Chapter 1
Felix
Felix shot up so fast that he fell off his bed and onto the cold wooden floor of his bedroom. He breathlessly cursed as he struggled with his tangled sheets while his heart still pounded from his barely remembered nightmare. He had almost freed himself and tried to stand but the sweat-soaked sheet wrapped itself around his ankle and tripped him back to the ground. This provoked a new round of curses as he rubbed at his collection of sore spots and peeled the last tendril of clingy sheet from his leg. He panted heavily and leaned his back against the side of his messy bed as he let his eyes adjust to the darkness. With one shaky hand he pushed back his messy black hair wrinkling his nose in disgust when his hand came back wet. It was then that he discovered that his entire body was soaked in sweat making his clothes stick to him uncomfortably and causing him to shiver in the cool night air. He started cursing again, damn these nightmares!
Every night without fail since two months ago he'd had the same frightening dream. He could never remember much of it when he woke up and he could never tell what was so scary about, but he was certain that it was exactly the same dream. He knew that he saw part of the forest and part of town, but beyond that everything was a blur. Felix rubbed at his sleep clogged eyes and squinted at his very high tech digital clock. The red electronic numbers declared the time as being 6:37 AM, fat too early for him to be awake. He groaned and buried his head in his hands. Why couldn't life be fair to him for once? He had the strictest, weirdest, most evil parents in town. No one, not even his friends ever took him seriously. And now he was suffering from some odd chronic nightmare that woke him up at insane hours of the night or morning.
A sound from below caught his attention. He held his breath and waited to see if he heard anything else. When nothing else was heard after several minutes he relaxed. His parents were borderline crazy. If they found that he was awake this early they would assume that he had done or was doing something that he shouldn't like sneaking out of the house. Günter Hausmann the carpenter, his father, and Annamarie Hausmann the seamstress, his mother, were some of the most religious people in his hometown of Winzeldorf. They went to Roman Catholic Church every Sunday without fail and attended masses whenever they had time to spare. Both carried rosaries and Bibles where ever they went and prayed over every little thing. They slavishly adhered to the rules set by the Ten Commandments and the Scriptures. Tradition and religion were their lives and because he was their son it was going to be his life as well, whether he liked it or not.
They had always been strict with him. They drilled into him the importance and power of God and His laws. Even the smallest hint of rebellion, a white lie, stealing a cookie before dinner, talking back to his mother, was punished quickly and harshly. He had his own rosary and Bible that he was supposed to keep near him at all times and whenever his parents went to Church he had to go too. He could be in the middle of a Fuβball game and they would come and drag him off to Church with him. Because of this, he was always a well-behaved child. At least in their presence he was. Whenever he was free of them and most other adults he was far less controlled. Children like himself are never able to stand being smothered and controlled that way and so he would act out when he was alone or among friends.
But when he turned thirteen and became, to use the American term, a 'teenager' everything got even worse. His childish energies and desires became adolescent, young adult energies and desires. His body grew and changed from a boy's body to a man's, he began to develop new interests in girls, and worst of all his need to rebel against his parents and define himself grew ever greater. And his parents knew all of this. They found ways to be even more strict with him so that he would remain 'pure' in their minds. No experimentation for him, no drugs of any kind and no alcohol despite the fact that legally he could drink it now. No going out after dark unless one of them was with him in spite of the fact that his legal curfew was 11:00 PM. And there absolutely no unsupervised visits with girls allowed, meaning that he had no chance to have a real girlfriend. Essentially his parents insured that he had no life.
His friends understood. Every adult was similar to his parents though very few were quite as extreme. They all had to suffer under intense scrutiny, stiff curfews, and other smothering, ridiculous rules. In Winzeldorf teenagers were the suppressed class. Their town was isolated out in the middle of the Bavarian forest. Technology was slow to come to this conservative and deeply religious place. And when it did arrive none of the older generations trusted it. The new information these new devices brought images of the outside world that disturbed the people. They saw how things had changed and did not want that to happen to their town. And the way to stop change was to control the youth, especially teenagers. And so life in their small town had barely changed at all for decades.
Felix peered up at his clock, one of the most advanced things in his house, again. It now read 6:55 AM, five minutes before his parents would come in and wake him up. Wearily he crawled off the floor and back into bed taking his sheets with him. If he wasn't in bed they would ask questions that he didn't want to answer. In three minutes he was back under his covers with his eyes closed looking like he'd never fallen out of bed at all. Then like clockwork at exactly 7:00 AM his mother came in to wake him. The door creaked open spilling bright light into his dark warm sanctuary. He heard her shuffle across the wood floor and pause next to his bed. He waited until she squeezed his shoulder before opening his eyes and getting out of bed. No words were exchanged, they didn't need to be, he knew the drill.
His mother left him to quickly shower and dress himself before he came down to breakfast. After he completed his morning rituals he scampered down the stairs just in time. At 7:30 AM sharp grace was said and breakfast was served. Aside from grace not a word was spoken, it was a time for silence and contemplation for his parents and utter boredom for him. Once they had all eaten their fill his father said one last prayer and he and Felix left for work and school while his mother cleaned up. His father followed him almost the whole way to his small school before turning away to his woodshop. Felix frowned as he father walked away. His parents had known him all his life; they should know him better than this. Why would he skip school? It wasn't like there much else for him to do other than go. And besides, he didn't dare directly defy his parents like that.
He entered the doors of the old crumbling school that served as both a primary and secondary school. The older students' classes started at 8:00 AM while the younger students' classes began at 9:00 AM. The hallway was dim and musty and very empty. The building could probably hold 500 students but there were only about half that enrolled and most of them were younger. There were only two classes of older students, one class of 15 and 16 year olds and one class of 17 and 18 year olds. He happened to be in the second class. With his 18th birthday last week he was now in the upper echelon of the school. There was no student older than he and his companions, only the teachers out-ranked them.
As he walked into his musty old classroom he glanced at the old clock and saw that he still had five minutes before the teacher came in. He flopped down into his customary seat in the back by one of the few windows and dropped his book-bag alongside. The old wooden desk was covered in ink stains and scratches that made it impossible to write unless there was a book underneath it. The metal parts of the desk and chair were half rusted and sometimes he feared that he would contract tetanus just by looking at it. The seat of the chair was made of rough black plastic and was as scratched up as the surface of the desk and when he sat down in it, it would creak. The lights above him sometimes flickered if the door to the room was slammed too hard and always seemed dim compared to other electric lights. The blackboard was permanently grayed by chalk dust and the eraser looked like a dead rat. He knew his classroom was a dump, but he'd never personally seen any other.
"Guten Morgen Felix. Sleep well?" Wolfgang Kleinfeld teased.
"Shut up Wolfie." Felix grumbled; he wasn't in the mood for playing right now.
"That's not very nice. People aren't supposed to speak to their best friends that way." Wolfie complained.
"I know, I'm just really tired." Felix sighed quietly.
"Yes, that's what you said yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. I think that you just don't like me anymore." Wolfie moaned quietly.
"No Wolfie it's not that. I haven't been sleeping well lately." Felix muttered rubbing at his tired eyes. During breakfast he'd felt awake enough but now his sleep deprivation was catching up with him.
"Why?" Wolfie asked him.
"I'm not sure, nightmares I think." Felix replied.
"You think? What do you mean you think?" Wolfie asked confused.
"I can never really remember what happens, but when you wake up suddenly covered in sweat and panicking it has to be bad." Felix explained. He'd never told anyone about his dreams yet and Wolfie was about to remind him why.
"Nah, it probably was a great dream that had a bad ending." Wolfie declared somewhat smugly. Felix gave him a hard look.
"Oh? How do you figure that?" Felix demanded.
"Well, I bet it was a great dream, but then when it was over you thought it was real and were afraid that your parents would catch you and punish you." Wolfie snickered. Felix glared at his best friend. So Wolfgang thinks it was a dirty dream. Typical.
"Whatever." He snorted angrily.
Before Wolfgang could reply the teacher walked in and the room fell silent. Herr Feldmann was not a man to cross, especially this early in the morning. All twenty students straightened up and faced forward as they waited for the chubby old man the start their lesson. As the stuffy geezer began teaching them about some science theory Felix let his attention wander, he could always look the lesson up in the book later if necessary. The barely remembered images and sensations from his dream were haunting his thoughts. It was all so strange, but some parts felt familiar, like he'd been to those places in real life even though he couldn't remember what they looked like. Felix squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. The more he thought about his dream the more uncomfortable he felt. Finally he couldn't take it anymore and forced himself to pay attention to Herr Feldmann's dull lecture.
