sanity is relative

This started as me watching a movie in a theater, and during one of the previews I noticed that the music was the theme to Raising Arizona, the one that plays during the opening credits. I said as much out loud, but nobody seemed to care. I wondered to myself if this was just trailer music or if they'd actually use it in the film. Then the movie proper started, and the first identifiable character was Bill Pullman playing someone who worked on a farm, or so it would seem since he was riding a tractor. Perhaps he was the son of the farm's owner, the feeling was that he was more than just a farmhand. The time period seemed dated, perhaps the 1930's or 40's.

Then he was walking along an orchard path with two girls, one probably in her mid 20's right next to him and the other, a teenager perhaps 14 or 15 following behind. I became the girl who was following. Bill (let's call him that because I have no idea what his character name was) and the other girl were talking, and it was obvious she was trying to be sweet on him. He seemed to be acting a little bashful over that, but wasn't being totally sweet back at her. They had very distinct southern accents, perhaps even a bit overdone (as Nostalgia Critic would say, "I'm acting!").

My own accent I knew was far different from theirs, "normal" in my opinion but an outsider here, me being a city girl from up north just visiting for the summer or something. I'd visited before, these people were family friends, maybe distant cousins... and I also liked Bill, but I wondered if he even knew I existed in that sense. (I had an inkling here of the grander plot that my character wouldn't know, that I might be surprised how much attention he actually paid me, but that he might not guess at my thoughts due to my age and not being there all the time.)

There were a lot of bright yellow flowers on the trees we were passing, and some other trees were more like tulip trees with I think pink flowers that were bulkier. I picked one of the yellow ones, it had a lot of soft petals and I smelled it as I kept following the others. I picked a second flower, and then the girl sounded like she was going to break into song. I remember thinking something like "Is this movie a musical? I had no idea..." and was hoping it wasn't going to be sucktastic (I like good musicals and well I didn't like this woman so my opinion was already a bit tainted at least of this number... nevermind that there was still the floating thought that this was a movie even though it was becoming more and more that the movie's plot and world were the real world completely).

The song ended up being something that I sang in tandem with her, and it started with the first verse of "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things" (from The Sound Of Music). It would seem we'd practiced this to performance level, for a local talent show that we'd already done. I had the melody after her, and a made-up bit of completely original tune and words (which I can't remember now) and then she had her own bit after me. We even did a bit of almost folk-type dancing together, and as this was going on... the setting went from broad daylight to night without my noticing any great flaw in the logic.

Our path had taken us into a hayfield or something similar, and the section where we were now as her song part continued seemed freshly mowed. Due to how dark it was, I was feeling uncomfortable about the odd mown layer of grass-like clippings on the ground over the inch-high remaining stalks. I think the singing stopped, and I was wondering to myself how safe it was to be out here this late, perhaps we should go back...

I was a bit further ahead of the others, and suddenly my head started to hurt. I put my hand to my forehead and fell backwards, at least the ground was kind of soft and I don't remember that being an issue. What I do remember is saying, "It's happening again!" like I'd forgotten about this but was now remembering that something had happened before. I could hear the others sounding concerned in the distance, Bill I think shouted something, but all I could really do was look up at the clear night sky with its billions of stars.

Suddenly all was completely silent. I think I said something like, "Is someone there?" and my voice sounded weirdly echoey, like I was suddenly in a completely different space I couldn't see. I could see my own reflection slightly, a little bit above me, which didn't make sense, but there it was. Then there was a bright blue-white light that seemed to come from nowhere in the stars and got bigger and brighter very fast, coming straight at me and engulfing me and I screamed in fear and tried to raise my arms up in front of my face.

I felt a strong pull and knew that whatever it was, it had captured me. It was too bright to see but I had the impression of a great deal of speed and travel upwards into the sky and beyond. Once I could see again, I found myself in a very strange, smallish... room-thing. (Being as this was a time period when space travel didn't exist, along with a lot of established sci-fi conventions, "I" was very confused by a layout that wouldn't be all that unconventional for a modern day mind.) If I had been able to move properly, I might have been able to touch the sides of the grey metal shaft that I seemed to be at the top of, and the front and back would have been barely in reach. The walls to the left and right of me didn't have a sharp corner up above, but a more gentle curve up to a flat ceiling not real far above me. I think there was a window to my right, where I could see outer space, but I was too afraid to be distracted by that.

I was being held in place by glass inch-thick plate-like separators that seemed to extend from the walls horizontally and had holes in them to fit my neck, my chest at about my elbows, and probably a couple more points down lower. I couldn't really see what was down below me. Being stuck like this was frightening but it didn't really hurt because I was technically floating. I didn't know if something was supposed to happen to me, or had already happened to me, but I knew I couldn't remember anything so detailed as this from before and wondered if I was more conscious than whoever this was... aliens... thought I was.

The plates started to retract away from me, having even splits in them and pulling into the walls, and then part of the wall in front of me slid down, revealing a window where behind was a boy maybe my age or a little older. He was wearing a grey jumpsuit and had brown hair that was roughly shoulder-length and in an unconventional style (vaguely emo-ish). We stared at each other for a moment, he looked just as confused as I'm sure I did, and then I realized that I was being drawn downwards by an unseen force.

He started banging on the window and shouting, "Let me out!" as the force became faster, and I could tell he wasn't yelling at me, more at whoever was doing this. I lost sight of him quickly though and suddenly couldn't see, the world growing very dark. I felt a strong push backwards, very strong, the same unknown force that never actually seemed to touch me. Then backwards became down, and fast, as if that direction had always been down, and I felt like I hit something soft so fast that it stunned me.

I realized my eyes were closed and most of my body unresponsive, but I could move my left hand and felt around. I was recognizing my own bed (not my real-life one, but this dream was continuing to supply built-in-past facts as needed). I concentrated on waking up, though I knew what I'd just been through wasn't a dream, and I had no idea how long I'd been back, what the others had seen, or how my return had been explained to my parents in the house below, or if they even knew I was back. I had a feeling they did, that somehow what had happened could be explained away and that they'd call me crazy or over-imaginative for telling the truth... which I was going to to anyways. Meanwhile I was able to get up finally and felt really fuzzy, like my body was still half asleep.

I got off the top bunk of the bunk beds I slept in and knew I had to draw what I could remember. I was also thinking about the boy, wondering if he was trapped there indefinitely and wondering if there was some way to save him. Plus, he was cute, and I had to wonder if we'd met before but I just couldn't remember. I tried to find paper and a working pencil, also pulling down the blinds and closing curtains nearby thinking that the aliens might still be watching me and might not want me to be able to remember so much of what I'd seen this time. I had trouble with the curtains, and eventually called it good and tried to turn on a light to see better, but that barely did anything at all (and I remember saying out loud, "oh, so it's going to be like that," as a reference to lights not working properly in dreams, but I didn't catch this thought well enough to make it a true lucid dream).

I ended up leafing through a large newsprint-like sketchpad and finding a half-cut-up scrap and an ink pen. I drew the top area of the ship I'd been trapped in, just the general shape of it and without the concept of the window(s) or the boy. I drew it really badly, I seemed to be having trouble getting the concept of drawing to cooperate, but by the end of it I had at least the shape and the idea that it had a lot of rivets down on paper. I tore the drawing out of the sketchpad and headed for the door.

Then I woke up.

(The roleplay characters in question were two initial concepts I had daydreamed up and Zombie-kun now plays Dimitri while I play Ian. Dimitri is somewhere in his 20's and takes care of Ian who is 13-14, and they are escaping 1920's Russia as the older one works to afford transportation and whatnot. Ian has amnesia from a terrible event that Dimitri rescued him from, and trusts Dimitri implicitly; they had not met before that incident. It's a really sweet story in the making ^_^ but anyways, those are the two characters.)

It was almost like some kind of fantasy world and Dimitri/Ian's story combined together to form the dream setting. Dimitri and Ian were in this odd observation room, and the monitors showed views outside of a yellow-orange wind-smoothed limestone hillside, especially one part that was a more flat vertical surface. There were giant yellow ants all around, a little taller than a tall person, though pretty soon they went into a hidden door in that flat part of the hill.

Dimitri for some reason wanted to go talk to the ants for help and told Ian to stay in the room. At this point I became Ian and watched on the monitors as Dimitri tried knocking on the hidden door and was let inside.

I realized that even though Dimitri had left me behind to stay safe, I didn't feel safe anywhere other than with him, and even if something bad was about to happen to Dimitri (had a bad feeling about that) I didn't care, I was going to go be with him. So I was headed off to find the secret door... and as logic failed completely I think I did get reunited with him, and my presence might actually have been helping the situation with the ants (like they didn't believe Dimitri was taking care of someone else like he said he was).

Then I woke up.

I don't remember how I got there, but apparently my subconscious thinks Hell is a series of dark tunnels randomly patrolled by trolls and ogres. I was trying not to get discovered, and I noticed that the guards had these long yellow sticks or rods with little floating stars on the end (5-pointed yellow star shapes a little bigger than a silver dollar, one per improvised torch-thingy). The stars were bright enough to give decent lighting, but they were attached to the ends of the rods with tiny chains about 6 inches long. I realized they were sentient, and were being forced to light the way for the patrols.

At some point I found a star that had managed to get free of its rod (where the heck the ogre went is beyond me). The rod glowed slightly while the star was a lot brighter. I think I told it to try and get to the surface while I continued investigating. Maybe I was going to try and save more of the stars... (maybe I had no idea how to get outa there). Right after the star left (it sorta... floated?) another patrol showed up and I tried to hide the slightly-glowing rod behind my leg while attempting to stay in deep enough shadow.

I'm going to guess they saw me, because the next thing I remember is running, but now it seemed like I was outside in a spread-out town with a lot of grass, but I still remember the area feeling like it was underground. I don't remember looking up, so who knows what was up there... maybe lighting that'd make it look like real-enough daylight where I was running. I was trying to find a building to hide in, and saw ahead of me a church. I was thinking, a church in Hell? WTF... but I ran inside anyways; the bad guys didn't see me go in there.

I was lurking around in the church, which sort of made sense layout-wise for a large Catholic-style church, though the lighting wasn't great. There were two men somewhere in the building and I was trying to stay out of sight since I thought they'd be enemies just as much as the guards were. I overheard them talking, however, and it seemed to be an actually "good" church for some reason, that it was tolerated and maybe even necessary to properly balance out Hell. I remember being worried that the ogres might come search the church but it sounds like they weren't allowed inside.

So I finally decided to talk to these guys, and they said I was welcome to stick around. We started playing Nintendo Wii of all things, all three of us, I don't remember what we played... though I do remember messing around with creating Miis. Then I think they got tired and passed out on the couch there by the TV and I decided it was a good time to try and see if I could get out of Hell. Outside the building I realized I still had my Wiimote but I was running by then and figured it was too late to take it back.

Then I woke up.

(The initial intro here is the built-in past that came with my dream self. The part of the dream I remember begins with the alien prison system.)

I was myself, but an ultimate future version. Apparently I'd overcome my difficulties and excelled even physically far enough to join the US military. I'm not sure how old I was, but it didn't seem like it mattered because I was in such good shape. I was respected in my unit and had done great things. I'd patterned myself after the military version of Vin Diesel's movie characters and considered him my role model, so much so that I probably thought almost like he did.

But then aliens had attacked earth. (They looked like Covenant Elite from Halo 2, which I played quite a bit of yesterday.) We fought back but it was a losing battle. So many died, but some of us were captured. Quite a few, in fact. The aliens shipped us all to another planet and stuck us in a prison made for slave labor.

Our first test was to climb down this very long strange grating that led eventually to the prison floor. The thing was probably at least fifteen stories high. Anybody who fell died and wasn't considered worthy of living or working for the aliens. This task was easy enough and I progressed downwards quicktly. Two guys by me were talking even while a loud PA system kept repeating rules like "Absolutely no talking." They tried to get me to talk too, I whispered a couple things and then decided it wasn't worth the risk and shut up. I didn't even look at them anymore, I wasn't gonna get in trouble. The other guys kept talking and I listened intently as they discussed a rumor about someone having escaped from this prison some time ago. The guy was legendary for having done it and it was supposed to be impossible, all the guards said so and denied the escape rumor. I latched onto this idea, believing it fully, and knew if anyone was getting out again, it'd be me.

It wasn't long before the guys near me got fried by flying alien-built robot things for talking. They fell and were probably already dead before they hit bottom; I didn't watch, I concentrated on my descent. I made it to the ground floor unscathed and stayed put in a courtyard where guards watched everyone coming down. The guards were human, but not earth human... I knew there was some sort of evil human race beyond our planet who was allied with the aliens. (There are in fact no more Halo-2-ish aliens visible from this point on in the dream.)

Once everyone in my group was down, the guards started dividing us into two groups. There were two guards in charge of this and one was female. She and I were the only females on the floor. The male guard asked my name and I told him "Tirsden." I figured there was no point in using my earth name (Kat/Katrina) and my online alias would be best now. If I had a choice about anything, they'd call me what I wanted them to call me. The guard pointed to the farther group and told me to join them. I was half way across the floor when the female guard said she had something important to tell him and he told me to stop. I did and stood there apparently just being obedient but I listened hard and could just make out the conversation (my hearing was very good, obviously better than they thought).

The woman said that she'd accidentally found one of the "eyes" that the higher ups used to see the "invisible ones" in the hallways. The male guard thought this was very interesting but told her to talk to him again later, they had work to do. Meanwhile I'm thinking this lady has an unscheduled date with me as soon as possible so I can snag this "eye." And now I knew there was some sort of secret backup security system. I could imagine floating monstrocities in prison barracks hallways silently killing inmates lucky enough to make it that far while trying to escape. It was an easy guess none of the prisoners knew about this... except the unlucky dead ones.

The male guard told me to continue on to my group and I obeyed. We were all marched through a passage to another smaller courtyard. There was a yellow line painted across the middle of it. The PA was still blaring repetative rules, "No talking... No fighting..." No this, no that. Be good little inmates. The guard ordered us to line up on the yellow line and face to the right (straight along the line). I did this and a few others complied just as quickly. Some others straggled. The guard didn't immediately react, he just watched, so one of them got particularly cocky. This mean, short, ugly guy wanted to pick a fight with me, hoping to get me in trouble. He told me I was in his spot; I ignored him. He tried various insults as I stood there being a good little inmate. He got really pissed at my continued indifference and shoved me. I kept my feet and remained where I was, didn't even turn to him.

The guard walked up to me and said, "Put him in his place." Before the idiot behind me knew what happened I'd spun around and he was on the ground beside the line, face pressed painfully into the ground and completely incapacitated. I'd broken a bone or two in key locations. He blubbered like a baby and wet himself. He wouldn't be moving within the next few minutes so I got right back up, performed a perfect military salute to the guard, and got back into my place in line as if nothing had happened. I wasn't even winded, just stood there calmly with rigid military posture.

The guard was obviously impressed. And that was the point of all this apparent obedience. I wanted to make it look like I was extremely adaptable and ready to prove my allegience to the new reigning power. If the people I worked for before couldn't keep control then they didn't deserve it and I was ready to be recruited by the other side. In reality though I was only going to play their game long enough to get them back big-time. But I shoved that thought deep down and made sure I kept in character. I was a good little inmate. I wanted to be more. But I didn't expect to be rewarded until I had proved my worth. So I was a good little inmate.

The guard ordered us all to move again and as we went down the next passage I heard other guards take care of the moron on the ground with precision that brought screams and the finality of silence. We passed some windows where we could see a gigantic, highly-mechanized assembly line creating strange looking robots and who-knows-what. We could see prisoners working the line and somebody died because they were stupid and didn't move fast enough; part of the machinery flattened them coldly. We continued on down more passages and soon found ourselves in a very earth-like locker room. The guard told us to change into uniforms readily available in the lockers. He also said we could talk to each other now if we wanted. He left and there were no other guards in the room. I reached for a uniform, they were all the same (in different sizes) and were mostly bright-yet-light yellow with similarly-shaded orange trim and some white too. They were simple yet semi-futuristicly cut one-piece jumpsuits. I couldn't help but think of the outfits from the XBox game The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay except these looked better.

I was the only woman still but changing out of my clothes and into the new ones didn't phase me, I was used to it from military days. Plus I knew our captors were watching on what looked like closed circuit cameras in the ceilings but I guessed they probably had far more advanced technology spying on us as well. Everyone's conversation was rather guarded because of the cameras. I'd just finished suiting up and was talking to a black guy with crazy hair when all of a sudden Candy shows up. (My real-life family's cat! Geez she's been showing up in dreams a lot lately lol.) I was very surprised to see her at this point... how'd she manage that? Since she was there I wanted to be sure she remained safe and I figured the alien guys wouldn't like her at all and would probably kill her since she was virtually useless. (If I reference aliens from now on I'm really meaning the human version; I thought of them all as aliens.)

I held Candy and she was very cuddly and obviously scared but happy to be with me. A moment later the male guard came back into the room and walked over, saying I was to come with him. I asked him if my black friend could look after Candy and the guard said yes. Apparently I'd impressed him enough that he'd let the cat live at least as well as it could with a random inmate. Since I was being singled out I had a feeling I wasn't coming back here. I handed the kitty to the black guy and followed the guard out of the room. Good luck, Candy...

The guard directed me down hallways, keeping me in the lead. (At this point I became Richard B. Riddick, yay! I love being him in dreams. And dream logic didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with this; it's like I'd been him the whole time. Even back when I was in the military and then fighting aliens on earth.) The guard was following me with his gun trained on my back. He wasn't stupid even if he was impressed with me. I ended up in a round room with a lighted floor and ceiling. Windows were set into the walls and the only places that had no windows were where the doors were. There were about four doors total. The room was quite bright but it was hard to see past the windows; they were tinted to look darker.

The guard handed me a golden bracelet with a shiny red stone in the middle of it. It was thick in the middle and had one straight edge on the bottom and the other side was pointed out like an upside-down "V." He told me how to put it on and I placed it on my right wrist as directed. The pointed part came up over the back of my hand some. The entire thing was rather beautiful if simplistic and very shiny. The stone was not facetted but smooth, set so far in that its top rounded surface was raised just slightly above the rest of the bracelet. The stone was somewhat tear-shaped and longer than rounder. The point of it was set the same direction as the point of the bracelet (straight out) and in roughly the center of the top area.

The guard told me to stay there and I stood still in the middle of the room looking at the bracelet. He left and the door hissed shut. I saw him enter a control room on the far side of the windows and then the room got even brighter. I looked back at the bracelet and it was melting, moving, like mercury; like the stuff Neo gets on his hand when he touches the mirror in The Matrix. Even the red stone was running and merging with the gold stuff. It covered my hand but didn't move up my arm. It started to hurt. It was melting into my skin! Merging with me.

I tried to keep calm but nausea threatened to overwhelm me. The pain was becoming intense and it was moving through my body now, like the gold stuff was in my bloodstream. I found myself on my knees. I didn't want to freak out... I wanted to continue to impress the guard. I could deal with this. I could. I... I fell over and curled up, just living through the pain, the only outward signs that I was hurting were the grimace on my face and my rapid breathing. I couldn't move anymore. I passed out.

* * *

I'm not sure how long I'd been asleep when I woke up. I felt terribly groggy and had the impression I'd woken up a few times before but not with any real lucidity. I was able to get to my knees and there was no sound, the room was back to its original brightness before the whole bracelet thing. The bracelet! I looked at my wrist and it was there but it was different now, the red stone was visible but it was like the whole thing had become a permanent part of my hand. It was solid metal yet didn't interfere with my wrist movement. I wondered if it had replaced some of my wrist bones with metal or biomechanics. I couldn't tell, it just looked... kinda pretty. But manly pretty. (LMAO the things I think in dreams, eh? I was thinking it looked like something He-Man or Conan the Barbarian would wear.)

Nothing had happened so far, it was silent and I couldn't see the guard or anyone else in the control room. I couldn't really see through the windows at all, it was very dark behind them. Maybe someone was there. But there was something weirder much closer to me. There was blue slimy stuff on the floor. It was spread out like I'd been thrashing in it. I had a feeling it had something to do with what the bracelet had done. The word that came to mind was "transformation." I touched the blue stuff, it reminded me of shampoo in texture. It didn't seem harmful. I had a feeling it had come out of me somehow; apparently I didn't need it anymore.

Then there was a voice in my head. It was Cortana!

(And now I must take a moment to explain what the dream logic was doing at this point. Cortana is a female computer AI system from the game Halo 2, she speaks to the character you play through his helmet system. She can be transferred to other computer systems by touch through your suit and she provides information, witty comments, and sometimes unlocks doors. In the dream it appears Cortana was being used to guide people in the military during the battle against the aliens. I knew now that she'd been there "in my head" in an implant that communicated her words directly to my brain. She could also see anything I could see and had very limited control of my muscles if needed. She'd lost contact with me when I'd been captured by the aliens and was only now able to reestablish contact.)

Cortana sounded extremely surprised to find me alive and said so. She was glad, but where was I? What was going on? Was I okay? ...Why was I not responding? All she could tell right now was that I was still looking at the blue stuff on the floor. I had to think fast through the grogginess that still plagued me. If I didn't respond somehow she might think I'd been brainwashed or was unsavable and she would then cut off all contact with me forever for security reasons. But if I talked, and there was someone in the control room, they would know something was up. I couldn't let them know Cortana was talking to me and it was pretty obvious they didn't know or they'd be in here now. They'd probably kill me. I ran my fingers through the goop on the floor in frustration... and then I knew what to do.

I drew a happy face very quickly, staring at it intently, and whiped it out of existence. Cortana realized what I was trying to say... that I was okay but couldn't talk and/or was being watched. I don't remember the conversation very well now (writing and reading in dreams is hard) but it seems like my limited method of communication had only limited success. I wrote someone's name, a higher-up, wondering if they were alive and hadn't been captured. Cortana made me whipe the name away very quickly. Apparently it was crucial that name not be seen at all. I got the hint. Maybe they had been captured but the aliens didn't really know who they were looking for and the person had remained anonymous so far. I wrote "President?" as well and Cortana made me whipe it out again. Then she cut out in mid-sentence. I'd lost the signal again... and the lights got brighter in the room. The guards were apparently noticing I was awake. That was all, it seems.

I could now see the male guard from before on the other side of the control room windows. He spoke into the PA and said I was going to be tested. They wanted to see how well my conversion had gone. I realized that while I was asleep, some built-in system in the technology on my wrist had trained me in it's proper use. (I think this is a random reference to a similar concept in the game Morrowind when you get the wristguard you need to beat the game.) I was feeling better now, in fact I felt just fine.

The room changed, it reminded me of the holodecks on Star Trek. The walls got wider, making the room bigger, and dirt and rocks appeared on the ground. The doors hissed open and a dozen zombie-like crazy humans stumbled in. They took one look at me and charged. They were not slow/stupid zombies but fast/smart zombies. Eh oh. Oh well, bring it on! In top shape this would be a challenge but doable. But now... I kicked serious ass and I kicked it fast. I was thoroughly surprised at my improved strength, stamina, and speed. I could even think faster, and fighting a dozen crazy things was actually easy. They were all dead before five minutes had passed. The zombies faded as if transported somewhere else and I stood there waiting, barely even winded and pretty psyched up.

The guard voiced his approval and congratulations, and then one door hissed open again. In came a very big, strong, pissed-off looking guy. He came after me and this fight was much tougher than the last even though it was only one guy. It was hard to do any damage to him and I spent most of my time avoiding his fists because I had a bad feeling one solid hit would spell doom. In the end I used all my fighting expertise and agility to take him out with one deft hit to a specific spot in his neck. He fell like a ton of lead and I snapped his neck. Sucked to be him. He too disappeared into thin air. Somebody had a nasty clean-up job wherever all these bodies were going. I waited again, I was feeling some wear now but still ready for anything.

I was on the far side of the room from the windows with the guard at this point. The guard voiced his approval again and said my final test was next. There was a slanted rock over near the control room. Someone began to materialize there, instead of walking in through the doors. Oh god no... it was my best buddy from the military, the guy I'd fought alongside against the aliens. I thought he was dead... and yet, I knew this was him. It wasn't some illusion or hologram or lookalike. This was real. They expected me to kill my own buddy and thereby leave behind everything from my old life. In fact, if I didn't kill him fast, my hesitation would clue them in that I wasn't already completely loyal to them.

As I moved towards him I could see that he was lying there very awkwardly; he was paralyzed, his back was probably broken. He was staring at me, confused and afraid but glad to see me. I'm not even sure he could move or talk at all, just look at me. He thought... maybe I was going to save him.

(At this point my brain replayed the following moments until it was happy with the end results, like loading and reloading a saved game in a computer game.)

(First time)

I walked up to him and looked down at him. His look of hope turned to a look of haunting disbelief as I reached down and started to strangle him. He eventually stopped breathing but it felt like an eternity to me as he stared up at me with that heartbreaking look on his face. I knew exactly when to let go so that maybe his body would force him to breathe again after a few minutes, or if he was lucky someone would find him soon enough to resuscitate him. I let go and stood up. He was technically dead. But no, I didn't like this version...

(Second time)

I walked up more quickly this time as if this wasn't even an issue to me. I started the strangling thing again but a moment later realized how hard it must be to die this way... so I snapped his neck and he died instantly. I wasn't really all that happy with this version either...

(Third and last time)

He looked at me as I approached and I saw a different look this time. It said so many things... like, he knew he was a goner, he knew the aliens were testing me and I'd win their trust if I killed him. He was in pain and dying anyways. He'd much rather I killed him than these alien bastards. I walked straight up to him and snapped his neck. I believed he felt no pain and was finally at rest where the aliens could never hurt him again.

And I knew I'd impressed hell out of the guard and whoever else was watching. I was headed for big things under their wing... and when the moment was right, vengeance. They would pay. Oh yes, they would pay.

Then I woke up.