Unlocking The Seer

"There weren't always dragons in the Valley?"

Officer Tommy tried to keep a straight face as he repeated the statement back to me. His smirk was a tell sign that he wasn’t taking me seriously. I knew he probably thought I was drunk but I couldn’t take it anymore I had to let it all out.

I wanted to be patient, wanted everything to go smoothly, but my patience had run out long ago. Now, I just wanted to deliver the message so that I could finally rest, so that the whispers could stop, and so that the entire destruction of town wasn’t in my hands.

I scratched at my scalp in irritation before slamming my hand on the counter.

"Damn it Tommy! Get the Sheriff out here. This isn't a joke," I yelled in annoyance.

He placed his hand on his holster quickly while looking at me warily, waiting for what I would do next.

I didn't have time to feel butt hurt that someone I considered a friend was treating me like a lunatic. I needed to see the Sheriff and it had to be today.

This was my last stop before I checked myself into some type of insane asylum, because at this point, I was sure I'd lost my mind. Four months ago, I’d arrived in this small town to spend a year building new homes and businesses for new-comers and snowbirds.

I was good at what I did and had garnered a lot of respect from the towns folk who originally thought that their town of Richey Valley would be non-existent by the end of next year.

Sales had sky-rocketed due to their town sweetheart making it big in Hollywood and using the town as the filming location for her new werewolf romance movie.

The younger teens and adults were doing everything in their power to name drop the town and hype up the area any chance that they got, and it was working.

Businesses were booming, tourists were swarming in, and the towns equity had tripled in a matter of months. Everyone was coming together to rebuild and redesign something that their great grandparents had built from scratch generations before them.

I thought things were finally going well.

I thought things would finally change.

I figured this town would be what I needed to get my name out there with the big-time architects.

Until the dreams and the whispers began. The first night I woke up feeling as if a knife had gone through my chest. The pain and the dread took hours to go away, and I thought that it was just because I ate something funny.

I figured I’d get some work done since I couldn’t sleep and started working on one of my smaller projects, the towns library. That following night I thought I’d get some rest due to sheer exhaustion alone, but again, the dreams riddled me with anxiety and fear that left me too wired to lay back down but also too exhausted to do much else. The whispers were faint, but they were definitely there.

It took me far too long to figure out that the more I built in the town, the more the dreams revealed.

After three months of being boggled down by it all, I was finally done with the library, the post office, and I had started on a design for the mayor’s home. That was when the dream began repeating.

I started waking up and writing down what I could remember. I knew that it was the same dream, knew that it was vivid and had to do with the town, but I just couldn’t remember it all when I woke up in the mornings.

Until last week.

Last week something changed.

I woke up remembering every single detail, every street, every face, every single emotion, I remembered it all.

Danger was coming to Richey Valley and for some reason it was up to me to deliver that message.

I’d laid up all week talking myself out of it, hoping that it would go away. I even left town for the weekend to see if maybe it was the town itself, but nothing worked. I started hearing the same message during my waking hours. I heard it in the wind, I heard it while drawing designs, and speaking to customers. In addition to the whispers, I had this itching sensation on my arm that wouldn’t go away no matter what I did.

The doc prescribed everything under the sun before telling me that it was a mental thing due to stress and lack of sleep. Nothing helped. I’d scratched my skin raw and still had to fight the urge to scratch some more.

It was abundantly clear that I needed to deliver the message in order to be set free.

Taking a few deep breaths, I ran my hand through my hair, and tried a calmer approach to get my point across.

I knew that Tommy thought I was crazy. Hell, I thought I was crazy, but I had to do this in the exact way of the dream in order for the whispers to stop. I didn’t know how I knew but I did.

The dream always started with me walking into this very police station, asking for sheriff Dave, and telling him that there weren't always dragons in the Valley. A phrase that seemed like a secret code that would spring him into action.

The dream would then shift and show the new upgraded Richey Town and how its completely wiped away due to my ignoring the warning to deliver the message. I didn’t know what was going on but I for sure wasn’t about to take a chance on so many lives lost if I could help it.

I knew it was dumb. I knew that it was a strong possibility that they'd laugh me into a cell awaiting pick up by some crazy asylum, but as long as I did what I was supposed to I didn’t care.

What I didn't know was that the closer that I got to the counter and the moment those words left my lips I wouldn't be able to leave.

It was as if some unseen force had willed my legs into place. Whenever I got the urge to turn and go, it felt as if lead was keeping me rooted to the floor. My stomach would start flipping and the room would begin spinning. I had no choice, I had to finish what I’d started.

This was it. I'd decided to come play the dream out and now I'd started something that I was no longer in control of ending.

I looked around the old police station. It still had the same 4 cells with the old locks that you needed individual keys to open. The nasty musky smell of old wood and mold invaded my nostrils as I tried to control my breathing. With the increase in population, it would be time to rebuild a bigger sturdier jail then the rotting one we were currently standing in.

"Listen, sheriff Dave will understand. Just get him Tommy. Please?"

He must have heard the desperation in my tone as he looked at me in sympathy before turning around and heading to the back.

I wanted to cry tears of pure joy as the sheriff walked through the door eyeing me intently. The relief was met with a bucket of anxiety as he tilted his head for me to come into the office.

I hoped that this moment would be worth it, and I could get rid of the whispers, the nightmares, and the itching once and for all.

Officer Tommy stepped aside to let me by, looking from me to the office, as if he didn't feel safe allowing me inside alone.

"It's alright Tommy. Why don't you and Jean go ahead and take lunch"

My unease grew as I realized that that would leave us alone in the old station.

The bricks in my stomach got heavier and I felt the sweat start to bead on my forehead as I sat in the chair in front of his desk.

I heard him and Officer Tommy whispering back and forth before the sound of the door clicking closed resonated around the small office.

The Sherriff sat behind his desk and leaned back in his chair.

The itching of my arm intensified as I scratched away at it not caring if I ripped skin or not.

"You're not what I expected but I guess you'll have to do."

I looked up at him in confusion as he steepled his hands I front of him and leaned forward on the desk.

"Isn't there something that you wanted to tell me?" He asked smirking.

Unlike his deputies his smirk wasn't condescending or judgmental. It was like he knew exactly what I had to say and what it meant.

I whispered the statement that had been haunting me for months and he laughed. Not a small chuckle either. The Sheriff laughed like a drunk at a comedy show, holding his side and all.

"Now son, you're going to have to do better than that if you're going to be our new seer"

I could hear myself breathing as I tried to make sense of it all while also trying to control the roller coaster of emotions that were going through my body at the moment.

I stared at the man in front of me in confusion. For months I had to talk myself into coming into this station to make a fool of myself for my sanities sake only to be met by deputies who thought I was crazy and a Sheriff who felt that I should embrace my lunacy.

"Your new what?" I asked wiping the sweat that was dripping down the back of my neck.

The smirk fell from his face, and he looked serious as he stood clasping his hands behind his back.

"I've never seen someone last as long as you have during the unlocking." He whispered staring at me as if he could see straight into my mind and my heart.

His eyebrows brunched together, and a sweat started at his temple.

"Yeah, you've been holding it in for a long time. Go ahead. Say it," he ordered looking directly in my eyes.

Now I felt the urgent need to throw up and pass out at the same time as the room began spinning around me faster than before.

I must have reached extreme exhaustion. That was the only way I could make sense of why it looked like the sheriff’s facial features were transforming into that of a fairy right in front of my eyes.

I tried swallowing to clear some of the dryness from my throat as the scary whispering began around me once again.

This time I yelled the statement to him as if I were using my voice to throw the wretched curse far away from me.

"THERE WEREN’T ALWAYS DRAGONS IN THE VALLEY!"

The moment the last syllable left my mouth I felt a release of emotions as my body went limp and my heartbeat finally returned to normal.

It was hard for me to accept the weird relaxing stage my body was going into, while watching as the Sheriff’s eyes flashed a vibrant neon blue, and his ears started to elongate and point backwards.

The itching on my arm turned into a burning sear as I groaned and pulled my shirt up rubbing the area furiously.

There was so much going on in that moment that I thought my brain would explode from overload. I couldn't deal with the man literally transforming in front of me, the dreams that were replaying in my mind like some hidden part of my memories, or the dragon tattoos that were now all over my arm going up my biceps.

My body was finally relaxing, all of the adrenaline and anxiety were non-existent leaving me in an exhausted heap slumped over in an old office chair.

I could no longer move or speak, and I could barely keep my eyes open as I seen what was once a man turn into a full-blown fairy with wings. A fairy that told me that I was the seer of the Valley and the only thing keeping his kind from destruction.

The last thing I remembered seeing were vibrant blue eyes and pointed ears meeting Tommy’s electric green before I passed out.