Ice and bones

I’m working in some arctic location, as a scientist or researcher of some sort. I don’t know exactly where, I just know that there’s ice everywhere and it’s stone cold. I’m standing next to a small shack, tightly gripping an ultra thin wire or line that is stuck to the ice next to my feet. What I have to do is just keep the wire as straight and tight as possible. If I give it any slack, vital information will be lost.

I get a call from the administration inside. It seems a team of unknown researchers have been granted permission to use our facilities to search for some fossils in the ice. I have been chosen to guide and assist them. I fasten the wire to the wall of the shack. Then I get a short vision of the researchers that are on their way; they are preparing and checking their equipment down in a dark cellar somewhere. I get uneasy now, their appearance is almost militant. The vision disappears, and I walk towards the fence surrounding our site. The team has already arrived there. They want to go underground immediately.

One of them is a woman whose looks keep changing all the time. I know that I know this woman, her constant disguises can’t fool me, but I don’t recognize who she is – I only know that I know her.

We’re under the ice in a dark cave. The group uses various equipment on the ice, they explore every nook and cranny of the place thoroughly.

Suddenly a black, hideous and evil looking creature bursts out of a wall and swallows one guy. It’s got yellow glowing eyes and I feel pure terror radiating from it. The way it swallows people is like this: it sort of grows in size as it moves forward, and as it moves over the victim and encloses it, the creature shrinks back to normal size and the victim is gone inside it. This happens very quickly, and it doesn’t stop until everyone except me and the woman are left.

We try to hide from the creature, but it’s impossible. It chases us for a long time, along dark corridors and finally into a huge opening – some sort of control room it seems. I get the feeling this room is so ancient I can’t even describe it. I’m overwhelmed.

The creature seems to ease down a bit. It approaches us slowly, and while it does, it shapeshifts into the creature from «Alien». The woman also shapeshifts, again into someone I know but don’t recognize. The creature and the woman start having a strange conversation that I don’t understand a word of, but I can sense that they are talking about some distant past that they share. The intensity of their talk increases, and suddenly they start fighting. The creature changes into complete black evil again. It really beats the woman badly, she starts bleeding from a number of wounds but it doesn’t seem to affect her. They move so incredibly fast while fighting that sometimes they are just a blur passing in front of me. The woman gets more and more beat up, but she’s not giving in.

And then the creature manages to tear her skin off, leaving her on the floor in a heap of bones.

A short glimpse takes me back in time, to a conversation that obviously took place earlier, just minutes before we went underground. I’m leaning against some kind of machine, talking to one of the guys from the team of researchers. He’s telling me about the woman, about how excellent she is at her job, and that everybody loves her. I know of course that I love her too. The guy then goes on telling me about her «tech-name», which refers to what her speciality is. All of us scientists seem to have superhuman abilities that are normally described just by one single word, and to us this one word is enough to understand what kind of ability the scientist in question has. The woman’s tech name is «Bones». He asks me for my tech-name, and I answer, emotionally, while staring at the woman: «My tech name is Idiot».

I’m back in the ancient underground cave again. The woman is still alive, miraculously. The creature is gone, but we know it’s going to come back soon. I pick up a device from the remains of her backpack and turn it on. I hover it in circular motions above her remains, and then her skin starts growing back. Sadly, I don’t get to finish it, as the creature is back and immediately start attacking her again.

This time, while they fight, I’m actually having a conversation with her. We’re talking about how we love each other, we’re talking about what we will do when we’re done down here. We sort of try to make it humorous and cheery. I’m telling her we have to find somewhere warmer than this, and she laughs. The creature goes on completely devastating her, beating her up, tearing her limb from limb, but we’re still talking. Then she grabs the thing by it’s feet, turn it upside down and throws it violently against a huge screen that appears on the wall. The screen explodes and the creature goes through it, grabbing what tiny remains of her that is left, and pulls her with it. I quickly make it across to the screen, which has now become a window. Outside it’s a bright kind of nothingness, and below me I can see the creature hanging from the remains of the woman’s legs. She’s all bones again now, bloody and broken, barely hanging on to the window frame. Even her head is just a grinning skull, but nonetheless I can see that she’s sad. She wants to let go from the window, as it’s the only way to get rid of the creature. Dramatically, she says: «If we fall now, we fall forever, and it can’t come back». I protest, grab her by the remains of her arms, and start slamming her against the wall, so that the inertia of her motion sends the creature, still clinging to her, crashing violently against the edge of the building beneath her. After a while the creature starts losing it’s skin too, pieces fall off it and into the void, and eventually all that is left is it’s bones. The bones are transparent, they are like glass. I swing the woman one final time and slam her against the wall, and the creatures’ bones splinter and break, then fall into the emptiness.

I hoist the woman up and in through the window, feeling proud and happy and in love. I want to find that wonderful device of hers again. I rummage through all her stuff on the floor, but I can’t find it. The woman tells me it’s useless. I feel desperate now, I want to cry for help…

… and then I wake up.