The Endërland Chronicles: Book of Serena Read online



  The

  ENDËRLAND

  Chronicles

  Volume II

  ‘BOOK OF SERENA’

  Ed Marishta

  Gramsh 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  The Endërland Chronicles: Book of Serena -- 1st edition.

  Cover by Erika Giselle Santiago

  Copyright © 2016 Ed Marishta

  ISBN13: 9781310840999

 

  For everyone who has gifted me a part of their heart,

  and made a home out of mine.

  Contents

  To the Reader

  Prologue

  The Other World

  Beyond

  Open Horizons

  Old Friends and New

  A Turn for the Worse

  Fight or Flight

  Down the Rabbit Hole

  Through the Looking Glass

  Blood and Fall

  Volume III: Preview

  To the Reader

  Dear friend.

  If this is the first time you visit Endërland, I would encourage you to pick up the first volume of this trilogy, called “Book of Daniel”, and acquaint yourself not only with this wonderful and magical dreamworld, but also with our amazing heroes and their friends. There is so much that happens in “Book of Daniel” that is best experienced and enjoyed by following their story page by page, chapter after chapter, and it all leads directly to the story of Serena in this second volume.

  However, if you do wish to continue reading “Book of Serena” without going back to the beginnings, or if it has been a while since you last spent time with Daniel and his friends, let me get you up to speed with what’s been going on until now, or refresh your memory.

  We first meet Daniel on the eve of his 19th birthday. He lives a fairly normal life and you could say he is your average young man, except for the fact that he spends more time with books and movies than he does with guys and girls his age. But there’s another thing that makes Daniel a bit different from anyone else he knows; he has never had a dream in his entire life. Not one. That all changes, however, on that fateful night. Daniel finally has his first ever dream, only it isn’t the kind of dream you and I usually have. This is a very special dream, one that physically takes Daniel to an entirely different world, the one we call Endërland. It is a magical world, paradise-like, populated by humans, mermaids and wingmen - an amazing and proud race of people with wings. These three different races of people are each governed by their own queen, who in turn answers to four lords who rule over Endërland, each one for a season.

  In this new world Daniel first meets with Nemo, the only merman out of all his people, who would soon become his new best friend. He also comes to learn the truth that he descends from a long line of Dreamers - or Visitors, as they are called in Endërland – and that many of their kind also live in the dream realm during their human lives and sometimes even after. Among them are his mother, Diane, who died when Daniel was only five years old, as well as his older brother, Damien, who has also disappeared two years prior to his mother’s death.

  Daniel is just the latest in this line of Dreamers to come to Endërland, and he soon learns how to live and enjoy life in both his worlds; during the day back in London with his dad, and during the night with Nemo and his mother in Endërland.

  But Daniel is not the only one of his kind alive; a young woman by the name of Samantha – or Sam as she likes to be called – also had the gift of dream walking. For some mysterious reason, however, Sam suffers from chronic insomnia. She can never sleep for more than ten minutes every night, and even then she never manages to dream anything. It is a very challenging life for Sam, but she has come to grips with her condition and has given up on the doctors curing her.

  On one fateful day Sam meets a strange guy who claims to be a seer and tells her that the path to her cure would lead her to London, where she would meet a young man named Daniel. At first, Sam of course does not believe him, but then she decides to leave Chicago and her old life behind, and go in search of a new adventure.

  Back in Endërland, trouble begins for Daniel when a young wingman is found killed by an arrow who belongs to him. Daniel and Nemo are accused of this crime and are sent on a quest to find the Great Lord, the one who created Endërland, so that he can take up their case and decide on their fate. Following the instructions of the one they call The Oracle, Daniel and Nemo are also accompanied by Séraphin - prince of the wingmen – as well as Heli and Hëna, the twin children of Autumn, one of the four residing lords over Endërland. Daniel soon learns that the two of them are more than they appear to be. Heli travels with them by night, while Hëna shines up in the sky as the moon; and during the day they both trade places, with Heli rising up in the sky as the sun and Hëna down on earth, riding along with the boys.

  It is love at first sight for Daniel, ever since he sees Hëna for the first time during one of the great celebrations in the magical kingdom. Only, he can never tell whether she likes him or not, not for a very long time.

  But Hëna isn’t the only girl who comes into his life. In the real world he and Sam do finally meet, and are also joined by a young man named Freddie, who claims to be working for the Order of the Guardians – a very old society created to protect the world from dangerous Dreamers. Together, the three of them have their own quest and adventures. They have to take Daniel into hiding from Butler, who is a mercenary of Winter, another of the Endërland lords. He has ordered his number one man to kidnap Daniel so he could use him for his own evil purposes. Sam quickly falls in love with Daniel and both she and Freddie risk their lives to protect him.

  But they cannot protect him forever. Butler and his men find their hiding place, and while Sam escapes with Daniel, she is certain that Freddie is killed. She herself almost dies when Butler finally catches up to her and takes Daniel away. With the help of the Oracle and Daniel’s father, David, she devises a plan to find Daniel and rescue him from Butler again. During the rescue, Butler, whom we learn has been using the body of the missing Damien all this time, is shot and killed. This means that Daniel’s older brother, who is finally found being kept a prisoner in an old dungeon in Endërland, will be unable to ever return to his home world and his old body.

  But his long lost brother is not the only thing that Daniel finds while in Endërland. He also finds that he is the Great Lord they have been looking for all this time, and that the kingdom needs him to lead them in the fight against Winter and the unnatural armies he is using to usurp and protect his unrighteous rule over Endërland. Thus the Great War begins and thousands of lives are lost, but in the end Daniel and the hosts of Endërland who have rallied behind him win the battle and free their kingdom from Winter and his evil rule.

  When all it’s said and done, Daniel decides to allow his brother to return to the real world in his stead by taking over his body, where he and the all-cured Sam now become an item. Daniel hims
elf stays in Endërland for good, where he builds a life and a family with Hëna, the girl of his dreams, whose heart he finally manages to win.

  We meet them all again after twenty years have passed in the real world, on a night when Daniel and Hëna’s only daughter, Serena, wakes up to find herself in her dad’s home world. What happens to her, to Daniel, Hëna and their friends who set out to look for Serena, I invite you to read on and find out for yourselves.

  Prologue

  “For when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

  "Beyond Good and Evil"

  Friedrich Nietzsche