Part Seven – Nightmares.

Darkness. Covering me, covering the world, covering the Universe. There was nothing but the darkness and the cold breath of eternity.

It was that dream again. The dream about the wires. But this time it didn't end like it always did. This time I could follow the extensions of the wires as they went higher and higher into the deep darkness, without a beginning and without an end… It was like the world had been turned upside down and the gates of hell were located in the sky instead of the dark depths of the earth.

And then I saw the light.

I didn't know where I was. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know my name, I didn't know what my profession was, if I had a wife, if I had ever had any children, where I lived, who my parents were, if I had any friends… It was all a big black hole and the feeling of immense emptiness filled me, sucked me dry until I was nothing but an empty shell of a man, without a soul, without hopes and dreams, without a life, without meaning and without a goal.

And then I heard them say my name and I somehow just knew that they were responsible for this, they were responsible for the way I felt and what I had become, they had created this emptiness and this darkness that enshrouded me. And I suddenly realized that what I felt was pain, pain beyond my wildest imagination, pain that not only completely destroyed me physically, but that was also slowly breaking into my brain and eating me whole from within, cell by cell, memory by memory.

"Jacob," they said and I wasn't aware of the tears streaming down my face, my splitting headache or the fact that I was hanging upside down in chains. I was aware of anything else but the emptiness that was consuming me but their voices still bore their way through the endless layers of pain until they caught my attention and I was forced to listen, I had no choice.

"Jacob," they repeated and I tried to open my eyes and look at them, see these people that were doing this to me, but all I could see was shadows, shadows moving all around me. I screamed when I suddenly fell down into something soft and that was suddenly clinging to my body. My trembling fingertips slid over the material and I realized that I was lying in a heap of blankets and they were clinging to my body because it was covered in blood.

I was bleeding heavily.

I groaned, ignorant to the voices above me, the sounds of footsteps and chains.

I tried to remember something, anything that would confirm me of who I was and why this was happening to me.

All that came to me through my pounding headache were these words: "Reality doesn't exist my friend, I'm living like a pirate using my sixth sense."

I heard them repeating my name again and I opened my mouth and spoke before I spat out what seemed to be blood mixed with teeth.

"Reality doesn't exist," I said, my voice blurry, distant and strange. "Reality doesn't exist," I repeated as I struggled to get up from the sticky blankets, trying to see. "Reality doesn't exist!" I screamed when I felt hands that grabbed hold of me and I couldn't feel the sharp sting of the syringe because my body was completely numb with pain and then there wasn't any pain at all.

I was floating above clouds. I felt the complete opposite of my previous state. I felt like I had never seen or thought this clear before. I tried to think of who I am and the facts were gathered quickly and placed neatly in text that made perfect sense.

My name was Jacob Clemens, I was 43 years old and I was working at MTI as a computer software programmer. I was a widower because my wife Marie had died from braincancer eleven years ago and I had never been in a relationship with another woman since that day. I was also the only survival of a horrible explosion that occurred two years ago at my previous job. There was something that had always bothered me since that day, ever since that tragic day when I returned from my errand and saw the flaming ruins of the building and the sirens of approaching policecars and firemen. I had recently had very peculiar nightmares and daydreams about wires.

"There is also a woman involved. She calls herself Raven and she owns a black Shadow Spirit motorbike and she saved me from a man who wanted to kill me, I don't know for what reason."

I suddenly stopped talking when I realized that I was saying these things out loud and not in my head as I had thought. I opened my eyes and tried to see. This time my sight didn't fail me. My face was reflecting in a very familiar pair of black glasses.

Agents. Raven had called them Agents.

The thin lips of the man suddenly turned into a small smile that somehow seemed comforting.

"There, there now Jacob," said the man. "Calm down. You've done very good, although there are a few things I need to correct in your story."

I was tied to the chair with the same chains they had hung me down from the roof with. My hands were held behind the chair with a pair of handcuffs. I was also naked and I suddenly became extremely aware of that. I looked down at my body and I could see no signs of the torture they had put me through, no scars and no blood.

"We didn't torture you," said the man who was sitting right across the table that was inbetween me and him. The room was narrow and with just enough place for the table, the two chairs, a large mirror on one of the walls and a huge fan that was rotating behind the Agent's head.

"It was all in your mind," the man whispered.

I looked at him, afraid of the frightened pair of eyes that reflected in his glasses, knowing that those eyes were mine.

"You tried to kill me," I said.

"No, Jacob, you're wrong," the man replied calmly. There was something by the unchanging tone of his voice that made me shiver. "We didn't try to kill you. We were just using you to get to… Raven, is that what you called her? Raven."

My eyes widened and I suddenly heard the shot in front of the old house behind my back once again as I had set off into the run through the streets. "You shot her," I said and while I expected my voice to be filled with the anger and rage I felt inside, it was nothing but a mere whimper. I had never felt so alone and so confused in my entire life. Everything seemed to be lost now, even though I didn't know anything at all. "You killed her! Bastards!"

"Calm down now Jacob," said the man behind the desk and kept looking at me. I forced myself to take calmer breaths and stared back at him angrily.

"Remove your glasses so I can see your face, murderer," I snarled, my entire body shaking with rage as I thought about the pair of grey eyes that had looked back into mine and the hand that had grabbed me and taken me on a journey through the night.

The man sighed and removed his sunglasses to my surprise, revealing a pair of blue eyes and sharp, distinct nose. He put the glasses in one of the pockets of his suit, turning his head and allowing me to see a short glimpse of the white wire plugged into his ear.

"How is that your attitude is so hostile towards us Jacob?" The man asked as he looked at me again and I could feel the eyes piercing through my flesh and into my brain. The voice was still just as calm and strangely soothing. "You didn't know this woman anymore than you know me. How can you be so certain that her intentions towards you were good when she didn't even give you any explanations about what was happening or where she was taking you? How can you be so sure that the house she was leading you to wasn't a trap and that she was going to kill you?"

The words "Because I know that you were waiting for me" almost slipped off my tongue but I managed to hold them back. Something inside of me stopped me from telling him about the vision I had had the night before. I decided to keep it to myself.

I breathed heavily and looked away. I knew that this man was trying to brainwash me and make me doubt myself and the purpose of everything that had happened to me over these past few days. I wasn't going to let him talk me over with his soothing voice and reasonable arguments.

"Even if you are right," I said as I gathered my strength and looked back at him. "Then you're no better than she was."

The man smiled and was just about to say something when his right eye twitched and he brought a hand to his ear, the one that had that white wire plugged in it. It looked like he had received some important information because he shot a sharp look at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. He got up and left the room through a small narrow door that was closed right behind him. The door was opened again shortly afterwards, it was another Agent, looking very similar to that one I had just talked to. He simply walked up to me, tilted my head and injested another dosage of the drugs they had been feeding me with into my neck.

Then he left the room and locked it.

And to think that just a few days ago I had taken drugs to escape from my visions.

I was all alone again with the shadows and the nightmares. I stared at the huge fan that now seemed to fill the entire room, watching its rotations, relieved by the breeze of cool air it directed towards my skin. I lost my sight and any sense of time. I thought about Raven.

I don't know how much time passed before I heard voices and gunfire outside the room. I heard how someone slammed in the door, a rush of footsteps and how someone hurried towards me. I heard the jingle of keys and the next thing I knew was that my hands were free. Someone removed the chains that were tying me to the chair. I took a deep breath and remained silent, waiting for whatever was going to happen next. The shadows were still crawling around me, blocking my consciousness.

I felt someone taking a hold of my head and checking my eyes. The same person pulled me out of the chair and made me stand up. A pair of hands placed a coat over my naked body and I automatically wrapped it around myself.

Raven?

I saw the blurry image of a man with long black hair and dark eyes.

"You're going to be just fine," he said to me. Then he turned to look at someone I couldn't see. "You'll have to carry him. We have to get out of here before they understand what's going on."

He looked back at me again. "He's going to faint any moment now," he said and I knew that he was right.

Darkness fell upon me. I felt strong hands that caught me in my fall. Then I knew nothing more.