Dreamer

Saturday, March 17th, 2029

SARAH

I sit up a little too quickly, blood flows to my head and I feel dizzy. My breaths come out in short and shallow bursts. My eyes are scanning the room, a subtle light enters the room from the window on the other side. I blink a few times trying to remember everything I’d seen, everything I’d been told.

Okay, so it was Jack’s father…my…my grandfather? I still find it hard to believe that he could even be related to me, I mean, I hear about how the others talk about him, but I’ve ever only seen him that one time in the dream and even then he was encased in darkness. So, if that was my grandfather, then-

The door bursts open, a frantic Jay stumbles through, he looks like he’s just woken up, hell, he probably did.

“You aren’t going to believe the dream I just had,” He says in between breaths.

“You…too?”

“Too? Did you see the experiments in Germany?” He asks.

I nod my head slowly, remembering the face of Ken Schröder as the life left his body.

“Yes.”

“So…that’s where it begins, then. This whole mess is brought on by…”

“Not even by Jack…but his father,” I finish.

Jay nods his head slowly, “We have to move. I have a bad feeling about all of this and we need to move as quickly as possible,” he says frantically.

“Okay, do you want me to wake the others?”

He shakes his head no, “I’ll get them. Just look around for anything we could use…like food. See if you can find any food.”

“O-Okay.”

The fact that Lindsey didn’t come up worries me, maybe he didn’t see that also? He nods his head and backs out from the doorway. I rub my eyes and let out a yawn and then I stand to my feet. I can feel my head clearing as I take a deep breath. I grab my coat off of the bed and walk out of the room. I can hear Jay outside of the room yelling up to Lindsey and Andy awake.

Out of the bedroom I walk and I open another pair of doors leading into a narrow hallway. At the end of this hallway reveals another doorway and behind that I walk into the kitchen. It looks like a mini version of a resturant’s kitchen, metal counter tops with rolling carts spread all over the place. Just how long had this placed been abandoned? If it was for the entirety of the government’s accident…then any food not canned would be worthless to us.

I step over one of the overturned carts, making my way to the cupboards that are stacked up high on my left. The first set reveals absolutely nothing inside. An overwhelming sense of hunger overpowers me, I’d been running on absolute adrenaline for who knows how long. I chastise myself silently for how long I let myself go without food. I open up the second cupboard to find a couple of boxes of store bought noodles, unopened popcorn bags, half eaten pop-tarts and about seven cans of tomato soup.

Score. Except…is unopened popcorn good for a long time? Dang, I wish I knew. I move onto the final cupboard to check its contents and it hides three cans of peas and corn inside. I’m hungry I could eat these can and all. I gather the corn and pea cans in my hands and step back. I hold them all with my left hand while I reach into the other cabinet with my right to grab the popcorn and stuff it under my arm. Then I grab most of the cans of soup and balance it on top of the other ones in my left hand.

By the time I am finished I look like a leaning tower of possibly inedible food. I make my way over to the drawers beside the cupboards and I open them with my index finger, hoping the food doesn’t fall down.

Inside I find just what I was looking for, silverware. That, and I also find a can opener, to which I let out a breath of sweet relief. I’ll just grab these on the second trip, then.

I make my way back into the hallway as the food threatens to topple over. I catch myself before I do and make my way out of the door without a problem. I hear heavy breathing as I see feet below the pile of food comes closer and closer to me, not stopping. I look up to see Andy running towards me, but he’s looking behind him. He turns around a moment too late and we collide. The cans are the first to fly up, their arc the highest. The rest of the food lands on the ground around us.

“Ow Andy, you have to look where you’re walking…” I bend down to pick up the can of soup that had rolled up against my foot.

“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t-”

“No, no, it’s fine. Just, watch it next time, will you?” I say.

“Here, let me help you with that, we loading the car up with these?” He asks.

I nod. “I don’t know how much of it is good, to be honest, the canned goods should be fine, but the others I just guessed and grabbed.”

“Ditch the popcorn, we won’t be near any microwaves anytime soon, plus, they dry out after like half a year anyway, and I think it’s been here for much longer than that,” he says.

“Oh…okay.”

“The rest of this stuff should be good,” he says, picking up almost all of the cans on his own. “I’ll get these, actually, go and grab Lindsey for me, okay? I woke up and I guess she must’ve gotten up before me, I think she was in the bathroom.”

“Alright, you be careful, don’t collide into anyone else,” I joke.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Oh, and after there’s an open drawer in the kitchen, it’s full of spoons and knives and forks and the like, grab some so we don’t have to eat like neanderthals, would you?”

“Will do.”

“Oh, and also grab the can opener,”

“Got it,” He says, nodding.

I nod back and turn around on my heels, walking towards the staircase. I climb each successive step, and then begin skipping steps until I’m up at the top. The second floor is only about ten feet above the first one. In front of me there are the seven doors I’d noticed yesterday, but now only one of the doors is actually open, the one that Andy’d come out of.

I step inside slowly, “Hey, Lindsey, you in here? We’re getting ready to go!”

There isn’t a reply back. I look over to the bed and see the sheets strewn about everywhere. The pillow on the farthest side has fallen onto the ground, and the one closest to me is balancing on the edge of the bed for what seems to be dear life.

I turn to the bathroom and see that the light is on from underneath the door.

“Lindsey, you in there? Hello?” I walk up to the door and knock on it. Once again, no response. I reach for the handle and try to twist it open, but it doesn’t budge, the damn thing is locked.

Now I’m pounding on the door. “Lindsey! Open the door! What’s going on?” I can’t help but let my voice raise to a near-scream. I’m pounding on the door and pulling on the handle until I hear footsteps behind me.

“What’s going on? Is the door locked?” Jay asks, out of breath.

“I think Lindsey’s in there, but yeah, the stupid thing won’t open.”

“Let me have a try at it.”

I step back as he takes the door knob in his hands. He twists it a little until he sees that it won’t open that easily.

“Okay, I may need to break the lock. Make sure you stay back.”

“Gotcha.”

Jay readies his shoulder as he takes a few steps back.

“Be careful.”

He gets a nice start as he rams the door once. It stands strong, much stronger than it looks, to be sure. Jay recoils a bit and rubs his arm.

“Ow…Okay, that isn’t coming down anytime soon, do we have any other ideas?”

“Maybe there’s something else we can use to break the lock?”

“Did you see anything like that in the kitchen?”

“Not off of the top of my head, no, but maybe there’s a hammer lying around in a drawer somewhere?”

“It certainly could be.”

“Hey, something up?”

I look up to see Andy in the doorway, looking straight at us. “Oh, Andy, we’re trying to get this damn door open, we think Lindsey’s inside.”

“But she won’t respond,” I add.

“Really? I don’t think I heard any noise coming from inside when I woke up,”

“The light’s on, though,” I say.

“I didn’t turn it on…well shit,” he says. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to try and find a hammer or something like it downstairs, maybe we can-”

“We have to get this open NOW!” Andy says, running up to the door and grabbing the door knob.

“Andy we-”

I’m interrupted by the sounds of the tumblers unlocking and the door slouching open slowly. Inside I see Lindsey, she’s lying against the toilet with one of her legs outstretched, the other bent to her chest. Her face looks lifeless, and in her left hand I can see what looks to be an empty pill bottle. Andy walks into the room slowly and drops to his knees. He places his hands on her shoulders, she moves lifelessly to his gesture, but doesn’t seem to actually move. He checks her pulse with his right hand and looks back to us, he tells us what we’re both thinking.

“She…she’s gone, guys. She’s dead.”