text: He didn't remember much about his life, and nothing from before he was six. They told him it was normal in children to forget things from such a young age, but he didn't believe them. After all, the things he *did* remember were in such bright, sharp detail, when he delved into his mind to them, it was almost like living the events over again exactly as they happened. The day the Men came and took him to the facility was a particularly bright memory. He had dreams of it, dreams that were so detailed it was as if he had stepped back in time. Over and over, he would relive the terrible moment. *He was sleeping, and having the most wonderful dream. In the dream he had a mother, and a sister, and a father who went to work during the days and came home at night to tell his family about his day, and the boy would listen intently, and his sister would look at him and start to ask a question, but the boy would not hear the question, for at that moment he was woken by the sound of splintering wood and the startled shrieks of the other boys in the orphanage, the sounds of heavy feet on the wood floors, and dark silhouettes in the darkness, and then rough hands gripping his arms and pulling him off his bed, still in his pajamas and no shoes, not even socks, and the boy too afraid and confused to even make a sound and then men carried him out the door and into the street to a car parked at the curb, and the door slides open and the boy is thrown inside impersonally, and his entire world is pitted into darkness as the door slides shut again, and he feels the car start to drive, and it drives and drives...* He always woke up then, when the car started to drive. he didn't know why, but it was the way it was, and he couldn't do anything about it. The car had taken him to a large white building in the middle of a desert. He had been carried inside and put in a room with a bed and a dresser and white walls and no windows, and had been told to stay there. As soon as the goons had left the boy had tried the door, of course, but to no avail. Later that first day a fat lady in a white smock had entered his room carrying a tray of food, and the boy had tried to run for it, out the open door, but the lady was fast for being fat, and she grabbed him as he tried to dodge past. She had fat, oily fingers that made the boys skin crawl, and he knew he never wanted her to touch him again. The food was flavorless and stale, and the boy hardly touched it after the first bite. And so it was for the next four years of the boys life. He never saw another soul, except for the fat lady. She never spoke to the boy, and didn't have a name tag, but that was okay with the boy, for even if she had told him her name, he would still have called her the fat lady. Every night he dreamed the same dream. The day of his abduction to this horrible place, and every night he woke up as the car began to drive. Everyday he had the same horrible food, and spent the days scratching pictures into the white wall paper of his room. Then one night, something changed. The boy had always remember everything about his dreams, and he always felt as though he was a camera inside the eye of his past self, with no control, only the ability to observe through his own eyes the horror that ensued. But this night something was different. *He was woken from his wonderful dream by the crashing noise, and the boys shouting, and he sat up, ready for what was to come. But he could feel his hands, his feet, he could blink when he wanted to, and he raised his hand to look at it, and it obeyed. He was so stunned he didn't even flinch when the men grabbed him. They took him and threw him in the car, and it began to drive...* He woke with a start and looked around the room. It must have been daytime, because they only turned the light on when the sun came up, and they turned it off when the sun went down. He stared up at the ceiling, questions filling his mind like a swarm of ants pouring out of a disturbed ant hill. What had happened? What was going on now? Was it just another part of the dream? A part he had forgotten? How could it be? How could he do it? What did it *mean*? With the many questions, however, came fewer answers, and the boy groaned in frustration. Just then the Fat Lady came in with his tray of food, and he sat up and watched her until she left, then he grabbed up his tray and slowly munched on his food, thoughts of the dream change running wild in his mind. That night he couldn't wait for the lights to go out. And when finally they did, it took him a long time to fall asleep. A funny thing happens, the more you think of sleep. Not sure why, but if you are trying to go to sleep, the absolutely worst thing you can do is think about going to sleep. Unfortunately, the boy did not know this, and spent much of the night with is eyes scrunched shut, willing himself to sleep. For hours he did this, but to no avail. Finally, he gave up and went to staring at the ceiling, wondering what it would be like to have windows, wondering what season it was, if it was raining, snowing, what? *He was awoken by the sound of the crash, and the other boys, and he immediately sat up and looked around and realized; HE HAD DONE IT! He was in the dream, and he felt the same surge of power rush through his body, and he had control. He heard the thumping feet on the wood floor and quickly jumped off the bed and sprinted for the other side of the room. There was a window there, and he pushed it open and had just gotten one leg over the sill when a beefy hand grabbed him around the neck and pulled. The boy fell back into the room, choking and spluttering, and then the two men had him on either arm, and they carried him past all the silent, gaping boys, out the front door and to the car, and the darkness closed in, and the car began to drive...* He woke with a start, and immediately noticed the change; he was in a dark room, and the floor was cold on his bare feet. The mattress he had been on the night before was gone, replaced by a small cot with a small wool blanket that he could barely see in the gloom. Where the white walls and door had once been was now cold gray stone and a steel door with a small slat at the bottom of it. What was this place? What had happened? He tried to think to remember, and suddenly a blur of images came to him; an angry thin, gray woman, yelling at him, a smaller gray room with shackles that attached to his bare, sore ankles, the Fat Lady smiling cruelly at him. But those images weren't *his*, were they? They couldn't be. Could they? Why was he in the gray room now? When had they brought him there? He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He was not stupid, and his imagination had always been his most important tool in that plain white room. And now, slowly, a thought began to form. A thought so impossible, so amazing, so *dangerous*. And the boy smiled. He could fix it. He could fix it all.