"Some choose to be minor characters. There is nothing wrong
in this despite your suspicion, itself most likely colored
by your own understandable and ordinary desire to take a
central place in someone's story."
-Micheal Joyce
Author of Twelve Blue
www.eastgate.com/TwelveBlue
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...And he woke up.
He bolted upright in his bed, breath still coming out in
labored heaves. He had a weird dream. A girl had appeared in
his dreams, whispering to him, urging him to do something...
but what he could not remember.
He grasped his head as the dull throb subsided. He chided
himself for trying that drug last night. What was it called
again? ...Accela.
He turned his sleepy eyes to the clock sitting on his
bedside table. 8:16am. A sudden fear seized him and he
glanced at the calendar to make sure of the date. The 15th
of June.
Damn. He was late. He threw his sheets aside and let his
feet drop to the floor. He stopped, his feet seemed to brush
something cold. He looked down and for a moment he thought
he saw the metallic glint of a gun beneath his feet...
He blinked, shook his head trying to clear the cobwebs then
looked again. No. There wasn't a gun there. He must have
been seeing things. Then it occurred to him that his dream
did involve a gun...
He brushed it off, it was just a dream. He quickly changed
and burst out of his room a few minutes before his phone
rang...
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...And he woke up.
He quickly sat up on his bed, breathing heavily. He had had
a strange nightmare. The soft murmuring from a girl in his
dreams with a long strand of hair tied with a crisscrossed
rubber band down the left side of her face, whispering in
his ears, asking him to do something... but what he could
not recall.
He head hurt. He held his forehead in his arms, making a
mental note not to ever take that pill his hacker friend
asked him to try. The rush he felt when under its influence
was brain-numbing. Actually, he didn't recall how he got
back here. He rubbed his temples, mentally repeating, "No
more Accela..."
He tilted his head to glance at his bedside table. The clock
read 8.16am. He cringed. It can't be THAT late. Frantically
he scrutinized his calendar. The 15th of June. The 15th.
Those words stared at him. Didn't he see those same numbers
yesterday? No matter. He was late.
He let himself onto the floor, suddenly feeling an
overwhelming sense of déjà vu. A slight chill went over him
even before he touched its cold metal surface. Looking down,
he saw something from his nightmare. A gun. Not just any
gun. A gun with a laser aimer.
He bent down to pick it up. Holding it in his hands he
examined it. His hands trembled a bit. What did this mean?
Halfway though inspecting the weapon, his phone rang.
Springing to answer it he threw the gun down on his bed.
"Yes sir! ...No Sir!"
Silence...
"I understand, Sir!"
More uneasy silence. He shifted his feet nervously.
"I'll come right away, Sir!"
He slammed the phone and ran to his closet, hurriedly
throwing on a mismatch of clothes. He was late. And his boss
was going to kill him... or worse... fire him.
He burst out of his room a few minutes later, the gun on his
bed forgotten...
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...And he woke up...
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...And he woke up...
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...And he woke up...
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...And he woke up...
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...And he woke up.
He forced himself into sitting position, still panting. A
peculiar dream had come to him. A girl. A girl had
metaphorized in his dream. She had brown hair. A strand of
it streaming down the left side of her face in a braid. Her
eyes were droopy with a sense of mischief in them. He face
had been stretched out in an unnatural smile as she muttered
in his ears. She had asked him to accomplish something,
something not entirely pleasant, but... what was it?
He groaned as he rubbed his eyes, the splitting migraine in
his head thumping. He should have known better to have tried
that drug, Accela, last night at Cyberia. It had totally
messed him up. He couldn't remember much of anything after
he took it. Only the raw sensation of his senses burning,
seemingly overloaded with stimulus. Hell, he didn't even
remember how he got home!
"Tsck!" He exclaimed as another throb went splitting through
his head. He had to stop moaning and move...
And suddenly it felt to him like he KNEW what was going to
happen. Now he would turn to look at the clock. It would
flash 8.16am. He would panic. He would look at his calendar
and the awfully familiar numbers of 6/15 would gaze back at
him mockingly.
Then he would try to get up. He would slip his legs down
from the bed onto the floor and feel the unfamiliar lump of
cold metal under his feet. And he knew what it was!
He would reach down and bring the gun up. It felt like dead
weight in his hands, this instrument of death. How did it
get here? He knew without looking that it was burnished
metal and had a laser aimer attached. Why did he know its
features so well? The phone rang. Urgently. But he
disregarded it, so intently was he staring at the gun.
The screech of the phone reverberated through the room, but
it did not irritate him. For among the frantic buzzes he
sensed a presence, just like what he felt in his dream. The
fuzzy image of a girl. The girl from his dreams.
It was Her. He knew it was. She was manipulating everything,
resetting time again and again. Because She wanted him to do
something today, and he had not done it. He knew he would
relive today again and again and again until he did what She
wanted.
But what did She want? What was it She murmured to him so
many times in his dreams over and over again for lord knows
how many todays?
He did not know, he could not remember.
But he knew one thing. That unless She was dead, he would
never be free, he would forever be trapped in today.
Reliving these same moments again and again and again and
again...
And he slipped the gun into his jacket, and walked off. To
find Her. To Club Cyberia...
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by melange
melange@nervhq.org
connect.to/digitalangel