"Dreamscapes of the Genius Mind" -Volume II (bring popcorn and your TL:DR button)
I present to you the 2nd edition of "Dreamscapes of the Genius Mind", complete with a new story and possibilities to turn into a HO clusterfuck like the 1st edition became. Without further ado, I bring to you:
Bunneh's Dreamscapes of the Genius Mind
2nd Edition
February 6th, 2008
As a foreword, I will reiterate the intentions of this topic as outlined in Edition 1.
Before I begin, allow me to clarify that this is NOT intended as another pointless HO topic. This is actually intended to the discussion of the story I am about to tell, and also for readers to share similar stories of their own. Now, on to the meat of the topic.
The story that follows is a narration of a very bizarre nightmare I experienced last night, one that actually woke me up in the middle of the night (which has not happened in many years) and kept me thinking about it all day. Posting it here is, what I feel, a means of venting its presence in my mind and allowing me to stop thinking about it.
Also, you guys here are the first I've told about this nightmare, so feel privileged. On to the story itself (grab some popcorn, and maybe download a text-to-audio program to keep the eye strain at bay).
It began in the Junior High, in the modern day. I stood in the band room after school, apparently, where the instrument closet is. However, of the office right across from the closet room, something was wrong. After opening the door, I found not the copy machine and a sink; rather, an archaeological dig site was erected in the office area. I was alone, but I heard voices and machinery down inside the dig, so I walked down the small scaffolding to see what was going on.
I walked down one small flight of steps, and turned right to follow a dirt path that apparently ran just underneath the floor of the main band area. About 15 yards from the steps, steam erupted from a broken pipe on the left side of the walkway, and beyond that was a small set of 3 steps leading to the left over a large pipe. On the platform reachable by those 3 steps was another small broken pipe erupting steam across the walkway. I crossed this steam, and 2 men were standing at a rock wall about 2 yards away. I walked over to them, and my memory goes blank after that.
Next instance of memory; I am standing at the junction of South and East hallways, at the school's main entrance, and feeling very panicky. I run to West hall, which I discovered doubled in length from its real-life counterpart, then to North hall. At the North-West junction, I turned left to head to my normal classes in the northwest corner of the school; it is a very isolated section of the school, since no one comes down there unless they have business there. I ran to my locker and passed it, then ducked into the Algebra room just beyond the locker and at the end of the hall. All my classmates were there. I ran to the front of the room near the projector screen, and said;
"Attention, EVERYONE!...We have to get out of here NOW. A volcano has been discovered underneath the band room in the southeast corner, and a massive eruption is due sometime today. I just came from the survey site; an announcement from Administration is set to begin any moment now. A USGS agent is to brief everyone later in the announcement, so shut up and sit down. This is very serious business."
A collective gasp of worry swept over the room, and my panic got even worse. (I am a bit of a pyrophobic/arsonphobic person; I have always had nightmares and such about fire, mainly volcanic fires. Most of that fizzled out by the time I turned 12, but sometimes it comes back. I do not know why I have a fear of volcanoes, but I do.) The loudspeaker crackled, and I yelled "SHUT UP!" right as the USGS agent came on.
"Attention, all students; this is a life-threatening issue at hand, and as such, you all should remain silent as I brief you over the events occurring over the past year and the events bound to occur within the next 12 hours. I will try to remain as age-friendly as possible with this information, but I will indefinitely use technical vocabulary you are not expected to understand. I am accustomed to briefing geologists, not teenage students, but will try to keep that fact in mind. Now, let us begin.
"I am Agent George Sampson from the United States Geological Survey, or USGS. My job is to observe, monitor, predict, and warn any affected persons of a major geological event in their area. In this instance, anyone within a 10-mile radius is in danger, and anyone within 3 miles is expected to have an extremely high mortality rate. This means that anyone left in this school at eruption time will die.
"Underneath the school, directly under the band rehearsal hall, precisely, is a volcano. Over the past year, microquakes have been emanating from this site with an intensity so high that, while not strong enough to be detectable by human senses, set off seismographs around the planet. Extremely strong and extremely frequent P-waves were traced to this location, so the USGS deemed an investigation necessary with utmost priority. A secret field research site was set up underneath the band room to study these microquakes and what was causing them.
"The dig began 11 months ago. 6 months ago, my team announced that volcanic activity was responsible for the microquakes. 3 months ago, a large subterranean volcano was verified to be in existence a quarter mile beneath this school. 10 minutes ago, a shallow earthquake occurred that shredded everything underground within the continental United States. 8 minutes ago, a dying signal from a subterranean probe in the volcanic zone showed mass relocation of about 45 metric tons worth of magma. This magma moved from the quarter mile zone to the 15 yard zone in about a minute. Thus, we have a large eruption on our hands.
"Right now, a mass evacuation of the city is underway. In the next 5 minutes, the 700 students in this school will be evacuated by transport helicopters. In the next hour, the entire city will be empty. In the next 4 hours, 6 robotic probes will be dropped into the football field from a SR-71 aircraft at about 82,000 feet. These probes will roll into the school and take up various observation positions in and near Ground Zero to record and transmit data to scientists 30 miles away; the safe zone set by the same scientists who were on the research team this past year has taken into account any and all free radical variables which could occur, and set the zone accordingly.
"All faculty members have been emailed a specific set of instructions for the evacuation. Read them immediately. USGS agents are en route to each of the major halls to commence the school evacuation. Listen to them for further instructions. That is all."
Everyone freaked, but maintained some form of order. We stood at the door, then surged into the hallway when we heard a megaphone activate in the hall. The USGS agent just started to give instructions when my memory went blank again.
The next thing I see, I am standing in a field with 10 Chinook helicopters powered down, a science observation lab with enough electronics to melt a nuclear reactor 5 times over, and the population of the entire city. A soldier comes up to me and tells me I am needed at the observation post immediately. I ran over to the observation center, cleared through a security door and static decontamination chamber, and went inside. The head scientist greeted me and escorted me to a terminal near his. At the terminal, several camera windows broadcasted simultaneously. Some were from the probes, the others from orbiting high-altitude aircraft in the area.
It was just after sunset when the eruption began. I couldn't tell the eruption had started on the external cameras, but the probes were showing the smoke erupting from the dig site. One probe was down in the dig site; the second was in the band room; the third was in South hall, facing east; the fourth was in East hall, facing south.
Probe 1 showed the smoke first. It was sitting on the ledge at the 3 step area looking towards the rock wall ahead. The ground opened up in front of the steps, and smoke and lava began pouring into the small area. Within 10 seconds of T 0 (eruption time, that is), Probe 1 was dead.
Probe 2 showed the smoke billowing from the open dig site into the band room. Then, lava shot up into the room, causing the floor to collapse and Probe 2 died by T 0:30.
Probes 3 and 4 didn't show much activity in the first burp of the volcano. Just smoke pouring out of the band room and filling the school, but they stayed broadcasting. For a while.
At T 3:16 (3 minutes, 16 seconds after the initial crack, according to the timer on the monitor screens), Probe 4 entered the band room. The center of the floor had collapsed, and lava filled the underground dig entirely. Suddenly, the lava receded entirely, like water in a bathtub with an industrial-grade vacuum hooked up to the drain. At T 3:32, Probes 3 and 4 died. Their final images? Brief shots of advancing lava, about a second long, followed by static.
T 3:33; SR-71 cameras show the school exploding, the entire campus area collapsing down into a crater full of lava, and lava, ash, smoke, and firebombs shooting into the nearby neighborhoods. At T 5:05, the smoke cleared enough to regain sight of the ground. A mountain of smoldering ash and lava stood where the school once did, but down in the crater. For some bizarre reason, several people appeared on the camera, running towards their houses. Their path brought them right beside the volcano, and they screamed as a flank collapse shot lava on top of them.
The volcano kept erupting, and finally quit after a while. Then, my memory went blank a final time before the end.
I was standing in the main entrance of the burned, bombed-out school. I walked inside with 2 men, and I was older; much older, about in my 30s or so. We walked inside the blackened halls, surveying everything. Then, we went to the band room. The floor was blown out, as it did in the eruption. Inside, we could see the old pathway underground. We jumped down inside, and followed the path back to the source of the eruption, the crack just beyond the 3 steps and broken pipe. The remains of Probe 1 lay rusting, partially visible underneath newly formed igneous rock, on the platform. We looked down where the crack had initially appeared on the viewscreen. As we turned to walk away, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the same crack open up. The last thing I saw was a red glow on everything, and a loud roar with some bubbles thrown in for good measure.
Then I awoke, much in the same way as I did in Volume 1. Discuss this if you would like, and please leave out the TLDR spam if you will.
Trivia: I spent 1 hour, 52 minutes straight typing this out. It had best be worth it, folks.
R
Originally Posted by Bunneh
