Reality
Sam Zucca, Bro Myrddin
My name is Joe Martins and I suffer from a condition which puts me into a preserved state of mind when I’m asleep, where I have extremely vivid dreams. It all started on the 9th September 2009 or 9/9/09 if you prefer. I woke up an hour late and only just made it to school on time.
It was a rough day and I was exhausted when I got home. I collapsed on the couch and immediately went into a deep sleep…
I heard birds chirping in treetops, crickets jumping around and all the other sounds you would hear in the Amazon rainforest.
“Hello! Is anyone here? Hello!” I heard a voice saying from behind me.
I turned to see a man in camouflage clothing and a sun hat carrying a shotgun.
“Hello young man, how jolly for you to turn up. I’m Gary Southwalk – Lion Hunter.”
He put out a hand but I was too puzzled to shake it. Who was this person? Why was he hunting lions in the middle of the rainforest? I was going to ask but he interrupted my train of thought.
“I think I smell something.” He ran over to a rock in the middle of a clump of trees and, reaching behind it, brought out a frying pan that was cooking eggs. “I hope you like them runny.”
So we sat there in that clump of trees and ate our eggs in the shade. I tried to ask him about his job but he just diverted the subject every time. I fell asleep after a while (if you can in a dream) and woke to find Southwalk gone and a trail of blood on the floor.
Shocked from the scene I followed the trail and came to a river. It couldn’t have been the Amazon as it was too small. I began to cross it when I heard a strange noise. I turned to my left to see that the water was flowing out of a large statue of a head. I walked closer when a sudden vision brought me to my knees. I saw terrible things – a war, I became an orphan, bombs dropping onto the land and then… It stopped as I felt a hand on my ankle. It was Southwalk.
“You saw it didn’t you!” he said. I nodded.
“Is it killing you?” I asked.
“No, you are. I am an element of your imagination. You created me. Now you will end my life.” His eyes rolled back and the landscape faded away and materialised into a dark blue sea.
I floated there for a while then trod water until my feet found the floor and I tried to wade to land. There was nothing. Every time I tried to get somewhere different I ended up at the same place. Or at least that’s what I thought; everywhere seemed to look the same.
Suddenly I felt a hand grasp my foot. I plunged underwater and started sinking. The water now felt a lot deeper and darker. I tried to swim up but the hand on my foot held tightly. I was more scared than anything else. I felt two bubbles come from my mouth. I was about to let the water in when out of nowhere a person in an old fashioned diving suit appeared. They came up to me, tore away what was actually seaweed holding my foot and brought me up above the waves.
I panted quickly as the person unexpectedly went limp. “Thank you,” I panted. “What were you doing down there? It must have been cold under the water.” There was no reply.
…“Hello, are you in there?”
I waved over at his helmet but there was still no sign of life. In the end I decided to open up the suit. I undid the four buckles on each side and opened up the helmet. There was nothing. I tore the whole helmet off the suit. It was completely empty; nothing there. Confused, I remembered it pulling me out of the water. An empty suit couldn’t do that. Or could it? I tried to think of a reasonable explanation but my thoughts were clogged up by the sound of waves churning. I saw in the distance a giant wave appear. It swallowed me up and I returned to reality.
My eyes opened to see my bedroom. I turned to my watch: 2:00am. It was going to be a long time before I got back to sleep.
Tuesday morning I got to school on time. I didn’t talk to anyone on the bus. I was just wondering about what my dreams meant.
“Sometimes your dreams are like made out of things from your normal day,” said Tim, a friend of mine. “Like that project you did on the Amazon rainforest and your swimming lesson.”
“Maybe” I replied with a mouthful of mashed potato. “Or it might be that condition that I have. What is Slomny…? Somna… Somnipathy.” I finally said.
“Why don’t you ask the new girl – Zoe Thompson? Apparently she’s studying Psychology. That could help.”
“Yeah right, like I haven’t heard it all before. My mum’s taken me to all the best psychologists, doctors, therapists you name it. I doubt she can help.”
“You’ve got a point.”
That night I decided to make a little experiment. I got out a Margherita pizza (because that was about the only cheesy thing in the house) and a DVD about Greek myths. I was set for the night. Sure enough two educational hours later I was going up to bed and started my journey into a deep sleep.
I appeared to find a very odd moment. There were lots of people in the room. What was it they were doing? Praying, that’s it. Praying to statues of gods. I was in a grand temple under a large mountain that seemed to draw me to it. I was standing near a fountain where people were rushing around collecting jugs of water and making the sign of the horns. A new force had taken refuge in Ancient Greece. I went over to one of the townsmen and asked “Do you know anyone who could take me up there?” indicating the mountain.
“No, not me sir. It is a dangerous road up there. Only one person is mad enough to danger the journey.” She pointed to a girl arguing with the priest.
“Well, well, well,” I said to myself. “Zoe Thompson.”
“I think it’s horrible,” she said as we were trekking up the mountain. “The New Faith,” she said. “What it’s doing to these people. It’s like an unstoppable force. Driving them. The old gods were best. And that is coincidentally who we’ve arranged to meet.”
“Zeus?” I asked.
“Yep,” she replied, “Him and the gang.”
The rest of the journey was tiring but rewarding and we steadily made our way up the side of Mount Olympus.
Half an hour later we reached the top and came to the gates of the council. “I can’t go up there to meet Zeus. Only you can. You’re their master.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay down here?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll probably do some knitting with Hera to pass the time.”
So there I was on my own, going up to meet the King of the Gods. Not really my most confident moment.
Then the gates opened for me and I came to a magnificent view of the whole of Greece. It was beautiful. But for some reason my eyes came down to the townsmen and women in the new church praising the lord Jesus; giving disrespect to the gods.
“Terrible isn’t it?” said a voice from behind me. It was, I presumed, Zeus. He was wearing white robes and his pure brown hair went down to his elbows. He scratched a trim beard.
“We gave them life, and they just start rioting and worshipping this new god. The least I want is respect. Anyway, let’s leave my problems and move on to yours. We are in danger,” he declared. “That new force that you saw in the forest, the hand that you felt in the sea and the new god they’re praying to. It wants revenge on you. You trapped it in your mind. And now it’s trying to kill you.”
“What can I do?” I asked.
“There are certain rules that define it. For example, he is a shape shifter, but if you can see the truth he will show his true form. Another thing is that the laws of physics do not apply to you or it in this world. But be careful. Its most powerful weapon is fear. It can use that as an advantage against you more than any other type of pain. Although, everything is just signals going to your brain.”
“But how will I know what is real and what is not?”
He tapped his nose knowingly.“ Look for the scratches.”
We were suddenly interrupted by riotous shouting and banging on the door.
“They are coming. Quick, run. This is no place for you, here.”
I ran to the windows
ill and climbed onto the edge. I glanced down one more time to see Zeus unleash his deadly lightning bolt before I plummeted down to a new world.
Space. Endless Space. All around me I felt bare, even in this suit. It was scary how overwhelming it was. I turned around to see Earth. I’d heard many tales of that sight. That it was amazing, the most beautiful thing ever seen. But I just felt scared. Or maybe homesick would be a better word.
Suddenly I received a shock as a voice came into my head. “Hello,” said the voice in a thick Russian accent. “Hello. This is a transmission from Moscow to Soyuz One, could you please report your position.”
‘Of course!’ I thought. I must have come into the signal of a neighbouring spaceship. And I guessed from the technology this must have been 1961 at the latest.
I looked all around me looking for a spaceship but couldn’t see anything. Still the voice kept nagging on. “Moscow to Soyuz One, can you read me? Moscow to Soyuz One, can you read me?” on and on and on. Then I looked up with a lump in my throat. I guess whoever had manned the Soyuz was a goner. His helmet and spacecraft were completely out of sight. So was his head. Strangely there were little treks of blood floating around, coming out of the ever-gaping hole in his head. I couldn’t look anymore. I had to turn my head away and tell Moscow the bad news.
A black hole destroys everything that falls into it, including itself, time and unfortunately me. Yes I was heading on a trip with no end. I would be stretched like spaghetti and be eaten by this gigantic monster. I sort of felt that the monster that had been watching me was right there in front of me. A big hole in the fabric of space. Luring me in like prey and then eventually killing me. The worst thing about it was that I was helpless against its presence. There was nothing I could do to escape this demon. There was nothing to do but wait in fear.
I awoke to the strange sound of jazz. I knew it was 1948 in New York: a Miles Davis concert. I couldn’t really concentrate and my head hurt. I swiftly avoided the cheering and dodged into a dark back alley. I started to turn to find another alley. I was lost. This was how it was going to trap me: in a maze.
I started panicking and the claustrophobia kicked in. I started breathing quickly and running through every passage, breathing heavily. I bumped into someone. It was Zoe.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“Well I was just running from the riots when I suddenly appeared here. Is that usual?”
“It’s been happening to me quite frequently now. Doing my head in.”
“Maybe we should start looking for a way out.”
I nodded in agreement.
We shuddered down the dark alleyway, eyes creeping from behind us in the street. We reached a dead end. I shouted out lividly and kicked at the wall seeing a jagged mark in my foot even though I felt nothing.
“There’s no way out!” I exclaimed “This is a maze, an impossible maze.”
We heard a voice coming from behind, a dark, disfigured voice.
“Free me!” it shouted.
We heard its breath churning, its feet stamping and saw a dark shadow in the mist. I swallowed and waited for its attack. But instead the mist opened to reveal a familiar figure.
“Mum!” I cried and ran towards her. But a hand grasped me. It was Zoe.
“You can’t!” she said.
“We need to go, I can’t stay here any longer”
I pointed to the tarantulas now chipping through the old brick wall.
“Look at her, Joe” she asked “Just look! She has no face.”
I suddenly felt a rush of blood come to my head as I realised how stupid I was. The monster was a shape shifter and I’d forgot about the scratches. I turned to it seeing lightning bolts crash out of it.
“You know the rules.” I said “Show me your identity!” I shivered as my mum deteriorated, becoming instead the form of a huge cloak holding two spheres of flame in its hands. In the hood I could only see two empty supernovas instead of eyes. This was the face of darkness.
“You cannot destroy me! I am the Water, the Fire, the Earth beneath your feet, I am Time itself. The only thing left to control is your imagination.” It laughed a maniacal laugh at the expression on my face and began its attack.
I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” it said angrily.
“You’ve forgotten something very important mister. You fight me with fear and try to make me give in. But there’s one thing stronger than fear. Hope. And also you’ve forgotten that this is my dream, my rules. And I control the gravity.”
Its face suddenly went very dim and it flew away to crash into the sea somewhere. My surroundings disappeared one last time and my nightmare was over.
The next night I had no dreams. The next night was the same. And as time went by I didn’t have another dream ever again.
The Chip [Extract]
Rhys Owain Evans, Bro Myrddin
Nick was trapped. There was no way past them. He stopped to think: what would Rickie do? All of a sudden he remembered the chip in his pocket.
“Of course! That’s why they’re chasing me, I still have the computer chip from the office.”
They arrived where Nick had stopped. It was a dead end with a high wall above their heads.
“We’ve lost him!” said the first bodyguard into his sleeve.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, our security camera came back on and now I know who we’re dealing with,’ answered Theo through the sleeve. “A Swansea supporter…”
Hi. My name’s Nicholas Grimsby but every body calls me Nick. If that introduction was a bit fast for you then let me tell you how I got into that sticky situation.
P.S. I’m going to write about myself in the third person. Now it’s time for the adventure of a lifetime, well for me anyway.
The alarm clock finally went, but Nick had been up for an hour reading his action novel: Rickie vs. the CIA. Nick loves football and will play it whenever he’s not reading his footballer spy book which he takes everywhere in his trusty backpack. He never leaves his bag out of his sight and takes it everywhere. His mid-length brown hair is based on Rickie’s hair and he wears similar clothes to him too. He supports Swansea City FC but lives between Swansea and Cardiff. Nick lives with his Dad, Mum and little brother Ben who is eight years old. Nick is twelve and is one of the more popular kids in Year 7. His best mate, Jonathan, also supports Swansea and they live on the same row of houses so they go to quite a few games together. Nick’s very observant and uses most of the methods that are in his book to suss people out and guess their way of life.
“There’s a big game on Tuesday versus Birmingham City, in case you didn’t know,” said Jonathan.
“And you didn’t think I knew! I’ve got us tickets for it remember, you thicko,” answered Nick.
“So have you done your science homework Nick? Nick? Nick?” called Jon.
“I’m in the supply closet,” whispered Nick. “Rickie has just been captured by the CIA!”
“Well you better get out because you’ll miss Drama,’ reminded Jon.
Tuesday went by quickly, with Nick having simple lessons: English, Music, Geography, Art and IT and three out of five of those teachers didn’t even turn up.