Spanning the River of Blood

Chapter 1 - Contact

By Ridley-Roo

Driving along in the car she thought back to the previous night, another night with no sleep. She'd lain awake tossing and turning trying to figure it all out. Mulling it over in her head. Her companion had reached out and taken a playful swipe in her direction in an attempt to get her to lie still. After all she was disturbing his sleep as well.

About three in the morning she had finally given up and gone downstairs to turn the PC on. Just as she'd suspected there on the Internet she found messages, emails and a few friends actually online. She was glad they were there. She sat and chatted with them feeling less alone than upstairs. At five o'clock her mobile beeped to say she had a message and she smiled. It didn't take much thought to work out who it would be and sure enough it was Jen. She hadn't known her for long, only about ten months or so but the text gave her a good excuse to use the phone and chat the night away.

Now she was sat in the car driving to work, tired as hell. What was it that was going on? She knew there was something, just couldn't work it out. Yet some of the pieces of the puzzle had started to slot together. The fact that it wasn't just her but several others seemed strange. The odd ones as her mother would call them. "How is it you always seem to attract so many odd people to you?" she would ask. She shrugged her shoulders as she drove, "What exactly is odd then?" she'd answered. After all her friends parents had probably thought and said the same about her, she wasn't exactly conventional. She didn't mind.

The morning had passed uneventfully at work but she had spent as much time chewing over the situation in her mind as actually working. She sat watching the clock tick round slowly until it came to lunchtime and headed with her co-workers out into the car park, she had decided to go for a drive.

She'd not slept properly for over a week and it was catching up with her. She just couldn't clear her mind, if only she could figure out what was going on. Eventually she pulled up into a small lay-by and turned off the engine. Slowly she slowed her breathing and sent herself gently into a trance.

The problems had started quite some time earlier, although she wasn't sure they were in fact problems. Since childhood she'd been able to sense things, to sample the atmosphere around her. This often gave warnings when things were going to happen, important family announcements such as births and marriages, as well as dramatic impeding events. She sensed this in a way that made her uneasy and restless. The last time had been just before a car crash, only this time it was much stronger. It was also different. Normally the feeling would build up rapidly, she'd work it out, the event would happen and everything would calm down again, but this time others were feeling it to. The old saying 'birds of a feather flock together' seemed oddly suitable on this count. She had seemed to find like-minded people as her friends. Several in her circle were also sensing something building up and had mentioned it. She was willing to bet that many more simply weren't telling her about it.

Katrina her closest friend had also been feeling strange and together they had spent much time on the phone discussing what it might be. It was as if they were picking up bits and pieces, which formed part of a larger puzzle. She wanted the puzzle solved so she could get some sleep.

What she didn't understand was why she was the only one who couldn't sleep? Everyone else seemed to be having symptoms of this build up but they were all at least sleeping. Boy was she tired!

Slowly she slipped deeper into her trance. The world around her started to change and soon the nature of its existence changed. Stilling her mind she slowly started to reach out. The first thing she noticed was that her aura looked strange. Unsure of the meaning of this she pushed on. Her energies were different, but why? Moving outwards she pushed the worrying thought out of mind to be dealt with later.

Reaching still further she sensed the areas around and kept going. Slowly the haze started to form shapes and gradually images appeared. As the mist cleared she caught her breath as the landscape revealed itself. Atop a mountain she looked down and saw she was dressed in a simple linen robe. Without needing to check she knew it was completely natural and that the stitching was done by hand.

Turning her attention once more to her surroundings she noted that although it appeared to be night and the stars were above her, she could see for miles around her with little difficulty. The inky blue landscape was subtly lit by flows of energy. Some flows moved at a stately pace and comprised of harmonies of colour, in others the colours jarred and they thrashed about wildly. Somehow she knew she was standing at a junction, but no flows were passing through her. Puzzled she wondered where they were.

Deciding to concentrate on the flows she could see she discovered that different flows had feelings attached. Some of them felt wrong somehow, but she couldn't tell much more than this. The vision started to change and she found herself flying across the landscape, to fast to recognise any landmarks. Eventually slowing she saw a huge castle before her. It stood proud, tall and strangely familiar.

Many miles from where she sat in the car an old man woke at his desk. Getting up slowly he moved to the window and gazed down onto a deep blue lake. Smiling slowly to himself he held out his arm for beautiful bird. "Well Fawkes," he said to the bird, "I think things just got much more complicated." Stroking the bird he turned to summon the others.