Dream Killer: Book One in the Nadia Chronicles
Chapter 22: More Presence

“Oh,” Dimitri said sheepishly. Nadia considered his face and confirmed that he already knew of her new ability. It must have been Dimitri’s idea to block the ghost from her room and that is why she had not seen them until she stepped over the line.

“Why?” Nadia asked simply.

“Astrid calls it a gift.”

“A gift?” Nadia cut in. “Haven’t I received enough gifts?” When Dimitri said nothing, she continued, “I mean, Gaia gave me elemental powers, the fire man gave me control over fire, and now I can see ghosts? Enough gifts. Is there a return policy? I light my clothes on fire. I attract danger around every corner and if that isn’t bad enough I get the gift of seeing dead people. Oh, and did I mention I can hear them too? Yeah, and they are loud.”

Dimitri let Nadia rant, before interjecting, “Nadia. Gaia gave you what was always supposed to be yours, so that was less of a gift, more as a given right. The fire man said you two were destined to join, so technically that was destiny, not a gift. The ghost, well, imagine what they can tell you.”

“I don’t have to imagine,” Nadia said, raising her voice again. “I can hear them clearly enough and you are just splitting hairs with the gift comments. I can’t believe this.” She got up and started pacing the room. “I feel like a prisoner in my own room. No, wait,” She said, remembering the prisoner, Godric, she was unable to rescue and her mood shifted drastically. “I can handle this. I have always believed in ghosts, so suck it up Nadia, and handle this.” She approached the door with Dimitri directly behind her. He was in awe of her determination. She stepped over the line of salt and would have fallen back again if not for Dimitri. The noise was deafening and would have been bad enough without the constant faces inches from hers. “Wait, please,” Nadia tried to say. “I can’t understand you when you yell over each other.” She tried to walk toward the stairs without walking through any of the ghostly visitors. “Please, stop yelling,” she said again, a little louder. She looked around trying to see if there was another escape route. All she could see was pale, cold, dead faces vying for her attention. “Please,” she said placing her hands over her ears and shutting her eyes tightly.

Dimitri wrapped an arm around her shoulders and walked her straight through the ghosts that were blocking the stairs. Dimitri didn’t bother to walk around the ghosts because he was unable to see them. With Nadia’s eyes closed, she could not see them either. But she could hear them. Dimitri practically carried Nadia down the stairs and before she knew it, they were outside in the wintery sun light. The noise from the ghosts stopped when the doors of the City Center closed. Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ (F)indNƟvᴇl.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Thank you,” she whispered to Dimitri as he dropped his arm from her shoulders to take her hand.

“You’re welcome,” he said with a grin. “I am your guardian after all. I would be pretty terrible if I couldn’t even protect you from a few ghosts.”

“A few,” she said smiling back at him. “It seems to be an entire village worth.” Dimitri’s smile faded. “Oh no,” Nadia said softly. “It is, isn’t it? What is this place, Dimitri?” Dimitri released Nadia’s hand and turned his back to her. “Dimitri? Please tell me.” Nadia began again, softly.

“I will tell you.” Dimitri whispered. “Let us keep walking and I will start from the beginning of this story. But I have to warn you that it is long and full of heart ache.”

“Okay,” Nadia said, resolutely reaching out and taking Dimitri’s hand once more. That helped to hearten Dimitri, giving him the courage to relive his history.

“I was born in this village and it was all I knew. My brother, father, mother and I lived in a little house on the northern outskirts of town. It was still within the large 15 foot wall that was built many years before my birth. This was a dangerous area to live in and the villagers felt a wall would be perfect to keep the bad out. That wall became this villages undoing.”

Dimitri took a deep breath and shuddered before he continued. “I was only five years old when my life was turned upside down. My father shook me and my brother from our slumber early one morning whispering frantically. He told my brother to take me into the forest via the small underground tunnel just behind our house. He told us to run and never look back. He said he would find us and that everything was going to be okay.”

Dimitri paused as Nadia saw the events unfolding in her mind. He looked down at their hands and smiled the saddest smile Nadia had ever seen. It broke her heart to see Dimitri in so much pain. She glanced around looking for something that did not hold the evidence of the terrible history. She caught sight of movement within a few of the crumbling houses. Nadia quickly realized there were a lot more ghosts in the village than she first imagined and not all of them seemed to be confined to the City Center.

Dimitri, unaware of the visiting ghosts continued, “My brother is three years older than me. So, with only the clothes on our backs we silently left the village, but we didn’t heed my father’s orders to keep going. We got twenty feet outside the village walls before the screaming started.” Dimitri paused and Nadia squeezed his hand for support. “We followed the wall around to the front and back entrances of the village and found them locked, barred, and guarded. When we got back to the tunnel we debated going back into the village and disobeying our father. We decided to re-enter the village, but someone had blocked the tunnel. In the end, we climbed a tree to see over the walls and tried to catch a glimpse of what was happening. The screaming had turned to crying by the time we were high enough to see. There was a large group of villagers gathered on the steps of the City Center.” Nadia glanced back at the building. She could imagine the frightened villagers gathered on the steps awaiting their fate.

Dimitri continued without noticing Nadia’s distraction. “They were surrounded by a group of military men that carried knives, swords, and other crude weapons. The villagers were clinging to each other out of fear and desperation. My parents were not among them. My next-door neighbors, the Grosvenor’s, were in the group of villagers. They had five children that were twelve, eight, five, three, and a one-year-old baby. A small man came up to their father and asked him something that we were unable to hear. The question confused the group causing them to look around, but the answer came back as a shoulder shrug. The man turned to the soldier closet to him and nodded. The soldier walked over to their twelve-year-old daughter. Her name was Lenora and she used to watch my brother and me when my parents were out. He walked over to Lenora and without hesitation ran her through with his sword. The cry that Lenora’s mother made still echoes in my ears. The question was asked again and again and if it was not answered, another one of the Grosvenor children was killed. By the time the soldiers pulled the infant from his mother’s arms, she too had been murdered. The entire family was brutally killed in cold blood in front of the rest of the villagers. I watched helplessly, unable to look away. My brother only looked away to throw up. We stayed up in the trees just long enough to see the soldiers fall on the other villagers, attacking at will. We ran through the forest well into the morning light. We ran even after the screaming stopped, even after the soldiers lit the village homes on fire, even after both of us had cried ourselves into numbness. We ran so hard and so long that it took us two days to get back to the village after we felt it was safe enough to return.”

While Dimitri told his story, they had continued to walk. When they stopped, they stood outside a ruined home long over taken by nature. “This was my home. I was born in this very room,” he said, walking into the shell of the house that once stood there. He dropped Nadia’s hand. “This is where I saw my father alive for the last time.”

Nadia turned toward Dimitri and gasped. Standing behind him was the ghost of a man that Nadia knew had to be Dimitri’s father. Dimitri looked so much like him. The ghost of Dimitri’s father looked devastated as he reached for his son, but was unable to touch him.

“Hello, Nadia,” Benicio, said in a wispy voice. Benicio glanced at Nadia with a watery smile. He looked back at his son as Dimitri walked right through his out stretched arm, unaware of his father’s presence.

“My room used to be through here,” Dimitri said, as he bent down and picked up scraps of wood. “Through there was my parent’s room and that was Godric’s room.”

“Who?” Nadia asked suddenly.

“My brother,” Dimitri said absentmindedly, still rummaging through the rubble.

“Your brother?” Nadia whispered, shocked.

“Yes,” both Dimitri and Benicio responded together.

“My other son has been held captive for just over two years,” Benicio crossed the room to Nadia. “I need you to save both my sons.” Suddenly, Benicio crossed right into Nadia and she was seeing flashes of memories.

The first was of Benicio and Godric standing at Gaia’s bedside as she held Dimitri as a new born baby. Nadia could feel the intense pride that Benicio felt for his new son. The next was of a four or five-year-old Godric and Dimitri as a toddler, carrying packages

from a local merchant. Each boy was holding a hand of their father’s and laughing. Finally, Nadia saw through the eyes of Benicio the day the village was raided. She felt the fear that Benicio felt that day, the fear for his sons and his village. She felt his barely contained rage, but unlike Benicio, she was unable to contain what she was feeling. She knew that Benicio had died in a lot of pain. But even through torture he never gave up his sons or regretted one moment of the short life he shared with them. When the images ended and Benicio was gone Nadia stood silently sobbing, clutching a small, tattered, smoke-stained blanket.

“Nadia?” Dimitri questioned, as he rushed to her side. “What is it?” He took her in his arms and held her as she continued to cry for Benicio, Dimitri, and Godric. She had never felt such intense emotions before and had difficulty processing them. “Why?” Dimitri asked. “Why are you sorry?”

Nadia had not realized she had been apologizing over and over until Dimitri questioned it. It was hard for Nadia to put onto words what she was feeling. She didn’t think she could do it in that moment. She also didn’t want to add to Dimitri’s pain so she chose to wait. “No,” she said. “It’s not something I want to talk about yet. Please, finish your story.”

“Nadia?” Dimitri’s curiosity and concern colored his voice. He pushed her back to consider her face. Her face was tear-streaked but determined. She shook her head and he let her go so that she could wipe her tears.

“Okay,” Dimitri said. “But I really want to hear the reason for such a huge emotional reaction.”

“Can’t a girl just overreact from time to time? Please continue with your story.” Nadia said coyly, without looking at him.

“Yes,” Dimitri nodded. “But you’re not one of those girls. You always have a reason for your outbursts.” Dimitri was still very curious, but he allowed Nadia to keep her secret. He would not forget to ask her and knew eventually she would tell him. “Okay,” Dimitri said with a big breath, letting it out slowly. “When we arrived back at the village the scene was terrible.” He stopped, visibly still affected by what he saw that day. “My brother asked me to wait outside the village, but I refused. I had to know what happened to our parents, our friends, and our village. I had to.”

He stopped looking around. “We came here first and found our house still smoldering. We searched from the outside of the village into the City Center. Every night we were warmed by the funeral pyres of our neighbors and friends. Every day we woke to find more bodies. We had no time to mourn for those lives that were so needlessly taken, but more than once Godric or I woke up screaming in the night. It took us two weeks to search the entire village and burn the dead.” Nadia gasped audibly despite her attempts to stay quiet.

Dimitri was staring off into childhood memories that haunted his adult life. “No one was left alive. On the day before we finally left the village, we found our father. He was beaten so badly we were almost unable to identify his body.”

Dimitri stopped again, trying in vain to hold back the painful memories. Nadia crossed to him and grasped his hand. They walked out of the house and started back toward the City Center. It was dusk and there was a definite chill in the air. Small fires were springing up outside the tents of the Prestarian’s. They looked like beacons of hope to Nadia. To Dimitri they were a cruel reminder of different fires he had endured.

“The day we found my father, I was filled with so much rage and hate. I was mad at my father for lying to us, sending us away and not coming with us. I even found myself hating him for it. Only until recently, I carried that anger and hatred with me.” He squeezed Nadia’s hand remembering how his father had given him the family gift of healing in time to save Nadia’s life. “I, of course, hate the puppet master since he ordered the vicious attack. You know him as Sergei, but for a long time we only called him the Dream Killer. I also carried self-hatred and maybe I still do a little. The soldiers came here for me and my brother and we were the only two that survived. Why? Why the horrible twist in fate?”

Nadia stopped Dimitri by pulling on his hand. She reached up and placed a hand on his chest before saying, “This wasn’t your fault. No, matter what he was looking for.” She spit the word ‘he’ as if it was a poison.

“I know you’re right,” Dimitri said doubtfully. “I just can’t stand the idea that these good people died because he was looking for me. My father…”

“Loved you very much,” Nadia cut in. “He was so proud of you everything you have done as a child and have accomplished as a man. He has no regrets about his life.”

Dimitri stared at Nadia, shocked. “He was here wasn’t he?” he asked. “You saw him?”

“Yes,” Nadia said, simply. She was still not willing to go into details right then.

“Thank you,” whispered both father and son.

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