The Dreams Of Scientific Minds

Whoosh, splash, plop, splash and plop.

All the beams that were supporting the above ground pool shook and over the sides water was spilling out. Like the water, out of the pool came the bodies of five teenagers. Without apparent thought of the matter the young adults proceeded to move across the newly dampened grass and combined mud and moved toward the small home situated behind the circular water container without a word from any of the five mouths.

They went inside and soon came out dressed in dry clothing and new expressions. Unlike before, they were all talking like normal, out going teens.

One girl with bright blond hair pulled up by orange chopsticks was talking animatedly with a tall boy with a mess of blond hair piled atop his head.

Behind them was a short boy with multi-coloured head reigning in black and blond highlights with the occasional red and faded-to-pink streaks. He was thinking quietly to himself. If someone were to wave a hand in his face he wouldn't take notice until minutes later when he rejoined the others in reality, if the hand was still moving rhythmically in front of him, that is.

Lastly, the two bickerers came and as if not to disappoint, they were speaking heatedly with one another. The female was speaking sentences filled with so much cruelty that the sensitive male was almost tear-eyed yet still, he had enough passion within himself that he was getting in his love's face and returning hurtful words. They were fighting over meaningless dunks the girl had given carelessly in the pool to him.

The group moved across a gravel-paved driveway onto green grass. They stopped as they reached a drop off of land where a steep slope began. Below, their view was of endless amounts of water. The water leading left, right and straight-ahead gleamed in the afternoon sunlight.

"Wow." Said the boy with a colourful head.

"Mmhmm." Murmured the blond girl.

The squabbling twosome had now quieted and was now holding each other, the two blonds were looking at one another while flashes of chemistry passed between them and the lone boy was gazing at the ocean.

The moment passed and so did the clouds overhead in the blue sky, covering it. Suddenly the sky was covered in grey clouds. Typically enough, it seemed fit that something big, dramatic and horrible took place, and it did. To be predictable and pleasing, someone unseen decided to start the action.

"Do you see that?" The blond girl whispered to the neighbouring blond over the growing wind. She realized the other were too busy with each other and their thoughts.

"Yes."

"What is it?" she asked with a pout on her face and tugged on his arm. Before he could answer, she was looking over the edge of the cliff and surveying its height. Soon enough, she had sparked the curiosity of the others whom looked as well.

"We have to go now." She told them all with a commanding tone that they all followed. She led them away but became frustrated when she realized the others were only walking at a slow and casual pace. She snapped. "Hurry up!"

The wind was loud now and the sound of it swirling around was as almost unheard because of the noise of rushing water. The water was now spilling over the cliffs and towards them; just like it had with the pool she was now passing. The lower half of her body ran for her life, her mind ran through thoughts of the survival of the others. She hoped they made it through the tsunami, especially Josh, her blond haired best friend, but if they didn't then they were all idiots for not running like they should have. What little compassion she had at that moment.

The water over-came her then. She was pushed forward and would have collided with the ground if her feet could still touch it. She was under a wave and struggling to push her body to the surface using her coincidental swimmer's calves and muscles to her advantage. She gulped in air when she surfaced a minute later and did the same thing for the next half an hour; fight for her fair share of oxygen. She took no notice to the scenery she passed as wave after wave carried her frame over the water.

Slowly, she was being lowered. The water was dividing itself throughout the passing areas and the amount of water moving her was decreasing. It wasn't surprising that she was finally pushed forwards toward the ground and was knocked unconscious by first contact with the ground.

I awoke with a major headache, which was caused by a major head wound, which was caused by a major wave suddenly not being so major. Lovely, isn't it? I could tell from the red liquid soaked in the pores of my fingertips. My fingertips had resided on my forehead seconds before I had put pressure where the pain surged on the flat front.

"Owww." I groaned to my inexistent audience.

I rested my elbows on pavement that was sizzling in afternoon heat. Surveying my injuries and then my surroundings, I realized that I was in the middle of a road, that I should move and put pressure on my wounds.

Stumbling, I zigzagged my way toward the blurred vision of a pathway. I stumbled downward and came to my knees when there was suddenly no ground to support my left foot. Tears spilt and mixed with my moist face. I shifted myself to rest my butt on the soft and muddy grass.

I was about ten minutes away from Ryan's house, where I had been before, enjoying my time with Josh.

I managed to pull at a rip in my jeans for what could have been an hour while I thought of the day's events when I tore off a patch of denim. I used it to wipe off blood from my head and put pressure on it. I closed my eyes and wished the pain away but it did not go.

When I lifted my eyelids, I found my cerulean eyes could see clearer. I saw the ditch I was sitting in, the forested area behind me, and the road in front of me. The road led to a narrow hill that began where two trees grew guard-like on separate sides of the road. The road going down the hill led to a subdivision that was surrounded, and now drenched with, ocean water.

The subdivision was new and growing in size, taking up almost as much space as there was on the island. The main road leading to the homes also led up to a hill. On that hill the important buildings sat along with the more costly of homes like Ryan's property that had the magnificent view of the ocean.

"Ow." I let out the quiet murmur. The pounding of my head was growing louder as if it were getting closer, if possible. The ever-nearing noise had me questioning if it really was coming from my head.

Slowly reopening the eyes I'd closed subconsciously while trying to block out the pain, I saw nothing but the original scene. Sounds of screeching continued loudly to my left though. The pounding in my head must be getting worse, is all.

On my left, running hysterically in multiple directions, was a figure soaked, like myself, and screaming.

I stumbled to my feet and tried to maintain my balance.

Seeing as I probably wouldn't be able to walk and stay on my feet, I waited for the person to come toward me, and they did.

Obscene sentences about the world ending were what I made out of the raving coming from the other person. He was a young male, I could tell from their voice. I hoped for a minute that it was someone I knew and then recognized the person to be a drug user that lived in the subdivision he was coming from –when he wasn't kicked out of his home.

The melodramatic addict passed me warily. That was when I made the illogical decision to start the way he had come from. I wasn't sure if he had acted crazy because of the drugs or because of what I thought could be called a minor tsunami and so I wondered about that as I walked under the two skinny trees on the sides of the road.

It was a nice place for being on the less wealthy side of the island. They were still upper class here, everyone on the island was. The adults and teenagers with jobs either had either had their own small businesses on the small land mass, worked at one or had a job at the off-shore oil line that was fifteen minutes away by boat.

I passed by the products of the high income stately dressed in coats of relatively the same pastel colours. All the houses were two-story buildings with driveways and what used to be gardens. Now as I walked by, I saw automobiles flipped over and others with broken shards of glass every where waiting to add to the damage that had already been done, plants uprooted and eaves troves that could not withstand the weight of the ragging water were laying on the ground –some still holding the water that was its downfall. The dead-end streets were no longer pale homes of perfection and seemed to mirror how perfection isn't always what it seems when you come down to it. As I grew nearer to my home on one of the last streets in the centre of the subdivision, the noise level increased like the severity of the lower-level houses I was walking by: getting worse and worse, louder and louder.

It happened when I began walking by one of the dead-end streets in the centre of the subdivision. There was a mass of people collected in the middle of the court. They were all crowded together, wet, clutching the random item that had been saved or clutching the hands of small children, and waiting. I stopped. While I studied the familiar faces of the townspeople, they took notice of me when one kid pointed and tugged on his parents' arms. Silence fell and everyone returned my stare.

"Jennifer Heust."

"Jen."

"It's one of the Heust teenagers."

"Jen H."

"Who?" The whispers of my name went around.

"Jenny!" Shouted the lone and daring voice. A movement of bodies started and only stopped when a figure burst out of the crowd. I didn't need to see the person clearly to know that the person hurdling toward me happened to be my best friend acknowledging me.

"Hey." I greeted as if it was a normal day. He threw his arms around my waist and grinned as he spun me around in dizzying circles.

When he let me down I barely managed to say "Atlas!" before he tugged my arm, roughly –as was his nature-.

"Hurry up, Jenny, before the bus gets here!"

"Bus?" I asked between resisting the sharp tugs on my right limb.

"Yeah. A bus is coming to get everyone off the island."

"Everyone?" I received an annoyed glance. "O.K., I'm coming. Stop looking at me like that, I'm sure there will be other buses."

Atlas's face-hardened with a dark, unreadable emotion. "No, there won't be. There's only one bus coming."

My mouth formed an 'o' but no words would come out of it. Atlas's face quickly returned to normal when he gave me a warm smile that was supposed to be reassuring but failed. The look he gave me was as fake as the usual ones of false meaning that he gave to everyone he didn't care for. I'd like to think I wouldn't see any of those looks anymore but because I was Atlas's best friend, the fact that I was a girl didn't matter to him. Due to his nature that's how he was.

Atlas kept to himself and no one but family knew about his private life, not even I. I've seen it and received the backlash of his care for only those of the female population. Even though I was very much a girl, he only saw me as his best friend, though I was thankful for that. I was used to his aggression and rude language. When Atlas was actually kind to me then I was worried. I preferred Ryan and Josh's company to his any day so it wasn't necessarily true who my best friend's were.

"Are the others here, Atlas?" I asked with a gulp.

"No."

"O.K." I murmured.

The quiet was broken as the children pointed at a double-decker bus, "We're getting on that?"

"Yup!"

"O.K…"

I got onto the bus and slumped into a window seat with Atlas by my side.

"Do you know where we're going?" I asked.

"No…" Atlas answered with a tone of interest. The question continued to bother me, even after I shut my eyes and tried to sleep.

Beside me, I did not know that Atlas was also worrying, but about Tone, Ryan's never-ending sparing partner.

Where is Tone? Is she O.K.? Is she still alive Atlas wondered.

He shifted to look out the window and Jennifer caught his attention. He was sure she was sleeping after he watched her deep and even breaths. He reached out and let his hand glide down her blond tresses and scratched up cheek. Turning his gaze to the window when he heard his best friend's breath become uneven at his touch he asked himself again, are they O.K.?

The three were fine, just a bit agitated, damp and grateful.

"Where am I?" Asked a whiny voice to no one in particular. The voice then followed up with an, "Owww."

Josh clutched his throbbing left arm and tried his best to sit up in the hay he'd awoken on. In the dimming light of the blue sky he could make out hill after hill of hay, of which he was surrounded by. Past the straw-coloured hills there were trucks filled with hay ironically. Not surprisingly, Josh was already getting sick of his surroundings. This emotion evoked him to get up, as best as he could with only one good arm.

Walking to the hay-filled trucks, Josh heard voices.

"Where are we?" Asked a male voice.

"How would I know, dumbass?" A female voice retorted.

"Shut up." Came the reply.

"Yeah, a stupid one. No wonder you said it."

"Shut up, Tone. You're lucky I found you two. Now stop fighting." Josh commanded in a tired tone.

"Josh!" Ryan exclaimed at the sight of one of his closest friends standing at the edge of the truck bed that he had been bickering with Tone in.

Tone shuffled off of the truck bed and grasped Josh in a tight hug, the type that would be shared between two guys, though Tone acted as closed off as a male to be one.

After letting go, Tone and Josh climbed into the truck bed and settled down. Ryan expressed happiness at Josh's arrival but remained seated.

Slumped against a side of the truck, Josh asked, "Why don't we break into the truck?"

"It's locked." Ryan said indifferently.

"That's not what he meant. You're such a-" Tone attempted to put down Ryan but was cut off by Josh.

"Shudup, shudup," He slurred. "Why don't we actually break in? We can find a rock or something and throw it through a window."

"'K. Let's go." The three all scooted to the end of the bed until Tone shouted at the other two to stop.

"What! Why?"

"We're moving." Surely enough, the truck had begun to move as one patch of dirt blended into another twin dirt patch.

"Whoa… O.K."

They all returned to their spots and slumped, defeated. With no idea where they were being taken or by whom, the three could only wonder and wait.

"Hey, miss. Wake up." Spoke a hurried and deep voice.

"Huh?" I murmured as I felt myself be shaken awake, "Where's Atlas?"

"Who, miss?"

"Atlas Jones, the guy who was sitting beside me." I explained. The tall male shot me another glance involving a raised eyebrow before heading off the bus. I followed him off the bus and then followed the mass of people going inside.

It seemed to me that everyone was stuffed inside by the time the doors finally shut with a click. Nobody thought to open them again, most of them just happened to realize they were claustrophobic and followed up this realization of their fear by irrationally screaming and scattering themselves among the different hallways.

The halls were a maddening white; white walls, ceilings and tiled floors led in two different directions leaving the main hall. Left or right was the choice. The only other option was out the way they had come in and no intelligent or small-minded person would ever think of it.

"We're free!" Josh exclaimed as Tone, Ryan and himself jumped out of the newly stationary object.

The truck had come to a stop in a foggy marsh. The ground was made up of thick, wet mud and grasses the only things covering the sloped land. A lone and leafless tree stood in the center of the hill morbidly.

"Whoa."

Lined up in horizontal formation was a line of identical, rusted dark blue, parked trucks.

Ahead of the trucks was one large mass of people clumped together minus the exception, a gap around the tree in the middle.

"What are we going to do?" Ryan asked as he surveyed the area behind the trucks. Behind the old metal heaps of transportation, the hill stopped, a pool of shallow, murky water collected and a tall gate stood closed.

"Well we can't leave." Tone noted after following Ryan's gaze, "Let's try and make it to the tree."

"Why?" Ryan asked without seeing the point.

"Then we can climb it and see the rest of this place. God, you're so stupid sometimes!" Tone negated.

"You know what? I don't need this shit!" Ryan declared, folding his arms over his chest.

"Well neither do I!" Tone shouted. Then she turned and stormed off, becoming one with the crowd of people.

A set of looks passed between the looks before Josh said, "We should go find her."

"Who cares? Because for once, I don't." Ryan retorted coldly, his arms still remained folded.

"Come on, we already don't know where Atlas or Jen are, or even if they're O.K." Josh said with a pained expression.

"O.K." Whispered Ryan.

The boys tried to stay together but had trouble moving through the pushy people quickly. After an unknown sum of minutes, they came to the three and moved on with no second glance.

"Ouff." Josh grunted then let out a rare profanity, "Ow! What the fuck was that?"

"What?" Ryan asked, turning to face Josh. In Josh's eyes there was a glimmer of innocence, almost as if he was a puppy pouting. Ryan was frowning playfully when he said; "Don't look at me with puppy dogs eyes. You're not my bi- ow!"

Josh burst out laughing while Ryan faked a glare and looked up in the tree where the tree branch Josh had watched hit Ryan came from. There sat Tone smirking like a malicious cat. Ryan, remembering his recent fury with Tone, glared up at her.

Josh looked up from laughing, cheeks red, and said to Tone, "What do you see up there?"

Tone paused to look around in all directions before she said, "A large gate attached to tall brick walls on both sides. Those lead to a building. It looks old, cement too. All the people are going in there."

"O.K., let's go then." Josh shrugged.

"Why don't we stay here?" Ryan asked. They all knew why they were not going to stay there, Ryan was just asking because he hoped the other two would change their minds.

"Ryan, we either stay here where we don't know what's going to happen or follow everyone in that place where we don't know what's going to happen. No matter what, we don't know what's going to happen. We have no control. We don't know! The only difference is that if we go inside, we're not going through this alone."

"O.K." Ryan sighed. He watched Tone come down from the tree with only one horrifying thought echoing through his head. Civil war.

In the building, two groups of mammals moved toward one another and acted primarily on savage human instincts. They appeared normal as they walked the eerie halls but inside their minds something had snapped. By fear, they had become this way, as many humans do, when they had felt threatened and afraid. The people would have realized all their thoughts were based on cruel ideas had those ideas not consumed their thoughts.

I had been fooled by their actions and thought they were still in control of themselves because I was. Nothing had happened to me so why would I have the slightest notion that something inside of them had changed. There was an obvious clue that they were abnormal, that I had in fact clued into. The hint was that, as soon as I rounded a corner and saw that at the other end of the hall the people, whom had been on the British bus with me, were running toward more people, with raised fists.

Holy shit! I've got to get out of here, were my main thoughts. I basically kept thinking holy shit, holy shit, and holy shit repeatedly.

Seeing as I was in a hurry to turn around and find a hiding place before I got mixed in with a fight, and everyone else was in a hurry to brawl, I had no problem with being pushed aside. I turned the corner I had once passed and headed back to where I came in.

Once I was behind the safety of the wall, I began searching frantically for an exit. I had gotten in here one way and nothing would stop me from that, or any other, way out… except locked doors and killers.

A door, ah! I thought before running to the metal object and praying to God it would open. It opened; I thanked the Lord and slid to the ground.

I know those people! They were friends, acquaintances and other less familiar faces from around the island. I had seen Christian Deacon fighting with an old man, Annie Send had been charging at Rea MacKenzie and they were best friends!

Though where I was hadn't mattered a few seconds ago, when my heart slowed by one beat, I was curious to know where I had hidden myself.

Oh my God! It's a bathroom! A guys' washroom! Beside the fact that it had been built for guys, it was full of urinals. Other then that, it was as bland and normal as all bathrooms are.

"Whoa!" I squealed when I realized a pair of beady, dark brown eyes I just looked at had been set on me since the moment I swung open the door.

Before the owner with the critical eyes could speak, I was out of that washroom and running around a corner until my face met with the ground. It was only seconds later when I was yanked backward onto my heels and thrust against a wall.

"Ugh." I grunted. I was still grunting when I stumbled backward again.

Wait. What the hell? I was just being crushed into a wall. How do I have room to go stumbling backward?

"Ah, Miss Heust. It's nice of you to join us, welcome back to reality." Greeted a friendly and old croaky voice.

"Reality? What do you mean? Where was I and where am I?" I asked the middle-aged man who was standing in front of me.

"Oh yes Jennifer. None of what you just went through was real. It was fake," he told me with a continuous smile.

"Huh?"

"It was a simulation. Your friends, yourself and the other members of your community were chosen to participate in one of the scenarios we, the scientists of Brinningsdale Institution of Technology, have created."

He's a scientist. I should have known by the unbuttoned lab coat covering his casual wear. In fact, I was standing in a large room with high ceilings, one huge machine on a platform, and a door off to my right. Another thing I noticed was a doorframe but in the place of a door was a view of my fellow islanders fighting against each other.

"Oh." I said quietly.

"Well, we'll let you adjust. There's a cafeteria with free food out the door and down the hall." he said dismissively, "That doorframe leads in to and out of the simulation and it's the only one. You and a few others have happened to go through the wall you fell through, unnoticed, due to us programming the need to fight into the minds of most of those from your island

I nodded and watched the scientist leave.

I turned my attention toward the scenery and spotted some TV's playing different scenes. I realized they must have been of the simulation because one TV showed a title wave crashing down on cluster of trees. There were other images of hay bales, one of a marshy area with a single tree placed among it and others of people attacking each other. I was shocked, once again, at a clip of Hannah Greene with a shoe in her hand that was aimed at-

Whoa, what was that? I wondered as a swooshing noise came from the door the scientist had said led to the cafeteria. When another few seconds passed, I saw a person run by the door and then another.

The next thing I knew, there was more swoosh noises and a person stood in the doorway leading to the cafe' but he wasn't just any person, a person I knew, a guy I knew.

After five seconds of trying to comprehend who was really standing in the doorway, I shouted, "Josh!" He barely whispered my name before he grinned as I ran into outstretched arms, "Wow. Umm… I was, uh, worried about you the whole time."

"What about Tone, Ryan and Atlas? Didn't you worry about them too?" he jokes, "I'm just kidding. I worried about you too."

Feeling courage I had only felt after I had gone through a simulation where every other moment had left me wondering if Josh was O.K., I used that dramatic moment to admit, "I like you, Josh. I have for a few weeks but after everything that happened I need to know you know."

"Good." He told me while he grinned.

"Why?" I asked, my intellect having vanished in his presence. He then pulled me closer and planted his lips on mine, "Oh! I get it now!"

We brought our lips together again when another 'swoosh' sounded.

"Hey, Jo-oh. Jen's here! Cool. You two keep going at it, I'll find a condom and be right back."

"They're back too?" I asked when we both paused in between a kiss.

"Yeah, it happened to us together." he explained as he brought his mouth farther apart from mine. I felt his hand trail down my arm until he reached my hand and inter-locked it with my own.

"Oh. Did Atlas end up with you guys?" I asked hopefully.

"No. I haven't seen him at all. Why?" he said with a hardened, unreadable look on his face.

"He was with me until I got to that place. I woke up and he wasn't with me anymore."

"Continue," he said.

"O.K." I agreed and sat down on the cold floor beside Josh, "You first."

"O.K. When the wave hit, I was close behind you. I went under immediately but then came back up. When I came back up, I didn't see anyone. I went under again then I-," he stopped when I brushed a piece of hay out of his hair. "What are you doing?"

"Brushing some hay that's been bothering me. How did you get hay in your hair?" After I asked, Josh hushed me so he could continue his story but he was interrupted once again by a guy approximately our age coming through the portal. Josh said he knew the guy so he welcomed him to sit down and listen.

Josh finally finished his retelling of events so I began my own. By then, there were two more people I didn't know sitting with us, along with Ryan and Tone.

Among our circle we told our simulation stories. It seemed to me, despite how creepy and scary the actually events had been, they had united all the people on the island.

A/N: I hope you liked it. It took me three months to complete.