The Nightmare Build

Some dreams should never come true...

Tears stream down my face...

I can’t help it. Everything inside of me is screaming “This is wrong!” but I can’t stop myself. It’s as if my body is no longer my own: despite being terrified, my fingers are as controlled and steady as ever. More so, in fact. Not like me at all.

Is it even me? Am I me? Am I trapped in the body of a clone with its own operating system? Or possessed somehow by—god…I don’t know—an alien entity or something?

It’s crazy!

But I don’t know what else to think as I watch, helpless, while my hands keep working. They are building the machine that I dreamt about and woke with the full schematics in my head.

I don’t know where the dream came from. Or why. But I’m terrified.

I’ve been collecting old machinery parts and guts for years; I thought it was purely connected to my desire to be a sculptor. I mean: I made some cool figures and stuff. But my collection grew way beyond what I would likely ever use. Filled the double garage I turned into my workshop.

But the dream. So detailed. And that I have every single part! How is that possible? And how am I now so effortlessly, so robotically, building a machine that I, otherwise, have never seen before. I don’t even know what it is. What it will do.

But something in my gut tells me it is evil. That it will cause immeasurable harm. And I can’t stop myself from building it!

I can feel it’s nearing completion. And I know I will be unable to stop my hands from turning it on. From using it.

I have no idea what’s coming. What this thing will do. I just know I’m terrified…and helpless to stop it.

My hands fasten and tighten the last piece.

Tears stream down my face…

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Created for Day 23 of Bradley Ramsey’s The Halls of Pandemonium event.