This story begins here.

I have to admit, I think to myself as the helicopter comes zooming in for another strafing run, both miniguns firing as fast as they can spin – I think that I’m getting the hang of this lucid dreaming thing.

Down below the rooftop that I’ve made into my command post, the waves of velociraptors are still coming.  They’re not alone, either – there are now tyrannosaurs, ankylosaurs, all the great terrible lizards of my childhood, brought to life and turned against me.  But they are failing.

The AR-15 wasn’t cutting it, so I closed my eyes and imagined mortars, bombs falling from the skies.  And as those came into being, I called up men, men with guns and helicopters and tanks and willing to put their lives on the line to protect me.  The men cheered, and attacked, and the dinosaurs fell in droves.

Despite all our firepower, however, we weren’t gaining ground.  The monsters were smart, cunning, using the side streets to their advantage.  They could flank the soldiers, could tear them apart at close range.  But we held our own.  And the men knew that it doesn’t have to hold forever.  Just long enough.

Long enough for what, however, I’m still not sure.

Unfortunately, the sallow man hadn’t been as clear on how to get out of the dream.  Would the drug wear off?  I don’t even know if time is moving at the same rate.  Perhaps, in the real world, wherever that is, only a few minutes have passed.  I feel as though I’ve been fighting for years.  And my mind is growing weary.  I can’t hold out for much longer.

“Gotta wake up, I gotta wake up,” I whisper to myself, sitting down behind one of the armored bunker walls.  There are flying monsters now, pterodactyls, screaming death cries as they bombard the rooftop.  The anti-air flak cannons are holding them at bay for now.  It probably won’t last.

Can I make myself wake up?  I teleported myself to this place, summoned men and weapons from nothing.  But in those circumstances, I knew what I wanted to pull from the ether.  I cannot remember where I was when I fell asleep.  I don’t know where to send myself to.

So instead, I call out of my memory what I do know.  And a minute later, at the other end of my pistol, stands the sallow man.  He does not look happy to be there.

“What is this?” he hisses at me, taking a half-step forward.  “Not my place!”

I gesture at him with the pistol.  “Shut it, toothy,” I command.  “Just tell me how to dream myself out of this hell, and you can run off to whatever hole you crawled out of.”

The sallow man looks agitated, his hand movements even jerkier than usual.  “Dream yourself out?” he repeats.  His hand rises to stab down at the chaos below me.  “You do not want to leave!  You fight the way out now!”

He points down at the dinosaurs, at the battlefield, but I don’t understand.  “They don’t want to set me free!” I shout.  “They want to kill me!”

However, the sallow man nods rapidly, bobbing his head like a bird.  “Set free!” he insists.

The meaning behind his words finally sinks into my head.  I step forward, out from behind the armored shielding, gazing down in horror at the erupting battles.  Is the cryptic fellow right?  Do I have to die in order to wake up?

Behind me, the sallow man seizes the opportunity to make his escape.  He spins his finger in a circle in the air, summoning a doorknob.  He wrenches open the door in the thin air, ducking around it into the utter blackness on the other side.  “Customers,” I think I hear him hiss to himself before he vanishes.

Standing on the edge of the rooftop, I weigh my options.  I am fighting a losing battle here.  No matter how many men I call forth, I can do nothing but hold the line, and every second requires my sustained focus to keep that line.  With each slip of focus, I am being pushed back.  My forces are slowly retreating back towards this building, my lone tower.  Eventually, I’ll be overrun.

I tilt my head back, gazing up into the sky.  “If I’m going out,” I announce to no one in particular, “I’m doing so in a blaze of glory.”

And above the city, the circling bomber opens its bay doors.  It carries only a single payload, a single weapon.  That weapon, like a thick, finned sausage, slips free of the clamps that bind it.  It tumbles downward towards the city below.

I raise my hands up in one last gesture of exultation.  My middle fingers stab up, my last act of resistance against the monsters that come rushing in.  And then everything goes white.

For just a second, there is pain, agonizing and crippling pain, in every single fiber of my being.  And then there is nothing.

******

“Hey, he’s coming around.  What should we say?”

“Give him time.  The first time on the drug is always the hardest.  He will have to readjust.”

For a moment, my eyes crack open.  There is still whiteness.  But it seems so much more mundane, so much more… normal.

My eyes drift closed once again.  I’m not yet ready to wake up…

Continued from here.

The first creature, its head covered in sleek green scales, sticks its head around the corner.  Those big eyes, always in motion, immediately track onto my presence.  Its mouth is hanging slightly open, showing off row after row of razor-sharp yellow teeth.  It sucks in air, preparing to emit a piercing screech to alert its fellows as to my presence.

I put three rounds into its brain.

Now that I think about it, the AR-15 is not the best weapon for this.  It is loud and powerful, sure, but that loudness keeps the beasts tracking after me.  But as the monster collapses down to the ground, twitching slightly but unable to cope with its skull being spread across the wall, I have to admit that it’s crudely effective.

The other animals will have heard the shots, will already be moving in.  They don’t seem to back down, no matter the odds.  I grab the weapon and clamber to my feet.  Time to move on.

As I hurry down the alley, ducking around sharp corners, I try and pull at those still-fuzzy memories of how I ended up in this place.  I was fairly sure now that I was dreaming.  The hollow quality of the sounds, the way that all the details I’d usually see blended together into smoothness, the way that the world sometimes seemed to lag, only to jerk into focus when I tried to pay attention to that lag – it all reminded me of dreams.  I couldn’t be certain, but it was rapidly becoming the de facto truth in my head.

Yet, despite this conviction, I didn’t remember how I had gotten here.  It was something white.  Small and white.  And there had been letters.  Two Fs, stamped nearly on top of each other.

Ducking around a dumpster, I squeezed my eyes shut briefly and tried to concentrate, to pull up those memories.  Small and white.  And round.  It had been a pill!  A pill, with 2 Fs stamped into it, sitting in my palm.

There had been someone else there.  A man, a sallow man.  His skin had looked so yellow, especially compared to the whiteness of the pill in my hand.  He had grinned at me with too many teeth, all pointed in different directions.

“Good shit,” the man had uttered, nodding down towards the little pill.  “Franz Ferdinand.  Lucid dreams, you see.  Like the song.”

I had no idea what the man was talking about, but I nodded.  I didn’t want to get him upset at me.  “How much?” I asked.

I didn’t think it was possible, but the man’s grin grew even wider.  “Sample,” he said, nodding towards my hand.  “First one’s free.  Try it.  Good shit.”

As the baying of the velociraptors began to grow louder again, I curse at myself.  That deal had shady written all over it!  But I could remember now, the chalky taste as the pill had slid down my throat.  Franz Ferdinand had given me lucid dreams, all right, but they felt more like lucid nightmares.

The damnable lizards were getting smarter.  I could hear them now ahead of me as well as behind.  They were getting their bearings in this ruined city, figuring out the side paths, moving in from multiple directions to corner me and trap me where I couldn’t escape.

I tilt my head back, gazing up.  The buildings are brownstones, three or four stories with flat roofs.  If I could just get on top of one of those, I think to myself.  I could snipe down at the dinosaurs, not have to face them on flat ground.  On top of the building, I might stand a chance.

I squeeze my eyes shut again.  And when I open them, my feet are crunching on the gravel of the rooftop…

To be concluded!

Author’s note: for best reading experience, pull up the album version of Franz Ferdinand’s “Lucid Dreams” and listen to it as you read.

I’m stumbling down the street, hearing the sirens raging in the background.  I risk a despairing look at the boarded-up buildings, abandoned apartments and tenements that lined both sides of the street, but I know that they wouldn’t be any help.  The doors would be bolted, nailed shut, and I’d waste valuable, precious time.  Time that I don’t have.

“Shit!” I curse to myself.  When I glance over my shoulder, the street looks clear for the moment.  But I know better.  The velociraptors are closing in.

As I run on, the street never seeming to end, I try and remember how I got into this situation in the first place.  Wasn’t there something about a lab accident, about some sort of containment breach?  My memories felt so fuzzy.

I try to pump more energy into my sagging, flagging muscles, but it does nothing.  I’m feeling as though I’m running in quicksand, or tar.  I’m slogging through three feet of syrup.  This is like struggling in a dream.

Wait a minute!

Something about that last thought digs at me, worries away at my brain like a rat terrier with a toy.  Wasn’t there something about dreams?  Some sort of drug, or treatment?  “Lucid dreams.”  Why did that sound so familiar?

I lift my head up, looking around the curiously deserted street.  This couldn’t be a lucid dream, I tell myself.  If that was the case, I’d have some sort of weapon, something to defend myself against the surely oncoming horde.

My hand falls down to my belt, where such a weapon would be.  Sure enough, there’s nothing there.  But I’m suddenly aware of something else – something long and hard, bouncing on my back as the strap looped over one shoulder digs into my chest and armpit.

I reach back and pull the item around.  My eyes go wide.  In my hands is an AR-15, sleek, black, and looking deadly!  I swear that the weapon hadn’t been there a second ago, but I don’t want to question it too much – in case, at my doubting of its existence, it vanishes back into nothing.

The velociraptors are growing closer.  Their cries, reptilian and filled with unfeeling rage, are getting louder, echoing off the buildings.  But now, I have a weapon.  I have a chance.

To be continued!

This story begins here.

Again, the butler didn’t reply right away.  I considered that perhaps he didn’t feel that it would be proper to advise his superior on such questions.  But after several minutes of bouncing in the Jeep, Tompkins opened his mouth again.

“Sir has done quite a lot for the world already,” he pointed out.  He momentarily had to pause as we reached a steep embankment leading up to a proper road, and the Jeep’s grinding engine made conversation impossible.  But the little car gamely reached the top, and we were once again able to hear each other.  “Your invention has saved countless lives as well as providing you with the money necessary to pursue your desires.”

I nodded.  Once again, the man was right.  I had set most of the world abuzz a few years ago when I created the device.  A system of artificial nerves that allowed perfect interfacing between man and machine?  Most people wouldn’t have believed that it was possible – many were still incredulous.  But the invention was surprisingly easy to build, and as well as offering amputees a new shot at a more normal life, it gave workers a never-before-seen degree of control over the machines they used to accomplish tasks every day.

Companies had scrambled to throw money at me, and before I knew it, I was being touted as one of the richest men in the world.  Frustrated by the fawning attention I received everywhere I turned, I had returned back to my childhood home in search of some sort of answers.

There, in the corner of the dusty attic, I had stumbled upon a box of childhood mementos and treasures.  Tucked into the pages of my dusty elementary school yearbook had been this bucket list, painstakingly scrawled down by my earlier self.  And in my moment of existential crisis, I had clung to that paper and its ridiculous list like a drowning man clings to a piece of floating wreckage in a storm.

“Also,” Tompkins continued, “I received word that the deal with Ford to provide an integrated system has been approved.  With the extra funds from that deal, sir should still have more money than he knows what to do with after completion of his list.”

“And I could donate that money to charity, or set up my own,” I finished the butler’s unspoken thought.  “Tompkins, I think you’re the best decision I’ve made, you know that?”

The butler permitted himself a very brief smile.  “So what task shall sir pursue next?” he inquired.

I glanced down at the piece of paper, still clutched in one hand.  I had long since memorized every item on the list, but I still unfolded it, running one finger down the list.  “Wear the Pope’s hat,” I read off.  “That does sound fun.”

“You recently received an invitation to the Vatican as a guest of honor,” Tompkins offered.  “I held off on responding, but perhaps it would be time to set a course for Europe.”

I grinned as we headed into town, towards the airport where my jet was waiting.  Yes, this was certainly going to be fun…

Continued from Part I.

The butler didn’t reply to this, although I could swear that I saw his chest puff up a little more.  “And how was this item from the list?” he asked instead.  “As enjoyable as sir may have imagined?”

I shook my head back and forth as I pulled myself up into the open Jeep’s passenger seat.  “Nah, there’s way too much wind,” I said.  “It stings a bit.  Chafes the skin.”

“Then perhaps it would be unwise to next tackle #41, “swimming in a pool of Jell-O,” sir,” Tompkins offered.  His voice was perfectly neutral, a skill that must have taken years to perfect.

As we rumbled back towards civilization, I glanced sidelong at Tompkins.  His eyes were on the lack of road before us; I momentarily imagined seeing through his eyes and viewing a perfect two-lane path ahead of us.  I often wondered what it was like inside Tompkins’ head.  Or really, inside anyone’s head beyond my own.  Was I the crazy one?

“Tompkins, be honest with me,” I said, half-yelling to be heard above the sounds of the engine and the rubble beneath the wheels.  “Is this a stupid thing that I’m doing?”

The butler didn’t look at me.  “You will do a number on the pool filter, yes,” he nodded, “but they aren’t too expensive, and we actually received quite a reasonable deal on the bulk order of gelatin.  Apparently you are not the only one with such an esoteric desire.”

I shook my head.  “No, not just the pool full of Jell-O,” I clarified.  “The whole thing.  The bucket list.  I mean, I was only nine when I wrote it all out!  I didn’t know about being an adult?  How could I have known back then what would make me happy now?”

The question was surprisingly deep, and I saw that the butler was caught off guard.  For just a moment, his white-gloved hands slipped ever so slightly on the wheel.  Nobody else would have caught that reaction, but I had been watching for it.  That was akin to a gasp of shock from anyone else.

“I think that many people do not know what will make them happy, sir,” he ventured after a minute.  “And they are willing to try many different things to capture the happiness that they had when they were a child.”

I nodded.  Sage words as always.  Tompkins must have taken some sort of class at Butler School on how to counsel concerned clients.  “I suppose,” I nodded.  “But shouldn’t I be donating some of this money to charity or something?  Helping the world?”

To be concluded!

The parachute was still coming down, landing in a giant puddle on the razed cornfield behind me.  A little part of my mind informed me that I would have to release the tether connecting it to my shoulders soon, or else the first errant gust would drag me across the field.  And in my current state, that would not be enjoyable in the slightest.

But before I undid the harness, I unzipped a small pocket.  From inside, I retrieved a yellowing sheet of paper, creased with innumerable fold lines.  I carefully unfolded the sheet, smoothing it out against my bare thigh.

“#37, Skydive naked,” I read off as I clicked my pen.  “Check.”

With the item crossed off of my bucket list, I finally shrugged out of the harness and let it fall to the ground.  In the distance, I could already see the plume of dust rising up from the truck that was headed out to pick me up.  It was too far away for me to see clearly, even with my Lasik-enhanced eyes (#22).

Even though it was still out of range, however, I could see my butler, Tompkins, stoically sitting behind the wheel, his face unruffled and unbothered by the bumps of the cornfield.  He probably wasn’t even sweating in the tuxedo that he insisted upon wearing.  I’d told him a dozen times that it wasn’t necessary, that I didn’t need for him to stick to all the traditions, but he had insisted.

In the end, I’d been forced to acquiesce.  Get a butler (#18) had been on the list, after all.

A few minutes later, he pulled up alongside me, his eyes not lingering on my nakedness.  To do so would have been most improper, I knew.  “Your trousers, sir,” he greeted me, passing over a pair of jeans.

I climbed into the proffered clothing, wincing as the bare stalks bit into my feet.  “Thanks, Tompkins,” I replied.  “You’re a gem, you know that?”

Story starts here.

I peered around the small bathroom, searching for some sort of weapon that I could find.  I needed something hard and strong, something that I could throw!

My fevered eye cast around, needing the right object.  The bar of soap?  Definitely not hard enough.  A toothbrush?  No way that it would penetrate the monster’s skin, even at its weak spot.  The toilet paper?  There was no way in hell that I was throwing that away!  I would need that for later.

Finally, my desperate gaze landed on the plunger, sitting next to the toilet.  It was a big, heavy affair, and it looked solid enough to land multiple good blows.  I reached out and grabbed it.

Step one, acquire a weapon.  Check.

I turned back to the hole I had knocked in the wall, looking out at the monster.  It had been focused on something in the building across from us, and was now busy using its claws to try and tear a hole in the opposite wall.  It was having issues getting past the steel girders, but I knew that those razor-sharp claws would soon make short work of the foundation.  And fortunately, the monster’s back was turned to me, and I could see that spot between the beast’s shoulder blades.

Step two, find the monster’s weak spot.  Check.

One hand firmly wrapped around the plunger, I struggled up from the seat, but a wave of weakness hit me as I managed to climb up to my feet.  My free hand landed on the back of the toilet, and I had to suck in a few deep breaths.  My damaged rear end was very exhausted already from previous work, and I had to focus the majority of my attention on not soiling my trousers.

With my teeth clenched and my fists squeezed so tight that the knuckles were white, I wavered on my feet.  Raising the plunger, I swung it a couple more times at the hole in the wall, widening it until it was roughly my size.

I glared across the street at the back of the monster.  “God dammit, I hate having to be a hero sometimes,” I muttered to myself. And then, sucking in one last deep breath, I leapt out of the building.

I went flying across the street, watching the monster’s back come zooming into my vision.  I landed with a bone-jarring thump, and felt another twinge shoot through my tortured intestines as my boots hit the monster’s armored plates.

Unfortunately, the impact was strong enough for the beast to take notice of a pesky fly hitting its back.  It turned and twisted, releasing its grip on the building as it tried to see what had just flicked it.

It was only a matter of time before the creature came up with the idea of rolling on its back; I had to act fast.  I raised the plunger up over my head with both arms, trying to ignore how the action made my stomach lurch.

“Please, let this work,” I whispered, and then slammed the plunger home, driving it all the way into the creature’s skin to the hilt.

For once, luck was on my side.  The creature gave a sudden spasm as the weapon went in, and it instantly collapsed, down towards the street.

Step three, take out the threat.  Check.

I rode the monster down to the ground, although honestly, more of my attention was focused on keeping my sphincter clenched than it was on making sure the beast was well and truly dead.  As the street came closer, I saw a small figure come running out of the building across the street.

“Captain United!”  The woman was my secretary, and her eyes were wide as she came scurrying towards the dying monster.  “Captain!”

I staggered down from the monster’s corpse.  “Don’t worry,” I got out, waving my hand at the giant body behind me.  “Problem all taken care of.”

“Captain!” my secretary called out.  She was clearly out of breath, but she raised one hand to point at me.  “Captain, your pants…”

I looked down, confused about what she was going on about.  But then, as the paparazzi closed in, raising their cameras and calling out questions, I realized that, in my haste to dispatch the monster, I had made a critical error.

I had never fully pulled up my pants…

“Captain!”  The voice outside the door was insistent, filled with urgency.  “Captain, they’re calling for you – it sounds serious!”

I groaned loudly in response, raising my free hand to rub at my face.  My other hand was clutching my knee as I bent forward, and my face was screwed up in exertion.  “Not a good time!” I managed to grunt out in return.

From outside the room, I heard a loud crash.  This time, when my secretary yelled for me again, there was a new note of urgency in her voice.  “Captain, I don’t think that they can wait much longer!”

I could only respond with another groan, slumping forward a bit.  This was absolutely the worst time possible.  “Couldn’t Steelfist handle it?  He owes me a favor!” I called out.

“Abroad at a conference!” my secretary responded, frustratingly helpful.  “And Odin is off on another astral plane, and we haven’t been able to raise him!  Apparently cell phones can’t reach through the impenetrable ether.”

From outside, I could hear some faint but clear sounds of destruction, of shrieking steel and collapsing concrete.  I had to get out there.  People were in danger!  But when I started to stand up, I heard another unpleasant sound – this one a gurgling, coming from inside my abdomen.

“Oh god, I should not have gone for the all-you-can-eat option,” I groaned to myself, settling back down onto the porcelain throne that had become my prison.

The crashes were growing louder.  “Captain United!” my secretary yelled, a note of panic in her voice.

I felt a new wave of uncomfortable queasiness course through me, and shifted on the seat as it passed.  The crashes were so loud, I swore that they were right outside my little room-

-wait a minute.  I turned and looked at the wall next to me.  I carefully removed the toilet paper, setting it down between my feet.  At the moment, it was more valuable than gold.  Once that was safe, I turned to the wall, grimaced, and raised a gauntlet-clad fist.

I slammed my fist into the wall, sending a spiderweb of cracks out in all directions.  Two more punches, and I had opened up a hole big enough to stare through.  Leaning forward, I stared through the hole out at the large, scaly monster roaring and tearing its way through downtown.

Despite the hole that I had knocked in the side of the building, the monster hadn’t been alerted to my presence – it was a small relief to see that it had not figured out that men on toilets could be a threat.  And as it turned away, I spotted a small area on the back of its neck where the large plates of armor had a chink, where there was nothing protecting the beast’s spinal cord.  That was the weak spot!  If I only could find something to hit it with…

To be continued…