Skip The Budgie

I wake up in a small white room. There is a tiny square window high above me, a small bucket, and I'm lying in a cold, hard bed. A faint rectangle in the opposite wall indicates a doorway, almost invisible in the blinding whiteness of the cell. I feel terrible. What did they do to me? I struggle to stand the bed on it's end and climb up to look through the window.

It is hard to make out, but as my eyes become accustomed to the gloom I see a small courtyard, a lawn, several storeys dotted with other windows like mine. I see light glinting off a thread that spans the gap from high up to just below me on the left. As I watch, a brown package shuffles it's way up the thread. I sense dissent, and begin to plan my escape.

...

In my dreams in my dream I have a horrifying encounter. A great demon demands something of me, something I could give, but at the expense of my life and loved ones. Of course I refuse. This is not the kind of man who would give up so easily. As he rages, contorting his jagged purple figure into horrible shapes, he shows me what he will do if I don't give him what he wants. I see mass destruction, cracked earth, death. I see planets disintegrate, the inevitable future of the universe, only trillions of millennia premature.

When I wake in my dream I am being carried through unwashed corridors a dream of Silent Hill proportions and I pray that my nightmare is only that, knowing in my stomach that it isn't.

There are flashes of torture, visions, pain - do we feel pain in dreams? It seems so, reinforced by my screams and now I am back in the cell.

The package goes up the wire tonight, and I see a face at the receiving window, long hair, a child, a young girl. I have to get out there, we have to get out of here.

...

Outside (this IS a dream you know) I sneak up to the lower window and whisper greetings. A little boy, about five or so is inside. He cannot speak. What have they done to you? He point up the wire, there are two faces now, two girls, scarred and scared.

There is a pool of black tar, which writhes and pulsates like a living creature, the boy indicates that I am to scoop some out and put it in his mouth to heal his throat. The stuff nearly kills me, I shove the stick into his mouth and the spoonful of dangerous goo attacks his voicebox.

Now that he can speak, he tells me of the atrocities that have been committed against him, he climbs onto my back and I am to carry him through our escape, to the labs, to free the girls, to fight the demon...

I am driving a huge truck through the laboratory complex. There is a horrible accident, the boy's grip tightens around my throat, I am caught up in some kind of uprising against the scientist, I am shot...

There is chaos and destruction as the demon rages, we fight across counties and eventually he is sent packing. The boy loosens his grip and leaves me. His power leaves me. I am drained.

...

When I reunite the girls with their mother, it turns out she sold them to the lab, one of them is terminally ill and trying to find out when she will die. Her plaintive How long have I been ill, mum? Tell me how long you knew! is ringing in my ears when I wake up.