The Theta Timeline by Chris Dietzel

Author:Chris Dietzel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: future, satire, freedom, tyranny, radicals, ruler
Publisher: Chris Dietzel

39 - To Be Followed or Not to Be Followed

A series of nightmares kept Springfield whimpering and pleading through the night. In one dream, he was surrounded by fire while an unseen chorus sang beautifully sad music. At the same time, hands reached out of the darkness and tore flesh from his arms and legs. The flames were too high to jump over. The hands followed him wherever he went. No matter how much he cried, no one would come to help. The singers continued their melody as the hands ripped his skin away.

In another dream, he was tied to the ground while a pair of giant cyclops stood over him, arguing with one another over which would get to eat him. One of them kept flicking the piece of wood in Springfield’s hand, annoyed that it was tainting an otherwise sumptuous meal. The other cyclops grumbled and banged two large stones in a series of loud clacks.

In the last nightmare, Springfield was standing in the same field he had first appeared at. The man in black never fell out of the sky. Something even worse happened, though: Springfield somehow knew that no matter what he did, rather than preventing the State, he would only make it worse. He saw it forming before he was ever born. Saw his father being taken away to a secret prison. Saw lines of men shot where they stood because it was quicker and easier to kill them than it was to pat them down and ask them questions. There was Jessica, brainwashed by all the propaganda she was raised on. Anything he did would only end up making their lives even more miserable, create an even more tyrannical and brutal monster.

When he woke up, he was once again lying in front of a small fire. But he was no longer in the field where he had been. Now, he was in what appeared to be a hut. The black smoke from the fire wafted out through a small hole in the roof. Someone was either asleep with their back against the hut, or they were watching him in the darkness of shadows. With only the small fire offering light, he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman keeping an eye on him. Knowing that would at least tell him if he was a prisoner being guarded or a sick man being cared for.

The man in black would be there soon. The smoke rising in the air would be impossible to miss. The thought came to him that he should warn whoever was in the hut with him. If the assassin wasn’t already there, planning his attack at the camp’s edge, he would be soon. And when he did get there, there would be hell to pay. Probably, he would kill the entire tribe just for harboring a man who, in the future, would be considered his enemy. The villagers wouldn’t have any way of knowing that was what they were supposedly doing.

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