This is Part II of a vision I call love dream number 6 which occurred to me as a dream.
When we left off our hero was deep underground with alarm buzzers going off and sub-zero mist leaking into the hallway. Having missed his opportunity to escape, he sat down to accept his fate.
“…And that’s the last thing I remember.” My speech is kinda slurred, I feel like I just came too after an operation.”
“Did you feel any pain?”
“Uhh no, not that I know of, I just sat down and the next thing I remember…I was here. Where is ‘here’ anyway?”
“Well…we had to take you to the closest hospital facility.”
“I was frozen the whole trip?”
“We had a portable unit that thawed you out and got you breathing, but you didn’t wake up until now.”
“Thawed me out?”
“The whole facility remained frozen, powered by an internal thermal-nuclear thingy. I guess they thought it shut down, but since it caved in, all external monitoring devices were destroyed…I guess they guessed wrong.”
“I guess. So back to my question, where am I, Flagstaff?”
“Oh hell-no. That place has been deserted long ago.”
“You mean Flagstaff?”
“No Earth, we just have some remote mining there, the planet’s pretty much wasted.”
“Wow, the whole planet? Where am I?”
“Here take a look out the window.”
The nurse opened up the shade to reveal a red planet.
“This was Earth, nobody lives there anymore. We just mine minerals.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not a historian, I just know we got out before it was too late…Global Warming or something like that.”
“So where do I go from here?”
“’XL358’, turns out you have some great-great-great-great-great-great, -so on and so fourth–grandkid that is anxious to meet you. Doing a thesis on evolution, this is a chance of a lifetime for her.”
“But I don’t have kids…”
“That you knew of, anyways you got a place to go.”
“So just how long have I been frozen?”
“Don’t really know – history is kinda sketchy that far back. It’s like the pyramids, we know they’re there, but nobody knows much about ‘em. Our main concern right now is getting you ready for the trip to ‘XL’”.
“Getting me ready?”
“Sure, we have to replace your eyes with synthetics. At faster than light speed, the soft tissue in your eyes will flatten and you’ll be blind when you arrive. We need to replace your eyes with a harder material.”
“Well, OK. Will it hurt?”
“Not really.”
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So now I’m sitting here completely paralyzed numb. One eye is covered.
I don’t see the doctor, just a needle-like instrument coming toward my eye. Closer and closer and closer, blood spurts out and all is blank.
I scream.
I feel a numb-rustling about in my socket and I wanna jump up and run, but I can’t move.
I can see again and the doc is asking me to look this way and that, I answer his questions.
“Good.” The doc says, “Just one more eye to go….”
And now you know.
COMING NEXT: ALL ABOARD THE NIGHT-TRAIN!