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
Truth and Dare
Daniel looked around his friends. The eerie feeling was hanging in the air and he started getting nervous. His friends were acting strangely and he didn´t know how to react to the sudden change. He slowly walked forward and stood at the edge of the circle made by his sitting friends. All of them blankly stared at him, waiting on his answer.
“Do we have to play it now?” Daniel asked worriedly. “You are all acting weird.”
“Chose, Dan,” Pammy repeated in monotonous voice.
“Truth, or Dare?” they all said in unison and a shiver ran down Daniel´s back.
Whatever was happening, it had to have something to do with his strange dreams and the midnight visitors and all his friends being away during the weekend. But how much can a person change during one weekend? Daniel looked at the unblinking eyes fixed at him. Apparently, a lot.
“Truth,” he said slowly. He didn´t know what was wrong, but he didn´t want to risk a Dare with all his friends acting so unsettling.
“Wrong choice,” David said.
Daniel made a step backwards, suddenly scared by the void in his friends´ eyes.
“Dare?” he said quickly, trying to buy himself some time to think up what to do. The word worked like a spell, all his friends relaxed and some of the tension seemed to disappear from the room.
“Sit down, Daniel,” Pammy told him and she almost sounded like her usual cheerful self. She even smiled at him, but Daniel could see her smile being a tad too wide to be real.
Written by lulu-illussions on 07 October 2016
The Dare
Daniel's friends had become incredible busy with their new high-school lives. He was excited to have the five of them altogether for their traditional weekend hangout. Daniel was determined to make it a good one. Of course. All this drive was hidden under a mostly calm and dopey face of his. He didn't want to act like a preschooler, now, did he? Pam's dare had stolen all his pep, what made it crueler was her being a cheerleader, wasn't she suppose to inspire the opposite in him. Daniel awkwardly laughed while avoided his friends eyes.
Pam's dare was an easy one, go visit the abandon military base at the end of town. No big deal, normally, but with the shadow of the past few nights recurring nightmare hanging over him. He just couldn't work up the nerve to agree to it right away.
“Well are you chickening out or going?” Pam asked impatiently tapping her perfect red nails on the carpeted floor of her bedroom.
“It's just so far.” Daniel rubbed his head and groaned. It was the sweat drenching nights he woke up screaming. Or the burning terror he felt in his gut, as his mind wandered to the thoughts of that base. “Sounds like chicken talk to me,” David teased Daniel while tossing popcorn into his hair.
“How would I even prove I was there?” Daniel desperately grasped at some excuse, swiping the popcorn out of his hair with both his hands.
“Someone should go with him, prove he's gone inside.” Pam was quick to come up with a plan. “Should you go, and cheer him on?” Jake said raising his eyebrows dramatically for people to catch his bad joke.
“Should we all go?” Gassen suggested with a raise of his hand. “Personally I've always been curious about the place.”
“A night of courage. I like it!” David said getting on board quickly. “Maybe they have some old military uniforms left over? I could use them for one of my fursona's!” Jake jumped up and was already gathering his backpack.
“Why not?” Pam shrugged, getting off the floor. “Let's get our bikes chicken boy!” Pan shot at him as she left the room.
“Ye-yeah!” Daniel struggled out. His thoughts turned in, flashing back to bright lights, pain and the blood soaked horror of awakening and not being himself.
“Daniel. We could stay behind. You and me, we'll watch some movies.” Gassen placed a hand on his shoulder. His eyes filled with concern. Gassen was a good friend, taking a deep breath Daniel shook off his nightmares and Gassen's hand.
“No.” He let out a shaky breath, feeling calmer he continued with a stronger voice. “No, you want to go, and we'll all be together. What can go wrong?”
Written by Psto1464 on 17 March 2019
Everything
Everything. That is what could go wrong. Daniel was panting heavily in a secluded room even his nightmare's couldn't come up with it. It was cold, dark, and the only sound he could hear was the hard ting of water drops hitting the metal of his room. Shaking, curled up in his own vomit he wondered how he got here? Was his friends doing okay?
“Gassen,” Daniel moaned as his body bent back with more pain. Gassen was with him when they got separated in the dark corridors of the old military base. They thought the other's were trying to scare them, instead it was them, it was him. The people from his dreams. The doctor that experimented Daniel in his night terrors. They were real and they got him. His memories were foggy but, he knew at least Gassen got away. Daniel could still see his retreating back and feel the relief of knowing one of them make it. Gassen had to have made it home, away from the taser's, the guns and the man in the white coat.
When he could scream, he called out for others. No one answered. When Daniel could abide the pain of the shots given to him, he knew a week had gone by. Now he knew nothing, but the hollow truth that no help was coming. When the pain stopped, his mind shut down carrying Daniel gratefully into the darkness of his unconscious.
Daniel woke up, his eyelids pinning open, as a wave of alertness washed over him. His mind was surprisingly clear. There was no pain, fear or despair. His heart was light, he sat up nose curly at the sight of dried blood and vomit on his tattered clothes. Acids, and chemicals smells burned his nose. Sounds of foot steps walking along the metal corridors echoed clearer than ever before. They were coming. What should he do?
Written by Psto1464 on 20 March 2019
Attack and run
The door creaked open, a now familiar cry of rusty metal door. The hard thunk of their black military boots stepped into the room. Whistle a cheery tune. Daniel didn't know the tune, but the sound; the pure bliss coming from that bastards mouth made his teeth grate.
“Arrrghhhhh!” Deep from within Daniel a roar emerged fiercer than any animal he could name.
“What!” The whistling man shouted and stepped back, hitting his partners chest. Yes, the cowards always traveled in pairs. Pairs to hurt him, to spit on him, to threatening him. The heat from his roar filled his chest again, instead of a roar. Flames billowed out from his mouth. Covering the man in moulting flames, that looked more a river of lava.
“AHH!” Screams of the dying man filled the air, fulling not fear in Daniel but triumph. Without knowing or even caring where it came from. He roared into the air, throwing his head back. This one was louder stronger and made the room tremble with his new strength. Daniel lost himself in the feeling. More, more, a few more like the bubbling mass that now laid in front of him, and he would be free! Free!
Rushing forward Daniel didn't think, he couldn't think. It was like a movie or more of a game, where he was watching in first person. Watching the uniform man fall to his knees, begging for mercy and getting none. Cold black claws came down slitting his throat and didn't look back. Daniel didn't have claws, he was human after all.
He didn't feel anything as these same claws created a bloody trail from the soldiers that came rushing in. Buzzing of electric current filled the room as they tried taser him, it didn't work; Daniel felt nothing but a tingling sensation from it. Cementing the video game feeling he was getting. Black claws and the odd fire breath made quick work of the people in front of him. Darts pinned off him, knifes all rolled off him, he was a duck in water. Nothing could hurt him!
Rushing on, the taste of clean air filled his open mouth. Soon he was out in it, free and running. Daniel wasn't stupid enough to stop. He had to run. Run or lose his precious freedom and knowing the carnage he left; even his life could be at stake. Running into the woods Daniel didn't stop until he dropped from fatigue.
Daniel woke up and stare down at hands, as if they weren't his own. He turned them front and back, hoping it would somehow change the results of what he saw. Daniel could feel his body shake with the knowledge that in a way; he was right. These hands that belonged to him weren't his anymore. Without the rush of adrenaline backing Daniel's courage. Without survival driving his instincts to accept what happen and get out. He was nothing but a trembling mess. Staring at pale purple scales shimmering in the pale moonlight.
“Dragon?” Daniel whispered scared to speak louder, even if he was completely alone. “Am I a dragon?” He felt his face, elongated he could get the sense it wasn't like an alligator. It was the closest real thing he could think of for comparison. He raised his hands to his head and it continued up and divided into what was clearly thin horns. Like those of the eastern dragons? But he was walking upright...didn't they sprawl across the skies or get around on all fours? Daniel's mind drifted to his friend Jake's hobby of fursona's and decided to settle on that for an overall idea of what he looked like, as he didn't have a mirror.
“I'm a bit slender and ?” Daniel mummer-ed as he continued trailing his hands across his body exploring his changes. He felt the heavy forms on his chest, he squeezed them and found them soft. “Tumours?” Daniel briefly panicked, and squeezed them again. They were too soft and reminded him of Pam's? Daniel didn't finish the thought because Pam would sense it and strike him for sure the next time they met up. Instead, he dived his hands into his pants and searched in vain for his missing parts. Feeling around, there was nothing! Nothing! Daniel pulled out his hands and slumped with acceptance. His mind drifted as he went back to staring at his now scaled hands.
Gone was that pasty white skin that his friend Pam used to laugh at him for. Gone was the short clipped, partial chewed clear nails. Instead, he had black shining claws, they're small delicate and curved to a deadly point. Daniel grazed this claw across the forest floor in front of him, watching the claws split small rocks with ease. Turn the hard dirt into soft soil.
“Wow,” he whispered. Whatever they had done, whatever their aim was. They had succeeded, you can easily imagine these claw's destruction powers. If all his geeky ways told you anything, it was differently for military purposes, and he, he was that kid at a bad place, at a bad time. “Maybe, I can become some sort of superhero?” Daniel laughed sadly, his thoughts were quickly going south. He was defeated before you even started. He was unmanned and dehumanized. Daniel couldn't figure out what was worse.
“Superhero?” Daniel scoffed at himself. “Try super zero.” How could he save others, if he couldn't save himself. Feeling a scraping of something across his lap, Daniel released a feral growl and jump back slamming into the tree he was resting against. Daniel looked around frantically for what touched him. All he could see was the soft point of his newly acquired tail. Daniel fell to the ground, boneless and mentally beating. Daniel needed help, and there was no friendly neighbourhood good guy to help.
Either path was full off death flags, tapped wires and possibility of Daniel's best friends thinking he was crazy. Worse they'll dropping everything and ruining their lives because he was the idiot who took the dare to far. Daniel groan, a deep but definable feminine voice, it was almost sexy. He slammed himself forward using his hands to get up. He had made his choice.
Written by Psto1464 on 22 March 2019