Dreamscape

July, 1984

Chapter 3: Dream

Alex was lying down on the laboratory bed, electrodes pasties and wires streaming from him like fine strands of multicolored spaghetti. The overhead lighting was dimmed to help him relax. Alex shifted his position slightly, making himself as comfortable as possible.

Dr. Novotny, who was watching Alex from the control station with Dr. DeVries and a few other staff members, spoke through the earpiece to Alex, "You may now begin your deep breathing exercises."

Alex began to breathe deeply and rhythmically, focusing his mind to fall into a deep sleep but to maintain lucidity. Deeper he sank into relaxation as if the room were the surface, and his sleep was a pool of water. Slowly he drifted beneath, sinking into the soft gloom.

His mind wandered for a few seconds then he suddenly found himself in the central grounds of the Institute. Night had fallen, but all of the lamp posts that usually illuminated the pretty grass, relaxed trees and park benches, were unlit, basking the entire area in peaceful shadow.

Alex looked at his hands and saw they were slightly distorted. He was dreaming. He looked up at the night sky, expecting to see the familiar blackness festooned with twinkling stars like diamonds on black velvet. Surprised, he saw that the sky was inky black gradually becoming a Navy blue towards the horizon. There were no stars.

Again, he resisted the notion of exploring the area, instead wanting to see how well he could control and influence the dreamscape.

Alex focused his mind, trying to move a nearby bench with just his thoughts. Nothing happened. He raised his palm towards the bench, curling his fingers at it as though he were trying to grip it and used his mind to imagine pulling the bench to him. He was shocked to see that the bench, its four stubby legs grinding and grating loudly along the sidewalk, began to slowly move, bouncing slightly. Alex imagined he could fling the bench like a baseball and he made a violent motion of casting the bench away.

Amazingly, the bench was hurled off to his right, spinning in the air like a boomerang. It crashed on top of the grass. Alex laughed with delight.

He decided to try his telekinesis on an anchored item so he aimed at one of the lamp posts. He pulled it with his mind. He could hear a cracking, screeching noise as the post tore away from its mount, the anchoring bolts snapping like pretzels. Alex cast the lamp post at the park bench and to his delight, the post crashed violently into it.

I'm learning how to control my dreams!

In his excitement, Alex felt his grip on the dream slipping, his mind was becoming aware of the laboratory sleeping area. He fought to maintain control, relaxing his mind and executing his deep breathing exercises.

Slowly, methodically, Alex sank back into the dream but it had changed. The surroundings of the laboratory slowly faded away like shadows fleeing from light. He found himself in front of the dull faces of gravestones lined up along the dark earth. There were black trees, stained like charcoal as if they had been burned but remained standing, their branches thin, gnarled and twisted like long deformed fingers. He was holding a torch, its flickering light was the only illumination leaving the shrouded cemetery cast in shifting shadows.

What the hell am I doing here?

Since he had earlier moved objects with his will, perhaps he could change his location as well. He closed his eyes, focusing on Dr. Jane DeVries, he felt his will unraveling, casting out into the night like a fishing line, seeking her out. Alex could feel her, he knew what direction she was in, if he could just pinpoint her location. Again he cast out his willpower like a long line far into the night, searching for her but failing so he cast out again, relentless in his quest to find her.

Almost! Just a little longer.

Alex was interrupted by a shrill scream.

It sounded like a child, maybe a young girl. The scream was fraught with terror.

She screamed again, more panicked this time, more desperate.

Alex ran in her direction.

There was a thick fog suddenly, as if from nowhere. He could barely see a few feet in front of him.

Off to his right, he heard footsteps of someone running, panicked breaths wheezing and sobbing. Alex chased after the sounds.

He neared a high stone bridge, its form loomed out of the fog so promptly that he gasped in surprise. The bridge was rickety, misshapen and deteriorating. What was once a proud creation of masonry and iron was now a crumbling rusty ruin, gaping holes in the supports, piles of fallen stones at its base as it slowly fell apart.

Under the sagging haunch and beside the crumbling abutment, there was a form there, standing as tall as a man but thinner, much thinner. Its wispy form was only noticeable because of the shadow it was casting.

Alex drew closer and saw that it was a skeleton, a specimen of aligned and constructed bone that could adorn a science lab. From behind, he saw that instead of a dull yellowish color, the bones were dark with stringy material hanging from the entire frame. The skeleton turned its head and looked at him. The sockets were ablaze with an reddish orange glow like hellfire.

Oh God.

Slowly turning its body toward him, the skeleton's jaw worked open and closed as if silently cursing him. Alex felt coils of fear tightening around him.

The front of the thing was still partial whole, slick strips of rotting flesh dangled, hideous exposed and discolored intestines glistened from below the dark rib cage.

Alex heard another awful scream, very close and realized that he was hearing himself cry out in terror. He turned to run from the abomination but it reached out for him, clawing at his clothing.

He screamed again and fought to free himself from the skeleton's clutches wincing at the rattling sounds that its bones made as it moved, its lip less teeth clacking together as its jaws worked, silently condemning him to death.

The skeleton seized his arm, its bony gnarled fingers digging into his skin like sharp teeth. Alex twisted and pulled, trying to get away from the thing but the more he struggled, the more control it seemed to gain over him. The torch fell from his grip.

The skeleton was much stronger than he was. It gripped him by the shoulders and lunged at him with its jaws wide open, its wet shriveled tongue was visible for a second within its maw like a mottled slug. Alex screamed in pain as its teeth sank into his shoulder. He freed one of his arms and tried to punch and kick the damned monster, but his movements were sluggish as though he was underwater. His strikes were ineffective and weak.

The filthy skeleton released his shoulder, it turned its head towards his face and bit him. The top teeth sank into his right ear and its bottom teeth crushed down on his chin. Alex screamed in panic, the pain was unbearable. He could feel his blood rushing out from the terrible wounds, drenching him. He could smell its rank breath. It smelled of death.

Wake up!

Alex knew his only chance at salvation was to wake up and leave this grisly beast behind. The skeleton shifted its grip grabbing him by the throat it bit his face again, the angle of the bite only slightly changing but the pain was so overpowering that Alex dropped to his knees.

He was screaming like a madman, flailing and struggling, trying to free himself as the skeleton slowly tore him to shreds.

Alex, wake up!

The plea to awaken was not his own thoughts as he had initially reasoned. Someone was calling him, someone very far away. Alex cringed, trying to protect himself as the skeleton lifted his chin, baring his vulnerable throat. Its teeth were dripping with his blood, the eyes blazed with a hellish glow, its jaws snapped open to tear out his throat.

Alex woke up in the laboratory thrashing, twisting and kicking so violently that he had fallen off the laboratory bed and was on the floor. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, was he still dreaming? Dr. DeVries was kneeling down beside him, speaking to him, saying things but Alex couldn't hear her. He could see her lips moving, her tongue forming words but he couldn't hear anything but a roaring sound in his ears deafening him.

The roaring sound was in his head, drowning out all other sounds. As he inhaled suddenly, the roaring sound ceased. He had been screaming, the roaring sound was his own raspy terrified howl.

"Alex!" He could hear Dr. DeVries now, her voice was soothing like an angel's, "Calm down, you're okay now. You're safe. It was a nightmare. You just had a terrible dream."

Alex was in pain. He was bathed in sweat, his body bruised and battered from all the wild thrashing. He panted, completely out of breath, "My God."

Dr. DeVries helped him to his feet, "Are you okay? Do you want some coffee?"

"No. Fine."

Alex was reeling. The dream which he was initially controlling swiftly got the upper hand over him. He could still feel remnants of the painful bites on his face and the claws on his shoulders. The attack was so vicious, so sudden that he was unable to concentrate, helpless to try and bend the dream to his will in order to defeat the awful corpse.

Dr. DeVries half escorted, half carried Alex to the report couch. He fell onto it, his legs kicking the coffee table. Dr. Novotny sat down in one of the chairs. Reluctant to leave him, Dr. DeVries sat down in her usual spot, taking out her note pad.

"What happened?" Dr. Novotny asked.

"I was at this Institute," Alex began, "and I began to use my will to control my surroundings." To his horror, as he narrated his dream to the two doctors, vivid pictures of his dream began flashing before his eyes, almost as if he were returning to the dream, watching it flicker in synchronicity like a movie on an old film reel before him. Each scene was jumpy and jerky as the visions ticked off. He watched himself silently destroy the park bench then rip the lamp post off its mounts.

"I started to wake up," Alex continued. He really didn't want to relive the nightmare, but he kept going, almost against his will, "But I got my breathing under control and I managed to calm myself down, remained asleep. I was in a cemetery, holding a torch. It was very dark. I wanted to leave, I didn't want to be in a graveyard so I tried to find another place. Then I heard a scream." Something strange was happening to him, to his mind, as if he were in a trance of some sort, a marionette on strings, behaving and performing to the whim of an unknown and unseen puppet master.

Alex leaned forward on the couch, his head cupped in his hands. What the hell was going on? In the pit of his stomach, he felt nausea, his face still ached from the biting, his body was worn out from struggling against the dreamed up adversary, yet despite his current physical state, he continued on describing his dream, "I went to see who was screaming and ran into a thick fog. I could barely see. I heard someone running and followed them. I wanted to help. I wanted to see if I could help them."

Dr. Novotny said, "Why did you allow the dream to transform? You should have easily been able to pull yourself back to the Institute if you wanted to."

Alex could hear the question but he was too distracted to answer. He was hoping that the flickering vision would fade before coming to the worst part but he could still see it. The memory of the dream rolled on, he was helpless to stop it.

Alex saw the bridge again, the crumbling remnant and then he saw the rotted skeleton. He gasped, not realizing he had been holding his breath.

Dr. Novotny said something else but Alex didn't hear him. The flickering reel of pictures in his mind's eye continued on in silent movie fashion. The skeleton turned toward him.

Dr. DeVries got up from her seat, "Alex? Are you all right?"

Alex felt the same fear come over him, the same primal terror coiling around him. The eyes of the skeleton blazed, the rotting flesh dangled. It reached for him in the dream before his eyes. Alex recoiled in horror, upsetting the coffee table again, the couch was slid noisily as he tried to climb backward over it.

He could feel the horrible claws digging into his flesh as the monster grabbed him. Alex thrashed and screamed. He was aware that it was only a vision, a mere memory that he was observing but the fear was real. The pain was real.

Both doctors came around the coffee table trying to help him, trying to calm him down. Their attempts to corral his panic were futile. They couldn't see what he was experiencing nor could either of them feel his pain.

Alex watched as the skeleton bit into his shoulder. He was wracked with waves of agony. He cried out and fought to escape, knowing what was coming next but he had no where to go. Even though his suffering was tangible, the dream wasn't. He was in the Laboratory with no where to run. He closed his eyes, trying to squeeze out the visions ticking off in his mind, desperately trying to stop the movie from playing over in his head but it was no use.

The skeleton's teeth sank into his face.

Alex screamed in anguish. Finally, mercifully, darkness overcame him.

He had fainted.