Lucidity

You wake up.

The walls are tight and cramped around you causing you to crouch,
knees bent and curved. The air is hot and dry, rasping at the back of
your throat and burning your sinuses.

Your eyes are gummy with sleep but you can't raise your arms to rub
the sleep away. It is only then that you realise that you are
handcuffed, the cold metal rubbing new welts into your wrists as you
struggle.

You scream and the sound echoes back at you, again, and again until it
finally fades and the silence returns, heavy and threatening.

As your eyes begin to adjust to the dark you notice two slits just
below eye level - windows to the room outside. But beyond the slits all
is dark and the room is silent. You moan and are comforted by the
sound, any sound, anything that will tell you that you are still
alive.

A sharp cramp hits the muscles of your calves, a deep heat that burns
inside threatening to engulf your legs in fire. You try to straighten,
if only a millimetre, but the top of your head comes up tight against
cold metal, and as you struggle your prison begins to move and sway in
time with your movements.

You, spin, encased inside the steel, and the motion causes your
stomach to roll in turmoil. You choke back on the vomit and taste its
greasy cold thickness on your tongue.

There is sound in the room outside your prison, the drawing of metal
against metal. Through the slits you are vaguely aware of an orange
glow, a heat that is moving ever closer. Blackness comes and takes you
away.

And still your prison spins.

***

John woke, sweat smearing across his face, his chest and his feet. He
lay curled on the left edge of the bed, and as he rolled over the
needles and pins exploded in his left arm. He sat up in bed, panting
heavily.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered softly.

That made it four nights in a row, each time a little more of the
dream being revealed, each time a little more trauma on awakening. He
reached over and switched on the bedside light before reaching for his
notebook.

"I am getting closer," he wrote. "The vibrations came easier tonight
and I was able to stay inside for several minutes. I seem to be in a
hanging basket. Torture chamber? I don't know about the orange glow -
it fills me with fear and trepidation, but I have come too far now to
back away - I must know what it is I am seeing."

He put down the notebook, switched off the light and lay back in bed.
A few minutes later he was fast asleep. There were no more
dreams.

It started with the book two weeks before. It was strange the way it
happened. He was in the library, looking for something on Scottish
history, when an out of place book caught his eye. He removed it from
the shelves to take it to its rightful position - he was a stickler for
order. As he walked round the stacks he read the blurb on the back, and
was immediately hooked.

"Lucid dreaming - unlock your innermost secrets."

Maybe it would have gone differently if he hadn't been bothered by
nightmares, or maybe he would have ignored it completely if he still
had a partner to share his bed, but the impulse took him and he
borrowed the book.

He read it all in one sitting - it wasn't a thick book, and the
author's religious slant on everything merely annoyed him, but there
was something about the techniques that appealed to him.

That first night he lay and stared at the ceiling, repeating the
author's phrase - I will remember, I will remember.

He had just become distracted by a flashing light from beyond the
curtains when a vibration started in his legs, a pleasant, almost warm
buzz that spread quickly up his body. When it reached his head his
brain seemed to explode in white light, and when it faded, he was
somewhere else.

When he woke, he had only one memory. The word he wrote in his
notebook was "CELL".

And on the second and third nights he got a bit further. Tonight he
had almost made it, almost found out where he was going. It was only a
matter of time.

He woke in the morning fully refreshed. A quick look at the notebook
confirmed his memory of the dream. Where was he going? To a past life
experience? To a childhood trauma? Or was it all done right here, in
his own brain, a perfect work of art for him alone? He thought that
tonight he might find out.

The day passed in a daze. He couldn't concentrate on his work - who
wanted to process the books of a local plumber when you could live in
your dreams. He had already mastered wakening himself in his dreams,
now it was only a matter of starting to mould them to his wishes. He
was confident he would get there sooner rather than later.

He was already thinking towards the night ahead when a movement caught
the corner of his eyes. Over to the side of the door a red glow pulsed,
twice, flaring hotly against the avocado paintwork before fading away.
He got out of his chair, wincing as his back complained about the hours
of inactivity, but there was no mark on the wall - not even a
blister.

"Can you stay late tonight, John?" a voice said behind him. "I need
those books for tomorrow."

Stiles was standing in the doorway, one hand on the jamb, a pose that
showed off his smart suit, his exercise-hardened body. "I wouldn't ask
normally - but its important."

Not for the first time John wanted to hit him, to shatter that calm
pose, but he merely mumbled assent, too intimidated for argument. He
went back to the books and for long hours lost himself in the columns
of figures.

He hadn't realised that he'd fallen asleep until the vibration hit him
in the chest and shook his body like an electric shock.

***

There is a sound in the room outside your prison, the drawing of metal
against metal. Through the slits you are vaguely aware of an orange
glow, a heat that is moving ever closer.

Your prisons spins and for two seconds there is only blackness and the
ever-increasing cramps in your ankles, your calf muscles, your back.
And the glow is closer, and with it comes heat, at first merely a
tingling warmth which soon grows to a searing flame that brings beads
of sweat to your brow, your palms and your chest.

Your prisons spins. The orange slides off to your left but the heat is
still there, at your back now, getting hotter still, then even hotter
until the pain begins and the blackness takes you down and away once
more.

***

John sat up in the chair and almost screamed as a sudden cramp
clutched his stomach. He only just made it to the toilet in time before
his sphincter unlocked.

He sat in the cubicle for long minutes trying to regain his strength,
feeling weak and empty. At one point he closed his eyes but the room
began to spin around him threatening to throw him down into
unconsciousness.

He was almost afraid to stand, fearful of his body betraying him once
more, but he managed to get himself out of the office and into his car
without further notice.

The car was stifling and humid, even with the air conditioning turned
up full and John found himself doused in sweat long before he made it
home. As he made his way to bed he resolved that there would be no
experiment that night.

His stomach was still in turmoil as he lay down, but the vibration
came anyway, an explosion of white flaring light and heat.

***

Your prison spins.

The orange glow slides off to your left but the heat is still there,
at your back now, getting hotter still, then even hotter until the pain
begins.

Your prison spins and the red hot poker becomes visible closer and
closer to your flesh before finally it is thrust hard, into the deep
muscle of your thigh. You burn and you scream as the flesh chars and
sears and finally, overcome, you fall once more into blackness.

You dream, about a soft bed and a pale faced man, about a notebook and
a pen. But when you wake, you are still in blackness.

Your prison spins.

***THE END***