Dreamer

Saturday, March 17th, 2029

SARAH

I’m dreaming once more. I see a small home. I don’t know where it is. It isn’t familiar to me at all. I fade into the building, it’s rather quite large and makes me think that some rich socialite must live here. Inside I see a familiar face lying about inside a posh bedroom. It’s a younger Lindsey. She looks to be about thirteen years old. Her hair is a bit shorter than it is today, but I can see her deep blue eyes and instantly know that it is her.

Maybe I can see what has her so nervous? Is that really right of me though? It’s not like I have any control. I hear a knocking at the door, Lindsey looks up and says “Come on in, Aaron! I’m just doing some homework!” The door opens and an older man walks in. He’s got Lindsey’s dark hair, but it’s kept short next to his bushy mustache.

“Oh, I thought you were Aaron,” I say. “What do you want?” Becoming noticeably more harsh in tone.

“Well, that surely isn’t any way to speak to your father,” he says, a slight amount of harshness returned.

“I’m busy with homework.”

“You’re going to take a break from that,” he says, stepping into the room.

“No, I’m not. I’m already behind and I need to get this done.”

“It can wait,” he says, coming closer to the bed.

I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t weird.

“No, it can’t. This is not happening again.”

“I don’t think you have a choice in the matter, frankly.” He does what I’m afraid he’d do. He starts unbuckling his pants. I watch it all unfold in front of me. I feel like I’m going to throw up. I hear her scream in pain, it’s so sad and I cannot do anything to stop it. I’m invisible to this world.

“Do you think I would try this if I knew anyone else would be home? I own you and you better thank me for showing you what it’s like,” he says, sweat beading down his forehead.

She doesn’t answer, she’s got tears in her eyes, a look that screams louder than anything I’ve ever heard. Just then I hear another pair of footsteps behind me. I see a boy who looks a few years older than Lindsey, probably around seventeen or eighteen. He’s got somewhat long shoulder length blonde hair that’s almost golden. Their mother must be a blonde.

“Dad, what the fuck are you doing?” He screams out.

“Aaron? You’re supposed to be at your damn practice! What the hell do you think you’re going to do with your life if you keep skipping?”

“Aaron, help!” Lindsey cries out, and that’s all it takes because he runs and jumps onto his father, getting a good swing at his nose. This makes him back off of Lindsey, who scurries to the other side of the room, pulling her skirt back up all of the way. Aaron is latched around their father’s neck from behind who is shouting all kinds of obscenities. He backs into the dresser against the wall and knocks him off his back.

“You ungrateful good for nothing...” her father says under his breath.

“Mom will never let you near us again!” Aaron screams getting up.

He smiles at this, “Your mother’s not going to be back until the fifth of November from her business trip, remember? I’m the one keeping you fed and clothed!” He kicks Aaron twice in the gut.

Lindsey looks around herself, she finds the end of her bedpost and sees it’s splintered from the chaos. She rips it free from the post, which alerts her father. He begins to turn around and that’s when she winds up her swing. He doesn’t see it coming, the post slams against his temple, a nail used to keep it tight to the bed digs into his cheek and I can see blood drip down the side of his face as he falls over, unmoving.

Lindsey runs over to Aaron’s side, helping him up. “Aaron! Speak to me, please!”

“I’m sorry he did that to you.”

“Been doing that...it isn’t the first time.”

“We need to leave. I can’t stand it here anymore, not while he gets his way like that,” Aaron says.

“You suggest we run away?”

“We have to, there’s no other choice right now. He’s right about one thing, Mom doesn’t give a shit about us, and he sure as hell doesn’t give a shit about us.”

“Okay, but we need to gather some things, we can’t go out with nothing.”

“We’re going to need to leave before he wakes up. It’s okay, we can get stuff when we’re out there, I still got my card, you?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, we’ll get what we need and take it from there, this isn’t a life we’re living, it’s servitude.”

“Okay, okay. Please, I just want to go now.”

Aaron nods his head.

The dream begins to shift and mold into a new vision. The posh bedroom is replaced by a small living room, probably that of a cheap motel room. I see Aaron, a tiny bit older, logged onto a laptop on the bed and Lindsey crunching with several sheets of papers by her side.

“Could you come over here and help me with this? I don’t get taxes at all,” Lindsey says.

“Can’t.”

“Please?”

“Linds, please, I can’t pause.”

“Aaron, I need to figure this shit out because you won’t. And if we don’t figure this shit out we’re going to be kicked out, again.”

“I already did seven hours of homework online and I can’t focus on more papers right now,” he says without looking up from the screen.

“And yet you can focus on that new game? What ever happened to saving up?”

“I haven’t bought anything yet, Lindsey, so please get off my back.”

“But will you?”

“Yes. Okay, you want me to say it? We’re fucked, Lindsey. I want to be able to tell you different, but bills keep piling up, the rent’s due, and the bastard killed our cards so we’re left with jack shit.”

“Maybe I could go back and apologize,” I say.

“Lindsey, no, that’s the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. You brained him with a bedpost and I’m not letting you go within five hundred feet of that guy. Plus, he’d probably send the cops after me.”

“Well what do I do, Aaron? You said that living with him wasn’t much of a life, and I agree with you, but what is this? This isn’t much of a life either, and all we have to look at is debt and more debt.”

“I don’t know Linds. I don’t know.”

The dream changes before me again, but more subtle than the last time. I believe some time is passing. I see Aaron lying down on the outstretched bed like I’d seen him in the last part, but now he’s wearing this weird helmet on his head. It looks almost like a motorbike helmet, but it’s got all of these cords strapped into the back that run down his side. Lindsey stands at his side, upset and tears streaming down her face.

“Aaron! Please wake up! I need you here, I need my brother!” She cries into his chest.

The small TV on the other side of the room comes into focus and I hear the reporter on it, “...both of which have not responded to the claims that the ever so popular virtual reality video game, Elysium, has had a casualty count of over 4,000. Players of this game are unable to log out or exit the game, our reporters are working hard to figure out why this is, but we have no information to report as of this time. We suggest all of those who know anybody who is currently inside of this game to make sure they are still alive. Do not and I repeat do not remove the helmet as there is some sort of failsafe built into the helmets that will attempt to fry the brain of anyone who is wearing it when it is deactivated by any means we can find.”

“God, what do I do what do I do what do I do...” She says, pacing around the room. She then looks to the helmet attached to Aaron’s head and I can see her eyes scanning the boxes next to it, the boxes that probably came with it.

“Aaron, I’m going to get you out of there. Looks like I’m going to need to make a pit stop to Aurora,” she says.

Aurora? Like, where Andy came from?

The scene changes again. We’re outside of a large building this time. I recognize it as a Technodome. My mother told me about this place, it’s basically the only company left in the country in America that develops technology that isn’t outsourced from England, and of course the only one is located in Aurora because of it’s low effect of the government shut down.

I see Lindsey popping off the lid of a sewer outside of the Technodome. It all fast forwards and fades into the interior of the building. She’s going to steal a helmet so that she can help her brother out. I see her sneaking through the hallway she originally came through with a package in hand as she stuffs herself back down the way she came.

This is when the alarms start going off, as she closes the exit she came out of. “Stupid police are probably after us anyway,” I hear her whisper as she makes her escape.

The world around me fades back into the motel room. I see her lying next to her brother, helmet over her face just as Aaron’s is. The two of them together inside of Elysium.

I hope that went over well, even though him not being here now means that it didn’t.

The dream changes.