I’m in the hallway at school, trying to remember what class I need to go to for first period. I can’t remember, and end up wasting the entire hour trying to figure it out. I eventually try to find my locker, where my planner with my schedule should be. It’ll tell me where I need to go for second period, at least.
The school has taken a bunch of broken down lockers (mine included) and crammed them all together along one of the walls. Their order is all screwed up, and I for the life of me cannot figure out which one has my stuff inside it. I’m not the only one at a loss, either, as a bunch of other classmates are going through the same issue. They’re trying to remember the rust patters and dents in their doors to find the one that belongs to them.
I don’t remember the specific marring on my locker door, so I just start opening all the unlocked lockers looking for one that has my crap inside. Finally I find one that’s locked but looks familiar. It has a silver, metal touch ring that I have to run my finger around. The action lifts a metal trap on the left side of the front of the locker, the metal flap slowly winding up to reveal a gold mask of the lower half of my face- about the size of a fifty cent piece. The metal flap lifts more to show a keyhole where the upper part of my face would be on the mask.
I don’t have to use a key to open it as it’s unlocked, but I did have to reveal that for me to be able to pull the locker open. I look through the books and find my planner. I find the schedule with ease, but the class names are not ones I recognize. The only one I remotely guess is “adrenaline”, which I assume is P.E..
I manage to figure out that second period is science, so I go to close my locker and rush off before I’m late. Before I do, though, textbooks catch my eye. I thought I had all of my textbooks in my bag, so to see some in my locker concerns me. Now I’m unsure that I have the science book I need for my next class. I look through them, not able to tell what subject they are until I open them thanks to the cloth covers. I don’t find the science book so I figure it’s one of the ones I have on me.
I close the locker and start on my way. I pass Mary, Cory, and Travis in the hall. They don’t see me, or act like they don’t see me. I make it to the science room, but then I slowly start to realize that this isn’t right. I’m not recognizing the people that are suppose to be in this class with me. I double check my schedule and see that science is my /third/ period, not my second. Second takes place at the extended campus building. I gather up my stuff and return to my locker, passing Mary and Cory again. I grab my jacket and a few other things before I head for the front doors. I’m only a few yards from the door when I stop. I check my pockets, and with an aggravated sigh, I turn around to return to my locker. I forgot my keys.
As I start toward my locker again, I hear a jingle. I jump a few times to confirm it, and find that my keys are hanging on me. Somewhere. Probably on my bag in a place I can’t see thanks to how much crap I’m carrying. To not be obvious and make another hairpin turn back toward the doors, I decide to go around the wall that separates the commons area and the hallway. Of course, I cross paths with Mary and Travis again. It seems like she’s everywhere I go.
I pass a table that she and Travis just set up, which has bowls of candies on them. I almost take a few, but decide that I don’t need any. They probably aren’t free for anyone anyway, but I didn’t want to ask Mary of all people if I could take some.
I finally make it out the front doors of the school- straight into a hail storm. I try to run, not only to get out of the hail but get as much distance between me and Mary as possible. The wind and hail are so heavy that I can’t run but to the sidewalk. From there I walk at a slant to counteract the hail and wind, all the way to the parking lot. As soon as I’m in the parking lot, the bad weather stops.
Slush covers the ground of the parking lot, though everywhere else it looks like summer. I locate my car in the middle, and find that the right side of it has a huge dent in it- like the entire side is concaved. I run my hand across the metal, and feel little ripples. “Did the hail do this?” I ask out loud. I walk around my car. “Can I even drive it like this?” There’s no way that I’m going to make it to my class on time, if at all.
Some boys nearby tell me that it’s not the hail that caused the massive indentation in my car, but rather someone slid in the slush and crashed. The same thing has happened to them, and now they are working on popping the dents out of their truck and SUV. I complain that the city never plows the parking lot, making it miserable to drive in. They agree. I also add that they should salt, too.
I look up and see a row of helicopters flying overhead, heading from south east to north west. There’s so many that I start to count them. One. Two. Three, four, five. Seven, nine, twelve- I get up to over twenty before I mention it to the guys standing around. They don’t think it’s a big deal.
Suddenly all of the lights in the sky stop, and slowly lower. They were so high up that there’s now only two in my line of sight, and they are /massive/ machines. They look like jet engine turbines face down with what I can best describe as dragon-like machinery on top. They’re entirely metal, and have pink and purple lights coming off of the blades of the turbines.
I grab onto the arm of the nearest guy to me, and try to get him to focus on the machine. He looks at it with interest but doesn’t have concern toward it, until it starts to shoot beams of light that decimate anything in their path.
In an instant, all of us think back to something we learned in history class recently. We learned about theories about Armageddon, one of which theorized that machines would arrive from space like they are now. There were details saying that the only ones safe from the attack, when it comes, would be the ones in the inner most “circle of protection”. I remember me and my friends said that, according to the size, it would have to be in an open space the size of the football field to fit.
I take the guy’s hand and lead him and the others to the field, where sure enough, there are three floating rings, one inside the other, that look like light blue holographic or ghost chains. We run to the middle one and turn back toward the machine. I look just in time to see one of them waving one of it’s metallic limbs and lifting a person near the gas station into the air and slamming him into the side of the station. The man screams before exploding into a splatter of pink slime. Then, just as fast as he exploded, he rematerializes on the ground, standing and looking dazed. He continues on.
Part of the theory we learned about said that it would kill everyone in the most horrific way, and then instantly bring them back. However, after being brought back, the person is left behind forever in a daze: a confused shell of who they used to be.
There are women and children sitting in the outer rings, watching the machines with fascination. They thing they’re safe, but only those in the center ring are protected. I get the help of the guy to drag some women over the line of the middle ring, as well as pass a few babies to other people in the safe zone. One of the machines walks up on us and examines us. I can’t move out of the zone again now that the machine is focused toward us. It kills everyone left in the outer rings, reducing them to pink goo.
I look away and see the other machine is pinning another person against the school, splattering them and then bringing them back just as fast. The sounds of agonizing screams and splatters is nauseating.
The machine closest to us leaves to go do destruction somewhere else. A military general who happens to be in the inner ring takes leadership of us. He says that if we’re going to survive here, we have to hook up some sort of sewer pipe. The problem is, the white thin-plastic pipe has slide down into a small sewer tunnel out of reach. He needs someone to slide down into the tunnel, retrieve the end of the pipe, and then climb back out. Not only is the tunnel slippery, small, and dangerous- but it leads under the next ring out. Whoever will be in there will be vulnerable to the machine’s attack.
The two guys with me become Monty and Jasper. Monty volunteers to go into the tunnel. I don’t like it, but there isn’t a choice. He slowly slides into the slimy tunnel feet first, his head about three feet from the opening. The tube is resting in a bracket on the ceiling of the tunnel. He keeps himself from irreversibly sliding into the depths of the tunnel with only his sneakered feet as he tries to pull on the accordion-like tubing. It won’t budge while in the bracket, so he has to unhinge it from it and hand it to us from beside him. However, with the bracket and the tube now taking up separate space, he doesn’t have the room to squeeze back up. He’s blocked.
A machine is coming. Jasper and the military guy aren’t doing shit to save him, acting as though he’s already gone. I take control.
I order Monty to duck his head down. He’s confused, but eventually he listens to me. Frantically, I kick the bracket as hard as I can. It takes three kicks to knock it loose. It tumbles down the tunnel beyond Monty. The boy almost slips, but I catch him and haul him out myself, having to pull him on top of me to pull him out. [End]
Relative to Real Life~
Day of July 14th, 2015 (2 of 2)
Real-life characters: Mary, Cory, Travis, Monty (The 100), Jasper (The 100).
Dream-created characters: Other students, guys in the parking lot, alien machine things, people who die, people I pull into the center ring, military man.
Real-life places: School, parking lot, “extended campus”, car, football field.
Dream-created places: Where the lockers are, the classrooms.
Different than real life: The lockers weren’t worn down when I was in school, I haven’t been inside the high school since I graduated in 2011, I haven’t seen Mary Cory and Travis together or any combination of since we were in high school, my car has never been damaged like that, I haven’t been on the football field since 2011.
Reoccurring: No.
Precognitive: No experiences yet.
