Dennis' Moment
The dream had always been the same. This made it seem less like a dream and more like a suppressed memory. Dennis experienced the dream only when sick with fever. Why? Maybe heat brought memories above that threshold of consciousness. Vivid yet vague, wordless yet urgent, the fever dreams seemed to clamor for, what?
The conflict began when the comfortable perfection that had existed for his eternity was broken. The surroundings were the same but something was changing. The drumbeat had altered its rhythm before but never this much. The warm, comfortable, weightless space suddenly shrank and entities pushed, shoved and squeezed. With no up, no down and no anywhere but the calm here and now for all time. Suddenly there was an urgent need to go somewhere, but where? Freedom of movement had been diminishing. From being vast, Dennis' universe had gradually shrunk. For some time now it had become too small to move around in freely. What had once seemed so huge no longer existed. He had kicked back against the entities before but could no longer. Dennis had suddenly lost every degree of movement except one. Forward.
His will to survive had never before been tested. Dennis felt powerless. Unable to move, his entire focus became to endure. This was something new and he willed it to change. Any change would be better than this soul crushing. Finally change came. But this couldn't be right! This was all wrong! Blinding brightness and a sudden shattering volume. Cackling. He recognized the sound of laughter but, in the dream, it sounded much too loud. Everything was too loud and too bright, too cold and too dry.
This was Dennis' Moment and nothing would be the same, ever again.