Awakening The Arc

Halo shot upright out of his vividly vague slumber, struggling to catch his breath as he stared at the stone wall across the room.

His bed was on the south end of his room facing north; there was a wooden door on the western wall, and a circular four-paned window on the upper left-hand side of the eastern wall. He had awoken again in a feverish sweat with dampened pajamas, leaning his light gray eyes away from a frustratingly harsh sunbeam. A nightmare had awoken him that involved people whom he’d never met, but somehow seemed familiar to him.

To say he felt disturbed was an understatement; a central axiom of his new life had been turned upside-down. His heart was heavy with conflicting feelings, and his head was reeling from everything he experienced in his dreamworld. He decided to keep this information to himself; his family and community had been so peaceful, and he didn’t want to upset anyone with his unsettling recollections. After all, how would they react when he told him he was dreaming of strangers who looked completely different from them?

Halo was found by his adoptive father a year ago on the edge of town alone near the forest, so he was already the odd one out. He had retrograde amnesia, and no one had previously known him or where in town he was from. His new family was incredibly kind and welcoming, and treated him as their own over the past year. Not that they were much different, in any case; you could never tell based on his appearance that he was a foreigner with unknown origins.

After laying in bed for a minute to gather himself, he dragged his legs to the cold hardwood floor. A craning toe-stretch confirmed the solid matter beneath his feet. He turned his neck to look back at the morning sky, and saw a large bird of prey floating on a steely breeze. It seemed frozen above the warm horizon, as if it was watching him. Halo could have sworn they had locked eyes, but he was so bewildered from his dream that he even questioned if the bird itself was real; it seemed like it was painted onto the sky. He took a deep inhale and tried to settle his mind, as he felt almost unsure of his own existence. To his relief, he could hear the morning stirrings of the house as he walked to the bathroom.

Halo was the middle child at eighteen years of age. His room was across the hall from his two younger brothers, Henry and Harry’s room. They were twins six years younger than him, and they were sprawled out on the bed they tried to share.

"Where's the black pepper?!?"

His father, Hank, was downstairs making breakfast for the family with the eldest and the second eldest brothers, Hal and Hugh, so he went through the motions of his morning routine as he continued to ponder what he experienced. ‘Their faces...all of them…were different??’ Such a simple construct of the imagination baffled his mind. Humans were identical because they were all created from the mold of the one almighty creator. Everyone knew that; as if it wasn’t taught enough in school, it was obvious that every single human in the town of Eleusis was exactly the same. From their platinum colored hair to their icy-gray eyes, their tall, slender, and toned figures, even their mischievous smiles; they were all exactly the same right down to the single dimple on their right cheeks. They were taught that everyone was created from one blueprint - so how was it possible that there could exist something other than that?

The more he thought about the different people in his dream, the more uneasy he felt. They were trying to convey an urgent message, but their voices were murky and muffled. They would reach their hands out to Halo, frantically trying to grab him with desperate fingers, but a repelling force kept them apart. It seemed as though the four in the front were anxious about something, while the man behind them had a humbling, tranquil expression on his face. ‘Did I come from a world that the school doesn’t know about with different kinds of people? Can I...imagine something beyond that which exists here?’ Halo finished his shower and dried himself before going downstairs to greet his elders; and to his dismay, his younger brothers had somehow awoken and beaten him to the table.

“Wooooow, we are finally graced with Halo’s presence! What an honor it must be!” bellowed a very sarcastic Henry.

“Morning, Halo!” His Father, Hank, slapped him with a hearty welcome on the back.

“Rise and shine big boy!”

“You look like you’re still in the clouds!”

His older brothers, Hal and Hugh, pulled a chair from the table for him to sit, and they poured him a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice to accompany his scrambled eggs and toast. Halo chuckled as he looked at his plate half-heartedly, “Yep, just excited for another day of research!”

It was a repetitious, but peaceful and comfortable existence. The school provided for everyone’s stability and comfort; and in return, the students performed their studies to the best of their abilities.

Everyone of all ages attended the same school at the center of Eleusis. Halo was quick to learn all the special nuances of the school's delicate rules, and he was well liked among his classmates. He was more than proficient in a variety of studies, and he passed all the preliminary exams upon his arrival with flying colors. He was clearly very educated wherever he came from, so he was tasked to research the quantum nature of the psychic mind. He studied the language of emotion.

The family laughed as they began breakfast. Henry and Harry fought like hell over the bacon, while Hal and Hugh did their best to calm the kids down. Halo sat urgently with his question, until he could no longer contain it. "Hey Hank, have you ever dreamt about foreigners before?"

Halo almost regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth. A cease-fire fell in effect as the whole house fell silent and stared at him with mixed feelings of confusion, worry, wonder and awe. His common sense informed him that it was normal to dream, so this reaction initially perplexed him.

"Daddy, what's a dream?" Asked Harry, brimming with curiosity as he loosened his grip on Henry’s hair. This was another special nuance that Halo realized he had slipped up on; the townspeople of Eleusis did not dream. Looking back on the year, he realized he had not dreamed at all before last night either! He was stunned, having a vague sense of once being a creator. He felt like he could create worlds with his unconscious mind. So why had he not dreamed until now?

Hank's face grew somewhat serious as he struggled to fathom this rarity. Not even Hank, who had over 40 years to his memory, could ever recollect experiencing a dream. He knew of dream theory with unconscious brain activity, but he never heard anyone actually experiencing that. The idea of dreams and what they could represent were highly classified and unspoken of in Eleusis.

Hank took a deep breath before he looked into Halo’s eyes and spoke.

"Dreams are ideas deep in your mind that can come to surface...perhaps you'll learn more about it in school when you get older, but that’s all I will tell you." He kept stern eye contact with Halo, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The answer was weighted with fear, and Halo knew he had made a mistake in caving to his curiosity. A pit hardened in his stomach; he knew his father was bound to his secretive knowledge, but it made him feel disgusted with himself to have spoken his mind of something so trivial to him.

The bus arrived to pick everyone up for school; each street had an automated bus to bring all the families to the center of town. It was by far the largest building in the area. It was as if a needlepoint was pricking the sky.

One day at school, his fleeting thoughts caught notice.

“Is everything all right, Halo?”

Hearing his name spoken out-loud shook him out of his focused state; so he sat up abruptly, slammed his palms on his desk, and exclaimed:

“Yes Teacher! I’m…uh…exercising my mouth...for...for...an eating contest! W-with my brothers tonight!”

Halo blushed brick red as time slowed to a paralyzed moment around his shallow lie. There was a tense silence for a few seconds until the bead of sweat that had ripened on Halo’s brow fell onto the floor. The class suddenly exploded into a fit of laughter. Life in the town was usually monotonous, so a distraction like this was indeed a rare ice-breaker. Halo let out a dry, nervous chuckle, apologized for his interruption, and resumed his musings gazing beyond the solid wall behind the teacher.

“‘Eo Ahyee?’ That’s what the vowel shapes were forming. What could it possibly mean?” He went on about his day moving between studies stuck in this trance, trying to crystallize this recollection in his mind.

Halo was startled by the blaring loudspeaker:

“Will student H7693 immediately come to the ground floor to the data center. Student H7693 to the data center.”

‘That’s...me! What did I do??’ Halo’s classmates murmured around him as he rose and exited the room, anxiously nearing the elevator at the end of the hallway. It was a well lit corridor, with walls painted a pale baby-chick-yellow. There were several doors to other classrooms in the hallway, along with some water-fountains and vending machines.

He took the elevator down to the ground floor. It disoriented his senses; it was not entirely abnormal for people to get lost in the labyrinth of the ground floor. Halo took a left down the hall, and entered a door further down on the right labeled “Student Data”. The door closed itself behind Halo, sending chills down his spine and raising the hair on his nape.

“We’ve been expecting you H7693.” said a soft, airy voice from Halo’s right. He looked up to see the dominating figure of a teacher looming over him. The teachers were usually anywhere between seven and twelve feet tall, with the female teachers considerably larger than the male teachers. They all wore baggy robes and masks, so their faces and bodies could not be directly seen. The floor shook with every step a teacher took, though; so it was reasonable to assume they weighed between four and eight hundred pounds, depending on their height.

Halo took a deep breath and asked “How may I help?!”

“My child, you’ve performed very well over the past year since you were found by the forest. Your teachers are very impressed with your potential. You look the same as the others, but we believe there is something special about you. In fact, we called you in because your data has been reading...irregularly today. Is there something going on at home that you are not telling us? Are you getting along with your family?”

“N-no, nothing out of the norm!!” stammered Halo, “Everything has been perfectly fine at home!”

“Have you been eating and sleeping properly?”

“Yes! Yes, absolutely!”

A teacher in the corner of the room spoke up: “Boy, do you know what a dream is?” The other teachers turned to the one who spoke, and the room fell silent. Halo felt fear in his heart as he recalled the earlier conversation he had at breakfast with his family. He knew now that dreams were taboo for whatever reason, so he was stuck in a defensive position.

“You would tell us about any visions if you had any, would you not?” Asked the first teacher who spoke.

Halo’s heart froze, chilling the blood through to his fingers and toes. Time stood still dragging an instant into an eternity as his sight began to fade before him. ‘How could they possibly know about the dream?! No...they’re simply asking because my studies have revealed irregular brain activity, that much I’ve already gathered. I’ll have to test them to see how much they know.’

Halo hadn’t even realized that his sight had completely turned to black until a ripple waved through the void. He refocused his attention, and found that he was kneeling by a pond’s edge looking into the still water. He felt a warm hand on his right shoulder, dry grass below his knees, and a heavy stillness in the air. The hand on his shoulder firmed its grip, and a man’s voice earnestly spoke into Halo’s right ear. The words sunk his heart into his heels and froze him to the bone. They distinctly matched the lips of the strangers in his dream; the lips now moving on the pond surface, and he could finally understand what they were telling him: “THEY’RE LYING!!!”

Halo’s vision returned to the hulking mass that stood before him, and his heartbeat resumed with the natural flow of time. Halo set his eyes upon the teacher’s mask, and meekly smiled: “I share everything with my teachers! It is all for the pursuit of knowledge.”

A swirling pit knotted his stomach as a stalemate ensued; all the teachers stared at Halo, and Halo kept his grin with naked confidence. The seconds stretched into infinity. The silence created a vacuum-like pressure around his body. A pin drop could be heard, and it seemed as though everyone’s auras were intensifying. A reaction between like-minded thinkers was occuring. A self-awareness that expanded to the other-self through a conscious reflection; each one was fully cognizant that they were being lied to, but the teacher was not aware that Halo recognized this.

“Goood!” the teacher crackled in a slow, drawn out voice. “Then you won't mind wearing this device to bed!” The teacher pulled out a small earpiece from the inside of his robe and handed it to Halo. He couldn’t see what the teacher looked like behind the mask; but he imagined an eerie and dry face with a thin, toothless smile.

“Of course, I don’t mind! Like I said earlier, I’m here to help!”

‘Damn!!!’ Halo thought to himself as he pocketed the earpiece. ‘This thing will definitely record my dreams somehow. Why are they so interested? And more importantly…’ His mind flashed back to the warning, ‘...what are the teachers lying about?’ Having been dismissed, Halo stepped out of the data center and into the hallway, closing the door behind him. A few seconds passed.

“DAMN BOY!” The first teacher growled through his teeth behind the closed door with clenched fists.

“Shhh!” the second teacher from the back right corner of the room walked towards the first, “Calm yourself Ares, or else he will hear you! We can’t risk exposing any details of this operation to even a single specimen!”

The third teacher from the left corner slowly followed, “Listen to Ceres. That boy was a reincarnation of the first, not a duplicate like the others. It would be most unfortunate if there was a sixth-density soul connection that we are unaware of.”

The teacher sitting at the counter rose up and moved to the far right corner.

“We will keep an eye on him. We must first determine the cause of this sudden change in H7693’s brainwaves; then we can explore the mechanisms of how a human brain can interlay multiple waves into entangled superpositions. He must not realize that he is special; otherwise this observation will most likely develop into a situation that even we won’t be able to control.” The fifth teacher turned around, and authoritatively stated “We will observe tonight’s readings as they unfold.”

“Yes, Captain Beren!!”

The other four teachers brought their arms up, and moved their closed fists onto their chests into a salute.

The blood left Halo’s face as he peeled off the wall outside the classroom, draining his body of all its strength. His legs wanted to run, but they were shaking like leaves in the wind. ‘Let’s forget for a moment that teachers have names...should I even call them teachers anymore?? They sounded like hungry animals! They were debating whether or not to kill me!’ Halo’s heart was pounding out of his chest as he neared the light-tube. ‘I wish this was some kind of misunderstanding…or I wish this was the dream… but as soon as I go to sleep, they will discover my lie, and…’ Halo shuddered at the thought of his perilous future. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’

Halo walked into the elevator, which suddenly closed after him and shot down below. He looked up to see the indicator was blinking “B” for “basement”. He stepped out into a long, dark hallway lined with tall columns that held the ceiling. Echoes bounced off the walls as he proceeded to the end of the hall. Eventually he made it to a dimly lit hand-rail at the end of the hall that overlooked an immense chamber; a large pit extended down into an all-consuming bottomless abyss. The echoes had become louder and clearer, to a point where Halo could unmistakably identify screams and cracking sounds from down below. He gazed down into the pit to see what was happening, which he soon came to regret. He immediately turned around and ran as quietly and quickly as possible back to the elevator.

It might have been only for the adrenaline rush, but his reflexes sprung him behind a pillar as the elevator opened to let a teacher in the hallway. The teacher approached with thunderous footsteps; she must’ve been especially large, around eleven feet tall and seven hundred pounds. He crouched behind the pillar and clutched his chest. He didn’t want the teacher to hear his beating heart. The teacher came closer and closer, and Halo began to shake. ‘Can she smell me from this distance?’ He thought, ‘…I guess we’re about to find out.’ The teacher approached the pillar where Halo hid, and Halo could certainly smell her. She smelled like moist iron and rust. He silently rounded the pillar as she passed down the hallway. She was now going to the other end, toward the railing, and Halo lightened the grip on his chest. His heart jolted, however, when the teacher stopped at the railing. Halo watched as she stood there for a moment. She then took her mask off, and released a primordial guttural trill that echoed through the chamber. Halo nearly collapsed from shock; it was like hearing a roaring dinosaur from another planet. The teacher held its call for a few seconds, then ended it and turned to the right. It continued along the railing until it was out of sight. Halo waited a few more seconds before racing to the light tube, where he prayed for floor number one-hundred eight. He arrived on the one-hundred eighth floor, sprinted to the restroom, and vomited in the nearest stall. He could hardly believe what his eyes just saw.

He had witnessed figures in the deep caverns of the underground lair that were about the same size as the teachers. They stood tall without their masks or robes, revealing their terrifying and grotesque faces. They had two black eyeballs, each the size of an apple, and a wide gaping mouth with rows of two-inch-long razor-sharp fangs. Their bodies were incredibly muscular with wrinkled gray skin, they had 2 slits for their nose, and a slit on each side of their head for ears. They were walking starved and malnourished students of all ages with leashes around their necks, and torturing the ones who stopped walking due to their weakness. They clicked their tongues so loudly, the click from the sound alone appeared to cut the skin of those who were targeted. The students cried out, but their screams were barely audible because of how dry their throats were. The pit had a seemingly infinite number of levels that oozed with dread and hopelessness. It descended into the depths of hell. The sight was atrocious and blood-curdling; Halo never imagined that something like this could ever occur in this peaceful town.

He took two deep breaths, letting them out as slowly as possible. He learned this technique in a lesson about brainwaves; different breathing techniques have been shown to yield different brainwaves. Adrenaline was flowing through his veins, but he needed to be rational in order to somehow remain alive. The device the teachers gave Halo was built to record visual and auditory brain activity that would then be translated into sensual experiences, but the study-helmets only recorded brain-waves to discern between different levels of focus and brain activity. A survival-level of alertness aligns with beta-brainwaves, and Halo needed to slow down to an alpha-wave for a more focused level of alertness. Halo calmed himself with his breath until his heartbeat returned to normal. He returned to his class, putting his helmet back on as he entered the door. The class fell silent momentarily as he walked toward his seat.

Ba-bump. His heart hammered into his shirt. It wasn't racing; instead, it was as if time had slowed down.

Ba-dum. The other students seemed frozen. Glued into the fabric of space right where they sat, they stared intensely.

Ba-bump. Halo turned to sit in his chair, facing the teacher in the front of the class. He could feel the air current in the room on the back of his neck; an unnoticeable mist had formed on his nape.

Ba-dum. He turned his neck to the left towards the window on the eastern wall to see a bird floating on a thermal. It was a broad-winged hawk, the same kind from earlier in the morning, and it was making eye-contact with him.

Ba-bump. Halo sat in his chair, eyes locked in with the hawk's. Stuck in a state of disbelief, he suddenly recognized that not just the hawk's piercing eyes - but all eyes in the room were still drilling into him. He turned his head to face the teacher, and prayed for a miracle as opened his mouth to say something - anything to break the pinpoint silence.

Ba-dum.

"BUUUUUUURRRRP!" Halo was still enduring the effects of his visceral reaction from the surreal nightmare that he accidentally laid eyes upon, and he couldn't control himself as his distraught digestive system expelled the rumbling gas from its earlier disturbance. His face finally regained warmth as it turned from a ghostly gray to beet red, blood rushing to his ears and cheeks. The silence remained for a second, but the students' expressions had changed from curious to surprised. A snicker broke out from somewhere in the room, and suddenly the class experienced another meltdown of hysterical laughter.

BRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!!! The school bell could barely be heard under the students' hooting and howling. Halo pretended to laugh, but it was more like a sigh of relief. "Class is dismissed, we will resume where we left off tomorrow! And no more distractions, Halo!"

Halo felt as if he was about to collapse as he exited the building. He felt frustrated and afraid - confused and betrayed. He had never remembered feeling this way before; and yet, the painful emotions felt so vibrant and familiar. He got on his bus with his family and the other students who lived near him, and they all went home. It was only a matter of time before the teachers would learn of his awareness; and regardless of how limited it was, he was sure he'd share a similar fate to the other slaves.

'After they kidnap me, they'll probably turn me into a slave like the others. What will become of my family? My classmates?? Will they be brainwashed into forgetting me? There were so many people in that tunnel - how would this utopia exist if people knew their loved ones were being enslaved like this?! They must be able to manipulate memory functions with the helmets…so many…who else have we forgotten?'

Halo began to resign to his misfortune. With no way out, his heart sank into a deep despair. The bus tires screeched as they slowly came to a halt, and Hank rose with the rest of his family to exit the bus. Halo was the last of his family to exit. He took a long look at the bus and its usual passengers as he departed; after all, this might be the last time he would see them. The bus drove off as it usually did. No one had a care in the world; this was, after all, a divine utopia. Halo slowly turned back to face his house. His brothers were all heading inside, but his father was standing there looking at him.

"Well Halo, shall we take a walk?" Hank's salubrious smile made Halo feel like butter; he was already so wound up, he just wanted to melt away into the void of nothingness. He surrendered to his father's invitation, walking with Hank down the road towards the forest that surrounded the town. They both kept their gaze forward as Hank began to speak.

"Halo…I heard you were called to speak with the teachers today." Halo felt his nausea start to build up as his anxiety got the better of him. "I don't know what you saw, Halo, but I do know that you must be aware of your situation." Halo tried his best to contain himself, but salty tears began rolling down his cheeks as he silently cried. Did Hank know of the teachers’ true nature? "I'm scared for you too, my boy." Hank put his arm on Halo's shoulder. Halo couldn’t control his fear any longer. He didn’t know how to tell his father about what he witnessed; but it seemed he didn’t have to. Hank turned and gripped Halo’s shoulders tightly as the tears continued to fall.

“I understand that you’re afraid, Halo, but you can feel something on the horizon, can’t you? We know there is something…rotten about this world…but the dawn is almost here, Halo. They chose you through your dreams! You will usher in our reckoning!”

Halo was speechless; his tears had stopped simply because he was so overwhelmed with different emotions. Thanks to Hank’s inspiration, he now saw a ray of hope through the uncertainty. He looked into his father’s eyes, and he suddenly felt weightless. It was like he stepped into midair, and his stomach somersaulted as if in the middle of a fall. His heart reverberated like a bell.

“You can be the one to break us out of this prison.” Hank said, tears now streaming down his face. “You will be the one to free us. Have faith, my boy. Your dreamfolk will not abandon you.”

Hank hugged Halo tightly, and they breathed deeply into their embrace as the sun began to set. A hawk crossed over neon clouds, eclipsing itself against the golden glow. Hank took notice, and pointed towards the sky. “It’s waiting to see how things unfold. Perhaps we’re not the only ones who can tell something big is coming?” Halo wondered if it was the same bird from earlier before. The pair stood for a minute in the dry heat of the beating sun, admiring the heavenly creature. It almost felt like an angel watching over them. They turned to walk back home, preparing for the not-so-distant unknown. Instinct often leads to unconscious action, and people can often feel when an era is coming to a close. It was for that reason that the silence dragged their return home into a slow, solemn stroll. At last, they arrived home. Harry and Henry were playing in the backyard; Hugh and Hal were preparing the dinner table, and Hank walked through the front door followed by Halo. Hank’s lips started to quiver as he met Hugh’s eyes.

“Uhh...Dad? Is everything all right?” Hugh said curiously with a furrowed brow, somewhat concerned about the look on his father’s face. Hal looked up and turned from stirring the vegetable stew on the stove with one eyebrow cocked, not sure of what to expect from Hugh’s voice. Normally Hank was emotionally reserved, never showing his highs or lows, but he couldn’t help his excitement.

“Boys…it has truly been an honor” Hank said. Hal and Hugh looked at each other with worry, and Hugh stepped away from the stovetop, placing his hand on Hank’s shoulder.

“Dad…I think you must’ve overdone it on the syrup this morning. You feeling okay?” Hugh said, to which Hank paused momentarily before responding with boisterous laughter.

Henry and Harry heard this and came running in through the back door, saying “hey, what’s so funny?!” They stopped in their tracks when they saw tears rolling down their father’s farcical face, looking up at Hal and Hugh. “Uhh…who broke dad?” Said Henry.

“Pffft” Halo cracked, trying (to no avail) to contain himself through the chaotic mess before them all that was Hank. His laughter expanded, amplified by Hank’s own glee. They echoed each other’s excitement. Their mania snowballed until they had collapsed clutching their stomachs on the floor.

The two youngest boys grew tired of this confusing hysteria very quickly; “You guys are crazy. Let’s go back out and play ‘Apocalypse!’” said Harry, running outside followed by Henry. Hal and Hugh turned to each other, shrugged, and carried on with their preparations for dinner. The family ate a cheerful meal, not fully comprehending their fleeting fate. The reckoning, after all, was almost upon them.