Oneironaut Zero: Dreamwalker Chronicles

10/15/2014
"Mercenaries, Wolves and Savages"

Spoiler for Short Version!:

Summary:
From out of the frying pan and into the fire. I found myself trying to escape a military facility. After fighting my way passed the soldiers and their arms; as well as a pack of feral wolves; I wound up being chased by indigenous people, living in a huge hole in the earth, whose most treasured artifact I had the overwhelming urge to steal on my way to safety.

There was a vast military facility, set in a rocky, mountain terrain. An acquaintance and I were seemingly prisoners or captives on this base, and were sneaking around the yard in an attempt to make our escape. Our captors were more ruthless mercenaries than your standard soldier, and we knew that being caught again would mean certain death.

It didn't take long for the base to go on alert, upon realizing we were no longer where we should have been. Everywhere, squads of these men were mobilizing and searching frantically for us. One the closest end of the base was a wall with a framework of openings, but on the other side was a wide-open clearing, for miles. We could already hear the helicopters beginning to circle. We would be sitting ducks out there. The only way to safety would be to make it across the compound and to the opposite side, where the geographic conditions were much more conducive to escape.

Unable to keep ourselves hidden for much longer, we soon found ourselves sprinting and scrambling through the yard, dodging machine gun fire so close that I could actually feel the bullets tearing through my clothing and brushing my skin at times. Turning a corner - after having lost my companion, somewhere in the fray - I saw a large, metallic object wheeling itself around a nearby building. It was a tank, and the turret was already beginning to rotate in my direction. I broke into a lateral sprint, running as fast as I could, toward the closest structure. It was one of those moments where time stands still, and you're in just such utter terror that you are absolutely, positively sure you are going to die.

I heard the tank fire the shot, just before I was able to reach the corner. Luckily, the shell flew just a few feet behind me. I could sense it as it passed me before exploding, harmlessly, about a dozen yards away.

Still on the run, I happened upon an enormous crevice that led down into the ground, just outside of the military compound. It was a great gash in the earth, about the length of a large yacht, and it was apparently the entrance to a network of caverns which stretched deep below the surface. I climbed down to lower passageways and attempted to wait out my pursuers, thinking that I might have enough concealment down here to successfully get away. Then, I saw a silhouette on the wall. It was a wolf. A very large wolf. It was sniffing its way around toward me, but I was out of its line of sight and it hadn't yet noticed me.

Quietly, I began climbing back up toward the surface, out of the path of this beast, and started to weigh my dwindling options. Poking my head just above the surface, I was met not with the automatic weapons of the mercs that I believed were still searching for me, but with the sight of about five more wolves, sprinting down out of the nearby mountains and directly toward me at breakneck speed.

Frantically, I slid back down into the crevice and to the lower level. The wolf was there waiting, and I ended up having to fend him off with my hands, grabbing his snout as he lunged and grappling with him just long enough to slip away before the others could descend into the cavern behind me. (I think I killed it, but I'm not sure.)

Continuing further and further down, and just as I was beginning to feel that I had rid myself of the ferocious wolves, I found myself dropping into a wide open 'room' within the cavern. It was about the size of the underwater cavern in my dream from yesterday. This time, though...it was full of people. Primitive, indigenous people, who seemed as though they had been living here for eons. A lost civilization. And they all immediately stopped what they were doing and stared directly at me.

I was standing on some kind of pedestal or shrine, and surrounded by precious artifacts. The centerpiece immediately caught my eye: a large, gem-encrusted plate, in the shape of a skull, which looked like it had come straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. Suddenly, the air turned hostile, and this entire tribe began converging angrily upon me. I was off, again, instinctively grabbing up the skull-shaped relic and dashing off of the pedestal, running through the caves while they gave chase. Some of the natives also dealt in magic, because the last thing I remember is hoping from ledge to ledge while a handful of them threw glowing, blue spells at me, which exploded into bright splashes of hot liquid.

I don't think they ever caught me, though!