Dream Theater: Are You There, Darwin? It's Me, Leah.
I dreamed that I was watching an alternate history unfold; my perspective was able to shift between people as though I were looking through their eyes.
First there is the scientist. Alone in the lab, she is working with something in a petri dish. A small earthquake suddenly shakes the building, causing a lot of the glassware and instruments to jiggle across the counter. Almost nothing is disturbed, except a metal storage rack wasn't quite balanced and tips over, whacking the metal topped counter, where it scallops the edge into a jagged point. Reflexively the woman tries to duck out of the way, but she snags her arm on the sharp corner and puncturs her clean suit, as well as scratching her skin. Shaken, but feeling fine, she goes through decontamination, gathers her things and drives herself to her house.
When she wakes the next morning, she realizes something terrible is happening to her. Her forearm around the cut is a dead-looking white and completely numb. Her first impulse is to torch her house and commit suicide to stop the spread of whatever reaction the pathogen has produced in her.
She doesn't feel ill, but the dead flesh spreads all over her until she can feel nothing but the pressure of her own weight. For days she agonizes over whether to die or not, until the evening of the fourth night when her eyes begin to gleam and her sense of taste sharpens and she no longer cares to stop it.
***
Some time passes. Now I am watching people inside Fort Casey, where they have holed up inside the sunken concrete structures to defend themselves against these unforeseen predators. It is sundown and the attackers have managed to capture a small group of refugees who were out searching for resources. They are feral, no longer human looking. Their hair is wild and unkempt, their faces twisted and dirty and pale and alien. Those holed up in the fort wail and gnash for their captured loved ones, but dare not go out to try and free them; they are outnumbered and outgunned, so to speak.
The daylight is fading, but it is still light enough, unfortunately, to see what becomes of the captives when the creatures lose their limited patience. The more restrained merely lap up the blood; the overeager rip out fistfuls of flesh and gorge until they are drenched in clotting gore. The owner of the eyes I am borrowing loses control of his bladder.
***
Much time has passed. I am seeing through the eyes of an instructor, standing at the bottom of a large lecture hall, which is divided down the middle. On the right my host is speaking to a group of not-quite-human youths with pale, dead skin and uncanny eyes, who fidget and try to listen to the important lessons and strategies that are being imparted. They are learning the reasons they must control their hunger and methods of keeping it under rein.
Those nearest the center aisle are having a harder time, since the left half of the hall is filled with human children; the oldest perhaps fifteen, the youngest four. The proximity is most distracting. The humans are a study in stoicism by contrast; they do not look at their predators, but straight ahead at their lecturer, careful to keep their shoulders back and breathing steady. The four year is clenching his fists in his lap but displays no other outward sign; he has learned his lessons well.
This long-standing truce depends on the younger generations; those who must learn to feed gently and not squander the hard-earned goodwill of centuries, and those who must forget how to be prey.
It's not quite harmony.
First there is the scientist. Alone in the lab, she is working with something in a petri dish. A small earthquake suddenly shakes the building, causing a lot of the glassware and instruments to jiggle across the counter. Almost nothing is disturbed, except a metal storage rack wasn't quite balanced and tips over, whacking the metal topped counter, where it scallops the edge into a jagged point. Reflexively the woman tries to duck out of the way, but she snags her arm on the sharp corner and puncturs her clean suit, as well as scratching her skin. Shaken, but feeling fine, she goes through decontamination, gathers her things and drives herself to her house.
When she wakes the next morning, she realizes something terrible is happening to her. Her forearm around the cut is a dead-looking white and completely numb. Her first impulse is to torch her house and commit suicide to stop the spread of whatever reaction the pathogen has produced in her.
She doesn't feel ill, but the dead flesh spreads all over her until she can feel nothing but the pressure of her own weight. For days she agonizes over whether to die or not, until the evening of the fourth night when her eyes begin to gleam and her sense of taste sharpens and she no longer cares to stop it.
***
Some time passes. Now I am watching people inside Fort Casey, where they have holed up inside the sunken concrete structures to defend themselves against these unforeseen predators. It is sundown and the attackers have managed to capture a small group of refugees who were out searching for resources. They are feral, no longer human looking. Their hair is wild and unkempt, their faces twisted and dirty and pale and alien. Those holed up in the fort wail and gnash for their captured loved ones, but dare not go out to try and free them; they are outnumbered and outgunned, so to speak.
The daylight is fading, but it is still light enough, unfortunately, to see what becomes of the captives when the creatures lose their limited patience. The more restrained merely lap up the blood; the overeager rip out fistfuls of flesh and gorge until they are drenched in clotting gore. The owner of the eyes I am borrowing loses control of his bladder.
***
Much time has passed. I am seeing through the eyes of an instructor, standing at the bottom of a large lecture hall, which is divided down the middle. On the right my host is speaking to a group of not-quite-human youths with pale, dead skin and uncanny eyes, who fidget and try to listen to the important lessons and strategies that are being imparted. They are learning the reasons they must control their hunger and methods of keeping it under rein.
Those nearest the center aisle are having a harder time, since the left half of the hall is filled with human children; the oldest perhaps fifteen, the youngest four. The proximity is most distracting. The humans are a study in stoicism by contrast; they do not look at their predators, but straight ahead at their lecturer, careful to keep their shoulders back and breathing steady. The four year is clenching his fists in his lap but displays no other outward sign; he has learned his lessons well.
This long-standing truce depends on the younger generations; those who must learn to feed gently and not squander the hard-earned goodwill of centuries, and those who must forget how to be prey.
It's not quite harmony.