June 6, 2010 ~ Dream.

It is the year 2013; I wake up in my apartment and everything is normal, I can hear people outside talking and cars driving, just a regular day. I get ready for work and I leave.

I work in a very large office building, but the floor I work on seems very small, there are small 4 offices, a lobby, a small kitchen/break room, and a bathroom. I work with 2 other woman and one man and I say hello to each of them as I come in like i do every day, but I notice that none of them respond. I don't really think anything of it and I sit down in my office and just begin typing away at my work.

It goes by pretty mindlessly, just me typing and looking at the clock, eventually I decide to go on break. Apparently I forgot my lunch so I go into the office next to mine, Jenna's, and ask her if she wants to go out for lunch. She doesn't respond. I get a little ticked and ask her what the hell is going on with people in the office today, no one is chatting in the break room, its completely silent, not even a phone call. She still doesn't respond. I turn on my heels and go across the hall to Brennan's office, I demand to know why they are all pulling this practical joke on me, telling them that is it unprofessional and cruel.

Brennan turns in his chair slowly to grab a file off of the table next to him, he turns his head towards me and says in an overly fake, cheerful tone, "Good morning Janise!" then turns back to his computer and continues his work. Something in his face, his eyes and smile, it was almost plastic, too unrealistic. Completely creeped out I leave the building and take a look around me.

Everything is too... nice. The sky is a perfect shade of blue, no clouds, and I notice the sun is in the exact position as when I woke up, five hours earlier. I begin to walk down the sidewalk noticing that everyone is smiling, everyone is clean and dressed sharply, everyone is happy. I see no garbage on the streets, not even in the trash cans! No homeless, no animals... just incredibly happy people all standing around. Doing. Nothing.

I run to my apartment, everything seems to be swirling around me, mocking me with its eerie perfection. I turn on my computer and go to Google, there is no news. Yahoo is the same, no news, no email, no stories or music of any kind. I turn on my MP3 player and it is blank, nothing in it. Turn on the radio station, no sound, no music, nothing.

I try to think of my friends, SOMEONE has to know what is going on. I grab my address book and sneak a glimpse at the newspaper underneath it, I hadn't seen any newspaper stands in the streets, this paper should have been from yesterday as I get one every morning. The date says "June 17th" but my computer says "June 23rd" and I panic. Where did those days go? What the hell happened?!

I flip through my address book and find no names. Not one.

I scream in frustration and leave my apartment, it feels like everyone is staring at me, can no one see what's going on? Is it only me? I begin to cry as I stumble through the street ready to jump in front of the next car going exactly the speed limit before a hand reaches out and grabs me, pulling me into darkness. I'm suddenly in a parking garage looking into the face of a girl my age who also seems panicked.

"Tell me your full name and when you were born!" She demands shaking me, "TELL ME NOW OR I'LL SHOOT YOU!"

I cry, its all I can do, no words come out. Her face changes and she releases me, leaving one hand on my shoulder. She tells me she is relieved that I'm not "one of them". I'm confused.

She explains to me that we are no longer on earth, that a handful of chosen human beings (I later found out that this number was 500 exactly) were shipped to another planet for being different, for being dangerous. DANGEROUS?! There was nothing dangerous about me, or this girl. She explained that "they" were androids. Thoughtless, emotionless androids who were there to monitor us, without us catching on to what happened.

WHAT HAPPENED?!

I was confused, full of questions, terrified. The girl, her name is Selena, led me to a house, there were 6 other people in the house, I can not remember all of their names. All of them around the same age as us, one other girl and five guys. They all look tired, normal. I scream as I see a dead body in the center of the room, twisted and mangled, bleeding. Bleeding a sickly acid green. An android.

They explain to me that some of the androids are not completely mindless, and can blend in with humans, one of the males, a very tall red headed man (his name is Lex) walks over to me with a knife in his hand.

"Lets see which you really are."

Selena stops him, assuring him I am human, not machine... or whatever these things are. Lex glares at me and then shrugs his shoulders and returns to his seat.

Things progress slowly, we all learn the streets, learn which places have the most intelligent androids and how to avoid them, we become foragers, thieves, just trying to survive in a world where nothing makes sense. I'm still terrified and confused. In the second week, the third girl in the group (Amanda) kills herself, we found her hanging from a rafter. And later that week two of the men went off on their own and never came back.

The only ones left were myself, Lex, Selena, Jack, the youngest of us all, 16. He and I become close, he is very emotional, just as afraid as I am. Selena and Jack seem almost too calm, too collected, amongst all this chaos. Slowly our "world" starts to change. The outside starts to look post Apocalyptic, buildings begin to crumble and age for no reason, the sky turns brown and gray, we don't see the sun anymore. Everything is old and decaying, the androids still patrol like every day citizens in their business suits and smiles.

Lex goes missing in the 5th week after going out to "hunt" and we go out to find him, he is the biggest and strongest of us all, he protects us, we can't possibly survive without him. We never find him.

We decide to leave the city, to see what the world outside of our decaying city has turned to. We return to the parking garage, it is the gateway to the outside world. A black SUV swerves and almost hits us, Selena screams for us to run but it is too late, bullets rain from every direction, I grab Jack and crawl beneath a nearby truck, but Selena is killed, she is lying in a pool of her own blood about 10 fet away, her head is turned and her eyes are open, staring at us beneath the truck.

Crying, we both listen as men's voices holler out for us, telling us we are safe now, protected, and that the humans can't harm us anymore. Humans? Aren't we the humans? The leave after what seems like hours, they did not even try to look for us. We get up in silence and leave the garage, we walk out into an open field, at the edge of the field is a massive cliff with an ocean at the bottom, and across from us is a giant island plateau with a city at its center.

There are monsters along the cliffs, hideous disfigured things that look almost human, but melted, every feature distorted, metal and plastic bits sticking out everywhere. Jack and I find a way around them and are next to a tree, there is a strange thick metal chain sticking out of the ground, I tug it and the air is filled with grinding and churning noises, the ground shakes but the "guards" don't seem to notice. A section of colorful red bridge breaks free from the cliff and stretches out towards the city. We cautiously walk to the end of the bridge where we find another chain, I pull it and it completes the bridge. As we walk onto the plateau Jack stumbles, he scrapes his palms on the ground and terror fills his eyes.

His blood is green, a strange bright shade. He looks up at me and tears fill my eyes. Jack. An android, this whole time... how can that be possible? His sobs snap me back to reality, before I can react he is holding a gun to his head, and he pulls the trigger and falls into the ocean below.

Screaming his name I drop to my knees, the world is crumbling and melting around me, I can see my old city in the distance surrounded by a brown cloud, dead.

I get up and wipe my hands on my shirt, a mix of green blood and dirt. Jack's blood. Sobbing I stumble to the city in the distance, it is almost futuristic, it seems to shine with a chrome color, very bright. Too bright. Light fills the air and everything around me turns white, I get dizzy and I can hear my ears ringing. Not ringing... buzzing? My head starts to pound and I feel... calm.

I look down at my hands, there is fresh blood on them. My nose is bleeding, I am deaf now, no more ringing, no more wind, no ocean.

My nose is bleeding. My nose is bleeding green.
I'm an android.
And I'm dying.

I lie on the ground and stare up at the motionless, cloudless sky and I wait. The dark brown clouds are getting closer, the world is dying.