Chapter 7

 

David dreamed about Emily all night. He dreamed about writing letters to her, telling her all the things he’d never told anyone, all the things he’d never really allowed himself to think about all his life.

He dreamed that she wrote to him, too, letters filled with interest in his thoughts and feelings, letters telling him that she cared about him and wanted to be with him.

He dreamed about meeting her again and again, spending time with her, holding her hand, putting his arms around her, kissing her. He dreamed he was making love to her, of lying naked with her body held tightly next to his.

But the dream didn’t end happily. He was meeting Emily in the Old Park – he could see her walking down a path towards him. He was waiting for her on the bench they’d sat on when he’d put his arm around her and wiped away her tears. She was waving to him, looking happy to see him, but before she could reach him a monster rose out of the lake and attacked her. It looked almost like a huge spider, but with a rectangular body and myriad legs all twitching and grasping at her, as they wrapped around her body and pulled her into its gaping maw.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t run to help her, because another monster like the one in the lake had him, wrapping its legs around him and binding him to the bench he was sitting on. He was screaming Emily’s name as he watched her being engulfed.

Then the monsters disappeared and the lake and Park were both calm, as if nothing of any importance had just happened. He thought he was unscathed, but he looked down at his body and saw that there was a hole in his chest – the monster had taken his heart away. But he was still alive, and he didn’t feel any pain – he didn’t feel anything at all.

David woke up shaking and covered in sweat, wondering why he’d dreamed this horrifying ending. He tried analyzing his dream while he worked to get his heartbeat back to something normal. He knew that the good part of his dream was obviously a manifestation of emotions and desires Emily had created in him. But the ending clearly showed that he feared she would be taken from him and that he would be helpless to save her.

He thought about the monsters from his dream. They reminded him of something else, something other than spiders, now that he was thinking about them with his waking mind. He just couldn’t place what.

It was the middle of the night but he got up and hooked into the Main System, looking for the monster he’d dreamed. He searched various myths and legends, but nothing was right. He started doing random searches based on different aspects of the monsters from his dream, but nothing appeared right.

David was about to give up when he used the word “thread” in his search. As he was speeding through the results a word caught his eye: computer. He went back and followed that link, which took him to a basic description of how computers worked.

He read it all, wondering when his subconscious had gotten smart enough to personify the evil that mankind had fallen into. Emily’s comments made more sense now that he read about the origins of computers, how they worked, what they’d originally been created for – and what their reason for being was now.

David wiped out the search results and search histories, then disconnected from the System, and went back to bed. But he couldn’t sleep. His mind was whirling, from the dream and what he was trying to tell himself with it.

He pondered this until morning came. Then he rose and began his daily routine, determined to get his letter to the mail drop in the Old Park today.