Phoenix

Dream

The dream began as it had for months. Opening with the sound of a clock ticking in time with her pulse. In time with her heart. Hot against her skin. A live thing.

Then, a scream, her scream, and a blinding flash of white light. Next came the heat, rolling and plunging like acid waves on sand, emptying her insides until there was nothing left but an empty shell. Her spine lifted from the cold surface upon which she lay, and jerked in a series of contorted spasms. The light and heat continued to alternate, rushing and blinding, until there was nothing left but pain.

This is where the dream usually stopped.

Tonight, it continued.

A steady electrical whine replaced the blinding flashes and voices rose to her attention. They were garbled, as though spoken through water. She tried to open her eyes, only to find that she couldn't seem to locate her lid muscles. In fact, she couldn't find any muscles at all, or anything that connected her brain to her body. She was paralysed from head to toe, bar her apparent ability to scream.

Suddenly, the voices crystallised into words, sentences... a dialogue. One voice was male, the other, female. They were arguing.

"What are you doing?" the woman said. "You can't turn down the setting in the middle of a cycle. You'll compromise the procedure."

"The voltage is too high. It's hurting her," the man replied.

"How do you know?"

"She's screaming."

"Her brain's more developed than the other children we get through here. We have to use a higher voltage or her memories will stick."

"She might die before she forgets."

"That's a risk we'll just have to take."

"I don't like it."

"Director's orders."

The arguing continued, but Ash was distracted. The electrical whine was getting louder and louder until that was all she could hear. All of a sudden, the white light and heat was rolling and searing her nerves again, this time falling like blows upon an open wound. Her mind reared, whinnied, and gave one final buck, before it relented to the pain, caved in, gave up. One final scream ripped through her throat, just as a finale of fireworks burst behind her eyes. She felt extinguished, heavy, numb, like a thick blanket had descended on her body and wrapped around her nerves.

Exhaustion.

It pulled her spine back onto the bed and bled the spasms away from her body.

Her mind rang like the dome of a bell. She couldn't remember her own name.

Everything was empty save for—

Tick, tick, tick.

The metronomic sound in time with her heart. A sound that could be muted by the noise of the day, but which would always be there to accompany her dreams.

***

Ash woke in a sweat and lay there, still, staring at the bulging springs of the bunk bed above. One-by-one, she tested her muscles, relieved to find they were no longer paralysed. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and like a swimmer diving into deep water, she plunged back into the memory of the dream before the essence of it was lost. Something about the dream spoke of importance. Something told her it wasn't a dream at all ...

Her conscious mind recalled the events of her subconscious with analytical precision. She remembered the blinding flashes of heat and light, which she pushed aside with a shudder. She recalled the voices, one male and one female, which she didn't recognise as voices she knew.