Conversations

we are walking along a hallway in a school.  there are posters everywhere as advertisements for the school, but all the children in the posters are without expression, almost sad or angry.  upon going into one of the classrooms, we hear that several of the children were kidnapped and aren’t being assimilated well into what the teachers are teaching.  they’ve been told the world suffered an apocalypse and they are the last remaining children. there is nothing but clouds and wind in the sky.  rocks and dirt everywhere we can see.  off in the distance there might be water but it is far away and the smoke in the air obscures our vision.  we all wear grey or black.

me and a boy who sees visions become friends.  he tells me that i will fall in love with him.  i wrap my arms around him and lay my cheek on his back and ask him if that means that he loves me. he simply whispers yes.

a boy in a class runs away to the perimeter fence. he is caught by a guard, a huge man, and thrown bodily against the barbed wire. out of nowhere a giant with a huge club appears and pummels the boy’s body, killing him instantly. we are told never to attempt escape.  i stand and stare at the flattened, mangled body until the boy takes my hand and leads me away.

me and the boy and our friends are out at night. we stray too far to the perimeter fence and are chased by a lesser giant.  it yells at us as we run back to the compound, weaving through boxcars. a horse is there.  i think i hear it speak but we are running too fast and are too terrified.  we make it back when a teacher spots us. he distracts a door guard while we slip back in through a grate behind some boxes.  the door guard has a silky voice that reminds me of a snake. i resist the urge to peek at him and, instead, dive headfirst into the tunnel to get back to our dormitory.

we decide to escape. we realize that this place is a sham. the world was not destroyed.  we need to get back to our parents.  we gather a group of six children, find guns.

the teacher who helped us is there. he laughs and thanks us for bringing one of the lesser giants back to the compound as only one of them can open the huge gates to the inner core.  he releases the giant to attack us and we battle it in a large warehouse filled with stacks of lumber and pipes.  we bring him down and ask him how to get past the perimeter giants. he says they get stupid in the sun and with us needing to escape at night that will be impossible. he laughs at us. the boy who sees visions shoots him in the head and takes my hand and we run towards the perimeter fence.

then i woke up.