<strong>Edward Riley -- Home, then work (Downtown Gilead) -- Is this what going crazy feels like?</strong><br/><br/>Hot. Bright. Incredibly dry. Those were just a few sensations he was currently caught in. He could not move, save for a move that had already occurred. Could not speak, but heard his voice utter numbers in code. The sound of a heavy motor and music could be heard, and for some reason he couldn’t shake the feeling of boredom laced with deep foreboding. The chop of a helicopter sounded overhead and he knew without looking that it was the Apache they were using for air support. Apache? Like in Indians? What the hell…?<br/><br/>The scene changes. He’s holding an assault rifle and checking windows for ambush. He’s been here before. Too often. He knows he has about a minute. Before everything turns horribly wrong. Knows that Parker is going to tell Thomas one last corny joke before the explosion slams into their group, and then it happens. The force carried him right into a building, where he promptly bounced, and then rolled to a stop on his back. The last view of the world of color was blue sky laced with blood and smoke.<br/><br/>He then awoke with a start, sitting straight up and staring as hands unseen in the dark. “Fuck…” he muttered as he reached for the glass of water by his bed. He kept one near his bed every night since the dreams had started. He felt so damn thirsty afterwards, and the water was the first step to bringing himself back to whatever peace he could find. The glass was finished with neither a thought nor a recollection of how it felt going down. He found himself at his window without really knowing how he got there. Life felt…bland. Even blander if one could imagine.<br/><br/>He couldn’t properly finger the feeling. Every since his dream, the world has been doing weird things. He went out for a walk at work and went past a noodle stand in full service, where lines of people were shouting out orders in what sounded like Japanese. By time he looked back, there was just a hot-dog vender seeing his wares to the people. Stuff like that was starting to happen more and more, to the point where he was really wondering if he was going crazy. He’d never held a gun, for as long as he could remember, and he was having a dream of himself holding one, and in combat gear no less! Who does that?<br/><br/>“Crazy people…that’s who…” he muttered as he looked over the street from his apartment. The clock read six in the morning. He padded for the bathroom to shower, and by eight o’clock on the button found himself at work. Another strange thing happened when the dreams started. The people he knew and worked with started becoming less…real. Everything, from their trials and crises, to their tales of conquest and heartbreak, felt completely and utterly unreal to him. He found himself drifting during meetings, not doing his job…he really felt he was going to have to see someone.<em>’My head’s going to explode if I don’t get this under control’</em>he thought as he sat at his desk.<br/>