Awoken



  Awoken

  By Raymond Vogel

  As far as we can tell, this is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Raymond Vogel

  All rights reserved.

  To Evelyn, for her enthusiasm and in particular for the complimentary narrative included as a bonus at the end of this work.

  Tony Lysander threw his weight down and backward to force the rear end of his water coaster downward, breaking the surface of the water with the fin. The craft leapt forward and upward, and he jumped with it to extend the lift. He leaned back and turned as it hit the water, a sheet of white spraying out to the side before it forced him to level out.

  He grinned smugly through the sheet at Chad Mathews, who stood recording the display from the safety of the deck. He held a strong fist in the air to show his appreciation of Tony’s lift. Cherie Spencer lay sunbathing on a deck chair beside him, her shoulders leaning attractively forward and her elbows propped up behind her. Tony couldn’t see her eyes through the dark sun lenses she wore, but he could have spotted her toothy smile from twice that distance. It was the smile she wore when they were alone together, when neither of them were thinking about the dark dreams.

  At the reminder of the dreams, Tony unconsciously let back on the throttle. They were more like nightmares, really. And they now knew that the same dreams were shared by everyone in town. Tony had dreamt of more than his fair share, maybe more than anyone, and he often carried the images with him through the day.

  He shook his head to clear away the thought and turned his attention back to the task at hand. He and Chad had spent the last week building a floating incline for Tony’s jumps. They had done the same last summer, and it had kept them so entertained for those months that they had resolved to build another this next year. But this one was different. It was more than three times as high, for starters, giving Tony three full meters of vertical slope to climb. It was held up by a massive floating substructure that was twice as large as the top half. The incline was upgraded, too. They had glossed to a watery shine that would fool even his sophisticated coaster into thinking it could keep going.

  Tony cut the water’s edge in a tight curve until he was facing in the direction of the ramp. He paused momentarily to adjust his goggles, stretch his neck, and check his footing. He looked down the stretch of water leading to the incline, looking for anything in the water that might disrupt his sprint forward. The coast was clear. He heard the sounds of whooping and clapping coming from the dock, and he acknowledged his friends’ support with a mocking display of arm flapping that managed to combine the worst traits of a chicken and a penguin.

  It was now or never. He could feel his thoughts returning to his dreams, threatening to break his concentration.

  “Snap out of it, Tony,” he heard himself say.

  He shook his head one last time and opened the throttle wide. The turbine sprung into life, and the coaster began picking up speed. He watched the mirror image of himself in the flat surface of the water, his short black hair stretching backward in the wind and his biceps straining to keep him firmly in place behind the controls. It had taken him months to find a mechanic that would take the regulators out, but the effort was more than worth it. He watched contentedly as his speedometer turned past 100 meters per second without hesitation. By the time he touched the base of the incline, he would be pushing 150.

  As the incline approached, he started the gentle lean backward that would let him shoot up the ramp. But he miscalculated, and the back fin of the coaster touched the surface of the water. As fast as he was going, he might as well have thrown an anchor behind him, because the surface tension jerked it backward, slamming the front of the coaster, and Tony with it, downward. And when the front tip touched, it was the beginning of the end.

  Tony’s coaster flipped forward hard, his body and the machine caught together in an uncontrolled roll. The turbine hit the middle of the ramp with a crash so hard that it ripped Tony from his seat, throwing him a full four meters into the air and at twice that far forward. His vision blurred into a swirl of sky and water while the coaster flipped high into the air behind him. He hit the water with a sickening, flailing crash.

  ***

  The light bit into Tony’s blinking eyes like a thousand needles. The pain pulsed from his eyes through his temples and ears in waves. Through the pain came the horrific realization that he couldn’t feel anything below his nose. He tried with all of his strength to cry out, but he couldn’t create much more than a stifled moan.

  Then the bright light was removed. It was replaced with a deep purple hue that emanated from orbs on the walls and ceiling. It took only a moment for his eyes to adjust to the softer light. And then it was there, the monster from his dreams.

  Razor-wrapped tusks four inches long apiece were inches from his face. Saliva dripped from them in a thin, continuous stream. Behind them a black, huffing hog’s nose breathed hot air into his nose and face, and the breath smelled thickly of decaying fish. Sunken into deep, dark green sockets, two large black orbs watched him with an intense curiosity. The monster was grunting and groaning to himself, black lips pulling back to show the rows of sharp, wolfish teeth that lay between the tusks.

  He shut his eyes again hard, trying to block out the dream. Trying to get back to his real life. But he knew better now. The monsters were as real as he was. His eyes darted frantically around, trying to understand. He noticed the black plastic of a breathing tube protruding from his mouth. The sight brought a throbbing pain to his throat, and an icy chill stretched down his entire body. Then he finally understood that he was frozen, or perhaps locked in some kind of icy suspended animation. His limbs and fingers and toes were stuck in place. It was almost a relief to know that they might still be functional, despite the circumstances.

  The monster turned to growl at something, or someone, behind it. Soon after, Tony could feel a soothing warmth emanating upward from his frozen wrist. It spread further and faster, carrying the promise of peaceful dreams with it to every corner of his body. Tony relaxed, no longer concerned about the pigman and his hot breath. His eyelids fell slowly down over his pupils, bringing a welcoming darkness.

  ***

  “Tony? Tony are you all right? Oh, thank the gods. Chad, look he’s awake!”

  Tony turned his head slowly to the sound of Cherie’s voice. She looked as beautiful as ever. Her green eyes sparkled with loving attention, and her jet black hair was a halo of familiar comfort. He couldn’t lift his cheek enough for a proper smile, but she seemed to understand and smiled back.

  “Hey buddy, you feeling okay?” Chad said from beside her. “That was one hell of a tumble. Got it all on film for you.”

  Tony felt more relieved than anything. He was back with his friends, and things were going to start making a lot more sense. He recalled the botched coaster jump and spinning world. He glanced toward his feet to survey his wounds. From the looks of it, he was lucky to be alive.

  “Yes, sir,” Chad continued, “I don’t think there’s a bone you didn’t break. By some miracle, you didn’t damage any of the joints. They said you’d be walking out of here in a day or so at the most.”

  “Coaster?” Tony managed. His voice sounded garbled and strained, like he was talking with a mouthful of water.

  “Oh, not bad. It can be fixed. Not nearly as bad off as yourself, anyhow. Those things are almost indestructible, as you know.”

  Tony mumbled his understanding and closed his eyes. Despite his desperate desire to be part of the conversation, he kept thinking about the pigman. It wasn�
��t that he was afraid. He just couldn’t shake the sense that it had been more than a dream. His waking world felt shallow somehow. It was a pretty picture of a world, and he was a paper cutout that had been pasted into it. Only now the paper was torn, and he had glimpsed the thick frame that outlined his world. He shivered at the thought.

  Chad and Cherie stayed for a while longer, Tony speaking as little as possible but enjoying the company. His thoughts strayed frequently to his experience, and he tried to compare them to what he was seeing from his hospital bed. Even the air seemed to have taken on a surreal quality, as if it were too thick and too thin at the same time. He breathed it in and released it, feeling his lungs expanding and contracting with the effort. He watched Cherie and Chad with a distant kind of interest, wondering if they had ever noticed what he was increasingly sure he was seeing.

  “What kind of drugs do they have me on?” Tony asked suddenly. He had broken into their whispered conversation about the Mayor Scuvio and his latest affair.

  “What?” Chad asked, confused.

  “Drugs,” Tony repeated. “Do they have me on anything?”

  “Just some stuff for the pain,” Cherie said. “Nothing very strong, though.”

  Tony released a shaky breath. It had been his last remaining hope. He didn’t understand how he knew, but he was more sure about it than anything he had known in his life. The real world was the other place – the place with the pigman. His world, his life, and maybe even his friends, was the illusion. The connection brought him a combined sense of relief and fear. He was relieved to finally be sure about something. But he was terrified to think what was really happening to his body in the other place.

  He watched from a distance as his friends continued their giggling account of seeing the mayor with Joley May Aberdeen, the prim woman who ran the front desk at City Hall. He listened to the beeping of the hospital room’s sensory equipment, monitoring his heartbeat and other vitals. He breathed in the scent of hospital cleaners and Cherie’s perfume. He wouldn’t have noticed it hours ago, at least not consciously, but now these normal things seemed fleeting and contrived. And now that he was sure, he knew what he had to do.

  Tony waited for the end of visiting hours patiently, trying to relish in the time with his friends. Real or no, he had been close to them since they were kids. He was even planning to ask Cherie to marry him this winter. He found himself fighting back tears when they finally left. They looked at him strangely in response to his unusually emotional state. He even heard them in the hallway agreeing that the pain killers must have been stronger than they thought. When they were finally gone and the last nurse of the night had checked in on him, he prepared himself to move.

  He carefully removed all of the straps keeping his limbs in place. He knew from the sign by his door that the sensors would track his vitals anywhere in the hospital, which gave him just enough freedom to do what he needed to. He swung one leg at a time over the side of the bed, each movement painful but endurable. Then he slid himself slowly onto the floor, putting his weight carefully on the broken bones. He winced as his feet touched, but the leg casts held his weight better than he had expected. Moments later he was hobbling along the empty hallway, his hands grabbing for support at anything that looked solid and the back of his hospital gown flapping behind him as if caught in a breeze.

  Tony got into the service elevator and selected the “ROOF” option. The doors shut calmly, and the elevator slid upward. When the doors opened again, it was to an empty roof and a too-picture-perfect version of the night sky. The stars hung immobile against a perfect black backdrop, with comets racing above him in an endlessly repeating pattern. He wondered at the repetition of them, and why he had never noticed it before.

  He walked directly to the nearest edge, glanced once wistfully in the direction of the lake, and fell headfirst over the side.

  ***

  When Tony opened his eyes again, the purple hue had returned. He allowed himself a moment of relief at the realization that he was still alive. Then he took a moment to survey his situation. He was still lying down, stiff and frozen in his living coffin. His consciousness hadn’t been noted yet by his captors, a fortunate situation that he knew wouldn’t last long. And the noise level was bordering on deafening. Blaring sirens and explosions and the guttural yells of pigmen filled his ears until they rang.

  On instinct, Tony leaned his head back and found that he had submerged his ears in a cold liquid. He could worry about the cold later, because for now it had muted the madness he was hearing. After a couple of breaths to calm himself, he leaned upward again and braved the sound to look at his body. He was stark naked and floating just below the surface of a black gelatinous mixture. His arms and legs weren’t bound, and with concentration he found that he could move them slightly on command.

  “This way! Hurry! They’re coming!”

  Tony whipped his head around to find the source of the voice. It was a human voice, he was sure of it. There were humans in this place, and they were free. Seconds later they ran past him and out of sight again. They were dressed from head to toe in what Tony could only think of as spacesuits, though they were worn thin to the point of being dangerous. He tried to call but heard only the sound of his gagging because of the breathing tube.

  To avoid detection by the pigmen, he hurriedly laid back down and stilled his breathing before the pursuers ran through the same room. The ruse worked, at least that time. Then, in the agonizingly slow pace of a human being who has been frozen for years, or perhaps even most of his life, Tony lifted his legs and arms from the fluid. He gingerly placed his left leg on the edge of his container, and some of his black fluid half-splashed half-glopped onto the floor. He was surprised to find that his skin and muscles were in good condition. He was being kept healthy. But for what?

  Tony’s maneuvering to lift himself from the container sped up as more of his body was exposed to the air. With no small degree of effort, he had even managed to remove his own breathing tube without vomiting. In only a few minutes, he was standing ankle deep in a pool of the icy, black liquid that he had wiped off of himself. An oversized lab coat was hung nearby, and he wrapped it around him and tied it close. It smelled of rotten fish and mildew, but it was better than nothing.

  At first he had to move slowly, supporting himself to make each step. There were handrails in the curved hallway he was moving down, which made the task relatively easy. They also kept him from touching the walls, which were spotted with thick brown and black mold. And as he continued to warm up, he relied on the rails less and less, and soon he was running full speed through a maze of corridors and ladder ways and chambers. He left smudgy black footprints for a few meters, but his feet quickly dried up. After that happened, he found he had much better footing and was able to move even faster.

  The sirens continued to blare, and now they were aiding him in evading the notice of the pigmen. They rushed past his temporary hiding places in equipment alcoves more than once in their blind fury. He had given up on the idea of finding the humans. They had either been captured or had found a way out of this place. First, he needed to find a more permanent hiding place so that he could pause and allow himself to breathe. To think.

  Tony chose the next cross-hall that he came to and turned. There was only a single door at the end of it, but it looked unusually clean compared to everywhere else he had been. Strangely, the entire hallway was clean. It was even missing the handrails that had been in almost all of the other passages. The door had a small window near the top that he planned to use to check if it was safe. More importantly, it had a lit sign above it that showed two doors opening outward, which was as close to an exit sign as he had seen. The red exclamation mark at the center made him less sure of himself, but he thought he could at least look through the window.

  As he approached the door, however, it opened automatically. Inside was a small, round room unlike anything he had ever seen. Directly across from him was a small metal hatch an
d another red exclamation mark. He leaned inside and saw the rest more clearly. The walls and floor of the room curved outward from the entryway and back inward to the portal, creating a spherical space. And they were completely transparent. He was so caught off guard by the sight that he fell forward. He expected to tumble down the curved floor, but instead found himself drifting in a slow forward spin.

  He managed to catch the wheel of the hatch and to stop himself from continuing to spin. His new orientation gave him a broad external view of the vessel he had been running through. It was spectacularly massive. At first he thought he was sticking out of a flat plane, but on closer observation it seemed to curve away the further out he looked, like an enormous mechanical horizon. His bubble was one of hundreds, or maybe thousands, on the side of the ship. He was sure it was a ship now, as sure as anything. From the unfamiliar scattering of stars in the blackness of space beyond the ship, he was also sure that he was far from anything that even closely resembled a lake.

  About a hundred meters from his position, a large porthole opened in the smooth side of the ship. A smaller vessel, which looked like a glass-topped submarine, eased itself into it. It was towing a white cable that ended in a large white net that had been filled with icy and pock-marked boulders and stones. Tony had read about asteroids before, and he guessed that was what these were. Behind the bulging net extended another cord, and this one was towing a small band of astronauts behind it. They were hard to see from so far away, but he thought he counted ten of them. Their suits reminded him of the ones he had seen running past him, making him sure that these were humans.

  He was just beginning to wonder which direction he needed to take to reach them, when he noticed the small ship following closely behind them. This one looked more like a fully-enclosed coaster. It flashed them with lights and blasts of air, corralling them forward. He could guess what sort of creature was piloting the smaller ship. It suddenly became clear to him why they were keeping him in good shape while he slept. The humans were a source of slave labor for the pigmen.