Liandra and the Dream Reader Read online

  Liandra and the Dream Reader

  An Average Joe Extraordinary Tale, Volume 0

  Belart Wright

  Published by Belart Wright, 2019.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Liandra and the Dream Reader (An Average Joe Extraordinary Tale, #0)

  Chapter 1: | The Girl Who Dreamed

  Chapter 2: | Recovery

  Chapter 3: | The Dream Reader

  Chapter 4: | The Dream Reader Part 2

  Chapter 5: | The Desperate Girl from Baalbek

  Chapter 6: | Crossed

  Chapter 7: | Robert Grabas

  Chapter 8: | Progress

  Chapter 9: | Go for the Gold

  Chapter 10: | Craftes

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  About the Author

  This isn’t the end for Liandra and Robert!

  Further Reading: Psy-Hunters (LitRPG)

  An Average Joe Extraordinary Tale

  Liandra and The Dream Reader Part 1

  By: Belart Wright

  Copyright 2015 © Belart Wright

  Written by Belart Wright

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written p­­­ermission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.

  The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1:

  The Girl Who Dreamed

  Liandra woke up in the dead of night, her lungs suspiciously out of breath and her forehead covered in sweat. She’d been screaming, she knew as she looked around, hoping that she was in the real world and praying that nothing had followed her from her dreamscape.

  Her thoughts were erratic, coming way too fast. She knew what was next as she leapt from her tiny bed and rushed down the hall to the bathroom. Her stomach muscles tightened, and she heaved up what she felt were the lingering bits of her dream. At this point she couldn’t remember much of it, but could feel all the fear, anxiety, sorrow, hurt, and hatred rising from her throat and into the toilet. With a final flush, she buried all that she loathed, for a night at least.

  “Are you okay, dove?”

  Her mother’s voice came through the door, softly and sweetly. She really hated waking her parents with these episodes but seemed to be doing it more and more lately. The little girl pulled her long black hair from her face and let it fall down her back.

  “Yes, I’m fine, Mum.”

  She washed her hands, splashed cold water on her face, and dried each in turn. She then walked to the door and opened it. Her parents burst through to embrace their ten-year-old daughter, who was now old enough to be embarrassed by such affection.

  “It’s the nightmares, isn’t it?” Mr. Keyrouz asked.

  Her father’s gentle brown eyes shone through his spectacles. While she nodded her head, he scratched his, which disheveled his normally neatly trimmed dark brown hair even more.

  “My little dove, we have to do something to help you. You’re suffering!” Mrs. Keyrouz said with tears streaming from her deep blue eyes, down to her chin, to the floor. Her black curly hair only reached her shoulders but was much more unruly than Liandra’s tonight.

  “I’m sorry to wake you both, but I’m fine now—really I am,” Liandra said. “I’m going back to bed now. I’m sure it was something I ate.”

  She offered a weak smile to her parents, but only her father offered one back, the tips of his mustache curving upwards only slightly. She left her parents near the bathroom, clearly unconvinced, and closed her room door behind her.

  She didn’t want to hear them arguing over which specialist to send her to, so she put on her headphones and played her Loverboy mixtape. Not wanting to chance another dream, she cranked her music up and stayed up reading from her favorite book, The Hero Collection: Tales of the Ancient Do-Gooder.

  ******

  — Five years later —

  “Ms. Keyrouz! Ms. Keyrouz! Liandra Keyrouz, wake up this instant!”

  There was a loud bang on her desk and suddenly Liandra was very awake. Her teacher, Mrs. Waulker, didn’t look very happy though.

  “We are about to take a test,” Mrs. Waulker said, scowling. “I imagine you’d like to join us?”

  Liandra wiped the spittle from her lower lip and nodded. “Yes, yes. Sorry about that.”

  “Quite. Just make sure to get your recommended allotment of sleep before you enter my class. Now sit up and prepare yourself.”

  As always, sleep was the issue, as it had been these last five years, only now it was worse and Liandra hadn’t thought it necessary to tell the teacher. In her own words, she didn’t need more pity and pointless questions. She couldn’t go a night without being assaulted with feelings and vague images that she didn’t understand, that physically hurt her every time she fell asleep. Because of it, she had taken to avoiding sleep any way she could. She blazed through the test and turned her paper in early, getting a suspicious look from Mrs. Waulker. She asked her for permission to use the bathroom and was excused.

  She walked the halls looking for her favorite restroom, all the way past the restrooms closest to her class and up to the third floor. She skipped the girls’ toilets and went right into the guys’. There were two boys in here, smoking near the windows, but she only needed to talk to the shorter one.

  “Curtiss, how are ya?” she asked in a boisterous voice, with an English accent that snuck into her after all these years in London. Her volume made the short stocky lad nervous.

  “Keep it down, will ya?” he said with his usual habit of rubbing his short dark hair and forehead.

  “Sorry, it’s just good ta see ya, bloke. Mind if I get a fag too?”

  “Yeah, sure. It’s on the house,” he said handing her a cigarette, butt first. He lit it for her after she stuck it in her mouth. She puffed it a few times and blew the smoke towards the window.

  “Thanks, bloke. I have money by the way.”

  He shook his head.

  “And I have product, but you’re going to be right red.”

  “Don’ say that, mate! I need this stuff!”

  She was in his face now.

  “Shhh! Keep your voice down,” he said. “I’ll give ya what I got, but it’s not a lot. Reduced price too.”

  She knew she didn’t have a lot of options, so she took the three amphetamine capsules and paid Curtiss his reduced fee.

  “These are dexies, right?” she asked.

  “Yeah, should help you study and stuff.”

  “Any clue when you might get more?” she asked, her legs lightly trembling.

  “Don’t know, probably not soon though.”

  She puffed most of her disappointment out of the cigarette and gave the rest to the other boy near the window. Sh
e exhaled and walked back to class.

  On her way back, she began to strategize how she would ration the dexies. They were the only thing keeping her horrid night terrors at bay, and with only three pills to ration for who knew how long, she needed to figure out other ways to stay awake. Her chances were low. Caffeine only gave her a small buzz of energy, certainly not enough to last a full night.

  She’d have to pick the nights to encounter her night terrors.

  ******

  Her school day behind her, she began her walk home. On her way, she planned out the events of the rest of her day. When she got in, she would have a light snack, then take a short nap—only sleeping long enough to recoup the loss of the day’s energy. Her alarm clock was set to wake her up before she could drift into full REM sleep. That would be enough to help her stay up late. After she woke up, she planned to study, exercise, and listen to her music all night as loud as she could. If she did all that, she wouldn’t even need the pill tonight.

  She walked into her house, which resided in the posh Bayswater area of Westminster, and let her parents know she was home.

  “Liandra, come in here!” yelled her mum from another room.

  She followed the voice to the dining room and saw her parents sitting at the table together. In front of them was a neat stack of papers and she saw her mother holding onto one as well. Her parents both showed her soft tired smiles as she walked in. She stood quietly and waited for them to speak.

  “Liandra honey, come sit. We have some good news!” her mother said as her smile brightened, and her blue eyes glistened. Liandra walked over to the seat in front of her parents and sat hesitantly. She looked at them both.

  “Well, don’t leave me in suspense,” she said. “Come on, out with it!”

  Her mother reached for her hand and gently cupped her own over Liandra’s.

  “We’ve gotten some good results from your sleep therapist, Dr. Thomas. He says that you’re making great progress. He’s given us a chart here that shows the various chemical fluctuations going on in your body. He told us that if we regulate the hormones in your body to normal levels that it’s possible for your mind to stop producing these horrible night terrors when you sleep.”

  “He’s lying.”

  She pulled her hand back and stared at her mother.

  “Dove?”

  “How is this any different than before?” Liandra asked, feeling a swell of heat rise in her chest. “The last drugs didn’t do anything and neither did the drugs before that!”

  Liandra’s father spoke up from behind her mother.

  “No need to yell, Liandra,” her father said. “We’re just looking at all the possibilities here since you aren’t having any luck with normal therapy. We don’t want to rule out any kind of treatment that could possibly help you.”

  Liandra sighed and looked at her parents.

  “I know, Mum and Dad. I just hate when people try to rip you two off. It’s maddening. None of this stuff is working and they have no clue what to do, but they want you to spend more money anyway. They’re all so full of—”

  Her mother looked at her as gently as she could, but Liandra could tell that she was frustrated.

  “Liandra, that’s enough. These people are trying to help us. They’re just dealing with something abnormal. Something that even their years of training didn’t prepare them for.”

  Something evil, she knew her mother wanted to say.

  “We have to do all we can for you, dove. What else would you have us do?”

  She hated seeing her parents like this, so full of worries, but this was how she always saw them nowadays, and all because of her. Both had aged considerably these last five years. They shared countless gray hairs and frown lines between them, along with the concern they had for their only daughter.

  “I don’t want you to do any more,” Liandra said, an uncharacteristic thinness to her voice. “You’ve tried everything in these last five years. None of it worked. It’s time for me to live with this or beat it on my own.”

  “Habibti...” her father lamented with a pained look on his face.

  “Well, I have homework...”

  She rose from her seat and abruptly left the table, grabbing her backpack from the floor as she fled. She made a beeline up the stairs to her room and wiped her eyes only after she was all the way up. She needed to nap now if she was going to stay up tonight so she set the alarm on her radio to blare an hour and a half from now. As she lay in her bed, she pulled up the covers and breathed steadily and deeply, making sure to slow her pace a little at a time. Her eyes became heavy, and next thing she knew she was out. She then found herself “conscious” in her blank dreamscape and she knew she didn’t want to be.

  The dread came quickest of all ... and then came her savior, the alarm clock. It buzzed her to real consciousness from her AM/FM radio just in time before the onset of wicked REM sleep. Back in the real world, she muttered to herself.

  “Just in time.”

  She still felt all the fear from it in her rapidly beating heart. She wasted no time and quickly hopped out of bed. She turned her radio up and pressed play on the Loverboy mix she had in the tape deck. The song Notorious came on with a loud and energetic melody. Liandra jumped on her bed and swirled her long black hair around in crazy circles as she mouthed the lyrics.

  Now fully awake, she plopped down on her bed and sauntered over to her desk. She worked on her homework and listened to Loverboy until dinnertime a few hours later.

  She ate with her parents, and they all had a pleasant time not talking about her night terrors, talking instead about her father’s mustache and his sudden desire to shave it. Her father then reminded her of the CD player and headphones they had just bought her, which Liandra knew meant they wanted her to turn her music down at this time of night. They both had to work in the morning, so she wouldn’t blast her music so late anyway. She just wished she knew how to transfer her favorite mixtape to a CD, since she’d broken her Walkman last week. She promised herself that she’d learn soon. She figured it couldn’t be that hard and what’s more, Curtiss could teach her.

  Once they were all done with supper, Liandra did all the dishes and hopped to her room to finish her homework and studying. She put the overly sugary pop CD that Curtiss snagged from his sister into the player, plugged in her headphones and cranked the volume all the way up while she studied. It was her only CD, so it didn’t matter that she didn’t like it. She just needed something loud and with a fast tempo on while she studied. She even found herself nodding to the songs but had to skip the slow ones. This was a knockdown, drag-out battle with the sandman if she showed any weakness, it would take her. It always did.

  She took breaks from her studying to aimlessly walk around the house. It kept her blood flowing, kept her alert.

  Hours passed, and she was at her desk again reading comic books. Once she noticed how late it was she couldn’t help but let a yawn escape. Her parents had been asleep for several hours and now her body was telling her to do the same. She pleaded with it silently, thinking that her earlier nap should’ve done enough to recharge her for the night.

  Her body didn’t agree, and she yawned again.

  “Time for some exercise then.”

  She changed into burgundy gym sweats, the ones from school, and made her way to the basement where she kept her exercise equipment in a small corner. She did light cardio exercises until a little after 2 a.m. to get a nice jolt of oxygen flowing throughout her body. Once she was done she was covered in a fine sweaty glaze, so she snuck up the stairs and into the bathroom for a quick cold shower. Afterwards, she refused to wear her pajamas and instead wore jeans and a t-shirt in a not so subtle and ridiculous rebellion against the very natural act of sleeping. She only needed to stay awake for a few more hours before she would be on her way to school, walking in the crisp cool early Westminster morning air. She just needed to occupy her time with something until then.

  She lasted a solid hour
after her shower. Then her eyelids became impossibly heavy while she sat at her desk, so she stood up. Her CD player with her pop CD was cranked up to the max in her ear, and yet she still yawned once, and then twice, and then three times in succession.

  She started making handcrafted jewelry and did that for an hour, but it began to bore her. As she was putting the jewelry up, her eyes drooped down and nearly closed all the way, until she saw a dark flash across the front of her window.

  She woke up instantly and looked for whatever had invaded her room, but she found nothing. More physical activity was needed. She got on the floor for some pushups and did twelve standard reps before she noticed how comfortable her carpeted floor looked every time she dipped close to it. She stopped and pressed her face and body to the carpet. Dangerous, she thought, before she sprang to her feet.

  She needed caffeine ASAP! On the way downstairs to get it, she swore she could see a face at the bottom of the stairs. Her heart pounded, and she stopped and stared down for a while. A whole minute passed, then she surmised that it wasn’t really there. After three straight days of what could be called sleep deprivation, her mind was playing tricks on her. She quickly made her coffee from the machine in the kitchen. She put only a little sugar in it, and no cream like her father would drink. She breathed in the aroma—that earthy bitter smell—and the steam. She imagined that the smell alone gave her a second wind, but her body didn’t agree. Her eyes were still heavy as she walked up the stairs.

  At the top, she could see the face again. This time more of its features were visible. It was covered in shadow, but she could clearly see its blue eyes, far-reaching like the sky, angry, and with a regal haughtiness as they peered down at her. The face bore a grimace that was directed right at her, its hate palpable. She shuddered all over as she felt her skin prickle but didn’t stop walking up the stairs. It was only her tired mind doing all this. She tried not to look, but the eyes followed her, and she hoped they’d simply disappear.

  She made it to her room, coffee in hand, and stood by her desk. Her clock showed it to be 3:48 a.m. and she wondered if she’d have to continue standing for the next few hours. She wanted to try her seat, but avoided it, since her eyes were getting heavy again. Once the coffee cooled enough, she downed half of it, but could swear it made her sleepier.