Ultimus Chapter 11: Dreams, Nightmares and Sanity

An alarm clock started going off and Andrew opened his eyes dully to the sound of it. He just had a memory dream, remembering when he first woke up all the way to finding his way to Sanctuary. All of it playing out in what felt like a few minutes. It all felt to him that it was only a moment ago. Yet he knew that wasn’t true. Twelve years had passed since that day he awoke from the cold sleeping pod and the day he exited that tunnel. He felt so hopeful of finding other, that there was a chance that others were alive. How that hope was crushed when he saw Sanctuary and the state it was in. No one had been there, no human life for who knows how long.

Andrew sat up and turned in his bed so that he was sitting on it. He looked to his left at the nightstand, his Element Corp. alarm clock was still going off. Andrew grabbed it and shut off the alarm. He ran his hands through this hair. He raised his head slightly and looked around the room. Books covered the floor of his room, everything from world encyclopedias to how to books to even complete science fiction and comic books. He looked over at a corner to his room where a child’s mattress laid. Laying on top of that was Reuben, while being Twelve years old, he acted and looked half his age. Being extremely healthy and spry for the age he was, he was starting to have a patch of grey fur come in around his muzzle. Reuben raised his head and looked at Andrew with a happy expression. Andrew chuckled and smiled at this, the person he trusted the most for most of his life wasn’t even a person and he loved it.

“Good Morning Reuben.” Andrew said, he began hearing the rhythmic thumping of Reuben’s tail against the child’s mattress.

Andrew got up and looked down at his pajamas. They were an old pair of his father’s. On his dad they would’ve fit perfectly, but on Andrew they were floods. Andrew was surprisingly taller than his father by now and couldn’t believe it himself that he was this tall. Andrew then looked at his closet, where he kept the tek suit that was once his father’s too.

He stared into space beginning to think about his parents before shaking his head. He dare not think about them. He didn’t feel he needed to think about them or those he loved and lost so many years ago. To those he never said goodbye to. He shook his head again, trying to repress and forget memories that attempted to come back. He needed to get out, and he knew just the thing. He walked over to Reuben and kept down and began stroking him.

“Time to get to work.” Andrew said.

* * * *

Andrew walked down the hallway towards the front door fully dressed with his suit on and ready for the day. He stopped at a wardrobe that was in the hallway and opened it. Inside was a rifle and shotgun, a bandanna, pair of tinted motorcycle goggles, some other survival gear and a flashlight. He put on the Bandanna and Goggles, put the two guns on each of his shoulders and grabbed the flashlight. He looked back and saw Reuben walking down the hallway, stretching as he did so. Andrew turned around and opened the door and walked outside. What was once an overgrown abandoned roadway in the Forest was now a well maintained driveway and yard. Andrew put several days and possibly nights into cleaning it up. He felt that it was the right thing to do if he was going to live here. In his front yard was a teleportation pad. He hulled it back with one of the ATVs when he first got back from Sanctuary so many years ago. He had found some element inside the house and was able to activate it. And since then, he had been using it almost everyday.

He began walking over to it when heard a noise to his right. He looked over to see that same dinosaur, though she now had young and her scales were duller. It still grazed and raised its young near his house. Andrew smiled at her, though not knowing what she was, he felt he had to give her a name. And so he named her Tracy.

“Good morning Tracy!! How’s the family doing today?” Andrew said. The dinosaur grazed on the ferns and bushes and seemed to ignore him. However Andrew nodded and chuckled.

“Darn kids are being trouble huh? Well if you need, send them over here to spend night so you can get some rest. Me and Reuben can have them all straightened out by the next morning.” Andrew said, she continued grazing.

“Alright, if you feel that isn’t a fit enough punishment for them. I just wanted to give you a break. Well hey, I gotta run. I hope you have a good day!” Andrew said as he walked towards the teleportation pad. He looked over to it and saw Reuben. “Sorry Reuben, she’s such a chatterbox. I was trying to get away but she continued talking.”

He felt like he lost it a bit. Talking to a dinosaur or to his dog and imagining what they would say back to him. He started doing this a month after he woke up, trying to make sure he wouldn’t go crazy from the isolation. Yet he felt silly and even more crazy doing this everyday.

He walked onto the pad and made sure it was set to the correct destination and then pressed it. In a flash, he and Reuben were in the dark. Immediately Andrew turned on the flashlight and looked around, he was in the subway station. Though it didn’t look like a subway station anymore but instead a large hotel room with furniture and carpets. He walked over to a corner that had an element lantern there and he turned it to its brightest setting. It lit up the entire room and part of the tunnel.

Andrew jumped down into the tunnel and helped Reuben gently get down too. He began walking down the tunnel and to where the edge of the light was casting away the darkness. There stood a stool with another element lantern on top of it. Andrew grabbed the lantern, turned it on and carried it as continued to walk down into the tunnel.

He continued walking down the tunnel until he could see another stool and a bright light coming from the end of the tunnel. He walked over to the stool and set the lantern on it and turned it off. He looked to the exit of the tunnel and slowly slid through the crevice with Reuben close behind. Andrew and Reuben reached the other side to where they found themselves in a dead end of sorts. This dead end lead to a path on the cliff side of a mountain.

“Remember Reuben, be careful. You don’t want to have bad footing and slip here.” Andrew said looking at his dog.

They cautiously walked the path down the mountain, and as they reach the bottom of the mountain. They passed a strange row of what looked like radio towers. Andrew never understood what they were and why they were there. And he’d probably never know.

“Just like Stonehenge for us I guess, don’t you think Reuben?” Andrew said softly. He didn’t want to say it louder for fear.

He looked out for what was ahead and saw a barren wasteland, with the remnants of once was here and oddities they left behind. With strange domes he dare not go near and beings in the ruins of the city that lost their ways. Out here though he dare not speak or even breathe heavily in fear of what was here. As this place, was death itself. Where the dead live and breathe, and the living come to die. This place, that was once known as Sanctuary.

But Andrew needed to come here. Not for the chance to find others, as that hoped died the day he saw this place. But for the chance to find things to further his chances of survival. And so he and Reuben continued their trek down the mountain and through the ominous passes to where he needed to go.