1 The Dream Rider by Ernest Dempsey Page A

“It’s what they
call all of the prisoners here,” she answered.
    I spun around and saw a thin but strong frame with long,
dark chocolate hair cascading down to her shoulders. She wore a tight, olive green
shirt with sleeves barely below the shoulders and form-fitting brown breeches.
Her beauty was lost on me for a moment as I realized who she was. I recognized her immediately. She was the girl from the party. I
stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, remembering how she had paralyzed me
by merely touching my leg.
    “It’s you. You’re the girl from the party.” I tried to
scoot away from her as she continued towards me, her hips moving back and
forth. I felt my head bump into something hard and looked up to see a muscular
figure with an orange beard. It was the guy I’d seen leaning against the wall
on my way in the night before. He hovered over me like a giant in his green
tunic and brown pants, similar to the outfit the girl had on. Now I realized
they were all wearing similar outfits, and the clothes were in better condition
than the ones worn by other prisoners.
    She smiled at my weakness. “I’m not going to hurt you,
Finn. And I cannot use the power in this place that you felt on Earth.”   Her words set my mind at ease a little.
The bearded man reached a hand down to help me up, which I accepted sheepishly.
    “Thanks,” I offered and stepped back.
    “Siderians,” she explained, “believe that we are all part
of our planet and it is part of us. We are fragments of a greater purpose, a
greater existence.”
    “They think we believe in some kind of magic, like foolish
children. It is a term of derision, used to show that we are inferior to our
imperial overlords,” Jonas added.
    “Overlords? Okay, wait a minute. You’re hitting me with a
lot of information here, Jonas. First thing,” I turned to the young woman. “Why
did you paralyze me the other night at the party? And how were you there, on
Earth?”   The words came out of my
mouth like a gushing waterfall.
    “Our minds allow us to travel, just as yours does,” she
answered.
    Jonas had called it dream travel . It sounded like something out of a
fairy tale. I glanced around, at the group of a dozen or so people who had
gathered around us. They seemed non-threatening but their positioning was
beginning to make me feel a little claustrophobic. They appeared to be
anticipating something.
    I brought my attention back to the girl. “Why did you come
to Earth?” I asked hoping my voice didn’t sound nervous.
    “We have been expecting you, Finn. Once we found you, we
knew that Mallock and his men would be close behind. Regrettably, they got to
you before I could, initially.”  
    “And brought me here,” I stated, disappointedly.
    She shook her head. “No. They found you on the street.
Remember? The men in the trench coats with the guns? They are part of Mallock’s police force, his personal assassins and most
trusted hit men. They lured you to another place in your dreams and tried to
kill you there.”  
    How
had she known that? I hadn’t told anyone about that dream. Had I? I ran through the events of the
last few days in my mind, but even when I spoke to Dr. Edert I hadn’t revealed
any details about my nightmares. There was no way she could have known details
I had not shared.
    “We arrived too late,” she answered my question before I
could ask it. “I don’t know how, but somehow you survived. I watched them shoot
you. I saw your body lying there on the sidewalk as they walked away. Then you
disappeared vanished.”
    “You saw the whole thing? You watched those men shooting
at me? But it was just a…” I stopped myself, realizing that maybe dreams
weren’t what I always thought them to be.
    “The next day we saw you were still alive. We couldn’t
take the risk that they would get to you again so I came to Earth to warn you.”   She crossed her arms and stuck one hip
out to the side.
    I unconsciously lowered myself