. The ground shook more now and it felt like fire against Jonathon’s feet. He wanted to run but now was not the time for running. It was time to grow, to go from being a boy to being a man, and real men don’t run. They stand their ground even if that ground was on fire. He looked around the cemetery for his father and saw him standing to his right with two other men in front of a crypt. The men wore black robes and were holding wooden stakes from which flames leapt high into the darkness that surrounded them. One of the men drew a sword from within the folds of his robe and raised it in the air. His father looked back at Jonathon with sadness in his eyes. Tears of blood welled in them then rolled down his cheeks which were scarred from the crash that killed him. The man holding the sword swung it through the air and through his father’s neck, cutting off his head which fell to the ground. Jonathon screamed but no one heard him. After all, the dead don’t hear. His father’s body swayed a bit before it crashed to the ground in a bloody heap. The two men bowed their heads and a dark cloud rose from the depths of Hell, licking its putrid fingers over his father’s headless body and all over the robed men too. It swirled around them all like a small tornado and then it disappeared into the crypt. The two robed men were gone and so was his father. Jonathon started for the crypt when what sounded like a runaway train approached him from behind. CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA. A lightning bolt flashed past him at great speed and it stabbed the demon that was approaching Jonathon from behind in the heart. It let out a horrific roar and it thrashed about, reaching for the lightning bolt, trying desperately to pull it from its heart before it was too late but it was too late. The lightning bolt cooked its black heart to a cinder and the demon cried a gut-wrenching cry that woke the dead from their beds of dirt before it turned to dust and was taken away by the powerful wind. The angel turned and threw another bolt of lightning and it stabbed another demon that was approaching Jonathon, this one in the neck and it began to bleed black blood. The demon let out a sickening roar as the souls of a thousand good men were freed from the depths of Hell and made their ways to Heaven. It vanished into a cloud of putrid black smoke and the angel took flight, disappearing into the Heavens that continued to pelt balls of steel at the cemetery below. Jonathon shed tears that stung his skin as they rolled down his cheeks. He looked around the cemetery, hoping for an answer to the question of what in God’s name had just happened. The Heavens opened again and a ray of light shone down on the cemetery. Jonathon looked up and watched as an angel of extraordinary beauty descended and it came to rest in front of him. He looked into its eyes and could scarcely believe what he was seeing. The angel who was once the girl he loved and who he hoped to marry one day and who died in the other car when his father drifted onto the wrong side of the road smiled. “We have to endure the pain and hurt that comes hand in hand with the privilege of being on Planet Earth for our dreams to come true, Jonathon. And now that your dream has come true, it’s time to forgive your father and move on. God speed my friend, and may good fortune be your guide.” With that the angel took flight and disappeared into the sky which was grey with wet and stormy clouds again, but to Jonathon it was as much the light of the girl who was rewarded with a place in Heaven for enduring the pain and hurt that comes hand in hand with the privilege of being on Planet Earth. Yes his dream had come true, but at what price to those around him? “Jonathon?” It was Serena. She had seen everything and heard it too. She had dropped the book called THE BOOK OF DARK DREAMS and written by Jonathon’s father next to the cemetery gate, unable to share it with him because she loved him and because