Nevea (English edition) E-Book

Elias J. Connor

• Herausgeber: FINN Books Edition FireFly
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

What happens when the boundaries between reality and dreams suddenly blur? When the feeling of certainty is lost and the world around you becomes unrecognizable? Nevea Muller, 16 years old and blessed with rich parents, lives a life in a suburb of Los Angeles, where she is despised by her classmates because of her wealth and is considered conceited. But one evening she receives a mysterious message, tersely worded with the words "When are you coming?", and before she knows it, she finds herself in an eerie place - a labyrinth of dark corridors and hallways. It's not until the next morning that she realizes that this may have been just a dream, but the details become blurry. Since that night the dreams have returned, each time more clear and threatening. Nevea's reality threatens to fade as she seems to drift deeper and deeper into her own, mysteriously dark world. Can her classmate Joey and the mysterious girl Luna shed light on the darkness and help Nevea before she becomes completely lost in her shattered reality? NEVEA is a dark psychological thriller with a touch of dark fantasy that tells the story of a girl who threatens to get lost between dreams and reality.

Leseprobe

Elias J. Connor

Nevea (English edition)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Dedication

Chapter 1 - Alone

Chapter 2 - When are you coming?

Chapter 3 - Mysterious Luna

Chapter 4 - Mirror, mirror on the wall

Chapter 5 - Who is Joey?

Chapter 6 - What are you thinking about?

Chapter 7 - Soulmates

Chapter 8 - The warriors of darkness

Chapter 9 - Nevea's little book

Chapter 10 - The shadow children

Chapter 11 - The psychiatrist

Chapter 12 - The secret door

Chapter 13 - Two worlds

Chapter 14 - Don't go in

Chapter 15 - Nevea's death

Chapter 16 - Unexpected help

Chapter 17 - The vow

Chapter 18 - I'm not dead

Chapter 19 - Blurry

Chapter 20 - Luna's legacy

Chapter 21 - Back to real life

About the author Elias J. Connor

Impressum

Dedication

For Jana.

My partner. My muse. My source of ideas.

Thank you for your endless love, and thank you for allowing me to love you.

Chapter 1 - Alone

A quiet, oppressive howl permeates the endless, dark corridor and bounces off the thick stone walls left and right. The sound, which seems like the quiet sobbing of a lost child, is so subtle that it almost passes through the dark walls like a quiet breath and gets lost in the silence.

She has been walking through the darkness for what feels like ages. Her legs are heavy and tired, and she has almost lost touch with reality. Time seems to stand still, and yet the narrow corridor in front of her leads into an endless, impenetrable darkness. The faint light of her trembling candle bathes the stone vaults in a ghostly atmosphere.

Nevea is breathing heavily. The steps become slower until she finally has to stop. The silence around her is broken only by the faint echo of her own breathing.

“Hello?” she calls, hoping to see some sign of life.

“Hello?” echoes eerily off the cold walls, as if the darkness itself were answering.

The young girl suddenly turns around, the darkness in front of her and behind her seeming to have merged. But she stands alone.

In an unfortunate moment, the candle slips from her fingers and falls to the floor with a thud. Nevea slowly bends down to pick it up, but before she can, the flame goes out. She gently feels around on the floor and tries to find the candle again.

A shiver runs through her body. She stands there trembling, not from the cold, but from an indefinable fear that seems to lurk in the darkness and grows with every step she takes.

The quiet howl suddenly becomes more intense. Nevea frantically searches for a place of refuge, anything to hide behind. But the darkness reveals nothing, and she has nothing with her - no jacket, no blanket, just her anxious soul.

Then, out of nowhere, the creaking of a huge door.

“Hey!” she calls, the uncertainty in her voice unmistakable. "Who 's there?"

The silence remains unrelenting until the door slowly slams shut and closes with a thud. In the second that follows, a dull glow from somewhere penetrates the long, narrow underground passage of the cellar vault in which she seems to be trapped.

Suddenly Nevea is faced with an imposing door. The solid cast iron rises over three meters in height and is rounded at the top. Strange patterns and incomprehensible characters decorate the surface, written in a language that is foreign to her.

Nevea takes a hesitant step towards the door when suddenly a warning voice seems to speak to her out of nowhere.

“Don’t go in.”

Startled, Nevea turns backwards, but the darkness swallows every trace of life. In front of her stands only the massive door, a gateway to unknown secrets and dangers.

How long might Nevea have been down here? How many desperate hours could she have spent searching for an exit, a way out? Day after day, night after night, regardless of the outside world that is happening before their eyes. Her desire to simply get outside remains unbroken.

A majestic door stretches out in front of her, the purpose of which remains hidden from her in the dark. Regardless, Nevea puts everything on one card.

“Don’t go in,” the voice warns again. But the words don't reach Nevea's hearing. She carefully places her delicate hand on the imposing doorknob and shakes it several times, as if she wanted to force an answer or a way out.

Suddenly, for a fleeting moment, a boy's face appears. A glimpse through the still locked door, like the ghost of a child looking through impenetrable walls. But the next moment he disappeared.

A shiver runs through Nevea, but her hand still maintains a firm grip on the doorknob.

“Who is there?” she asks quietly. She lowers the knob with gentle pressure. The huge door opens slowly, accompanied by a creaking sound. Suddenly it becomes pitch black again.

Nevea pushes her long, dark blonde hair away from her face and brushes it over both ears. Her lips tremble so hard she can't close them as her breathing hangs heavily in the darkness. The door opens wider.

Nevea steps through carefully, alone in complete darkness. She knows that she shouldn't come here, that all laws and rules prohibit it. All her knowledge tells her not to enter this room and not to cross the door, but she does so anyway. She does it even though deep down she knows it's the worst thing she could do.

Barely two seconds later the door slams shut again. Trembling, Nevea turns around - and the door has disappeared. As if she had never been there. Completely disappeared. Nevea feels on the wall. The stone is wet and cold. It feels like moss is growing between the cracks in the bricks that make up the wall.

Wherever she is now, she is trapped.

Suddenly the room lights up. How?

Nevea lost her candle. With no light burning, no matches or flashlight, she stands in the dark. But there is a strange light whose origin she cannot identify.

Nevea looks around. The door is gone, only a barren, wet brick wall remains. Nevea turns around carefully.

Another barren wall stretches along the left side of the supposedly square room. The right side is like it. Nevea looks ahead and can hardly believe what is unfolding before her eyes.

A gigantic mirror stretches from one corner of the room to the other. A mirror that doesn't show her own reflection.

Nevea's breath catches as she realizes that she doesn't see herself, but the wall behind her. She should actually see her reflection in the mirror, standing in front of it and looking into it. But that is not the case. In the mirror, Nevea only sees an empty, dark basement room.

A scream breaks the silence, and the next moment Nevea is staring spellbound at the mirror. A little something, a figure, becomes visible. A child curled up in the corner of the room, crouching like a shadow.

Why didn't she notice this child before? Who might it be?

Nevea looks suddenly into the real corner behind her, but there is no one there. The dimly lit room remains empty.

She hesitantly looks into the mirror again. An image appears. A corn field in daylight. A young girl runs through the field as if she is fleeing from something unknown.

Nevea wants to follow the girl through the mirror, which for a moment seemed like an exit to the outside, but the image disappears.

A new image appears. Nevea sees herself lying on a blanket. Darkness surrounds her, and the light that illuminates the scene could be from the moon shining brightly through her room. She sees herself lying in her own bed.

A man enters the scene and pulls out something that Nevea can't quite recognize. It looks like a rope.

The images fade, but Nevea can still feel the breath of wind on her face.

She is the spectator and sees images in the mirror that touch her emotionally. But something tells her that she is just an observer and that the mirror only shows her these images.

Why?

Nevea reflexively takes a step back. Suddenly she is jostled, turns around but doesn't see anyone. Then she looks in the mirror again.

There is the little girl again, curled up in the corner of the large room.

Nevea looks at it in the mirror. She knows that when she turns to face the wall where the mirror says it should be, the girl isn't there. But Nevea doesn't turn to the wall. She looks at the girl in the mirror and sees her lowering her head into her arms, still crouched down. The white nightgown she wears and her long, blonde hair are clearly visible.

“Who… who are you?” Nevea asks the child in the mirror.

Suddenly the child raises his head. Nevea trembles in fear. She has never felt such a shiver run down her spine before.

The headless child suddenly stands up and takes a step towards Nevea.

Suddenly two fiery red eyes flash out of nowhere where his head should be.

A scream, perhaps from the child, causes Nevea to jump. At the same moment the little girl storms out of the mirror. The mirror doesn't break, the girl just steps out.

It suddenly has a ripping jaw with shark teeth that it bares. Suddenly the girl opens her arms and wants to grab Nevea.

Chapter 2 - When are you coming?

The tears are still heavy in Nevea's eyes. Her body shakes uncontrollably and the signs of the tremor are obvious. But slowly the tremors subside, although she can't even say exactly why they started in the first place.

Step by step, the perhaps 16-year-old girl with long, combed-back and tightly tied hair moves towards the traffic lights. The view through the veil of tears leads her to the pedestrian traffic light, which is still stubbornly red. In a moment of clumsiness, her glasses slip off her nose. She reacts quickly, bends down, picks up her glasses and puts them back on, hoping that no one notices how turbulent her emotional world is at the moment.

But what happened? Something must have happened in the past few hours, but the reason remains unclear.

The traffic light turns green, but Nevea doesn't even seem to notice the change.

“Hey, you troll,” a boy suddenly blurts out, appearing next to her out of nowhere. “It doesn’t get any greener than this.”

Her eyes wander to the side and she notices that there are two or three other young people her age standing next to the boy, classmates of hers. A chorus of laughter accompanies them as all eyes are on them.

“Well, Nivea, have you dressed up with skin cream again?” she hears a mocking comment.

“We’re wearing the most expensive clothes again, aren’t we?” continues the boy who first spoke to her.

“Your parents can buy you anything. “You’ll never have to work,” a girl tells her.

“Leave me alone,” asks Nevea, frightened. “I'll probably work. I will become a famous researcher.”

"Nerd. Nerd."

The others make fun of her.

“A normal job probably isn’t good enough for you, filthy rich cunt.”

The boy nudges her lightly.

“Don’t touch her, Joey,” another girl calls out to him. “You’ll get rich man’s disease and become just as full of yourself as she is.”

“She has nothing to be conceited about,” replies Joey. “Just wait until the big break, then it’s your turn.”

Malicious laughter accompanies the young people as they cross the street. When Nevea wants to cross the traffic light, it shows red again.

Los Angeles continues to be pleasantly warm at this time of year, at the end of September. The beaches are busy and the city is pulsating with life. After the big holidays, it is no longer mainly tourists who dominate the streets, but increasingly locals. Even the celebrities who reside here are increasingly venturing out of their magnificent villas.

Prosperity is reflected in Burbank, a suburb of Los Angeles. Most residents are wealthy and live in large houses. The schools are elite institutions reserved for the rich. The same applies to Nevea's school.

But Nevea Muller is not just wealthy, she is brimming with wealth. Her father owns over 50 percent of the shares in the leading bank and generates annual sales that others cannot achieve in their entire lives. The family home is more than just a residence; it is an impressive villa. Servants look after every area and purchases are magically taken care of. The Mullers even have their own postal distribution office and of course a direct connection to Wall Street.

You'd think Nevea Muller had the perfect life. But despite all the wealth, she is unhappy because all the money in the world cannot buy what she wants - a true friend.

During the lunch break, the students gather in different groups, stimulated by conversations about the latest films, their experiences from the previous evening or the upcoming celebrations. In the middle of this lively hustle and bustle, Nevea sits apart on a stone wall and immerses herself in a book. Her Gucci suit, which makes her look almost like she's wearing a uniform in the school environment, doesn't make her stand out, as the students here come from similar social circles anyway.

Nevea slowly takes out a pen and puts the book aside. Only now does it become clear that this is not a purchased book, but one with blank sheets of paper to write on. After she opens the book again, she begins to write something in it. Suddenly it falls to the ground, but Nevea shows no signs of picking it up. Instead, she stares at it thoughtfully.

A fleeting image suddenly flashes through her mind. For a tiny moment it seems as if Nevea is not in this place. She cannot clearly locate what she sees; it is too short and fleeting. What she knows for sure is that she has seen a shadow - a shadow of something that doesn't belong here and that makes her uncomfortable. The shadow only becomes visible because for a tiny moment a strange light appears and the sun appears to disappear for a split second.

What was that? Does it have something to do with the mysterious apparitions she may have seen in her sleep last night but, despite her best efforts, cannot remember? Maybe she consciously doesn't want to remember what she saw last night. For some reason, maybe she just doesn't want to see it.

In less than the blink of an eye, however, everything returns to normal and Nevea is back to staring at her book at her feet.

The sudden appearance of a group of classmates in the corner breaks the silence.

“Hey, Nivea, you troll,” one of the girls calls out. "What you have there?"

“My name is Nevea,” she emphasizes. “Not Nivea.”

When she tries to pick up the book again, the girl grabs it and takes a few steps away from Nevea. Nevea remains sitting on her stone wall, trembling and motionless.

“Give it back,” she demands.

“A notebook,” states one of the classmates.

“Even better,” says the girl holding the book. “It’s a diary.”

“Give!” shouts Nevea. But the girls don't react, and Nevea doesn't dare stand up and ask for it back.

“Read aloud,” one of the girls orders. The other begins to read: “He touched me this morning. Joey touched me. If I hadn't been so confused, I might have even smiled at him. It was so beautiful last night when we both walked together in the moonlight in a dream and he told me that he fancied me. Joey, I love you. Really. But you may never know.”

The other girls laugh.

“The most extreme outsider, the nerd, the nerd, she likes the most popular boy in our school,” states one of the girls.

Nevea trembles.

“You troll, do you really think he will ever notice you?” the girl laughs at Nevea. She then throws the book at Nevea's feet. Without a word, Nevea picks it up and slowly walks away. A few meters away she starts running. She runs out of the yard, across the street and then into the neighboring settlement.

Now everything seems lost. Joey will know now, they'll definitely tell him, she thinks. He will come to her and laugh at her just like the others. And she will never have a chance with him again. Because he will never associate with someone like Nevea. Nevea knew this, but until recently she still had a glimmer of hope. However, that seems to have disappeared now.

Nevea walks leisurely through the dusk on her way home. Missing school for a whole day doesn't seem to matter as her parents have arranged private tutors for the holidays. A simple phone call is enough and one of them will agree to catch up on the missed material.

The servants who open the door for her exist almost unnoticed by Nevea. Even when the butler, or one of her family's five butlers, speaks to her, she hardly seems to register it. The parents aren't there anyway; the father stays in the office as usual, and the mother can be found at various social events to represent the family.

Nevea remains motionless on her bed until late at night, staring into the emptiness of her room. Her gaze doesn't even stop at the large curtained window; it rests rigidly on the ceiling.

She slowly begins to count the stucco decorations. Once she's done, she turns to the hundreds of small light bulbs in her golden chandelier that hangs majestically from the ceiling.

Suddenly the sound of her cell phone ringing breaks the silence. Who could call her? Apart from her parents, rarely anyone reaches her this way. Curious and at the same time hesitant, Nevea answers the call.

“Yes?” she says.

“Troll,” a girlish voice mocks on the other end of the line. It is Melissa, Nevea's greatest opponent, who snatched the book from her that morning. “You Nivea troll. You conceited bitch. You have nothing to be conceited about. Just your parents' money. You have nothing of your own and are nothing. And forget Joey, you’ll never get him.”

Before Nevea can answer, Melissa abruptly ends the conversation.

Joey appears in Nevea's thoughts again. Does he already know? Did they tell him? Does she have to be prepared for anything at school tomorrow? Nevea exhales in resignation and wipes a lonely tear from her eyes.

A few minutes later, her cell phone rings again, this time signaling the arrival of a message. Nevea ignores it at first. After a minute she picks up the cell phone and opens the message.

“When are you coming?” it says. The sender remains unknown.

Nevea stares at the display. “When are you coming?” Who wrote these words? And most importantly, why?

Suddenly a loud thunder breaks the silence, accompanied by a bright flash of lightning outside. The next moment the light in the room goes out. Nevea looks at her dimly lit cell phone. The message is still open: “When are you coming?” She doesn’t know why, but suddenly a deep fear overcomes her.

Another flash, another clap of thunder. For some unknown reason, Nevea finds it difficult to think clearly. These words suddenly captivate her and won't let her go.

When the next lightning strikes, Nevea is startled and sees a silhouette in her room.

“When are you coming?” she hears the distorted voice of a little girl.

The light in the room suddenly returns. The chandelier shakes, as does the rocking chair to the right of her large four-poster bed. Was someone in her room?

Nevea trembles. Minutes pass before she picks up her cell phone again. She carefully taps on the keyboard to see the scary message she received earlier. But when she checks the message history, the message has disappeared as if it never existed.

Thoughtful and filled with fear, Nevea sinks back onto her bed. Your thoughts and feelings become blurred. Soon she can no longer think clearly and forgets where she is and who she actually is.

Chapter 3 - Mysterious Luna

Once again the darkness envelopes the surroundings. Silence permeates the air. Nevea listens and hears nothing except the gentle pounding of her own heart and the heavy breathing that surely comes from her. She breathes in and out faster and faster, feeling like she's running, when in reality she's standing motionless in one spot, terrified and shaking.

A fleeting glow of light appears to reveal itself for a moment, but it turns out to be an optical illusion.

---ENDE DER LESEPROBE---