Visions of Dreams

Forextu woke to the ringing chatter that he assumed were birds. So much just seemed off. The dew on the ground left him bone dry. The tree branches in the distance didn't shake in the wind. Only the owl perched above Forextu seemed real. It's eyes were fixed on the young man as though it were recording it's every move.

Today was the Harvest Plea. Fruits, grain, livestock and animal carcasses were hauled to the clearing in the center of the forest. Forextu wondered why these valuable resources being sacrificed in order to appease the Ten-Headed God. Their deity didn't answer prayers, and there wasn't enough food to last the tribe through the winter. They were throwing it away to a god that may as well not exist. Things would be better if it didn't exist.

Still Forextu joined in the procession, marching silently in step with his tribe.

He slung the bear pelt over his right shoulder. In his left hand, he held tight to his daughter. He wanted to gaze down at his loving child but knew that if he did, he would just be looking at a limp doll with black bead eyes staring back.

Forextu recalled his dream last night. There were metal ships flying beyond the lights that dotted the night sky. People lived in silver spires that rose toward the cloudless sky. It was cloudless because the weather was always under their control. There was no needless sacrifice or frightened superstition. The world made sense because they made it that way.

No wonder this place didn't seem to fit. Forextu was positive the dream world was the real one. Somehow he knew the only way to get there was to embrace the old superstitious ways. He ditched his imaginary burdens and ran to the cedarberry tree. Snapping a twig, he held it up to the sky like a magic wand and chanted the Hymn of the Ancients until his voice cracked. Forextu fell to the ground and...........

.........4-EX-2, as he was now called, awakened from his hibernation pod with the oddest dream still ringing in his brain. He watched as cardboard-looking spaceships with sparkler exhausts floated outside his wall-sized window.

Depression nearly overwhelmed him as he contemplated his sterile, lonely existence. Even though he never remembered leaving his room kilometers above the planet's surface, the dream nagged at him. It told him of a life where people banded together and actually believed in things. They were one with nature and with life. A place where he belonged. 4-EX-2 just had to find a way to get there.

The futuristic scene outside seemed more like a painted illusion and 4-EX-2 wondered why he had never noticed that. He was starting to sense the solid earth he wanted to connect with might not be so far beneath him after all. Maybe he could use the technology here to find a way back.

4-EX-2 threw himself into his plans as the omnipresent owl eye-shaped cameras silently monitored his every move.