The Cataclysm Scroll

Sneak Preview

(With care given to ensure no spoilers exist related to the other novels in the trilogy.)

Laura was dreaming, fast asleep still sitting in the chair with her head on the desk. There were hundreds of people all around her, dressed differently than today. White robes and sandals seemed to be prevalent. No blue jeans or high heels. She felt as if it was a long time ago. The people were hurrying in all directions, some carrying things, old people being carried by young. Laura noticed she was standing in several inches of ash, thick and white in its texture. She was trying to figure out the source of the ash filling the street when a lady running by her turned and looked directly in to her eyes.

"You are having a lucid dream," the woman said to Laura. "The year is 79 A.D." Then she dissipated into nothingness, as if she'd never been there.

Laura quickly looked around for her, but could not see where the woman had gone. Then she noticed the mountains to the north and west of the town she was in. Dark smoke was pouring out of a distant mountain about five miles away. She knew immediately it was a volcano. Then she remembered what the woman had said. "79 A.D."

"Oh my God!" Laura exclaimed as she remembered her history lessons. "Pompeii! I'm in Pompeii during the Mount Vesuvius eruption!"

She didn't know what to do. People were running at her, away from her, huddling in corners of buildings trying to get out of the falling ash. She noticed it was really coming down, but couldn't understand why it wasn't affecting her ability to breathe. Then she noticed a man running at her, holding his son on his shoulders. Laura tried to get out of his way because he apparently hadn't seen her. She quickly jumped to the left to get out of his way, but he had also turned. She braced herself for the impact that was sure to come from being run over by two people.

The imminent collision didn't happen. The man, with son on his back, ran right through her. She felt nothing but wind as he passed through her.

She was standing in the middle of the street, trying to figure out how and why this was happening, when she felt the earth shake below her feet. It was a shock that should have knocked her down, but she was still on her feet. Other people around her all fell to the ground. The earthquake continued for what she guessed was at least a minute, then stopped.

An explosion from the northwest got her attention in the midst of the chaos around her. She turned just in time to see a section of the peak of Vesuvius blast out and away from the mountain's peak, immediately followed by a pillar of dark gray smoke that must have been at least ten miles high. She saw the orange glow of lava rolling down the mountain, burning everything in its path, including trees, houses and people. The pyroclastic flow was heading down the mountain, seemingly directly at her.

People were coughing and choking from the ash, now coming down so heavily she couldn't see buildings not far from her that she had seen clearly just moments before. She was still amazed the ash had no effect on her.

Then, a male voice behind her said her name. "Laura."

She spun around to see an old man standing a few feet from her, also apparently not affected by the ash. The old cowboy hat he was wearing, she thought however, might have been protecting him from it because he had over a half-inch of the gray soot on its brim.

She eyed him up and down. He was smiling, perfect white teeth defying a body she guessed to be well in his 70's. He looked like an American Indian, weathered, very tan skin almost leathery in appearance. He had on a simple clean white t-shirt under a leather vest, a worn-out but clean pair of blue jeans, and at the bottom of this remarkable image was a pair of old oxblood color cowboy boots, also well-worn.

"Who are you?" she exclaimed, surprised.

"My name is Mahkah," he said, still smiling. His voice had a smooth, almost silky quality to it. "You need not fear me."

Laura thought his voice also defied his age. It sounded like a man in his 40's. She was trying to control her panic, with the erupting volcano behind her and this old Indian in front.

"Why should I fear you?" she asked in a voice she tried to keep from trembling. "Do you know what's happening? We're about to be burnt to cinders by Mount Vesuvius!"

He laughed. "No, we are not, my dear. We are both dreaming this."

Then Laura remembered the woman who had earlier disappeared after telling her she was having a lucid dream.

"Is the volcano not going to kill us then?" she asked, hopeful she already knew the answer.

"No," he said flatly, chuckling. "It cannot hurt your spirit body, which is what you are in now. I am here to help you, and to ask something of you."

This threw Laura into a mental wrestling match, trying to determine what was reality and what was not. This certainly seemed real. She could smell and taste the ash, although it hadn't hurt her yet. And this old Indian, laughing at her questions, was pissing her off. She decided to get angry. The best defense was always a good offense.

"Get out of my dream right now!" she yelled.

Mahkah laughed harder, making a gesture that she had just hurt his ears by twisting both little fingers on each side of his head.

"I'm sorry, I cannot do that at this moment," he said, returning to a smile. "You and I need to talk, and we cannot do that here. It is too noisy and there are too many distractions."

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Laura said, still angry.

The Indian just chuckled again, then Laura felt herself being swept away as if in a whirlpool going down a sink – but sideways. She could perceive air passing her quickly, as the sound of the volcano and its dying residents screaming behind her faded out.

A moment later, she was standing at the edge of Lake Mississippi. She looked around and saw the old Indian still next to her side. He was gazing out onto the water. It was early morning, the sun behind her was coming up in the East.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"You know exactly where you are, Laura. Don't play stupid, you are too intelligent to play the dumb blonde routine," he said with that big smile again. He pointed down to the water's edge. She followed with her eyes and saw her own footprints where she had climbed out of the muck carrying her dive gear. It was her footprints, for sure. She recognized the pattern on the bottom of her dive booties in the mud.

"Why are we here?" she asked, now more puzzled than mad. Her mind was racing with possibilities of how she had gotten here so quickly, and what had happened to those people in Pompeii.

"You know the answer to both those questions," he said.

"Both? I only asked one question!" she exclaimed.

"No," he said, looking her in the eyes. "You asked why we were here, and wanted to know what happened to those poor people in Pompeii. You know the answer to the last question, don't you? And I'm about to answer your first question."

Laura felt uneasy. He had just read her mind. He was a scary old man, for sure.

He motioned for her to sit down. "Have a seat, please."

She sat down. The grass growing up through the rocks felt damp with the morning's dew. She was still testing herself to see if she was really dreaming or perhaps that metal thing had done something to her sense of reality. She wondered if it had contained some kind of hallucinogenic gas or poison.

Mahkah sat down across from her, about five feet away. They were both sitting Indian-style. She glanced down, not sure what clothes she was wearing in this dream, to make sure it was pants and not a skirt. It was blue jeans, strangely, the same pair she'd worn the day before.

"No, there was no gas or poison in the canister," he answered again without behind asked. Laura was getting alarmed.

"Quit reading my damn thoughts! I didn't invite you into my dreams to begin with!" she said, returning to her comfort zone of being angry.

"On the contrary, yes you did. At least, in a manner of speaking," he said. "When you plucked that canister from the Earth, you took something that was meant to remain for all time. It was dislodged by the earthquake last month, washed out of its home by the water, and you stumbled upon it. I have been asked to be a messenger to request that you return it immediately." Mahkah paused speaking, as if to give her an opportunity to digest everything he'd said.

Laura didn't answer. She had a puzzled look on her face, still waiting for more of an explanation.

Mahkah continued, "As I said, and you are already aware, we are both dreaming. You are in what I, and others like me, call the dreaming body. Other people may call it out-of-body, or O.O.B. But that isn't entirely correct, because your spirit is capable of doing much more than simply leaving its host. Tagging it with such a simplistic explanation is your conscious mind's way of protecting itself."

Laura's mind was spinning. This felt so real.

Mahkah smiled, "You will see me again in this state. And we will talk soon. But now, I must leave you." As quickly as he'd said it, he dissipated in front of Laura's eyes.