Daydream- A Collaboration

Today's story is a bit different.  This story was a collaboration between me and my good friend, Shainur Ullah.  He is a great writer, and if you haven't checked out his stories before, I highly suggest you do.  With that said, this story is called Daydream, and we hope you enjoy.

Daydream by Shainur Ullah and Raener Lewington

In this day and age, there aren’t many exciting souls enlightening jobs out there and it’s usually customer service based or some warehouse/factory job which requires a lot of hard labour. It’s funny really after completing my degree and going out into the real world there weren’t much a lot of opportunities and I was finding myself working alongside people who never really had a top education and being managed by someone less educated than I was. Could this be a failure of society for someone like me with a good education that can only get jobs that don’t really require a good education? In these days, most people can get jobs now that once required a high intelligence and a good education but now you could just do a course in some library or some college and you can get through. I guess the only peers of mine who managed to do well after university were the ones who were already rich and their parents had connection which opened doors to many places, I came from a middle working class environment and these days with a falling economy and corrupt greedy politicians it’s the working class people that get hit the most. 

I have done work in customer services like working for a call centre or some company that required you to answer the phone and with a computer in front of you to check the data belonging to the customers. There was a script but at the same time it started to give me pain deep within my mind with the constant boredom and repetitiveness of the role and also having to deal with angry customers over the phone was not something I enjoyed.  I observed my surrounding through and I noticed how most people like us are forced into these jobs because we have to pay for things and we have to survive, it’s ridiculous, its slavery really but it has changed and it has evolved into something else. We are constantly told that we are free and that we can achieve anything we want, that is true if you have money in the first place; only money gives you freedom these days. 

I also worked in warehouse jobs and factories where you didn’t have to deal with customers but this time, it was more physical. Constantly moving about and doing hard labour and it was fine in the summer but if you live in England where it rains and thunders a lot as well as having to deal with strong winds, it can really mess up your day. The things we had to do and my body was really aching after just pushing myself to do the physical work and I looked around and I didn’t want to do this anymore, I didn’t like the environment as well. I got fired for not being more productive or being quick enough and that’s another problem you face these days doing something you do not love, it’s the targets you have to hit and they seem to increase every year and the managers do bite back at you if they do not see you are hitting the targets or keeping the work at a certain standard. 

Then you have the agencies and any work they can send you too or that are available are either in customer services or in a warehouse/factory. It’s stupid and the weird thing is about agencies that you have to join is that they take some money out of your wages and so this is another problem as you will be doing soulless, ridiculous and pointless work for less money. Also, agencies are very rude and the way they talk to you in my experience clearly someone has to teach these people some manners. I remember thinking to myself that if this is it for our society and if this is the only way of living in our life. Two job sectors that middle to poor working class people can do while the upper class can relish in all of the goodness out of life and do the best jobs. I kept telling myself that there has got to be a job out there that is fantastic and not in the two limiting areas of customer services and warehouse/factory work. I never stopped searching and I stopped working and I lost my girlfriend as she was angry with me for constantly leaving my job and I went back living with my parents for a while. My father was angry and my mother was annoyed but she took it better as she was my mother and the amount of arguments I have had with my father about me being lazy and having to man up but I retaliated, that I am an educated person and I will find something worthwhile. Then after 3 months of living with my parents and relentless searching on the internet,] I came about a vacancy that needed people to daydream full time and the payment was 25 pounds an hour and being in England and having worked in a lot of bad jobs, I have hit the jackpot. I love to daydream and let me repeat this again that I love to daydream. I was rubbing my eyes to see if I was seeing things but it was real, it was a real job advertisement. Plus you needed to have a degree and anything under you were instantly not accepted and I applied and to my liking I was given a reply straight away which is something that has never happened before. I was given an interview which was a week later from that present Monday. I rubbed it in my father’s face and the look on his face was something I really cherished, I didn’t tell them exactly what the job was but I told them how much I am getting paid and my father couldn’t think of anything to say to me as he had never achieved to get a job that paid that much and my mother was overjoyed and so proud of me. 

“Sometimes in life, you shouldn’t accept the crap that society offers you, sometimes you have to fight back or search for something better. Sometimes you have to man up and take a risk at achieving something higher” I told my father and then I went back to my room and again my father didn’t know what to say. 

Another good thing was that the building where this place was based at was quite close to my parent’s house, we lived near the town centre and I knew my way around the town centre from the back of my head. I wore something nice and the interview went smoothly and they loved me straight away, it was two guys that were interviewing me and the building looked really savvy. At the end of the interview, the both of them got up and they said that I have got the job and they I am intelligent enough to daydream and be a full-time worker doing it. I was to start working that following Wednesday that same week and I remember that day, there were ten of us who were all of the same intelligence and at the same education level. The room we were in we could see machines that would make us daydream and I was so excited that I was getting paid 25 pounds and hour to daydream and I was constantly pinching myself to see if I was dreaming, although one thing they didn’t explain is why they needed people to daydream but I didn’t really care. 

Their 7 guys including me and 3 women and they gave us some clothes similar to what patients wear in the hospitals and we stepped into the bed like machine with and there were wires that stuck to our forehead like a sticker and we were then told to day dream about anything and the machine will do its work. I remember sort of floating into my daydream in a dreamlike state and it was the most fulfilling peaceful experience I have ever felt in my life. My timetable was 7 hours a day 5 times a week from 12-7 pm and when they awoke us, we all felt so refreshed. 

We all hugged each other and the guys controlling this smiled at us saying that we were perfect and none of us really questioned what they were doing. One reason why none of us really questioned this job was because of desperation and the fear of going back to the two type of horrible we all came from, we were grateful for this day dreaming job that we had found that we respected the privacy of it all and the intentions behind it. I moved into my own flat and I made up with my father and I was on my way again being an independent adult and the ten of us weren’t just good work colleagues but we became good friends and we went to the pub together and had some good laughs. We told each other our past bad work experiences with past managers and past co-workers, I couldn’t help but observe and think to myself how we have all made it in life. We are not millionaires or famous but we have made it in life because we were all doing something we all love which was day dreaming. Then as two months went by doing this daydreaming job some of my peers started getting bruises in some part of their body and some had some teeth pain as if they had been punched. They complained to our employers and they blamed the machine as this daydreaming can have some reality effects, it felt like the matrix really. I then started to get strong fast images and strong fast sounds of screaming and at the same I too started to find bruises in my body. We all tried not to complain too much and there was a moment where the bruising and pain started to reduce and everything went back to normal. Then one of our male co-workers as we awoke from our daydreaming, we had found him not present in his machine and we were all told that unfortunately he couldn’t work with the company anymore. None of us asked any further questions but we all started to think that something was clearly a little weird even though this whole thing is weird, something else something much darker is at play here. 

One day after floating away in my daydream once again I felt some sort of disturbance and I remember the day when I awoke in my day dream and I was awake and not in the machine, I had murdered one of my female co-workers. I had blood all over my body and I was met with my employers to explain to me what was happening. Her body was put into the same freezing container as the missing male worker who I had found out I had also murdered. Luckily it all happened in this building.   

“You see john, these beds, they’re not just beds but they put the person into a deep subconscious mind control point where we could control you. This what the day dreaming is and you lot do not know what we were doing to you all in this building, we controlled you and made you do things and even attack each other.” My employer told me, “We were able to make you murder two people and you seem to take in more knowledge than the rest, through these machines we are able to transfer knowledge like knowledge on how to kill people while you are in this state of day dreaming or subconscious control. Even though you awoke which wasn’t supposed to happen we are going to keep you in your mind is the best but if you tell anyone, well you have murdered two people and who would believe you when you say that your mind was being controlled” my employer told me.  This place was secretly functioned by the secret intelligence agency in Britain which had much higher power than the prime minister and no government knows about this agency but they are making mind controlled soldiers, to control them to do things. I did not know what to do and if I refused their offer they were going to throw me as a murderer who murdered a man and a woman who loved each other, that is what they were saying to me. While we in our daydream state they made us do things and then they started making us do violent things to each other and obviously as my mind could take in more knowledge I was the more violent one and the bruises everyone experience after they awoke, were because of me. I am trapped not only within the confines of this so-called workplace, but also within my own mind.  I cannot trust my coworkers, and I cannot trust myself while I am daydreaming.  I wish I had power over my coworkers to end their schemes and attempts at “playing God”.  The only way I was ever going to escape their clutches was if I fought fire with fire; I had to obtain information that wouldn’t only prove my innocence, but would ruin them.  I needed their plans, and I needed to find them soon.

The next two sessions became more and more violent.  In my daydreams, I began to see and experience more and more violent apparitions during my sessions.  During the first one, I felt a searing pain in my left leg and felt as if I had broken someone’s bones.  By the time I had awoken in my bed, I was covered in scratch marks on my leg and more blood across my clothing.  I looked over at the section where the researchers were awaiting my regaining of consciousness, they remained an eager and rather villainous grin at me as I slowly began to realize the aftermath of their latest “experiment”.  I say experiment because those maddened doctors knew nothing of the idea of mercy, and were eager to watch me suffer more through their malicious tests.  I had been feeling stronger lucidity in my mind as I began to divulge by observation the truer intentions of their plans.  One of the men laid dead, his neck having been ripped open by hand, and his blood slowly pouring out onto the floor.  But the fate of my male coworker was not as bad as the sight that my eyes fell upon one of my female coworkers.  One of the female coworkers was left on the floor, covered in her own blood and some from my now deceased male coworker.  Her eyes were left open in shock from the brutality, and she was incapable of movement.  

From the look on her face, she had been conscious during part of the violence and was now irreparably scarred, both physically and mentally.  I slowly turned my horrified gaze towards the researchers, and they nearly all of the had a somewhat sadistic grin across their face, all except for one.  Out of all of the researchers, there was one intern who had a traumatized look on her face, but she was semi-hidden behind the other researchers, and her face was not visible to them.  The lead researcher spoke to us, having already awoken my co-workers.  “Looks like the neural testing phase is complete.  All subjects are under full control and will be ready for the next phase of testing.”  I was still in shock from what had just occurred, but the scientists remain unfazed.  “Everyone head home for the evening.  Testing has concluded for today, and tomorrow we will begin the next phase of testing.”

Everyone else tried to leave and not speak about the matter on the way out.  I had to take a shower and clean up the scratch marks and open wounds on my leg.  My original plan was to try to sneak into the observation area to obtain some of their files, but I was met with an unexpected surprise.  As I finished my shower and waited in the dressing room for everyone else to leave, the intern walked into the dressing room.  Any normal person would have believed she had an altered motive for entering that dressing room, and I did receive this with shock, but not for the reason most would expect.  She snuck into the room and put her left index finger to her lips to symbolize that we may be monitored by someone outside.  In her other closed palm, she opened it to reveal a flash drive.  She looked behind herself as she approached me and whispered into my ear one phrase that made me realize how dire the entire situation was, “Expose them before it’s too late”.   And with that dire message, she escaped as quickly as she had arrived.  

I placed the flash drive within the bottom of my shoe and forced it to the toe of my shoe to avoid being investigated.  As I proceeded out of the dressing room, I was met by the lead scientist in charge of the study.  Most would expect me to state his name, but I don’t want to give the psychopath the satisfaction of stating his name here.  The evidence will speak for itself.  He stopped me as I was leaving the dressing room and placed a hand on my chest as to signify that I would not leave until I heard his statement.  “Our research is nearly complete.  Tomorrow will be the last day that we need your services during this study.  Come tomorrow, and your services will be paid tenfold.”  He then handed me an envelope that was unsealed.  He gestured for me to open it in front of him.  I looked down at the envelope in disgust and disbelief.  “Well?  Go on!  Open it.”  I complied and opened the envelope and slowly removed a signed check that had $25,000 check from the envelope.  “Come tomorrow, and you will receive ten times that amount.”  I looked up in disbelief, and tried to make a response, but was interrupted again by him.  “But fail to arrive tomorrow, and we will send out the most skilled hitmen to eliminate both you and everyone you care about.”  I grew nervous and his suspicion of me carrying something out of the facility grew stronger.  “Are you hiding anything from me?”  I shook my head silently and tried to keep my head down.  He began to physically examine me, running his hands up and down my sleeves and pants, searching for something that would give him vindication.  After having completed his body search, he looked into my eyes and gave me another wicked smile, “See you tomorrow, Phillip.”  And with that, he left the facility.  

I went home that night, contemplating whether or not to release the information that was given to me online.  As sure as I was that I wanted to bring down those researchers, my doubts were cast on whether or not I wanted to go the following day.  I knew that I wanted to go back to receive that final payoff, and I did expect some horrible things to be done to me while I was in my daydream, but part of me thought that the payoff would outweigh the cost.  Despite my better judgement and earlier warning, I decided to leave the flash drive on my desk next to my laptop and went to go participate at the facility once more.  I now realize my terrible mistake and regret it wholeheartedly.  

I drove to the facility and parked my car, but was a bit unnerved to see no cars that were parked in front of it.  As unnerved as I was by this, I still made my way into the facility and looked around to see if I could find any of the scientists.  I saw that most of the rooms were dark, and no one seemed to be present.  I slowly made my way into the observation room and made my way towards my bed and stood before it, wondering why the lead scientist was so concerned with me arriving today, and as that thought crossed my mind, a heavy object crossed the back of my head and struck me down onto the bed.  As I began to pass out, I saw the disturbing and blood covered face of the lead scientist.  His grin reached ear to ear and reeked of disgusting satisfaction.  My surroundings went dark and I found myself within another daydream, only this time, it was more horrific.

In my daydream, I was standing in a clouded room, and the floor was mirror-like.  My fellow coworkers slowly walked through the clouds and talked with me.  What disturbed me was not only did my now dead coworkers emerge, but they emerged covered in blood and in the same state they were when they died.  Each one of them spoke to me and told me the same message.  “Run away!  Get out of here while you still can.”  After I saw the last coworker come up to me and say the same message I awoke in a small, dimly lit room that was very dark and had only a single light bulb suspended in the middle for light.  My body, once again was covered in blood, and my head was in excruciating pain, but I knew that I had to escape right then and there.  I was in a small, brick cell, lying on top of a mattress when I heard bloody screams from down the hall.  I slowly crept towards the door and opened it.  The hallway that led out of what I assumed to be the basement of the facility was crudely lit and echoed with the screams of one of my coworkers.  As I slowly crept past each of the steel doors, I saw the mutilated faces of my fellow coworkers in each of their cells, and then I saw it, the last female who was employed under this study was being abused by the lead scientist, and she was being abused in such a gruesome manner that I don’t want to even describe it here.  I slowly crept my way out to the steel door that led out to the main floor and opened the door.  What I feared might happen echoed down the hallway.  The metal door creaked loudly down the hallway and alerted the head scientist who was abusing my coworker.  I wanted to stay and help them to escape, but I knew staying down there in my current state would only lead to certain doom for all of us, so I began to run.  The scientist started to scream obscenities at me as I ran out of the facility, knocking over supplies and materials behind me as I ran out of there.  I raced to the front door and heard the quickening pace of the scientist behind me.  He was now screaming at full volume at me.  “Just wait until I catch you, Phillip.  YOU WILL PAY!”  But as I reached the door, I was met with a surprise.  The intern who gave me the flash drive was hiding behind a fake plant.  She gestured for me to run, and I quickly obeyed.  I opened the door and shut it behind me right as the scientist was reaching out to grab my shirt.  The intern then emerged from behind the plant with a gag and began to wrestle the scientist.  She mouthed at me to go and run and run I did.

I made it to my car and drove away from there as quickly as I could.  I made it home not long after and immediately went to my laptop.  I plugged the flash drive into my computer and began to look through the files.  I picked out all of them and began to plan which ones I would release first online, and I was horrified when I found out what their plan was.  The goal of those experiments was to gain a control over the human consciousness through daydreaming and to gain control of anyone and everyone who daydreams to commit unspeakable acts.  I am posting this story now in hopes that we are able to find this scientist and bring him to justice, along with the rest of those scientists who worked under him.  Whatever their plan was, it was never intended for the betterment of mankind.  Until we find this man, no one is safe.  Stay awake, and stay alert, because if you dare to fall into a daydream, you may end up waking up to a reality more terrifying than mine.