Dreamer

Saturday, March 17th, 2029

SARAH

“Just make sure you bring a coat, it’s chilly out,” my mother says. I’m back at my house, standing in my living room beside the bookshelf which stands against the wall behind me, the air is silent. My mother sits as she had earlier this morning. I turn to see myself standing on the other side of the room.

“Mom, it isn’t that cold out, I don’t really need a coat.”

“Just please wear a coat honey, you don’t know how cold it’ll be until you actually step outside.”

God, I feel so stupid for being so difficult. If I’d known that was the last time I was going to see her before all of this…I would have-

“Okay, okay. I’m going,” I say.

I watch myself walk out of the room. My mother turns around and looks at her computer longingly.

“Okay, I have to…I have to today. I have to do this,” she repeats to herself over and over. She closes her eyes for a second and then the closes the laptop, shaking her head quietly.

“I can’t do it just yet…I just can’t…” my mother whispers to herself and I can see a tear start to fall from her eye. It falls from her face onto the floor below. I can hear myself coming back into the room and in a split second my mother picks her head back up and wipes her eye, her check still stained with the tear’s trail.

I see myself run back into the room with the white coat. Back downstairs like normal and I kiss my mother on the cheek.

“There, I’ve got the coat on, I’ll need to be getting out soon before I sweat myself out of it,” I say.

“Yeah, you and your jokes.” She says, trying to pass off her wiping off her cheek by itching it. “You’ll be thanking me when you remember to grab a coat someday because I keep telling you.”

“Okay mom, I’ll keep it in mind. I really have to go now,” I say.

“O-Okay dear, stay warm,” she says with a disappointed look on her face. I leave through the door and then my mom wheels herself into the kitchen, cursing silently under her breath.

I look over to the closed computer and then I walk over to it. I hesitate, but then I slowly put my right hand on top of the computer. I can feel it, touch it. I open up the laptop. The display turns on, showing a password screen. I know my mother’s password is 06182013, my birthday. She doesn’t really seem to get that putting birthdays as passwords aren’t really the safest idea, but then again, who is really around to hack into computers nowadays anyway?

The desktop loads up rather quickly and I can see that one window of Internet Explorer had been minimized. Internet Explorer? I don’t use the computer much, but even I know that that hasn’t been relevant since like, 1990 or something. I shrug it aside and click it open. What opens is a Wikipedia page for a man named Friedrich Adata and so I begin reading.

Friedrich Adata (17 January 1920—18 June 1999) was a German-born scientist. He was born from Akira Namaguchi and Otis Adata. He is most recognized in the field for his discoveries on the Human Genome Project.

He brought forward the theory of the ninth chromosome reaction. His discovery led to widespread fame, so much so that Friedrich had been invited to over ten different countries to present his ideas, several of which agreed with his findings.

Once the idea of the irregularities within the ninth chromosome were found to be linked to human capabilities, also thanks to Friedrich, research began posthaste to which could provide the next big leap for human advancement. It was documented that Friedrich returned to Germany to form a research group after all of the excitement in 1950.

He gathered ten men and women of varying intellects and performed experiments on them, such as the Schröder Experiment, named after one of the test subjects, Ken Schröder. These tests were performed in total secrecy and only one of the ten test subjects had survived the whole ordeal, Sonja Von Kleist.

Von Kleist seemed to have an unending affection for Adata, as the two were married in the weeks after the end of the testing. Adata’s involvement in the deaths of the nine others was unclear until 1998 when various diaries of the experiments were found years later by a son of one of the deceased, Kasey Schröder.

He released the documents to the public and Adata was tried for his crimes. Von Kleist testified that it had been she that had performed the experiments in an attempt to free her husband of any charges, but mention of her in the diaries had quickly proven her wrong.

Adata was found guilty on January 23rd, 1999. He was sentenced for execution on June 18th, 1999. Sonja Von Kleist was said to have disappeared after the guilty verdict and no one had ever heard from her again. Friedrich Adata had one son with Sonja Von Kleist throughout their life, Jack Adata. Friedrich had been 55 when he’d born a child and Sonja only 47. Friedrich Adata was promptly executed on June 18th, 1999 at the age of 79.

The screen cuts out and is completely white, a sort of glow emanating from it like some sick and twisted alien creature just hopped out of it and left its residue in the form of UV radiation behind. I find my self not able to look away from the screen as it seems to pull me in, the lights beginning to flicker and wane around me. The room begins shaking and I cannot move, I don’t want to move. The light calls for me and I walk in willingly.

I see a man.