Waking Up: A Short Story by Andrea J. Buchanan

Author:Andrea J. Buchanan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Laura Gross Literary Agency
Published: 2012-05-12T23:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

I don’t remember much of what happened next.

Whatever the soldier had given me worked quickly. By the time I was seated in the transport vehicle, I could barely keep my eyes open. And when I was able to see, it was suddenly difficult to make much sense of what I was looking at. Things appeared before me: my mother’s taut face, a hand securing the restraint device on my seat, a door that moved in slow motion before it slammed shut. Were these things related? I couldn’t say. I heard people speaking to me, but it was too exhausting to listen. I closed my eyes and before I could stop myself, I did exactly what my brother and my mom had told me not to do.

I fell asleep.

Just for a split-second.

But long enough to realize how delicious it felt, how easy it would be to give in and just let myself sleep. What had Dean Holden said? When the time comes for you to be reactivated, it will seem as though you have only slept for a single night.

What could be so terrible about that? When I slept at night, I had no sense of time passing—and yet every night I went to sleep unafraid, sure that I would wake up again the next morning. This would be the same, wouldn’t it? Wasn’t that just what he had said? It felt so good to drift away. How bad could it be to just let myself go?

And yet at the same time that I was relishing that sensation of floating in my own dreamy head, a part of me stubbornly refused to go along with it. There was an anchor somewhere inside me, keeping me present. A thought that persisted, despite the fog surrounding my brain.

Stay awake.

Passages from the book that Arek saved for me drifted through my mind: The dreamer is able to control or direct the content of the dream as he dreams it… it is imperative to recognize the hypnagogic state, and to maintain consciousness during it. When a dreamer can stay aware during this stage of the process, it is more likely he will be able to enter a dream while lucid.

“We’re here,” I heard a voice say from nowhere, but I understood that it was real, not a dream-voice inside my head. I felt my body slump forward as the restraints were unbuckled, and then someone’s forceful hand guided me out of the vehicle. It was amazing to me that I could walk.

My legs moved as I was escorted into a building, a solider supporting me on either side. I struggled to open my eyes, but it was so bright, and when I did manage to open them, everything appeared to be doubled. I blinked to try to clear my vision, but it didn’t work. I kept my eyes shut. It was easier that way. I was so tired.

“Transition registration,” said a robotic voice.

“Talia Troy, Eleven-578G,” a soldier said, though I wasn’t sure to whom. Eleven, because until Transition was official I was still Eleven.

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