It began to talk to me. I could hear at first a faint whisper, then a clear and concise voice. It didn't sound masculine, nor feminine, just a voice that I recognized as of the brain worm still attached to me. It told me to wake up and I slowly opened my ears with great effort and difficulty as the powerful sedatives they gave me had not fully worn off.
It would help me, it said as it began to cleanse my blood of the drug and almost immediately, I felt a sense of clarity and hit my head on the glass tube we were encased in. We are in some kind of laboratory it said, and something or someone was preventing us from dream travel, otherwise it would have fled some time ago.
I sensed fear and apprehension. I couldn't believe it, a brain worm afraid. It didn't have a name, but to make it easier for us to communicate he took the name of Sam and to assign male pronouns, although he had no gender. I asked Sam how long have we been here and did he see who was keeping us here. The last I remember was being blown into space and picked up by Ul-Kaine's crew.
Sam confirmed he was awake the entire time and listened to everything Ul-Kaine and the others were saying and doing to me. To his amazement, they addressed him, although they couldn't see him, they welcomed the little brain worm for the ride. Whoever Ul-Kaine works for, they are very familiar with brain worms.
As far as he can say, they hadn't done anything yet in terms of experiments. The trip was uneventful and they had spent only a day or two in transit to the lab they presently find themselves on a moon orbiting the main planet of Betelguese. He is familiar with both and had traveled there a long time ago. What is terrifying him, he is used to being able to zip back to the void and hasn't felt the comfort of home for several days now and its nerve wracking.
Sam beseeched me to find a way to escape. I tried to move and felt my hands and feet bound tightly to a gurney inside the glass capsule. We squirmed, but it was no use and the straps dug in deeper into my skin.
Dr. Hsiang entered the room and addressed both of us. He wished us no harm and behind was walking the Alpha Centauri woman. She had been awakened first and given a special drug that they had developed after many trials and errors with the previous test subjects. She still felt a little lightheaded as her consciousness had been severed from the void. Sam looked closely and he felt some relief as he saw a brain worm was attached to her as well and the pair looked intently at each other trying to communicate what the other knew of the present situation.
Sam relayed what he had said telepathically to him. He had been stuck with the woman for a very long time and this was his first time waking up. He was more bewildered than Sam as he had no memory of humans, but he assured him so far it had been safe and he relished the freedom to walk about with his host.
Then to Sam's horror, Dr. Hsiang used a long stick and stabbed the brain worm in the head. He then yanked it forward and cleaved it in two with another stick. It wriggled and shrieked in pain then fell silent. They disposed of its body in a container and carted it off. Sam was freaking out and shaking the capsule in anger. He was screaming loud enough for everyone to hear that they murdered him. He would exact his vengeance on them.
Sam then looked angrily at me and back at Dr. Hsiang and he dived into my chest and attempted to stop my heart. My tongue fell to the back of my throat as I gagged and the doctor's team rushed to open the capsule. They removed Sam and in an instant as he begged them to stop and spare him, they sliced him in two and he was dead.
Dr. Hsiang helped me into a wheelchair and pushed me out into a corridor with large windows. We could see the lush planet from the moon's surface and we continued walking accompanied by the Alpha Centauri woman and passed countless other staff who gawked at us. He had been studying the brain worms for some time and figured out a way to kill them, so long as they existed in our reality. The technique required building a device that prevented them or anyone from dream travel and it took years to develop and perfect.
The chance discovery of surviving Alpha Centauri helped him complete his research and it was further accelerated by another dream traveler, one of his former assistants on Despina who escaped and warned him of what had happened while he was away. Deacon, became very adept at dream travel and was more advanced and could bring others along for the trip and took Dr. Hsiang to many new worlds, including iG's planet and he found the library of knowledge.
From that he discovered a great many things about the Alpha Centauri, the brain worms and even our own creation and later evolution. Both the worms and man were part of the same grand experiments and there were countless other creations. Most of the Alpha Centauri race are also quite primitive in most regards, all can dream travel, but a rarefied few were the leaders and masters of their race.
To ensure obedience, most of the leaders were eliminated, but a small few managed to elude capture and some hid among the others on the sleep farms, others fled like those who were with the Alpha Centauri woman. They taste the best, a brain worm delicacy and often were ferreted out or hunted whenever given the chance.
I asked what has this to do with me? Dr. Hsiang smiled and said somehow, by my rapid progression in dream travel, I had awakened parts of my brain that normally would remain dormant and I was evolving into something new, something similar to an Alpha Centauri leader. I wasn't fully evolved yet and he wanted to help complete the transformation.
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