He could tell his eyes were open because of the pain searing through them, but everything around him was covered in darkness. He could feel the tiny little pricks of the apparatus that kept his eyes open if he focused on it, but the pain from them being held open made that very hard.
Something had been stuffed into his mouth. It was warm, slightly wet and it moved around a lot. Every so often, he felt something drip from it into the back of his throat, and through instinct alone, each time he swallowed it. When he tried to bite down on it, whatever it was that was dripping slowly gushed out in a stream and he released his bite to prevent himself drowning.
His arms were stretched out directly above his head, tied to something he couldnt see or feel. Only through tugging on his bindings could he tell that something was there, but each time he moved his arms enough to make his bindings rattle, he felt a sharp jab of pain in his ribs, momentarily painful enough to be felt over the sensations in his eyes.
His feet were similarly bound, however, they were spread wide, instead of being straight up and down like his arms. He could feel tubes and other things entering him and he was thankful that these did not cause pain.
Along either side of him they crept. He could hear them in the otherwise silent area they were in, but he couldnt see them. They shuffled around on whatever floor there was and every so often they would prod, poke, inject or otherwise interfere with his body. If he tried to talk, the thing in his mouth would leak more stuff into him. If he tried to do anything, he would receive some other form of pain.
He could feel a small gash in his abdomen. Each time he breathed, he felt something warm ooze down his abdomen, over his hips and into a collection tray nearby. He wondered if it was just blood or something else. He never had the best grasp of biology, so it might have been a cut over his stomach. Wasnt there acid in there or something?
Every night since he had turned 13 he had this dream. Every night his body was subjected to unimaginable horrors that his subconscious managed to dredge up and torment him with. Every day he woke and within seconds, all of the pain, all of the terror, all of the creatures were gone. He started each day with no memory of the scenes he had seen in his sleep. But a part of him, each day, touched a small scar on his belly. A souvenir from his attempt to climb a sixteen year old boy tree when he was merely a thirteen year old boy. He didnt know why he did it. A small tic that took him back to the day he fell out of the tree. The day he nearly died. His birthday.
He yawned, surprised by how tired he was, and walked through the automatic doors into the glass-and-steel building that was his second home. The clock above the reception showed a little before nine am. The receptionist nodded at him as he swiped his badge at the turnstile next to her desk and he returned the greeting. He knew he should remember her name, but there was nothing coming to mind. Like him, she took her smoke breaks at regular times and while they didnt talk much the mere act of sharing that time was enough to make them, if not real friends, then work friends.
He stretched as he waited with another two men – that he didnt know – for the elevator that one of them had called. He let them on first as the doors slid open and he followed after.
“Thirteen,” one of the two said and the other nodded.
He pressed the 13 for them and the 7 for him.
He leaned back in his chair and re-read the email that had appeared before him. The boss – not his boss, or his bosses boss, but the boss above that, the important one, was tipped to be in the running for a bigger and better job. The kind of job where you got to take your own people with you. And those people got to take their own people. He checked the details of the email. Only a small handful of people had got it. This wasnt sent to everyone. He stroked his chin where he would have a beard if he could grow one. He sent the email off to a private email of his own and then printed off a copy for his own files. He was going to make sure they didnt welch on this bet.
He doubled down on his work over the next few weeks. He had never been bad at his job – the reason he had got the email in the first place – but he knew he could be a lot better. Taking the potential of this job at face value, he reinvented himself on the spot. He played a lead role in big projects and when, on those rare occasions when the biggest boss stuck his head through their door, he was rewarded with a thumbs up and a by-name reference.
Then the news came through, the important boss got his promotion and everyone began the process of laying off all the people that werent coming.
When the smoke cleared, when all was said and done, he was standing in a group of about 100 people, all wearing new security credentials and ready to start a new job in a new building. None of them had been told what the job was yet, but each of them was the most excited that had ever been in their lives.
He never understood why he didnt like the part of going to bed where he actually tried to sleep. Every night both he and his wife lay awake under the glow of their respective lamps and scrolled their preferred social media, sharing with each other only the best snippets from the day.
But then the lamps went out and they both had to lay down on their pillows and sleep the night away. Each night, and he would never bring this up to her, or to anyone, he would lay there in the darkness, not knowing why he was so scared to close his eyes. Each night he felt his wife, the love of his life, turn over and start snoring softly. But he would be there, unable to find the courage to simply close his eyes.
Each night it simply felt like he lost control and they closed themselves.
A light appeared. It was a single point of yellow-white light. Like a star that appears on the horizon. None of the shuffling creatures reacted to it. They continued their work, poking and prodding. Tonight they had taken his foot. They had never taken anything larger than a fingernail before. He could feel the stump where his foot had been oozing. This time he knew it was blood. With each breath he could feel something down there twitch. He didnt, couldnt, know, but he imagined the creatures surrounding his foot-less leg and looking at his arteries intently, curiously. This didnt help the terror or the panic that bottled themselves in his gut. It didnt stop the pain from the apparatus around his eyes or stop the creature from leaking into the back of his throat. It didnt help anything, but he still thought it. He felt a single tear leak from the corner of an eye, and as always, he felt something gather it in a small jar. Somewhere far off, maybe as far as the little prick of light, someone screamed. A womans scream. He didnt recognise it, it was alien and inhuman, but he knew, simply knew, that it had come from his wife.
“Sleep well?” his wife asked him as he trudged out of the bathroom and into the kitchen where she had already made him a cup of tea and a few slices of toast.
“As well as I ever do,” he said with a bright smile that belied the way he walked in. “Didnt wake at all.”
“You were tossing and turning a lot,” she said, almost as a reprimand.
“Well when you see Dream Me next time, give him a talking to. Thanks for this,” he said, taking the breakfast.
“Dont get used to it,” she said. “This is a special breakfast for your first day.”
“I had a feeling,” he replied, leaning over to give her a quick kiss.
“Do you know what youre in for?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he replied. “Were in a custom built thing, Stanley is as lost as we are, I think.”
“Do you know anything?” she asked sceptically.
“Dont take that tone,” he replied lightheartedly. “We are still waiting for a few security checks. They should all be in today and then, finally, we get the sit down with Alister.”
“What a coup,” she whistled. “A minor man, suddenly thrust into this.”
“Word is they wanted someone green, or green-ish. No one has had this role before, so they can meld him the way they want.”
“Who is they?” she asked.
“Whoever sits above Alister, I suppose. The Minister? No clue.”
“Do you even know what today is meant to bring?”
“I think a medical, some sort of government requirement. I dont know. Shouldnt be a thing. Once thats done, we head up to Alister and take our tasks.”
He arrived and stood around with the rest of the people who were also waiting. After an hour or so of waiting, it was only him and another person left waiting. Then the doors opened again, and the young woman beckoned him to follow her. Without speaking, she ticked his name off her list and guided him into a sterile room where a doctor sat waiting.
The doctor took a clipboard from the assistant and nodded at her to leave. “Right then,” she said, spinning in her chair to face him. “This is merely a formality. We just have to check your dream status.”
“My what?” he asked.
“Your dream status. We need to see how often you dream, and the intensity of them.”
“Oh, I can tell you that,” he said. “I dont dream.”
“Believe it or not,” the doctor said. “Thats not convincing enough. Dont worry, this doesnt hurt at all. Its like a blood pressure test, we wrap this here around your head.”
She took what did actually look like the armband for a blood pressure machine, only bigger, and wrapped it around his head. She pressed a few buttons on her machine and waited for a moment.
As soon as she pressed the buttons on the machine, every single dream from every single night since the day of his thirteenth birthday entered his head. Every pain, every stab, every drip of unknown liquid filling his throat. Every fingernail tugged off and every needle prick that kept his eyes open.
The doctors eyes went wide and she hit a giant red button on the side of her desk and he crumbled into the fetal position on the floor trying, but being unable to, scream.