Oneironaut Zero: Dreamwalker Chronicles

12/08/2010
"Blackmail: Return to Sender"

Some goons had kidnapped my daughter. They were using her as leverage, to blackmail me into coming along with them, and helping them commit an armed robbery. With no other choice, I went along with it. I don't remember very much of the whole situation, at first, but it involved being something of a point-man in the heist, within a massive house. The squad of thugs were charged with keeping the people in the house at bay, while I was supposed to be the one who actually went in to steal whatever was in the safe. It wasn't long before the occupants of the house began fighting back, though, and soon there was an insane firefight going on. I wasn't fortunate enough to be given a gun so, once I had what I came for, I had to haul ass through the house, ducking and dodging as guns were blazing around me. For the most part, the folks in the house were completely outgunned, and there were innocent people dying all around me. The inhabitants figured me to be one of the bad guys, so I ended up having to grab a pistol off of a dead man and shoot my way out, rounding the stairwell and rushing down, level after level - covering my own ass with frantic shots until I made it to the ground floor.

I rushed outside of the house, gunfire still crackling in all directions. As I was running, a van hurriedly pulled up beside me, and the door opened. Still at a sprint, I jumped inside the van and we sped off. I had completed my mission and got the goons whatever it was they were searching for (though I don't remember what it was. The whole thing felt much like Cobb's attempted escape at the beginning of Inception). All I could feel, was that the victory was a bit dubious. I wanted my daughter back, but I felt horrible about all of the people that had to die for me to complete my objective. To make things worse, I was greeted with the old bait-and-switch, for my services. The goons refused to give my daughter back. They said that they would need me for another job or so, before they would consider returning her to me. Needless to say, I was furious. I was not about to be made into a lap dog for these bastards. I knew I had to do something about this.

Half-heartedly, I agreed to the mission. It was supposed to be another armed robbery, much like the last one. I was told that the head guy was going to be there, himself, so I had a 'plan' on how I was going to end all of this. It was half-baked, but it was the best I had. Somehow, I had the luxury of having Todd be my transportation to this heist. We were in a car that I don't believe was his Jeep, and he was driving. We had to circle the neighborhood a few times, and wait until the goons had already secured the house, which seemed like a cross between an old house of mine, in Houston, and my Grandmother's house, in Daytona Beach. Also inexplicably, I knew that there was a rack of weaponry waiting for me, down the street from the target home. My "employers" didn't know about this, and it was my intention to get close enough to the leader of the group to take him at gunpoint, and bargain his life for that of Cierra.

Making one of our rounds, we stopped over at this rack of weapons (which was, amusingly, set up right beside a house - all out in the open) and stocked up. Todd already had a handgun and ammunition in his car, just in case, but I needed to get my own. Going up to the rack, though, I saw that the only gun it had was a model of a real piece. I didn't even think it was functional, but for some reason, I packed it anyway. There were no bullets on this rack of weapons, but Todd's bullets were able to fit in my 'model' gun, and that made me a little more confident that it would fire. After loading it, I didn't dare test it, though, because we were in a neighborhood, and couldn't draw too much attention to ourselves before getting the job done. I also grabbed a samurai sword from off the rack, and slung the sheath over my shoulder. We went back to circling the block. On what I thought was our last pass, we saw the goons storm into the house. I knew that I was going to be on, in just a few moments. Todd was beginning to lose his nerve about having any part in this, though. I told him that he was going to have to stop and wait for me, but he didn't want to stop. We just kept driving around the block while I argued with him about how I had to go through with this. Another pass. Now, there were people streaming out of the house, some of them dragging their bullet ridden bodies under their own power, clinging desperately to their lives. I knew that there was going to be no other chance. Again, I told Todd that he had to stop, so I could get this done before the cops came. And, again, he doubted the situation just long enough to role passed the house again. Sure enough, on our next trip around, there were cop cars in the driveway. I knew that, If I were to go in now, I would have bought myself a 1-way ticket to prison. It was too late to complete the job as ordered, anymore...I had failed.

Then I got a phone call. The leader of the goon squad said that he wasn't even present, during the heist. He had been testing me, and I let him down by not completing my task. He told me to report back to him, because we had some things to 'discuss,' and it was the most ominous thing I had heard in ages. He still didn't know that I was armed, though (if you could call it that). We drove down the block, still in my grandma's hood, and I got out. I didn't plan on making much small talk...at all. I was going in there determined to get my daughter back, by any means necessary. Clutching the gun and sword, and making my way up to the door - practically on fire with anticipation - I suddenly realized that I was dreaming. I was absolutely ecstatic. Lol. All fear instantly disappeared. This entire scenario had just done a complete 180, and now, even though I was fully aware that this was not reality, I damn sure wasn't leaving the scene without settling the score.

I burst into the run-down old house, immediately stepping in and waving the gun around. There was one guy on a couch to my right, another standing in a hallway to my left, and the leader was directly across the room from me. He sat in a chair, smuggly, with a gun in one hand, and my daughter in his lap. She sat rather stoically, looking at me with a calmness in her face as if she was just waiting patiently for this to be over with. I glared at the leader, beginning to walk toward him (before this time, I had never actually seen him, and he reminded me a lot of Victor Sweet, the dementedly egotistical bad guy from Four Brothers). The guy on the couch suddenly threw out his arm and aimed his gun at me. I aimed back at him and tried to pull the trigger. Nothing. I squeezed it harder. Still nothing. Even though I was lucid, the gun was still acting like a damn model. I just couldn't squeeze the trigger. Even when I clutched it with two hands and both index fingers, it wouldn't budge. I thought that it should be easy, since I was lucid, but no matter what I did, this gun just would not shoot. Frustrated, I began taunting the guy on the couch. I dared him to shoot me, telling him that he could take all the shots he wanted, but it wasn't going to stop me from killing every single one of them, beginning with him. I began to slowly walk in his direction.

He fired. Anticipating the attempt, I swung my hand up in front of me, imagining the bullet hitting my palm and snatching it out of the air. He fired again. My other hand raised, slapping the bullet off to one side while I continued on toward him. His shots came in quicker as I advanced, and I simply stopped paying attention to the bullets, stalking toward the increasingly terrified man. His bullets pelted lightly off of my chest like grains of rice against cowhide. And out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the leader was getting uneasy, too. He tried getting my attention stalling me with some talk about how he "knows me" from somewhere, but I completely ignored him. I would get to him...in time. But for now, I was relishing in the moment.

By this point, I was standing right over the man on the couch. He had stopped shooting, and his eyes were wide with fear. He was shaking. Again, I tried to squeeze off a few rounds into his stomach, from point blank range, but the gun I held was completely useless, and I just didn't have enough control of the dream to overpower it. I finally threw it to the ground, having had enough, and reached around behind me to pull the samurai sword out of the sheath over my shoulder. The last thing I remember, before waking up, was the look on the goon's face when he realized that he was about to be carved into tiny little pieces.