Waking Nightmare: An Metalogic Story

[Metalogic]

Chapter 1: Wake Up…

I do not normally take public transit. However, my Toyota Hardbody truck was in the shop with an alternator issue. Thankfully, I was able to work out of the shop while my truck was being repaired. I got onto the MegaCity Transit Bus at Mara, I was going to take it to Camon, then get onto the subway to the International District. I had a small apartment in Sai Kung, which made me a bit of an outsider. However, the apartment was cheap, and it was quiet. I managed to integrate myself by doing local chores and helping the landlady with small electrical problems around the complex. I even became a member of the local Dojo; I was starting to learn Aikido for self defense as well as a form of meditation.

The bus squeaked to a stop and I stepped on, there was already an array of the city’s citizens on the bus, I managed to find myself a window seat in the back. In my hands, I held a paperback copy of an Urban Fantasy novel. I had forgotten the name or the author, it had been a long time and some details escape me. I do not read the newspaper and I usually have the TV on at a low volume for background noise. I live by myself and sometimes a little background noise can make my tiny apartment seem less lonely. There has been rumbling around town about terrorist activities. A new subgroup of people calling themselves Redpills. I did not pay much attention to it, what is another gang or subgroup added to this city? What are the redpills going to do, spray paint Anarchy signs on depilated walls and bring even more trash to the barrens in Westview?

The bus was running along one of the cities freeways, a semi-quick way to get around town that did not have an overabundance of traffic lights. You also got a chance to see some of the beauty of MegaCity. However, it happened when the bus was passing by an industrial building. I was nose deep in my book when I suddenly looked up and saw the degradation of reality all around me. The world changed from physical metal and glass to green numbers and katakana lettering. As soon as it started, it was over, and I was in pitch black. Suddenly I found myself unable to breathe. I was gagging on something and drowning at the same time. I did not know what was going on; was I dead, was I still alive, am I in Purgatory? I waved my arms and legs and got them tangled in wires or tubes. I started to drift in and out of consciousness. Then something behind me opened and what sounded like a large vacuum, everything fell out and I was in free fall. In the falling darkness, I felt something hit my left leg and I felt sharp hot shearing pain shooting throughout my left leg and hips. I let out a painful scream that was silenced by my body crashing into a body of liquid.

I woke up in my bed in Sai Kung. The soft light of the neighborhood flowed into my bedroom as I twisted in my bed to look out the window. It was a clear night, stars twinkling, and the lights of aircrafts in the skies. After I pushed the covers from me, I grabbed my robe and walked out of my apartment, headed to the roof. On the roof I could see the outdoor furniture my landlady had set up a long time ago. She set up a couple of tables and chairs, she was sitting at one of the tables with a cigarette in her hand. She studied me as I walked over and sat down on a chair at her table.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Had a nightmare, I was taking the bus to a subway station to get back here and there was a…terrorist attack?”
She studied me before taking another drag of her cigarette, letting out a slow stream of smoke into the night sky. “Sometimes, dreams are so real, they feel like an alternative reality.”
“Well yes, but by the end of the day, they’re just dreams. They can’t hurt us, and we always wake up.”
Her eyes pierced my body, “Tell that to the Hmong, many of them have died in their sleep, some of them died screaming.”
“Like the movie Nightmare on Elm Street.”
She scoffed as if I offended her, “Reality is often harsher and more brutal than Western slop,” she replied derisively.
“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. It was the only thing I could think of.”
“What’s important now is that you stay with us, you are aboard a Zion Medical Hoverbarge.”
“Wait what?”

“You are aboard a Zion Medical Hoverbarge, Britannic. Please state your name.”
The world of my apartment building’s roof faded into inky black, everything faded into blackness. My head started pounding and the sharp pain in my left leg returned. I tried to scream but felt my jaw was locked in place. Noise, horrible noise of people rushing, talking and screaming began to feel the void. Mechanical noise such as beeping, and suctioning came and faded into the background.

“My name is…Sean.”