A Dream About . . . A New Beginning (Part 4)

The first thing to come back was my hearing. Wind was brushing against my ear.

Than, I could feel it, chilling and calm.

It smelt like flame and dirt, which was not what I was expecting - than again, neither was any of this.


Finally, my mind escaped the fog, and I could see soft light in my eyes. But, the capsule had no windows, how was there light shinning through? I opened my eyes and everything slowly came into focus. I wasn't near the capsule at all, I was . . . I was under a table, it looked like. In fact, it looked like the long table in the waiting room I sat in earlier. I could see the legs of the chairs tucked under, and some kind of tarp hanging down off the edges of the table. I propped myself up on my stiff limbs, and slowly crawled my way out. Lifting the tarp, I found myself in the back of the room next to the chair I had sat in, but it was dirty now, and as I fully stood up next to the table, I could see why.

Not a soul could be seen in the rubble

The front of the room was gone, along with the entire front of the building - it was all just a pile of rubble at my feet now. Out beyond the street, the city was in no better condition. Buildings were nothing but dust, and the dust was smoldering with the embers of dying fires. Not a soul could be seen in the rubble, but I am not sure if that was good thing. I made my way out of the room and into the open air. It was morning now, and the sky was finally clear - morning, how long had I been asleep? I climbed over daubery and made it onto the street, but than I heard the last thing I would have expected.

"Meya!" I whipped my head around to see Olivia standing in the hallway of the building. She hopped her way over the rubble and threw her arms around my neck, "You're awake! You're alive! Jameson, come quick!"

"Jameson?" It felt weird to hear his name again, let alone see him coming towards me out of the ash. "What . . . what happen? Why are you here?"

Jameson caught me in a big bear hug, "We came to save you!"

"Save me? How, exactly? And what happened to the town?" I felt my body was fully functioning now, but my brain had not quite caught up to speed, I was having trouble processing the chaos around me.

Jameson released me, "Well, after you rode off, we decided it wasn't safe for you to be out on your own, so we followed you. We saw you just as you went into this building, so we waited to see if you were coming out anytime soon."

"We waited for, like, an hour." Olivia cut in with a worried tone, "The earth quakes kept getting worse, and we weren't sure what you were doing in there. We were about to go find out, when -"

"When this started," Jameson gestured to all the fallen buildings on the street. Nothing over one story was left standing, "People started running out of the building, when we say you hadn't come out, we ran in to find you."

"We ran through the building and found that box sitting in that big room - well, what was left of the room. We heard knocking on the door, and pulled you out. We dragged you back to this room, and just managed to hide before the whole roof caved in!""

I tried to wrap my head around all they were saying. The building had collapsed and they pulled me out of the box . . . the box . . . "The box! Guys, the capsule! Did you get anyone else out of the capsule!?"

"The box? No. Jameson only managed to open the door by messing around with some pretty wrecked up consoles, but even than it only opened enough to pull you out before it shut again."

I felt panic swell inside me, and explode through my feet as I ran back into the building. I weaved my way threw the dark, dusty hallway in the direction I thought we had gone. Before long, I found myself entering an eery, quiet courtyard - light from the holes in the roof shown down through the dirt filled air, and made the rubble in the warehouse look like grave stones on a hill side. But, as the reality of the scene settled in, the capsule appeared out of the dust. One thing was for sure - it had survived through the night with nothing but ash and remains of the ceiling surrounding it. I ran to the front, and franticly searched for some way to lift the capsule wall. I couldn't hear any noises from inside, and the silence was deafening.

"It's no use trying to lift it, trust me." Jameson and Olivia came into the warehouse, and Jameson pointed to a control desk five feet away, "It's pressure locked, or something. I had to use that."

I made my way over and my stomach dropped. There were a hundred controls beneath the daubery, and none of them even seemed to be working. I racked my brain trying to reason which buttons to press, but they all seemed so useless. "NO! I can't let them die in there!" I bent down to the base of the controls and kicked the locked panel underneath as hard as I could. After one last strong kick, the small lock gave out and I was able to pry the rest of the door open, revealing a tight network of wires. So, I did the only thing I could think to do: I grabbed as many cables as my two hands could fit around, and yanked my body backyards as hard as possible. Dozens of wires came loose in my fingers, and what ever energy was left in them set of sparks in every direction - but nothing else happened.

What was I excepting? I dropped the wires and fell onto my back. I probably just insured that they would never make it out, they would stay locked in that metal tomb, all because of some ridiculous plan - and I had to be the one that made it out. I covered my eyes with my fists and began to sob.  What was the point of all this stress and disaster? I heard Olivia and Jameson approach through the rubble, but they said nothing. We all just stayed in the silence together for what felt like an eternity, the only sound were my whimpers echoing around the warehouse.

Suddenly, there was a large, metallic groan reverberating around the room and the deep hiss of escaping air came from the direction of the capsule. My sobs ended with a gasp, and I shot up from the floor.

"The pressure lock!" shouted Jameson, but I was already making my way towards the door of the capsule. As Olivia and Jameson came up behind me, the hissing had almost disappeared, but the capsule seemed no different. Regardless, I threw all my weight onto the door and pushed upward. But it did not even budge. "Come...on...!" I said through gridded teeth. My friends joined in the effort and the wall finally started to move. Inch by inch,  we were able to get a grip on the bottom and push it up a few feet before it jammed and refused to move anymore. I quickly ducked under and stopped in the middle of the capsule. No one was awake. No one was moving. I couldn't be too late! In front of me was Lucas, laying in the same way he has been thrown. There was now a small pool of blood on the side of his head, but as I kneeled down beside him, I was relieved to see the wound had stopped bleeding. 

I turned his body over and proper his head up in my arms. "Come on!" I pleaded, "Come on, wake up!" I shock him, being careful his wound did not open back up, and kept shouting at him. Finally, there was a gasp for air, Lucas sat up on his elbow and began coughing. Slowly, as clean air circulated into the room, the others began to wake up and cough as well. I felt the knot leave my gut and the relief leak out into my eyes. They were alive. We had made it in time. 

I could't help but smile like an idiot

Finally, Lucas was able to catch his breath, and he looked towards me with a confused smile, "Um, hi. What - happened? Did the world end?" His glance shifted to Jameson and Olivia as they helped the others get to their feet and out into the open, and he looked even more confused. 

I was so happy he was alive, that I could't help but smile like an idiot back. "Well, not really. Long story short, the plan failed and the world is still turning." I explained to him how my friends had found me and pulled me out, and that was how I was able to save the rest of them.  But the more I thought about how that man had just thrown us in the capsule, the angrier I got. "He just left us here to die. What a coward! He knew it was a bad plan, and he still left us! He only cared about saving himself, and from what!? If I ever find him - " But my rambling was interrupted by Jameson calling my name outside the capsule. "You better come over here, Meya!"

Hesitantly, I left Lucas and walked outside to find Jameson and a few of the others circling  around a near by pile of daubery. But as I got closer, I could see that is wasn't just ash and rubble.

"I guess he wasn't lucky enough to make it out before the ceiling came down." Lucas had walked up right behind me, and we all stood with nothing more to say. I stared down at the man and the anger I felt before dissolved into remorse. Still, something inside me couldn't help but think that he had it coming, and something told me my thoughts were not that far off from everyone else's. After a moment more of silence, we all turned away and walked towards the exit of the building. As we made it on to the street, everyone paused to take in the rest of the carnage. 

"So, what now?' Olivia had come up beside me, along with Jameson, and I realized how happy I was to see them still alive.

"Well, we can't be the only ones who serviced." 

"Right." Lucas had come up on my on my other side, and he seemed to be speaking to everyone else. "But I am guessing we will still be needed to help rebuild." He smiled at me again, and I was struck with the impression that this wasn't the end for us, for any of us, as a team.

Together, the fourteen of us started to make our way done the street. We weren't all that sure of where we were going, but we knew we were headed for a very different world then what it was a before. A world that was ready for a new beginning. 

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Hm...something weird happened with the faces in that last picture. I hope you have enjoyed this installment of things that go on in my head! Hopeful, I will remember one of my dreams in detail again soon. 

Fair-faring, friends!!