Insomniac Dreaming
-Part 2-
The door stood tall, taller then him, and he rose to a height of almost six feet, though he rose to exactly five foot eleven inches. The door consisted of nothing but cold black iron, he assumed it consisted of lead, but he didn’t honestly know, he looked at the signs witch hung silently on the door, they read, “NO ADMITTENCE, ABSOLUTE SILENCE” which stained the door, painted in red, and a paper sign read, “Prisoner Number #070990110998” He grasped the handle of the door and shook it violently breaking the lock and nearly ripping the handle off. He turned the knob and opened the door to find an empty room and a window, the walls were painted black and the floor had made of a sort of iron substance. The light from the window seemed to bend around the rim of the window sill, and the flickering lights behind him seemed to shed no further light inside of the room, it was as though the rooms darkness was painted there. He smiled looking blankly into the cold iron room he smiled, “Come on out dear friend… we both know you’re afraid of the dark…”
A voice came from the corner of the room. It felt soft and delicate, “You act as though you would know” it held a spiteful tone and anger, but the anger hid itself well in her soft tone. As he spoke a tall young female stepped into the light of the window, she had a slender frame and long snow white hair. Her hair resembled silk, even in the years of incarceration her hair did not wither in the least, it felt as soft as it felt when her mother conceived her, her white hair fell to about her shoulders, and a little over. She wore prisoner rags as she looked to Cray, in his pink tuxedo, with nothing but anger in her eyes. Cray smiled, “Dear Angela, how long has it been? A year… two?”
Angela hissed back, “It’s been four years ten months and twenty three days since you locked my up in this hell hole!”
Cray sighed, “You know I didn’t have a choice, you didn’t co-operate.”
“With what!? Dying!?”
“It’s not dying so much as…”
Angela interrupted him, “It’s Dying! No matter how you look at it! I would cease to exist for what!? For what!? I ask you!”
“You would die for humanity! It is your purpose! It is why you were created! Your death would be the end of this war! You would die for peace! You would die for harmony! You would die the end this burning, I’m tired of breathing in smoke every morning, I’m tired of loosing count of the innocents, I’m tired of it all Angela!”
“Well, I’m tired of running”
“Apparently you haven’t noticed you’re all out of road to run on…” a silent pause lingered heavy in the air. Neither of them moved a muscle as the sound of propellers sounded above them a sound coming from a microphone sounded off through the halls of the Asylum, it shouted through the air in a rasping bellow, the sound covered in static. “Stop were you are!” a barely audible voice came from only unknown sources, one would assume being so close to the roof, they were on the roof. “Why are you doing this?! What did we do to deserve such treatment!” a different voice shouted, they assumed they didn’t have a microphone because they could barely hear them. Then the heavy silence.
All that could be heard was the propellers of the helicopter, then suddenly, from the microphone a loud echoing bellow out… “ENGAGE!” and the sound of gun fire rained from all directions, ricocheting off of walls, piercing through flesh, and bone, the helicopter landed and the propellers stopped moving, but the guns were still firing, and then silence… all that could be heard resting in the air was the sound of Cray, and Angela almost halted breathing. A lone tear, slowly fell from Angela’s almost swollen eyes. Cray stood emotionless as the world around him drove itself back into normality, Angela took a deep breath and sighed as she looked to the world around her, she took a long look at Cray and grew a stern look, “I know who I am… and I know what I must do…
Cray smiled knowing that he got threw “that’s great Angela, shall I warm it up for you?”
She smiled, with a coy smile, and shouted with all her might, “I am Angela Lynn Graham!” she paused, and whispered softly under her breath “and I am finally free…” with that said she leaped towards the window that had long since cast a soft light upon her figure, the window bent around her figure almost like plastic, as she her body passed the iron walls of her prison, the glass of the window bent to her figure, before shattering into thousands of pieces, and drifting off into the ground. Angela’s body began to fell to the earth lifeless and limp. She looked down and she couldn’t see the earth, or the ground. She closed her eyes feeling free, and as she did she began to remember, those memories of which she tried so hard to forget, those memories of the time when she was calm, and wanted, instead of now, when she in insane and hated. She felt the wind through her hair as her mind turned blank, turning the clocks hand back to those subtle days.
A young girl with long golden locks laid on a multi-colored carpet, drawing in her coloring book. She was focused her blue hues of eyes focused hard on her hand, which she tried to hold still as she colored the outlined picture of the mountain. The same mountain that she would gaze at every night before going to bed, that snow capped top that seem to obtain more and more snow with each passing winter.
She continued to color the mountain a light purple, the crayon said, “Electric Purple” she laughed whenever she read it. She knew electricity was yellow and not purple. She was almost finished with the mountain’s steep hill, when she put back the purple and pulled out a yellow, this crayon said, “Yellow Green” she never understood how two things as different as yellow and green could be the same thing, but she tried not to let it bother her, she started on the grass, and outlined some of the purple to create a certain depth that the eyes could catch.
She knew her way around the paper and crayon, Elizabeth, her mother, was actually surprised at how talented she was when it came to drawing, painting, and coloring. She always had an eye for art. As she was running over the highlights of the grass with her crayon Elizabeth rushed in with a giant suitcase full of clothes. The little girl knew what this meant, and she released a soft sigh, her mother and father were fighting again and her mom was moving out, only to come back in a few weeks. The little girl only looked like she was seven but her mind was almost as intelligent as a collage student. The little girl’s mother shouted, “Angela! Pack your bags, we’re leaving…”
Angela looked up from her drawing with curious eyes, “why?”
“Don’t ask questions! Just back your bags!” Elizabeth shouted,
“What about daddy?” she maintained a sense of serenity on the outside but inside Angela almost panicking.
“He doesn’t care about us anymore. He’s left… he’s never coming back!”
Angela’s eyes swelled up with tears, but she chocked them back, “…but…. But why? Why would he stop caring!?”
“Because! Don’t ask questions, just pack up! We’re leaving!” Elizabeth shouted
“No! I want to stay here with daddy! He needs me! He always said he’d be there if you ever left! Now I need him!” she shouted to Elizabeth.
“He doesn’t care about us anymore! Now pack up your bags and get what you want to bring before I bring what I want you to bring!” her mom continued to shout, she used her anger to hide her sorrow. Ursula’s mother’s full name was Elizabeth Lynn Graham, she was a go lucky type of person who never let things get to her, she usually always told herself things would get better, but they usually never did.
Angela stood up and ran to Elizabeth’s room, her mom spotted her and tried to grab her, “No Angela!” Ursula struggled and broke free of her grip and ran into the room and opened the door. Inside laid absolutely nothing except a broken window and a man. Her eyes grew wide as she looked into the man’s blank dead eyes, as he swayed back and forth, his neck inside a noose hanging from the ceiling. Her eyes swelled with tears as she dropped to her knees and began to sob. Her head shook slightly, not wanting to believe this. She fell to the floor and burying her head in her arms, her tears; absorbed by the wood tiling.
She shook her head, and spoke softly into her arms, “no… he… promised he wouldn’t… he always told me….” She continued to cry. Her father was always reserved and quiet, he never really talked to her, but he always seemed to open right up to her mom, every night something was bugging him, mom would ask and he would take her to their room, and they just talk, for hours on end, she love to see them like that, she loved knowing that they loved each other so much. She knew almost eleven kids at her school that had divorced parents, who hated each other, but she only knew about three whose parents loved each other.
Her father usually wore a long white lab coat, she usually wondered why, but she assumed it was for his job, she always loved seeing him in it; it made him look so formal, and professional. She looked up to look into the face of her father, and then she noticed something, his hair, it was white, and not blond white, his hair was white as snow itself.
She looked at her father for a moment, not like her father, but like a suspect to a murder, she continued to examine him to find that his hands and shirt were soaked in sweat, she knew even if he was nervous he wouldn’t sweat enough to cover his entire jacket. The tears slowed to a halt as she began to rationalize the idea that maybe, this wasn’t her father’s intention, maybe it was a mistake, he was always playing with unstable chemicals and most mind effecting drugs have those chemicals in them, maybe it wasn’t his fault, she paused and began to cry again, not at the fact that he took his own life, but at the absence of his person, his soul, he was gone, and she knew nothing could get him back. She stood up, and started to walk to her father, maybe she could find a clue as to what happened on his person, and as she walked closer she saw a note in his pocket, it was folded, and she couldn’t read anything written on it. Angela slowly started to walk to it and she reached for it, at that moment she herd a loud slam, and something being zipped, she knew it was Elizabeth, she finished backing her things as well as Angela‘s. She quickly grabbed the note and hid it in her pocket, she assumed it was a suicide note, maybe it held the key to what happened, and at that moment Elizabeth grabbed her arm and pulled her away, she locked her eyes on her father as she was drug away. She didn’t look away for a single moment until her father remained out of her view.
She laid in the back seat of Elizabeth’s 1969 Pontiac Judge. It was average size, and the whole thing was painted white. It was a truly magnificent car, it was sleek and cold to the touch, it rode like a stallion and when it passed you, it almost seemed to be like a blur. She laid in the back seat curled up tightly in her large black blanket; the blanket had a picture of three white tigers. The mother white tiger held her arm in front of her two children, as they played amongst each other. She held her paw in front of them, as a guardian of love, she loved her children, therefore; she protected them, and she knew the harsh world would prove to be too much for her young cubs, the predators, the scavengers, the hunters, and the very nature of life itself. She impeded their joy not for the joy of there suffering, she hated to see her children suffer, but because she knew that the world is unforgiving, and cold, and would not hesitate to take, ruthlessly, what wondered so willingly into it’s mists. The white tiger was their mother, and their guardian.
Angela laid shivering in the back seat, her knee’s curled up to her chest as she gripped them tightly to herself trying to stay warm, as Elizabeth’s slightly opened window blew the eighty mile per hour winds inside, beating against Angela’s exposed flesh. She shivered and curled even tighter together. She looked up to her mom as they were driving, almost going ninety, down the interstate. Elizabeth was smoking a cigarette, she usually smoked Virginia Slims, which the smoke they created was very thin, and the cigarette wasn’t very strong, but for some reason, she was smoking Marlboro Reds, they were full flavor, the smoke was very thick and it made Angela cough whenever she inhaled the smoke, and the smell wreaked something fierce.
Angela said they always smelt like a dying cat, or a cow fart. She would laugh all the time because her mom would be too stressed to reply, she would just shrug and sighed, and continue her business. Angela’s mom usually only bought a pack a month, she wasn’t an addicted smoker but she always smoked when she was leaving her dad, or something horrible happened, she smoked almost nine packs the month that her sister died. It was about noon when Angela’s mother obtained the letter of consultation from the Navy informing her of the death of, Captain Nina Eliza Graham, of the Air Strike Wing, Bounty Hunter Brigade. Angela’s mom, dropped straight to her knee’s when she opened the letter to find the Fleet Admiral’s Signature in gold at the bottom. It said that she was shot down in a dog fight when her battle group of ships encountered an enemy Carrier, an enemy FC/TA-1A Phoenix. Elizabeth knew her sister ever since she was born, though they did have a five year difference between their ages, she always loved her sister to death.
The only person she loved more then her sister, Nina, was her husband, Ershin Toro Cox, but now, he’s dead. Sitting in the car she took along breath smoking the cigarette, she released the smoke out of her nose, it stung a lot whenever she did that, but she knew she deserved the pain, after what happened to her husband, she had all the justification in the world.
Angela sat silently in the back seat and curled tightly into a ball, the warmth of the blanket gave no relief compared to the harsh and undying wind that continually swept inside the car. She looked out the car window as saw an endless row of beauty, they drove on a long straight away, and both sides of the road were surrounded or cherry blossoms, their delicate leaves fell creating a pink blanket of beauty that covered the road and all that stretched before it. Her eyes widened as she rested her eyes upon the blanket of delicate pedals falling, she grew tired as admiring such beauty drained her.
She sighed, smiling, and closed her eyes, thinking about the world, and the war, but at the same time, she couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful cherry blossoms that fell before them, it was a dash of beautiful paint in this cold, iron world. She smiled, and slipped into a deep slumber.
Angela awoke in her 2nd grade class room; the children all looked frightened and scared. They all curled around the teacher holding on to her long flowered dress. The teacher’s name was Mrs. Mayen, she was a widow, but she had always insisted on being called misses, something about how Mr. Mayen never died, and his soul lives on forever. She was too young to keep the misses title, Angela knew for a fact that she was only 24, a fine young age, and still in her prime. The lady on the television spoke very clearly, her long golden locks fell to about her shoulder, she wore a shirt that said, Channel 3, Q News, and her name tag said, “Dalainy” she frowned hard as she spoke, her full name was, Ashley Courtney Dalainy, she spoke clearly, and her tone carried a very worried sound, the bottom bar said, “Imperial Attack, 7,000 dead,” as it scrolled across, the names of several people were listed below it, a few names were random at best, not a single name Angela could remember as anyone she knew.
The words continued to scroll as it noted as well, “over 1,000,000 wounded.” Ashley spoke the words Angela assumed were just recently written on queue cards. “It is the most hideous bombing the Rebellion has ever seen before, over seven thousand have died, and over a million wounded. The Secretary of the Army has declared that we have stood at a cease fire for too long, and this brutal attack is going to reignite the war between the Imperial Forces, and the so called Rebellion.” She took a breath, and continued the report, “The Commander-in-Chief commends this day as a day of remembrance, he also states that we look back, and reflect at the beginning of this war, and the birth of the rebellion.” She looked over to her Co-Anchor. His name was George Armstrong Doughtry, though he was not a blood relative to the late General George Armstrong Custard, his parents both shared a deep passion for the man and decided to name their first born after him, luckily their first born was a male. George frowned and nodded, “thank you Ms. Dalainy.”
He looked back at the camera and spoke, “Back in the twenty first century, during the year 2041, the world had finally created a peaceful civilization, in which all creeds and races, religions, and thoughts lived in peace, We have created a utopia, and it was called the Imperia, but then the North and South America continents accepted an ideal that the world had disbanded, and forsaken back all the way to the year 1500 B.C.” he paused dramatically, “Homosexuality” he paused again, even more dramatic then the last, “That separate world has become a land of nothing but god forsaken gays and sex depraved perverts” the spite he spoke off was deep rooted, his wife was cheating on him with another woman, his spite and hate were both well placed.
He took a breath and spoke again, “Soon as the newly formed “Imperia” accepted these ideals, we knew they would stop at nothing to destroy all those who did not accept the ideals they have laid down, and that… is when the Rebellion was born, we hold over 70% of the world, we carry the guns now, and we have the power, the Imperia trembles at our strength. We have taken all homosexuals and executed them all by instant incineration. For the first few years of the rebellion we created an army of over 80 billion fully armed solders. The “Imperia” had only managed to stir up 1.2million. We have them all outnumbered 7000 to One!” he shouted one nearly standing from his chair, this was all under the command of the Secretary of the Army, he intended on stirring the spirits off all the people watching, which was everyone who had a television set.
“The first battle took place on our own homeland and headquarters of all the Rebellion. Ulaanbaatar, capital of the Rebellion, and homestead deep in the plains of Mongolia. We stood against a small army of infantry, numbering only to 4,000, while we stood with our small brigade of 12,000,000. We annihilated the entire army, but what we didn’t know was that was just a distraction, as we charged into the army, an entire fleet of AUH-121D Aztec Jaguar Helicopters, counting almost to the thousands came out of no where and bombed and annihilated everything that was left of our army. They had won, for the moment, they infiltrated out headquarters slaughtering everyone who stood in their path, but just as they reached the inner wall and the Commander’s Quarters, the Comander’s’ Elite Troop dispatched of the entire army, as well as the helicopters above, and we honor the squad, Fire Force Foxtrot…”
The television continued to speak as the school and everything around her, began to blur, and melt, she quickly looked around in a panic, as Cray walked through the wall. He smiled that god forsaken glass eye, staring right through Ursula, he smiled, “hello Angela…” he grinned devilishly. His glass eye reflecting the young girl’s horrified expression. “Tell me… little girl… what’s your name…”
Ursula shuddered, “I… I… I’m Angela!”
“Really… how was your sixth grade year here… what school is this, what’s your teacher’s name?”
She continued to stammer, the world around had faded to a deep black, there was nothing in the room but Cray, and Angela, she screamed, “I am Angela… uh…” tears began to swell in her eyes, as she noticed that she had forgotten her own middle name, she screamed, again, “I… I’m Angela Graham…” she couldn’t believe what was happening, she couldn’t remember how her last named ended, she cowered and ran blindly into the darkness, she released several screams,
“I am… Uh… Angela…” she couldn’t say it, she couldn’t remember her name, she screamed as she ran, and then Cray released a laugh, not just any old laugh-at-a-joke laugh, no. This laugh was demonic, evil, depraved, and devilish. It echoed through out the darkness and thundered around her skull as she fell, and fell, she continued to fall down, or up, or maybe she was falling sideways. She couldn’t tell anymore, she’d been falling for what seemed like forever, and then in a flash she tore her eyes open. She was still falling from the window that she originally jumped from, she saw the concrete coming up fast, she screamed and covered her eyes, throwing her arms around her head, and then…darkness.
