Coded ambition

Fragment 1: Family life, Part 5

He ran and turned, apparently searching for something in what looked like a forest. Gray flashes of light appeared above his head and caught Dean's attention, but when he raised his head there was nothing but dark trees surrounding him. The distraction caused him to become completely disoriented.

Suddenly, Dean had no idea where he had come from and when he looked in all directions, everything looked the same. He began to panic and a feeling of nausea threatened to overwhelm him.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. Something - or someone - was close to him. The thought only added to the panic. Again he turned his head and scanned the treetops that surrounded him, looking for the intruder or whatever was going on.

Now the shadows in and under the trees were moving with menacing speed. But there was no one to be seen or heard. Highly alarmed, he searched for something to keep his eyes on, something that stood out somehow.

When he found nothing in particular, Dean noticed that the trees did not have normal leaves. The tall spruces had foliage made of wires. As he noticed, he could even hear the crackling and frightening sound of them sparking. Most of the cables were torn, but still electrified. Some of them hung very low to the ground, no more than an arm's length from him. Then it hit him: They were dangerous!

The feeling of sudden, intense fear overwhelmed him. He stood there, afraid to move now that he had realized the gravity of his situation. The shadows continued their threatening dance in the forest. In addition, the cables came to life and joined the mysterious anti-clockwise movements, adding to the spinning and sickening sensation.

Dean's eyes could not keep up with all the movement and he fell. He felt as if something else had fallen with him. But he was alone, fighting the motion sickness and the sense of doom.

Suddenly there was a rustling sound. He was already standing, not even wondering how he got up, and scanned his surroundings again. But he could no longer see or recognize anything around him because the spinning of the trees had increased. Several times he had the feeling he was going to fall. Trying to get a grip on the situation, he stood up the several times he really did fall, fighting the pulsing fear in his chest.

Then he made the mistake of looking under his feet and saw all the cables and metal trees being crushed by a giant sawmill blade that was slowly but surely coming towards him.

Mortal fear paralyzed him and he could see no way out. The blade's rotors spun mercilessly, continuing on their way to the man they had targeted.

Dean realized that his death was preordained and mentally prepared for the impact. But it never came. The blades stopped rotating.

The world also had stopped spinning and he could see distinct cables and trees. He felt a brief sense of relief, then lost contact with the reality around him. He felt something warm and in the blink of an eye the forest seemed very far away. Somehow he understood that he had been stabbed. His consciousness slipped away as he fell deep and long into the darkness below. He could not tell who the killer was, but he tried to cling to the sound of heavy feet stepping into crackling cables that covered the ground...

Dean woke up drenched in sweat. He was lying across the bed, twisted in a blanket, face down. His first thought was that his position must have suffocated him, forcing him to wake up. Slowly he noticed a dry throat and struggled to get up to drink some water.

When he finally lifted up his heavy body and sat down on the edge of the bed, the man began to recall something like a dream, as well as the onset of his headache. He felt terrible.

Dean groaned and heaved up his burdensome body to go to the kitchen. As he passed the entrance to the living room, he did not notice Natalie lying asleep in L-35's arms. Only when his thirst had been quenched and the tension in his body eased, he noticed the strange duo on the couch.