Chapter 1: The Dream

Daniel Boyce
Aug 24, 2017 · 8 min read

It had been two years since the dream had awoken Ozan from sleep the summer before he was to attend college, and though he still had no substantial evidence that there was any connection between the two events, he had no doubt himself that they were connected. How, was the question he still could not answer. The dream still plagued him both in waking and sleeping, and of course one could no longer ignore the obvious signs that something had changed around two years ago.

The dream had been a simple one by dream standards. No other worldly or impossible actions or scenarios besides the size of the room Ozan had “woken” up in. However, it had still been bizarre almost beyond belief. Had it not been for the events of the following weeks and now years he would have said that it was the weirdest thing to have ever happen to him. Even without slipping back into the dream on almost a daily basis he knew it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Ozan’s eyes snapped open, though the only thing that he could see was a single bright light hanging nearly directly over his face. The strangest part (at least thus far) was that though it appeared to be one of the bright fluorescent lights present in hospitals and doctors’ offices his continued stare neither hurt nor left spots in his eyes when he finally looked away. The second thing he noticed was that he was still lying in bed. He could feel the softness of the mattress beneath him, though no sheets sheathed his exposed body. The cloth that was present consisted of a sleeveless tank top and shorts. As he turned his head, Ozan nearly flinched backward off his mattress as his eyes took in the pure strangeness of the dream before him.

There were hundreds maybe even thousands of people lying on identical raised movable beds much like gurneys you would find in a hospital. All were wearing an identical white tank top and shorts and all seemingly asleep, or dead. The room was dimly lit, bright enough to see but not so light as to make details of distant objects visible. A darkness seemed to hang between each of the lights as though separating each spot from the other.

Ozan slowly sat up, first coming onto his elbows, then moving to his hands to keep himself propped up; finally, he swung his legs over the edge of his gurney and let them dangle over the floor. Slowly, as though terrified of what he might find he turned his head over his left shoulder to look behind his back. Despite not knowing what he would find, he was unsurprised to find yet more beds with more people lying motionless beneath the fluorescent lights. As he brought his head back around to the front, a slight abnormality caught his eye. There was a blemish on the skin of his left shoulder, just below the joint. He almost dismissed it as nothing, but given the strangeness of the rest of this dream, he thought it best to check. As he adjusted the angle of his head for a better look he noticed that it was no mere bump or bruise, it was a pattern.

Raised ever so slightly off the surface of his skin but somehow still supremely evident now that he had noticed it. It looked almost like an immaculately detailed and defined brand, or henna tattoo. He was unable to see the whole of the marking due to its location and his limited flexibility, so he lowered his arm back to the bed preparing to stand. As Ozan dropped his feet slowly to the floor, he remembered he was barefoot, and the surface beneath him appeared to be tile. Bracing for the cold, he was pleasantly surprised to find the ground was quite comfortable, though still hard and unforgiving.

The rows of beds seemed to be lined up head to foot for as far as he could see in either direction with a good 5 feet of space between each row. Reaching up to the mark on his left shoulder that he seemed unable to stop thinking about Ozan meandered over to the bed closest to where his feet had previously been. On this bed lay a middle-aged man with close cropped black hair. His eyes closed and his breathing measured as though he were merely sleeping. The next thing Ozan noticed was the mark almost too indistinct to see but somehow still clearly visible even in the dim lighting of the large room. Upon bending to inspect it closer, Ozan noticed that it resemble four Ls interlaid and arranged within and below one another to form an almost cross. Two were right side up and facing right and two upside down and facing left. As Ozan retraced his symbol, he found his to be identical as far as he could tell.

Ozan moved down the row, stopping only to locate the symbol on each person’s left shoulder. An old man, a young girl, a woman who appeared to be with child, and so on and so on the line continued. Every single person had the same symbol inscribed upon their skin. Ozan stopped at a young boy, no older than ten who was missing his entire left arm. Despite that, however, the mark was still present right where the skin stopped, and the arm should be.

Ozan reversed his relentless forward progress moving back a few beds to a girl who appeared to be similar in age to himself. Ozan hesitated, unsure of how to proceed with his next plan. He’d thought about just shouting into the air to wake everyone all at once, however, if that even worked, that seemed unwise as it may cause a panic. He started slow, leaning down to her ear and whispering into it “hey, wake up, hey,” but nothing happened. Not even stirring. Next, he grabbed her shoulders ready to jump back should she awake and assume the worst. He shook her gently while repeating his earlier attempt in a louder voice “hey, wake up, hey.” Still nothing. A thought crossed his mind then; they might not be asleep but in a coma. He had one last thing to try before he could give up on waking them, he raised his right hand keeping a firm grip on her right shoulder with his left and froze.

He couldn’t do it. But, this is a dream he told himself, the girl’s not even real. Or was she? What was going on here? This dream wasn’t like any dream he’d ever had before. This dream was beyond lucid; it was something else entirely. Finally, he dropped his hand and released her shoulder. After quickly scanning the nearby beds he moved back up two beds to a college looking young man. Though he was decently built and would likely kick Ozan’s ass if he awoke to this Ozan had to try it. He gripped the man’s shoulder and raised his hand once again. The movement was swift and decisive, the smack loud and reliable. Ozan’s hand made contact with the man’s left cheek.

Ozan leaped backward almost instantly upon making contact, his lower back smacking into the metal frame of the bed behind him. He winced in pain and lost his balance, falling to his knees he caught himself before landing knee first on the floor. Though all this happened in mere moments, he nearly forgot to look back at the man’s bed. He still lay there unmoving, not even a red mark on his cheek from the slap Ozan was dead sure he’d landed.

If he couldn’t wake the people in here, then why was he awake? Was he the only one? Were there more that could awaken? Was he supposed to try everyone until he found someone? Just how many people were in here? The questions raced through Ozan’s mind, moving from one to the next without waiting for him even to start trying to answer the previous one. Pushing himself to his feet Ozan did the only thing he could think of, the thing that came most naturally to him, he ran.

Back down the row, back the way he’d come from, it wasn’t long before he passed his solitary empty cot. He kept running, faces flashed by on both sides, young, old, skinny, fat, male, female, white, black, Asian, there was no end to them. His mind flew through possibilities even faster than he ran, blending like a smoothie to the point where he couldn’t even tell thoughts apart from each other. Beds continued to loom out of the darkness without fail. Ozan didn’t know how long he’d been running for; it seemed some things still pointed to this being a dream since he didn’t appear to be getting tired when he finally stumbled to a stop.

It was as he finally halted in the midst of the never ending beds that something finally happened. Ozan crumpled, failing to catch himself before slamming his knees into the ground, still despite this he never noticed the pain or rather lack thereof from his knees as a burning sensation burst forth from his left shoulder without warning. It was like someone was pressing a hot poker to the mark on his shoulder. His hand flew up to grip his arm as a voice reached his ears. “You’re not supposed to be awake,” Ozan’s heart froze, the sound was coming from behind him. The cold spreading from his chest as he contemplated his options contrasted with the heat still spreading from his shoulder. He decided not to move but to respond “who’s there?”. “It does not matter now. You are all activated, you will remember nothing,” the voice replied. “Wait,” Ozan said as he planted a foot on the ground and spun to face the voice, sliding slightly as the broken tile beneath his foot shifted unexpectedly.

Ozan sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for air as his body continued to exude burning heat now spreading up through his head and down through his calves. Throwing off his covers Ozan leaped from his bed and crossed his room in two large strides to come to rest in front of his wall mirror. He was still dreaming; it was the only explanation for what he was seeing. His body was, well, metal. From head to foot his skin had taken on a silver hue resembling polished gunmetal. Ozan slumped slowly to the floor even as he noticed the burning sensation had faded entirely from his body and passed out right there on the floor. His left shoulder barely reflected by the bottom of the mirror and reflecting the 4 Ls in the shape of a cross present on his shoulder in the dim moonlight cast through the window shades.

Two years had passed since he had woken up the next morning still lying flat on his floor in front of the mirror to his phone’s ring tone and the incessant banging on his door by his sister. What a weird two years those had turned out to be, and not just because he’d gone off to college that fall, in fact, college didn’t even make the list what with everything else that happened following that dream, the one he wasn’t even supposed to remember.

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