The Daydream Club

I’m back in the field. The storm is here again. I can feel it. It’s the same scene. It has to mean something. There’s no other reason it would continue like this. 

The storm looks different this time. There’s something I’m missing, still. The electricity doesn’t feel right. I don’t know why.

Then I smell it. Smoke! But why? What does smoke have to do with a storm? The only connection I can see is lightning. Lightning causes fires. But fires from lightning never stay in the rain. They always go out. So what’s the smoke from? Maybe I’m taking this from the wrong angle…

Fire… there’s something on the edge of my mind, something that brings smoke, and destruction. Something that scares me so deeply.

Something written long ago, when war was new to Ariadne. A poem, written by a soldier hours before her death. It’s beautiful, in a sad, mourning way.

“Fire and brimstone fell. Bombs and gunfire burned away the sweet embrace of humanity.”

I’m in a warzone.

The bombers appear on the horizon. The hum of their engines brings a foreboding ambiance. I try to run away, but I’m stuck, I can’t seem to move. I’m shaking with terror now. My body is on fire with adrenaline and I want to be somewhere, anywhere else than here. 

They’re a mix. Ariadnan, Deltan, Terran. They come in different groups, but to me, they’re all the same. Machines of war.

The battle begins. At first, it’s in the air, fiery streaks across the sky, harbingers of doom. I watch as planes and ships get shot out of the sky, interceptors tearing through the crisp morning air, destroying the peace. I’m trapped in the place I always tried to run from.

Then the bombs begin to fall.

Tremors rock the ground. That’s how it begins, every time. Shockwave bombs to scare up the populace. I’m thrown off balance, and I fall to my knees. The cold, hard ground catches my fall. Then comes the light assault. Small explosions hit all around me. They’re attempting to lull the victim, in this case, me, into a false sense of security. Make them think that it’s over.

Out of the sky comes a tidal wave of firepower. A barrage of bombs is streaming from the ominous shadows above. They’re peaceful, at first. Silently falling. The world seems to go into slow motion. A voice in my head brings a final message before the inevitable destruction about to ensue.

“You can’t run forever, Levi.”

The bombs hit the ground, and the world is blown apart.

I’m thrown backward, away from the blasts. I’m getting tossed around like a ragdoll, and I can feel shrapnel bury itself into my arms, legs, chest, back, and everywhere else. I’m in so much pain. More than the hospital, more than the bed. My eyes are blurring and my brain isn’t working. I can’t see. I can’t hear. I can’t think. I’m being torn apart, body and soul, by these piercing shards of metal. 

The lines are blurring; I’m not sure if I’m in my body anymore. I feel like the seam that holds my soul to my body is ripping apart. I’m falling out of me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

I’m there. I see myself, lying on the ground, bleeding out. It’s my first dream again. Lynn is there again, standing over me, crying. All the pieces are falling into place. The feeling. The hopelessness. This is what war does. It destroys and destroys until everything is burnt to the ground, then when you’ve built back up again, it brings it all to the ground again as if it never existed beyond a pile of ash.

I’m waking up.

The fluorescent blue lights of the pod illuminate me. It’s asking for my identification. I state my name, rank, and purpose. This is a big risk, since every heal request is flagged after the pod is used. It’s meant to prevent Deltan and other hostile troops from using them, but I’m not sure if I’m flagged as hostile yet. I’m not sure they even care all that much. 

Eh, I’m sure it’s fine. They won’t check too closely if I’m lucky. Even if they do, there’s no location ID since I’m high enough ranking that high command usually knows where I am, or at least trusts me to tell them. 

The pod begins to shake. The stabilizers fold out of the sides of the miniature rocket that is being built out of nothing. The aerodynamic cone folds out of the top of the cylindrical pod, and fins slide out of slits in the side. A mechanical arrow, shot from an imaginary bow, up towards the heavens. Apollo’s arrow. That’s what we call it.

The Arrow is a small ship, only about forty meters long. Most of the ship is taken up by the miniature reactor which powers it, giving me barely enough space for my body. I’m not exactly small; I’m a hundred and eighty-eight centimeters tall and weigh about eighty-four kilograms. That means it’s going to run out of power faster, and I need to make sure I’m not in orbit for more than a few days.

A blast of fire erupts from the rocket’s engines, and I can feel my whole body rattling as the Arrow begins to rise into the sky.

I’m rising off the ground. Slowly, at first, then faster. The shaking is intense now, though I can feel the pod adjusting to the g-forces to hold me steady. I’m getting pressed against the bottom of the pod, and I can feel the blood rushing away from my brain toward my feet. The pod senses this and I feel a hundred simultaneous pricks as my body is stabbed with needles and tubes. My body systems are being adjusted to the environment, and I can feel the blood rushing around in the tubes around me. I’ve become a part of the pod.

The sky is getting darker and darker. The lights of the pod are the only thing keeping me illuminated now. I begin to feel a shift in temperature, but it evens out quickly. The temperature control inside isn’t flawless, so there’s always a moment of cold before the air returns to normal. It’s slight, but I can always tell, and I always have a split second going up when I can feel the cold of space, and it chills me through my soul. 

The curve of the Earth appears below me. It’s meant to be calming, as when soldiers are put through the trauma of modern war much of the time they need a sort of footing to build their lives back up from, and seeing the ground beneath you reminds you that you’re free, for just a moment, really, in the grand scheme of things, but it’s those little moments that really build your life. I feel at peace, serene and unmoving. 

Life is like a river, flowing and gushing, pushing you along in time. Every day is a struggle to keep yourself on course. The perilous currents try to suck you under every second of every day. It’s those moments where you can lay on your back and flow with the deep currents of the stream that really mean something. You can only rest once the stream allows you to.

“You can’t run forever,” the voice said. I didn’t plan far enough ahead. I’m realizing that now, powerless in a metal tube hundreds of thousands of metres above the Earth, circling gracefully in orbit. If they come, there’s nowhere I can go. But what else could I have done?

When there’s no good options, none which even have a chance of working, how are you supposed to survive?

I could keep running, away from the war. I could leave Earth behind as soon as my ship gets fixed. Based on my estimations, I should be able to stall the fleets by constantly changing location for long enough that the mechanics at the base can gather the Osmium and for me to repair my engines. That would be drastically immoral even if it worked though, which it could temporarily. Everywhere I go, there are signs that I’ve been there no matter how much I try to cover my steps, and I know for a fact that both sides won’t hesitate to kill and torture to gain information.

I could fight to stay alive, but what would that accomplish? I would just get captured, as either a war criminal or a traitor. My choices are quite literally kill or be killed. Or both, if I get desperate. I’ve made a rule for myself against killing, but when people are on the edge of death none of that will seem to matter. I’ve been there before and I never want to go back.

I’m starting to really see the appeal of nihilism.

Chemicals are slowly being pumped through my system. I can tell it’s been going for a few minutes now because the effects have been numbing my brain. There’s not going to be any dreams this time. I’m done with omens anyway. Too much thinking.

The waves are softer, up here in space. Less turbulence going on around, and less going on inside as well. Just my breathing, the soft lull of the pipes pulsing and circulating, the hum of the engines. I’m back in the shallows.

The golden haze swallows me and my conciousness melts away as I fall from reality into bliss.