Silence Falls

On his bed Otep yawned, sitting up to stretch her sleepy limps. “Well, I sure as fuck feel better. This vile food down here is starting to make me nausea...then again it could be the medicine.” Scanning around for Bert, and where he could be, she felt like something in the air already didn't feel right to her. Leaning over, Otep flipped on his table lamp on his night stand, highlighting the room only halfway with low dim lighting. Squinting her eyes, she was able to definitely recognize Bert, and could immediately tell by the expression on his face that her insight was correct. Something was amiss. Dispatching from the bed, she crossed the room to sit beside him with her back to the wall. He looked pale, and disoriented, as if he had been heavily sedated. “Dude, what wrong? Did you leave the room or something?" When he didn't react, she went on. "Talk to me, man, what's going on?”

Bert gradually turned his head to stare at her, his eyes seeming glassy and remote as if he was mentally somewhere else. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he eventually managed to get his words out. “Otep, I-I had the strangest yet...kinda exciting dream.”

“Gross, did you sleep with one of the lunch ladies in your dream? If you can even call them ladies, more like buff convicts in white dresses and heavy makeup.” Otep smirked as she frantically began to rub the goosebumps that scattered across her arms from all her fretting. “Fuck me, they'd probably poison my food for the amount of time I've talk shit about them.”

“No, woman! This dream was different. There wasn't any sex involved just...the world above us, Otep. I saw the world above us again!” Bert declared wondrously, his voice sounding a bit distant.

Otep's eyebrows both surged up in skepticism. “You mean, the real world above that's bustling on without us right now?”

“Yeah, that specific world! It was so fucking real, so fucking brilliant.” Bert ranted, running both hands through his long hair in fascination. “I'm actually finding it hard to convince myself it was just a dream because of how authentic it was.”

“And this dream is what's gotten you looking so spooked?” Otep investigated with a look of confusion.

Bert shook his head and stared down at his shoes. “No, it's not exactly that. There was something else in my dream, well, more like someone else.”

“Who?” Otep inquired before her eyes narrowed in on him. “Your father?”

“Fuck no! I'd like to see that man try and enter my dreams!” Bert retorted in an abrupt resentment before easing. “The person in my dream was Hermanni.”

Otep frowned at the mention of that name. “The boy we found down below the church? He was in your dream?”

“Yeah, and he said some things to me.” Bert mulled for a second, summoning his dream back to him. “In fact, he was the one who showed me the surface again, literally.”

“Oh yeah, and how did he do that? Took you on a magic carpet ride right on out of here?” Otep couldn't help but giggle at her little pun, but Bert didn't acknowledge to it.

“No, he...somehow made a rift appear in our ceiling.” Bert swiftly lifted his head to the ceiling in prospects of observing that breach in it again, but dejectedly only saw unblemished concrete. “The world was right above us, Otep, and as clear as you are to me now! Any bigger and we could have escaped from that gap easily. Still, I felt the sun from right here, the warmth of it on my skin and the blinding light in my eyes. I could hear the birds and saw the trees that towered over us like giants.” Shaking his head in fascination, a smile on his face, he glanced to Otep. “Were they always that tall, I remember thinking to myself? And the sky was the bluest I'd ever seen! It was the REAL world, the world we should be living in. Fuck, it was so evident, I can't get it out of my mind!”

Otep listened and tried to visualize it all in her mind. The way Bert illustrated it made her long for a dream like that for herself. The real world, the above world. The closest anyone could get to it down here was through a dream. “That sounds incredible, Bert, although a bit dreary for us down here. If only we can see it all one day too.”

There was a lengthy lapse between them with nothing added before Bert confided almost too softly to himself. “We can.”

Otep's eyes snapped to his in bewilderment at first before bursting into lights of optimism. “What the fuck, man, you've been holding out on me? You thought of something didn't you!” A magnificent grin extended across her face and for once, she looked delightful and receptive as she tugged on his arm in rejoice. “You thought of a motherfucking plan! Robert McCracken, I said it once and I'll say it again, YOU are a motherfucking genius! If you were my type I'd fuck you right here and right now, I swear on my mother's grave!”

Bert could barely pass on a smile upon comprehending that he made her conclude he had a fruitful plan in mind when he didn't. Hesitating, he droned. “Yeaaah...”

“Well, what is it?” Otep demanded vigorously. “What's the big plan?”

“Well, uh, it's not really a stable plan.” Bert began gently, now feeling ashamed for ever speaking up about a plan. “It's just one that was primarily planned in my dream with...Hermanni.”

“A plan with a dream rendering of Hermanni?" Otep's smile declined, her eyes suspicious. "And what plan is this?”

Readying himself, Bert bit his lower lip and shrugged. “To...release him.”

“To release him from his prison?” Otep recited before sighing with defeat and glowering out across the room to the twin size bed they were forced to share. “Okay, that's all nice and everything, Bert, but how the fuck does releasing him help us get out of of here?”

“I don't know.” Bert grumbled in discontent at how ludicrous she was making his ludicrous plan seem. He had no idea what he saying anymore. He just knew he had to say it for some reason. No matter how much he tried to keep his mouth shut, the words were gonna come out regardless. “He said all we have to do is to release him and he'd take care of the rest for us. That's all I can remember.”

“And how would he get us out of here, hmm?” Otep snapped, her optimism gone. “He's skinny as hell and these guys down here are COLOSSAL compared to him. They'll snap him like a twig in two seconds flat!”

“I don't know!” Bert restated again, this time his voice was beginning to soar with his impatience. Running his hands through his hair again, he gaped helplessly at her. “But for some reason...I believe in him. I believe the crazy shit he said to me in my dreams.”

“Oh my fucking god, you're finally fucking losing it.” Otep rambled to herself as she ran her hands over her distressed face. Not knowing what else to do for she didn't have an escape plan herself, she opted to play along with Bert's preposterous game. “Ok, so is that like your PLAN plan of escape, or just a dream plan that you don't plan on pursuing?”

“Maybe both...? Shit, I don't know!” Bert growled to himself, and began to rub at his temples to relax the incoming headache. He despised this feeling of helplessness. He's felt too much of it in his young life already and vowed when he got thrown down here it would be the last time. Being a leader to these people was a stressful hardship most of the time, but as leader it was his duty to come up with a plan to get them and himself out of here alive. His first plan was foolproof but had been shattered with the upgraded security measures. His second plan wasn't even really a plan! How was he supposed to lead these people to safety with a questionable plan with one objective: release Hermanni and let him do all the work? He must be losing his mind like Otep said if he absolutely thought that the young lanky boy could shield them from the body builders that oversaw this place. “I have no idea what the fuck I'm even saying anymore, Otep! I just...I just need some time to figure things out, okay?”

“Hey, don't implode your head up thinking of the entire plan up just yet, okay? Just take it easy. No need to rush.” Otep tried to calm him back down, feeling lousy that she had stressed him out so much when she should have done her job and been supportive. Still, it was tough to support a mad person's ramblings. “We have ALL the time in the world to find a place out of here.”