Trisha lay in a coma on life support, her parents crying near her hospital bed. Time was running out and the decision to discontinue the life support was being discussed. But unknown to her family and doctors she wasn't dead, but trapped inside, ins...
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Mike had a gift. He could remember his dreams, every detail. But what was different and special, he knew he was dreaming. It was more like walking into another room. Mike could control where he went in his dream and what he did. Well, to a degree anyway. He always seemed to arrive at the very spot he left the night before when he awoke. He loved his dream world even though it frightened him. But he always knew he could easily escape by waking up. Like flipping a switch.
In fact, he preferred the dream world to the real world. Mike had grown up in the poorer part of Ontario, Oregon. In a part known as Oakee Flats, on the south side. His father was an alcoholic, and he had little memory of his mother as she'd left them both when he was very young. When his unemployed father wasn't at the bar, he was usually passed out on the couch with a bottle of Jack laying nearby. Mike had had to grow up quickly, taking care of them both. His father wasn't abusive, alcohol had an opposite effect on his father, it calmed him. But it also made him unable to care for himself or Mike, so it was up to his son.
It was after 2 am and Mike was still awake waiting for his father to come home. He had tried to finish his homework long ago but math gave him a headache, he just didn't get it. He knew he'd have a hard time staying awake in summer school the next morning. Dinner had been Top Ramen... again. He had just turned 16 on July 16th, last weekend and was itching to get his driver's license. But they had no car, which he thought was actually a good thing, since then his father wouldn't be tempted to drive home from the bar. Needing a haircut, he brushed his long black hair from his eyes to the side. It was now past his shoulders. Stylish in the 80s, it seemed to fit in since all the kids said the 80s were making a come back.
He yawned and stretched when he heard his father stumbling up the steps and through the front door. Mike had been sitting in the recliner waiting and worrying about his dad. Quickly he moved to the door and helped his old man to the couch where he collapsed. Mike was taller than his father, six foot seven and was constantly being encouraged to join the basketball team. He sat the bottle of Jack on the coffee table and covered up his father, removing his work boots which hadn't ever seen work but yet needed replaced.
Mike sat back in the recliner and pulled up his own blanket and was fast asleep. Like the flip of a switch, he found himself right where he had left. Standing in a large lodge pole forest, but at the base of the biggest tree his eyes had ever seen. Larger than any redwood tree, which he had seen in person once before on a school field trip. Mike imagined rock climbing equipment and looked down. Now he was wearing a climbing harness and holding the end of a coiled rope. He had never tried rock climbing, let alone doing it on a massive huge tree. But the perks of his dream world was he could do anything he wanted, learn on the go. "If something happens, I just need to wake up, right?" he told himself grinning and climbed.
He thought of large eye bolts and screwed them into the trunk, threading his rope as he climbed. He wore wood spikes attached to his boots he'd seen loggers wear on his favorite television show, "Ax Men". He wasn't sure if this was exactly how it worked but he was climbing and was confident if he fell the rope would catch on the eye bolt below and stop his fall. If that didn't work he knew he had a fail safe. Recklessly, he climbed.
And climbed and climbed he did. For over an hour he rose up the tree, one eye bolt at a time until he was above the tree line. But looking up, the tree continued to rise into the sky far above. He was tired and sweaty. "Talk about a workout!" he said out loud. "I'll be sporting that six pack by the end of this dream."
Resting, hanging back in his harness, he admired the view. The forest didn't go on forever in every direction. The two suns hung high in the sky, but he knew which way was north. He could see the Ocean to his right where he had spent much of his time learning to swim and surf. Fishing really wasn't his thing here. There were monsters below those waves! Many with big teeth, like the huge sharks he had to keep an eye out for. He had been bitten several times before, but as soon as the pressure of the bite began he was immediately shocked awake in the recliner. Sometimes screaming, but never waking his passed out father on the couch to come to his rescue.
To his left and south was a mountain range of snow covered peeks and more of the forest. Straight ahead, in the far distance, was a thick fog swallowing the forest and glowing red in many places. The glowing red spots hidden by the white blanket, ominous and haunting. And behind him as he glanced over his shoulder was a huge bird flying right at him, holding something in its talons. Then he heard the screaming of a girl.
The huge bird flew to a large nest near the top of the tree with the girl in its clutches, then he saw her fall and the bird flew off. Mike could guess what was about to happen. For a moment as he frantically climbed, he realized he had never seen another person in the dream world. Putting all caution aside, he climbed faster, ignoring the eye bolts for the rope to save time. He didn't need any of it, anyway.
As he got closer and closer to the nest, he could hear her grunting and chaos all over the nest. He reached for the top of the nest and pulled his head over just in time to duck back down as a giant baby was pushed by another off the edge. Flapping its leather wings uselessly as it fell to its death. Once again he pulled his head above the edge of the nest and saw the larger chick advancing toward the girl, passing another that lay on the ground with blood and brain matter oozing from its skull. "Had she done that?" he wondered as he stepped into the nest and sprinted in his harness toward the unsuspecting bird, rope being pulled behind.
All he could think about as he jumped on the back of the bird was to pull back on its head like a cowboy backing up his horse. It worked, and the bird stumbled back, all the way back and over the edge. Mike fell for a short period before sitting up in the recliner in his dark living room. "Nothing to it." he whispered as his dad snored loudly across the room. Then he laid back and reentered the dream world to search for the girl.
Shock and surprise engulfed him as he realized he wasn't standing in the nest or on the ground. He was falling again but now above the giant bird flapping its wings in vain and screeching in terror. Mike immediately left the dream world and sat up, his heart racing, out of breath, and body covered in sweat. "What happens if I hit the ground?" he thought to himself. Eager to find the girl, he took a deep calming breath, slowed his heart rate, and struggled for sleep to reenter the dream world.
It took much longer this time, but when he finally drifted off and fell again, it was only for a brief second. In that second he had noticed the giant chick had already hit the ground in a bloody mess far below, and then the rope caught on his last eye bolt nearly a hundred feet below the nest, jerking hard on his harness. But it didn't hold after his body and momentum caught the bolt. The bolt was torn from the tree and he continued to fall until the next eye bolt caught and once again ripped out of the trunk. One after another they pulled free, slowing his momentum, until finally 20 feet above the ground one stuck and his fall whipped to a stop. Disoriented above two giant bloody carcasses, Mike caught his breath. He had nearly woken up several times, forcing himself to stay in the dream world.
He got his body reoriented and caught the trunk as he swung back by. He immediately thought to climb again but suddenly the mother dived to the nest screaming and screeching a God awful sound. She tore the nest apart, looking for her young. Mike glanced down at the carcasses below him and then back up, meeting her huge black eyes burning down upon him. "Oh crap!"
Mike quickly repelled down the last 20 feet and ran diving into a lodge pole thicket just as the monster hit the ground behind where the chicks lay. He hid in the thicket of brush and didn't move. The gigantic mother bird nudged her chicks for a minute and then screeched again, beginning to look around for Mike, snapping lodge pole like they were twigs. She was getting closer and closer, as he watched her from his hiding spot. Then with an eye roll he realized he could just wake up, wait long enough for her to give up, and come back in. So like a flick of a switch he sat up in his living room again, listening to his dad snore, and watching the clock on the wall ever so slowly tick by.
