Nightmares

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the line: "We have to get out of here."

Nightmares

The darkness was absolute, but not terrifying.

Ellen reached out and touched a surface before pulling her hand back with sudden jerk. Her mind classified the unseen gunk on her hand as “lumpy slime.”

The smell was the worst part. It wasn’t the stench, which was akin to rotting meat, but rather the emotional response of fear that it triggered. It seemed to mean something; something bad. She took a deep breath and her mind screamed “run!”

She wanted desperately to flee, but had no idea which way to go. That’s when the light appeared. She didn’t recognize the man holding the flashlight until he said, “Ellen, I’m with the resistance.”

Resistance? What resistance? She thought.

He shook her shoulders saying, “Hurry. We have to get out of here!”

Get up? What does that mean? She thought. Then, I must be asleep. This is all just a bad dream.

Come on, Ellen, wake up! She told herself

Her eyes fluttered open and she enjoyed the feeling of “real life” saving her from the workings of her mind.

Strangely, a man was working around her ankles and then her wrists. Finally he put his hand behind her neck and helped her to sit up.

She stretched and looked around thinking, I must still be asleep.

Gone were her family and 3-beroom house. The colorful bedroom walls she expected to see were now a drab black and white; lined with what could only be described as surgical equipment.

In that moment, she recalled everything. Invasion, conquest…everything.

“How many?” she asked.

“Six ma’am; that we know of,” he said, handing her a weapon.

“Tell the ship to pick us up in five.”

She headed towards the rotten smell down the hall thinking, I’ll give these monsters a freaking nightmare they won’t soon forget.

Word count 300