Strange Happenings
Midnight. They always came at midnight. The chimes from the old grandfather clock in the den jolted Daniel out of his restless dreams. It wasn't the chimes that woke him so much as the knowledge that They were coming. It was the same horrifying ritual, every single night.
The room was illuminated by an eerie pale green glow. Three figures in haz-mat suits stood around his bed. One of them held a large briefcase, another held a gun, and the third--the apparent leader, from the way he acted--was making entries into a large handheld computer. Daniel tried to escape, to run, to even move, but some unseen force held him in place, as immobile as the bed itself. The leader looked up from his computer and signaled to the one holding the briefcase, who set the case down and began to open it. Daniel strained to see its contents, but couldn't from his position. If only he could move...
The leader reached forward, grabbed the bedcovers and--
The shrill blast of Daniel's alarm clock filled the room. He'd had that dream again, the same one he'd been having every night for nearly a month. Except that it didn't feel like a normal dream. It felt more like a memory, but one that had been partially forgotten. Anyway, Dan had more important things to worry about, so he pushed whatever it was aside for the moment. Today was the last day of school, finally. All he had to do was survive his last few final exams, and he'd be home free. He wasn't about to let a creepy dream get him down.
***
Dr. DiCaoz glanced over his biology classroom. "Is anybody still working on the final?" he asked tiredly. He paused for a moment, then said, "If everybody is finished, you may talk quietly amongst yourselves for the remainder of the period." As the class erupted in chatter, he went back to nursing his hangover.
Daniel loved his biology class. It wasn't just that he was good at it, or that it was the last class of the day. By some bit of luck or fate, he happened to be in the same class as his four closest friends, Gassan, David, Pammy, and Jake. Gassan, David, and Pammy had become absurdly popular since coming to high school. Gassan was Lebanese and therefore "exotic," David was a star swimmer, and Pammy was a cheerleader. In retrospect, popularity was an inevitability. To the other popular kids, Jake an avid follower of the Furry subculture (he called it a craze, but nobody else did) and Daniel, the introspective writer, were social liabilities. Still, Gassan, David, and Pam never let their newfound "friends" keep them away from Jake and Dan. Privately, Daniel was grateful that he had managed to befriend the four people who appeared to be immune to high school drama.
"So, what'd you guys think?" Pammy whispered.
"I'm pretty sure Dr. Di is a nutcase," Gassan answered quickly. He was met with a chorus of approval from his companions.
"Anyway," Pam continued, "are we having our annual Thank-God-The-Schoolyear's-Over party tonight?"
"I can't go," Jake said, "I've got a convention."
"I can't go either," said David, "My dad's taking me camping. He's on a back-to-nature kick."
"I'm visiting my grandma," Gassan said. Pammy rolled her eyes.
"Alright," she sighed, "when do you guys get back?"
"Sunday"
"Sunday evening"
"Sunday, but it'll be late."
"So," Pammy continued, "is Monday night alright with everyone?"
***
The days passed quickly. By the time Monday arrived, he had gone an entire weekend without his mysterious dreams. He was mostly relieved, but part of him wished the visitors would come back so he could find out what they were up to.
The streets were charged with an eerie calm. A summer storm was coming. As Daniel reached Pam's door, he couldn't help but feel a strange foreboding. Something was decidedly wrong. He rang the bell.
"Come in," called Pammy. Dan opened the door and found friend sitting on the floor in a tidy circle. They were all staring at him, an unsettling hunger in their eyes. "We are playing Truth or Dare," Pammy intoned mechanically. "Please, join us. Truth or Dare?"
"Please choose Dare," Gassan said, in the same unearthly voice.
"The Truth is never any fun," agreed David, still in the same tone. Throughout the exchange, none of the four took their eyes off of Daniel.
"Is everything alright?" he asked. "You all seem...different."
Pammy answered in the same monotone as before: "We are collectively unnerved at a series of recurring dreams we have been having. Perhaps you too are experiencing these visions?"
"Yeah," Dan said, "but I'm not acting that weird about it."
"Perhaps," Pammy said, "All will be made more clear if you answer this simple question: Truth...or Dare?"
Written by Zodiac on 31 May 2008
The Lab
The sound of the clock ticking filled the air as the young man sat opposite the desk of an older balding gentlemen, nervously adjusting his tie as his boss looked over the stack of papers that had been on his desk. "So the scientific ethics and health committee has looked over your request for expedited human testing of your matter teleportation device," the older gentlemen said. "They are happy to inform you that they will be flying in for a live demonstration of your machine, and pending evaluation you will be cleared to begin phase three human trials within two months."
"I can't believe it Craig!" Daniel nearly shouted in joy before he quickly regained his composure. "I mean I've already proven that this thing works on our phase two trials, I just didn't think they would actually abbreviate our trial schedule for it. If we succeed here we can bring our product to market within the next year."
"Well it's all due to the hard work of you and your team for sure," Craig responded as he handed the eager young man a thick folder. "I wouldn't worry too much about that time table, the reason we even have such a long phase trial time is due to our pharmaceutical division. Just make sure you put on a good show, we only get one shot at this and if they deny our proposal then we're going to have to wait the full two years until we can bring it to phase three."
Daniel reassured his boss that he wouldn't let him down and then let out a string of appreciations as he shook the other man's hand. As soon as he left the office he went straight to the lab and shared the good news, which drew a round of cheers and celebration from all the technicians involved in the project. Once they had finished their calculations for the day they held an impromptu party, which lasted long into the night before everyone either drove home or in some cases took a taxi. Soon the only things left in the lab were the remains of such festivities and Daniel himself, who labored over the glowing screens connected to one of the platforms that served as their matter teleportation module.
"Alright, so all the diagnostics are a go," Daniel muttered to himself as he watched the lines of code flicker by. "Fusion core is stable and at one hundred percent efficiency, tungsten coils charged, quantum particles locked..." suddenly the screen turned red as a warning flashed across the screen that coordinates failed to lock and internal calibration was required. "Not this again! Why is it always the last step that causes the most problems?"
Daniel sighed and took off his tie before he grabbed his toolbox and walked up onto the platform. A light haze of smoke from the liquid nitrogen tanks coiled around him as he opened one of the panels and looked at the crystal array that was housed underneath. For him it hadn't been the first time he was in this predicament, one of the problems he had been trying to solve was the stability of the matrix that told the matter where it would be redirected too. It was nefarious for becoming out of sync, and when he looked at the positioning compared to the computer screen he found it to be a similar case.
"Great, that's another fifteen minutes of waiting for realignment," he grumbled as he set the gears to relocate the crystals. He watched as the spires of glimmering stone began to shift and rotate for a few seconds, then shut the panel and began to screw it back into place. Before he could finish the last one however he heard the loudspeaker announce that the coordinates were locked and the machine was about to fire. Daniel felt his stomach drop into his feet as he heard the machine revving up to rip apart every molecule in his body and sent to a location that he hadn't even specified, which shouldn't have been possible since the only other platform in existence wasn't even charged yet.
Written by Serathin on 15 January 2017