Elysium

A story of loss, love, and what's to come, whether it's hard, easy, or unexplainable.

Who Am I?

Mark woke instantaneously, all of a sudden. He had been… sleeping upright? He had never been this frightened in his life. He had no idea where he was, and the only thing he could remember was his name. Mark. Mark.

The voice that whispered inside his head said, You are Mark. It paused. You will never be known as anything other than Mark. You will never become anything except Mark. Welcome to your new life. All you need to know is that you must survive, whatever it takes.

Mark shuddered inside, a jagged breath sucking pure oxygen into his lungs. He couldn’t move, not even blink or look around. Mark, from what he could make out, was sitting on a metal chair or stool, the cold of the metal seeping through the thin pants he wore, and sitting in the middle of a cage you’d think a feral tiger would be transported in. He felt the low vibrations of a plane and the shudders of turbulence of flying. Past the cage was a window the size of a person and framed by gold or bronze. He could see the faint lines of a design in the floor, a sort of hexagonal tessellation you’d likely see on an industrial bee farm.

Mark had something on his back, a pack of some sort. He put two and two together and it seemed, well, that he was going to jump off of this plane with a parachute. Mark sucked in a deep breath, as he felt a sense of fear, and right then and there, he realized he had acrophobia. He wondered what was going on and really wanted to just go home, wherever home was. For all Mark knew, he was homeless and broke, or rich and powerful. He longed to remember his past and was slightly - no, very - afraid of jumping off of a plane.

Then the floor dissolved under his feet.

What Is Going On?

Mark couldn’t move, couldn’t yell out, couldn’t express his pure liquid fear flowing through his veins. Mark felt his arms and legs flatten as a skydiver would. Mark felt his muscles contracting and moving, but he wasn’t controlling them.

The ground rushed towards his face, and his unexplainable fear rose like the sun on a snowy day. Mark pushed and pulled with his mind at his fingers and arms, trying to feel any movement, the slightest twitch, even the sweat popping from his shoulders from the strain. Nothing. But his eyes burned, dry from the wind against his face. A game-looking kind of sidebar popped up in his vision. It read Altimeter: 463m and Elysium Condition: Fear.

Mark kept falling for maybe a minute straight when another box popped up in his view. It read, in a bold red font, ALTITUDE: 200m! DEPLOY CHUTE NOW! Mark felt a cold shudder and a shock as the feeling in his arms and legs came back and he felt the cold air against his face. Mark pulled his arms in front of his face and wiggled his fingers. Mark pulled on the cord on the strap of the parachute. The sound of fabric catching the air was like butter to toast to Mark at that moment. Mark was filled with adrenaline and fear, the two things that empowered him to not flail over and die internally. The sidebar altimeter read, Altimeter: 63 and falling. This time, however, the Condition sidebar said: Survived Stage One. Whatever that means.

    The area below Mark was tree-filled and there was a layer of snow on everything. A compass appeared on the near top of Mark’s vision, indicating that the mountains he saw were to the north, and the crater was to the south. Mark reached the ground, the cold of the snow immediately leaking through the thin fabric of the jumpsuit that Mark now realized he was wearing. Mark looked around, and another box in popped up in the center of his vision. Stage Two Is Commencing. 126 Survivors. Did that mean he was one of one-hundred twenty-six doing this as well? As the central box disappeared, another box popped up in the top of his eyes, specifying that Mark was looking at a fir tree, height 38 feet, and wet: with snow. It also, for some interesting reason, included, Concentrate on this sentence to read more. Mark, with nothing else to do at the moment, stared at the sentence, and the box enlarged.

Text in the box said, “Concentrate here to download information on Fir Trees.” Mark followed along. The second he started concentrating on the word ‘here’, the world went white and flashed different colors before Mark could see again. Mark looked around, sensing no difference. He looked at a tree and thought, Hey look! Another fir tree! Mark paused, wondering how he knew so much about fir trees. The fir that stood in front of Mark was an Abies amabilis, otherwise known as the silver fir, red fir, and white fir. The silver fir is native to the Pacific Northwest of North America. There were some words that completely flew over his mind, like the Pacific Northwest, or North America. He had somehow memorized all of that information but had no idea what most of it was about. Mark was surrounded by silver firs, the light-gray of the trees almost invisible with the pearl white snow.

    Mark wondered if he could bring up another box, maybe about North America or survival in wintery areas. What was funny was, Mark had a perfect memory of things like math and English and science, but had no memory of where he learned it at. Mark concentrated on North America, and once again, an article named, ‘The History of North America in WWIII’ was downloaded into his skull.

   

North America

North America, a country which had held the throne of the highest economy in the world, is a messy scattered area of craters and pits, with some places to the north untouched.

After World War Three, when the United States of America found traces of a new element, which they named hygrogen, because of its nature to be explosive and flammable like hydrogen and its ability to passively grow when near water, every country in the world wanted to know its abilities. However, the United States kept the hygrogen extremely secured in a laboratory, and tried to keep word from spreading, but they failed.

From 2025 to 2027, America was a warzone.

Russia sent cluster missiles to destroy communications but was stopped by anti-missile laser systems.

China tried to hack into America’s technology but was stopped by the US white-hackers, which protected the US from exterior technology-related attacks.

As the United States’ resources began to drain, the United States created an agreement with its nearby neighbors, Canada and Mexico, which hadn’t attacked the U.S. and were fairly neutral, they combined to create the United Provinces of North America, otherwise known as the UPNA. The UPNA’s scientists all came together to invent a defense system capable of handling four hundred million nuclear missiles and reflected any lasers fired at the provinces. They named it ‘The Last Line of Defense’, or the LLD for short. The forcefield covered the entirety of North America, and up to the Panama Canal.

The UPNA was turned into a protective collection of provinces into a fortress. Unfortunately, the United Provinces of North America needed an incredible amount of power using a relatively safe option, and the most productive and safe power generation at that time were nuclear power plants. When combined together, working at maximum efficiency, it generated an incredible amount of heat.

In a simple act of thermal protection, using heat as a source of protection, placing high heat near high heat, the UPNA transferred all of the reactors and put them all in the center of Death Valley, with even more protection for the power plants themselves, along with the immense heat generated by the reactors. The President placed 50% of his Secret Service on defense for the power plants.

The scientists created a facility near the Valley and set up 20 different force fields which surrounded the reactors and set up 50 different laser turrets, which could take down the Chinese aircraft carrier drones.

The Valley became an impenetrable fortress inside another very strong fortress.

To get through the forcefields, you needed a visual check, a DNA check, retinal scan, fingerprint scan, blood scan, and more.

But how did the UPNA become a giant crater, you might ask?

The big countries that allied against the UPNA, like China and Russia, came together, similar to how the UPNA did, and became the Russo-Chinese. The manufacturing capacities of the Chinese and the scientific capabilities of the Russians combined to create the MK I and MK II power drones, nicknamed “Dilophosaurus” and “Raptor”, respectively.  Hundreds of millions of these drones were created, and together they took down the LLD, and then continued on the destroy the Valley.

“Dilophosaurus” was created as originally a laser defense system in which a octocopter drone could be outfitted with a laser, but was later weaponized to be able to hold a plasma cannon. These plasma cannons were originally created by the Russians but the design plans were given to China to mass produce. These 200 kilogram weapons were hefty, packing an even heftier punch. Each plasma cannon held two things, the double plasma rounds, and the railguns which propelled the plasma rounds. The plasma rounds consisted of a metal shell, which held a hydrogen torch and a small microwave generator. Together, the fire and microwaves created plasma, the fourth state of matter. The “Dilophosaurus” could fire at a certain part of the LLD forcefield and disable it for a tenth of a second. After the drone fired its shot, it flew back to the Chinese manufacturing factory and was outfitted with another double-round and a different, charged set of batteries.

The “Raptor” was a whole different story. Outfitted with hovercraft technology and powerful cesium-exopolymer batteries, these MK II drones were just that. These “Raptors” struck fast and quick, moving a fast Mach 2, and firing nuclear explosive rounds at whatever it needed to. The reflecting capabilities of the forcefield stood no chance against these rounds. Programmed with nanometer circuit boards and sensors, these rounds held tiny capsules of plutonium-456, a very volatile substance that explodes violently when coming in contact with a 2:8 - oxygen:nitrogen ratio, a ratio that exists in the air around us. When the tiny sensors detected a physical object within 5 cm, a spring-loaded piston pierced the glass capsule, and the bullets exploded with extreme force. Combined speed with overpowering fire, you’ve got a military with the capability to destroy a forcefield even as strong as the LLD.

Millions of these drones attacked on June 17th - seven years into the future, yes, but the same date that the United States originally stopped trading with China and Russia. The forcefield stood no chance against the drones, and neither did the Valley. An elite team of Russian-Chinese soldiers with missile-resistant armor and bulletproof shields worked efficiently, grabbing the hygrogen, and leaving without warning.

The Russo-Chinese took the hygrogen, and then sent hundreds of thousands of nuclear missiles - a small amount of its total nuclear weaponry - to destroy North America, leaving few survivors on the continent which had held the most powerful item on the planet.

   

Mark sat, dumbfounded, and imagined what the scientists thought when the ground erupted below them. Mark imagined seeing a real-time map of the planet. Mark concentrated and was able to pull one up.

    Every other continent was full of a smog, a grayish smoke which filled the atmosphere.. The only part untouched was a tiny bit of Northwestern Canada.

That must be where I am! Mark thought.

Mark pulled up an article about survival in Canadian woods and saw a piece of metal embedded in the ground and used it, with a piece of wood torn off a tree, to create a small, makeshift hatchet. He started chopping down trees for an interesting concept he saw in the survival article, a house-sled, a basic hut on a large sled, which could be moved around by a lot of people or horses and animals. Mark laid the three-inch diameter logs on the ground and found some dogwood to use as a simple twine and pulled the dogwood to small strands and tied the 25 logs together for the sled. He then began placing the foundations for the small hut on the sled when the leaves rustled and a flurry of snow just appeared and a girl ran into him.

Who are you?

Their lovely introductions went something like this.

    “Who the hell are you?” Mark asked, hesitantly. “What the hell is even going on right now?”

    After a cough and a last final deep breath, she began to speak. “Uh… not sure exactly.” she pauses. “So you don’t know what’s going on either?”

    “Well… from this information I just received-” she cuts me off. “Wait. Received? Like a package was dropped off?”

    “Yes. No. I have this kind of ability to like, download information into my skull, and from how fast you just ran, I’m guessing you’ve got like super speed or something.”

    “So, you can just download information? I don’t think that’s physically possible.”

    “What do you mean, ‘not physically possible’? Look at what you literally just did!”

    Taking a look at her while she’s staring into the sky, she looks to be European. She’s got golden hair that flows down against her shoulders, and a small, I guess you’d call it, face. She’s wearing the same blue jumpsuit that I am, her small, uncalloused hands against the ground. She’s breathing heavily, like the running that she just did just drained her of energy. Mark thought, smiling.

    “Well, right now I was trying to make some sort of shelter before you ran into me-” She cuts me off again. “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t even notice you in front of me, I was just looking behind me to make sure that thing-” Her eyes explode open. “Holy s**t. That’s not good. I didn’t make sure that thing was still chasing me.”

    “Hey,” Mark says, trying to calm her down. “Chill out for a moment. What was chasing you?”

    “I don’t even know. It was like this huge… cat. It had really big teeth that kinda looked like fangs, and its fur was white. Either way, I’m gonna check around the forest for food anyways.” She says, still panting from her last run.

    The way she blurs through the trees, hardly touching the ground, is literally breathtaking. Pun not intended - okay… maybe a little. Mark blinks something like four times, just to make sure he’s not hallucinating. She’s literally running at speeds around a couple hundred miles per hour, estimating from his newly downloaded information about estimating speed. Then suddenly she’s sitting next to me breathing heavily.

    Breathily she says, “Done.”

    “Ohhhhkaaaaay… um… thanks.” he says. “Also, again, I hate to ask you while you’re tired, but I didn’t catch your name…”

    “Emmerson,” she says. “And yours?”

    “Yeah. Hey there.” Mark laughs. “My name’s Mark.”

    “So you don’t know anything, huh?” Emmerson asks. Mark shakes his head.

    “To be honest, I wish I knew more. I don’t even remember what my favorite food was, even if I had one.” Mark pauses, sounding more and more depressed. “However, I do know a little bit of where we are though. We’re in the Pacific Northwest, and that’s a fir tree, silver fir to be exact. We’re also in the UPNA, the United Provinces of North America, and apparently, it still exists, even though it’d been bombed and destroyed by the Russo-Chinese.”

    “Sorry what? What the hell is the Russo-Chinese, or the UPNA, or the Pacific Northwest?” she asks, sounding as confused as ever.

    “Don’t ask me, because I’ve no idea.”

    “Oh right, you have a special power, which can-” she stops for dramatic effect. “-download information.”

    “I can. How can I prove it to you?” Mark asks, slightly irritated. Mark, not waiting for a response, went to finish off the mobile hut. Emmerson followed close behind.

    “What can I do to help?” Emmerson wondered out loud. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

    “Ask yourself this, alright? If I just ran into you, someone who I had no idea was, why exactly would they trust me?” Mark replied. “But, if you really want something to do, can you take this stone, and find another stone to rub against it? My plan is to use a sharp rock as an ax, to help reinforce this.”

    “So, rock rubbing, and then…”

    “Just figure that out first.” Mark used some of the vines he found and some cloth from his inner shirt to tie the logs together. Mark downloaded some information on making fire without fire starters like matches or lighters. Mark, seeing the information, grabbed a log that would work as a fireboard, once he got the ax, and a bowl-shaped rock as the pressure spindle, and grabbed a dry, straight stick to work as a spindle. He pulled one of his shoelaces out and wrapped it around a bow-shaped stick. Now all he had to do was wait for Emmerson to finish with the stone-

    “Mark? Emmerson called out. “I’ve got your sharp rock, and… it’s pretty sharp.” Emmerson tossed up the rock to Mark from the crevice she was in. The rock flew through the air, and it landed in front of Mark’s feet. Mark picked it up and observed it, the rock sharp and hardly deformed.

    “This’ll work great, Emmerson. For now, can you just gather some twigs to burn and put them on the sleigh?” Mark said. Emmerson, with not much else to do, agreed with a slight nod of her head. Mark took the ax head and tied it to a small log. Mark took the ax, and with a swift movement, split the fireboard log into three pieces, picking the flattest board. He took the bow and spun it around the spindle. He put his foot on top of the fire board and dug a small hole in the fireboard, where the spindle would sit. He placed the spindle pressure, on top of the spindle, and began moving the bow back and forth, spinning the spindle and beginning to create smoke. Emmerson kept running around, picking up dry sticks to burn. After some time of spinning and increased pressure, the fire board and spindle began smoking.

    “Can I help?” Emmerson appeared, scaring the daylights out of him.

    “Agh, yeah sure, but next time don’t scare me, alright?” Mark laughed. “Take the bow and move it really fast back and forth while I hold the spindle tight.” Emmerson obliged and began spinning the bow fast enough that it looked like she was vibrating. Mark increased the pressure and the smoke skyrocketed in mass. After a little time, Mark gave a stop sign.

    “Carefully now, don’t kill the ember, take the spindle and bow off slowly,” Mark said. Mark picked up the nest that he’d found that was collecting the ember dust and smoking. He closed up the nest and waved it around so that the fire could feed off of the oxygen. The nest began smoking like crazy and then fire appeared, lighting the snow and fir trees surrounding the area.

It was a beautiful sight, the trees practically glowing in the presence of a fire.

Mark settled the burning nest into a pre-built fire on top of a piece of sheet metal, Emmerson still breathing heavily from her sprint through the forest, and the fire began to grow. Mark signaled for Emmerson to come over and they both sat by the fire.

    “That’s…” Emmerson pauses, sighing. “Amazing.”

    “Couldn’t disagree,” Mark says, laying on the edge of the sled.

    The fire’s heat spread through the air, melting some of the nearby ice and snow, and sending warm shudders through both Mark and Emmerson.

“Do you, by chance, have any food?” Emmerson asked.

“Unfortunately, no. You’re quick on your feet, and I hate asking, but can you search through the forest for anything to eat and possibly kill?” Mark answered.

Emmerson stiffened and looked hesitant, but the moment she saw a bunny fleeing through the forest, she jumped on her feet and came back holding the bunny by its neck. The bunny flailed around in her hands, but she slowly passed it to Mark. He downloaded some information on gutting animals, and took the bunny, still flailing around, and lopped off its head with the makeshift ax, a short and sharp cry. It wasn’t from the bunny, though, it was from Emmerson.

“Why would you do that?” Emmerson cried out. “You could’ve just choked it!”

“Well, I would’ve had to do that anyways later when I skinned it. It was either now, or later.” Mark calmly said, while simultaneously downloading information on skinning and cooking animals, and rubbing off the rabbit’s blood on his fingers. Mark could feel the rabbit’s heartbeat slowing to a dim silence.

Mark held the rabbit’s back and made a very shallow incision all the way down the rabbit’s back. Holding the rabbit tightly, Mark pulled on one side of the incision and pulled the skin off the rabbit, cutting the legs off, where the skin was stuck. Emmerson stood wavering and a little bit sick on the side to watch, probably trying to not gag. Mark sliced right into the meat of the rabbit until the ax blade pricked the inner lining of the skin and drew blood. Mark continued to slice the meat down the rabbit until he reached his original incision. He pulled out the meat and separated it from the organs and inserted a straight stick through the raw rabbit. Mark saved the rabbit’s organs for fishing bait if they found a lake or river.

Near the fire, Mark had also placed two y-shaped sticks into the ground. Placing the meat-filled stick over the fire, the rabbit began to cook. Oily drops of fat began dripping down and the fire sizzled and popped. A smell of cooking meat, a cooking steak was delivered through the air and filled the air with an aroma so good that Mark just wanted to eat the rabbit right there and then.

The fire, thick with smoke and sticks cooked the rabbit slowly, the meat browning in front of Mark’s eyes. The red glow of the coals and the warmth of the fire, compared to the snow surrounding them was overwhelming. Mark felt tired and fatigued, his arms aching from gathering the wood for the sled and fire, and his mind felt overloaded with information. Mark laid back against the sled and felt the drowsiness of sleep fall over him like the smoke from the fire. Mark grabbed a couple of pieces once the rabbit seemed cooked enough, devoured them, and closed his eyes, and entered a world he hadn’t been in before.

Where Am I?

Mark was flung, faster than Emmerson could ever run, into what seemed like…  a dream world. That was the only way he could’ve really described it. The ground was like solidified clouds and the skies… they were like liquid gold, the only light from the lone star from above. Islands, huge and minuscule, floated by, their rocky bottoms just skimming across the ground. Every island was different in some way, but there were so many similarities, they could’ve been the same island from far away. Mark, his legs and feet slightly visible, tried to move. He imagined walking forward, and as he did, he started floating forwards. Mark imagined Emmerson laying on the ground, next to the fire, and as he did, Emmerson appeared breathing slowly on the ground next to a dying fire. Mark wondered, Is this some sort of my imagination, or is this reality? Mark imagined Death Valley, right before the bombs blew and the force fields collapsed.

A light blue light bathed the ground in color, the dust and heat from the Valley intense as ever, scientists walking around and through the laboratories. A rumble, a slight earthquake came from below, and the scientists, looking up, seemed a bit confused. The silver of the laboratories glinted from the blue light, and the honeycomb shape of the force fields seemed to almost… breathe. It seemed almost calming, and yet, the explosions that came blasted the laboratories into pieces were violent. The bombs that were sent up weren’t just regular bunker-busters. The cluster of explosions that blew the labs to debris wasn’t usual. The missiles that came from under the crust drilled up until it reached a distance of 250 meters from the labs, these missiles were the size of the old Explorer rockets that had sent many men to Mars. The internal bomb blew up, making the ground crater, and spreading other metric tons of high explosives into the crater, and completely evaporating any source of the power that powered the LLD.

“AHHHHHHHH!” Mark yelled as he fell from the dream into the dream world.

“What the actual hell just happened?” Mark asked no one in particular. After catching his imaginative breath, Mark stood back up and continued exploring this dream world. Mark began floating towards one of the islands, not being able to control his movement.

“Uh…” Mark said out loud. Mark tried to move, tried to swim out of this static movement towards an island, but it was impossible. He couldn’t move, and the sense of deja vu was overpowering. The island sucked him in and dumped him in a dream.

   

‘Mark, dear! Dinner is ready!’ a woman called.

    ‘Alright! Alright! I’m coming!’ Mark unintentionally replied.

    What the hell, Mark thought. I can’t move?

    Mark, something moving him around, picked up a brush and brushed his hair. He looked at himself in the mirror. Mark sat in front of a tall, Asian-looking guy, the lining of his suit cleaned perfectly and straight. His brown eyes, flecked with gold, searched around for any spot of imperfection. He finally decided that he was dressed adequately enough, and turned the lights off and closed the door. Mark walked down a set of stairs, and another set of stairs, and another. He reached the bottom, barely breaking a sweat. The glass-marble dining table sat directly in front of the fireplace, the fake wood and gas flames lighting and heating the large room. The gold plated plates gleaming in the flames, and the silverware polished by hand to a mirror polish. The turkey that had been placed in the center of the table looked juicy, the meat dripping of oils and the centerpiece decorated with carrots, cucumbers, and grape tomatoes.

    Mark pulled out a seat, glancing at the set of silverware at the table. He waited patiently for his parents and sister to arrive at the table, the four of them sitting at one side, and one seat open for the guest. The doorbell rang, and he stood up to answer it. Mark pulled open the heavy, ornate oak door, and stood face to face with a girl and her family. The girl was beautiful, her decorated white dress almost touching the floor. Her eyes, they were like emeralds, polished to a reflective green shine and speckled throughout were diamond shards. Her hair, as perfect as ever, seemed to exceed perfectionism. Her hair was held by a butterfly pin, the ruby in the silver redder than the sunset. Her parents stood behind her, equally as perfect.

    ‘Alexa! How’s it going? Hello, Mrs. and Mr. Johnson!’ Mark greeted.

    ‘Hi, Mark.’ Alexa said shyly. ‘Mom, it’ll be alright. I’ll be fine, and I’m just here to have dinner with Mark.’

    ‘I promise, Mrs. Johnson, we’ll keep her safe and sound, if that’s what you’re worried about. Do you have any requests for my parents?’ Mark reassured.

    ‘That will be all, Mark. Thank you.’ Mr. Johnson replied. Mark held out his hand and felt Alexa’s hand rest against his. Mark watched as Lexi’s parents walked away, closed the door, and gave her a big hug.

    ‘I’m so glad you could make it. My mother has prepared a lot, just for you.’ Mark said, feeling some heat rushing to his cheeks. Mark closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her. Lexi felt warm and cozy, and she smelled slightly of cinnamon and vanilla. Mark felt Lexi’s lips meet his neck, and they nuzzled for a moment more, before they walked over to the dining table.

           ‘Ah! Alexa! My, you look gorgeous tonight.’ said my mother. ‘You can sit right over there, unless you'd like to do something else, first.’ Obligingly, Lexi sat at the empty seat, nearest Mark.

           Mark's older sister gave me a slight wink, knowingly. She dug in from her prepared food, the android slicing portions of the turkey for each of us.

          ‘So, Lexi, you like my brother, eh-’

          ‘Tera!’ Mark said, his face burning and laughing.

          ‘Ah, whatever, lovebirds.’ Tera said, a devilish grin on her face.

          ‘Alright, Tera. I get it.’ Mark said, laughingly. Throughout this conversation, both Mark's parents and Lexi were getting more and more uncomfortable. Mark sliced the turkey portion into smaller pieces and then ate the perfectly seasoned turkey with some Mongolian rice, the expensive kind. The chicken gravy added a sort of base to the turkey, making a lovely concoction of tastes in Mark's mouth. Mark devoured his plate, eating as politely as possible, and asked to be excused.

    ‘Yes, you may, Mark, and Alexa, you can leave whenever you’d like.’ My mother said.

    ‘Thank you, Mrs. Anastasoff.’ Lexi replied. ‘I think I’ll just follow Mark, wherever he’s going.’ Lexi handed her leftovers to the android, who placed the biodegradable polymer plate into the biodisposer, and her leftovers into the food grinder, which made food for the birds and our Siberian husky, Storm.

    Mark held his hand out, as did Lexi, and they walked out of the dining room.

    ‘Is there anywhere you want to go now?’ Mark asked.

    ‘Not exactly, no. This is your house, so I guess just show me around?’ Lexi laughed.

    ‘Sure.’ Mark replied, a grin on his face, and the beautiful girl disappeared.

Colors flickered, and a worried face appeared as he opened his eyes.

“Woah! Emmerson!” Mark looked around. The trees and the sled hut still looked the same, and nothing looked out of place. But, a question bubbled in his mind.

    “Did you have a crazy dream like I did?” Mark asked.

    “Was it about your past or something?” Emmerson wondered.

    “Yeah, it was about… a past girlfriend or something.” Mark replied, still nauseous from the fall from the sky.

    “A past girlfriend?” Emmerson asked quietly. Her eyes looked darker than usual, the rich teal color voided by a deep blue.

    “Uh, yeah. I think I was rich or something.” Mark scratched his head, and the feeling of scratching his head felt like a habit of the past.

    “My memory went something like this: I woke up in my room to the alarm, I stopped it and began changing for school. I got ready and opened my parents’ room to tell them I was leaving. A stench worse than blood and rotten eggs combined filled my lungs. I coughed heavily, and walked inside.”

    The peeling wallpaper looked drastically old, the lights were simple LEDs, and the wood of the wardrobe was rotting. The room looked absurdly broken.

    Emmerson looked around, the smell was disturbingly bad. Emmerson tapped her father’s shoulder like she usually did, but she flinched heavily and recoiled as she felt the unnatural coldness of his skin.

    “Dad?” she whispered. She repeated the sentence louder until she was yelling at the top of her lungs.

    Emmerson grabbed the family phone and dialed 911.

    “Name and address?” the operator answered.

    “DAD!” Emmerson yelled into the phone.

    “Calm down, honey. What is your address?” the operator calmly, and carefully asked.

    “2901 Honeysuckle Road.” Emmerson cried out. “Come quickly!” Emmerson sniffled and hung up. Emmerson went into the bathroom and looked at herself. She couldn’t have been more than 9, and she was crying so hard, she was basically screaming in grief.

    Sirens blared as an ambulance pulled up, and policemen and nurses rushed into the house. The news reported later, as there haven’t been many deaths in a long time, that Emmerson was found packing a bag of food and water, and knives.

The last thing she said before she left was, “I will kill whoever did this, no matter how long it takes.”

Mark could feel his fingers again, and this time, he stood up before he could get nauseous.

    “Did you just suck me into your dream?” Mark shuddered.

Emmerson started crying. Witnessing your dead parents is unbearable, so Mark understood, at least, as much as he could.

    “Hey, hey. It’s alr-” Mark remembered that saying ‘It’s alright’ always made someone feel worse.

“How about I go work on the sled hut just a bit more, and then we get out of here, alright?” Mark comforted.

    Emmerson nodded stiffly, still crying.

“Mark, why are we here?” Emmerson asked before Mark could leave. “Do you think we did something really bad, and that’s why we’re here?”

“I don’t know. I wish I could tell you.” Mark squatted next to her, lightly tapping her nose.

“We’ll get through this, won’t we?” Mark said.

    “I don’t know, I don’t know, I DON’T KNOW!” Emmerson yelled. “Why can’t I REMEMBER ANYTHING?”

    “Okay, calm down, Emmers-” a burst of wind and some leaves and snow thrown in Mark’s face, and she was gone.

I Want to Help

“Goddammit!” Mark roared, his voice echoing through the icy forest. “Why can I never get anything right?”

Alright, enough of that, Mark. Get to work. An internal compass ordered.

Hesitantly, Mark stood up and began tightening the straps on the sled and placing shelves and dry pine straw in the corner as a bed.

    Good enough. Mark thought. He looked up at the compass in his vision and began pulling the sled North, towards the mountain range.

Step by step, Mark pulled the sled closer and closer to the mountains, the work straining his already tired arms. Crunch by crunch of his shoes, and breath by breath of his lungs, Mark felt like an elephant in a circus pulling a clown wagon. Fir trees passed, and snow gathered in the sled as Mark kept pulling. Mark imagined Lexi and used her as a will to push himself forward.

After the sun started dropping low, and the mountains still seemed far, Mark stopped to rest. His feet ached and his skin felt frostbitten and cold. Mark went inside the mobile hut and tried to cover himself as best he could. The wooden planks provided very little insulation without a door, and all he could do is sit around and wait for the sun to rise again. Mark balled up and pulled his head and arms into his jumpsuit and tried to sleep, pine needles poking through his jumpsuit.

Mark lapsed into a dreaming state again, the dream world back in full color.

Bet

“He’s a natural, d’ya notice?” the Gamemaker laughed.

“I can wholeheartedly agree, ma’am.” replied a servant, dressed in full black. “He might be the champion we need.”

“With a heart of stone like his or at least a will of steel, we’ll surely win this war.”

    The room felt as cold as ever, the frosty air condensing on the warm cocoa that had been made, and was currently freezing over.

“So, what’s your name?” the Gamemaker asked, no fabrication in his red-dyed eyes.

“Michael, ma’am.” said the servant. “You recently asked for me about 47 minutes ago.”

“Well, Michael, have you ever heard what happens to my servants?” the Gamemaker

smiled. “Have you heard of the rumors of past servants?”

    “I have, ma’am. But I intend to not become one of those ‘past servants’. Michael replied, fully monotone.

“Very good. How do you intend to not be killed?” the Gamemaker questioned.

“By doing what I’m already doing now, ma’am. By telling you the truth and being a loyal servant.” Michael spoke.

“Well, well, well! We might have an actual good servant here, do we?” the Gamemaker laughed.

“I might agree, but that’d be arrogant. Do you wish for me to be arrogant?” Michael asked.

“Maybe, maybe not. You’re my sla-... servant. Do whatever you think is right.” the Gamemaker smiled. He pressed a small button on the side of his recliner, and a large mirror appeared out of the monitor that the Gamemaker watched the Game from. The Gamemaker looked at herself for a long minute, a vague, unsmiling face staring back. “I don’t know who I am, Michael. At least not anymore.”

“You are the Gamemaker, and you’ve got the most power in the entire United States, even more than the President’s,” Michael replied carefully.

“You’re right, Michael. But who am I really?” the Gamemaker thought aloud. “Where did I come from?”

“I can’t tell you that, ma’am.”

    “Why not?”

“If I could, ma’am, believe me, I would.”

“Is this what Mark feels?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. According to the Game/Dream/Overview directory, Mark feels a combination of strong terror and a strong sense of determination.”

“What are his dreams like?”

“His dreams consist mainly of his family, his past, and what he wants to learn about. He’s got a very strong frontal cortex, and his ability is a rare trace of telekinesis, but he has the ability to download information, then memorize said information, instead of having the ability to control atoms.”

“Do you know what my ability is, Michael?”

“No, ma’am.” came a quick reply, still monotone.

“My ability is Mark’s as well. Do you know how I got the role of the ‘Gamemaker’?”

“No, ma’am. Not much information about you is anywhere.”

“Well, Michael. I achieved the role of Gamemaker by winning one of those ‘Games’. I was once in Mark’s position, and I know exactly how he feels because I have the same power.”

The familiar face was becoming more and more familiar.

The Gamemaker pulled out the mirror again. Looking carefully, the Gamemaker stared at herself for a very long minute.

“Maybe I know who I am, after all.” the Gamemaker smiled, and a smiling face stared back.

“Maybe I don’t, but I bet you don’t.” she says to no one in particular.

Stars

    Dreams are mere beliefs. A path that time could take, or a situation that could happen. Stars are the same way. They look beautiful and look amazing in the night sky, but then you realize that the stars that we see are already gone. They’ve exploded into dust and gases or just died away, their once bright glow gone. A measly candle in a sea of darkness. We can look at the stars, and make stories out of them, but what’s made can always be destroyed, and what’s destroyed can always be remade. At least, in theory.

The Past

    Mark woke with a shudder, last night’s cold still biting at his skin. He walked out into the sunlight and looked out onto the horizon. No memories of old came to mind, but the feeling of deja vu was intense. Mark shook the feeling away and began working on building a fire to warm himself up and make some water from the already melting snow. Mark placed his sharp ax onto low-hanging dry branches, and cut a couple limbs down, enough to make a small fire for a single person. Mark tried downloading an article on building good fires, but a wave of fatigue and anxiety came over him. Breathing felt like ice being scraped down his lungs, and he was incredibly tired from all the walking he did, and from dehydration from his little water consumption.

    Mark stood up and began eating snow directly off of the trees. According to a past survival article he had read, eating the snow directly off trees will dehydrate you even more, but the snow and water that filled his stomach felt amazing, and he continued biting into the snow anyways. Soon, however, Mark felt colder than ever, and he still felt thirsty for a good source of water.

    Mark felt cold. Cold was all he could describe the feeling.

    Cold.

    Very cold.

    Tired.

    And his eyes closed a second time, and the sounds of early morning birds and the crunch of leaves dissolved in his head.

    Crunch.

The Present

    Time drifted by, and the sense of deja vu with it. Sometimes, Mark woke to pain, and other times, he felt warm and tired, but he always went back to sleep.

    Sleep felt… good. He felt better sleeping than he did dreaming, and yet he was still semi-conscious and cold.

    Was this dreaming?

    What is time…?

    Where am I?

    Am I dead?

    Is this… Heaven?

    But it couldn’t be. Mark still felt pain and tired. That couldn’t happen in any heaven in his mind. Was he in Hell? Did a past Mark do something terrible that would send him to Hell? Does religion even exist?

    Lexi.

   

    I need Lexi.

    Mark shoved his eyes open, his arms bound to a tree, and looked around. A campfire of stones and a brightly burning fire stood in the center of the camp, and surrounding the fire were wooden shelters. These shelters were empty and Mark was all alone. He looked around and saw his sled-hut and belongings, but he didn’t know where he was.
    Mountains the size of skyscrapers surrounded the valley, and a stream whispered through a crevice in the middle of the camp. The full moon leered from its high place in the sky, laughing at Mark’s unfortunate situation. Mark wore his jumpsuit but had none of his tools, and his hands were still bound to the tree.

    Mark, with no other tools, began gnawing and poking at the rope with his teeth. He pulled and plucked individual fibers and broke each one piece by piece.

    It was a tiring and tedious process. Mark had to pull a single fiber out with his teeth, and use his tongue to feel and make sure it was a single fiber. Then he had to yank on the fiber and break it. Each snap was like peanut butter to his jelly. Each snap meant that he was closer to escaping. Each snap meant he was closer to finding Lexi.

    That was the burning question, his burning need. Mark needed to be loved in a world of hatred. Mark wanted to feel human again, and in that short dream, he felt human. Mark needed Lexi, needed her to make him feel human again.

    And so it continued. Mark felt the binds loosening with every snap.

    Snap! Snap! Snap!

    And it loosened.

    Snap! Snap!

    Until finally, Mark reached a point where he could pull the rope apart. He stood up, his mouth still aching, and went to investigate each of the wooden shelters, wondering why no one was watching him.

    Mark pulled back sheets and opened makeshift storage containers, finding only a watch and a journal. Checking around once more to make sure no one would pop up behind him while he was reading, Mark began to read the journal.

I don’t know what day it is.

I don’t know what time it is. I only know that I must survive. I was airlifted above this place, and had to skydive down. I landed in a mountainous area and this is where I am now, writing in this notebook I found. I don’t remember anything. I can’t remember anything. I only remember one thing.

My name is Emmerson.

   

    Emmerson? Mark thought. Was she here?

    11:49 AM

The sun is directly above me, so I’m going to assume it’s noon. I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. I found a watch so I can keep time now, but I don’t know where I’m going from here.

12:26 PM
    So, I sat around on a rock for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do, when my hand started vibrating. Like, legitimately vibrating. I felt something like an adrenaline rush and I felt really energetic, like I downed 6 energy drinks. I’m gonna try running.

   

12:27 PM

Yeah, so… I ran into a tree because I now apparently have SUPER SPEED? What is even going on anymore? I can move SUPER FAST and… I don’t know. I’m tired and hungry and exhausted but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know.

I don’t know.

1:12 PM

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

My name is Emmerson.

1:23 PM
    I explored around the area a little bit, trying to get used to my superspeed. I think I might head into that forest that I saw when I walked around before.

    1:35 PM
    There’s… something following me. Or something watching me. I can feel it. I don’t know how, but the hairs on my neck tensed, and I feel uncomfortable within these trees.

Hmm… Mark thought. Is this that tiger thing she was talking about?
   

    1:47 PM

    I don’t like this. There’s something watching me. I know it.

   

A bunch of quickly written words filled the next page, different from her normal neat handwriting,

1:56 PM

    There’s

    1:57 PM

    something

    1:58 PM

    chasing

    2:00 PM

    ME!

    The bonfire centering the camp began to dim slowly, each log down to tiny twigs. Looking at the watch, Mark found out it was 11:56 PM, and the moon still hung above in the night sky. Looking up though, Mark could see the stars and the craters on the moon.

    It was a beautiful view, Mark had to admit. The moon and the stars were so clear. Clearer than Mark remembered from his dreams. Pollution. Pollution is why the stars were dim. Pollution was why the bees died out and the ice caps melted. Though, there was no pollution here, in this untouched part of northern Canada. No smoke or fog to block out the light, no dangers of lung cancer. Mark felt freer than ever but yet, he felt so imprisoned in his need to survive. He wanted to live to see Lexi again. To see his family again.

    But he couldn’t let it be at the cost of someone else.

    Mark closed his eyes, and went to sleep on a comfortable hide-skin bed.

    No one else.

Friend or Foe?

    Mark was startled awake by hand on his shoulder.

    “Woah! Woah, there.” A girl called out. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just come out slowly.”

    Mark complied. He didn’t know what to expect.

    It wasn’t what he expected.

    “What are you doing here?” A girl called out. The girl stood within a group of teenage kids. Each one of them looked about 16 to 17 years old.

    “Hey, wait! It’s that kid we picked up the other day. Remember, the one dying?” A guy called out. “Damn, dude! You’re alive!”

    “Yeah!” Another guy called out. “You weren’t breathing, so one of our girls-” the group snickers, “tried to resuscitate you using CPR.”

    “Okay, well, whoever you are, you can’t stay.” the first girl said.

    “Why not? You’re the ones who dragged me here.” Mark replied. “I’m just trying to survive.”

    “Well, you’d do better in a group.” the girl advised. “What’s your power?”

    “Huh?” Mark said dumbly. “Oh, right. I’ve got like that power to download information or something.”

    “You’ve got telekinelypsis?” the crowd gasped audibly.

Author's Note

Unfinished.