Orders
By well-wisher
Mon, 26 Mar 2018
- 364 reads
Lucas Buck looked down at the gun on the sofa beside him.
"Goddamn it soldier", said the voice of the sargeant in his head, "Are you going to follow orders or not".
Buck squeezed his head between his hands.
"No you are not real", he yelled to himself, "You are not real".
"Not real?", asked the sargeant, "Christ! What in the hell are you talking about".
"The war is over", said Buck, "I'm back on Earth; back home living with my wife and my son".
"He must have been hit by one of the enemies neural weapons", said another voice, "The voice of the colonel of his old platoon. Its making him hallucinate that he's back home. Thank god the communicator in his helmet is still working".
"No", said Buck feeling that terrifying feeling of reality falling apart.
"Listen. Private Buck", said the voice, "What you think is real is just a hallucination created by the enemies Neural weapon. The war is not over and you are not back on Earth. Infact theres a good chance you were taken prisoner and are now in the alien hive".
Buck shook his head.
"How can that be?", he said, "I remember being demobilized? I remember the journey home? And all the people celebrating that the war was over? It feels like months have past".
"You remember months passing but memories can be falsified", said the colonel, "In reality you were only captured an hour ago and those people who say they're your wife and son. They're enemy soldiers".
Buck laughed and shook his head again.
"No you can't fool me", he said, "I know my own wife and child and theres no way your going to convince me that they're alien monsters".
"You have to kill them, son", said his sargent, "Its the only way of escaping from there".
Buck looked at the gun beside him and placed a sofa cushion ontop of it so as not to see it anymore.
"You know that the enemy eat those that they capture, don't you private", said the colonel, "They're insects. To them a human is just more meat. If you don't escape from there, they'll eat you too".
Buck looked around him.
Surely he would know. Surely, if his house was all just an illusion, he would be able to sense something of the alien hive behind it.
He took a deep breath, trying to smell the stench of alien decay; he brushed his hand against the fabric of the sofa, trying to feel the silk of webbing or the wetness of alien slime; he tried to listen for buzzing or clicking.
From the corner of his eye he thought he saw something that horrified him.
Outside in the hallway, he saw an alien egg hatching and a newborn larvae crawling out of it.
He was going to scream but then he closed his eyes again and opened them and the egg and the creature within it disappeared.
"No", he thought, it wasn't reality he had seen through an illusion. It was an illusion itself.
"You have to act quickly", said the colonel, "Killing them is the only way".
But then he remembered the pills that his doctor had given him, for dealing with nightmares.
He got up and walked to the bathroom and, turning on the bathroom light, opened his medicine cabinet, taking hold of a plastic bottle of pills and wrestling with its childproof cap.
He poured out four blue beetle shell shaped tablets onto his palm.
"They're very sophisticated pills, Mr Buck", the doctor had said, "Almost like little blue coated soldiers. They identify the neurons that are firing; causing the nightmares and destroy them".
He was going to shovel the pills from his hand into his open mouth but he thought he saw them twitching; like sleeping beetles stirring or like mexican jumping beans.
"Its all a hallucination", he thought, trying to hold them still with his mind.
But they wouldn't stop twitching and so he swallowed them anyway, almost choking as he felt a gagging reflex in his throat and had to wash them down with water from a tumbler that still tasted like toothpaste.
But then everything began to feel calmer; reality that had been blurred up until then started coming back into focus.
"I'm sorry son", he heard the sargeant say in his head, "I tried my best".
"God help him", said the colonel.
He heard his wife calling from upstairs.
"Luke", she asked, "Are you still up? Don't you want to come to bed".
He screwed the cap back on the bottle and shut it in the cabinet.
"I'm just coming", he said, turning off the bathroom light and going back into the living room before locking his gun away too.
Then he ran softly upstairs and into his bedroom.
The room was pitch black but the smell of decay was very strong; against his hands the bedroom walls felt slimy and cold and he could not see his wife but he could see something large and insect like loom out of the dark.
"Goddamn it soldier", said the voice of the sargeant in his head, "Are you going to follow orders or not".
Buck squeezed his head between his hands.
"No you are not real", he yelled to himself, "You are not real".
"Not real?", asked the sargeant, "Christ! What in the hell are you talking about".
"The war is over", said Buck, "I'm back on Earth; back home living with my wife and my son".
"He must have been hit by one of the enemies neural weapons", said another voice, "The voice of the colonel of his old platoon. Its making him hallucinate that he's back home. Thank god the communicator in his helmet is still working".
"No", said Buck feeling that terrifying feeling of reality falling apart.
"Listen. Private Buck", said the voice, "What you think is real is just a hallucination created by the enemies Neural weapon. The war is not over and you are not back on Earth. Infact theres a good chance you were taken prisoner and are now in the alien hive".
Buck shook his head.
"How can that be?", he said, "I remember being demobilized? I remember the journey home? And all the people celebrating that the war was over? It feels like months have past".
"You remember months passing but memories can be falsified", said the colonel, "In reality you were only captured an hour ago and those people who say they're your wife and son. They're enemy soldiers".
Buck laughed and shook his head again.
"No you can't fool me", he said, "I know my own wife and child and theres no way your going to convince me that they're alien monsters".
"You have to kill them, son", said his sargent, "Its the only way of escaping from there".
Buck looked at the gun beside him and placed a sofa cushion ontop of it so as not to see it anymore.
"You know that the enemy eat those that they capture, don't you private", said the colonel, "They're insects. To them a human is just more meat. If you don't escape from there, they'll eat you too".
Buck looked around him.
Surely he would know. Surely, if his house was all just an illusion, he would be able to sense something of the alien hive behind it.
He took a deep breath, trying to smell the stench of alien decay; he brushed his hand against the fabric of the sofa, trying to feel the silk of webbing or the wetness of alien slime; he tried to listen for buzzing or clicking.
From the corner of his eye he thought he saw something that horrified him.
Outside in the hallway, he saw an alien egg hatching and a newborn larvae crawling out of it.
He was going to scream but then he closed his eyes again and opened them and the egg and the creature within it disappeared.
"No", he thought, it wasn't reality he had seen through an illusion. It was an illusion itself.
"You have to act quickly", said the colonel, "Killing them is the only way".
But then he remembered the pills that his doctor had given him, for dealing with nightmares.
He got up and walked to the bathroom and, turning on the bathroom light, opened his medicine cabinet, taking hold of a plastic bottle of pills and wrestling with its childproof cap.
He poured out four blue beetle shell shaped tablets onto his palm.
"They're very sophisticated pills, Mr Buck", the doctor had said, "Almost like little blue coated soldiers. They identify the neurons that are firing; causing the nightmares and destroy them".
He was going to shovel the pills from his hand into his open mouth but he thought he saw them twitching; like sleeping beetles stirring or like mexican jumping beans.
"Its all a hallucination", he thought, trying to hold them still with his mind.
But they wouldn't stop twitching and so he swallowed them anyway, almost choking as he felt a gagging reflex in his throat and had to wash them down with water from a tumbler that still tasted like toothpaste.
But then everything began to feel calmer; reality that had been blurred up until then started coming back into focus.
"I'm sorry son", he heard the sargeant say in his head, "I tried my best".
"God help him", said the colonel.
He heard his wife calling from upstairs.
"Luke", she asked, "Are you still up? Don't you want to come to bed".
He screwed the cap back on the bottle and shut it in the cabinet.
"I'm just coming", he said, turning off the bathroom light and going back into the living room before locking his gun away too.
Then he ran softly upstairs and into his bedroom.
The room was pitch black but the smell of decay was very strong; against his hands the bedroom walls felt slimy and cold and he could not see his wife but he could see something large and insect like loom out of the dark.
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