Everybody needs beauty as well as grit.
Places to play in and pray in
Where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul
The mountains are calling
and I must go.
(Credit must go elsewhere for the above I heard it from a north face commercial but it really inspires. I literally miss the mountains so much that the stupid commercial makes me tear up every time.)
Have you ever had a dream that you woke up in but found out later you were never really awake at all?
I Thought I was watching a movie at first. I watched as four men and four women proceeded through a cavernous mountain range. The stone structures that did still remain seemed even older than the mountains themselves. It was around that time I started trying to look at the edge of the TV I was watching only to discover there was no edge. The more I tried to look the more I realized that I was in a dream and no matter what I tried to do I was watching the movie in front of me.
I began to focus more on the movie, picking out details about the group of eight. They were all armed with AK-47's, knives, handguns, and grenades. I could tell they were mercenaries, hired guns of some sort and not just your usual group of hikers. Of the whole group only one stood out to me as not being evil and he looked just like Adrien Brody. They kept arguing among themselves stopping frequently as they tried to agree it seemed on what they were doing. Adrien led the group and was the only one bringing the argument up, the others were all in agreeance.
Based off their arguments I could tell they were looking for a women who was in possession of a particular item they were searching for. The Adrien Brody look alike was named Luke. As they argument got heated I could tell they meant to kill whoever it was they found and he was advising them of a different approach. He argued that they should just get what they came for and then leave. The only problem was what they were looking for only a certain women could tell them.
As they continued through the mountains the stone structures kept looking more alien to me or at least unlike anything I had ever seen before. Finally the group came to a stone door that was in the side of the mountains that they walked through. An older man dressed in white robes walked out of the opening towards the group with his arms raised above his head. He began to speak but one of the mercenaries put a bullet through his mouth blowing his brains out of the back of his head.
The group entered inside the cavernous room killing anyone they saw. I tried to look away from the massacre but no matter what I tried the large screen was all I could see. They finally came to a stop in front of a woman who sat on a raised stone pillar. A blue beam of light constantly projected in front of her, different people kept appearing in the light. One of them was Luke the one it stopped on though was an older man dressed in a three piece suit who seemed familiar to me.
At this point I was trying really hard to wake up, I didn't want to see them kill the woman. They killed her and they took pleasure in it. All of them that is except for Luke who stood near the wall of the room watching with dark eyes. That's when I noticed the case Luke held in his hands. It was then that I heard the women s voice before she was finally dead.
"They're coming for you" Was all I heard before everything went dark.
I woke up. I laid in my bed staring at the ceiling as the waves crashed against the shore outside. I was ten years old and my name was Martin. It was all to real, my identity was sown to who I believed I was. I lifted up my small hands in front of my face as if to convince myself they were indeed my own. I stood up out of bed running to the bathroom or at least where I thought it should be. My hair was long and black and my eyes were a dark green. It was all extremely real yet somewhere in the back of my head I wasn't quite buying it.
I shouted for my mom and my dad but I received no reply leaving me to believe they weren't home. Slowly my life started filling in the empty places in my head as I started to remember who I was. I lived in a coastal town in an old house by the sea. I ran to my room grabbing some shoes and a heavy wool sweater before bolting out the door and down the coast. I remembered that I had a sailboat and felt like sailing to a cove I often went to when I wanted to escape my world. No one else in our small town by the ocean ever went there.
The sea breeze felt good on my face and the smell of the salt erased all traces of sleep from my eyes. The boat was beautiful it seemed like the type that I would have if I ever owned a sail boat. I arrived at the cove and pulled my boat up to a small island. Pulling my boat ashore I looked around and noticed a jet ski parked on the other side of the cove.
"That's odd?" I thought.
I knew all the boats and vessels that traveled in and out of the harbor and I had never seen this jet ski ever. Looking closer I saw to men emerge on the opposing shore and immediately recognized them from my dream. They had already climbed aboard the jet ski and were approaching my position rapidly. The man riding on the back raised a rifle pointing it directly at me. I froze and fear and suddenly remembered this had all happened before. That I was in a dream and had been killed here last time for their own personal enjoyment. I looked into the rifle mans smiling face and thought to myself I ought to not die this time.
It was then that I raised my hand and a handgun immediately appeared in it. My first shot obliterated the rifle mans head knocking him off the jet ski. The driver pulled a hand gun and returned fire at me. I ducked behind my sail boat as the bullets cracked through its wooden frame blowing it to pieces. I heard his jet ski pull up close to the shore and I pulled myself together for a final stand. I stood putting myself in his line of fire as I empty the rest of my clip. Three of the bullets struck him but the wounds weren't lethal.
He fell off the jet ski and began to slowly stand back up in the shallow water raising his hand gun, blood pouring from his arm and leg. Without thinking I grabbed a large stone and ran out into the water where he struggled to stay alive. He turned around lifting his gun just in time to see the stone in my hands smash through the front of his face. The clear blue water was stained red all around me.
"That's for her." I thought as shock began to set in.
I threw up into the ocean and my body began to shake as the stress from the whole situation began to course through my adolescent body. The mans body sank beneath the red waves, I couldn't tell if the gargles coming from him was a result of the ocean water rushing into his lungs or if it was the blood rushing out. Gathering myself I swam out and retrieved the AK-47 from the first man I'd killed. I was glad to see him dead remembering how he had killed the women in the cave. I only thought to grab the rifle because I figured the others would be coming and I was going to be ready for them.
I was going to kill them all. As I grabbed the rifle from the ocean floor I was surprised to see the case that Luke had been holding so triumphantly in the cave sitting beside it in the sand. I grabbed it and the rifle and began swimming back to shore. Curling up inside the pieces of my destroyed sailboat I opened the case. Inside were ten golden rings of equal size and then a larger space for what appeared to be another ring that was missing. I brushed my long black hair out of my face, shivering, cold, and confused by what I was looking at.
"Is this what they wanted? Is this why they killed all of those people?" I wondered to myself.
I grabbed a dry sweat shirt out of a bag I kept on my sail boat. Stripping off my wet sweater I threw it in the pieces of my boat and then placed the rifle and case in the bag. I always kept wood and kerosene on my boat because I often camped out at the cove staying over night curled up in my boat. This time though I used it to set my boat on fire hoping to cut my ties to the whole terrible situation I'd been thrown into. Somehow I knew it would be that easy. Slinging the bag over my back I waded back out into the water climbing on to the abandoned jet ski.
I splashed water onto the seat to clean off the blood before taking a seat and headed off towards another cove to wait until dark before I headed home in case anyone was watching the coastline further down. Not much got by the people in the small tow. Coming back to harbor with a new jet ski and a gun shaped bag slung over my back would attract all the wrong kind of attention I thought.
Later that evening once the sun had set I made my way back in staying farther away from the shore than I would have liked and braving the high ocean waves. When I did finally make it home my dad and mom were furious but I shut them down pretty quick when I through the rifle on the ground and asked my dad if he still had his old revolver.
"Whats this about?" He asked.
"There isn't time, you and mom will both die unless you listen to me and take yourselves to your parents up in town." I screamed completely frustrated with there lack of urgency.
"Call the police." My mother whimpered to my father.
"You can call the police but we have to leave now!"
The back door to our house exploded sending pieces of wood everywhere. I jumped to the ground grabbing the rifle. Bullets punched holes in the walls of our home and in my mother. She fell to the ground dead before her body touched the floor. I returned fire through the wall and much to my horror I watched as my father too fell to the ground riddled with bullet holes. It was then that Luke (The guy who looks like Adrien Brody) kicked in my front door. I thought for sure he was going to kill me, that I was about to die. Instead though he fired through the wall of my home over my head and yelled for me to follow him. I ran over to his side making sure to grab the bag containing the box, firing a few more shots myself before I noticed the grenade in his hands.
"Time to go." He said coldly, flicking the grenade into the room behind us.
Out front of my home we ran to a car he had parked there as the house blew to pieces behind us. We drove in silence for ten minutes before I burst into tears sobbing uncontrollably. Luke never looked at me, he just kept his eyes on the road except for when he was intently watching the rear view mirror.
"I'm sorry about your parents. You should have never gone home." He spoke like I had made a bad decision on the thing I ordered for dinner.
"Well next time I'll remember that!" I screamed at him. "Who are you guys anyway how can you even be real? I saw you in my dream last night I saw what you did to those people. Here's your stupid rings I never wanted them anyway!" I threw the case into his shoulder holding the rifle in my lap tighter. "Do you have any ammo?"
"In the back." He said still never looking at me once.
I pulled up a blanket finding some extra ammo and ammo clips. We drove for a while more in silence before I finally caught him looking at me.
"You don't understand what's happening do you?" I shook my head slowly. "This is just great." A smile crossed his face but you could tell from his tone he wasn't enjoying himself. "This isn't really that big of a deal for you Martin, your just like me and my seven partners. Your trapped in this reality like us the only difference is the reasons that were here." I must have been staring at him pretty strangely because this time I managed to actually make him smile.
"Your not like the others, why do you care what happens to people?"
"We've been stuck here for awhile now, they weren't always like that. We just really miss home Martin you see were not really people. Were not exactly how we seem to be but the others have slowly been losing their sanity for sometime and it seems I am too. They'll hunt me down now just like they hunted you down for getting in the way of our mission."
"I don't understand Luke?"
"You see Martin were not humans and neither-." Before the words could leave his mouth an explosion propelled our van into the air.
Everything was moving in slow motion. I watched as the world spun around outside the windshield that had just shattered to pieces. The van crashed down on its side sliding across the pavement until it came to a stop. I could tell Luke was hurt but he just unbuckled his seat belt and mine before reaching for a rifle and throwing me mine.
"I thought it would take them more time to find us." Bullets ricocheted off the ground beside us as we took cover behind the overturned van.
Luke stuck his head around the van firing his machine gun into the surrounding hills. I fired from around the other side of the car. Two more explosions close to us rocked the ground. Luke ducked back into the van emerging with my bag, the case containing the rings inside of it.
"Whatever you do don't lose these, whatever happens don't let them get this case."
"What about you?"
"I made contact with the man who lives out side the city, in exchange for these rings he has offered to protect us as well as help me find the missing piece that I need to go home."
We both took cover as bullets rained down on the van. Off in the distance we saw the headlights of three SUV's approaching fast.
"Good they made it in time everything's going to be okay now Martin." He stood up for just a moment before his body collapsed to the ground without any resistance.
I screamed his name as I reached down to pick him up but putting my hands behind his back I could feel the warmth from the blood pouring out of his body. He looked at me with surprise more than pain or fear.
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this Martin." He coughed up a good bit of blood looking up at the stars with a look of longing.
The SUV's surrounded us and man in suits empty out opening fire on the position of our attackers. One of the men pulled me from Luke pushing my head down as he ushered me quickly into the black Suburbans they had showed up in. I kept telling them to grab Luke until one of them grabbed me around the shoulders shouting into my face over the sound of automatic gunfire that he was dead. I looked at his opened eyes that looked off into the stars and knew it was true.
I jumped in on of the black SUV's and the others followed after as we left the sight. Bullets bounced off the bullet proof vehicles as we sped off into the night. I didn't even ask where we were going, in my mind it didn't feel like I had anywhere left to go.
(I'm going to skip a little this is a long dream and its late. They drive me outside of town and they're making phone calls telling someone that they have me and the rings and that were both secure. I find out its the old man who actually owns the whole town and who is extremely rich. He rarely ever came into town but when he did you knew it because usually a crowd would gather to admire the car he was driving ect. We drove for about an hour before finally pulling up to these large iron gates that were guarded by more men in suites. Once we entered through the gates it was another ten minutes before we actually made it to the house.)
Enormous wouldn't begin to describe the mansion we pulled up in front of. Twelve or fifteen kids ran around the front of the home playing tag and laughing. They were my age yet I still looked at them as children. I walked up the marble steps to one of the many entrances of the home in awe. I also noticed one of the bigger kids looking at me sideways but I didn't care. The large wooden doors opened at the top of the stairs and I was ushered in by a well dressed women.
"Feel free to look around he'll be down to meet with you in a minute."
I thought it odd she didn't used his name but was too distracted by the home to think on it too long. I began to wander around the large estate going from room to room. Each room was filled with the finest of whatever it was filled with. One room was nothing but violins another was filled with antique chairs. Every item you could think of had a room dedicated to it. Guitars, watches, shoes, suits, cars, sports, bicycles, the list went on.
I came to a room that was filled with nothing but guns. Old guns new guns all types adorned the walls in display cases or sat on tables. I began to read the tags under the guns and was shocked to find the AK-47 I had aquired when I first ran into the mercenaries mounted on the wall. Underneath it was a tag that read "AK-47 recovered by Martin in the cove."
I walked outside of the room curious how he was able to get his hands on that rifle so fast. I made my way from the large display rooms to a more seemingly relaxed part of the home. It was there I encountered the kids who had been running around outside the home earlier. They all still seemed very happy and excited all of them that is except for the larger boy who had been mean mugging me from earlier.
"Hey stupid!" He shouted my way."Hey kid, are you dumb?" I wagered it was making him pretty mad that I was ignoring him.
The other kids had stopped playing and were staring at the two of us. I heard his foot steps as he walked up behind me in the hallway yet still I ignored him focusing instead of the beautiful violin attached to the wall in front of me.
"I don't know where they picked you up kid but don't get any funny ideas." This time I turned looking him in the eyes. "You think your pretty bad ass don't you, well see how bad ass you are once you've had the shit beat out of you. Only orphans end up here did your mommy and daddy die you little shit!"
The blood in my body was at a boiling point and all I could see was red. I really wanted to hurt this kid in front of me. He outweighed me by at least forty pounds and he had me beat on height by at least three inches. His right hand swung at my head but I dodged it stepping aside. I reached behind me in the same movement pulling the wooden violin from the wall I smashed it into his face splintering the damn thing to pieces. He feel to his knees and I took the opportunity to place my knee into his face knocking him on his back. "I'm going to kill this kid" I thought to myself. I picked up one of the jagged pieces of wood from the broken violin and raised it above my head intending to plunge it into the kids neck.
It was then that I felt a strong hand on my wrist. Turning to see who it was I recognized the man I was one of the people who had been visible in the blue stream of light from the dream where I saw the mercenaries for the first time. The look on his face made me feel immediately ashamed, all the fight went out of me instantly. The old man motioned for the rest of the children to leave and reached down helping up the bloodied kid who I had hit with the violin.
"Such a shame to see something so beautiful destroyed over the smallest of dissagreeances wouldn't you say Daniel?" The old man's words made me remember something I had until this point forgotten.
"This isn't real." I said slowly looking to him for confirmation. He sent the bloodied kid on his way before turning back to me.
"Let's take a walk Daniel there are a few things we should discuss before you leave this reality."
He began to walk off down one of the many halls and I followed after realizing now that this had all been a dream. That in fact I was in a dream at this very moment and had never woken up in the first place.
"I'm dreaming aren't I?" I said as I walked beside the older man feeling more and more lost in the enormity of the mansion we traversed.
"Yes you are Daniel but this dream was a little different, I was trying something this time and it didn't work out very well and for that I'm sorry. I't was me who transported you into the dream you woke from. I had hoped you would become Lucid and use your power to save the girl those aliens killed."
"Aliens?"
"Those people you thought were mercenaries do not belong in this reality. They are from a warrior society, a very proud and strong race of aliens that while they look much similar to humans are in fact very different. A race that revels in blood shed. By accident those eight wound up in this world and have not been able to find a way to escape since they arrived due to the means by which they arrived." I must have looked very confused because he smiled and chuckled to himself a little. "You see you are here much like them yet you enter here due to the contract that is your birthright. They on the other hand literally entered this place physically while you pass through it like a ghost. Those rings they were searching for are a relic, old power that would have opened a portal back to their reality. My power. I hold the final piece because this reality is my charge and duty. You see I am also foreign to this place but I am not like you or even them. I am a spiritual being that was sent here to look out of the souls and creatures that dwell within this place. I operate on a different level of conscious awareness and I'm able to see the dreams and realities of all the worlds around me. Which is how I found out about you. Your going to wake up soon Daniel and think to yourself that this has all been just a dream. Your going to go to work at Starbucks and slowly separate yourself from what I'm about to tell you. The reason I brought you here was I was hoping you could save my world like you have others. You aren't just dreaming at night, you are passing in and out of other worlds and realities. You are answering peoples call for hope and light in the midst of darkness. You are the voice that says no within worlds that have forgotten how to stand up for themselves and because of what you are you are able to intervene and break none of the laws that dictate beings such as myself from getting involved. You are a dream walker and each night you walk into other realities through your dreams. They're are others like yourself hidden on earth. You are from an older race of beings that has only just began to wake up inside of the human bodies your kind dwells within. Remember this moment Daniel son of God. Remember next time you think to hurt someone just because its a dream. Just because you think that it's not real doesn't make it any less real for the people you can save. You could have saved that girl, you could have saved Luke. You will find them again, nothing is lost everything continues, do not fret. When you wake this time, I hope you really wake up."
The old man reached out and touched my forehead and then I woke up. I got dressed brushed my teeth and went to work feeling rather strange that day as I pushed the dream farther and farther out of my mind.
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