Some people might know that I love to write and that I wrote a small book called Dylan Knight: Inferno a couple years ago. By small, I mean really small, the book was just 24 pages in total. For the last couple of months I have been debating whether or not I should make a longer, better version and I decided that a new year would be the perfect time to work.

I had published the first chapter of the new version elsewhere, so I will just begin after that and explain what happens in the first chapter. The book begins with Dylan attempting to put advice given to him by his father to good use. At the end of the first chapter, we learn that the advice led Dylan to being trapped in a burning building.

The original version of the book can also be found on teen Ink by looking up my username in case you would like to keep up with the updates. Here we go.

How did I end up in this predicament? Well, it’s actually a very long and complicated story that nobody will believe even though it’s true.

Why would nobody believe in my story? Well for starters, I knew that fire was going to attack this building beforehand because I saw it in a dream.

Things like this have been happening to me recently, the first time had been about three weeks ago, but what was I supposed to do, Tell somebody? I don’t know what they would think.

Nope, I had my own plans, one that could possibly get me that success that I had wanted to achieve my entire life.

I figured that if I knew something bad was going to happen in advance, I could try to help those people and soon I could become as famous as my dad.

The moment I woke up today, I jumped at the opportunity. At the time, I had thought that rescuing the 81 victims of the blaze was perfect.

Well, maybe not. I didn’t even take ten steps into the building and my plan backfires. Forget saving those 81 victims, now I can’t even save one, not even me.

There is a bit of irony that came out of the day’s events. You see, I knew that something bad was going to happen. Every time I tried to interfere with one of the dreams something went wrong, the worst of these events had been last Friday.

It was the last day of school, and the beginning of a three day weekend. Any sixteen year old kid would be happy. I would have been happy too; if it hadn’t been because of me that somebody had been killed.

Not only did somebody die on my watch, what I had done might have also killed my relationship with my dad.

I pretty much woke up screaming that day and ran into my parent’s room as my dad was getting dressed for another day of work.

I didn’t want to tell him about the dream so I started out by acting sick in an attempt to get him to miss work for a day.

“Dylan,” He said. “You just tried this last week, there does not seem to be anything wrong with you. Go and get your stuff ready for school.”

I tried begging but all he said back was, “Dylan! I have to get ready for work, please stop messing around and get dressed.”

I even tried a few things that were a bit more drastic, but they all ended with the same results. “That’s it!! I know you did something with my car keys. Bring them to me now!!” He growled.

After that there was screaming, cursing, and a lot of fighting. I gave up after about five minutes when my younger brother Jake woke up and I let my dad go. That had became the worst mistake that I had ever made.

I decided it was best not to go to school that day. I just sat, staring out the window hour after hour until I saw my dad’s old ford turn the corner a few blocks away.

I walked towards the door and as I moved, I thought about what would take place over the next few minutes. Was I wrong? Did the terrible thing I saw in my dream turn out to be a mistake and that nothing happened?

The door opened and in he walked. He still seemed to be a bit angry about what happened this morning, but you could also see hints of sadness and terror in his eyes.

“Hey dad,” I said to him. “What happened? Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer either of my questions but instead all he did was throw his jacket on the kitchen table and went into his office.

He hadn’t been the same since that day; he had already missed three days of work and rarely left his office except to use the bathroom and to get something to eat.

I can’t blame him for how he’s been acting these past few days. I would have probably felt the same if I had watched as my partner and best friend was murdered.

That’s right. I had known that my dad and Carlos, who is a close family friend, were called to stop a robbery at the bank in Jackson Heights.

I also had known that Carlos was going to be shot three times in the chest by the attacker before my dad could bring him to the ground. Nothing could be done, Carlos had been pronounced dead during the ride to Elmhurst Hospital.

I wish I could have told him about the dream, but he would have thought it was just another attempt to get him to stay home. It’s terrible feeling, knowing that there’s nothing you can do about it.

It’s also a terrible thing to have such an argument with your dad and then to end up in this mess. The last thing that I had said to him before he stormed out of the house that Friday morning was that I hated him.

What kind of a father wants to hear that from his son and than learn that his son had been killed in a fire? The answer is nobody! No father wants to go through that.

The original book just shows how Dylan first came into contact with his “dreams” and it shows him going into the burning building, saving a few people, and then passing out. This version is going to have so much more, like so many books and movies, I am having it work out that the day keeps repeating until Dylan manages to actually stop the fire from happening.