Dream Myself Alive

By Brian Lovestar

Zachary Knight is an anarchist, an atheist and a man in mourning. He loses the love of his life Kelly in a tragic road traffic accident, but finds it doesn't necessarily mean he has to say goodbye forever.

With the help of scientist Dr. Stefan Irving, he soon masters an art in which he can be reunited with her in an alternate reality he never knew existed.

But was Kelly’s death really an accident? And with a possible killer on the loose - and secrets and revelations being unearthed - it seems there are dangerous consequences involved with entering this new and exciting world, from which there may be no return.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Lovestar
• Release date: Feb 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310584466

Brian Lovestar

From an early age all Brian Lovestar wanted to do was write. On school break up Friday when all the other kids took toys into school to play with, he took a notepad and pen and wrote short stories.Then he got a real job, a social life, started travelling and put his passion on hold for a while. But eventually his creative juices could no longer be stifled.

Book preview

Prologue:

Zhuangzi dreamed he was a beautiful carefree butterfly, flying happily. After he woke up, he wondered how he could determine whether he was Zhuangzi who had just finished dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly that had just started dreaming he was Zhuangzi.

Zhuang Zhou,

369-286 BC

Chapter 1

I hadn’t seen Kelly since the day she died. And now here she was, right in front of me, looking more beautiful than ever before. Her face almost luminous, her pale skin, dainty nose, and her succulent lips looking more kissable than ever before. The way her long blonde wavy hair danced in the cool breeze was simply breathtaking.

Darkness surrounded us but all I could feel was light. I stared into her sapphire blue eyes. I couldn’t stop staring. I was too scared that if I looked away she would be gone again. I was too afraid to even move an inch. Was she really here? Was I going mad? I reached out and touched her. I took her hand in mine. She felt real. Tears streamed down my face. My heart was beating so fast, I felt like it was going to burst right out of my chest, the same heart that was so brutally broken just months earlier when I got the call.

I dropped the phone. Kelly was dead? She can’t be. Not Kelly. Not my Kelly. Not my beautiful dear Kelly. I was shaking, my lip was quivering, but I just felt numb. My whole body just felt completely devoid of all emotion, like it wasn’t really there anymore, like I wasn’t there anymore. Was my life over as well? The pain inside my chest was unbearable. It felt like my heart was shattering into a thousand tiny pieces. It hurt so bad I felt like I was dying myself, on this same despicable spot where I stood, locked in horrifying time.

I dropped to the floor. I wanted so badly to cry but couldn’t. I just lay down in complete and total silence, curled myself into a childlike ball and died inside.

Our life had been so perfect. It had been our three year anniversary. I’d been preparing a surprise home cooked dinner for the two of us. I’d cooked her favourite jalapeno-infused chilli chicken dish with boiled potatoes, mangetout and baby corn; and I’d made blueberry and white chocolate cheesecake for desert. Kelly was a sucker for anything with white chocolate in it. It was her number one passion in life. Well, number two after that Irish actor Colin Thingamajig’s bum. I am rubbish with celebrity names, but I’d always accepted I was number three behind Colin’s bum and a milky bar.

I’d lit candles. Hey, this was a big deal for me. I wasn’t exactly the romantic type. If there was a ‘Romance for Dummies’ guide book, I needed it. In fact, I tell a lie, I actually searched online once and couldn’t believe there was. I wish I’d bought it now; just one of many if only’s…

We met in late August. It was the end of summer. I was coming out of the Adriatic Sea in Stoja, Croatia, not looking like Daniel Whatshisname in a Speedo, while she was lying on a hotbed of lucky pebbles like a total goddess in heat. She laughed at me, stumbling on the rocks and nearly falling over and grazing my ankle, which stung like a dirty bitch for days as I may recall.

If I had known buying water shoes would have been advantageous in saving my humility and grace in front of a girl as stunningly pretty as Kelly, I’d have certainly splashed out the 50 Croatian Kuna I had been saving for an extra beer that night.

As it turns out though, then we may never have spoken. And I used the money to buy her a beer that night, so it was a total win-win for me.

She agreed to meet me for a drink in the Jack of Spades pub in Pula, though this hadn’t been my earnest suggestion. The smoking ban enforced in pubs in England, hadn’t reached Eastern Europe and she could barely breathe for passive choking. The Romanian band singing rolling on a river in badly broken English was deafening ear poison to say the least. We could barely hear each other. Oh and did I mention it was her least favourite song of all time ever?

I heard that bit, which she blurted out loudly whilst simultaneously managing to spill half a pint of local beer on a rather scruffy, bearded and pierced in all the wrong orifices Scandinavian, who just happened to be the band Death by Disco Ball’s number one fan. He had also heard her dissing them, so we had to make a quick getaway. We left the bar and went for a walk around the nearby Roman Amphitheatre.

This is so pretty, Kelly said, carefully minding her step around the dark unlit pathway that trails around the back of the Amphitheatre.

I mean in the daytime, it is.

It was after midnight and the street lamps were few and far between. I conceded that she was certainly as pretty under the moonlight as she had been sundrenched, earlier that day. We made our way down some steps and found ourselves by the port where several lavish yachts were docked, and which was pretty much deserted at this time of night. The moon’s reflection glistened in the steely dark waters of the calm sea at night, as did our own. Admiring it for a second, I glanced back and caught Kelly by surprise.

Mind if I kiss you? I asked.

She didn’t have to say anything. I could see the answer in her eyes.

Those same eyes I thought I’d lost forever were staring back at me. I studied her face intently, like my life in the moment depended on it. Everything I’d ever felt. Everything we’d ever shared. Each of the thousand tiny shattered pieces of my broken heart felt like they were slowly coming back together. My heart was beating again. And I could feel hers was too. But how could this be? The love of my life, the girl of my dreams, was here again, with me, within reach. Yet this was the same woman I had laid to rest just little more than a few months ago.

I was happy and elated and worried and confused. It was a mixture of feelings so abundantly overwhelming that I was rendered a total mute. I couldn’t think of what to say, or what I wanted to say. All I knew was that I was with Kelly again and I felt like I was home. And it was a place and a feeling that I never wanted to leave or lose again, that I couldn’t lose again.

Slowly the words came to me and while catching my breath I whispered:

How can this be?

Chapter 2

From an airy aqua blue to a stony concealing grey, the skyline definitely told us we were back in England again. It was the middle of September and we had been back from Croatia just over a fortnight and were missing each other terribly. Kelly was back in Leeds and I was at home in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was not exactly a million miles away but it sure felt like it.

We had been inseparable those last few days in Pula, basking in the last of those warm engaging summer rays. But now it was back to life, back to reality, and back to quickly cooling temperatures. Sadly, the rain in England doesn’t fall mainly on the plane. In fact it hadn’t stopped raining since the plane landed. And it was more than just drizzling today. It was pouring down, or as we say here in England ‘raining cats and dogs’. And rabbits and guinea pigs by the looks of it.

I was of course too proud, too macho – and too stupid – to be seen with an umbrella, so I was getting completely drenched. My new designer shirt was wet through. Not likely to impress Kelly anymore, I thought as I got on the train. I couldn’t wait to see her again. It sounded stupid. It had only been a mere two weeks, but it felt like forever, so I’d quickly arranged a weekend in Leeds to catch up. Got home and got wet was about as much as I would have to relay.

And did I mention I had the serious holiday blues? This wasn’t even a light turquoise any-sea-other-than-the-north holiday blues; it was full on electric, bordering on navy.

The train departed and I texted Kelly to say I was on my way. The rain thundered heavily on the windows and looked positively frightful. I was cold and wet and looked like a drowned rat that had just been battling a tsunami. But I was smiling.

This was something I was sure I would never do again and was in fact probably