Chapter Nineteen Mikel
Waking up covered in sweat, Mikel sighs with relief upon finding himself to be back in the real world again. The nightmare he just woke up from was one of the worst experiences he has ever been through. He rolls over on the couch to guzzle water out of the glass on the coffee table. Still feeling the effects of the dream, he looks down at himself and rubs his hands along his forearms. He feels a little more at ease after physically planting himself in reality.
He sits perfectly still and quiet for some time, just listening to the world around him, appreciating the texture of it. Ray’s living room is almost completely dark inside, all except for the low glow of light seeping in through the heavy brown fabric curtains. The dream he just had is worrying him a great deal. It makes him reconsider his role in the world. He had always though Ray was a little over the top with his rhetoric sometimes, but now, he’s beginning to realize just what his friend is so on edge about. It’s the feeling of the inevitable destruction of the human spirit.
He can still feel the tempo of the pacing he was doing back in his dream. It was a slightly fast pace, like one might do when fretting. Pondering his dream, he tries to remember just what all kinds of madness was going on. It’s so hard to remember because of the overall lack of sensation during the scenario. That alone almost seemed to be the point of the whole damn thing, not being able to ground himself to his surroundings.
With a cold feeling crawling up his spine again, he starts to remember what happened more vividly. Everything was a murky red, as if he could only see in that one coagulated bloody color. Even though his vision was dark, he could still make out every detail like a hawk. What bothered him was not being able to really feel his own presence, or much of anything for that matter. He had no tongue in his mouth and everything felt stiff, in a bad way, like stale hard bread. In his dream, he was a robot.
He recalls aimlessly pacing around, trying to do something. There was no reason for anything, he was just driven to simply do. It was like he was chasing his own tail. He would thrash around, trying to get a bearing on his existence, but he just couldn’t feel anything properly. He would end up breaking anything he touched.
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People would sometimes talk to him and he would respond, but none of it made any sense either way. His answers seemed to always come off of cards. It was like fighting a tranquilizer. It felt like years had gone by in that shitty place. He even feels older for it. Usually dreams seem to go by quickly, but it was not the case this time.
For the longest time, he just couldn’t slow his mind down, like when a person can’t fall asleep. Random senseless thought would ceaselessly cycle through his mind. Towards the end, whenever he tried to talk to anyone, they would somehow vanish or something. He can clearly recall, for most of the ordeal, wishing that he did not exist.
Eventually he was able to force himself to stop moving, lay over on the ground, and stare up into the never ending murky redness. After staring into nothing for so long, he watched the red turn into black, and then there was nothing but blackness for a while. After that, he woke up. There is something else that he can still feel though, something residual from the dream that he can’t remember. It makes him feel tainted. It makes him wonder just what kind of twisted world Five lives in.
Thinking about last night, there were times where he almost felt bad for having been so rotten towards her and Five-One. Now, he feels like he should finish her off for good, to do her that one favor. If she is stuck in a world of despair like he was in his dream, and doesn’t even know it, it would only be the right thing to do. No one else is going to let her escape that kind of hell. If things get too bad, she might end up lashing out in some diabolical way.
Shocked at the sudden realization, he quickly sits up. He finally remembers what happened, what it is that is still disturbing him. As a robot, he was feeling this sick rage continually building up inside of him. Not just a rage of anger, but one of festering contempt. He felt like smashing everyone he came across into a soup of guts on the ground. That’s exactly what he did too, until there was no one left and he was all alone.
His eyes start to well up with shame. He can’t believe that he was able to muster such a sickness from inside himself, be it a dream or not. He wonders where Five’s moral boundaries really lie, or if she even has any. He wonders if her mind can twist as savagely as a person’s can. Looking at his watch, he sees that it’s only five-thirty in the morning. He wishes he didn’t have to lay there awake and alone anymore. He stays sitting up, but sinks back into the couch, focusing on the glow of light bleeding through the curtains. It’s starting to become ever so slowly brighter. He certainly doesn’t want to go back to sleep. He’s afraid of slipping back into that darkness again.