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CALLASSA

Invicta Veritate

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I AM ZA

Extract

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I had been dreaming about a strange looking woman. With

a suddenness and as though appearing from nowhere, the fact

that I was now facing a woman who fit that dream-profile,

brought my terror to its apogee. I almost fainted. Unthinking

of how she could have got in or what she was after, I ran like

Hell from the room. I didn’t know where I was going. I just

ran and ran. I was heading for the front doors, but was this

wise? To go outside? I felt that I was being pursued by a

spook that was close, touching me. When I reached the doors I

fumbled with the lock. Almost instantaneously I was outside,

at the top of the stone steps. I went no further even though

I was intending to because what was there made going

any further impossible. What was covering the outside space was utterly bizarre.

It was as though the trees had gone crazy and somehow caused

the leaves to be circular discs. There were millions upon millions of circular discs

and these held by spider-like branches. This wasn’t the world I knew at all.

It was something else. It was a parallel reality and the contents askew, now I knew it so.

   I turned quickly because I knew I had to defend myself.

There was the pursuer and the close proximity.

   “Lawrence.”

   While hearing my name spoken I’d almost jumped from my skin.

The voice was not familiar and neither was who it belonged to.

   I was petrified. This woman really was like the one in my

dream. She was standing about three strides from me. She was

dressed in weird, ethereal-looking black clothes. The rings of

her eyes were black, her hair the same colour and held by a golden

band. I stepped away and her eyes reacted. I was held by her otherworldly

beauty and I was overpowered by its influence. It

came to me that she was not only the woman from my dream, but

also from the magazine.

   “Lawrence…Lawrence…Lawrence…Beautiful human boy…You are afraid.”

   I was more than afraid of her. Her speech was very

peculiar, as though she were far away. She was not, she was close.

   “I have to do as you do. I am here because you are.”

   I took another step back and she moved toward me. I moved my

left arm and so did she.

   If I ran outside there would be more of the unnatural. Was

it that I was a visitor here? Just as I had been in that other

reality? This, made to merely appear like home? She began

speaking to me and her voice did not reflect the same distance about it now.

   “I made myself from your mind. I have you in my entirety. I

can speak like you. Beautiful human boy.”

   I tried to look away from her, but she was holding me by an invisible force.

Her eyes were the blackest black, yet their

beauty surpassed all other effect

   “I am only what you are. David Lawrence. I was following

you and I brought you here. I made this house, because it

was yours. I made this world, because it was yours. I only

wanted you. Not the other.”

   “Where is she?” I managed to ask because she was referring to Marianna.

   She reacted to the question with a pained expression,

as though deeply offended at the asking. Was she of blood and bone?

I doubted it and now I was questioning whether I was either.

   “I AM ZA, therefore you may call me by my substance,” she said.

   With great trepidation affecting my voice, I asked her,

“What . . . what are you?”

   “I am Za. I am all things. I am everywhere. I am for you.”

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Synopsis Version II & more extracts

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CALLASSA

Invicta Veritate