as her parents and brother. He was perhaps three or four years older than her, so of course the crush was not mutual, but she felt he cared about her deeply just the same.

He always entered the dream in the same way, coming from the other side of the river. Sometimes he stopped across from her to wave, other times he would sneak around and try and startle her. Last night he did the latter. She relived it behind her eyes as she scribbled it down.

“Hey!” She squealed after he grabbed her shoulders from behind and gave her a heart attack. She should’ve been immune to being startled by now, but he was good at doing it in a random way-nights would go by where he would announce his arrival, than bam, he’d scare her.

“So what were you all lost in thought about?” He asked, plopping down next to her on the comfortable blanked of pine needles.

“I was actually thinking that I should try and make my way over to your side of the stream before you get here and startle you for a change!”

“Ahh, now you probably shouldn’t have told me that because you have lost the element of surprise.”

“Yeah, well,” she grabbed a handful of needles and threw them at him playfully.

“So, have you met any “real” friends yet?”

“You ask me that every time, believe me when I do it will be the first thing that I say to you,” she frowned, “I’m beginning to fear there just isn’t real friendship material out there.”

Collin smiled gently, of course he heartily agreed with that statement but he did not want her to give up hope. “Don’t be silly. It’s just that when you’re looking for a friend of that caliber it takes more time. There are plenty of good people out there I’m sure, but you have to sort through all of the rotten ones to get to them.”

Aliyah grinned, imagining that people were like apples. If that were the case she would be pawing through a pile of squishy over or under ripened fruit looking for the perfect red one. She shook her head, “Why do you say that, you don’t believe that. You don’t think there are people truly worthy of calling “friend.”

“That is not true, I call you a friend.”

“That doesn’t really count. Another example please.”

He considered how he would answer this knowing full well that though he had many people who thought of him as a friend he did not feel the same about any of them. “Well, when Jack gets a little older I know I’ll consider him a friend.”

“He’s your brother!”

“Oh don’t base it on me anyway, I’m different than you. I have much more reason to distrust people. I would have a hard time spotting someone worthy of friendship if they were in my face everyday.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Well, don’t worry, they’re out there, I’m just going to take my time selecting.”

Collin smiled at her fondly. “You do that.” He stood and reached down to help her up. “Come on, let’s go to the clearing.”

**

She looked around them as they walked. It was beautiful. The trees in this particular spot were just far enough apart to let the sun through everywhere, but so high that it was still considerably darker than it was in the clearing they were headed to. They had discovered it about a year after they began to dream of one another. It was almost a perfect circle, the grass in it was full and soft, and at certain times different colored flowers decorated it like exotic jewels. She saw the marked trees, they had scratched a bit of bark off of a line of trees on the way to the clearing so they could easily find it, it should have been strange that the marks remained, but everything about these dreams were strange. Like how sometimes it was daytime in the dream and sometimes night. Come to think of it, it had been night in the dream all of the time the first couple of years, but one day they had wondered what it would look like during the day and voila it began taking turns.

She turned to her dark eyed friend and grinned-“Race ya!” They began to run and the dream broke apart.

Continue on to Chapter Three

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