*CLAIMER:
Okay, this feels so different writing such a thing. *hehe* This is just to let you know that the plot, Fallon, Alex, and Ian belong to me. I know nothing about insomnia, this idea sounded really good to me, so I wrote it. Enjoy!
*DISCLAIMER: I do not know or own any of the people in the banner, or any of those who make up my cast. Johnny Depp, Murray Yates, and Kate Beckinsale do not belong to me...they are their own persons. I envisioned them as the characters, so there they are in the banner. The brushes in the banner are from V-Brush.
Prologue
Each time a person dreams, something different happens. A child has a nightmare, a teenager dreams of that perfect date, and adults dream of...whatever adults dream of. But some...some for some people, a dream is reality. A dream is a suspension of life and in that dream state if they die, then in the real world they die as well.
It is for that reason that some fear sleep.
These 'insomniacs,' as they call them, fear not what their imagination dreams up, but what their dreams create in that altered reality...
*
Romance had never been a strong point for eighteen-year-old Fallon McMichael. She had dreamed of finding 'the one' as all teenagers do at one point or another, but stopped one day as the person she had thought of as 'the one' had died by her side, after giving themselves to each other completely. Fallon had stopped dreaming after that experience. Her sleep became erratic for fear that she might die as Alex had.
People told her that she was crazy.
Alex Mann had died of a heart attack, so they said. Fallon knew better. He had turned to her, his eyes open wide in shock, mouthed something out of fear, and then as she watched, spasms had shot through his body before everything about him had gone still. The air grew thick with apprehension, and Fallon was paralyzed out of fear. Nothing about that resembled a heart attack. Not in a healthy, athletic, twenty-year-old boy. And then there were the words Fallon was able to deciper as he passed on.
"Run. You're next."
Ian Cauley had met Fallon when the two of them were twelve, the same year she had met Alex. Alex had been two years older than the both of them, and had always hated Ian for as long as he could remember. Ian didn't know why. The reasons for the older boy's hatred went beyond Ian's realm of knowledge. The only thing that Ian could guess was that the friendship he and Fallon shared went beyond what Alex could even hope to share with Fallon.
Ian could tell that Alex and Fallon were destined to be lovers, and he hadn't intervened in their personal lives, even when his better senses told him he should have. There were times when Alex would tell Fallon that he had things to do: homework, football and basketball games he was going to attend too far away for Fallon's parents to allow her to go, and even once he got a job, Alex would tell her that he would be working late...just so he could sneak off with some other girl that Fallon despised. Ian hated himself for not telling Fallon about her boyfriend's after-hour activities, but he felt that it was not his place.
Perhaps he loved Fallon McMichael too much to hurt her with such news.
Perhaps he didn't trust himself enough to tell her.
But she deserved to know. Ian shook his head and went back to watching the television. He couldn't tell her, not while she was still grieving. Ian tossed his head back against the back of the couch, his black curly hair flipping out of his face as he did so. A tear bristled in the corner of his left eye, and he wiped it away quickly. He wouldn't cry for Alex, but he felt as if he should cry for Fallon. His brown eyes glanced out the front window to see if she had arrived yet. Fallon was an hour late, and she prided herself on her punctuality. Ian took a deep breath and rose from the couch. Reaching for the telephone as he entered the kitchen, Ian picked up the receiver and held it to his ear before dialing Fallon's phone number. He had to be sure that she was all right because, needless to say, he was worried for her.
Index | Next Chapter
