The+Dream

Nikolas Tran ½ B-Day The "Dream" I jolted upright and I was completely astonished. Barren buildings… The land was bleak and dry. My vision was still blurry from having just awakened, so I rubbed my eyes then stood. My name’s Charlie. I’m just a regular kid that lived in New York, now probably the Dead York. Not anything too special about me. I'm just an average, barely passing student, although in gym, no one was better than me. You wouldn't expect a kid like me to be in a place like this, and neither did I.  My attention pinpointed to a voice. “It’s about time you were awake!” I saw a boy about my age, around five feet high. He wore glasses and his skin was as white as snow. I recognized him as Jake, a friend. I replied back to him, “Where are we? What happened? What’s with –…” I was interrupted as he softly spoke. “Just wait a second, I’m working on something.” I walked over and peered at his little “project”. It started to whir, smoke started splashing out of it, and then it started to levitate. A bright light flashed on, however, after a few seconds, the light bursted into flames, and then the odd mechanism fell to the ground. My vision started to blur a little bit, and I paid little attention to his machine. “I’m feeling a little bit dizzy…” I anticipated falling, but somehow I was able to stabilize myself. Jake quickly noticed that I was exhausted. "Here, let's find some shelter." I replied, "Yeah, that'd be nice." I stumbled and clumsily found my way over to an old deserted building where it seemed that the remains of food were found. "This seems like a good place to stay. There are food reserves, and there's a pretty adequate roof too." My vision started to blur again, so I walked up into the upper level of the building to find a place to rest. I found a bed then collapsed onto it. I slowly came back to my senses as Jake started to make loud banging noises on the doors. I sat upright and noticed that he was barring the doors. He turned back and noticed me, then said, “I’m barring all of these doors except one so we have both protection and an escape route if need be.” “Sounds like a plan.” I replied. “Now, I’d be pleased if you could actually answer my questions from earlier.” He replied back, “Sorry, you were there sleeping like a log the whole time. I don’t think I could’ve ever answered your questions. Anyway, we’re in the middle of New York City, during the summertime. I think it’s 2012. Doomsday!” He laughed slightly. “Anyway, it seems that we’re the only survivors.” I replied, “Survivors of what? I can’t think of my hometown just simply falling apart.” He replied, “Survivors of a nuclear bomb explosion. We were probably deep underground when the missile hit the ground, and the driving force of the missile simply dug us out.” I simply pondered what he just said. Survivors. Nuclear bomb. Explosion!? None of this made sense at all. My thought was interrupted when suddenly, faint buzzing noises started to arouse from outside. I asked, “What is that?” The noise grew louder, slowly. Very, very slowly. Then, a large needle-like thorn stabbed through the wood that was barring the doors. Jake looked like he was about to cry out in fear. The door then slowly started to break open. I noticed large holes in the door, and noticed that a liquid was actually burning the door open. “It’s acid!?” I shouted. Then, several large insects about half a foot tall barged into the large building. We were trapped, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. I took a mad dash for the exit for the escape route Jake provided, but it was a futile attempt. I was surrounded by horrible, ugly, mutated… what seemed to be huge mosquitoes. They closed in on me, and then I saw a liquid slowly slide down one of their large, pointy needles. The thought scared me. Right as I anticipated never-ending pain, I found myself sitting upright, staring directly at the TV, awoken to the words “Dinnertime, Charlie!” “I’ll be right there!” I replied. I stared at the TV. Coincidentally, the news was on, and it was talking about how Iraq was “threatening” to bomb the US with several supposedly atomic missiles. I quietly spoke to myself. “Could it be really true…? Or is it just…” I shook the idea out of my mind and headed for dinner.