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Chapter One
My Name is Tommy
Tommy II’s Journal
My name is Tommy, I’m fifteen years old, and I live in a small community in the Green Mountains of Vermont called The Friends. I’m starting a new journal because some really strange things are going on and I need a place to try to figure things out.
I know this will sound crazy, probably all of this will, but from as far back as I can remember, I’ve sensed an older version of me. I feel his presence, almost like he’s whispering in my mind, but I can’t quite hear what he’s saying. It’s like he’s helping me write this, like my words are coming from both of us. He’s looking out from the shadows of my mind, watching over me, worried about my well-being and wanting to protect me from something dark that’s coming.
I’ve been having nightmares about it, the same nightmare again and again. In the dream, I’m waking up in my treehouse to the sound of gunfire, horrified as I realize that people in my community are being killed. The next moment, I’m standing beneath the treehouse. The gunfire has stopped, and everyone in my community, everyone I love, is dead.
The killer is out there in the woods coming toward me. He knows exactly where I am. I’m about to run, when I see a dark grey robot with a gun step out into the clearing where I’m standing. It’s shaped like a person, but its head is a black machine with camera lenses for eyes.
Somehow, I sense that the robot is not the killer. Its lenses focus down on me, and then a voice, oddly human, from somewhere inside this machine, speaks my name, “Tommy,” and I wake up in a panic.
Even though I’ve had this nightmare many times, it still takes me a while once I wake from it to realize that my community is still here. That no one has been killed. That I am still okay.
But am I?
The nightmare doesn’t make any sense. My home and community are peaceful, remote, tucked deep in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Why would anyone want to kill us? And I’ve seen pictures of military and police robots—they’re not shaped like people, and their weapons are built-in. But what is the dream trying to tell me? I sense something dark is coming, but I have no idea what it is.
I feel like that older version of me holds the answer. I’ve had visions of him since I was a child, writing in a journal, words being typed out on a computer screen. Something always kept me from reading what he wrote, but I knew it was a journal. In the visions, he looks about the age I am now, but he seems older, like he’s lived through much more than me. I think he’s lived through what’s coming, but it’s like he’s not supposed to interfere. It would be wrong in some way. He knows I need to guide myself through the darkness, and that’s why I need to write this journal.
I also have a strong intuition that this journal is needed. Like there’s someone else who will need to read this one day. I can’t see who that person is either, but I feel them wanting me to continue.
I have no idea who you might be—the person reading this—but I sense you out there, and I feel like I owe you this record. I don’t know why you’re the one who needs to read this, especially since I’ve kept my strange experiences secret from everyone I love—the people I live and work with here at The Friends.
Now, I feel like there’s another person watching me. A strange image just flashed into my mind. I saw an older man in a dark room. Behind him were what looked like sophisticated but antique electronic devices with dials, knobs, meters, and red and green lights. It feels like he’s monitoring everything I’m writing and even my thoughts. I think he’s one of the people meant to read my journal, and I sense good intentions from him. The image disappeared pretty fast, but I feel like he’s still out there, with me as I journal alone in my treehouse, swaying in the wind.
I always come here to write or when I need to be alone. And lately I’ve needed that a lot. I feel guilty about hiding so much from the people I love, but I don’t want to burden others with my secret life. I know they’d listen and try to help, but there’s so much they wouldn’t understand. These secret experiences are more real for me, and closer to who I am than the stuff people see me doing every day.
They’d probably think I was having a breakdown of some sort and needed to see a therapist. I can’t be sure I don’t have psychological problems, but what’s going on with me is more than that. Someday, someone will need to know what I’ve experienced, and that’s why I’m writing it out.
People here, and at the hospice where my mom works and I volunteer, say I’m an empath, because I have a calming effect on the dying, like a cat or a dog. But there’s more going on than they know. Sometimes I see events before they happen and other things I can’t prove are real, but they seem so real to me. I’m driven by deep feelings and intuitions I can’t explain to others. And I’m getting one right now . . .
I feel it in the howling wind. My body is trembling, like I’m shivering with cold . . .
There’s someone out there I’m going to encounter soon. Someone who will alter my fate.
I don’t think I can write anything more tonight. The feeling is too overwhelming . . .
