Chapter I The Dream wars

Vidaly Savolin sat carefully on the spindly legged chair before the large leather edged desk; it seemed to her that they put this highly uncomfortable thing in here for students only. This, coupled with the gloomy yet expensively furnished office could kill down even the most rebellious of arguments. Ly tried to find a more comfortable position, but failed and settled for straightening her skirt and blouse. She detested this uniform. It gave no freedom of movement and made for, in her opinion, a very sexist view of the students. It was a short skirt, wide sleeves and a freakishly perfect bow on a button up shirt, little black shoes with heels and nylons; all in lovely black and white. Absolutely disgusting. Not that looking cute and feminine didn't have its own little purpose, but there weren't even boys in their half of the school. They saw their worse halves only at assemblies or on field trips. It simply wasn't worth that and the mandatory half hour of "grooming" for their teachers and each other.

The reason she sat here was, put simply an odd crime. She'd been caught dreaming, and in Alveer dreaming was simply not done. It took a trip into a distorted past to grasp even a fragment of the reasoning behind this rule. It began during the infamous Dream War.

The Alveerian race had been attacked by an advanced weapon which killed people in their period of R.E.M. sleep. Exactly what had happened to those victims was a mystery. No one truly understood what went on or what the victims saw. Those which were not dead were insane; speaking of images and monsters vile and frightening enough to have come from the nightmares of a child. Alveer had been devastated, half of the population dead within the span of two nights.

The attacks had abruptly ended after the first two impossible strikes. The remaining people of Alveer banded together and gathered in the capitals. No one wanted to sleep, the chances that they'd be attacked were well over 50 and at that time there had been no answers. The enemy remained faceless, and suspicion rode high. The fear of the unknown vastly overpowered reason, and people started to see shadows and strangers around them. Even friends seemed to have the potential for evil.

Sleep deprivation also took its toll. Tempers stretched to the point of breaking, and fights broke out so often that the remaining law became a constant presence. Paranoid and weak, the Alveerians cowered inside their city walls.

One day, a patrol returned with a young doctor from the university outside Keavan, Micheal Girt. He found a medical solution to the sleep problems. A drug that suppressed the act of dreaming without interfering with the regular sleep patterns of the population. This little pill, taken daily at least an hour before sleeping provided them with the protection they sorely needed. The government took control of the pharmaceutical companies within hours and mass produced the dream suppressant which had only appeared on the market a year previously. That's how they lived for the first year, with small crews sweeping out in search of other survivors and supplies while the rest lay in dreamless sleeps, until the scientists found an explanation. The Nightmare machine.

Appropriately titled, it was designed to kill people in their dreams. It had never succeeded. The plan had originated from the belief that if you die in your dream you were dead in 'real life'. They'd never even gotten past the idea, it hadn't been possible. But that didn't stop it from being at least in the same ballpark as the Dream killer. They believed that it was a terrorist attack and though they never found the perpetrators they were never attacked again. Their current safety came at the hands of one Professor H. Kellen and his genetic meddling. He was a hero that saved the economy and very life of Alveer, all by, ironically keeping them from dreaming. It had been so simple, just a twist of the code and sleep was simply sleep; evening, you lay down and then it was morning. The first DL generations had been a huge success.

And there they were four generations later, in the year 307 DL, healthy and whole, more or less.

Never dreaming did have its effects. Stress and anxiety related conditions became more severe and frequently seen. Despite the dip in population the numbers doubled. It was completely normal for a respectable person to spend some time in an institution and parents no longer scolded their children for being afraid of the dark. They were strong again, and the story had gathered dust.

But after the dust had lay thick for years but something would eventually stir it up and every couple years or so a kid who could dream would be discovered and everyone would remember.

That was why Vidaly Savolin sat in the headmistress’s office, in the uncomfortable chair. She was a Dreamer and for their own safety Dreamers had to stop being Dreamers because most died before they hit thirty, victims of the foreign Nightmare Machine; a reminder that their enemy still sat waiting for their defenses to fail.