Dark Happiness

by Ryan Toronto

It was a dream, obviously. The imagery too hazy and too rapidly changing and distorting to be anything but. Ryan drifted through the world of his own subconscious.

A small but important conception of a fact fluidly escaped understanding; creating an uneasy familiarity with the pictures, but always dancing beyond the edge of comprehension. Ryan's wandering mind let it remain shrouded, preferring to delve into the lighter, clearer thoughts.

Color and feeling solidified into time and place. Characters and events. Ryan stood aware, in the way only found in dreams, of much greater things. Aware of the meaning without having to utilize the senses of the waking world.

Conner was there. His friend, his brother. Con existed, yet his existence was merely felt, lurking in shadow beyond Ryan's vision of now.

Ryan felt a number of other things, understood the meaning. He knew that he was in some sort of headquarters. He knew it was night. He knew that Con and he were there for a reason. A mission. He knew that he was happy.

And he knew why.

This happiness, this bliss, he was swimming in it. Below the overwhelming, dominating, yet pleasant emotion lay a twinge of blur. A buzz, a hum; a thread of white noise. Prodding at the anomaly proved it to be the same incomprehensible thought as before. Irrelevant.

Why was he so happy? Ryan knew, just as he knew why there were other people in the building and why soon there would be none. He knew the power of his aim; he knew that each speeding missile would bury itself within a warm target. He knew Con was disappointed. Disgusted. But he was not disgusted with himself.

He was happy.

His happiness continued until long after all feeling of life but his own had been eliminated from the meaning. Con, too, had vanished from his perceptions. Ryan's happiness twisted, discolored, became tainted. Had he killed Con as well, drunken as he was, immersed in the power of the moment?

No, no, not possible. Not possible. Ryan was falling, falling through dimensions and time, a millennium in a moment. Then the pounding overcame him, drowned him in the beat, and he snapped into reality; sitting straight-backed in a cold sweat amidst the familiar objects of his room. The pounding came from his own chest.

Ryan collapsed back onto his bed, exhausted from his sleep. The hum he felt now was simply the living rumble of the starship's engines as he and Con hurtled through the lonely void of space. Yes, he remembered, Con was well, whole, slumbering nearby in the safety of his own room.

Kyoudan, that's what he called their ship. Assassin's bullet. The pervasive hum was not merely the Kyoudan roaring through nothingness. In his sleep, it had been a concept too powerful to fully grasp. Now he was awake, and able to divine the massive truth behind the buzz.

He had known all along; the buzz and he had known. It was almost humorous that he would have, at one time, labeled his now-fading dream a nightmare. Now, laying wide awake enveloped by the dark vibrations, he understood that it had not been only a creation of his mind, but the cold truth of memory.

Links to other sites on the Web

Back to Stories
Home

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws