Despite the fear that started to lurk in my soul since I had noticed the discrepancy between Maarten Van Helsing's appearance and real age, our travel to the Antarctic continent was mostly uneventful. He greeted me and, in the first night, locked himself in his cabin and warned us that he shouldn't be bothered until we arrived at our destination. Most people in the expedition didn't see him for the rest of the trip.

One night, I saw the first icebergs showing. At this point, I could remember how the scenery looked like a Roerich painting, but that Lovecraft man kind of spoiled the fun after repeating the comparison for about a hundred times. I was smoking on the deck, trying to ease my wrecking nerves.

"Blimey!", I heard someone saying this and some other less polite things. "I thought that everyone was already sleeping!"

It was Van Helsing and I felt another chill when I saw him. He was ghastly pale, his hair was grey and dull and he was unhealthily thin. He was clutching a bottle, and his unsteady legs made me think that he was drunk. When he got near me, tossing himself on the rail, however, I had to admit that I didn't smell any alcohol.

"I'll never hibernate again" he went on. "Waking up is like being born."

I could offer no response besides a stammered "Hibernate?". He looked at me puzzled. "Yeah, hibernation. Y'know the deal, you overfeed and sleep."

I reminded him that people don't hibernate and he simply let a "blimey" out again. He let some minutes pass. When I thought that our conversation was over, he chuckled and said, like he had never made a pause:

"Heh. I miss grandpa. He would be crazy if he saw me slipping that hard in front of stranger. Who would know that human beings don't hibernate. Seems like something so basic. He died a couple years ago, my grandpa. Not fair. He was a great man. A merciful man. Gave my father a chance that others wouldn't give. He gave him a new house, a new name, a new personal story. It's a shame we aren't related by blood. But I got to keep his name alive, and it's something. I even named my son Abraham. Abraham Van Helsing II. Cool name, huh? He is a cool kid. Bookish like grandpa. I have two others, Rachel and Lawrence. Cool kids, too. Y'know who else is cool? You. You are."

At this point, he stopped blabbing and stared me hard for some seconds. Then, he straightened himself and retreated to his cabin, waving the bottle in his hand and saying:

"Gosh, I'm acting like I'm drunk. I guess those things fermented when I was sleeping. By the way, I had a slight change of plans. We'll discuss it when I'm safe enough to be around people."

This 'slight change of plans' sounded a bit ominous to me. It almost distracted me for the fact that he referred to 'human beings' with way too much detachment. Almost.

We arrived in the Antarctic continent shortly after this. Despite his slender body, Van Helsing put everyone to shame, when it came to carry the crates of equipment. He looked fresh and young again, and I tried not to think about it too hard. Prof. Starkweather couldn't help but notice that humongous crate that he handled alone. When asked, the youth (and I still call him "youth" because he looked like a perfectly normal 20-years-old) shrugged and said that the crate had "Prof. Dyer's sciency stuff".

I cornered him later to ask what my 'sciency stuff' really was and he answered that half of it was food for the Elder Things. They were starving for entire geological periods, after all and would need everything we could provide. I just wish that I had resisted the urge to ask for the other half.

"Dynamite", he answered, with a tone in his voice that added an 'obviously'. My shock must have shown because he added: "Don't worry. I'm a trained soldier. Granted, I'm a pilot, but I also had a good land training. I know how to blow things up very well."

Unable to answer him properly, I only mumbled a terrified "why". He raised his eyebrow, again with that "obviously" attitude that was starting to become offensive. When he answered, his voice sounded almost bored:

"We will have to destroy the anomaly that is creating the passage to the Dreamlands. I won't punch it until it breaks. Oh, and about that…"

He pulled me to a calmer corner and explained:

"During my hibernation, I wandered into the Dreamlands, trying to reach the Elder Things' Leng again. It took me longer than I thought it would, and I didn't even use the same portal. After a more thorough search, I noticed something a little… troublesome. I could sense more or less the direction of the anomaly, though I couldn't see exactly where it is. The thing is, after we destroy it, we will never be able to make it out of the Dreamlands before the portal closes. The anomaly is too far from the portal."

I shuddered at the thought. "What do we do, then?"

"That's what I spent the rest of my hibernation planning. There are a few exits from the Dreamlands to the Waking World. I got a deal with a king that has maps of those exits. His grand-uncle knew my grandfather, so he was willing to talk to me. Long story short, he will lend them to us if we show him the Elder Things. He is tremendously curious to see them."

"What if we fail?" I asked, still unsure.

"We will have to find the exit for ourselves." He shrugged. "I know a place that touches the Waking Word in many points. The only problem is that it's insanely dangerous to get there. We have to try all the other options first."

It was not like I could give up at that point. I tryed to appear brave and shrugged. "Let's hope for the best."

"That's the spirit!" He slapped me so hard on the back that I felt my lungs squeezing my heart. "I knew you would be one of the good ones."

I didn't answer to him. The expedition was starting to move.

I'll spare the reader from the many times that I almost gave up on everything and went back to home. Every turn and every landscape would give me the most frightful memories. Thankfully, the people on the expedition mostly left me alone. My nerves were a wreck.

One night, I was suddenly awakened by Van Helsing.

"It's time." He whispered. "Pick your things and let's go."

I was too sleepy to understand what he meant, by I complied immediately. Outside the camping, one of the planes was ready to fly. "What exactly are we doing?" I was still too slow to understand.

"We have to go ahead. We don't want the entire expedition locked on the Upper Dreamlands, do we? I assured that we will have enough fuel for this travel. Tomorrow morning, we will be too far away for them to do something."

"Wait, do you plan to fly at night? At this night? I can barely see the plane, and that's because you are carrying a lantern."

"Not a problem for me. Now, let's keep the talk for the flight. Hop in!"

He didn't wait for me to climb the plane on my own and shoved me inside. When the engines started to work, I remember something important. "Hey, we will wake the entire camping!"

"Don't worry, I drugged them."

"You WHAT?"

"It was for their own well being, my friend. There wasn't another way to snatch a plane where no one is looking. If we lose the plane, I'll compensate them. Now, sit down and enjoy."

Unfortunately, I started to think that I was dreaming, or else I would have protested more to his methods. As things were, I let myself to be dragged by him to this strange adventure, in the cold and the darkness.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Well, not exactly 'beauty', but you understood."

When I opened my eyes, I half-expected to be in the campsite. It was a terrible shock to discover that I was inside a plane. I didn't want to believe that last night happened.

"You sleep like a corpse" he went on, not much tactfully. "Seriously. The plane isn't exactly silent and we had turbulence and rough winds all the way. This landing was far from smooth. And yet, you managed to sleep through all of this."

"Enough about my sleeping habits." I was a little grumpy after a bad night. "Where are we?"

"Almost there. The mountains are already visible, but I haven't the faintest clue of where Lake's camp should be or how can we pass the mountains and enter the Plateau."

The mention of Lake's camp made my heart accelerate. The drowsiness abandoned me. Almost whispering, I asked him: "Must… Must we go there?"

"It's not a must." He smiled reassuringly to me. "I just wanted a reference point. If you show me how you and Danforth crossed the mountains, that's enough."

I sighed with relief. The last thing I wanted was to be closer to those graves.

Van Helsing insisted that I had a good meal and I agreed that it would be wise. He himself was totally indifferent to food and I assumed that he ate before waking me up. While I had my breakfast, he simply drank something dark from one of his seemly endless bottles.

It was strange when we were ready to go. Both of us were conscious that we were entering a dangerous quest that would take us God knows where. We could die. We could be lost forever in another world. It was a momentous situation, and we felt that we should say something big and solemn before departing.

Unluckily, neither of us were good with words. After an awkward silence, we simply shook our hands and he said, smiling:

"Ready for adventure?"

The plane was high. Goodness, I didn't remember how high these mountains really were. The wind was strong and I was certain that I was hearing musical sounds. The déjà vu hit me with all its force. It was exactly like last time.

Up and up we were, with the wind piping even more madly and the strange voices starting to form on the back of my mind. Knowing what they were didn't help me in the least to bear them.

Madness. It was all coming back to me.

When we were about to cross the mountains that protected the accursed Leng, when the winds stopped the unnerving howling, when we could see the first signs of the plateau that waited ahead, I could finally hear in my mind, loud and clear:

"HELP US!"

I should have stayed home.