Chapter 1
Chelsea Smith sat in her last class of the day and stared at the board. Her teacher's mouth was moving, but Chelsea didn't hear any words. She propped her head up on her arms and tried to keep her eyelids open. It wasn't like the lesson was boring or anything, its just that she hadn't slept in days. A week ago Chelsea had started having nightmares. Not your average teenage girl nightmares about breakups and horror movies, these nightmares were jumbled sounds and images that flashed in her brain. It seems that every time she closed her eyes she would hear screams and see flashes of orange and red. It wasn't just the nightmares that were new though. Around the same time she started having them, some other strange things began happening. Chelsea had knowledge about things that she had never studied in her life and when she got very close to another person sometimes she could hear their thoughts.
"Ms. Smith would you care to explain to us what a wormhole is?" Chelsea's teacher asked crossly. She had been caught dozing off. Chelsea cleared her throat and rubbed her eyes. She sat up straight in her seat and used every ounce of brainpower she had to try to come up with an answer. She didn't even need to think for long before an answer popped up in her head. "A wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of space-time that would fundamentally be a shortcut through space and time." When Chelsea finished speaking, she noticed the shocked expressions on the faces of her peers and the disbelief expressed by her teacher. "Um I mean, it's like a space tunnel or something." She stuttered. Her teacher stared at her for a few more moments before nodding and turning back to the diagram on the board. Chelsea sank into her seat. A few students still openly stared at her and a few others stared but tried to hide it.
When the bell rang Chelsea grabbed her backpack and swung it over one shoulder. On her way out, her teacher called her name. She turned around slowly. "Yes sir?" She asked quietly. "How did you know all of that information on wormholes?" Her teacher asked. "Have you been reading ahead?" Chelsea hadn't been reading ahead but she replied, "Yes sir." "Ms. Smith, reading ahead in the lesson is forbidden and I shall advise you not to do it again." her teacher scolded. Chelsea apologized to her teacher and left the classroom. The corridor was clearing up when she stepped out of the classroom. She dodged from side to side to avoid bumping into people. A boy brushed past her shoulder and Chelsea's entire body convulsed. She grabbed a locker to steady herself. Her mind swam and her head flashed her images of American football and cheerleaders and dogs. If there was one thing she hated most about her new found curse, it was the mind entering. This isn't right. She thought. Man was never meant to walk amongst the thoughts of another.
In front of the school Chelsea's mum sat in her car. She honked her horn to try to get Chelsea to move a little faster. When Chelsea got in the car, her mother placed a hand on her forehead. "Are you alright love?" She asked. "You look terribly ill and you were walking at a snail's pace just now." Chelsea swatted her mother's hand away. "I'm fine Mum. Just tired." She said. Her mother didn't believe her but she took her hand away and started the car. They drove in silence for almost ten minutes before Chelsea's mum spoke up. "You really ought to tell me if something's bothering you. I can help if you'd let me." She said. Chelsea gave her mum a weak smile. "I know, but really, I'm fine." Chelsea said. Her mother frowned but didn't argue. Eventually the small fishing town of Westonbrough faded away and the building and neighborhoods were replaced by windmills, silos, and orchards. Finally Chelsea's mum's car turned onto the dirt road that lead to their farm. They drove past the mailbox that said "Smith" and the old empty doghouse. When they pulled into the driveway Chelsea leaped out of the car before it had even come to a full stop. She ran into the house and up the stairs. She rushed into her bedroom and locked the door behind her. Chelsea dumped her schoolbag on the ground by her closet door then fell face down onto her bed. Tears flowed from her eyes and formed dark, salty puddles on her pillow. All she wanted in the entire world was a few winks of sleep, but she was afraid of the images that haunted her every time she closed her eyes.
When Chelsea finally worked up the courage to lift her head up from her pillow, the room around her looked blurry. She waited for her eyes to adjust but the blurr remained. Chelsea looked at her hands and screamed when she could barely see them. The edges of her vision grew dark and blackness began closing in. She screamed for help over and over as her vision slowly deteriorated. Her mum burst into Chelsea's room and raced to her daughter's side. She sat on the bed, holding her weeping daughter. She called for her husband. "Richard!" She screamed. "What's the matter baby, what's wrong?" She asked Chelsea. "I can't see." Chelsea whispered. Her mother helped her to the bathroom where they splashed water into Chelsea's eyes. Slowly the fuzzy blackness began to recede and Chelsea's vision returned and cleared. Her father came into the bathroom with a worried look on his face. Chelsea's mum whispered something into his ear and his worried expression turned to fear. Chelsea sat on the bathroom counter while her parents whispered back and forth. "Mum, Dad, am I dying?" She asked. Her mother turned to her and embraced her tightly. "No Love, you aren't dying." She said. Chelsea pulled out of her mother's embrace and looked her in the eyes. "Am I ill then?" She asked seriously. "No you aren't ill either." Her mum said. Chelsea was growing impatient with her mother's vagueness. "What's the bloody matter with me then!?" She yelled. Her tone of voice shocked her parents. Her father spoke up this time. "Nothing dear, nothing is the matter, sometimes eyes just have little issues, that's all." he said calmly. "But Mummy, Daddy, it's not just my eyes, it's my head too. I haven't slept at all in eight days." Chelsea said, hysterically. "Eight days? Are you sure you're not exaggerating?" Her mother asked. Chelsea hopped off the counter and went into her bedroom. When she returned she handed her mother the sleep schedule that she had to keep for health class. According to the chart, in eight days, Chelsea had slept a grand total of just thirty minutes. Her parents looked more worried than before. "Don't worry Chelsea, it's just a bug, it'll pass." Chelsea's father said. Chelsea tried to calm down. Tears were welling up in her eyes. "Can I see a doctor? Maybe I can get antibiotics." She said. When Chelsea mentioned a doctor's visit, both her parents' eyes widened and they looked nervous. "No need." Her mother said. "But Mum-" "I said NO!" Chelsea's mum interrupted. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "Chel, just no." She said.
The dreams came again that night. When sleep finally took Chelsea it was anything but peaceful. She heard screams of men, women, and children. The world flashed orange and red and yellow. But this dream was different than the others because instead of being an observer, watching the scene before her, Chelsea was right in the middle of it. She ran along with the crowd of people. She saw a group of people running against the crowd. They were heading towards whatever everyone was running from. Chelsea contained her curiosity and kept running away. Suddenly everyone disappeared and Chelsea was running alone. She stopped and looked around. The ground was hard, orange, and dusty. Not knowing where she was or where to run she just headed for a forest-y looking area in the distance. For hours she walked through the desolate terrain. It wasn't hot or cold it was just, normal. When she reached the "forest" she looked up in awe at the trees. The leaves were silver and they glistened in the sunlight. Suddenly grass was sprouting up around her feet. Beautiful, golden grass. It grew until it was up to her knees. Chelsea had watched the horror this dreamscape every night for the last week, but tonight, the night when she was fully submerged within it, did she get to see the beauty behind the fear.
Although the landscape was breathtakingly beautiful, Chelsea still had no idea what to do. She walked through the grass and looked up at the trees. When she heard rustling in the grass nearby, she stopped. Slowly, she walked towards the rustling with hopes of running into another human. When she was only ten feet away from the rustling sounds she couldn't see what was making the noises thanks to a huge tree. Suddenly another sound joined the rustling. It sounded like a machine. A chill went up Chelsea's body and the hairs on her arms stood up. She didn't know why, but something felt very wrong. Chelsea took a deep breath and came out from behind the enormous tree. In front of her was a clearing, in it's center was some sort of machine. It looked like a shiny trashcan with a bunch of metal bumps on it. A plunger-looking thing was sticking out of it along with a strange metal tube. Chelsea approached it slowly. "Excuse me?" She said. "Can you tell me if there's a city nearby?" She asked it. The machine didn't move or respond. Chelsea put her hand out and kept moving closer to the robot. When she was only a couple of feet away from it she spoke again. "Can you hear me?" She asked. Still no response. Chelsea moved closer again and placed her outstretched hand on the machine's body. Suddenly a piece on top of the machine spun around to face Chelsea. A blue eye stared at her. It didn't say anything for almost two minutes. Chelsea and the creature just stared at one another until it raised it's tube-looking arm and pointed it straight at her. "The Time Lord will be EXTERMINATED!" It screeched.
Chelsea shot straight up in bed. Her forehead dripped with sweat and her hands shook. According to her clock, Chelsea had slept for almost fourteen hours. It was the most sleep she had in over a week, but she didn't have time to revel in her personal victory. She climbed out of bed and went to her desk. She grabbed a stack of paper and a pencil and began sketching the elements of her dream. She drew the crowds, the trees, the grass, the mountains, the group of people who walked against the crowd, and she drew the robot. Over and over, she drew the robot until she got it just right. Across another paper, in thick black marker, Chelsea wrote the only words that mattered: Time Lord.
After completing her shrine, Chelsea got changed out her pajamas and grabbed a backpack from her closet, she stuffed it with some of the notes she had written, then she put her shoes on and left her room. Chelsea was on her way out of the house when her mother stopped her. "Where are you going?" She asked. Chelsea stopped walking and turned towards her mum. "Out." She said. Her mother looked worried. "You're not going to see a doctor, are you?" She asked. "No, Mum. I'm going to the library for, um, school work." Chelsea said. Her mother nodded reluctantly and allowed her to leave.
Chelsea pulled her library card out of her wallet and scanned it at the library's front entrance. The scanner buzzed and the automatic doors slid open. Chelsea went over to a computer and began searching. When she typed in the words "Time Lord" to the search engine, the computer began to load then shut-off. When she tried to turn it back on the screen lit up with the letter "T". Something about the ominous appearance of the letter made Chelsea uncomfortable and she decided to switch to book research instead.