Does he choose option A, a slow excruciating strangulation by blue ripping tentacles, that sift your body parts back into its original building blocks or option B, a doorway to probable nothing-ness. This made most decisions in his life seem rather trivial. Part of him wanted to go out like a man, all guns blazing, sacrificing his body to the insatiable appetite of the reality-munchers, but he didn't want to give them the satisfaction of that.
So here he was, running for his life as fast he possibly could to escape being eaten from reality, running to a tear in the fabric of his dimension. This was possibly the most unusual weekend he had ever had. He ran faster and faster, but the creatures behind seemed to be catching him. Looking at the tear ahead of him he noticed it had grown in size and the loud sounds were gaining tempo with hypnotic, bassy throbbbing. The creatures worked their way through more confused and horrified victims, flashing tentacles whipping their grip closer and closer to him.
The whole of reality was now beginning to pulse and throb. It was vibrating violently either side of him, clashing in a crescendo of synthetic snarls and ground-shaking blows, Danny stood helpless in between. The tear in reality swooped closer to reveal a gaping void ready to snatch Danny up into its unknown destination. The pulsing of his surroundings now converged to contain both the sights and the sounds Danny had been running to and from. The intensity was now too much to bear, the pulsing flowing through him threatening to tear his DNA apart. He closed his eyes and screamed in denial, pulse after pulse throwing him back and forth. There was a sudden boom, a lingering resonant cavernous boom, followed by a series of crackles and then complete silence. He opened his eyes and there was darkness, complete darkness, but he felt that he wasn't alone.
“It's okay now Danny” said a voice from somewhere around him.
Chapter 6 – The Elite
SOMEWHERE
Danny's vision slowly started to return. The darkness gradually receded, to bathe his sight with what looked like an ordinary room. He was sat in a chair, slightly reclined, and around him were light coloured walls and soft furnishings. The room was illuminated by a small lamp sat on a table to his left. He looked around the room in confusion. Where the hell was he? A moment before he had been facing two different kinds of death, but now was sat down in a relaxed position. Was he in Dr.Monroe's office again? It looked different to last time, but it could have been a different room Dr. Monroe used.
“Dr. Monroe?” He called out.
He had heard a voice before. It wasn't Dr. Monroe's and he couldn't tell where it came from, as he was the only one in the room. He told himself that what he just encountered must have all been part of his delusion, and none of this had really happened. There were no shadow figures, no monsters that climbed out of another reality, it was all in his head and he had been having some therapy here in this room. He called out Dr. Monroe's name again.
“Dr. Monroe isn't here” Said the same voice he had heard a few moments before. It wasn't a voice he recognised, and it was hard to determine if it was male or female, it almost sounded genderless.
“Who are you?” Asked Danny, trying to remember how he had got into the room.
“Relax Danny, you will have many questions and it will take some time, my name is Auton”
What kind of name was Auton? He had never heard that before. He tried to get up but found that some kind of invisible restraints were holding him back. What was going on? Why was he being restrained? Two important questions to him that he made sure he yelled immediately at 'Auton'.
“I'm afraid it's necessary for now Danny, until you have recovered fully” Auton said, “Please don't be alarmed, everything is okay”.
“Where are you?” Danny shouted, “I can hear you, but you must be in another room”.
“Yes, I am in another place” Auton replied, “Please try not to fight anything I do, it's important to make sure you recover quickly”
Recover from what? What was this Auton talking about?
“How much do you remember?” Auton asked.
Danny relayed everything he could, he knew it all sounded completely crazy, but he was past caring about how things sounded. After all, on top of the madness he felt he had experienced over the last few days, he was sat in a room he didn't recognise, with no idea how he got there, being restrained by something invisible, talking to someone he didn't know.
“You remember nothing then” Auton replied, sounding almost upset.
Nothing? Everything Danny just told Auton was 'nothing'? Danny then heard a slight sound, not sure what it was or where it came from, impossible to pinpoint, but it definitely didn't come from inside the room.
“Relax Danny, and close your eyes”
Danny refused to do such a thing unless he was told why and what the hell was going on.
“It's important for you to remember everything, so please relax and close your eyes, everything will be fine, please trust me” Auton said.
He found it hard to trust someone he didn't know, who was magically restraining him, but duly closed his eyes and took some deep breaths. Everything was going to be okay and this would all make sense soon, he told himself. With his eyes closed he stared at the back of his eyelids, into a deep penetrating darkness. There was a sudden small shift in his concentration and it felt like he was being pulled, but in all directions at once. Then all of a sudden, he started getting images flashing into his mind, what were these? It started with him in an unknown room,
