An epic dream.
It was a snowy evening. I was driving an old Studebaker with three other young men. We had just finished visiting the museum of art and were trying to find a place to eat. The roads were pretty bad, and visibility was low so I pulled off to the side of the road to gather my bearings.
As I was looking at a map another car pulled up and parked in front of mine. A man in a pinstriped suit came out and, with a smooth confidence, persuaded us to follow him across a long bridge over to a castle on an island.
The bridge was a mile long, and the caste was grand. The man in the pinstriped suit waved us down at the draw bridge and we all got out of the Studebaker there. Suddenly he pulled out a tommy gun and he was joined by a couple other thugs with guns. Together they led us into the castle and into a dungeon.
There we sat all night, not quite able to sleep. We tried to talk about what was going on, but we were all a bit speechless.
In the morning, some older ladies came and instructed us about our chores for the day. I was given a mop and bucket and I went to clean some of the endless hallways. The stone was blue and grey, and emitted an overall dismal tone. There were hollow echoes bouncing slowly off the walls, and it sounded like people crying out in pain. I tried to determine where they were coming from, but it was impossible.
The dream went on slowly from this point. I did more chores, day after day. Eventually I met a few more of the slaves. From what I gathered, I determined that there must have been about 100 of us enslaved altogether. I began to realize that if we were to come together, we could possibly overthrow our captors and escape the castle.
I began to organize each prisoner into different groups with different purposes. Some kept track of all supplies going in and out of the castle, and others had to intercept those packages and steal a few supplies here and there. Others studied the layout of the castle, searching for the best ways to escape. After several weeks of work, everything was coming together and a massive escape was imminent.
The evening before the great escape, I had lunch with a young woman who had started as a slave but worked her way up to becoming an actual employee. I had fallen for her and revealed my plan of escape to her and welcome her to join in. She told me that she enjoyed her life in the castle too much to leave. I tried to tell her that she was still a slave there, no matter what they called it, but she was stubborn. The meal ended with her boyfriend (who was a terribly cruel slave master) coming in and making her leave me. He punched me in the gut before dragging her away from me.
I was depressed, but still determined to escape. The next morning, everything went according to plan. Several people, including me, snuck into the lift that lowered down into the basement of the castle. From there we crawled through a tunnel we created to a river that ran underneath the castle. We climbed out of the river at the entrance of the castle and forced it open, allowing the other hundred of slaves to leave.
We marched toward the bridge with determination. Suddenly spotlights were shining on us and a loudspeaker informed us that we would be shot if we left. Everyone froze, except for me. I kept walking. The loudspeaker continued to threaten me, but I kept on marching. I arched the bridge. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned around and saw the young women who had refused to leave. She begged me not to go. I tried to get her to join me again, but she wouldn't. Finally, I turned and started walking again, shouting for the rest of the prisoners to follow me. They did.
Suddenly the bridge began to collapse as I walked onto it. The prisoners jumped into the great lake and started swimming to the other side. I was about to jump in, but I was hit suddenly by a bullet in the back. I fell into the water.
Then I awoke.
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