Dream Info: March 7, 2009
Realism Intensity: 2
Content: PG-13
I had spent my life studying potions and elixirs and had become a very powerful wizard. One day, after years of study, I discovered the elixir for immortality. But on that very day, before I was able to finish the potion, my father came to my chamber and attacked me. Wounded, I fled and managed to seal the last ingredient of the elixir of immortality in my personal safe within my secured vault. As I sealed my magic safe, my father found me in the vault and cast a spell on me.
He didn’t kill me. He zapped me back to my youth. He allowed me to flee and then watch as he took over my life.
He lives now in my mansion. He has altered it, added to it, making it his own. He raises my children who now believe him their true father. He sleeps with my wife, who out of fear for the children’s safety, has remained silent.
I am a young child again.
The years have past and I have watched. But I have not forgotten.
I decide the time has come. I leave the small neighboring village I have sheltered in and return to my estate. I am 16 years old now; old enough for my magic to have some strength.
I hire on as a servant in my own mansion. They take me willingly. I am strong and ask a low wage. But the mansion has changed. I hardly recognize it. It is darker inside and feels more like a fortress. My father has added rooms and passages and even a dungeon below the chambers of my vault.
I spend the first week relearning the layout of my estate. In so doing it becomes very apparent that my memory was damaged by the spell that made me young agian. Many things are hazy.
I am the same age as my oldest son. During this first week I have quickly become friends with him.
On the eighth day I find my way down to my vault. No one is around and the chamber is silent and cold. I enter the code on the control panel but the door does not open. My father has changed my vault password.
Walking out and into the hall, the moment came that I have been desperately working to avoid. I turn a corner and come face to face with my father. My only disguise is my disheveled hair and a dirty smudge on my face. I gasp and stop. My body is rigid as he approaches me. His eyes run up my body, taking me in. I try to plan some sort of defense but can’t think clearly. He scowls at my appearance but doesn’t recognize me. He comments off handedly about the weather and continues on his way.
I exhale and lean on the wall for support, my legs quivering. I must avoid a direct conflict. I am too young and remember my spells to poorly to overcome my father.
But he doesn’t recognize me, his own son. And that fuels my hope.
That evening I head into the city seeking help. Carrying the nicest gift I can afford I go to Steve Johnson. His servants usher me into his sitting room. The years have been hard on him. He is balding and heavily wrinkled. But he is still Steve Johnson and caries with him the kind light I know so well.
I explain who I am and he believes me unquestioningly. He immediately calls his allies and within the hour we are in council. Brother and Sister Coveo have come, along with some younger couples I do not remember. They are all looking for a way to end my father’s tyranny.
Steve Johnson’s children, McKay and Terran, are good friends with my son. They convince my son to give them the code to the vault which they then give me. I wait until the weekend when my father is having a feast to sneak down to the lower chambers. I punch in the code and the door to the vault slides open.
As soon as I enter I hear my father coming down the hall. I close the vault with myself inside. I push myself deep in one corner, burying myself behind the hanging VGA and power cables. The vault opens and my father walks right to me. He talks to himself as he hangs some more VGA cables on the wall. His hand brushes my head. He doesn’t seem to notice and he mutters something about the Coveos. He walks out but stops in the doorway. I quietly slide from behind the cables and along the wall to the far corner. I am exposed but in shadow. My father steps back to the cables and parts them looking at the wall. His eyes narrow, but he exits without looking around.
I wait for a very long time and finally open the vault and slip out. My father has activated the security systems. The display on the wall shows all alarms and cameras online. He even activated the Dragon, a large robot built into the outer wall of the mansion. There were several new robots I didn’t remember as well.
I cautiously step into the hall from the room, trying to remember the placement of my cameras. I freeze. Standing at the end of the hall watching me is my son.
He rushes and tackles me and we fight on the floor. We argue and I finally convince him that I am mostly harmless. He sits hunched on the floor, panting. I tell him my reason for snooping, the elixir of immortality. Himself Curious, he then agrees to sneak into the vault with me and see if we can open the safe. There are three circles in a triangle on the cover. I cannot remember the incantation to open it.
On a table is a large lasagna on a blue plate. I take it out and we eat it. Suddenly the vault shuts itself. I can’t get it to reopen. The house security detected the vault open for too long and has locked it down.
Steps in the hall send my son and I under the table to hide. We leave the plate on the table and too late I realize my mistake. Father enters the room.
He does this and that, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. I sit in agony waiting. Finally he notices the vault has been sealed by security. He rubs his beard and turns, seeing the blue plate on the table. He gasps. He knows I have been in the vault. He is putting the pieces together and he rushes out of the chamber.
I am no longer safe in my mansion.
I make my way through the estate to the servants’ quarters. He is already there. Pushing away my fear I enter the squat building. Amazingly he doesn’t kill me. We argue. During the argument I suddenly remember the key phrase to the safe. It is simple, very simple. I give up the argument and flee abruptly, tipping Father off. He knows I know.
The code is so simple, given time he will deduce it. There is no time to waste. The next time we meet he will kill me for daring to hang around.
Sneaking through the estate grounds a large robot scorpion finds me and attacks. I defeat it only to run into a large metal gorilla which lunges for me. I am wounded by manage to disable the machine.
As I approach the mansion, the top of the outer wall unravels into the arching spine of the Dragon. This is the last and ultimate defense of my property. Its head swivels towards me. Fire flickers inside its jaws. Large metal claws rise from the earth in front of the house. It attacks. I dodge. The Dragon is using its default defense program which is fortunate for me. It is predictable and I have a chance of getting by as long as my father does not assume control of it.
I run away and catch my breath behind a hedgerow. My son appears. He is frantic. I try to calm him, but fail. How can I explain the reasons for the estate security targeting me? He won’t leave and he won’t allow me to insanely attack the Dragon.
As fire from the Dragon consumes the hedgerow I explain my history to my son. I am his father. His father is his grandfather and wants me dead. The last of the elixir is inside my safe. I must get to it. It will not only give me immortality, but will restore me to my right age.
I leave my son confused and in tears. I rush the dragon, leaping through its claws. My hair is singed off from its fire. I manage to enter the mansion.
I close the chamber door behind me and jam the lock. I barricade it with furniture. I then enter the vault, say the magic phrase, and open my safe. There, wrapped in cloth, is the last ingredient needed for immortality. I gather the other ingredients from the vault and brew the potion over fire in the chamber.
A pounding starts from the door. My father has come for me. Frantically, I move the fire and potion into the vault and seal the door from the inside. My Father breaks in to the room and then blasts the vault door to pieces. He has grown more powerful over the years. My wife slips into the room and stabs him. He beats her down and leaves her unconscious on the ground and then pulls the knife out of his side. Facing me, he drops the knife which clatters to the ground. All ingredients but the last are in the potion. I hold it in my hand above the fire. I weigh my options: pot, my father gets immortality; fire, he will eventually be defeated but I will be trapped young. Either way he will kill me now. We stare at each other.
And I wake up.
