The New Breed

The white walls seemed to be towering above him, like hulking, skeletal giants. He pushed the blanket aside and got out of bed, wearing only shorts. It was hot. He went to the bathroom, took a shower and dressed up in something. He returned to bed and felt pressure in his chest, so he lay down and tried to breathe slowly and steadily, but the claustrophobic sensation grew more intense with each second. He tried to concentrate on an imaginary point in the ceiling, and thought he saw something bright and twinkling in the air, like a renegade speck of light. The speck grew and grew until it became a figure of a beautiful woman, dressed in a milky-white dress. She had cascading black hair, and radiated with blinding light. Kay narrowed his eyes, until it became nothing more than tiny slits. She landed on the bed, like a circus artist.

Kay knew her. He told her that.

"I know you know me" She laughed like the ringing of crystal bells.

"When are you coming to me?" he asked

"Soon, I promise", she said with a playful smile.

And with that, she went upward and vanished in thin air.

Kay felt so unimaginably lonely at that moment, that he began to feel sick. He closed his eyes, finding it hard to breathe.

When he opened them. The room was semi-dark again.

It was another dream.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and sat upright. Then he reached with his hand under the bed, took out a shotgun, put it into his mouth and blew his brains out.

He woke up screaming.

It was the seventh day of the waiting, and his soul was fading away.

He was haunted by nightmares. Lately, as was expected, he began dreaming about her, and the dreams were full of so much loneliness and pain, that he could hardly notice that other thing in his dreams: Hope.

He sat upright and tried to release his right foot, which got caught up in the rumpled sheet. He was a man of details, even in here, especially in here. According to his "inner time sense" - an old fashioned white alarm clock with a silver bell, which floated in the corner of the room - it was five to seven in the morning.

Kay looked outside to the street. The sun emerged out of the clouds, children were playing on the pavement, and over at the house across from his, a neighbor was mowing the lawn.

This was Kay’s inner suburbia of dreams.

His focus changed, and he caught his reflection in the window, the face of a young man in his twenties, but with a look of many years upon his features.

He remembered the dream, and his heart ached. He needed her so much, he was so miserable.

He could do anything he wanted to in here, except make the memories go away. The alteration years haunted his mind and will haunt it forever. He could be just standing, washing the dishes, and it would hit him like lightning. Visions of gray corridors, of screams and cries...

He was only a boy then, about six or seven, but he will never forget the Syndicate War as long as he lives, as is everyone who lived through that terror.

They won’t try to wake him up, but he knew they wanted to. They also knew he could destroy them in seconds.

He walked to the closet, took out a pair of washed green jeans and wore it on the boxers, he thought about taking a shower. Even here he had to keep himself somewhat clean.