Chapter 2 #Fight or Flight
The small screen flickered every four minutes, an untraceable interference fizzling with harmless vibrations, shorting out the picture for no less than three seconds. It was irritating to say the least, but there was nothing he could do to stop it, nothing he hadn't already tried.
The steam from his fresh coffee fogs up the monitor with a light sheen of water molecules, he sighs over dramatically and plucks three tissues from a nearby tissue box and wipes down the glass.
The picture remained exactly the same as it had half an hour ago.
The same empty room, he rubs his eyes lazily pushing his glasses further up his forehead. The middle aged mans desk was cluttered with an assortment of pens and disc cases, it wasn't an ideal place to rest his heavy head, but right now anything looked good enough for a nap.
A tap on his shoulder jolts him out of his zombified state, his glasses falling out of place and onto his flushed cheeks.
"Any progress?"
The gravelly voice of his elusive companion interjects softly behind his swivel chair.
The flustered man scrambles around his desk, pushing stray chocolate wrappers out of reach and stacking cd cases nervously.
"Ah, no sir, no nothing's happened yet, but I do believe he is getting nearer to his destination, so not long now I don't think sir"
He stammers quickly to the looming figure standing intimidatingly behind him.
"Let's hope so Mr smith, for your sake"
His oppressing visitor steps away from the computer and walks slowly back the way he came.
The tech breathes a sigh of relief, feeling a heavy weight being lifted off his shoulders.
"I swear, guys not even human, would it kill to give a little appreciation, apparently it would, every bloody time, don't know why I bother"
He mumbles angrily to himself, gulping down the last two mouthfuls of his coffee, he leans back in his chair and stretches his wiry arms behind his head.
The computer monitor flickers for three seconds.
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Lucas would have liked to decide where his dreams began, and where they ended. He wouldn't have questioned it, if the white room, the stir crazy sun mural and the mirror enigma, was created by the inner workings of his comatose mind.
Maybe then things would still make sense.
Opening his eyes to the light was difficult, perhaps the day was not even worth his trouble.
Many of them weren't.
Lucas' head was throbbing, the magnitude of which he had never experienced before. The events of the previous night he remembered in full, a detailed artwork with its edges smudged and tweaked to resemble something more human. It felt like opening your eyes underwater, seeing what was there, but refusing to accept it. The images were but a swirl of reality and his rational subconscious, trying desperately to stitch together the information that did not correspond or fit in his sensible mind.
It was clear that this would take some time to get his head around.
It had been past two in the morning when he'd returned to his tent, after a lengthy reflection of his once determined intact sanity, the tent had been empty, and had remained so till the not so early hours of the morning.
Lucas stared up at the tents drooping roof in an unblinking trance, he wondered if the chief would come looking for him, he did leave the mirror maze half finished, and seeing as he hadn't stopped running long enough to consider the consequences, now was good a time as any.
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Missing Parts
Fantasy"A cold gust of wind circles the trees and seeps frostily into his skin. It's times like this that he feels very much alone. But as he was once told, the knowledge and the feeling of being alone, are separate and dangerous things."...