Dream Machine

The Escape

 Andy woke up sweating. The first thing that he saw was the shiny white ceiling from up above, like the sky. He was breathing hard. He read the figures in his metal bracelet: A455. He sat and realized that cords and electrodes were connected from his head and other parts of his body. He yanked them off and realized this has happened before. So many times. Yet somehow that memory seemed distant, like a dream. He didn't know what's real anymore. And where am I?

He got off from his bed, knees wobbly and his stomach grinding itself. He felt like fainting, but he supported himself by leaning on the bed. Then he saw them. The thousands of beds lined up beside his, sleeping people on them, cords connected to their bodies like the state he was in earlier. What is this place?

The room was vast, and beds line up as far as the eye can see. All of it was familiar to him, like a distant memory. Then he remembered he was dreaming. There was a girl named... What was it? Elena? He suddenly remembered the birds and the red cross, the blue and pink ice cream man and the serpentine being, and the Carnival and the strange creatures and Happiness.

He walked past rows and rows of beds, trying to find the exit, or anything other than beds. He was looking around when he saw another figure standing up, He approached the feminine figure and saw she was as bewildered as him. She was very familiar to him, like somehow he had seen her many times before, whether in dream or in real life. But then again, is this real life?

"Hi, I'm Elena," was the first thing she could muster to say.

"I know," Andy told her, as surprised as her. They were both in white hospital gowns.

"You were in the dream," she realized, eyes as white as the ceiling.

He approached her and said, "Let's get out of here."

But when she moved she was about to fall so Andy caught her and at that position he saw that her almond eyes and her long, flowing hair were as black as the birds. But they both smelled of feces so they immediately got freed from each other's grasp. They proceeded to walk without saying a word, almost limping and their knees seeming like jelly. They walked past thousands of carefully laid-out beds, like cards symmetrically laid down on a table. Some time later they saw the door on the white wall. How far have they been walking? 8 kilometers? They can never be sure. Their minds were as fuzzy as their dream.

They opened the metal door and found themselves in a crowded, metallic room with rumbling metal tubes on the wall. The walls were rusty, and in one side was another door which would probably lead outside. Beside the door was a monitor showing radioactivity and other numbers and statistics. Beside it was a rack of plastic white suits.

A robotic male voice told them, "Before going outside, wear proper attire to protect yourself from radioactive material."

"Where are we?" Andy asked.

"Before going outside, wear proper attire to protect yourself from radioactive material."

"Do you know where we are?" Elena asked.

"Before going outside, wear proper attire to protect yourself from radioactive material."

Andy and Elena approached the rack and wore the plastic white suits from feet to head, all the while the male robotic voice kept on repeating its line like a mechanical song.

Seeing only each other's eyes from the transparent rectangle, Andy and Elena looked at each other silently, as if asking if they're ready to go outside.

Andy took a very deep breath, and while doing so brief snippets of memories flooded his mind. He remembered the green grass of his childhood, playing kites with his schoolmates, the dung smell of the streets of Manila, the crowded MRT trains. And for a second they were all gone. He wasn't even sure if it's his or if it's real or not. He grabbed on the door knob and twisted on it. Surprisingly, it was open.

He was ready to see green grass, houses, even those squatters' houses beside the train tracks. What they saw instead when they went outside, were miles and miles of desolate landscape, brown and reddish like a desert, littered with rubble and disorder.

Andy and Elena grabbed each other's hands and took their first step on the desolate landscape, firm in their resolve to escape from the dream, to start anew. Behind them, the skyscraper of Dream Co. watched them like a metallic, pristine sentinel—a refuge of faith and hope for all those who were previously in the darkness; an institution of salvation.

Are Andy and Elena walking away from salvation? They don't know the answer and probably won't know it in the future. The only thing they know now is that the only direction to go is forward.