Cam was busy enjoying the late afternoon sun shining on his face when he was rudely disturbed by some loud giggling nearby. He sighed and opened his eyes. Perhaps it had been too much to ask when he thought he'd found a somewhat secluded bench in the park. And how dare some people be so obnoxiously happy when he was trying to have a quiet moment? There was only one other bench nearby which up to now had been occupied by some guy who had taken a break from walking his big shaggy black dog to smoke a cigar. Now though, that guy had been joined by two pretty college-age girls. One of them was busy scratching the guy's dog behind the ears, which the dog seemed to be enjoying, and the other looked like she wanted nothing more than to do the same thing to the guy's close-cropped beard. Cam rolled his eyes and felt a stab of envy. The guy was tall, handsome and looked like he had a lot of muscles hidden away beneath his stylish black leather duster. He was everything that short, thin and rattily-dressed Cam was not.
Whatever. He was probably a dick anyway. Cam tilted his head back and continued to enjoy the rapidly fading light that was a sunny Portland day during autumn.
Cameron Richards, Cam to his friends, was 21 and had moved here three years ago to get away from the ludicrousness that was Los Angeles. Cam had always wanted to be a writer and had written his first book, an epic fantasy novel, during his final year in high school. His parents had been supportive of his dream and had even helped him find an agent. Thus, his book was published a few months after graduation and had done quite well actually. Better than he had expected. It didn't make him enough money to live on but fortunately, one of his dad's friends who was a senior manager at a company in Portland had been kind enough to get him a job when he chose to move there. Cam now worked in statistical analysis and data reconfiguration. As 9-to-5 office jobs go, it was incredibly boring and his boss was annoying but it paid the bills and didn't require Cam to take any work home with him which meant he had enough free time to work on his second book. Speaking of which, it was probably time to get back to writing. The sun had almost set and the temperature was dropping.
Cam got up and began the short walk back to his apartment building. The annoyingly handsome man was also leaving, though thankfully in the opposite direction. He now had his arms around both girls and his dog was trotting along beside them, happily wagging its tail. There was no doubt as to what they were off to do. The people that is, hopefully not the dog. Cam sighed again. Engaging with the opposite sex had never come easy to him. He'd had a girlfriend in high school but their relationship had always seemed slightly awkward and she'd broken up with him after a few months because he'd sort of neglected her in favour of writing his book.
Ten minutes later, Cam arrived at the building where he rented a studio apartment that was small but also cheap. As he walked through the front door he was greeted by the equally lovely and rude individual that was his next-door neighbour, Lisa Johnson. There was no denying it, Lisa was hot. She was one of those girls that put little to no effort into her appearance and somehow managed to look all the more beautiful because of it. Lisa was slightly shorter than Cam and she had dark hair and blue eyes which nicely contrasted her light brown skin. She also had some lovely curves with C cup breasts, a narrow waist and a cute, perky ass. Today she was wearing a dark red t-shirt—which was definitely her colour—tight jeans and scuffed trainers.
Cam had often thought of asking her out but three things prevented that from happening. Firstly, she had a 6 foot 2 shaven-headed boyfriend who Cam was 90 per cent sure was a drug dealer and small-time criminal. Secondly, even if she were single there was no chance in hell she'd go for someone like him. And thirdly, she was the textbook definition of an ice queen.
"Hi Lisa," Cam said with a friendly smile.
Lisa just rolled her eyes and brushed past him. She must have been in a good mood today as her eye-rolling was usually accompanied by a "yeah whatever." When he'd first met her, Cam had thought he had done something to offend her. But after talking to his other neighbours, who were all lovely people, they had assured him that she was like that with everyone. He didn't know why she was like that and he certainly didn't know why he stubbornly persisted in being nice to her. As he trotted up the stairs to his apartment on the second floor, Cam put Lisa out of his mind—a difficult task—so he could get back to his book. He entered his apartment, sat down at his desk and opened his laptop. It only took him a couple of seconds to recover his train of thought and he started writing.
Two hours later, he decided to take a break. He saved his work, thinking it was time for dinner. But before he could get up, his gaze fell on a book on his desk. It was one of the old books that Cam had picked up at a junk store a few days ago. It was old, faded and falling apart. He also had no idea what it was about as it was written in a language that he didn't recognize. The only reason he had bought it was because it contained a lot of strange drawings that had served as inspiration for some parts of his book. They had a sort of gothic strangeness to them that Cam found fascinating. Some were downright creepy.
Cam flipped through the pages until he stumbled upon a drawing that he quite liked. It depicted a pair of purple eyes surrounded by a web of symbols, intricately woven together with flowing lines. As he took a closer look he realized the lines were actually words written in the same strange language as the rest of the book. He found that he couldn't tear his gaze away from the purple eyes. It was only a drawing but he felt like they were staring into his soul.
Cam suddenly felt a tingling in his own eyes. At first, he thought a bit of dust had got into them but then the feeling increased. Now it was not a tingling anymore but slightly painful. However, he suddenly was unable to blink. He also found that he couldn't look away from the drawing. Were the purple eyes... getting brighter? No, that was impossible. They were a drawing on paper, not on a computer screen. What was happening? Cam's vision narrowed until the only thing that he saw was the pair of purple eyes on the page in front of him. The pain in his eyes was still increasing but Cam was frozen in place. He couldn't even reach up to rub his eyes. He felt like they were being branded by a hot iron. Then something
snapped
in his mind and the heavy book fell from his numb fingers and landed on the floor with an audible thud. Cam clamped his hands over his eyes, squeezing them shut and screamed. He stood up and knocked his chair over. Blindly stumbling through his apartment he also managed to knock over a glass on his desk which hit the floor and shattered.
And then, as quickly as it had started, the pain disappeared. Cam struggled to regain his senses and realized that he was hunched over and breathing heavily. He felt a drop of sweat trickle down his forehead. His vision was blurred but he blinked furiously and it returned to normal. Yet something was different. Something felt
off.
It was like his eyes had suddenly become... warmer. Before Cam could find a better description of what he was feeling, someone knocked on his door. He stumbled towards it and with trembling hands, he managed to open it. It was Lisa. He stared. Lisa Johnson was outside his apartment and she had a furious expression on her face.
"Hey, you mind keeping it down? Some of us are trying to... to... uhhhh..."
She sputtered to a halt and a curiously blank expression appeared on her face. Cam frowned. A moment passed but Lisa didn't resume speaking. She just stood there with that strange expression.
"Uhm, Lisa?" Cam asked eventually.
"Yesss...?" she said.
Her voice had changed. Her usual biting and haughty tone had disappeared and she now sounded dreamy and almost trancelike.
"Uh, are you ok?" Cam asked.
"I think so... I feel good... master..."
Cam blinked. Had she just called him
master
? What the hell was going on? Was she having a stroke? Do people who have strokes suddenly become overly respectful? Figuring that he should probably invite her in and give her some water or something, Cam took a step back.
"Uhm, do you want to come in?"
A small smile appeared on her face and Cam's heart missed a beat. She was
smiling.
This had to have been the first time he had seen her do that. He hadn't even thought she was capable of smiling.
"Thank you, master," she said and walked into his apartment.
Walked was probably the wrong word. It was more like she floated into his apartment. Cam was dumbfounded. Not only was Lisa Johnson, one of the hottest girls he'd ever seen, standing in the middle of his apartment but she had called him master. Twice.
This is a dream,
Cam thought.
I hit my head while stumbling around my apartment and this is a weird dream that I'm having right now as I'm lying on the floor, unconscious. All because of that stupid drawing of some weird purple eyes.
Eyes! His eyes! What had happened to his eyes? They still felt strangely warm as if he had two tiny space heaters installed in his eyeballs. Cam dug out his phone and opened the camera app. He switched to the front camera, intending to see if there was something wrong with his eyes. He froze.
Yeah, definitely a dream,
