In 1974, Lauren Zimmerman had a brush with death. When she returned, she was clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairsentiment. Soon thereafter, she realized her mission in life was to share her experience so that others might lose their fear of death.
Ms. Zimmerman is the author of Other Worlds, a series of four books with Called being the first. The series continues with The Mayanite Tiles, Peace Mission, and Choosing Universes.
Chapter One
The dream was surreal. A massive craft that spread across the night sky. An empty control room, dimly lit by an unidentified light source. Large black chairs set solidly before a control panel, small phosphorescent lights blinking occasionally. Beyond the expanse of windows above the panel, the Universe waited silently. Shadows of other-world beings could be sensed moving around behind him, though Paul couldn't see them.
Suddenly a hand touched his shoulder. He turned his head to look. The hand had only three fingers. He slowly moved his eyes until he was looking into the solemn, almond-shaped eyes of a small being with ivory skin. He felt a rush of peace fill him as the memories that he's shared with this being flooded him. A flash of light as bright as a sun ray burned itself into his brain. Instantly the memory of another place dominated the dream, sliding him, as dreams often do, into another world. He was in a hebulous world full of remembrances of another life in another time, a loving face, raven-black hair wrapped around his arms and drifting across his chest like clinging seaweed, a love so deep that his soul ached for it. He felt himself sliding away from her at the same moment he recognized her. He reached to hold her, but in vain. Waking, he shook his head. He was filled with conflicting emotions. He knew instinctively that he would never be the same. The dream world felt too real to be fiction, his emoitons too raw from the memories to be ignored.
Paul laid still, giving himself time to adjust to the morning light that was just beginning to enter the room. At twenty-nine, he liked to think that he wasn't afraid of anything but this morning he could feel an unnamed fear stirring up his stomach. He decided to skip his morning coffee and instead mulled over the dreams. Dominating his thoughts was the memory of a triangular face with large black eyes, the touch of a cool hand, the hint of a mystery far beyond his present understanding. The dream echoed through his mind, trying to find a place to become real.
He identified a fear deep within himself as he searched the dream. Accepting the dream as face, and knowing that he had been in another place while his body was sleeping, wasn't the source of his fear. He probed his discomfort like a sore tooth. His body ached as if he had the flu. A dull pain stood behind his eyes. All of this was familiar to him ... even the dream.
These dreams had been romancing him for years. Other worlds, other realities, other universes. Each dream ws a nebulous seductress, enticing him to believe in something other than the reality that he was living. The thrill of possibility danced through his spine every time he allowed himself to believe that there was something more, something beyond what everyone accepted as reality.
No. He was not afraid of encountering other worlds and other world beings. His fear was that now it was time to do something about it. The time had come for him to face the challenge of admitting to the world that he was from elsewhere. But the first thing had to be his own acceptance and understanding.
He pushed himself into a sitting position, rested his back against the backboard, and linked his arms around his knees. The dream had confirmed what he had always felt about himself. He was from elsewhere. All of his discomfort, uneasiness, and boredom with life were now explained. What remained was the decision of what to do about it.
A thought crossed his mind. Would his life have been different if he had always been aware of his origins? Would he have been able to stop his father's drinking, his mother's abuse and martyrdom, his brother's rush to fate and death as he escaped into drugs to avoid his pain? Realistically, he knew that he could not have changed the people but perhaps he could have changed his own reaction to his experience.
Would he have leapt from one woman to the next, seeking that certain someone that he could sense but could not put a face to? Would he have spent his life searching? Would he have taken so mkuch time and made such an effort to fit in, to attempt to be something that he could never be?
He had always been athletic and lean. He worked out at the school gymnasium after hours at least three times a week. A 6'1", he weighed 192 and was good-looking enough to be called handsome by the ladies that he'd dated. At the present time he was, he thought, an efficient but lackadaisical coach at the high school that was only blocks away from his small apartment. He still lived in the city where he'd been born and raised. He drove a beat-up, old Bronco and, on occasion, he tossed a few clothes and some food in the back of it and headed into the nearby foothills on a weekend quest for peace and quiet.
Paul shook his head, realizing that his introspection was serving no purpose. He threw off the covers and headed for the shower. later, shirtless and barefoot, he paced the length of his apartment as his memories became clearer. He was in the past and in the present at the same time. Watching himself from a distance, he studied the memories as if they belonged to someone else.
