A Dream of Waking

A piercing chorus of fear, pain, and hopelessness drifts into Jacob's room through the small vent in the ceiling, signaling the arrival of yet another brief waking cycle.

There is also light.

Even though his eyes are sewn shut, Jacob can tell that there is light.

It takes him several moments to remember everything, as it always does. His fingers delicately probe the stitching over his eyelids; the skin has fused together, forming a smooth, unbroken covering. Jacob's hands move to his temples where he feels the cold, hard tubing which burrows deep through his skin and into his skull.

There is a pliable, rubberized film covering his body from ankles to neck. During some wakings he would pluck at it, stretching it out until it snapped back against his skin. Jacob is sure this is some kind of protection from cold or heat.

Or radiation. He shivers at the thought.

He feels a web of sensors attached to his body. Optic cables run through his skin-covering to dozens of small suction cups that cling to his muscles and continuously hum with a low current of electricity. Jacob has always assumed this was to keep his muscles from completely atrophying, but there is no way to be sure.

Only for the past few wakings has he been able to feel these things and not panic. It was not so in the beginning.

In the beginning he would scream, just like the others.

Scream until his voice cracked silent; until he could feel his throat bleed. After the first twenty wakings -- how long is it between each? Jacob has no way of knowing, but it feels like months and perhaps even longer -- he began to understand that screaming was not the key to his freedom. Slowly he forced himself to realize it was getting him nowhere, and he resolved to focus his efforts on acceptance. That, he constantly tries to convince himself, is the only way of getting past this...whatever this is.

The other screams still make him shiver. They echo through long ventilation ducts from rooms innumerable, mounting in power before spilling into Jacob's small prison. Hundreds of voices, maybe thousands.

He gives the tubing running into his skull a gentle tug, just as he always does upon waking. He moves quickly, knowing he only has a minute or two before they put him to sleep again. The fully enclosed half-cylinder in which Jacob now lies is little more than a translucent coffin. It is only slightly larger than he is tall.

As the initial dullness from whatever drug they pump through his veins while he's asleep wears thin, he moves more quickly.

Jacob scoots his body toward the base of his container, being careful not to pull too tightly on the tubing attached to his skull. He can only manage a few inches; one tube runs directly from each side of his head and into the containment unit, offering little slack.

Four wakings ago, Jacob's foot brushed against a loose piece of plastic at the base of his container; a cube that hums with electricity and is warm to the touch. Jacob had spent the following wakings attempting to dislodge the piece.

There is never enough time.

What he intends to do after he succeeds, Jacob still doesn't know. What he does know is that he never wants to go back to sleep. Not in two minutes, not ever.

He hears footsteps.

Jacob knows it's the woman on the second footfall. She has a lighter stride and walks more delicately than the other workers in the facility.

A nurse or technician will often come into his room while he is awake. He can hear them tapping on the equipment attached to his container and typing notes into their handhelds. He hears them unscrew threaded housings on the outside of the cylinder near either side of his head. Heavy liquid sloshes in the containers they extract. The technician then replaces the full containers with empty ones.

Only recently has it been her.

The workers never talk to Jacob, no matter how hard he tries to get their attention. He shouts and kicks and pounds on the plastic walls of his prison. Occasionally, one of the technicians will chuckle at Jacob's feeble attempts. Once he heard someone telling a coworker how nice it was going to be when they were finally allowed to stitch the patients' mouths shut along with their eyes.

None of them ever talk to him. None but this nurse; the nurse with the soft footsteps.

Jacob props himself up on his elbow as he hears the door to his room slide open pneumatically.

"Please," he says, before the door has fully opened. "Please."

"Quiet, Jacob," she says and quickly crosses the room to his container. "Quiet now."

Her voice is soothing and tranquil. It threatens to cast a spell over Jacob; to make him docile. It takes a great deal of effort to protest.

"You must help me. Please get me out of here."

"You know I can't do that, Jacob," she says softly. "I'll lose my job. And then who would talk to you?"

Jacob's jaw flaps up and down in bewilderment as his mind grasps at words. "Job?" is all he can manage. "Your job?! Look what you're doing to me! To the others! I hear the screams." His outburst drains him immensely. How can he be so tired when all he does is sleep? "How...how can you sleep at night?"

"I don't have to, thanks to you and the other patients. No one sleeps anymore."

Jacob feels like screaming but can't get enough air into his lungs. It's the sleep-drug, he thinks. Constantly pumping into me. "I don't understand," he says.

She giggles slightly. "Of course you don't. Now relax. This may be a little uncomfortable."

Pain streaks through Jacob's skull. He screams sharply as the nurse unthreads the plastic tubing running into his temples. There is a grinding in his marrow as the tubes scrape along thin grooves in the bone.

"Hmm," she says. "I'll have to get someone in here to look at those. They seem to be loosening up." She pauses and addresses him directly. "Did you hear me, Jacob?"

If his tear ducts hadn't been welded shut, Jacob would be crying. He hears her, though, and it confuses him. Before he can ask what she means, she stands and walks to the door.

"Please help me," he says one last time.

The door swishes open and she pauses. The moment hangs before Jacob, frozen in time and infinitely -- but foolishly -- filled with hope. Then there is a small beep from a control panel on the wall and Jacob hears a soft hissing fill his chamber. His thoughts begin to slow and his head lolls back onto the firm plastic bedding.

"Please..." he whispers as the door to his room closes and locks. Numbness creeps over his body, and Jacob once more succumbs to the darkness.

The dull echo of a long-forgotten memory fades as Jacob snaps awake. He springs up and smacks his forehead against the cool plastic of his half-cylinder cell. He forces himself to calm down and regulates his breathing to lower his heart rate.

His very first thoughts are of the woman. Jacob wonders how she can carry on with a job like hers; seeing people in his state day after day, knowing she's at least partly responsible for robbing them of a normal life.

Jacob's hand drifts absently to his eyelids and his fingers rub the scarred stitching for perhaps the thousandth time.

As he turns his head, Jacob notices something unusual: a distinct absence of pain. The throbbing ache normally associated with the plastic tubes burrowing into his temples is absent. It takes Jacob a moment to kick-start his brain and finally reach up to his temples.

Gone.

That one word bounces around Jacob's sluggish mind for what seems like an eternity; the sleep-drug leaves a fog that never seems to fully dissipate.

The tubes are gone.

His shaking fingers touch the raised ring of flesh on each side of his head. Jacob dares not probe the center of these cavities; the ensuing vertigo from whatever he discovered is sure to make him vomit.

He almost laughs. How could I possibly vomit? I haven't eaten in God knows how long.

His very first instinct is to call for help. It only flashes through his mind for a second before being replaced by something more useful.

Something that makes a little more sense, thinks Jacob.

Instead of crying out, Jacob twists his body around in his plastic coffin. His fingers find the warm, humming cube at the base where his feet usually rest. He traces the edges of the cube as they terminate into the wall of the containment unit. The box wiggles slightly. Jacob grunts and pushes the box out as far as it will go, pounding on it with the palm of his hand. When it will move no farther, Jacob twists back around and slams the heel of his bare foot against its perfectly smooth, gently vibrating surface.

He pauses when something inside the cube clicks. Machinery whirs to life and Jacob panics, knowing what comes next. There is a soft hiss as sleep-drug pours into the containment unit. Jacob takes a deep breath and holds it in his lungs.

So close!

Over and over again he kicks the cube. Jacob feels the wet slick of blood coat the plastic; his foot must have been gouged on one of the sharp corners. He slams against the box ever harder in response. Finally, with a sharp crack of plastic, the cube loosens.

He pushes one last time and the obstacle falls to the floor with a satisfying crash. Pieces of the container shatter and skid across the floor. His breath is nearly out; soon he will have no choice but to allow the poison to enter his lungs.

A distant part of Jacob's mind isn't sure that the hole is wide enough for his body. That same voice thinks that maybe he should wait and knock out a few other pieces of machinery before getting himself stuck. The panic-stricken, oxygen-starved part of Jacob's mind tells the rational voice to burn in hell as he turns around in his cell once more. He reaches through the hole with both hands and, pressing against the outer shell, shoves himself out of the containment unit. He feels a hundred distant stings as the suction cups covering his body POK free in rapid succession.

His body thuds against the cold tile and knocks out his remaining breath; the containment unit is a little higher off the ground than Jacob was expecting. After a moment he is able to breathe freely and he gulps down cool, recycled air.

He stumbles to his feet and over toward the door. His world is a swimming blackness, punctuated occasionally by faint blurs that he assumes to be light sources. He walks with arms outstretched before him; he has heard the door open enough times to know its general direction but has always been unable to tell how far away it is from his coffin. His hands find a wall, then a small square of plastic with raised circles in the center.

Control panel.

Jacob is about to start pressing buttons when the door swishes open and someone enters the room. He smells her before she speaks. Her scent is sucked into the room and rushes over Jacob, captivating him instantly.

It is a field of flowers in spring; it is a crystal-clear brook bubbling lazily through green mountain valleys; it is heaven. Jacob's mind reels from the unexpected bombardment of forgotten memories. It is her, the nurse; she of the soft footfalls; the only one who has ever talked to him.

Before he can ask her what is happening, she grabs his arm -- surprisingly strong -- and yanks him out of the room.

"This way," she says through clenched teeth, "and keep quiet."

He obeys, knowing his only other choice is to wander around wherever he is, bumping into walls and shouting until someone tackles him and drags him back to his cell. His legs move as if he is waist-deep in concrete. Jacob has to twist his entire body back and forth to force his legs outward.

The hallways are painfully bright, and for a few moments Jacob raises his arm to protect his already shielded eyes. The ambient white glow suddenly turns to a crimson red through his eyelids -- the alarm lights.

He hears shouting, but this time not from the other prisoners. Deep-voiced men bark orders down unseen hallways. He hears the stomp of heavy boots and the unmistakable clak-CHIK as rounds of ammunition are chambered.

She is pushing him now; they speed around a corner and down another hallway. He can hear her quick breaths as she turns her head to look behind them. They round one last corner and the shouts behind them fade to silence. She yanks him to a stop and fumbles for something buried in her coat.

"Come on come on," she says under her breath. "Yes!"

Jacob hears a beep and the sliding of plastic as the nurse passes her ID card through a door lock. The door slides away and she shoves Jacob into a room. The red glow passing through Jacob's eyelids from the hallway snaps to black as the door hisses shut.

For a moment it is only their breaths in the darkness. Jacob listens as a group of men runs past the door, shouting and cursing.

The nurse relaxes and touches Jacob on the shoulder. "Looks like we made it. For now, at least."

"This will sting."

Jacob sits on the exam table, perfectly still, not daring to breathe. The nurse -- Sara is her name -- has a fusion-scalpel in one hand and grasps Jacob's shoulder with the other. When the instrument is less than an inch from Jacob's left eye, she switches it on.

A pinpoint beam of orange energy pulses out and sears Jacob's eyelid. He resists the urge to jerk away, knowing that the scalpel would trace a line of molten flesh across his face. Instead, he grits his teeth and waits for Sara to run the beam along the length of his fused eyelid.

"Don't open it yet. Let me do the other one."

She moves the scalpel over to the other eye and activates the beam. Again there is pain, only this time not as bad. Jacob smells burning flesh and hears a crackling sizzle as his eyelid is burned open.

"Okay," she says and powers off the scalpel. She takes a step back. "Open your eyes."

Jacob holds his breath and opens. His eyelids creak apart like the knuckles of an opening fist that had been clenched for years. The world is blurry and made up of colorful shapes. And bright; too bright. Jacob groans and covers his eyes.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Sara says and rushes over to the table next to him. She picks up a small bottle and tilts his head back. "Hold still."

Cool drops fall over his eyes and the light in the room dims considerably. Jacob blinks and wipes away the excess liquid. It smells like gasoline.

Focus.

The shapes take form, the blurriness turns to sharpness, and for the first time in what feels like eternity, Jacob can see.

Sara smiles. She is beautiful, and Jacob feels like crying.

Later, he tells himself. Plenty of time for that later.

He rubs the top of his thighs with balled-up fists, trying to massage away the dull ache.

"The pain will pass. You will feel a warming sensation as lactic acid flows back into your muscles. After that, it's clear skies on the horizon." Sara pauses and rummages through a nearby bin. She produces a compact injector and twists a small dial on the bottom.

"This will help," she says, and jams the sharp nose of the device into Jacob's bicep.

"Ah, shit! What the hell's that?!"

She smiles and rubs the raised red bump on Jacob's arm with gauze. "Muscle booster. Should get you back up to speed, and then some."

He studies her, instinctively leaning away. "Why are you helping me?" he asks.

She thinks for a moment as she drops the injector back into a bin. "At first, it was all about the money." She walks over and sits next to him on the table.

God, she smells so good.

"This is one of the top five overpaid jobs in the galaxy, you know?"

Jacob doesn't.

"I didn't have a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life after college, and my father suggested I look into the Dreamship Program. I thought 'Sure, what the hell?' It's not like I don't have the rest of my life to figure out what I really want to do." She inches closer to Jacob. "So I figured I'd give it a go for a couple years and use the money I saved to travel the system and find someplace to settle down." She looks at him, her eyes darting down to his lips every few seconds. "They didn't tell me it would be like this," she continues, her eyes hinting at tears. "I thought we would be handling volunteers. Not...not..." She waves a hand in his direction and looks at the floor.

"Not tourists."

She smiles weakly. "Yes. Not tourists. I'm ashamed, Jacob. Deathly ashamed, and I'm trying to make it better."

She raises her eyes to meet his. He believes her.

"I was on my way to the outer colonies on a research grant," says Jacob. "Someone was claiming they found an artifact buried near the planet core -- " He stops suddenly. "What year is it?"

Sara hesitates. "2719."

Suddenly Jacob is back in the containment cell, pounding and screaming and knowing he will die in here and they will never find his mummified corpse and --

He rests the heels of his palms over his eyes. "2719." He samples the numbers on his tongue. "Sure, I mean, yeah, of course it is." He lets out a single, sharp bark of laughter and stands. Tears force their way past scarred tissue and spill down his cheeks. "Almost two hundred years," he whispers and looks around the small room. "Business must be booming."

Sara doesn't answer. She bites her lower lip and watches him helplessly.

He notices a small, covered portal on the far side of the room and walks to it.

"Is this a window? Would you please open it?" His voice is sad, resigned. "I'd like to look outside."

Sara hesitantly drops down off the table and reaches over to the control panel. Jacob has his back turned to her and waits with his arms crossed and head down. She pushes a button.

The portal cover slides up to reveal the blackness of space. Distant stars twinkle brightly in the deep black of infinity. Jacob looks down and sees that the ship is in orbit around a planet. The atmosphere glows blue and clouds swirl over painted continents.

"Is that...?" he whispers.

Sara crosses over to him. "No," she says. "That isn't Earth. It's a private planet, purchased by one of the richest men in the galaxy. One stop on a never-ending rotation for this ship." She watches him stare down at the planet, taking in its beauty with glassy eyes. "Jacob, I really do want to help you. I'm tired of the screams and the nightmares about ships full of people with families they'll never see again. I want to help you. But we can't stay here. We've lingered too long already."

His gaze remains on the planet below. "How?"

"Escape pods. Off the main deck. If we make it to one we can get down to the planet."

"I'm so tired," he says. It is almost a resignation. He lets out a deep sigh and looks at her. "They'll never let us get down to the surface."

"This is a medical vessel," she says pleadingly. "No guns, just shields. Jacob, we can make it."

"Then what?"

"Then who cares! One thing at a time." She holds out her hand. He looks down at it, then up to her eyes.

"One thing at a time." He grabs her hand and in the next heartbeat they are out in the hallway and running.

Sara leads him down seemingly endless hallways and service hatchways until finally emerging on the main deck. Jacob's weariness is fading and Sara struggles to keep up with him, giving directions as they run.

"Left! Right! Jacob!"

He is barreling down a long corridor when two security guards cross the hallway at an intersection fifteen feet away. They are engrossed in conversation (which is lucky) and are out of their battle-armor (which is miraculous). Each also has a large automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. Irrationally, Jacob wonders how far the weaponry in 2719 has advanced.

Sara grabs his shoulders and pushes him against a small archway cut into the side of the hall. The guards catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of their eyes. When they look over, however, all they see is a pretty nurse straightening her shirt and smiling brightly.

One of them winks at the other and they walk over to Sara.

She rubs her palms nervously against her hips as they approach, trying hard to keep her smile from wavering.

Jacob presses himself against the wall, not daring to breathe. He watches Sara as she casually puts her hands into the pockets of her smock. Her right hand closes around something heavy, and Jacob knows at once that it is the fusion-scalpel.

Jacob's heart is pounding faster and faster, and not just from the adrenaline. Sara was right about that injection: a warm sensation courses throughout every muscle of his body, pulsing and -- and --

And enhancing.

One of the guards walks past Sara, intent on leaving his partner to get a little more personal with her, when he notices Jacob. His smile quickly fades as he shouts "Foster!" and moves to unsling his gun. Jacob braces one foot on the wall behind him and pushes off, using it as a springboard to launch himself forward.

He buries his shoulder into the guard's soft stomach. There is a loud "ooof!" as they crash to the ground. The man's heavy weapon thuds down to the ground. Jacob cracks the guard in the jaw with his elbow and in a single fluid motion picks up the rifle and slams the butt against the guard's temple. The man goes limp.

Jacob raises the gun and turns to take care of the other guard, only to see that Sara has the fusion-scalpel pressed to the man's throat. She backs him against the corridor wall, sinking the device into his skin ever harder. The man looks at them both with fear in his eyes.

Jacob stands and walks over to the guard, whose eyes dart frantically between the scalpel and the gun. Without hesitation, Jacob smashes the handle of the rifle into the guard's face, shattering his nose and knocking him unconscious. His body slumps to floor next to his partner's.

Jacob turns to Sara. "Let's go." She grabs his hand and they run down the corridor.

A few more small turns and Sara is leading them down a long hallway with doors on either side. One of them is open and through it Jacob sees a containment unit. He stops running. Sara notices his absence a little farther down the hallway and turns around.

"Jacob!" she hisses quietly. "Jacob, we don't have time! We're almost there. Let's not stop, please!"

Jacob cannot answer because he does not hear. His mind is transported to a dark, lonely place filled with nightmares. He sees that the top of the containment cell -- coffin -- is slightly fogged over with a thin film of condensation. Beneath the fog, he can see the vague outline of a human. A pulsing hum fills the room; the same hum from Jacob's own prison.

There is a large digital readout on the side of the unit. Red, blocky letters boldly state a number: 364.

"Three sixty-four," Jacob says absently and takes a step into the room. Sara runs over and grabs his arm. "Three sixty four," he says. "What is that?"

"Jacob, we have to go. Now."

"What is it?" he repeats, turning to her. The look of pain and confusion on his face stops her in her tracks.

"It's...it's the number of days until his next waking cycle. Jacob, let's go."

She gently pulls at his arm. His eyes linger on the containment unit until she gets him past the door. Then she is behind him, pushing him toward the next hallway.

Sara smiles as she punches a code into the panel next to the pod door. The door slides up silently and she pulls him inside. "Sit there." She gestures to one of two large black chairs in the cockpit of the escape pod.

It is a small vessel and one that barely fits two people comfortably. Jacob climbs over snakes of cable and humming equipment and plops down into one of the chairs. The controls before him are less complicated than those in front of the other seat. He leans the guard's gun against the panel beside his chair.

"You can fly this?" he says over his shoulder. Sara slaps a button and the pod door slides down, sealing them inside.

"Thing flies itself, really." She steps lightly over the equipment and drops down in the chair next to Jacob. For all their running and ducking, she looks remarkably unfazed. Sara's hands dance over the control panel and it responds accordingly. The pod hums to life and the cockpit glows with ambient light. A series of beeps and clicks precede a loud, hollow CLONG, and suddenly the ship is free.

"That's the good thing about stealing a ship," she says, smiling. "No pre-flight checklist."

They drift down a long shaft and Jacob hears small bursts of air as stabilizing thrusters keep them from bouncing against the walls of the tunnel. Several long seconds pass before the bottom of the ship sweeps up past them and they drop into space.

The sight is staggering, and Jacob involuntarily holds his breath. The medical vessel is enormous, easily one hundred times the size of the tiny cruiser Jacob had booked passage on for his flight to the outer colonies. The hull is smooth and angular at the same time; large, windowed protrusions bubble out at seemingly random intervals along the length of the great ship.

Below them, the silent planet glows warmly. Jacob imagines it is welcoming them to safety; offering a safe haven from years of torture and suffering.

He turns to Sara.

"Thank you," says Jacob. "I'm sorry about your job."

This makes her laugh. "You're sorry about my job? Jacob, I helped keep you a prisoner for years, and you're sorry about my job?" She laughs again. "Trust me, it was time for a career change."

"Still, you didn't have to, but you did. So thank you."

She looks over at him and smiles. "You're welcome."

He leans forward and peers down at the quickly growing planet below. "So what the hell are we supposed to do when we get down there?"

"I'm sure we'll think of something. Maybe steal one of the rich guy's speedships and hop around the galaxy for a while. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Jacob nods, thinking that it would be. He also tries to fight back the thought that everyone he ever loved and cared about is dead and gone.

Sara looks over at him as if she can read his mind.

"It isn't all that bad, you know," she says. "You get used to it after a while." She reaches over and sticks a small needle into Jacob's neck. There is a small sucking sound and Jacob feels ice-cold liquid shoot into his blood.

"At least," she continues, "that's what the manual says."

"What manual?" he asks groggily. "What the hell was that?"

"That was a sedative, Jacob. It's going to put you to sleep in a few minutes."

He lurches toward her but the drug has already worked its way through his system. His hand merely brushes against her shoulder before falling helplessly to his side.

"Why...why..." he stammers.

She taps a few buttons and sets the pod on autopilot. "You know, Jacob, you're one of a kind."

He tries to talk but can't. The interior of the escape pod melts and swirls around him.

"Well, one of about a dozen, I suppose." She reaches over and pushes him toward the viewing window. He can barely make out a handful of other escape pods emerging from tunnels beneath the massive medical freighter. "Not everyone had the resolve to stick it out all the way to the pods; most never even got out of their cells. They just lay there screaming, like they always do at the start of a new cycle."

Jacob drunkenly falls back into his chair and tries to focus on Sara. There are multiple copies of her, all circling around a steadier, more solid version. He decides the middle one is where he should be looking.

"I knew something was different about you the day you woke up and didn't scream." She smiles to herself.

Is that pride? Jacob wonders.

"I told them we should keep an eye on you," she continues, "and I was right. You were the first one to escape, Jacob. And the first one always sell for twice what the others pull in, at the minimum. I'm betting the guy on the planet below us will pay triple."

Jacob mumbles and commands his arms to grasp her throat, but they don't listen. Instead he just sits there and stares; eyes glassy, jaw slack.

"Nice fat commission for me, nice new home for you. I'll be able to retire sooner than I hoped. So I guess I should be the one thanking you, Jacob." She leans over and kisses him on the forehead. "You taste like money," she says, then laughs. This time it is a shrill, unpleasant cackle.

"But seriously," she adds, "the motivated ones, the ones with the greatest capacity for imagination and drive for freedom...those are the ones that keep the company afloat. The ones that lie there screaming...we'll keep them alive, sure. Everyone hates to sleep, Jacob, even the poor. They can only afford third-rate product or lower, so that's what we give them. A whole ship full of lazies would only power this rich bastard for a decade. You, though, I'm betting you'll be helping his grandchildren's grandchildren stay productive twenty-four hours a day."

Jacob's head droops onto his shoulder and his eyes flutter to stay open.

"Uh oh," Sara says, looking over. "That time, I guess. It's been fun, Jake. Definitely the most thrilling escape I've ever staged."

The planet is close now, filling the viewing window completely. Jacob's eyes are too heavy to keep open. His brain is fuzzy and he has to focus all his energy on breathing.

"Remember to keep dreaming, Jake. As long as you have that fire burning inside, you'll be producing for decades. Centuries, maybe. I only wish there were more like you."

There is silence.

Jacob's awakening is much like his first. The confusion of not knowing where he is (but I do know: I'm on the planet) and the absence of light (oh God my eyes) revert him to a state of panic. His fingertips touch the fresh stitches that bind his top and bottom eyelids together.

He does not call for help. He wants to call out so badly but he does not. He wants to give them no reason to laugh, nothing to talk about as they walk from room to room and take their readings (but there are no other rooms, Jacob -- you are alone).

Alone.

This last thought drives him mad. He pounds the walls of his new prison until his fists bleed. Muffled thuds echo in the small room; this containment unit is much sturdier than the last. Jacob uses his feet to feel the bottom of his upgraded coffin. It is smooth. No loose machinery to kick free; no chance of escape.

Between the pulsing throbs of electric current emanating from his container, Jacob can hear a distant ocean. Waves crash continuously against what he imagines must be one of the most beautiful beaches in the galaxy.

Jacob opens his mouth and screams.

The End

(An earlier version of this story was published at Smashwords.)

Bio: Sam grew up in Merritt Island, FL, one mile from the gates of the Kennedy Space Center. The proximity to such a massive nexus of imagination helped fuel his creative fires and was one of a thousand influences on his becoming a novelist. He currently lives near San Diego with his wife.

E-mail: Sam Best

Website and blog: Sam Best: Speculative Fiction Author

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