Therazan Sajan was being honored at a state dinner. She looked at the marks of rank and honor on her uniform and she knew something was not right.
“Ms. Sajan,” Duron called to her, “we need to talk.”
“Are you here for the dinner Commander Ardiniero?” she asked.
“No I am not,” said Duron, “I am finding it easier if I just come out with it. None of this is real. This is all part of a dream created by the mind trap the Spectral Horde has us in.”
“I knew this all felt wrong. It takes years to become a general. I am way too young. Now what?”
“Do you know where Mr. Tickbird is?”
“What? Zem is right here next to me.”
Therazan looked and noticed the man sitting next to her was not Zemwell Tickbrid. It looked like him but it was not the real him.
“It seems you do not share the same dream,” said Duron, “we still have to find him.”
“Yes,” said Therazan, “we have to find Zem.”
The dream world came apart as Therazan Sajan set out on her mission.
Zemwell Tickbird was standing in a farmhouse. There were children all around. Therazan Sajan was there with him but there was something wrong with her. She was as beautiful as ever but she was not herself.
“What the hell is this?” said Zemwell, “This is all wrong. Why are we living on a farm? When did we have a bunch of kids?”
Two of the children stopped and looked at Zemwell. One of them spoke in a strange high echoing voice, “How peculiar that this one is able to recognize the falsehood of the mind trap.”
Then the other child spoke in a deep dark voice, “Perhaps we chose wrongly when we constructed this dream.”
“This was a fairly standard fantasy among the Americans, perhaps we chose the wrong male to female ratio of children,” said the high voiced child.
“We should have looked deeper into this ones mind, there did not appear to be much going on in the surface of his mental landscape but clearly there is more to him than we thought,” said the deep voiced child.
Zemwell backed away from the children and said, “What are you? You’re not my children and that is not Thera. I don’t want this. I want her, Therazan, the real her, where is she…”
The world shattered like glass and Zemwell Tickbird fell through darkness screaming. It felt like he would fall forever. Then someone caught him.
“Where did he come from?” said Duron, “he was just drifting out in the dark.”
Therazan Sajan and Duron Ardiniero had Zemwell.
“Thera is that really you?” asked Zemwell, “We were living on a farm and I think we were married and there were kids everywhere.”
“Wait?” said Therzane, “you dreamt that we had kids? Like a lot of them?”
“But they weren’t really kids? I think they were aliens and I don’t even like farms.”
“I think it would be best if we just get him back to the circle with everyone else,” said Duron.
Everyone gathered in the circle of light in the dark.
“I think we have everyone now,” said Janessa.
“So how do we get out of here now?” said Ryoko, “and what do we do once we do get back? We have no idea how long we have been in the mind trap. For all we know the Daedlus has been boarded and our bodies have been moved to some Spectral Horde lab.”
“She has a point,” said Duron, “within the dreams there is really no sense of time. With all of us here together we can use each other as a reference but with no way to measure we can’t be sure how long we have been in here.”
“This doesn’t feel right,” said Junitha, “all of us together like this… if everyone was free of the dream we would know it. We would be able to fight back. We must still be missing someone. Evan do you have a headcount.”
“I have accounted for every member of staff,” said Evan, “everyone is here.”
“What about people who are not on staff?” said Anyantha, “there is someone on the ship who was not a member of staff.”
“You’re right,” said Janessa, “we are missing someone.”
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