Italic text represents a thought.
Legal mumbo-jumbo can be found prior to the introduction to this story.
Chapter Two
"Uuuh?"
Seamus Harper awoke and rubbed his eyes. Man, did he have a headache. He turned his head slightly to the right and looked at his...ALARM CLOCK?!? He rubbed his eyes again, then pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.
Apparently he wasn't. The alarm clock sat there, blinking at him. It read 12:00.
But the alarm clock that had mysteriously appeared at the edge of his bedside table was his least concern. His head was pounding...as if Tyr had broken a brick over it. Make that two. He tried desperately to remember what had happened the previous night...but to no avail. It probably involved the mass consumption of alcohol.
No... Harper was fighting with himself inside his head. He had hangovers before. Those were more like two by fours. This was definitely a brick! He figured that it would be best to sleep on it - perhaps he would remember in the morning. He started staring at that stupid blinking alarm clock and within a few minutes, he fell asleep from the boredom.
"Morning, Harper!"
"Uuuh?"
Harper's headache wasn't as bad as it had been at midnight...but it was still throbbing. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but white. He blinked a few times and realized that his eyes were adjusting to the sunlight.
The SUNLIGHT?!?!?
Harper forced his eyes open. Slowly, but surely everything came into focus. Rommie's hologram was standing next to the bed. Something about her didn't look right though.
Harper blinked. Wait a minute... It wasn't Rommie. It was another hologram. She had long blonde hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a pink tank top and light brown pants. He also noticed a large window on the side of the room. Sunlight was pouring in.
"So are you going to get up or do you want the radio? It's already set to opera. All I need to do is crank the volume..."
Harper didn't want to get up...but he didn't want the opera music either. Something was horribly wrong here. The alarm clock? The window/sunlight? The cute but sarcastic hologram? Alright...you're going to wake up any second now...just play along with your dream.
Unfortunately Harper's headache severly impacted his ability to think straight.
"Where am I? Who are you? What's going on?"
"Shh!" The hologram pointed to the other side of the bed. Harper suddenly realized that with the way things looked now, he probably wasn't the only one in the bed. He turned over and looked to his left. Oh my god...
"TRANCE!"
The purple figure sleeping next to him rolled over. Fortunately she was still asleep. Harper sat up and turned to face the hologram. His headache was coming back. None of this made sense, even to a certified genius such as himself. What is going on here?
Little did he know that a fish-headed man was watching him and asking the same question.
The fish-headed man looked up from the monitor. He looked at Harper, who was still sitting in a chair, VR helmet wired into his implant. He gave a sigh and looked at the computer that was controlling the Dream Catcher. True, he had fixed the bugs that had caused the computer to crash previously. However, in doing so, he had accidentally caused a massive energy backlash which had shorted parts of the helmet and parts of Harper's implant. Then how was it that the Dream Catcher was still running?
According to the computer, Harper should be dead. The good news was that he was still breathing, his heart was beating, and he had the occasional twitch. Unfortunately that was the only good news. He couldn't shut down the program, and from what he had seen on the screen - Harper had amnesia.
Harper was a prisoner...of his own mind.
End of Chapter Two
Author's note: Not what you expected...is it?
Chapter 3 coming...umm...soon. In the meantime please review!
- ~Thissa~