Dark Dreams (You don't know what's out there, until you start to dream)

Chapter 5

Without darkness there are no dreams.

-Karla Kuban, novelist

"We have a mission to do Kasha. Face the facts; you're just not up to it." Axel shrugged nonchalantly while turning his back on the Snyde girl.

"No one cares about the 'mission' anymore, Axel. Do you not see? The Great Ones are not sending back-up. We'd die if we went in there."

"That's a risk you'll have to take." he looked at Kasha wickedly.

"Me?" Kasha raised her eyebrows. "I don't know what they are doing in that factory." Kasha pointed at the building ahead of them, through the trees. "But whatever it is the Great Ones thought it was important enough to build the Dream Machine to allow us to transfer to the human world. They were not content on just seeing the world through the creator's eyes anymore. Not with this."

"Then let's go see it with our own eyes." Axel zoomed out of the trees and disappeared through a factory window all before five seconds had past.

"Male arrogance. It never changes, even for Snydes." Kasha muttered before following after him.

Voices floated up from the ground floor.

"The breakthrough is complete sir. We just need a live subject to test it on."

"Not animals." The man called 'sir' told the other one. "We need to see how it will affect humans."

"With all due respect sir, what are you hoping to use this for?"

"The army, officer. We can build stronger, faster, impenetrable human forces."

"But sir, doesn't this liquid breakthrough, when injected properly, change a person's complete DNA strand? It would be hardly the right terminology to call the person 'human' once they've used it."

"We do what we must." Sir told the Officer. "It will change them, but it will bring out their true selves in the process; their hearts condition; their inmost thoughts and feelings at the time that it is used on the subject. We need strong forces for the army so that when we use this on them they not only become strong in heart, but also strong in physical form."

"Is that all it does, Sir?"

"It is all we know that it does, yes. But with all experiments, they can come with surprises."

Kasha turned to Axel and whispered in a voice too low and fast for human ears. "This must be the substance the Great Ones wanted us to destroy."

Axel smiled evilly. "It doesn't seem like it needs destroyed."

"Axel!" Kasha gasped. "It's our mission."

"I don't see the Great Ones around here, do you?" Axel raised his eyebrows. "And weren't you just saying not to care about the mission anymore?"

"But they expect us back." Kasha lowered her voice.

Axel's voice grew angry, edged and sharp. "We've been gone for weeks now. They haven't made contact with us or tried to communicate in any way. They sent us to another world and chose to forget about us completely."

"Why would they do that?" Kasha gasped in shock.

"We're undercover workers. Only a select few knew we worked for them. Maybe they feared we'd talk about our 'other worldly' experiences to the others back home. Maybe they only needed us for this job- thought they'd send us to this world to destroy the substance, but once we left they wouldn't accept us back. No one would miss us because no one really knew about us." Axel's voice grew solemn.