Radiation

I've been here several years now, in this new place, and I'm starting to fit in, or at least a feel like I am. I know what to do now, I'm a useful member of society and they seem to accept me. I stay here in a room at the place of one of the native families, probably so they can keep an eye on me and make sure that I am what I say I am. That seems to be the custom here as a matter of course. Newcomers are placed with established families and stay with them long term as they work for their new society. This are a distrustful society.

Personally, I have no problem with this place but I can't really say I love it either. It's just that I had no place to go and here has worked out for me. I have a good job and a good place to stay and it's been a nice stable environment. They seem to find me useful and if I stay here long enough, they will likely eventually let me have a place of my own. It's only a matter of time, sticking to the job, and staying out of trouble. It's a pretty good life really.

Down the street, another one of the newcomers is also staying. He hasn't been here as long as I have, but he's been generating a great deal of interest because of the new science and technology he has brought with him. At first he just did small experiments but the leaders of this society were very impressed by it, some kind of chemical based technology that generates energy. The main problem is that the technology also generates radioactivity.

People here in this society have little understanding of the dangers of radioactivity. He has tried to explain to them but they just don't get it or they just don't want to get it. They are too excited by the benefits of the technology to want to think about the dangers. I on the other hand have seen some of the damage it's done in other places. I don't understand it either but I do understand that it is dangerous and the expansion of the experiments makes me uneasy. I don't think even he understands fully what he is doing, but the urge to fit in and the excitement of this new society of his both serve to urge him forward with his experiments. There is tremendous pressure on him to do more.

Where before he had only tiny palm sized plastic dishes for his experiments, now he has expanded the experiments to huge wood pallets full of the chemical spread out all across the deck of the house he is staying in. The wood is stacked high and I observe from a distance. Worry gnaws at me and my worst fears are realized when I hear an aweful cracking noise. The deck has collapsed and the wooden pallets on top have fallen to either side! Fearing that radiation is surely escaping now, I run away as fast as I can to the administration building to alert those in charge.

By the time I get there, the place is already in an uproar. People are running around in a panic, some in confusion, others trying to figure out what to do, and still others are found seemingly intent only on proclaiming how right there were that such technology should not have have been undertaken in the first place. Those few had been protesting all along and now their worst fears have been proven right. However, instead of looking fearful or horrified, these few seem perversely happy and justified, as if the chance to be proven right could be actually more important than the safety of their own society. Could they have been involved in the disaster themselves, perhaps to sabotage the experiments and be proven right?

Watching the milieu, I feel frustrated and sick inside. I realize no one knows what to do because there is nothing to be done. My own knowledge of the radiation tells me the only thing that can be done is to run away. It's every man for himself and since my heart never truly belonged to this society, it's an easy decision for me to decide to run. Know the winds blow to the south, I run hard and fast to the north. But all the while, I still cannot be hopeful. Because the winds are not reliable. Eventually they will shift back and the radiation will blow this way too. And I can only go a little to the north before I must stop. Because this land is an island and there is no way off. Eventually the winds will shift, bringing the radiation with it, and then we will all die. One after another.

Dragon's Death

I peered around from behind the cement pillar, looking for the enemy. I sensed danger around me and became concerned that we had been found out. My clan leaders were inside the building I was guarding and there should have been no enemies here. They should not have known our location, yet we had already found one enemy scout and suspected several others were near. This was not good. I had a bad feeling, but to move without caution now could easily mean my death. As had happened many times in the past, I was in a life and death struggle to find the enemy and kill him before he found me.

My surroundings appeared to be ordinary every day modern day buildings, one several stories tall cement building inside of which my superiors were currently working, some flat parking areas around me, a tall cinder block wall in front, other buildings and a sparsely used roadway beyond, and several large rectangular well manicured grass areas along the road. It all seemed so normal but I knew danger lurked at every corner.

Eventually, I made my way back to one of my superiors near the building and we discussed the situation. We felt we were in considerable danger with our important people still inside the building, so few of us guardians present, and our location likely now known by the enemy. We could easily be overwelmed if we were not careful, but my superior offered me one solution.

He informed me that I could turn into a dragon! I immediately agreed and the next thing I knew, I was a dragon, not the lithe and sinuous creatures of Chinese legend, but instead a huge thick bodied brute of a creature with huge arms, slashing claws, and dark grey green scales. And somehow, despite the obvious problems of gravity and physics, I could even fly!

I sent out my dragon mind and sound found I knew the locations of nearby enemy agents. Now in my huge beast body, I easily descended down upon each one of them and slashed them down to death in seconds. No more did I need to sneak and scurry for my life. Now I could simply pound anyone to death in seconds using my huge scaly dragon arms and claws. I felt a great freedom from fear and a great pleasure in the new simplicity of executing my tasks quickly and efficiently and without fear. Thus, were the 3 or 4 nearby enemy agents dispatched and then I flew up and grasped onto the side of a nearby building to think and survey the area further.

Indeed, I could fly but it was not an easy task. I found I had to concentrate every second of the time in order to keep myself aloft and not crash into some nearby obstacle by mistake. My heavy dragon body was difficult to control in flight and it seemed that gravity and momentum were only just barely compensated for at any given time. Thus I found that I could not effectively think about anything other than flying during times of flight. And so I had to aloft on the side of the building in order to consider what next I should do.

At first as I sat there clutching some curly cue ornamental stone work on one corner of the building, I felt the job had thusfar been strangely too easy. It seemed almost a waste to have had so little to do and such an easy task for such a great and powerful body as the dragon. But then I let my mind stretch out further beyond my immediate surroundings and I realized my task was far from over.

There beyond the tall cinder block wall, arrayed out on top of a structure that looked like the top of a parking garage, were many many scores of the enemy. They lay in wait as part of a trap set for us. They only awaited the order for when to move on us, maybe 100 or 120 of them total, a large allotment of resources even coming from a larger clan like themselves. They meant to crush us and they were putting out a lot of effort to do so.

Quickly, I met again with my immediate supervisor and he advised me of that which I already knew, that it would be my task and my task alone to slaughter those atop the parking structure. With so many of their resources there, he did not know if they would have weapons that would be able to harm me, but that would be a risk I would have to take.

Trying not to worry about danger to myself, danger that most likely I could do nothing about, I flew to the parking garage roof and starting killing as many as I could as fast as I could. At first, I killed by slashing down with my powerful claws and arms, ripping open flesh and crushing bones. But then I realized that some might survive such an assault. Any victim that lived would be another person that would come against us as a powerful enemy in the future, probably an even more dangerous enemy than they had been to start with, but yet I did not have time now to be checking each body to insure death as I had done with the few scouts I had previously killed. So I reasoned that the only way to insure death would be to rip each body into two parts, the lower half from the upper, a procedure that surely no one would survive.

And so, as much as I loathed it, I began to tear many of my victims in two. Unlike the simple pounding slash that I had previously used, the tearing caused the majority of the skin to come away on one specific side, like a sock coming off a foot, while the majority of the meat would slide out into the other half. The feeling in my hands was akin to yanking apart a large slimey lumpy sausage with a very thick and stubborn casing. This horrible feeling weighed on my mind as I performed each killing and I did my best not to think about it too much and instead concentrated on killing as fast as possible.

I had not time to lose because as I killed, I could sense the warriors at the edge of the hoard were not thinking of attacking me but instead were scattering in all directions like ants into the forest, running in many directions at once, blending back into society, not easily to be found again. It would be impossible for me to get them all, but I knew I had to get as many as possible. The killing proceeded for some time until all were dead or ran away.

After the slaughter, I returned to my supervisor and was advised not to return to the killing area again for some time. And indeed, I already felt a strange urge to return there again later, when everything was cleaned up again and the bright sun shined on the green grass and the blood had been mostly washed away. I longed to see the place in its natural state again without the bodies and death, but I was advised that the investigators would be monitoring the area for some time to come, hoping themselves that the perpetrator of the killing would come back to see his handiwork. And so I could not return for that reason. I could not give them even the slightest clue that it had been me.

But overall, my superiors were pleased. Most importantly, we had all survived. The enemies, it turned out, had no weapon to use against me and many of them had been killed. All my superiors had finished their business and escaped and we now blended back into the society around us. No one would know we were involved in the killing. The mission had been a success.

I slept for a while with a strange feeling of peace and security and eventually found myself awake in the now waking world of here. For several hours, I retained a strange feeling of grim determination, and I could still remember the power that had been in my great dragon arms and of the strange stubby wing protuberances that had been at my back. And I remembered the sickening feeling of the skin ripping off the human victims as I pulled them apart. And I tried not to think of it too much until finally the regular concerns of the day, getting gas, arriving on time for my appointments, finding lunch, finally pushed aside some of those dream memories.

A Lesson Not Learned

I lived in an underground city, my living quarters just off the hall leading to our work place which was a large 'workstation' that dealt with managing the inner workings of the rest of the complex. My area of involvement was just one of many many others. My view of the overall picture was limited. I worked with the same people each day, maybe 5 or 6 main people and occasionally I had cause to chat with a few dozen others. But that was about it. I had little knowledge or interest with what went on beyond my area.

But there were rumors circulating. Some people from other complexes in far away areas said they felt sorry for us, that our latest development was built on unstable ground, that we were in danger. But I shrugged these rumors off. There were always naysayers. Like that guy in the other building who was always spouting off about dangers. Sure he was intelligent, in many ways a genius really. He knew all about the machinery and inner workings of things. When there was a complex problem, he was the one to fix it. But sadly, his personality was lacking. He just didn't know how to talk to people right, so they would understand, so they would listen. And he was always frustrated about something. After a while, nobody wanted to listen. You can't spend your whole life living in fear. At some point, you just have to get over it and move on.

And that was what I was doing as I quietly ate lunch in the communal eating room where food was always available. We selected and ate from a buffet area according to our tastes. Lunch was always a pleasant and relaxing experience. The area was spacious and never crowded. We didn't believe in inconvenience when it came to eating and we always had plenty of time. We were expected to do our work, but rarely to watch the clock unless there was an official meeting, although there was some social pressure to show up within reasonable time frames each morning in order to get work done, and not to stay out too late for other things. But overall, we all worked and ate on our own time.

Me, I was a night owl and often did much of my work late at night. And so was that genius guy down the hall, which is probably why I ended up talking to him more than most. Oh well, he wasn't a bad guy after all, just misunderstood. And he worked hard, that was good. Everyone respected him for that at least.

Then one day, I was in the hall and calamity struck. The floor lurched violently. I had a vision in my mind of what looked like a vast area of boiling mud. I don't know where or what that means, but at the time this information was significant and very very bad. It was worst case scenario.

We all ran. We had to get to the escape hatches. Many of us made it because we were so organized. We knew what to do, but all our of machines and materials and supplies were lost which was also a calamity, a huge setback. We could never get those things back now. Supplies and even some of us people were left behind. But only a few of us died, a very unlucky few where were caught in the immediate destruction and instantly crushed.

With one exception. The genius man had stayed behind. Somehow, I could feel his intense sadness. He could still leave now if he wanted, but he stubbornly chose not to go. For some reason I could not understand, he wanted to stay and die there even though it didn't make any sense. He told us his decision over the visual intercom after the rest of us were all already outside. He was solemn and he was sure he wanted to stay. None of us knew what to say. Perhaps he was just too sad. Maybe he was disappointed in himself or maybe he was disappointed in us that we did not listen to him. I felt guilty for that, because I had not listened to him. But that memory was painful and not one that I wanted to linger on. Maybe it was just too hard from him to have turned out to be right. It was better for him to just be disgruntled and crabby all the time than to have turned out to be all too horribly right. Maybe he felt there was more that he should have tried to do but didn't. Now he just didn't want to go on. And so he stayed. And he died.

We all went on with our lives of course. Now living on the surface again for a while, someone from far away was asking me about our life here and our complexes. I had an image in my mind of our systems, one living complex near the surface, another just below that connected by a small tubelike pathway, and then another below that, four in all, all huge of course and each a different shape according to the geology around us.

Except the fifth one was damaged and some damage at the lower part of the fourth one as well. We had some problems, but I I was still proud of all we had. You can't win them all and sometimes there are problems, minor setbacks, but we would overcome and move on. That's why I was up here now for a while. But they would work it out, they would fix it, because they knew what they were doing. They had told us so and I believed them. Because why would I not? They had done all this much for us already, things beyond my understanding but things I respected. I would go on doing my job as always of course. And things would work out. I was proud of my job and my people and our complexes, the decisions we had made and the bravery we had shown. We were all highly organized of course, and resilient, and that was something to be proud of.

But somewhere else in my mind, far away, another consciousness realized this pride was built on lack of understanding. And that nothing had been learned from the past tragedy and horror. Nothing would improve because the same flawed system was still in place. The man who had died in the damaged complex had died for nothing. Everything would go on the same as it always had. And this truly was sad.

Red Fear

I came into the room to assasinate him. Or should I say 'it.' Gender did not seem relevant but for the sake of discussion, I will call it a 'him.' He was a huge shaggy creature, maybe 10 feet high and lengthwise even bigger, shaped roughly like an elephant but with copious amounts of long wavy reddish fur all over, he stood on all fours with the head and elephantine trunk in the front. THe fur was so thick and fluffy that other anatomic details were obscured.

The creature was relaxed when I came in. My intentions did not seem of concern. Indeed, although I should have struck immediately, instead I dithered and began speaking with the creature. Soon, my intentions wavered. I didn't know why, but I knew I would not kill him. Dimly, I realized the creature was controlling my mind in some way. He took his long trunk and rubbed it gently on my back. The trunk was covered in the red fur but large black hard bumps stuck out from the wavy strands. Vaguely, I knew I had already lost. I was under its control.

The creature allowed me to live in his byzantine dimly lit underground facility. Level upon level of rooms and corridors were present and I was only familiar with a few. Most of the time, I was alone and rarely did I see any of my own kind or even anyone at all. SOmetimes, to keep myself entertained, I went into a large rectangular room made of a clear substance like glass that glowed a frosty white against the darkness of the rest of the facility. THere, I played a form of solo handball against the walls. I felt privileged to be so trusted by the creature.

Another time, visitors came to the facility. They were humans of my own kind and I let them in to visit, but in the back of my mind, I wondered if the creature would be unhappy with me.

It was not long after that I was riding an elevator up to another level and the doors opened out to a floor I had not intended. In the halls of this level, frightened humans huddled. I knew that my coming to this location was the will of the creature so I stepped out into the hall and allowed the elevator doors to close behind me. There was no going back.

I soon saw why the humans were frightened. THings were crawling at the edge of vision. THings skittered out from behind panels in the walls and then disappeared just as fast. They were behind us, in front of us, and in the walls and ceilings. My mind struggled to process them and sometimes I saw them as flattened deflated humans that scrabbled on all fours, but that was probably just an illusion. I didn't know what they were, but I knew they were fast moving, difficult to see, and intent on killing us.

I knew this challenge was set to me by the red shaggy creature, but I was sad to think that most if not all of the humans around me, untrained and ill prepared, would likely die, and even my own life was in grave danger. There was a good change that even with all my skill, I myself might not pass this test. And I accepted that.

End dream.

Flood

For some reason, my dreams have been dark of late:

I was walking down a wide dirt road with a friend. We were relieved to see we were coming up on a restaurant constructed of old wood slats. The place was busy with customers and activity. My friend said he needed to go do something and he would catch up with me shortly. He went to the left and I went into the front door on the right.

The place was bustling inside with a classic western motif and what looked like cement floors. The people around me were mostly dressed in dusty brown colored clothes as if from an older era. I sidled up to the bar and ordered some food before involving myself in small talk with some of the locals around the pool table. Eventually, I realized my food was long overdue and made my way back to the kitchen area to find out the only cook, with a pot belly and all dressed in white, was on break. He apologized for the delay and asked if he could just have 10 minutes to eat something himself and then he would start right away on my food. He looked exhausted and in much need of rest so I took the news cheerfully.

Here it gets a bit blurry. I remembered it all clearly at one time but now it is fading. But I know I was called away for some reason. I left the building and went to speak with some people that were some kind of news organization. I remember seeing various scenes of confusion and fear. One scene I remember clearly was a man on a horse with muddy water coming up almost to the horse's back. The man was trying to get the horse to move forward by clamping his legs together repeatedly but the horse would only make as if to move but then balk. I had the impression the horse was exhausted. Around him, other people were moving around in the water, some on make shift rafts, others half swimming or slogging through on higher ground. Everyone was too busy to help the man with the horse.

Then I came back to the restaurant. Some time had passed and the ambiance had changed drastically. I could hear an angry black man's voice demanding that someone get those people out of his restaurant, that they had destroyed it, etc. He sounded almost irrational and used a variety of epithets.

I walked through the same front door I had entered earlier and the view was shocking. The entire interior was now covered up to about 7 feet high with a dark grey colored mud, the walls, the furniture, everything. A few people walked around listlessly with heads down in despair. Slung high over a tall rack were 6 dead adults, each completely covered in the dark steely mud. Several other dead people were slung over some of the other furniture, all bent at the stomach with arms and legs dangling down towards the floor. The shock of the sight woke me with a start.

The Tips are Where It's At

I was telling the man that I didn't think he should be doing this kind of job, hanging around with these kinds of people. He was a tall lanky Polish looking caucasian, with short cropped hair and a slight but perpetual forward stoop, as if it his head was too heavy for his body and was continually overbalancing him. Even now as he stood talking to me, he looked down at the pavement.

"I have to do it because tips are where it's at," he said to me. "Tips are were all the money is. Without tips there's nothing really. You got nothing. So I have to do it this way," he said with a sort of dejected defiance.

I looked around at all the widely spaced cars spread out on the pavement. Here, space was plentiful and cheap. No need to be frugal with space. In the dark night, I couldn't see much beyond the pavement platter of cars, but I had the feeling that south western style desert surrounded us with sand, cactus, and the occasional outcrop of weathered sandstone. Above me towered a covered carport type of construction, similar to those you find at gas stations. Several flood lights were strung on its edges, attracting clouds of whining insects.

A cluster of men were assembled around one of the cars. Sniggering and drinking, they lounged against the car or the carport, some of them staggering at times to keep upright. They were a surly bunch. Disagreements flared up regularly intermixed with ringing raucous laughter.

Eventually, one of the men threw a shot glass at another's feet and exploding glass shards sparkled in the reflected light. Angry and confused, the victem threw his own glass at the car. Just then, the man I had been talking with earlier stalked into the middle of the group and demanded to know what was they were doing to his car. Behind him, one of the drunk men calmly picked up a long handled axe and expertly swung it over his head and struck down with a sick thunking noise directly onto the back of the car owner's neck.

The scene changed. It was daytime now as I gazed on a small house with a peaked tar gravel roof. Near the chimney, a man cowered on this roof, attempting to hide. The cops had already seen him be he pretended not to hear their shouts to come down. Eventually, they put ladders on the side of the red wood house and reached up to the man's leg and pulled him down.

He did not resist. In fact, he relaxed. The chase was over and there was something he wanted to say. "It was Wayne SoandSo (I forget the actual last name he used)," he said without any prompting. He had wanted to say it all along but he hadn't wanted to get himself implicated. But now that he was already caught, he could finally get it off his chest with confidence. He wanted the real murderer to be known. Everyone knew Wayne anyway and nobody was surprised. He would be easy to find. The only question was, would the charges stick?

Soldier

I was a soldier, standing on a hill, facing a dilemma. Several of my troops had gone and done something both brave and stupid, they had taken a chance, and now they were in trouble. It was left to me to decide, either go in and rescue them, or stay here and protect the rest of my troops. I was angry to now be in this position. Those soldiers should have known better, they should have been more careful. I had gotten away with many a trick manuever in my day, now I would be faced with one more attempt to defy logic. It would be risky, but I decided I would try my luck once again and go in after those who were in trouble.

I knew my own great skill in tactical decisions and quickly worked out the only possible plan, to split my troops into several guerrilla style detachments and try to sneak my way in and out while the others distracted the enemy. It would be extremely risky. I gave my orders and all of us wearing slightly varying shades of grey green colored army looking clothing, as if some of the dye lots had not quite matched, and with our older style rifles slung over our shoulders on shiny patent leather strap, headed out through the hilly forested land.

The plan was no sooner made then it began to unravel. My part of the group was taking heavy fire. There were far more enemy than I had predicted and no way we would reach our target. In helter skelter fashion, I gave the order to retreat. Not only was my rescue plan failed, but the rest of my troops were now in mortal danger. I knew it was all my fault. I had taken the same stupid risk that the guys I was trying to rescue had taken, but I had mistakenly allowed myself the hubris of thinking I could do it more effectively. As I ran bent over in an attempt to not get shot, I castigated myself for my stupidity.

I was in the lead and I kept trying to look back and see if the rest were following. I saw a few of my guys but felt sick inside knowing several in the back had probably already fallen and there was nothing I could do to help them. We were taking fire now from behind and the left side. A collapsing old stone wall protected us from fire on the right but there were probably enemy to the right as well. The situation was dire.

Moments later, I came around a low hill only to come face to face with 2 soldiers pointing their rifles directly at me. Several others backed them up from the left. All had their rifles aimed while mine was still pointing down from when I was running. There was no chance. I would die a failure and all my troops would die as well because of me. I bowed my head and tears welled fiercely in my eyes. Intense sorrow washed over me as I waited for death.

And it all went blank.