Dreaming is BelievingI just sit here and wait, watching the days slip by, one by one. I hate being here, I hate this place, and I hate myself for having to come here. These patients here actually have problems, I was assigned to sit here with some brain-dead vegetables who get force-fed applesauce every day .Danny thought bitterly to himself. A man with limp, pale hair shuffled by him with a piece of a jig-saw puzzle in his mouth, this was Phil. He had been a veteran too, but something had clicked off in his brain, and now the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him.
“Well, Mr. Danny, it seems to be your time to take your pills,” a smiley women in daisy covered scrubs said, shoving a paper cup of colorful pills into his outstretched hand on the wheelchair. Danny clamped his hand down, feeling the paper crinkle and rip. A surge of power went through his body. “Now make sure to swallow these all down, or else you’re going to have a grumpy day.” Danny just growled under his breath, tipping his head back and downing the pills in one gulp. They only taste like despair and dirt. “It would be nice to have some water to be able to wash this shit down,” Danny snarled at another assistant, who this time was in smiley-face scrubs. “Well, Daniel I can get you some orange juice but you will need to drink it very slowly through a straw,” she said, babying him. She scooted off towards the door that you are never allowed to enter. Danny leans forward and rubbed his eyes with his large, calloused hands, creating a galaxy of swirls and colors behind his lids. He places the heels of his hands on the wheels that are always beside him, and push with all his might, trying to move forward even a little bit. Danny cursed under his breath, when he realized that the parking brake had been switched on by someone. “God dammit, why must you all do this to me?” Danny screamed at the top of his lungs, causing everybody to look over at him. “Sir, why are you yelling? We are trying to keep a peaceful place and if you do not respect these rules, we will ask you to leave,” a pretty nurse, whose name tag said Ann. “You don’t need to escort me, I’m leaving anyway.” Danny rolled in reverse and then pushed his way through the crowd, dropping the blanket on the cold tile floor. Danny’s eye lids started to feel droopy, and a darkness started clouding his eyes. They do this to me every day. I don’t need any sleep aid. All I see is war, death and fights. I can’t understand why they do it. The female assistant finds him twenty minutes later, dead asleep in the hallway. She smiles to herself, places the blanket back on his lap. “Don’t touch my bacon,” Danny muttered, his head rolling to the side. Ann leaned over and pulled the soft blanket up higher, covering his wheelchair arms. With a grunt, she started to push the heavy man down the hallway, counting the numbers on the wall. My lungs began to burn and blister, taking in air was causing me unimaginable pain. A collective call rang through the trenches, Gas! I struggle trying to remove my gasmask from my pack and place it over my face. I started to loose feeling in my hands and feet, the gas slowly attacking my nervous system. Tears were pouring down my cheeks and the mask laying discarded by my feet, taunting me. I fell onto my hands and knees, coughing, trying to dislodge the gas in my lungs. I looked up to my comrades, my teary eyes pleading for help, relief, for something. But no, they just stand there with pity hidden behind the masks filling their lungs with precious oxygen. My vision is turning foggy, blackness creeping along the edges. I cut my hands on shrapnel and broken glass that littered the trench floor. “Help, please,” I begged, looking mainly at my best friend, “Just help me. Please.” I start coughing up blood, the crimson staining my uniform. The gas had tendrils that were sneaking inside of my body, my lungs seizing up making breathing unbearable. My body going numb except for random convulses. White foam is slipping up through my lips, eyes rolling back into my head. The gas finally over-takes my body, lying on the cold muddy ground. I’m going to die like this. Flopping here like a fish out of water. This hurts, I just wanted to die peacefully. Surrounded by loved ones, not assholes who are just letting me die. These thoughts race through my head, as the clouds overhead break and rain begins to pour down. My breathing starts to slow down, my brain getting just enough air to keep well aware of the pain. Finally, my lungs stop taking oxygen in and slowly I just sink into the abyss of gloom. Danny sat up in a gasp of air, his hand clutching at his chest. He took deep, calming breath, his mind going crazy. He was looking for some explanation of what had just happened. He jumped slightly as a nurse opened his door, pushing in the morning dosage of pills and cold oatmeal. “Well, Mr. Danny you have a very busy day. Ready to get ready for it? You will need to roll on over the doctor’s office then to the therapist. Okay? Okay.” The older women said, all in one breath with a large smile plastered on her features. Danny just ignored her, looking for the television remote, hoping to watch something that would make him forget. “Oh no dearie. We aren’t watching the television today, we are going outside!” she said with a flourish, opening the curtains. The light filled the room with a sweet color, but Danny snarled, “Women, shut those damn curtains. I am not going outside! I am going to sit in this room, watching TV until I feel the need to go and deal with the morons making macaroni art!” he screamed at her, the lady’s smile changing quickly into an apprehensive look. She started to back up slowly, bumping into his wheelchair, making it move farther away from his reaching hands. She pushed a button on a walky-talky, and spoke quickly into to mouth piece, “Security, please come to section 2 room 319!” “Gahh,” Danny yelled, picking up a flower vase and throwing it at the wall just over her head, causing her to shriek and fall to the ground. Glass rained down upon her, covering her hair in small shards. Big, burly men forced themselves into his room, breaking the door down with their muscular shoulders. They walked into a scene of total havoc, with Danny sitting in his bed and hitting anything his fist would get near to the nurse, screaming for help in the corner. One brawny man, with the name of Eugene, strolled over to the nurse and helped her up and led her towards the door. Shielding her body with his own, Eugene blocked the sight of Danny being restrained by five nurses. A sharp poke pinched at Danny’s arm, causing him to thrash back and forth more violently then before, until a second pinch sent Danny reeling back into a pit of darkness. Danny felt a rumbling under the cold metal that was pressing into his cheek and forehead. Danny sat up groggily, looking around. He stood up uncertainly, wobbling like a baby fawn on new legs. He was pushed abruptly to the side by a few men in soldier uniforms. “Soldier! Where are you placed?” a loud voice called from behind him, causing him to turn around and fall onto the stout man shouting at him. “Oh pardon-,” Danny apologized, being cut off by the man slapping him across the back of the head. “BOY! We are in a war right now! No namby-pamby nonsense. You need to get back to your battle station, or heaven help me I will beat you!” the man yelled, spraying spit everywhere, “Now GO!” Danny walk-ran away, not paying attention to where he was going until he comes to a solid metal barricade. He walks alongside the wall till he hits a divide with a single door. He could hear voices coming from the door. It swung open unexpectantly, men swarming out of in disarray. “Run! It’s sinking in the mud! Get out while you can!” one man shouted, grabbing Danny by his shoulders and shaking him repeatedly. Danny pushed him aside and ran into the room that had just emptied. Scenes of terror were happening on the ground, many feet below. Men were running and shooting at some unknown targets. A man fell through the giant hole in the roof, half his head was missing. Danny jumped back, hitting the wall, desperately trying to escape the man crawling towards him. Brain-matter was leaking out, and the man, writhing on the floor and groaning in pain. “Ahhh oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” Danny started to freak out, still sitting on the counter, desperately trying to get away from his reaching hands. Finally, the man stopped moving, Danny took a calming breath and stepped over the body, blood pooling dark crimson red. The tank lurched forwards, causing Danny to fall back into the room, and the door swung close with a bang. The door locked, closing Danny in the small room nobody but the dead man to talk too. The floor began to tilt forward, chairs and the corpse rolling forward. Danny stood up, jumped over the carcass and climbed the ladder to get to the hole in the ceiling. He stuck is head out cautiously, looking for escape but only getting shot at. The tank was tilting even more, sinking in the mud. He looked over and saw the sludge slowly climbing towards him, getting closer to the hatch. |
As the mud began to slide into the entrance, slopping onto the floor, piling up. His heart started to beat faster. His lungs were constricting fast, air barely getting in his lungs. Danny felt faint, fear and lack of oxygen cutting off the part of his brain that let him make real decisions. He fell backwards into the pile of mud and sank in.
Danny jolted awake, lying on the chilly, hard concrete floor, smog crawling towards him. Vines of smog were reaching and crawling over Danny’s body, searching. The scratch of claws and snarls of monstrous demons. “Vat is it?” one snarled, circling closer and closer. Its nails creating a horrible grating noise ripping at Danny’s ear, causing him to roll into the fetal position clutching to his ears. “It seems to be alive. And awake. What should we do, Terror?” another voice, appearing out of nowhere hissed. The haze hid the speakers from Danny’s squinting eyes, their creeping shadows barely visible, but the glint of red seen when they turn their heads to speak. One stepped out of the darkness and slunk by Danny, hissing in his ear, “Well, well, well. Look what we have here, a lost soul. Dreaming, wandering, living. Not for long.” A wave of putrid stench washed over Danny, as the beast cocked his head and spread its lips wide. The teeth were sharpened down to a point, and the lips stretched tight against its gums. “Pain, can we have it now? Or do we get to play a game?” a more feminine voice called from overhead. “What are you things?” Danny asked, cowering down, “What do you want from me?” “Look at him. You can practically smell the fear dripping off him. I want to bite him now,” one crawled up behind him and gave his neck a little nibble. The sharp fangs pierced the thin flesh, drawing little beads of blood. “Fear, control your sibling! We cannot just waste energy on playing games.” This is just a dream, this is just a dream. Danny rocked back and forth, arms clamped over his head, trying to block out the raspy voices. The voices started dying off, leaving an unbearable quiet behind. Danny slowly lifted his head and his eyes were met with blood red eyes, no distinguishing the pupil from the cornea. The eyes squinted into slits and a long tongue slipped out and licked its lips. “My name is Fear,” the female one said, sitting close to Danny, brushing shoulders from time to time. “How did you end up here, Danny? Why are you full of me and not my sister, ‘Hope? ” “I-I-I don’t know what you mean. Full of you? But you’re right next to me,” Danny whispered, rubbing his eyes with his hands. He felt another one slink up, and sit on his other side. “Danny-boy, we are inside of you. We are your Demons. You cannot get rid of us that is impossible. But you can contain us, lock us up. We will be fine. You have locked up our siblings deep in your mind, into a place that we have yet to reach,” the one called Terror said, looking into Danny’s face, searching for an answer. “What do you mean ‘locked up’? I don’t know what you mean! What do you want with me?! Why am I here?” Danny yelled out in exasperation, his voice echoing in the fog. A final pair of red eyes appeared from the fog. “You know exactly where you are! You believe that your body is weak, and you blame me for it. I was only created by you and I need to find my brother. You locked him up!” his voice getting louder by each word. “You have created us all, but you cannot get rid of any of us; Terror, Fear, Pain, and me, Weakness.” The Demon stepping closer to Danny’s sitting form, till the Demon’s nose was an inch away from Danny. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m sorry about your siblings, but I have never locked someone up before,” Danny pleaded, hoping that Weakness would step away. A crashing noise coming from behind the fog grabbed the Demons attention, their heads swiveling towards the racket. “We must go, he is waking up,” Pain murmured, turning his head towards weakness, “See you later, Pretty-Boy.” One by one, they turned and galloped away, Weakness the last to leave. “Remember, just because it seems like a dream doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt.” Danny watched their retreating figures, shivering not from the temperature in the chasm, but from the coldness the Demons trailed behind them. Danny opened his eyes, blinking in the bright light reflection off the snow. The ground was frozen, marking where boots have treaded. He rolled over on his side, his eyes meeting with a pair of blue eyes. The man besides him has frost particles decorating his facial hair, a peaceful look on his face. This man was stiff as a board, with only a thin coat shrouding his shoulders. “Soldier, soldier! Wake up!” a man was walking down the trench, shaking each individual shoulder, seeing who lasted through the month, “ We got a stiff one, medic grab a gurney and get him out of here!” Danny sleepily propped himself up on his elbows and shivered in the thin, morning air. Soon every living soldier was standing up, stretching out the kinks in their backs. Danny heard a faint voice, being carried over by the wind. “Frohe Weihnachten! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” Danny looked around, searching for the voices. He peeked his head over the trench wall and saw a few men in olive green uniforms, hanging loosely on their skeletal frames. “Frohe Weihnachten! Frieden Zeit! Peace time!” A whisper rushed through out the trenches, Germans. Every soldier tensed up, preparing for a fight. “Does anyone speak German?” a commander asked, hurrying down the trench, pushing people out of the way. “I-I do,” a small boy stuttered, coming out of his hiding place, “They are saying ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Peace time’. I think that they are calling peace.” Stunned faces were seen everywhere, what did they want? Danny turned to a boy beside him and whispered, “What do we do? Are we going to fight, or have a peace day?” The sergeant turned, after hearing his quiet question. “We are going to see if they have weapons. Don’t attack unless I give the command,” he turned to face all the men, “At the first sign of any hostile movements, shoot. This may be a trick.” “Ahoy! Umm, what do you need?” the sergeant asked, as if speaking to a three year old. “Es ist Weihnachten. Glückliche Zeit. Happy time, no time for fighting. It is Christmas!” on man yelled across the no-man’s land. They didn’t seem to have any weapons on them, but some could be hidden underneath their jackets. “What do you mean, it’s Christmas? That’s not possible,” Danny called back over, the wanting to talk to them overwhelming. “You won’t shoot me if I get out of the trench, will you?” “We won’t, if you don’t shoot us!” they replied. Danny sighed, and stood up slowly, praying that he wouldn’t die. Large smiles broke across the Germans faces, stretching out their hands to shake his hand. “Do you not speak German? I have known many British men who speak German” one asked, speaking very slow English. Danny cracked a small smile, and shook his head. One of the Germans stiffened up a bit, and turning around, Danny could understand why. The survivors from his side had all gotten out of the trenches and stood in a single line, staring straight at the group of men in No-Man’s land. “Warum sind wir nur herum? Why are we just standing around? It iz Christmas time. Let’s share some love and food,” the main guy said with a slight laugh and smile. Danny smiled back and looked at his friends. Danny woke up in his wheelchair, the sunlight filtering down. A smile played across his lips, looking out the floor to ceiling windows. “Morning sleepy-head, I decided to bring you out and let you make macaroni art with all your friends,” Ann said, smiling as she walked over to his wheelchair. Her smile brought back a memory of Weakness smiling at him in his dream. She leaned forward and whispered into his ear, “Danny-boy, you’re just so cute, I could eat you up,” her voice rasping against his neck. He tensed up, the voice bringing back the image of bright red eyes and a stretched smile. “Ahh, it’s you! What do you want?” Danny tried to pull away, her hot breath making him shiver. “You’re coming with me. Down to the morgue. It’s time to meet your maker.” |